The new culling/favorite system

You can just place sims in households in your favorites and they won't be culled. I actually think this system is better. I still use no culling with MCCC, but I think that the new system makes more sense, especially for people who don't want to use mods. It's in the players control, so if you don't want housed sims culled... you favorite them.

I set my game to unlimited and as a result nobody gets auto-culled (though I get rid of townies generated by the game right away, would rather create my own sims with jobs like Maid, Nanny, Yoga Instructor, and Pizza Delivery - which took effort to enter those codes on each sim).

"aaronrulz;c-16354124" wrote:
So what if I just dropped the menu down to unlimited? Will no one be culled?

Sims will still be culled if you don't place them in My Households :p That drop down menu at the bottom is only for the limit on how many Sims you can save from culling. Putting unlimited only means you can place however many Sims you want saved from the culling into My Households so long as your computer can handle it. The global hidden number for all Sims in the game including saved and unsaved, is currently 575.

Ok, let me explain.
The new culling system allows you to add households to My Households section by clicking on the heart icon. Other households, no matter of they live in a house or not, will get culled once sim count reaches about 510. The limit you can set only limits how many sims you can have in My Households section, so setting it on Unlimited allows you to protect unlimited amount of sims. When a sim your sim knows is going to get culled, the game will send your sim a message from the soon-to-be-culled that he/she is going to deep forest off the grid.
Protected played households have dark green plumbob, protected unplayed households have light green plumbob and unprotected households have gray plumbob. All the unprotected households cannot be played households and will become protected when you play with them.
This system also changes the death system. Every time a sim outside of your household dies, you'll find their grave somewhere at their home. Dead sims stay in game 90 days, then they will get culled but not removed from family tree. When about 15 days are left, you'll get the notification telling that you should strenghten the connections to keep the ghost coming back. To do that, simply click on their gravestone/urn and choose this interaction. Also, releasing the ghost to the netherworld will now delete them and actually keep them from coming (but they do stay in the family tree).
Hope you understood my explanation. I can go find the forum post that explains this new culling system. Overall, I like it.

@EgonVM This was a great explanation. My sim has only received the message once, since the new culling process started, that they are going off the grid. But now that makes sense that they only get notified if they are friends? Once I get that message, (assuming I didn't mark them as a favorite) can I quickly stop the culling process and keep them protected?

"aaronrulz;c-16354235" wrote:
@EgonVM This was a great explanation. My sim has only received the message once, since the new culling process started, that they are going off the grid. But now that makes sense that they only get notified if they are friends? Once I get that message, (assuming I didn't mark them as a favorite) can I quickly stop the culling process and keep them protected?

Yes, you can as sim hasn't been culled yet.

"paradiseplanet;c-16355664" wrote:

"calaprfy;c-16355447" wrote:
Can you dictate which households age and which don't without having to rotate in and out?

For example, can I set the Free Spirits household, which I don't play, to age and die off?

No, it's a universal setting with each save game. If you set a lifespan on unplayed households, all unplayed households will age and die in however long you set them for. Played households have separate aging settings.

I would have answered the question yes. But you need to have your age settings so that unplayed households age. You can mark a household unplayed by viewing their portrait and unchecking the green plumbob in manage households. If you load their homelot they will automatically be marked played again.

"Anteya;c-17231251" wrote:
Hey guys, thank you so much for all this info! Super helpful. I have a tricky question. I ran into such a problem in my game: I have a family that I play, and one of the members of this family has a child with an unplayed sim. Then the unplayed sim dies, and he is culled from the family tree of the played family.
Also I’ve noticed that if I play one sim from an unplayed family, and he/she dies, then in a while this sim gets culled. Is that because the rest of the family is unplayed?
To summarize this all, what to do in order for the family tree not to be culled? Does all the family members need to be “played” at all times? I still don’t understand how this works;(

Thank you! Hope you can understand what I wrote here;)))

I use flower arrangements from the Seasons-EP for the protection of family trees.

If an elder sim is gifted a flower arrangement scented with deathflower they die very quickly. Then you simply release the spirit and you are done. The sim no longer takes up a spot but the info stays.

I have a room with a flower arrangement saved in my library for a quick “fix”. This is a superpower in rotational play :)

"ChelleJo;c-16353736" wrote:
You can just place sims in households in your favorites and they won't be culled. I actually think this system is better. I still use no culling with MCCC, but I think that the new system makes more sense, especially for people who don't want to use mods. It's in the players control, so if you don't want housed sims culled... you favorite them.

Thank you but that doesn't really answer my question. lol. I do know that I can favorite households to not be culled...I was just wondering at what point does the game cull households that are not in your favorites? Is there a max amount of sims allowed in each save now?

@ChelleJo and since you use MCCC, as I do as well, maybe you can answer something. When you have a favorited household, how does this work with moving and marriages for households you aren't currently playing? For example, say I'm playing Household A, But I have favorited household B. If someone from household B gets married and moves out, due to your MCCC moving/marriage settings... do they stay a favorite as a new household though they moved out on their own and become a favorite household C? Hope that makes sense.

There is a max amount listed of sims that can enter the world before culling starts.
On my game I think the default is 80, but there is a drop down menu that let's you select other numbers.

It's at the bottom if I'm remembering right of the menu you use to favorite households, etc.
A drop down menu. After you hit that number of sims in the world you select, the game begins culling.

and yes, the culling seems completely random.
It doesn't seem to matter if they are sims in households or not. What seems to matter is if they have a star or not.