I've had it happen a couple of time, especially with ACR - every time I throw a wedding party, I keep a close eye on the bride and groom, as all it takes is for an ill-timed flirt or hug with a third party, and the daggers start flying. One time the groom rejected the bride - he'd witnessed her flirting with her ex boyfriend, and their relationship score took a hit. I clicked on the wedding arch anyway, they both stood under the arch, and the groom was, like "Nup. Not doing it." The bride started crying and the assembled guests just stood around looking awkward. The groom spent the rest of the evening in the hot tub with his ex-former-father-in-law, and the bride decided to vigorously Smustle the night away.

Well..you invited her ex boyfriend to the wedding, having ACR in your game..what were you expecting? lol

Yup, that's what you get... In real life, it's the same thing: NEVER invite exes to your wedding! Regardless of circumstances, DON'T DO IT!

Well, lesson learned, I presume

Oh, with ACR, it's more like never invite anyone with two or more bolts to anything! Especially if you also invited their spouse.

More entertaining violated than followed, though. Plus if the prospective spouse is that into someone else, better off not committing just yet, in my opinion.

Had a spectacular case of Cassie leaving Don not quite at the altar once: He accepted an ACR flirt from Nina, or it might of been a vanilla flirt, no telling, right on arrival for the wedding party, Cassie was all "I'm breaking up with him, forget the wedding, and I'm not fearing it, either!" Unfortunately, it was an awful wedding party. You'd think there'd be some difference between "I got abandoned" and "I caught that cheating skunk just in time"!

Do sims ever age up into custom clothes? I don't think I've ever seen it happen.

I've never seen it either, except of course in the case of default replacements. (Yet another reason I love default replacements to pieces.) I've always wondered, though, whether townifying certain custom clothing would also make it age-up eligible.

In order for Sims to age up into custom clothes (or be born with/created with custom eyes/brows/facial hair/accessories), you must townify them first. You can do this in batches with the Wardrobe Wrangler. (So yes, @natboopsie. If you townify the clothing, Sims will age into them. No guarantee that they'll age into anything that looks good together, of course, if they "choose" separates. )

My really stupid very n00b question: Birthday parties. They kind of fail unless a birthday happens during them. My question is, does this "birthday" have to involve a birthday cake, or will the requirement be fulfilled if the birthday boy/girl simply ages naturally during the party at 6PM, as they will do without a cake? (You can tell I, like, never do birthday parties, right? But one of my Sims has a want for one, and I kinda want to do it.)

@iCad:

For all that I know of it, a birthday party need to have a birthday at least. Also, it needs to be a *party*, so non-household members must be called and invited.

However, for babies, toddlers and children, it may be enough if there is a birthday cake and you let them blow out the candle on it. Any family members present will cheer for them, bring out horns and rattlers, make a lot of noise.

As you may have gathered from the uncertainty in this post, I'm not much of a party animal myself

The following requirements, and only these three, must be filled:

- A Sim has to have set up a birthday party on the phone. It is only an option if there's at least one Sim with 1 day to go before aging up naturally (and if it's not the middle of the night ). No other type of party will do; it has to be Birthday Party to count.

- The timer for the party has to have started, and not yet hit zero (or ended prematurely for any reason)

- The Sim with the want must age up.

Cake is strictly optional. If you like, you can age the child up with cake, and it's recommended if a baby is among those who will age up. You can also time the party so it happens on 6 PM (try to start the party after 3 PM, as parties where the birthday hasn't happened before the 2-hours-to-go point is reached get low ratings) or you can age them up by clicking on the Sim and selecting "Grow Up". All of these methods are perfectly acceptable as far as the want is concerned.

It is not necessary for the Sim to be in any particular aspiration to make it work, though if aspiration is Red, the penalty for this will more than cancel out the bonus for having the party. If you've two Sims in line for a birthday, and wanting a birthday party, simply ensure both age up during the party; then both will get their want fulfilled.

Birthday parties can be a lot of fun (Though I say that, and rarely have them. But when I do, they're an occasion).

Also, don't invite people you are currently dating to your marriage to someone else - especially if both of them are also dating other members of the household without your knowledge.

Unless your like seeing gigantic all-out brawls on your front lawn. My thought when that first happened to me with the Logorints was, "Um... ...oops... ...should I get the other Sims armour? Because this looks like a war..."

a question re-phrased::
how likely would it be for an on-duty NPC to die from a base-game death? without cheats/hacks/mods and with very little player involvement. just wondering.
flies I think might be most likely for all NPCs; though the player may need to move a number of plates/bowls to set this up.
drowning maybe second; yet player may need to move/remove any ladders from pool.
fire maybe third; though some NPCs I take to be good cooks and firefighters seem to fight them well.
electrocution also third; though some NPCs I take to be good repairers.

Advice, please? With the birth of the next generation in my hood, the boys really, really outnumber the girls. (22 to 4 or perhaps it is 5, since another set of twins was born). So - what do I do now? There are only 6 townies, and no other families. I really need a plan here or everyone will be related to everyone else!

Lots of same-sex relationships.
New townies.
Seed the adoption pool with girls and fill some have-baby wants with adoptions.
New CAS "family" of female roommates, no two related to the others, when the boys reach breeding age.

Thank you, @iCad. That's good to know. And there's always the humor potential, indeed.



I think you already know, but just to say so, the want for the birthday party itself is fulfilled when they call to do the invites, just like a want for any other party. As to the success of the party...



[ETA: Cake is *not* optional at all, either, it turns out. See my addition to the end of the post.]

And cake is interesting, because if you do use it, it appears that at least someone has to grab a piece. I had a birthday party where the cake was used to age up, and before anyone could grab a piece, the child brother of the new teen cleaned up the cake. The score immediately tanked. (It was an unusual situation: I had woken up the very tired younger brother for the cake part, not realizing that he had already missed the game's call to watch the candle blowing-out bit. Because he thus wasn't required to stand still for that, he immediately headed toward the cake and so got to be the first to do something with it [throw it out], preventing everyone else from grabbing a slice.)

I think I quit without saving, once I realized that there was no way the party could be saved---despite the fact that the birthday kid had already aged up. Cleaning up that cake without anyone having any absolutely ruined the party score.

Because I always like to have a cake, since then, I make sure everyone in the house who is at least child aged is awake by the time the guests start arriving, even if it means a child spends most of the party drinking hot chocolate. (I start birthday parties in the early afternoon, only even waiting until 2:30 if the person aging up is a child who won't be back from school until 3.) But hey, hot chocolate is fun, right?

One other note about birthday parties: as I learned from throwing one on a weekday morning (an unemployed single parent was throwing it for their toddler), aging a toddler up to child before 2pm will cause them to lose a grade for "missing school" that day. Oops.

[ETA: Using a birthday cake is definitely not optional in the first place, at least for running a birthday party that the game considers a good one. I posted extensive test results that led me to that conclusion later in this same thread. Also, during those same tests, I found that if I canceled all controlled sims' auto-queued commands to Grab a Slice of the cake, the party score was not affected. It may only be that the cake needs to stay available for the duration (and not thrown out), but perhaps it's not necessary that everyone needs to have a piece. If you go and look at my later post to which I just linked, you'll probably see why I wasn't, at that point, motivated to check on how necessary it was to actually eat any cake. ]

Peni Griffin already offered all the solutions that I've thought of...

I've had birthday parties tank because I've used "grow up" instead of cake. Like, the kind of score dropping that happens if no one has a birthday during the party. I didn't take notes, though, so I'm not 100% sure of any other circumstances (but there wasn't anything obvious like some fisticuffs breaking out!)

See now I simply don't allow that. Because I love to see how sim genetics mix I tend to give most families at least one boy and one girl so I can see how each gender from these two sims will look, otherwise how will I see what that nose or chin looks like on both? Now and then I will allow a family to have two girls or two boys but then I will mostly give them another child. I simply save before the birth and exit without saving until I get the right gender. A small in-balance is fine but with that many, I would be making some female dormies and townies.

You can I believe change the gender in simpe? Don't quote me on that though, it might go terribly wrong.

I think I have too, Dagwon---I've now got it on my list to test soon as well, because it's interesting that ieta_cassiopeia has had such a different experience.

ETA: @Dagwon is correct. So I wrote up a rather large post about the whole birthdaying thing, based on my extensive test results, later in this thread, here .

about gender changing; it can be done in SimPE. through the sim's Sim Description.
also with various hacks; insimenator, Sim Blender, Sim Manipulator. maybe also the testingcheatsenabled cheat; likely a Spawn object if so.
if you want to change the body also, SimPE's Sim Surgery may be needed. the other methods I take do not have such an option.

edit::
other options:
-edit family trees; same hacks/program
-resurrect and/or kill until the genders are equal
-download and install households
-use the Tombstone of L & D (Spawn object) to generate at least some of the characters you need; the "New [age] [gender]" interactions.

I have the same problem with my megahood, only that I don't allow for any non-maxismade sims. As male sims can literally breed at any age (within reason, of course) so I'm just letting the next generation have as many females as possible, such as if twin boys are born I quit without saving, and if a family has more than 2 boys I quit without saving until they have a girl, and then a lot of male sims won't be having children until their mid-adulthood when the next generation has grown up a bit, Also of course there are the townies, But as I said, I limit to the ones that are created by Maxis e.g Tosha To, Crystal Vu etc. Another suggestion is plantsims/aliens if you allow that in your game, as well of of course same sex relationships.

The worst family I had made me exit and load 8 times to get a boy. I was like seriously game, pink again? Then the child ended up being a clone! I don't mind too much when they are different genders as other things are easy to tweak.

Has anyone ever attempted using SimPE to change an infant sim's gender? I recall successfully doing it to pets, and since infant sims are more objects than actual Sims, I'd be curious to see the results.

My question: Anyone have a quick link to the 4GB patch? I lost the link and I can't find the right combination of words to bring it up again in Google. Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Never mind, found it.

Embarrassing noob question - I just downloaded a new/clean hood, and it has no Townies. After puzzling over this for longer than I'd like to admit, I had a giant facepalm moment when I realise, well duh, I have notownieregen in, of course there's no effing Townies. I'm an idiot.

So my question is, if I remove that mod temporarily, will my game generate a bunch of Townies straight away? Or does that part only happen when the hood is loaded the first time, or what?

Yes, the game will generate Townies straight away if you remove it.

I've downloaded several clean neighborhoods and what I always do in that situation is to leave notownieregen in and use the testing cheats to spawn the Townie/NPC Maker (Townie Gun) instead. I use that to batch create dormies/townies/downtownies, etc. Other people create their own townies, etc. in CAS and use Inge's teleporter cat to turn them into townies.

Either method will allow you to keep notownieregen in your game. That way you only get the townies YOU want in your game.

How do you feel about green?

Hacked telescopes for all! And an eight sim multi-PT, so they aren't all half-sibs.

Lots of buggy plants and insecticide! And an eight-sim multi-Ideal, so they aren't all half-sibs.

I once had a nanny set fire to the kitchen and burn. The social worker came and took my baby away. That was years ago, but I'm still shuddering.

MTS should consider adding a *frustrating* button. Or a..*I hate this when that happens* one. I would have shrudded too...

Yep, I think I will use this method! I want some Townies, but not 7000 of the buggers that the game will inevitably decide to generate.Thanks, RoxEllen! (and Charity!)

Is there a way (I don't mind hacks) to force a sim to put a bowl of food on a specific surface, rather than presumably the closest one? It's a slight annoyance when using counter-islands in lieu of dining tables.

Without hacks you need in buy mode put serving platter and bowls where you want. It is pretty annoying and I prefer hacks in that case.

Thank you for the advice, everyone
I will do something of everything - @Sunbee, I love green And I always have some same sex couples.
The main thing is - there are 8 families, and more than 20 kids (mostly due to twins) - so I am not up to more pregnancies right now.I may end up with more than 40 kids. I gave up on more kids when one couple with twins promptly produced another set. (One chaotic household, that one).

Thank you for this. Interesting that the Sim with the want is the one who must age up, though. In my case here, it's one of the parents of the household who has the want for a birthday party, but it's his toddler son who's due to age up, not the adult in question. So...am I doomed to failure, then? It'd suck if the only birthday party I've thrown in....in....years? would be a lame one. (Then again, that might be hilarious. )



Well, I know I'D be pissed if I showed up to a birthday party, with bells on and present in hand, and someone threw out the cake before I could get my grubby paws on it! So yeah, a lot of pissed-off guests = bad party. Makes sense to me! But you know, given this, I'm kind of surprised that cake is optional. That's kind of a bit of complex coding there, from a purely technical point of view...

EDIT:


There are eight-Sim Ideal Plantsim replacements? Hmmmmmmmmmm..... I don't do a lot of plantbabies because I don't much care for the lack of child/teen stage, but I will sometimes spawn them, cure them right before they're due to age up, and then manually turn them back into a plantsim when they hit adulthood. If they weren't all half-siblings, I might do this more often...

If I remember correctly the Ideal Plantsim doesn't appear in the family tree so your Plant Babies won't all be half-siblings even if you use the standard EAxis one. However they will all inherit the same genetics so a multi-Ideal-Plantsim might be a good idea anyway.

I'm wondering about one of my townies. I'm pretty sure I saw him alive at some point (he was an elder regular of one of my sim's restaurants) but later when he visited, he was a zombie. Coincidentally, I'm also sure that the evil witch has visited the same restaurant quite a few times. Could she have turned him into a zombie?

Actually, I *know* that the number of Ideal Plantsim replacements is of no concern, because I have only one. And both parties in my Lesbian Plantsim couple, Xena and Wanda, have each had a Plantsim baby before they met. And these kids of them don't consider each other as siblings at all, even now their parents are married.

It makes sense, too. Because - unlike Pollination Technicians - Ideal Plantsim does not show up as a parent in the kid's family tree.

But replace him I did, anyway. With a single beautiful female



Exactly! Though even a single one is quite an improvement.



I've had a guy hit by lightning three times and it didn't faze him. But much later, the relatively low-charge shock of a computer he was repairing, did him in mighty fine! Luckily his son was more fortunate than Grimmy, and won his father's life back.



Sure, because that is not the case. The thing is, the person with the want must call the party by phoning guests in. Whoever has a birthday is not relevant. The same with marriages. Whoever gets married is irrelevant. Whoever has the want to throw a wedding party, only gets it fulfilled if they themselves organize it by calling in the guests. If you have a couple who are about to be wed, and they *both* roll that want, you are actually forced to give one of them the stiffy, being cheated out of some huge reward points.



I don't remember if it would help with this issue, but if I recall correctly, Inge Jones has a Table and Counter Controller which should help with setting up how sims use the available surfaces... Let me see if I can find that...
Edit to add: yup, here it is, look under Eating and Serving Control



I cannot imagine how she would have done that autonomously, as the default pre-generated arch-witches don't have any reagents required for casting their spells. Apart from that, she *should* be capable!

I think I have that mod where witches don't need regeants to cast spells, so she probably did it. Haven't played supernaturals in a while though.
Not exactly a sims question but where are witches, vampires, werewolves, etc. called supernaturals? I think only plantsims fit that description literally. How did the other acquire the title?

@Rinchan7: with that mod, it might be doable. Although I still wonder if the pre-generated arch-witches would actually do that. But you're right: she has the motive and the means. But is there a spell to turn live sims directly into zombies? I thought she would need a corpse for that...

About the "supernatural" lingo: yeah, sometimes, someone decides to call something by an inappropriate name, and it sticks with the majority. But you're absolutely right: most of what we now call supernaturals in this game, actually are not! Heck, even Aliens are considered supernaturals by some. They probably just mean that these aren't 'regular normal sims' whatever the <...beeeeep...> that means.

It's a problem when the exe's decide to invite themselves.
I've had that happen, and I should have seen the results before they happened-shortly after the ceremony, the uninvited guest decided to give the groom a 'good luck' kiss and the bride took great exception to it, mostly because her new husband thoroughly enjoyed it and didn't resist the temptations of the other woman.

Needless to say the bride slept in a tent later that night, alone. The groom slept in the bed-puzzled as to why she wouldn't join him.

Yes, I understand that, but I'm not talking about filling the want. I know how that works. It's simple: Pixel has want for party, pixel with want has to make the call to organize the party. I'm talking about making the party, once started and the want to throw one fulfilled, a success , which is usually the next want that rolls up. Meaning, not a "Snoozer." For a wedding party to be a success, a wedding has to happen and if one doesn't by the end of the party, the party's score takes a big hit. For a birthday party, an age-up has to happen. Since I have a general "hands-off" policy when it comes to running parties, preferring to just sit back and watch the (usually very amusing) interactions rather than directing anyone to do anything, I have a somewhat lower chance of having a successful party to begin with, so I want to at least make sure that I fulfill the requirements that the game has for the success of a party of a specific type but then let the rest fall where it may. So, my initial question was if that age-up that's required to make a birthday party a success had to be forced with a cake or if it could just happen "naturally" at 6PM without a cake, as all my age-ups do, in general.

Buuuuut perhaps the person I quoted was talking more about the requirements to fill the want when they said "The Sim with the want has to be the one who ages up" (Or something to that effect, anyway). I'm thinking not, though, because, so far as I've seen in my game, birthday party wants are usually rolled by parents when their kids are aging up, usually for the toddler-to-child age-up. Toddlers don't roll birthday party wants for themselves and, even if they did, they can't organize a party, the want wouldn't be fillable. But if it's the case that the Sim with the want has to be the one who ages up in order for the party to be a success, then very few birthday parties would be a success since, at least in my game, it's usually NOT the person aging up who has the party want but rather, as I said, a parent wanting to throw a party for a child. So...Yeah, confused. But then, that happens to me a lot. I'm thinking, though, that it's simply that an age-up has to happen for the party to be a success, and apparently cake is optional. So...I think I'm good to go, once I get back to that household in the rotation.

EDIT @FranH
Wait, HE cheated, yet SHE'S the one who had to sleep in a tent? That hardly seems fair.

Personally, I've always thought it'd be funny if adults could sleep in doghouses like toddlers can. Then one could literally send a misbehaving spouse to the doghouse.

Only if you don't/can't tell the child to walk to school, or get a teen/adult to give them a lift to school. You do have to remember to do this manually, though.

The guests will enjoy the party as long as a Sim ages up during it. However, unless there's a little face in the bottom-right-hand corner of the want picture, the adult with the want has the want for their own birthday, so the want wouldn't be fulfilled; it'll be as if nothing happened at all as far as the adult's wants are concerned. (If there is such a face in the bottom-right-corner, that's the Sim that must age up in the party for the want to be fulfilled, but I've never seen that version of the want in my game). If you have the version of the want with no face in it (i.e the standard one), I'd advise locking the want until the over-eager adult is ready to become an elder.

I quite like the challenge of gender-unbalanced generations.

I've had a mostly female one and I had a few get abducted, some turn into plantsims, a couple of adoptions, and while there were no townies, you can pull NPCs into the game - delivery people, maids, gardeners, butlers, mailpersons, hobby people, newspaper girls (you could either fall in love with them as a teen and move them in and age up manually, or use inteen to ask them to move in). There's also the modded genie wish to make me young, you could use that on a nanny or other elder female who is supposedly past breeding age.



Really? I've never heard of this special face-version of the want.

In my experience any sim can roll a "Have birthday party" want when another sim on the lot is due to age up. As long as the sim with the want makes the call, it doesn't matter that it's another sim whose birthday it is. The want gets fulfilled. And both the caller and the grower-up will get the memory of having a good or bad party, whether there was a want involved or not.

In short, what BO said is true. And the success (or not) of the party is nothing to do with any wants, a party's score increases when guests have positive interactions with each other and it lowers when they have negative interactions with each other. It starts with a low score of "snoozer", so if all guests ignore each other, that's what you'll get. When it's a special party like a wedding or birthday, then the special event (age up with cake, or wedding with arch) applies a huge boost to the score, and I believe the threshold is also higher, so that it's difficult to get a good score without that special event.

A *somewhat lower chance*??? I'd say most of your parties are doomed by default.
What else do you expect? If you insist on playing hands-off, the only guarantee anyone can give you, is that 95% of your parties will tank by default! It's like TV show: whatever happens, happens!

Birthday sims age up automatically, usually somewhere between 6 and 7 PM, unless they are at that time absent, asleep or otherwise unable to act - in which case they age up at the earliest convenience AFTER that. Never before.

So if you want the party to start at 2 PM, you will need to TELL them to age up, or to blow out the candles, or whatever you like, because they will not do that by themselves, and CERTAINLY NOT before 6 PM! Result? Party started at 2, tanked at 5, sim aged up at 6, nobody had a party. Guaranteed!
The alternative is to make sure your sim is present, awake and in good health/mood shortly before 6, all props are there, and the guests are called around 30 minutes before. And then just see what happens. Still no guarantees, but slightly better chance of success.

At a wedding party, don't you tell the happy couple to get wed? And if not, do you have *any* married couples at all? Sure you do, but none of them had a party, I suspect.

Really, playing completely hands-off may be funny and entertaining, but it's NOT a recipe for fulfilling big wants. Sure, you don't have to tell EVERYONE what to do! Most sims will enjoy themselves anyway! But the key events *must* be triggered by the player, or they will not happen as expected!

@iCad and anyone else who wants to know about throwing a successful birthday party, I have just run almost a dozen birthday parties (actually several versions of 2 parties, one where a teen was aging up and one where a toddler was aging up) to check all this out.

I am sorry to say that my results support very little of what @ieta_cassiopeia stated. I have to wonder whether perhaps she has just misremembered, maybe is confusing what makes successful birthday parties with what makes successful wedding parties (cake is optional for weddings but as my results show, it is not optional at all for birthdays). Or, with all due respect, possibly she just does not often throw highly successful parties and so has not been noticing that her party score is tanking during the last minute---which is what happens if one uses some of the practices she suggests.

Or possibly it may just be as simple as confusing two separate wants. As iCad describes, there's an easily fulfilled want to Throw Birthday Party (pick up the phone and Throw Party>Birthday Party during a decent hour of the day or evening, and it's fulfilled). There is also the want to Have a Great Birthday Party, with its companion version, that a specific other sim (named in the want) on the lot has a Great Birthday Party. It is those last wants that I primarily was concerned with, because the Throw Birthday Party want is so straightforward.

I'm providing the details of my testing behind the button, but I'm summarizing my conclusions right afterward also, for those who just want to get to those. So the first button is the detailed testing description and the second is the summary of my results (still kinda long, just not quite as long).





One extra note about parties in general: Some parties that look like failures when the timer runs out actually get recalculated by the game before it announces the final results, so the final results box reflects some last-second check by the game to see if the requirements for that party type have been fulfilled.




My apologies, ieta_cassiopeia, but I have not seen that any of this is true.
*As stated above, the guests will *not* enjoy the party unless a Maxis birthday cake (or possibly recolors of those cakes, but certainly not hacked cakes or even the Grow Up self-interaction) is used to do the aging up.
*Without the little face in the corner of the want to throw a birthday party, the want is a generic want, not the sim's want for their own birthday party. They can fulfill it by throwing a birthday party for anyone on the lot, and the want is fulfilled instantly upon issuing the invites by phone.
*Again, who ages up during the party has nothing to do with the throw-birthday-party want. The throw-birthday-party want only requires that the birthday party be called for using the phone. The party can tank because nobody ages up during it, and it still will have already fulfilled the throw-birthday-party want. Nor will that fulfilled want be treated as if it has now been reversed.
*There is no reason to lock a throw-birthday-party want until the wantee is ready to personally age up. Sims on a lot with *anyone* ready to age up may all roll the throw-birthday-party want. As long as "Birthday Party" is available under Throw Party on the phone, that want is fulfilled...for the sim who dials. If multiple sims on the lot want to Throw Birthday Party, then each one must start their own party---so to fulfill multiple such wants, you'd have to have multiple sims on the lot who each can age up using a Maxis cake, or someone (as BoilingOil said about wedding-party wants) gets screwed, unfortunately.

ETA: partially ninja'd (in my response to that last quote by ieta_cassiopeia) by simsfreq, with whose response I entirely agree.

Regarding whether parties can be successful hands-off...well, actually, I recently have found that the party controller prevents sims from leaving the lot as they normally would, even when all your controlled sims leave the lot (for work or school) after the party starts. Even *those* parties of mine have usually been successful, as long as a good mix of folks was invited. ("Good mix" meaning they mostly like each other already and preferably don't include a disproportionate number of Grouchy sims, who will tank such a party just by choosing aggressive actions---however, you can have plenty of Grouchy sims as long as they already know each other well enough to be more likely to choose friendly actions, and in that case the party, even continuing in the total absence of your household members, still ends up just fine. Though those are the sorts of cases where I may need to be content with only "Not Bad" as the final score.)

I've edited my recent posts in this thread, the ones which address the birthdaying topic, to reflect this post's findings.

Thank you very much, @natboopsie. That was thoroughly educational and informative!

Quite welcome. And you, sir, are a fast reader. I was just ETA-editing to put in a couple details of the testing I forgot to mention!

Are you sure about this? I am absolutely certain most family-aspiration parents in my game roll a want to throw a birthday party when one of the kids is due to age up, and I am about 90% certain it's fulfilled if they throw a party for the kid even though they themselves don't age up. The general rule in my hood is parent wants a party, kid fears party, parent ignores kid and is happy, kid is ignored and first sad then happy.

Edit: Forgot there was a second page I had not read, so majorly ninja'd by other people.

BO, a party is in no way an instant fail just because one has a hands off approach. I do A LOT of parties in my game, and the key to having good parties is not directing Sims. You need to not have items that dominate Sims attention and keep them from interacting with others, and if possible, have guests that know each other. If they are friends they are more likely to interact naturally, as long as they don't get stuck on solitary obsessive objects.

I am about to throw Windows 10 and my Laptop out of the window!!!
I can't make it work despite following the rules on LeeFish ... I'm very annoyed at this moment. I demand Microsoft get my Sims 2 game working! It shouldn't be this hard!

Okay I've said my peace...for now!

pm justpeitro. I know she upgraded to windows 10 and didn't have a problem.

But still, the player *needs* to make the birthday sim blow the candles, because they will not do that on their own. And if they don't do that, the party is not going to end well. THAT is what I meant with "totally hands-off" doesn't work. Some things still require the player's input!

I'm pretty sure iCad can be trusted to tell an autonomous interaction from a non-autonomous interaction and understand which parts won't happen on their own. She said in the very post that you replied to that she intends to do the required things, but no more, so her "hands off" policy does not include blowing out candles. Case and point:

@natboopsie
Wow, you're totally awesome! :lovestruc I was going to do something like that myself today, pop into my test neighborhood, run some "test parties," see what happens under various conditions. Now I don't have to, and you're awesome for sharing your results in such a fantastic and thorough way. Thanks!

And yeah, it actually makes far more sense to me that a Maxis cake (or a recolor or at the very least a cake fully cloned from a Maxis one) would be required for birthday party success. That's a very easy thing for the game to "look for," so to speak, a very binary "Did this happen?" sort of thing. Computers like binary things like that. Otherwise, I'd think the programming would be far more complex than Maxis usually does. So, again, thanks for the testing and sharing.

@BoilingOil
Yeah, it's pretty much what gummilutt said. I only rarely throw wedding parties and basically never bother with birthday parties, but I do very often throw generic parties, most commonly family reunions: On a convenient day after a Sim turns elder, someone cooks a massive amount of food, I invite/teleport all of the new elder's progeny to their house, and throw a massive party and control absolutely nothing. Like any family, some individuals have good relationships, some dislike each other, and some don't really know each other at all. So, there are a range of interactions to be observed which, for me, is the fun thing. (I really don't care about points, personally; I let a Sim's wants guide how I play them, yes, but it's not really because I seek aspiration points or have a goal of making them platinum or whatever. It's just that I like letting my pixels live the life THEY want, as opposed to the life I want them to have.) All that being said, the general parties I throw that are completely hands-off are rarely less than a "Good Time," more often than not are "Roof Raisers," so you can certainly have successful hands-off generic parties. I do it all the time.

But yes, for the specific party types where unless "X" happens, the party fails, I will command the relevant Sims to do those required things, but other than that it's hands off. Although I suspect it might be possible to make those "required" actions autonomous and, if so, if might be fun to do just that, to let the Sims themselves decide whether or not their wedding/birthday party will be a success in that sense. I'd actually prefer that; I've already modded the hell out of my own game to make lots of stuff autonomous that wasn't initially assigned to be that way, precisely because I prefer more "hands-off" playing and letting the pixels choose for themselves what they're going to do to fill their free time, when they have no wants that can be actively filled. i like them to have as many options as possible open to them. So....Hmmm, time to experiment a bit.

Yup, generic parties are much easier to do. There are no requirements. As long as the majority of sims enjoy themselves, your success is guaranteed.

Never say 'goodbye' to everyone even 30 seconds before a party is due to end. In the back of my mind I knew it was a bad idea but my sims were tired, I was tired, the wedding was already a roof raiser. I thought it would not drop so fast-yeah it dropped so fast. So roof raiser to disaster in 5 sim seconds.

@natboopsie have you thrown parties using other custom cakes? These cakes I believe will all keep the party score.
http://modthesims.info/d/228835
http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=191615
http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=100069

I use all of these at parties.

two quick questions that I've googled and found no satisfying answers for:

1) Is there a way for adult sims to get part-time jobs?
2) can I change or evict apartment neighbors, short of killing them or moving out my playable family? (I just got Nysha's NoTownieApartmentNeighbours, but it seems like I'm stuck with the Social Group neighbors for my current lot)

1) You mean to put adults in the Teen/Elder tracks of the careers? I think it's possible to do that with the Sim Blender, but I'm not 100% sure and don't have my game open at the moment to test. But I think it's possible...

2) Once NPC neighbors have moved in, there really is no way (that I know of) to change the occupants, aside from moving another playable into the apartment, which would evict one of the non-playable tenants. But in addition to Nysha's mod, there is one that allows different Sims -- Like regular townies, even dormies -- to move in rather than just the social group ones. It's Cyjon's "Townie Apartment Residents" one. Obviously you can't use Nysha's mod and that one at the same time, though.

Wow back, @iCad. You're making me blush. You are very welcome. I was in fact thinking about you while I was testing, since you said that birthday party was going to be upcoming as part of your rotation. Wasn't sitting well with me that much of what had been shared wasn't ringing a bell for me, so I felt a thorough test could clear up all the confusion. So happy it was helpful.

I agree---the cake results make a lot of sense.

Since we're in thanking mode anyway, much obliged for that simple curry recipe you had posted on your blog. I love curry and have all those ingredients, so when I stumbled across it the other day I resolved I'd make it soon. Ooh, in fact, maybe I'll do that tonight, so the flavors can blend overnight!



@Richan7 You don't have Pescado's Zombie Apocalypse mod, do you? I mean, it usually starts to zombify your hood pretty quickly, I hear, after it gains a little momentum (so that initial bit can take a little while to get going). But I don't know how often you play or maybe whether it's been a while since you opened this particular hood. Just mentioning it in case that's a possibility!


Indeed, I also discovered early on that you mustn't say goodbye to all your party guests early, unless you want the entire event to tank. Though I guess that makes sense: what's a party with no guests? Actually, I have a vague memory that I once rescued a party like that by having my sim rush out front after I realized what happened, to Hang Out with a walkby. But I'm not sure how reliable that memory is. Would be fun to test some other time.



Yes, ma'am, I listed all the custom cakes I tested (under the first infobutton ), plus a general hypothesis about how custom cakes might work/not work for party-score purposes.

Definitely was thinking I'd leave the extensive testing of other custom cakes up to anyone else who'd like to have a shot at it, so please be my guest! Might be especially cautious, though, about that one you link to which has the additional functionality. That makes it seem similar to one of the custom cakes I already tried which *does* tank the party score, even when used well in advance of the last minute on the timer.

Oh, hey, glad to share, happy it's useful. Having made it a few more times now, I can definitely confirm that if you make it at least a day before you want to eat it, and leave it in the fridge to settle and then stir and reheat when needed, it definitely tastes even better, so that'd definitely be my recommendation. It also freezes really well, so if you have a lot of potatoes that need eating (I always seem to have like half a 10-lb bag hanging around for some reason), you can make a really big batch, then freeze it in single-size (or family-meal-size) portions and defrost/reheat as needed. Works well!



I'd think that whether or not a custom cake would work in terms of making birthday parties a success would entirely depend on how it was cloned from the Maxis cake (and if it was, of course), whether or not whatever it is that "trips" the good party response (a BHAV, perhaps?) is included in the clone. So, it might be something you could look at in SimPE and be able to tell, or, if not...Yeah, testing. I don't have any custom cakes in my game, though, since I use them so infrequently, anyway, both birthday and wedding ones.

You're totally making me hungry, iCad. I'm thinking this one other post I was going to write shall have to wait until tomorrow, so I can first get a quick snack and then make that curry of yours (snack so that I won't be tempted to eat it right after, lol).



Right, I don't tend to go looking for them either...and personally, I'd rather do my testing in the game than pore over packages in SimPE, though I'm sure there are situations that'd change my mind on that. But here, I figured that I was offering results that everyone should be able to use, since the Maxis birthday cake is basegame. From there...well, lots of the cool stuff we know about the game is from building on one another's knowledge, I think, so there's plenty of room for others to add their tests too. And I hope that folks will!

Off to set out my ingredients and get that quick snack...

Miriam Hunter is going to start a hairdressing business at her home in Bluewater. Young Julian Moltke has lent her the money to buy a chair, but is there anything she should do try to build up her skills before she opens to the public? Like buying an easel and doing a few paintings first? She wants to minimise the number of Sims' faces she messes up as she learns her craft.

Creativity does not help at all in the beauty business, my creative sim artist started a beauty saloon and he messed up everybody's faces. Several times even, they kept coming back for some reason, perhaps they thought it was the latest makeup trend.

One of my Sims once messed up Ivy Copur's face - and Ivy absolutely refused to sit down in that chair again, even after said Sim had a gold badge

Advice I'd give for the salon chair is to give free makeovers until you have the bronze badge. I like using a teleporter to bring in random townies for practice. Keep Gussy Up or another mod handy for mess-ups (or just leave it if you think it's funny).

Question: Sometimes when two Sims are on a date, they start rolling generic wants like "gain a skill point" or whatnot (including the dreaded "public woohoo with three sims," I doubt that'd go over well) which makes it difficult to keep raising the date score. Is there any way to jumpstart it again, or should I take this as a sign that they've both lost interest?

To make your date re-roll wants: Ask > Do You Like What You See (this has always worked for me)

To make your sim re-roll wants: Flirt > Check Sim Out (this does not always work for me)

If you don't mind cheating: Turn on the testing cheats and Ctrl+click on your sim's aspiration icon (between the profile portrait and the wants panel - may or may not be lit in green). The little arrow attached to the right side of it will change direction and the sim's wants will reroll. I think this will work with the date's panel too, but I can't test it right now to be sure.


There are also several mods that can force wants to reroll (Batbox, SimBlender, etc.) Please note that rerolling the wants may still not make them change. I have had very frustrating dates where one of the idiots stubbornly keeps insisting on a want to learn a skill point no matter how many times I reroll the wants.

For hairdressing, the cleaning skill should help with earning the badge for hairdressing. I've not tested it and compared different sims and how quickly they build skill, but that's what I've read on the SimsWiki. The links off this page have information about each of the badges: http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Talent_badge

For dates and wants refusing to roll something new, even when using an object like simblender, I find that it helps to perform either a flirt, kiss, or slow dance if the non-date wants keep coming up. After that romantic interaction, rerolling is usually more successful for me than it had been on earlier attempts to reroll.

Sims also reroll wants every time they change lots. So a date that's stalled on one lot can heat up on the taxi ride to a new one.

Gain a skill point on a date? Even my knowledge Sims don't do that! I'd say let them play chess then?

One of my Sims had a "tidy date" and got a cleaning point for it, but, annoyingly, I can't remember who it was. I'd like to think it was Andrew because he's such a "neat freak" {he's a Virgo), but I honestly can't remember. It was quite recently though.

(P.S. I wish I was a bit more of a neat freak instead of being such a slob! )

Has Miriam got a family member to be a willing victim? You can skill grind hairdressing just by offering free makeover to the same sim over and over and over. (Mickey Dosser got his that way with the frat boys.) The great advantage of using a household member is you, the player, get to send them to the mirror to fix a messed-up makeover before leaving the household to play another if your aspiring hairdresser hasn't got it. I don't feel it's too terribly unrealistic because my friends who have done cosmetology school basically end up skill grinding on each other for the first semester.

Not relevant to anything, but I have this recurring theme of posts I send to my friends/family that I call the glamorous life of a medical student. The university is cautious about things that require inserting stuff into the body (rectal/vaginal exams, needles, stuff below the larynx) due to risk of more serious injury, but everything else we do on each other. Exam requires you to strip naked above the waist? Practice on your classmates! Hip examination? Practice on your classmate in a room with 20 other classmates, and request that they strip down to their underwear. I'm surprised we weren't expected to practice breast exams on each other but instead got to practice on patients Throw in some gore in the form of dissections, and various bodily fluids, and we're good to go

I tend to see it (and other non--date-relevant wants) as, indeed, a sign that they're just not that into their date. It doesn't show up nearly as often with high-chemistry couples, especially if their relationship is good enough that they can roll higher level romantic wants. But sometimes they do get bored, even with their three-bolt beloved.

If it's a Knowledge sim, I actually wouldn't accommodate that want on a date but would try one of the other suggestions above to encourage them to reroll. (I think stitching's got a particularly helpful observation: getting a higher-level romantic interaction in there first before doing something that might cause a reroll can really make a helpful difference in how date oriented the rerolled wants will turn out.) That's just because Knowledge sims tend to be very skill-ladder focused, so filling that gain-a-point want is more likely to encourage them to roll another skilling want; pretty much every other aspiration will take the gaining of that one point as sufficient to get them back to whatever else is on their mind, though.



I wouldn't spend any energy on trying further to remember---getting that point seems entirely random, and although the game will claim that it's because the date was tidy, I have not experienced this to be true whatsoever. Dating super-sloppy sims can and does end with that same result!

Editing to add: got done that last bit of testing I still had left on the workings of birthday parties. With a completely empty Downloads folder (yes, now I've deleted my testing hood and am restoring it from backup for future play, since pulling out all my hacks would have caused some corruption), same results as I previously reported. Have updated my previous giant post to note all that. (And had a funny-scary moment doing so, where I nearly hit the "Delete" button on it instead. Found myself tightly gripping my mousing wrist with the other hand, that prospect alarmed me so. Darned if I could type all that out again!)

One of my Sims got the "tidy date" prompt while dating a 0-point sloppy Sim. So I have a feeling it's pretty random. Wish that Maxis had implemented that a little better.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you guys it sounds like you are interpreting the message as learning a skill point from a personality-based trait on the other Sim. Based on how it's written in Swedish I've always assumed that they may learn a skill from a Sim that has high points in that skill, not because the Sim has a personality to match. A sloppy Sim can still have cleaning points, after all. In fact, one of my peeves with my game is that my sloppy Sims are by far the most likely to rush off to clean the toilet. I was working on an extensive mod to re-vamp autonomous cleaning, an idea that came from the frustration of sloppy Sims fighting over who gets to clean.

The message doesn't happen often, but I've had Sims gain various types of skill points from people on dates/outings. Happens more frequently from outings though. The one I recall seeing the most in my game is body skill, and there's always been a Sim with high points in that skill present.

No, I believe you understand us correctly, gummilutt. In US English, the game refers to the date from whom cleaning points are gained as a "tidy date." So I suppose that's why we are all picking on that inconsistency with personality.

I'd love it if it worked the other way, the way you suggest, though---as a reflection of the date's skillpoints in Cleaning or whatever skillpoint was gained. Unfortunately, it has also not been my experience that that is accurate, at least in my game. A date with few or no Cleaning points can still end up with the controlled sim gaining Cleaning. I've had it happen.

Although...I've never observed whether the date must have *either* a neat personality *or* fairly (or relatively) high Cleaning points. That would be interesting, if the point gain does key off one of those but can be either.

You know what, though? Just for my own sake at the moment, I think I need not to think about it further. Because if it starts to really bother me, I will have to go and test that all out too, and I just think I need to not do that to myself right now, lol.

Given the inconsistency in that message appearing to begin with, that sounds like a very sane decision. Perhaps BoilingOil will spare you the trouble of having to avoid thinking about it, by checking the game code. I'm following your lead, and not thinking further on it before I get tempted to try and look at it myself.

I have on multiple infants; base game. their bodies after aging were the birth gender. did not take pictures.

Good for you, gummilutt! (Or, er, I guess good for us. Even patting myself on the back seems a big effort at the moment---I'm headed offline to get some rest.)

That's a lovely idea you've got, though! So...

Hallooo, @BoilingOil. I know how busy and absorbed you must be with testing your new mod (I think I speak for all of us when I say how excited I am that you are doing even a bit of modding again!). If you at any point decide you're interested in looking at other EA code, we'd love to know how the game determines whether sims get skillpoints as a result of a successful date---in particular whether the specific skill for which a point is granted has anything to do with either/both the date partner's personality or number of points in that skill. If you have a chance. But come say hello anyway when you can and let us know how you are!

I don't know if an examination is really required to answer this question. As far as I have seen in eight years of play, a successful date has never resulted in any skill point gain. The best a successful date (Dream Date) will do, is max out the motives of both sims involved. So either I must be the most unfortunate person in the world, to never have been granted a skillpoint from a date, or there must be some dude/broad out there with quite a vivid imagination, who came up with a ludicrous idea.

The only thing I can think of that *might* occasionally happen, is a sim doing something during the date that is related to the skill. Like they are already close to gaining a Cleaning skill point, and then mop up a puddle, or clean a toilet or anything like that. It still has nothing to do with the date itself. It just coincidentally happened during the date.

Well, yes, the programmers did have quite the imaginations, in many ways. Thanks for responding, BO! But, er, indeed, gaining a skillpoint (Cleaning or even other types, though as far as I have seen Cleaning is the most common) is something that can happen with a successful date. I have not seen it too recently, but I know I have seen it several times.

It happens as @AndrewGloria says here. In fact, Andrew or anyone else, can you jog my memory as to whether it's a Dream Date result or happens with lower levels of date success too?

Edited to add: what I can describe is that it's a message that pops up as the End Date interaction is completing. Since they're just finishing kissing (or hugging, or whatever), it's clearly *not* something that's related to the current activity. And it happens even though they have not done any skilling during the date---I was surprised myself when I first saw it, because I clearly remember thinking I'd never even sent my sims to any community lot with a bookcase on it, and the date had started while the asker was out, by cell.

In other words...definitely not a myth.

Well, I didn't mean the programmers who would have imaginations, because that would be mandatory for them. I was talking about someone in the playing community who made up some wild fantasy to throw us off our game, or who experienced a skill point gain, and was too drunk or sleepy to understand why that happened.

I have never even heard of a "tidy date" and have no idea what that means. It must be some CC thing that I don't have, because it most certainly is NOT an official game feature.

Hee. You're so crochety. And I rather enjoy that about you. No, as I just edited my post to reflect, I have seen it too. And I don't drink and am sure I wasn't sleepy and imagining it every time it's happened.

Ok, you know what, because you say so, I will make it a point to look for it in the code. But I think I can tell you beforehand what I'll find: ZIP!

Oh, muchly appreciated, BO! I'd bet you a beer that you *will* find something, but as I said...

No rush, please.

This is a very stupid question, I am a noob at SimPE so whatever
When I have a package opened in SimPE and I click to open anything in the Resource Tree it doesn't open, how do I fix this?

I've had the random date get a cleaning point before. It does appear completely random and has nothing to do with dream-date status. Also it's pretty rare.

I agree it's rare, @smorbie1. Thank you for verifying your experience. Have you noticed whether it only appears on successful dates (that is, not just dream dates but any date considered not a bad one)?

I assume no reward of any kind is possible when the date goes badly...I've had so few of those, though, so I just don't know. Probably should try to get more at some point just for giggles---I once started serially paying the gypsy the minimum to get a CAS elder to 50 First Dates, but he passed away before I got very far.

I'm about 99% certain that it was a dream date, because that's what my Sims nearly always have. It happens as natboopsie describes at the end of the date. The message says that your Sim has gained an Cleaning point for a "tidy date". Now I'm not quite sure what my Sim (or the programmer) meant by a "tidy date", but it came as a little bonus at the end of a very good and enjoyable date -- something special for a special Sim! I do wish I could remember who it was that got it. It could indeed have been Andrew, because he had a very good dream date with Julian recently, and it would suit his personality as he his by nature very neat and tidy. (He's a Virgo and he actually enjoys cleaning! Come to think of it, I wish I could invite him to come and stay with me for a couple of days -- he could have a whale of a time cleaning and tidying all the things in the house that need it! )

It didn't come as a total surprise to me as I had read about it somewhere before. Perhaps it's mentioned on the Wiki.

I have just examined a rather lengthy BHAV that is responsible for your sim ending the date with the other. For anyone who wants to verify my results - assuming they know how to do that - it's Group 0x7F9EE20D, instance 0x00002019 - "End - Date".

The code in there does several things: satisfy related wants, distribute memories, and determine what type of date reward OBJECT is given. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but. If there were any chance of this code giving either sim a skill point as a result of the date, then there should be at least a single call into the skill-gain globals. But there isn't one!

So it may very well be that sometimes your sim gains a skill point at the end of *any* kind of date, but it is merely a coincidence, and not at all related to the date itself!

Thank you, BO!

I still wonder if it's hidden somewhere else, then. Because I must say that it is not imaginary, and it *is* related to the date itself---just as I was about to describe before seeing that AndrewGloria has done a lovely job of it already. (Thank you!)

ETA: Posted prematurely. Yes, it *is* on the Wiki! Here is the page about dating. It's under "Date Rewards."

Everyone is free to believe so.

My opinion was asked, and I see no evidence of it in the End - Date BHAV. And with my eight years of never seeing it happen, I think I know what I want to believe. If I'm wrong, I have yet to be convinced of that.

Thanks, BO, for your time. ETA: Indeed, I've no idea in the first place about how to look for any of this, so I can't say where they might have tucked it away.

Can someone quickly answer my question? It's important, sorry if I seem impatient

I'm sure it is related to the date in some way, because the message says that the Cleaning skill point is for a "tidy" date. It's not the usual message to say that your Sim has gained a skill point cleaning the <<whatever>>.

By the way, I know how to open a mod's package file with SimPE and look at the BHAVs inside the mod, but I don't know where to look for the game's own BHAV's.

I saw your question, Miley, and I'm sorry it got buried. Never having had that problem, though, I don't know what to tell you.

But if you do feel it's important, perhaps you could post it in "Sims 2 Help" instead? Some of those Help folks don't read these threads, and certainly this wouldn't be the place to go for a quick technical answer.

ETA: Right, @AndrewGloria. I don't actually think it's imaginary, having seen it often enough myself (though it remains uncommon). Like you, I almost exclusively run Dream Dates, and lots of them. Plus, it's on the Wiki---not that that is gospel, just that clearly others besides those in this thread thought so too. I'm just at a loss as to how to prove it or check how it links/doesn't link to personality and skillpoints of the sim dated, other than having to run a really large series of Dream Dates, which I really don't want to do, lol. (I love having sims date, but I'm not sure I'll love it so much after a marathon like that, and that would be kind of sad.)

Does anyone know if Brandi Broke has a recessive blonde hair gene in the cleaned up version of Pleasantview?
Her and Darren have a son together, who has just had his first child with Tara Kat and she was born with blonde hair and Tara's green eyes. I believe both Darren's parents had black hair, and I thought Bob Newbie was either brown or ginger, and Betty's is black. SimPE does't seem to want to open in my laptop so I can't investigate further. According to the wiki, the only Sim with blonde hair in the Broke family (on Brandi's side) was Vadim Simovitch! - the great-great-grandfather of little Tabby Kat.

Meh, I just felt like the question was too stupid to have it's own thread. I'm going to make a thread in the "Sims 2 Help" section if no one knows how to fix it here. Thanks though.

Edit: I fixed it!!! There's a little button that says "Reset Layout" I clicked it and it was fixed

Sorry MileyTheSimmer, I was going to try to point you to that button, but I had Body Shop loaded, so I couldn't load SimPE to check exactly where the button was. It's a very small button and easy to miss, but it's invaluable when you can't find what you're looking for in SimPE.

It's definitely not imaginary, and it's not limited to cleaning skill. It's also not limited to dating, I've gotten it from scored outings. Where it may be hiding in the code though, who knows. I would guess hidden somewhere in some part of the timed-event scoring system for NL-things, but it ought to be trackable by following all the things called by the end date bhav. If you want to you could remind me about it sometime this summer and I'll see if I can find it. I'd like to look at it now, but so much work to do. I'm allowing myself to read the forum, but no touching SimPE or the game.

Bless you, gummilutt, for even making the offer. I'm going to actually put it on my calendar to ask later whether you might have time. Thank you! For the time being then, I will consider that there is no need for me to run a date or outing marathon to find the pattern there. Which frankly is already no small favor you've done me!