Really Pause Unplayed Households in Rotational Gameplay?
In the household that I've been playing, the teens are aging up to young adults and moving out on their own (which frees up room in the household for Mama to have another nooboo). I'd like to keep playing the young adult offspring of my main couple, so I'm trying to make rotational gameplay work. I'd like the households that I'm not playing at the moment to continue going to work, going to school, taking care of young children, etc., but I want the households to have big life events (getting engaged, getting pregnant, etc.) only while I am playing them.
Right now, I've got all the young adult households in the My Households folder, along with their parents' household. I have unchecked the Enable Neighborhood Stories box for all of My Households. Also, I keep only the household I am currently playing marked Played; the others are marked Unplayed.
And still, big events happen while I am not playing the Unplayed households: engagements, pregnancies, etc.
Is there something else I should be doing? Some other setting I need to change?
I'm still playing a vanilla game with no packs, mods, or cc.
dbmcgrew It sounds like you need to change your settings.
First, you need to keep all households you are playing in your rotation marked as played (bright green plumbbob) in Manage Households (MH) and keep them in the My Households tab. This will keep them from aging while you are not playing them if you have unplayed household aging on (doesn't matter if you play with unplayed household aging off). If you leave them marked as unplayed (light green plumbbob) and/or place them in the Other Households tab, they will continue to age when you are not playing them. In addition, households in My Households will not be subject to being culled whereas those in Other Households are. Depending on how many households you have, you may need to adjust the Maximum Sim Count number higher at the lower right of the MH panel so you can keep them all in My Households. Default setting is 80 but you can choose from 80, 150, 200 and Unlimited. That limit only includes sims stored in My Households btw.
Second, in Game Options>Gameplay, make sure you have the Auto Age (Played Households) set to Only Active Household if you want aging on for the sims you play. You can leave the Auto age (Unplayed Households) on or off depending on whether you want the sims to age or not. In this context, unplayed households include all sims in households not marked as played,
Third, if you want things to happen to the sims you play while you are not playing them, turn Neighborhood Stories on. You can set that either for all households under one of the Manage Household tabs using the buttons in the upper right corner of the MH panel or individually by household using the buttons in upper right of the MH household portraits in MH. You will have things happen like death, adoptions (pets & horses too), change careers, etc. There are 12 things that you can control there. There is lots of variability there.
Lastly, keep in mind that there are a few things that you cannot control. Death happens sometimes if an inactive sim is being used by the game and dies. If you have an active sim Try for Baby (TFB) woohoo with an unplayed sim, pregnancy can be the result. Those pregnancies will proceed until the baby is born no matter what regardless of whether the household is the active one or not. And then there is the time warp thing we Sims players have had to deal with forever where we play a family, move out the oldest kids and play the kids long enough that the kids end up older than their parents. Only in The Sims LOL!
So, to get the type of play you want, mostly you'll need to set up NS I think. I suggest you make a copy of your main save and play that and play around with the settings to see what happens.
Hope this helps.
