How Does Rotational Play Affect Progress?

"phantasmkiss;c-18180741" wrote:
@ModerateOsprey The Always Welcome trait is my second-favorite. after Observant. I did notice you can assign beds at other houses, but hadn't really considered inviting myself over for a weekend or a family gathering. Do you know if they'll clean up after I leave, or is that up to me?

@EgonVM Oh, that's clever! Just front-load all the coursework so the homework doesn't matter as much. That I could definitely do.

@Simmerville I noticed the money change too, when I tried to rotate last night. I had switched a pregnant sim into her sister's household so I could keep an eye on her progress, and when I went to send her home on day three... Her husband's family was loaded. So I transferred some simoleons to her sister as a thank-you.

@Umbreon12 This is my first time playing with aging off, and I've decided I like it. I haven't, however, decided what to do with my first generation as the second and third ages. Right now I have adults, young adults, and toddlers, but sooner or later I might just have a bunch of adults... Have you noticed if it's always a 3:1 girl:boy ratio? Or does it differ by saves?

@Gagea That's a good way to measure aging out. I'm not sure I'll be playing my households evenly, but I'll definitely keep that in mind!

For me it varies by save. my first/main/testing one is the 3:1 ratio for girls to boys.
In another save, I have a male and one female born in-game, with one girls edited into the family.
For my PC base game version, I had one female Sim with Don Lothario, and for her it has been four boys born, and only one girl.
Other saves for it has been male, with no females born yet.
So, it can be up to chance.
As for the families, I mix them up a bit. Some families are mom, dad, and kids. Others are single mom with kids, and a new husband with a child with him. Another family with two sisters, where one sister is a single mother.
I vary my families in the rotation, so I don't get bored with the same set up.

@phantasmkiss

Tidying up after is OK. If you have played sims visiting currently non-played ones and the played ones leave then the visited sims lot seems to reset after a short period of time, even if there are broken toilets, showers etc.

I am a long way from a regimented rotational player and make very liberal use of the Ask To Join Household interaction. Doing this I can have some sims joining 5 + households a day. You can do this freely providing you leave one sim back on the original household.

So imagine one parent taking two kids to a friend's house. Land on lot, Ask to Join Household, you have control of all the sims for whatever gathering you like. Rejoin by asking the other parent to join household when going home.

I've been playing rotationally for a while. A week per family works well for me.
If you want to have the experience of playing each family throughout their lives, keep aging set to Active Household Only.
If you want NPCs to age at the same rate as your played families, pick one of your played families as the "timekeepers" and whenever you play the timekeeper family, set NPC aging to on, then off for the rest of the time.

It is true that relationships decay. I try to make sure that important friendships get some quality time during each rotation, and I wouldn't want to play more than a dozen families in the same save because that'd be too long in between and the relationships would decay too far.
It is easier to maintain relationships between played households because they can spend time together on each other's turns.

A drawback is that relationships between NPCs decay faster than you would think. Like after a rotation or two, one of my sims got to know one of the Renegades club from Get Together, and then discovered that all the Renegades had forgotten one another, even though they were still teens.

For university I always play a whole semester at once without rotating away, because I want them to be the kind of student that I have in mind for the character/story, not the kind that the game randomly chooses when they're unplayed.
At the end of the semester, if they're in student housing, I rotate away after all their work is turned in but before the report card is announced. That ensures they keep their housing.
If they're not in student housing I usually wait until after the report card because I want to see it :) and then I just say No to the "re-enroll?" prompt. They technically are not university students until I rotate back to them again for their next turn but there's no real drawback to that.