Yeah, it is a little complicated but pretty fun. I just recognize them all, their various plotlines and personalities. I'm at a point where I need some more drama in the game so it's not just a bunch of happy families.
For a while there was a cult that was expelled. Lately, several random scientists have been dying of poison but my sims don't fully understand that so it's just a mysterious illness for them at this point. I'm going to make them work (with a few casualties) before they can solve that. StrangerVille happened. A few of them have shaky personal lives. I need some other big thematic event though.
I use the same type of aging settings as sunblond in the gameplay settings. I've had aging for everyone but my playable sims off for a while but I'll switch it back on now that the rotation is kind of shifting to a new generation. This is a matter of playing with a whole lot of sims and households.
If you want to keep it really simple, you can limit the number of children born into the game that you will play with.
I like the way I'm doing it, but it's more like "Our Town". I do play individual sims but I'm getting to the point where I'll narrow it down to the houses I'm most interested in. The others will be more like my own townies.