I've been playing Strangetown, and have been slightly irritated by the fact that, while Jenny Smith is older than her brothers, the family tree shows her as the youngest. Then Johnny and Ophelia had twins, and although Beatrice was born first and her birth appears first in everyone's memories, the family tree shows Olivia as the older one. Is there any way to fix this? Possibly with SimPE?

I really don't think so. I know you can edit the family ties in SimPE, but I don't know of a why to make the actual tree change in game-and I think the age (in the family tree) is hardcoded anyway-so you'd probably be better off not bothering.

@KittyCarey are you look at it by Jenny as the Sim that is selected or one of the brothers. When you use one of the brothers to look at it Jenny is all the way to the left of the 4 and that is how I read it for first born.

If you use Jenny then she is always the one right under the parents. The one use to look at it is always right under the parents regardless of birth order.

Sometimes, which family member appears first will change depending on whose tree you are looking at. For instance, I had a family of three sims named (in order of age) Buttercup, Old Adam, and Oakapple. When I looked at their family trees before any of them were married, they would show up in order from right to left: Buttercup, Old Adam, Oakapple.

Then they got older and got married and had children. After that, when I looked at Buttercup's family tree, it would show in order from right to left: Old Adam, Oakapple, Buttercup, Buttercup's husband Albert linked to Buttercup by a marriage line, and (one row down and connected by child lines) Buttercup's children Josephine, Cecil, and Skye. This is the correct birth order for Buttercup's children.

When I looked at Old Adam's family tree, it would show in order from right to left: Buttercup, Oakapple, Old Adam, Old Adam's wife Myrna linked to Old Adam by a marriage line, and (one row down and connected by child lines) Old Adam's children Leila, Lisa, Phoebe, and Rose. This is the correct birth order for Old Adam's children.

The game seems to make space for whoever it is you're looking at just at the moment, so if you click on Jenny Smith's picture in the family tree, she will move over to the far right to leave room for PT9, with Johnny and Jill below. Click on Pascal, and it should jump him to the far right, even if he's only married to his telescope.

EDIT: Yes, this is a long-winded version of what's said above. Sorry.

Here is Pascal first and then Jenny selected.

I know the family tree shifts around depending on the focus sim, that's not the issue. It's that the initial tree is wrong. If you click on Glarn or Kitty Curious, it should show their children as (L to R) Jenny, Pascal, Vidcund, Lazlo. With Jenny's children underneath her, in order of age, and Pascal's child(ren) when they appear etc. But it doesn't - it shows Pascal, Vidcund, Lazlo, Jenny.

Then when you click on someone with siblings - Pascal say - it moves him into the focus spot, and puts his siblings on the left, R to L in order of age, followed by half-siblings again in order of age. So with Pascal selected, you should see (L to R) Chloe, Lola, Lazlo, Vidcund, Jenny, Pascal (and then Pascal's spouse if he marries). But it doesn't - it shows Chloe, Lola, Jenny, Lazlo, Vidcund, Pascal.

So somewhere in the code it thinks Jenny was born after her brothers. The same problem happens for Jenny's twin grandaughters - the family tree thinks Olivia was born first, but actually Beatrice was. I seem to remember this happened before with twins, the family tree always shows them the wrong way around.

Maybe I'm the only one who's noticed and/or been irritated by it. I agree it's not exactly important. It's just irritating, and I hoped someone might know how to fix it. I'll probably try removing the family ties in SimPE and putting them back in the right order and see if that fixes it.

I don't understand -- that is the correct display order for an older Jenny, and also matches marka's screenshot. Do you have a screenshot showing the problem with the order that you are having?

But it's not the right order, is it? Shouldn't it either be Chloe, Lola, Jenny, Vidcund, Lazlo, Pascal (i.e. all siblings in order of age apart from Pascal, as he's the one selected) or Chloe, Lola (half-siblings first as they're not completely attached to the family tree) then Lazlo, Vidcund, Jenny, Pascal to put them in reverse age order (i.e youngest on the left to Jenny, the oldest, next to Pascal), again with the exception of Pascal as he's the one selected. Vidcund is older than Lazlo, right? But the family tree as shown in Marka's screenshot doesn't show this.

Is Vidcund older than Lazlo? It's gotta be at least five years since I played the Curious brothers, so I don't remember. But wasn't KittyCarey's problem that Jenny was in the wrong spot? And she doesn't appear to be.

I am really confused now, so maybe I should back out of the conversation...

If you are looking in SimPE you can change there order by dragging them around in the right spot.

Order of birth is the twins then it Jenny, Pascal, Vicund and then Lazlo.

I believe the family trees are ordered not by birth order or age, but by the instance number of the sims involved. Normally, this is the same as birth order, because lower instance numbers are generally handed out before higher. But it seems like the Curious brothers were the first family created when Strangetown was made - that's why Vidcund is the telescope slapper, because he has the lowest instance number of all playables - so they'll show up before Jenny, who was created later and has a higher instance number.

Twins always do that on my family trees. It doesn't bother me, unless I'm trying to give them alphabetical names - then it's kinda annoying.
I've never tried to fix it, and I have no knowledge of SimPE - but I presume if you unlink them and then relink them in the correct order (link the oldest first and so on) that might work. Same for SimBlender, though I've never tried it - I just know there's an option to remove family ties, and create them.
Though if it's twins, does it really matter? They'll both grow up at the same times anyway, so it won't look too wonky.

As far as I know, the family trees in Strangetown and Veronaville are a little messed up, as it was based on order they were made (They made the Curious brothers, then linked Jenny). Take a look at the Capp's tree, in relation to Tybalt, Hermia and Juliette's ages (and their birth order memories). If Johnny and Ophelia have another baby, it will be after the twins in the family tree like normal (unless they have twins again, then baby #3 will be last and baby #4 will be third)

Sorry if someone has already said all this, I just did a quick skim of the thread and It seemed no-one knew what you were trying to say.

There was a lot more EA/Maxis could have done with Sims 2 but they just dropped it. Right off hand I can think of at least 5 more EP's and some fixes they could have done with no problem.


Just for starters they could have fix the putting occupied houses in the bin where it would not cause corruption.

Thank you everyone for your comments, and I'm really sorry for confusing some of you!



I thought this might be the problem, which would mean I'd never be able to fix it, but Pascal does show up as being born before Vidcund, while Vidcund has the lowest instance number and goes around slapping people, not Pascal. So that suggests it might be possible to fix.



Thank you - I'll try this and see if it works.



I seem to remember this happened when I had twins before (until I got UC for free I hadn't played TS2 since TS3 came out), but thanks for the confirmation that it always happens. I agree it doesn't really matter, as they're both the same age, but I know Beatrice was born first and it would be nice if the family tree reflected that. It's also that I know how to fix these sort of problems in TS3, and might-be-fixable is in some ways more annoying than impossible-to-change. Or maybe it's just me.