Townie household generation problems
Apologies in advance for this being really long! But it's got lots of info in it.
So, I started a vanilla game with only one Sim in it, and with no genetics mod and no townie-suppression mod (I've left in a no-townie-genocide mod) to take a look at what the game was doing with household structure when it generates its own Sims. This is also keeping in mind what @Shimrod101 has said about how the game has some precoded household types it picks from:
Here's what I've found to back that up.
I started with one young adult female Sim who lived in Willow Creek. The game placed 6 households into houses, all in Willow Creek. Those were varied households, so I was happy about that: one pair of roomies (who have the same last name and look like they could be sisters, so I wondered if the game shouldn't have said so), three families with two parents and two children, and two single-mom families, one with two children, the other with one.
It also generated 23 townie households, every single one of which was a single-Sim household. I might have been okay with that, but there wasn't a single young adult male among them! Not one!
Two days later the game finally had made three YA males, one of them the mailman (going to the Library generated a lot of new townies). It had made a lot more other single-household Sims, though. I tried sending her to the nightclub, but that generated no new Sims at all.
The next day, Day 5, I sent her to the park. This time the game generated -- finally -- some multiperson townie households! Two of those were two Adult parents and one Teen boy. The other four (four!) were one Young Adult mom, one Teen daughter, and one male Child. In five of the six, the son looks nothing at all like the mother or sister. That's five adopted boys.
On day 7, my Sim went on a date over to Oasis Springs. This was the first time she'd been there. The game created six households to house in Oasis Springs. Three were more single-Sim households (with no more YA males). Three were families: one of two parents and one boy child, one of two parents and a boy and a girl child, one of a single YA mom with a Teen girl and boy Child. In two of the three, the children look adopted again.
Moving from one house to another didn't make more housed Sims. I'm not sure what does, I guess! There are a lot of empty homes.
Right now I'm on day 11, and there's been no aging up, and I'm thinking about having these Sims (she got married on day 10) have a baby, so it seemed a good time . Here's what concerns me about what the game is doing with household generation:
1. Throughout the game, there have been 25%-30% elders, every single one a single. That's way higher than real-life demographics, which would be about 15% (and definitely some in couples). I'm going to end up using Shimrod's new mod that reduces that percentage.
2. The game has generated many more Adults than Young Adults: 38% of the Sims in the game are Adults, but only 15% are Young Adults.
3. The game has generated 67% females, 49% males. The ratio is off in every single age group, but most especially in Young Adults, where I've got 15 women and only 4 men. In Young Adults, the ratio was way, way off well before I took Sims to the park and the single-mom-of-two pattern kicked in.
4. That's not all that the single-mom-of-two pattern is making happen. It's also totally thrown off the gender ratio in Teens and Children. There are 8 girl teens to 5 boy teens, and only 4 girl children to 8 boy children.
5. The game hasn't generated no single childless married couples, of any age.
And here's why this is bothering me, most especially the gender balance:
Not everyone micromanages the townie population. Lots of players just play their played characters and let them run into Sims in the world the way we do IRL. And lots of Simmers play under rules that say they can't micromanage the townie population. So when the gender balance is completely flipped out like this, there are going to be fewer young men to match my young played women up with. There are going to be no nice, also childless couples next door to invite over for dinner. There are going to be fewer other boys for played boy teens to hang out with, and fewer other girls for played girl children to be friends with.
I hope that Maxis will have a look at the household generation to make fewer single townies, to vary up the single-parent household structures so that they don't throw the overall gender balance off, to look at the balance of age groups, and to look at the genetics of the game-generated children. And if I'm not around on Tuesday during the chat, I hope that someone else is, to show them that we've got actual evidence that something's not right in household generation, and that it matters.
And if you got this far, here's a kitten:
http://whisperedwords.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/smiling-kitten.jpg
So, I started a vanilla game with only one Sim in it, and with no genetics mod and no townie-suppression mod (I've left in a no-townie-genocide mod) to take a look at what the game was doing with household structure when it generates its own Sims. This is also keeping in mind what @Shimrod101 has said about how the game has some precoded household types it picks from:
"Shimrod101;12932356" wrote:
I've seen these other files since then, which I have mentioned somewhere else, which define the Single Mom homeless household or the Newleywed household or Caucasian Nuclear Family and African Nuclear Family etc. These files state quite clearly that the sims in these households will be, for example, the two Adults, a female teen and a male child. The composition of the households is different in each file of course. So the composition of the sims incuded in the household is not random in any way, it is set in stone; the individual sims in each generated household will be made using the Cas Modifiers Randomizer just like the single people of course.
There is a type of sim used in some of these pre-defined household files called Adult Female Generic, or Male Teen Generic for example. When these files are used it may be that the generic sim created is more likely to be dark-skinned to balance out the hood, as I wrote in my quote, but I haven't seen this defined anywhere in XML files.
Also the part I wrote about Elders is BS. I've found a file now which creates all these extra Elders, as compared to YA and A, with precise numbers on "weighted chance" for getting one of these three. The Lounge venue for example, uses this file I'm referring to. The chance for Elders is simply too high compared to particularly the YA. (I'll probably go later today with a mod on this file, as my result after using it for awhile seems OK.)
Here's what I've found to back that up.
I started with one young adult female Sim who lived in Willow Creek. The game placed 6 households into houses, all in Willow Creek. Those were varied households, so I was happy about that: one pair of roomies (who have the same last name and look like they could be sisters, so I wondered if the game shouldn't have said so), three families with two parents and two children, and two single-mom families, one with two children, the other with one.
It also generated 23 townie households, every single one of which was a single-Sim household. I might have been okay with that, but there wasn't a single young adult male among them! Not one!
Two days later the game finally had made three YA males, one of them the mailman (going to the Library generated a lot of new townies). It had made a lot more other single-household Sims, though. I tried sending her to the nightclub, but that generated no new Sims at all.
The next day, Day 5, I sent her to the park. This time the game generated -- finally -- some multiperson townie households! Two of those were two Adult parents and one Teen boy. The other four (four!) were one Young Adult mom, one Teen daughter, and one male Child. In five of the six, the son looks nothing at all like the mother or sister. That's five adopted boys.
On day 7, my Sim went on a date over to Oasis Springs. This was the first time she'd been there. The game created six households to house in Oasis Springs. Three were more single-Sim households (with no more YA males). Three were families: one of two parents and one boy child, one of two parents and a boy and a girl child, one of a single YA mom with a Teen girl and boy Child. In two of the three, the children look adopted again.
Moving from one house to another didn't make more housed Sims. I'm not sure what does, I guess! There are a lot of empty homes.
Right now I'm on day 11, and there's been no aging up, and I'm thinking about having these Sims (she got married on day 10) have a baby, so it seemed a good time . Here's what concerns me about what the game is doing with household generation:
1. Throughout the game, there have been 25%-30% elders, every single one a single. That's way higher than real-life demographics, which would be about 15% (and definitely some in couples). I'm going to end up using Shimrod's new mod that reduces that percentage.
2. The game has generated many more Adults than Young Adults: 38% of the Sims in the game are Adults, but only 15% are Young Adults.
3. The game has generated 67% females, 49% males. The ratio is off in every single age group, but most especially in Young Adults, where I've got 15 women and only 4 men. In Young Adults, the ratio was way, way off well before I took Sims to the park and the single-mom-of-two pattern kicked in.
4. That's not all that the single-mom-of-two pattern is making happen. It's also totally thrown off the gender ratio in Teens and Children. There are 8 girl teens to 5 boy teens, and only 4 girl children to 8 boy children.
5. The game hasn't generated no single childless married couples, of any age.
And here's why this is bothering me, most especially the gender balance:
Not everyone micromanages the townie population. Lots of players just play their played characters and let them run into Sims in the world the way we do IRL. And lots of Simmers play under rules that say they can't micromanage the townie population. So when the gender balance is completely flipped out like this, there are going to be fewer young men to match my young played women up with. There are going to be no nice, also childless couples next door to invite over for dinner. There are going to be fewer other boys for played boy teens to hang out with, and fewer other girls for played girl children to be friends with.
I hope that Maxis will have a look at the household generation to make fewer single townies, to vary up the single-parent household structures so that they don't throw the overall gender balance off, to look at the balance of age groups, and to look at the genetics of the game-generated children. And if I'm not around on Tuesday during the chat, I hope that someone else is, to show them that we've got actual evidence that something's not right in household generation, and that it matters.
And if you got this far, here's a kitten:
http://whisperedwords.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/smiling-kitten.jpg
