I based my custom ages on some very specific math, and it works out really well for making sure families don’t drift too far apart in age, though it does make some of the younger stages more challenging to get anything meaningful done before aging up.
This is based around pregnancy where 1 trimester is approximately 3 months, so 9 months = 3 sim days, therefore 1 year = 4 days. Then I kind of divided all my sim life stages into how I felt best represented that stage. It’s a little stereotypical but it works.
But to save myself the boredom of having super long life stages, I cut all the numbers in half. (I.e. toddler is 3 years long IMO, but that would be 12 long days, so I cut in half to 6)
Newborn: 0-3 months = 1 sim day
Infant: 3 months-1 year = 3 sim days
Toddler: Age 2-5 = 6 sim days
Child: Age 6-12 = 12 sim days (I’m actually probably going to change this to 13 since that’s default anyway)
Teen: Age 13-19 = 12 sim days (this may also change to 14 to give an even 2 weeks for High School Years gameplay)
Young Adult: Age 20-34 = 28 sim days
Adult: Age 35-59 = 48 sim days
Elder: Age 60+ (U.S. avg lifespan is like 79?) = 38 sim days
This works for me because realistically we do spend a greater portion of our lives in adulthood compared to anywhere else. Having 21 days as a teen doesn’t really make a lot of sense except to stretch out the HSY gameplay.
It also gives sims enough time to complete University in either 3 or 4 semesters without aging up. If you finish early in 3, cool, you get an extra week of young adulthood.
If you take all 4? Well that’s fine. Some people go to college for their whole 20’s, especially if you’re in med school, law, or post-grad.
