I actually made the backup by accident, lol. I was trying to copy the photos to my flashdrive so I could use them in my blog. I'm really glad I grabbed the whole nieghborhood folder instead. I know I'm only on round two in with my families, but I'm already attached to them.

Juicy Gossip
 

I know what you mean about being attached to certain Sims.

I have one couple, Baduna Krapina and Bonnie Scalyn. He is a slave and she is the sister of the Emperor. Before I started the 1st Roman generation they were teens in love. So, I was letting them have a secret affair at his little hut, when I suddenly drew his name to have to go to the amphitheatre for execution. I just couldn't do it, so I wrote the storyline as if she ran to her brother and pleaded for a pardon. So after the pardon, the Emperor insisted they get married, that Baduna join the military, and that as Patriarchs they had to move into a villa next door to the emperor's home.

Whew. I know I ended up with a juicy storyline that might not really be legal, but I was very attached to Baduna. Right after he had moved out of his parents house, the rest of the Krapina3 clan had died in a fire. He was the last of that line.

LOL nice save !! I dont think I could let the Krapina line die out either.

Close call there. I think I would have done the same thing. I figure as long as I can fit it into the story somehow I can bend the rules a little. After all, it's usually when you bend the rules that you manage to get the best plots going.

If only I read this thread earlier... I went to back up my neighbourhood folder and for some reason I could not find it...
It wasn't until my daughter arrived home from school and informed me she had accidentally deleted my ToT 'hood'. Of course she was extremely sorry, and what could I do but sigh and start from scratch. And this time with a backup copy.

Aw, that really sucks. I would hate to have to start from the beginning again...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Btw, I tried out Tribalpages (family tree), but when I found out that there was a pic limit for free users, I totally rebelled and deleted my account. :P
I'm using some family tree software instead; I'm still too lazy to make my own in Photoshop or Paint.

OMG I think I might have had to kill her Tga if it was me LOL How do you accidentally delete a hood just so I will never find myself doing it?

Moonlight I was put off with the pic limit as well but I do love the beta tree they offer which shows both sides of the family so I just might subscribe for a year if I keep playing the way I am. I love that you include all that additional info in your tree.

Can't you retrieve the hood from the recycle bin?

Peni, I tried, but she had emptied the bin.
How she managed to accidentally delete a hood, her answer, " I thought it was my one'. She had apparently made a 'hood' then decided she no longer wanted it...I soo wanted to throttle her...but its illegal...lol.

Tga, sorry about your hood. Having to restart a challenge sucks especially when you were so attached to the sims in the first one. I lost my Prosperity Hood due to accidental deletion. Only is was my fault, not a family member's.

On another note, i just updated round two on my website. ~VP

Great update VP. That heat is sure a killer !

I have to know, what default eyes does everyone use? Right now I'm using Sugarandcaffeine's eyes, which are pretty nice to look at in-game but are barely differentiable from one another (i.e. gray looks like green sometimes, and the blues look similar).

I've tried Yumedust's, which look great in close-ups but are too dark in-game and from a distance. I also like Shady's Sparkling eyes, which are pretty similar to Yumedust's but are also a little too dark.

@ Moonlight,
I must say I found the Ash family hilarious, especially the *beard glitch* .
And I thought my Neandersims were a handful. I usually forget to capture shots of them doing stupid things, because I'm trying to get them to obey me instead...and put out the fires...

Heh heh, thanks. The Ashes are true and blue in the name of Sim Idiocy.

I like how clean your weebly is right now; are you eventually going to make a Jane Porter to go with your Porter lineage? Pani looks a lot like the Disney interpretation, after all.

Thank you.
When I looked at Pani, I saw the resemblance to Jane. That is her as a teen and I'm not sure if she will remain looking as such when she ages to an adult, which is a day away. As for a Jane, I think that may be a no, unless I pair her nicely, where she will have the dominant gene.
My first gen 1's are all gone to sim heaven (By natural causes). I can't remeber the hack I have that halves the elder and teen stage, so they reach the next life stage quicker than usual. I specifically acquired that hack, as those are the only two lifestages I do not like (much)

I haven't posted an update in a while, but one thing I thought I'd quickly share is that I have so many Froder families it's not even funny! Many of the Froder men (skin 1 & 2/ Patritians) from Gen 3 had to marry skin 4 women from the Doli & Raisa families because there were no other men that they weren't related to. Now I have so many Froder children being born of all skin types. Now I wish I had picked a different last name for the skin 1 family in the first place! Hopefully, my CAS sims with different last names will change the ratio soon. LOL

Oh, I see that one coming for my Rock family, too. They have so many sons... If each of them starts his own household, it'll be interesting.
I already changed the household names in SimPE, mainly so that familyfunds still works. Plus, during the transition to the Roman stage I'd like to change all the family names, too. That's possible and it won't corrupt anything, right? Please tell me if I'm wrong. ^^;;

I'd like to see the naming evolve over time. I started out with names based on elements, nature and European animals, next I'll try to change the family names into something that hopefully somehow reminds of Latin or Italian. The Dark Ages could have more old German, French or Scandinavian influences and so on. ^^ Let's see how far I play anyway.

@YukiShine: I was planning the same thing for the family names of my sims! All the last names are animals, and when I get to the Roman Era, I'll probably add something like -us to the family names, or even change them into their jobs, like emperor and such.

Well, the Roman Era is still 7 rounds away for me, and as I'm just too busy with school, I think it will take a while before I get there.

@YukiShine: As long as you're changing names in SImPE, noting will get corrupted. Obviously you know how ot do so if you changed household names for the Rock family, so you should be set.

I'm sure I'll eventually alter some of their last names but I've never learned how to use SimPE and unless I have a super important reason to, I'll most likely procrastinate on it. lol

UPDATE!!! I downloaded Inteenimator for the 1st time! I added the Risky Go Out, Sneak Out, and Runaway flavor packs...plus the I love Kittens one! Who wouldn't want to save kittens' lives! lol. I had to look it up at first since I had no idea what that flavor pack was.

Veneratia Shezan daughter of Harja Shezan and God of the Underworld, Hades Pluto became engaged to one of the many Froder patricians in her late teens. They actually didn't get married until right after she grew up, but it was nice to be able to have that story line while she was still a teen.

Wow congrats Lizz !! I have yet to add any of those mods. Let us know how you like it :-D

I finally have all of ROund One posted, and Round two played. Going to start posting round two this afternoon if nothing major comes up.

I started to play this challenge after seeing the rules posted on Boolprop, but I've run into a bit of a problem!

I wasn't sure what to do as far as bugs on the garden plants went. I was guessing ladybug houses weren't allowed, so I had my sims spray them. I think y'all know where this is going. D: I now have a plantsim. DX I know they aren't suppossed to have contact with anyone other than the other challenge families, so does that mean he has to stay that way? I'm worried about him dying because sunlamps aren't allowed and I'm also worried about more of them getting plantsim'd. What shoulsd I do? DX

Lady Bug houses
 

I made some adjustments and adding ladybug houses is one that I did once I got more than my five squares of dirt in my farms. I thought this was a skill they would have learned since they were in tune with nature. I know most of us have made some adaptations to the neanderthal age so we would have enough families with kids to make it to the next stage.

@ Shebly: Don't worry, that's fine. Our rules here even have a passage on Plant sims:
"If your sim turns into a PlantSim [...], you may either fund the money needed to purchase the curing potion, or remain a PlantSim."
Even 1 Plant baby per Plant sim is allowed.

I've had two Plant sims in this challenge until now. The first of them had a plant baby and both mother and baby were cured.
The second sim that had turned into a Plant sim hasn't been cured yet. I'd like to let her stay like that. They won't die overnight, don't worry. If the sunlight need is maxed in the evening, they'll survive without sunlamps.

As for the ladybugs: I sometimes use them, but mostly I don't. I don't know - why wouldn't ladybugs help stoneage people? They were around anyway. I don't see why we shouldn't use ladybugs. *shrugs*

Thanks guys, I didnt see the plantsim rule. I actually had another sim get turned in the next house I played. DX I think I'm going to cure them and get the ladybug houses when money allows. I was relieved when they didnt die the first night. One good thing about plantsims is that they either can't over heat or it is really hard for them to! In one household the normal(and pregnantDX) woman kept heatstroking when she went outside but the plantsim man and the plantsim baby were outside all day and never got very hot. I may just keep them that way if they really can't overheat. The overheating seems to be a big problem in the Neanderthal Era. DX

I've had four plantsims so far. Two have been cured (one nearly immediately) I'm thinking of doing a side story with the plant babies, so the three that weren't immediately cured have all spawned a plant baby. Not sure what the story is, and they definitely don't count toward the moving on of challenge stage, since the third generation of them is going to reach adulthood so much faster than the normal sims and I want to experience this challenge fully.

ETA: Aside from then nearly constantly running to the toilet i first trimester, pregnant plantsims are the easiest pregnant sim ever. Keep her outside during the day (and yeah, they don't overheat, not one plantsim has yet to fall victim to heatstroke and mine are outside nearly constantly) so that her sunlight meter is full when night comes and she'll make it perfectly until daybreak. Had one that was inside taking care of a toddler, put the kid down and run outside at dawn b/c her sunlight meter was low. The "Oh my god, SUN!" animation was kinda cute though.

Welcome Shelby ! I didnt even know ST posted over there. Shes so sneaky but it is too good of a challenge to only have in one place. As with cespencer I figured lady bugs are part of nature so they would be acceptable.

I'm with you, Violet, I'm not counting the plantbabies either. I don't have nearly enough sims for the Roman Era! I'm considering having one of them have an affair with one of my starter sims, but idk if I'll count their children as legit generation 3 either. I want a good large pool of sims by the time I reach the Roman Era, since one has to die every week. DX

Shebly, it sounds like your sims need to start really procreating! I'm in the middle of round three (5 day long rotations) and the families I've played have at least four if not six children. The ones I haven't played have two with one (or more possibly) on the way. So far there are 29 sims in the neighborhood ( i just entered everything into a data tracker so I can keep track of who is who as this challenge progresses) 10 are the founders, and two are plantbabies. So 17 sims for my Gen 1 just so far. I'm counting the founders as Gen 0 because like you, I want a very large population when I get to all the deaths in the Roman Era. I figure having that extra generation, especially if they make babies like this one, will definitely aide me in that goal.

Oh yay a double post! I just finished Round Three and put the pics up on my website. I also added family trees too, 'cause i was starting to get lost as to how many sims I had. Of course the Sim Tracker has helped with this, at least I can keep track of everyone. Question: Is anyone else having trouble getting some families to produce boys? Two of mine are... resistant to the male gender and the the girls only have somewhere between two and four pregnancies before they become elders (if i looked at the dates right. I may have figured the amount wrong) And if these two families don't produce any male heirs, should I a) have at least one of the daughters have illegitimate children until a boy is produced with either townies (who shall die once their purpose is fulfilled) or the "happily married" boys from the other families or b) have the adult males take teenaged second wives (since i have inteen installed and i should start getting some teens this next round) in the hopes that they produce boys? Or perhaps wives from the townie pool or another CAS sim created for that purpose? If i go the teenage wife route, I'll have to decide if the kids count as Gen 1 b/c of the dad or Gen 2 b/c of the mom. I really don't want to loose any of my family names this early in the challenge. If Alaine or Jae would just have a boy, I'd be happy. Then I'd just have to figure out what to do with my extra girls, but then I'm obviously not opposed to letting my sims have more than one spouse if necessary. The extra sisters could always just help to take care of their sibling's children. I'm going to stop babbling now and go get some sleep. I'll be back to playing tonight before I go to work. ~VP

@VioletPadfoot: I had the same problem: to many girls and not enough boys. I had read something about rolling the pacifier on this site: http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php..._Help:Pregnancy
You should check it out. Maybe it solves your problem.

Rolling the pacifier mixes up genetics so your chance to get clones is greatly reduced; it has no effect on the 50/50 coin flip for sex. I believe the only way to control this is to quit without saving until the birth gets the gender you want.

I think I will do what Peni suggests for Alaine and Jae's next pregnancies. It'd be a hell of a lot easier to just force them to have a boy than to do anything else. I just have to wait on my game's long loading times, though lading neighborhoods and families doesn't take too long. Its loading the actual game that sends me for a book...

Do you have the Sim Blender mod? Could you try using the "Create baby with X" in that? I've found that if I have the mom do that, I tend to have males. What I've been doing with families that are having pregnancy problems is to use this after each baby ages to a toddler. That has allowed me to greatly increase my population in preparation for the Roman Era.

Sandy, I do have the SimBlender. I'm mostly using it to check if a female is pregnant when I re-enter the lot each round, 'cause i never remember to write that down, and to reset the temperatures of troublesome sims (like Santo Tavares who insists on overheating no matter what. Or Jae Tavares who thinks overheating is good for pregnancy.) But if it will influence the chance of boys, maybe I will use it for Jae and Alaine. And now that I think if it, Sana and Cyril were having trouble conceiving the pregnancy that produced Ahmed, their first son and I used the SimBlender (with Sana) to get her pregnant. This bears investigation. And if it works, maybe I wont have so may left over girls. ~VP

Edit: So I did some preliminary testing. I opened my test hood, which is exactly what it's name implies and regularly gets deleted so I don't care what happens to its residents. I moved the Traveller family into a lot and impregnated Trisha several times and Trent twice. Both of Trent's babies came out girls and all of Trisha's, including the set of twins, came out boys. So I think all pregnancies for the rest of this generation will be Sim Blender induced so as to even out the male/female ratio. The girls greatly outnumber the boys right now. ~VP

First Roman Amphitheatre Death
 

Well, having pardoned Baduna's execution, I had to decide who else should die in the Amphitheatre. Since I was having trouble getting my slaves to like each other enough to marry, I decided that only single slave males should be eligible. I had two males who were fighting over the Krapina ancestral hut, so I sent the two of them to the amphitheatre as part of a group invite. I used the log roll and had them both go on and did a 3 out of 5 challenge with the loser having to die when they got back home. Well, Bill Engis, a Krapina illegitimate son, lost so I had him die by flies when he got home. Had to use the boolprop testingcheatsenabled to "kill" him. I hope that wasn't cheating.

It's only cheating if you weren't supposed to kill him. We can use any means to kill the sims that are supposed to die (from losing fights and such).

I don't have BV right now so I had never heard of the log rolling object. Now I have to have it! I've been meaning to download it but I just haven't yet.

Oh BV is really fun you should have it :D

Slaves
 

I just started pulling names for execution. The first slave killed was Junar Doli, one of many of Allahr Doli's children and one of the only siblings not able to get a wife (There were about 10 extra males in Generation 3. I felt bad killing him since he was a nice sim, living with Adar, his brother, family. Right before he left for the Coliseum he randomly wanted to marry his brother's wife. They were best friends, but I guess he wanted someone to love, so in the 3 days before he left, he got involved in some risky affairs with two other women. And he even stole a kiss from his brother's wife right before he was hauled off.

The second name pulled, was Junar's oldest sister, Anna Pushkin. Anna was doing really well for herself. She married one of the red headed Pushkin boys and they had three children of their own. She named her twins Hermoine and Hermanicus and later gave birth to Hepseba. They tried to have more children but fate would not be kind in the months leading up to her execution. She is scheduled to die any day now! (Too bad, so sad.... lololol. I'm so bad. At first I thought about not killing her, but I think I was just shocked it was her. In real life she probably wouldn't have a second chance.)

For more updates and pictures, check out my Weebly (link down below.)

Round Four completed and Updated on my website!

Is anyone else having issues with Fishing Talent badges being displayed over the heads of child aged sims? I think i saw one appear (and didn't mange to capture the pic) but it seems like they just won't appear. So I end up just writing it down and half the time not putting it in my update. ~VP

Really? My child sims show their badges perfectly... The Sims always carries random glitches, though, so you should just restart your game or something.

Btw, I have a new layout in honor of Spring. :3

Restart as in close then re-open? Or restart as in uninstall and re install. Because i tend to only play one family in a sitting so the game gets shut down between playing each family and its affecting all my children. And a re-install won't affect this neighborhood as I'd just pop my backup from before round four in and the badges haven't been appearing on any of the kids that I've seen except possibly that one. I know I'm not THAT far in, but I'd hate to lose these guys by having to restart, just to cleat up one small glitch. ~VP

Close and relaunch the game; that usually fixes my glitches. If that doesn't work, the glitch is probably just a small one that doesn't really matter. After all, you still have at least 19 more generations to go, right?

My computer blew up two days ago!
And I have had to drag my older harddrive out and reinstall, redownload and RESTART!!!
Talk about having a challenge to begin a challenge...lol.
Failure is NOT an option...

Good grief Charlie Brown !! Whats the saying ? If it wasnt for bad luck you wouldnt have any Tga Sorry to hear about this latest setback. Good luck with your restart. Were you able to fix the pc or had to get a new one?

Oh no. o.o How far did you come with the challenge? Any chance to restore your backups from the crashed harddrive? Or maybe you could sort of re-create your families as they were before the crash (from your memory), so you don't have to start from zero?
Anyway, that's awful. Especially in a challenge as long-lasting as this. Reminds me that I should backup my files on an external harddrive...

I'm now at the point were I usually give up a neighborhood: I've never gotten over the point of Gen 3 sims being teenagers. So, when Hermes Gold grows up and becomes an adult this very round, I'll have reached a new personal record. *lol* I love this challenge. But it's a shame I chose the Bluewater terrain - it's really small. And uneven. :/ Well, I can allways add subhoods.
What terrain templates do you guys use?

I had hoped to have it repaired, but it was actually cheaper to purchase a new one.
Nothing could be retrieved without costing me an arm and a leg, so its back to the past, and on speed 3.Hehehe
I will recreate my families and my gen2's in CAS, so I don't have to begin so far back...like zero. Ugh!
Im using a beach resort, so as I move on in era's I can have a shipping yard.

Your record's better than mine. I usually give up on a family before the parents even reach elder. I usually get distracted by an idea for another family. So as soon as my founders reach elder I'll have set my own personal record. Actually opening a family more than a few times is an accomplishment for me, so going on round five with these guys is probably a new record for me as well. But playing sims the way I was was beginning to get boring, which is why I began looking at challenges. I can now see the point of playing a family for a while, so something has to have changed... Or perhaps I just want to be rid of the neanderthal era. But since my Gen 1 is just reaching Teen, i have a ways to go before i change eras. ~VP

I didn't read all the era rules but I think I'll try this challenge I tried the Victorian era challenge and loved it but I downloaded so much CC that it was messing up my game so I'll try this one with very little CC. Since I have the inTeen mod I kinda want to make it where teen girls are married off randomly to eligible single males instead of waiting for them to become adults (with an exception if the girl is the eldest child) any thoughts? Also I always have a hard time with thinking up names for my sims and neighborhoods any advice?

Welcome I also have InTeen and as for the stone age, my teens can marry and have children, yes. It depends. Some won't find a partner until they're adults, some have to marry as soon as they turn teens.
I'm not the most creative name giver, either. ^^; I started out with a neighborhood called "Bluewater", cause I used the Bluewater template. (I should add that I don't have an English version of the game. My EAxis Bluewater Village has another name.) I re-named the hood later. Now it's called "Elmekia", which gives it a more sandbox-y impression. Also, I'm a Slayers fangirl, so yeah. *lol*
Naming stone age people is... kind of challenging in itself. I'm sure you'll find a great solution. ^^ Everyone here kind of has their own style or theme.
It's okay to read the rules as needed, I guess. Just concentrate on the general rules and the stage you're in, everything else can wait until you get there. Did anyone (except for anna and SwallowTail) really read the entire ruleset?

I'd also recommend reading this. The challenge aims for 20 generations...

Thanks for the link, very helpful. I did manage to find a name generator online its called name my sim. Most of the names I've seen are pretty generic but there are some unique names that I have stumbled across, Kamber for one is a name I've never heard of. I love the neighborhood name Elmekia, I always name my neighborhoods something stupid and then if inspiration hits me later I just re-name them. I literally have one named Something Town just because I couldn't think of anything to name it at the time.

Welcome kittcat ! You will find lots of help and options in this challenge. We are all playing it slightly different and thats the fun part. For naming you can think of a theme ( ie seasons, book characters etc ) or just pick a name at random ( ie I have all normal names for my caveman peoples and thats just find with me, I would rather spent time playing than worrying about names ). lol Yuki even i havent read all the rules - just skimmed them when I first came across the challenge

You can find basic information on plenty of fiction to track down and crib names from on this online bibliography:
http://www.trussel.com/prehist/prehist3.htm (Look under G and page waaaaaay down to GRI)

Since it strives to be a complete bibliography, it may give you sensory overload, and they're not sorted by date or language, just everything in an alphabetic pot together; but you're bound to be able to find some of the books on there. Like, um, mine is still orderable from your local indy, or amazon if you must, in paperback.

May I present to you: The First One Who Has Read All Rules: ME!
And the more rules I read, the more I wanted to get started!

As for the names, I use the book Clan of the Cavebear by Jean Auel. It's actually a book about the Neanderthal, so perfect for my simmies.
Next Era (which is still 7 round away for me), I will use real roman and greek names like Marcus and Aemilia ( I have Latin and Greek at my school, so this can't be that hard)

I always delete the sims that come with the hood, does this mean my game is corrupted already?

Did you use a hood that came with the game or did you start a new hood?

It doesn't matter - if she deleted from the family bin instead of loading empty templates, the neighborhood is a time bomb.

I think a link to loading empty and clean templates should be in the rules post, as most people aren't going to want to bring the Ottomases home from school in a primitive hood.

Woo Hoo! My first Gen 3 Adult has grown up! Now to finish the rest of the families in this round. By then I should have several other adults to go with her.

I started a new hood, and deleted the families from the family bin. But I've done this with all the hood's I've made myself, and never had problems.

I think I'll just back-up once in a while, so I don't have to start from the beginning with the challenge. (not that I'm gonna reach gen. 20 befoire I turn 60 and the world has been blown up anyways)

I've read all the rules. I was bored and had some time to kill before driving my Mom to work. As to names, i went to a random name generator, generated a bunch of names and wrote them all down, sorted by gender so that I don't have to exit the game whenever a baby is born. And my with my TOT neighborhood, I too deleted the families from the sim bin. I don't think I have clean templates on my computer to use as a neighborhood basis. I'm going to go with floor's plan of frequent backups. If things do go pear shaped, I can hopefully extract the sims and put them in a new neighborhood, even if it means making them in CAS and doing extensive linking in SimPE. ~VP

You know I dont think my simmies have brought home any strangers from school ! Any of the NPC that go past the house I just ignore. If you dont talk to them they wont interact with you. And since I dont have any community lots for them to mingle with I dont meet any that way either. Congrats Sandy !! Another one to enter the Roman era

Hi everyone, it's been, er, let's just say a while since I posted anything about TOTm. It had been so long since I played my old neanderthal neighborhood, I decided to start over. And I'm glad I did. I adore my newer game, but I'm trying to hold my own attention long enough to keep going -- so I limited the number of sim families. In the beginning (yes it sounds biblical) I created two couples (4 sims each with custom skins). For fun I added a third couple that look more like neanderthals (not the prettiest family). Then I wanted to do something different with my 2nd generation, so I'm playing them in the ice age. I had no idea how much I missed fall and winter. I had to make up a couple CAS sims in order to come up with enough couples and ended up doubling my families. They are busy breeding and hoping that they saved enough produce and fish to make it through the long winter.

Anna, you've done a great job keeping this bb going. Thank you for being a wonderful hostess! I've enjoyed looking at so many new tot websites, all of these new players and new ideas. Plus so many generations starting Roman times. WOW.

VP.....is that you VT? I love all your custom skins.

Peni, I was bummed that your book '11,000 Years Lost' wasn't in Kindle format. Will your publishing house consider it?
@---->------ Star

VT and I are two different people. Thank you about the skins though. They were originally five skins by Astiees (the Sparkling Flesh ones). I made four more for the set and defaulted the whole lot. ~VP

Bummer, I've got a lot that is buggy. Child will go through motions in one spot for something (like the bed) and when the action is all done, he pops into place! Since this is the last round before I move them all to new homes, I don't know whether to muddle through for this last 4 days, or move them now. Any suggestions?

Kindle is a proprietary format and there's no prospect of that deal being made. Amazon's terms tend to be bad for authors, anyway, and until the price point comes down on e-readers enough that a critical mass of kids have them, there's not much financial incentive to convert middle-grade novels to electronic formats.

Which is a long way of saying nope, it's print or nothing for the forseeable future. I need to take some of my old books that I have the rights to and convert them to electronic myself - it's easy; the hard part's catching the public's attention - but 11,000's still in print, so I don't control what happens to that one.

@ Sandy: I think I'd try to move them now. You could even move them into another stone age lot for four days and then do the regular transition to Rome (and move them again). ^^ Do you have MATY's batbox or something like that?

@ Starsaphire: Could it be that I read your modified rules some time ago, somewhere? Would you like to post a link here or even copy them into this thread? You had some great ideas IIRC. :D

Hah, take that you cranky pc, I have replaced you and am now back in the game...
yay me, recreated my families and am now where I was, before my pc decided to have a major meltdown.

Alright I caved (hehe its punny XD ) I discovered that my game problems had absolutely nothing to do with having a lot of CC and instead its my computer itself. I have temporarily fixed the problem and went on a bit of a download spree last night effectively doubling the number of CC files I have (oopsie daisy). Now I have given my Neanderthal sims a makeover and I am super happy anyone have any suggestions for more CC that would look great for the Neanderthal era besides the Simstones Set?

This sounds like som much fun Im gonna get started now
I havent played sims in a while bc I havent been sure of what to do, so thankyou for the inspiration to go back on :D

Star welcome back ! It has been ages hasnt it? It seems people come and go around here but someone is always staying which is good lol Thank you for the compliment but its been an easy bunch to work with. If too many people stray too far I will just bring out the chocolate desserts Peni I will have to go look at your book ! Sandy not sure if I am too late but one thing I noticed when my sim was bugged was if I clicked on the cc item that was causing the trouble the pic of the sim in the UI would flick back and forth. Then I deleted the item and bought it again and it would be ok. Kitty that is looking great ! I used more of a tropical theme in my game so I didnt have to download as much cc but Im sure there must be tons more out there.

@ kittcat: That cave looks awesome. :D
My favorite cavemen downloads are this set and those music sticks. The logic building toy from the same creator didn't work in my game, though. :/ And I just stumbled across these sets - aren't they pretty?

I've got the counting stones (logic toy) and they work just fine, except that they have a VERY tiny spot to click on them. You have to get the camera as close as you can and tilted as level to the ground as you can, and there's a spot on the center stone near the ground that you can click. It works best autonomously. Obviously i tend to use the musical sticks more. That and if you want to get rid of them, the clicky spot seems to vanish. I had to use the Stuck Object Remover to get rid of them. ~VP

Great recommendations I already had the roof and wall from the cave comfort collection and the cave paintings will look great in my neanderthal's homes (btw anyone know why the site just went haywire?)

Hello again,

Kittcat92 i didn't notice anything. Maybe it was too many people on? (for your site going haywire problem)

Does anyone have any good places to get clothes for the neandertal stage? (sorry if I just butchered that spelling )
Ive been looking, but cant seem to find any. Im gonna look for clothes for the other stages instead.

It was weird all the sudden I got a website unreachable page o_O
I recommend the Simstones Complete Themed Set . Thats what I'm using it has great fur outfits for all ages. (wow do I sound like a cheesy commercial or what)

(GAH! there it goes again, "website unreachable")

Thanks, ill get that one.

So i have been playing it for a while. My first family had a boy, and my second just had twins. The only problem is that the girl of my second family has just turned into a plantsim from all of the farming. Is it okay to turn her back??
I know they are not supposed to interact with anyone other than the families you start with.

Sure, you can turn her back, but you don't have to unless you want to.

Thanks, SandyJS.
I might actualy leave her like that for a little while, then I will change her back :D

@Melibee: I say keep her that way. Pregnant plantsims are so much easier to take care of than regular sims. ~VP

Probably should have thought of that . Just had her change back, and she has had 2 miscarriages (prob has nothing to do with it, but kinda weird how they only started happening when she changed back)

edit::
BTW does anyone kno where I can find a hack to make school optional for kids and teens. Mine are failing school because I cant send them for the neandertal stage.

The rules even mention plantsims.
Don't worry, you'll get more of them, probably... :D

Unless you find a hack to make kids stay at home, you have to send them to school. Otherwise children will be taken by the social worker. Just pretend they go playing with their friends or something... Teenagers can stay at home. They'll just get bad grades, but who cares.
You can delete homework with the little hammer symbol in buy mode.

You can get the school changer from simlogical here: http://www.drealm.info/simlogical/s...Schooltypes.htm

I'm sending my child aged sims to school, just to get them off the lot for a while plus it gives them a chance to meet the other kids since I'm bad at inviting the other families over, but all my teens get enrolled in the flexi school (which pretty much means they dont' go to school the game just thinks they do) almost immediately. The yellow/blue combo kinda looks out of place on the lot, but you can always cover it with another item (and the moveobjects cheat) or stick it in an unused corner of the lot. ~VP

EDIT: I just took a closer look at the the download page and you can delete the changer once the sim's school is changed, but you're jsut going to have to buy it again when the next sim ages up... And don't forget to download the file for the flexi school

Thankyou ill make sure I get that :D

I have mixed feelings about the school thing, though I guess I don't mind sending the kids off for a while. But making them do homework is kind of lame when there's so much work to be done gathering berries and playing with the toddlers. It's always interesting trying to figure out what generation one should assign to plantsim babies. This time around, I'm foregoing plantsims, but I enjoyed them on my first attempt at this challenge.

Anna, I still like your sea tribe neanderthals. I played one of my founding couples on a beach lot (which was easier than on an apartment lot!!) But I couldn't leave them on their own for a single minute....like little sun-burnt zombies they'd migrate to the waterside, toss down a colorful bit of animal hide and sunbathe...no matter how close to self-instantaneous-combustion they were. As Talia would've written, *face plant*

I've got pics up of my first gen, which includes the mating grounds for the second gen teens, but haven't posted the first rounds of my second gen going through fall yet. I added a signature with my website link....hopefully, I did it right.

Yuki, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you read my altered set of self-guidelines. I'm doing sort of a mash-up of many challenges that fit nicely within the scope of Test of Time, which are most likely still on my website. I've made a few changes and I'm open to ideas. I freely admit that I have a short attention span. So far my plans include: 1.the basic neanderthal phase, 2.the ice age, 3. split up: half become the sea tribe/Atlantis and the other half become desert nomads with magic lamps and genies. 4. sea tribe become Romans, nomads become Egyptians (as I want to build pyramids). I haven't added the mashed up guidelines yet for gen 4 as it seems so very far away, but I think it will involve battles, kidnappings, Sim-gladiators against cow plants, and at least one royal wedding to cement peace. whew!

Peni, your marketing thoughts regarding print vs.e-books for younger readers make sense. I kind of figured that would be the answer, so I'm going to go ahead and order 10,000 - esp. as I'm doing my sim version of the ice age. Going off topic for a moment: I don't know if you read fantasy, but I just finished reading "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. He did an amazing job writing it and I highly recommend it.

Happy simming,
Star

Well...here I am in edit mode and I have to say I haven't a clue as to why my signature isn't showing up.

hmm I'm contemplating starting over with my Challenge, mainly because I just got seasons today so I will have to redo all the crops (I was using echo harvestable crops before) plus I need to redecorate 3 of my starting families since I decided to go ahead and get CC after I had already started them. (Oh and my 5th starter family just spontaneously burst into flames while sleeping indoors after playing them for only one sim day) Should I go ahead and restart since I'm not very far or just deal with it and try not to kill off everyone?

Won't they let you send them into the ocean to cool off when they overhead sunbathing? Drama Acres doesn't have a seacoast, so I only experience this on vacation; but it's worked so far in that circumstance.

Hey Everyone,

I saw this post and thought I would jump right in and try it out. I know already that I will get bored so my plan is to create a new neighborhood and work on it a little bit each time I play so I have other challenges going on as well.

I made my five couples and moved them into 1x3 lots. I put their funds at $3,000. My first couple I played got heat stroke. I've been playing this game for years and never seen this. They got all red and fell down and were conked out for half of the day. I was really worried since nothing I did helped. I even googled it and bought a sink for them to take turns drinking water since in the rules it allows just one. Then it broke of course and needed repair. Sadly the social worker came and took their first child. The woman at this point was pregnant with her second and I thought for sure she was going to die. I was like would they allow that to happen? Anyways it got pretty bad, there were weeds growing everywhere, dirty diapers, dirty bottles, dirty plates and the toilet and bath hadn't been cleaned in forever. The sink went gross too. I had to concentrate on getting them off of heat stroke before worrying about cleaning up. So then with no money left to buy a new sink and the old one was broken I thought this was it. THEN, I finally was like DUH! omg. I forgot to put a roof on the shack! I normally forget this but with seasons I am informed usually by rain being in the house.

I also think with the woman constantly pregnant her needs go down quicker and I am finding it enough work just with the one kid. I can't imagine making it through with 6 kids at all different ages. Does anyone want to share any tips on how to keep the kids happy and the mother not in the red from having to do it all pregnant?

Because I am curious to see what will happen I hope to stick it out. I also want to give equal attention and effort so that each couple has the same opportunity to become the Emperor's family. Although I have decided that two couples will only fish, two couples will fish only until they have their harvest then live on only farming from then on and one couple will do both. This will be interesting to see which is more profitable but there are so many other factors involved.

Not until I went to post here did I realize there were 28 pages already. Going to go read through them.

@Starsaphire2: Your signature shows up after you've made an certain amount of posts. You'll just have to wait.

Do you have Pets and Apartment Life? If so, throw a pet mat and a pet feeding dish on the floor. Toddlers will eat the kibble and sleep on the mat. Make sure you "Serve" the meal so that you have leftovers. That way, children can feed themselves. There is a bucket available that toddlers will play in that will raise their fun and hygiene and give them cleaning skills as well.

I have never had a plantsim in this challenge ! I dont bother with spraying the farm at all. Once you have a sim get a gold badge you can have them talk to the plants when they are ready to harvest and then you are sure of a perfect crop. I do use the ladybug farms and they seem to do the trick most times. I also added the compost and put all everything in there. I store the sink in a backpack so the sims dont want to wash them when you tell them to clean up and instead they will dump them in the compost. Also crops are much healtier when you start them off with compost. Do you know I have never sold fish to count for my family total worth? I didnt think we were allowed to at the start and then didnt bother to change it as we went along lol I was getting it confused with the dont sell boots rule no doubt.

Star like Floor mentioned you do need a certain number of posts before the siggy shows. Is it 10? I cant remember now. I thought I was doing something wrong as well lol I love your idea of splitting off your families. That will make for some fabulous pics since everyone will be in different style homes and clothing ! Kittcat did you start over? If I wasnt far along I might do it.

Hi Starla and welcome ! Yes lol there has been quite a bit of chatter on this challenge. I cant remember how big the BBS thread was before we moved it over here. Lots and lots of great tips and tricks and ideas if you can manage to wade thru all those posts ! When I have babies I just leave them in the crib until they cry to be fed or changed.. I dont find they are much work at all. When they age to toddlers I add a toy on the lot - ie I dont see why caveman kids wouldnt have a set of blocks for instance - so that keeps them entertained. When they get tired have someone put them in the crib and the same when they get hungry someone will grab a bottle for them. When you see the sim get to the red zone for heat send them to the bed/chair/bench inside to relax until it goes green again. The saying A stitch in time saves nine works here as well - its much easier to cool them off at the start then to try to pull them back from passing out heatstroke. IF you do get to the sunburn stage have them drink water twice and then send them inside - they should recover fairly quickly.

I am still working thru the caveman days ( so much easier to spell than neanderthal lol ) and currently on round 9. Approaching the end of this round tho so hopefully the next house I go to will be the gen 2 kids who are starting to have babies on their own. Those lots are a breeze to play since its usually just the 2 sims and maybe a baby so far. Course now that I say that I remember at the end of the last round one of the Gen 2 families had twins As soon as I named them the round was over so I never got to play them at all. I have updated my blog with the latest round if you would like to check it out.

OT Last week I decided to take a little break from the people of Tesime and started a very old challenge called the Improval Challenge ( my print out is from 2006 ). You start with one sim and have to work your way up thru all the EA houses in order to get to the last one 210 Wright Way. I dont think I could find that anymore in the lot bin so I ended up using some mansion that was close in price instead. Anyway its been SO much fun being able to talk to anyone who goes buy, wear whatever clothes I want, get a job, go on a date, visit a community lot and all the other great things I havent been able to do while I am in Tesime lol

I'm about to go and start over now, I decided I might as well since I had only done 2 rounds so far, otherwise the gene pool would be smaller and I would regret not starting over later

Oh quick question how many farm plots should they start with? The rules just say some plots or trees

roman era deaths
 

I love it! I think you are right that the best storylines come when you don't try to rescue everyone. I am just starting my second round of the Roman Age and I am going to try and resist the temptation to "God Mode" too much in this next round.

Good luck ! I think I started with 5 total between both and then I added as I went along and had enough compost to fertilize. As long as you have money you can add more. Cespencer I think that was such a hard thing to do ! Let people die. The first time it happened I let the husband plead for the wifes life but after that I didnt interfere.

Peni, swimming in the ocean helped save my crazy sunbathing sims...and as a bonus gave them some body skills. I loved the shells they dug up and I placed them back on the beach, which added a nice touch to the shoreline. All in all, having a couple on a beach lot made for something slightly different to do when playing that family.

Thanks Floor and Anna for the signature info.....soooo you may be seeing a few extra short posts from me as I build up to my siggy. And Anna, I know what you mean about doing something different!!!

Kittcat, I started over and I'm really enjoying it. I truly wanted to play out a generation during the ice age (my change up for gen 2). I didn't want to go to a lot of trouble downloading a lot of CC for the ice age, so I just made several robes available as day-wear and outter-wear, which completely cracks me up.

Sandy, I may have to hunt down that awesome play bucket. Which direction should I search for this item?

I just introduced a chance for women to die at childbirth. (I'm rolling a die, of course. ) Now I'm pretty curious to see how that will affect my population. Also, I decided to make an exception and let one of my families "adopt" a townie. She'll be the second wife of the family head (if she survives, that is...) The name was fitting already (Hera Alba) and ACR told me she was his One True Love, so, oh well...
(I do have community lots for my stone age people. There's a "graveyard" - actually more like a small forest - and a clothing shop. So unfortunately they sometimes do meet townies, even though I try to avoid them.)

@ Starsaphire:

Nice. I'm planning something similar in preparation for the Exploration and Colonization era: At the end of the Roman age and beginning of the Dark Ages I'll probably let a few families separate from the rest. They'll have about 7 generations to become the natives the explorers will discover later.
However, I'm not entirely sure about that. Maybe I'll skip the Exploration stage entirely and do a little more Renaissance instead. *shrugs* Well, Romans first. :D

Btw, the bucket: This one. It's awesome.

I'm sitting here, making a recipe that will take all afternoon to make but should taste fabulous. So I decided to do a little record keeping. I got frustrated with the bugged lot so I moved that family already. I'm going to move each family as they finish the last Neanderthal round. I'm going to add up the funds of all the families that start with the same letter to get to my classes. Then I can move them into the appropriate house.

If you haven't tried Reba's W7 Sim Tracker, you really should. It's awesome!

@Starsaphire2: Will you be posting your Ice Age rules any time soon? I'd really like to do an Ice Age, to get away from the damned heat, and to make the game less boring

LOL and then you will be turning blue constantly.

I use Sims2Db for my tracking. I will have to see what Reba's is like. Course I wouldnt look forward to moving all that data at this stage

I was just playing my sims and one of the girls had a baby, placed it on the floor and I started to scream Nooooooooooooooooo not twins ! Turns out she had a massive desire to make the bed after giving birth LOL

I totally wish I did an Ice Age!!! But I'm NOT going to start over again....haha. I'm also way too excited about all of my plans for the next few generations in the Roman/Egyptian and then Viking eras. Sometimes I like to watch documentaries on Roman/Greek/Egyptian cultures because it gets me so excited to play my TOT Neighborhood! If you're getting bored with the challenge at any point, I highly reccomend doing that. It gives you good ideas for storylines, building homes/apartments, clothing and modifications to the challenge.
I can't believe it, but Octavian Froder, the emperor's only son murdered his only sister yesterday! And I had just come up with the idea to marry her off to one of the Egyptian patricians! Arg. During the fight I was thinking that whoever lost would still be an interesting twist, because their parents only had one of each gender so if Octavian died, the next Froder in line would become emperor after Claudius. So, I wonder if Octavian will get in any fights with other people. The reason they started fighting was because Octavian kept noogie-ing Ophelia....hahaha.

I tried that but when I tried importing sims from SimPE it always came up as showing 0 of 0 sims I use the W7 Sim Tracker.