Townie household generation problems

"luthienrising;799014" wrote:
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:

"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

Thanks for posting but it seems this isn't exactly what is happening in my game though yes, I do get a lot of black moms with teenage girls and a white son or white teen daughter. I just want to say NO family has ever moved into my game, ever. I have played one game since I got this game. Never started a new one other than to build some lots. But the game I play is one game. I may save it under different names but it is still one game.

Mortimer must be dead, because he is no longer in the Goth household panel, Alex is a teen, I guess, but Bella hasn't changed at all, nor had Cassandra. But they both might be YAs for all I know. I don't play them.

I have built so many cheap houses in the game for Sims to be able to afford them. Kicked out Maxis Sims and put them in the homeless bin, deleted elders as it became necessary, etc. And just about remodeled both towns, full of my own Sims but had plenty of empty houses, and the game has NEVER moved in one family or Sim from the bin. Ever.

I have aging off for my played Sims and On for Non played Sims. And the patches and no mods like that. So, what I see is two females, and sometimes a kid. Sometimes they are just roommates no kids. I assume they are two YAs but most of the time they are black. And most of the time they are overweight and the same Sims just different hairstyles etc. I assume the game uses the first nose, the first lips, the first brow, etc. in the CAS. Just like the other games used to use the first outfit or hat etc. in the other games when generating silly townies.

I get males/ singles but they are probably close to being elderly and not at all attractive Sims.

The game did generate a white single female and white teen son, but that was the only time I saw that. I for one am tired of the game not fillign the houses, and or giving me the same darn family setup, or the same ethnic group over and over. And they all look the same if you were to change their hair.

So, I have cleared out all Maxis Sims, deleted all townie Sims I don't like and replaced them all (but kept many that are my Sims' friends) and added my own townie homeless Sims. Because this game is redundant in more ways than one.

ETA: anyone can go into manage households add kids to the homeless Sims households, edit their clothes in CAS etc. Add spouses etc. What is interesting is when you delete most of those Sims in the homeless bin and just scroll to see which Sims the game adds back. And yes, it's as I stated above.

ETA: I just want to point out I do have the 'fill houses' option set to on, since day one I got this game. I assume it's never going to work unless I do start a new game. And what's the point in that. These are my households, I have played this way since the TS1. I play several households, rotate, and keep going adding more and more and play all those, too, until I am finally satisfied with what happens in my towns. Which would be never. LOL. So, my game was never fixed by a patch to fill houses, etc. And I still get the same Sims, same old man but one is black and one is white but they even have the same hair just different sweaters and different names. It's annoying.