When in my game recently, a Sim with 10 nice points autonomously poked one with 9 nice points just because the latter hadn't accepted his social advances, I thought things were getting just ridiculous! I've posted my ideal solution in the Hacks you'd like to see thread, but really anything that made my Sims less ready to resort to violence would be a help. I don't want to stop it completely, because it does add drama, and sometimes Sims get really provoked, but I really would like it turned down a lot. And I wouldn't mind putting a total stop to poking, as I think that must really hurt. I guess there must be some hacks out there along these lines, but I haven't consciously spotted any. Does anyone know of anything that might help?

Nightlife is my only EP (I have Double Deluxe).

I've never ever seen a sim autonomously poke/slap/whatever, or even insult, another sim, unless the sim is very mean or already has a negative relationship with the other. Maybe you have a mod installed which is causing that to happen?

How is their aspiration level Andrew? Low aspiration will cause nice sims to act like that.

They did have a negative relationship, but only because Cony, the 9-nice-point Sim, had rejected all Maurice's (the 10-nice-point Sim's) interactions. They had just met, so they started off with the relationship at zero on both sides. By the time Maurice poked Cony, I think Maurice's daily relationship with Cony was -17 while Cony's with Maurice was -26. Maurice is straight out of CAS, and I haven't had a chance to "train" him yet, and for some reason Cony seems to be making a habit of rejecting other Sims' approaches. But seeing I'd given them so many nice points, I really did expect them to be nice to each other!

As you might expect from my playstyle, I don't consciously go for hacks that would make Sims nastier to each other. The only one that comes to mind that might be to blame is Pescado's Romance mod. I recently changed from the NL version (to match my actual highest EP) to the OFB version to match my game engine, and I noticed that a 10-nice-point romance Sim slapped another Sim for infidelity, when previously, in very similar circumstances, a 7-nice-point romance Sim had only looked sad. The rtfm.txt file (as Pescado calls it) says that Romance Sims should never spaz out (whatever that means) but whether a single slap counts as spazzing out I wouldn't know. Anyway, I think I'll try reverting to the NL version (at least until I actually get OFB) and see if it makes a difference.


Maurice's aspiration is low but green. He's quite a new Sim out of CAS and nothing either very good or very bad has happened to him. I think his aspiration is much what you'd expect from a new Sim.

It's not like Andrew was when he was younger, with an aspiration in the red for quite a while. (Andrew spectacularly failed to get into private school on his first day, and later, when hormones got in the way of schoolwork, he got first a D and then an F.) At that time he kicked over Julian's dustbin and went round stamping on the flowers in his mum's garden. But Andrew has never had more than 5 nice points - and he's never poked, slapped or shoved anybody. (Noogieing boys that he quite likes is his only vice in that area.)

I can probably "train" Maurice not to poke people, but I can't see how I can train Cony and Sims like him not to reject the advances of Sims who are only trying to make friends. The negative relationship was entirely the result of Cony autonomously rejecting all Maurice's interactions. You may say he deserved to be poked for that, but "Make friends with me or I'll poke you in the eye!" isn't really what you'd expect a "nice" Sim to say!

I'd rather hoped someone could point me to a "less poking" mod!

"Social Sanity Fixes" By TJ at Simbology may help you. http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?topic=13.0

That sounds like a wonderful story opportunity. It's very out of character for those sims - even though they normally get along great with everyone, for some reason they just rub each other up completely the wrong way. Sounds like a fantastic little twist.

Thanks everyone!

@marka93: That could be a useful mod for the future, but I don't think it would have helped this time. TJ's mod is so that autonomous approaches will only be made when they have a reasonable chance of success. Maurice's approaches weren't autonomous -- I told him to make them because I wanted him to be friends with Cony. May be I need to be a bit more perceptive and recognise when I'm wasting my time!

@miriamnz: That mod might work in my game. I don't have EP3 (OFB) but I have the OFB game engine. I'll try it after a backup. And I do intend to get OFB one day.
Squinge is one of my favourite modders. He has a few mods that suit what I think is my gentler playstyle, and his no more fires mods has saved my own sanity. My Sims can cook meals and light fires with no more worries than I would have myself. If it works in my game, the no autonomous bad socials collections might be a mod that I sometimes leave in and sometimes take out, depending on what I'm playing. I could certainly live with a no autonomous poking mod, though ideally I'd like really nasty Sims (like Consort and Tybalt) to still be able to poke.
If no one else has written these mods, I could put it down as something I might look at myself one day. I would imagine that a straightforward no autonomous poking mod might be quite straightforward to write, though an all embracing less violence mod that took nice points into account would be a good bit harder.

@Nysha: If there aren't any mods out there to sort it, then I'll have to work it into story! Maybe Cony's a control freak: he clearly likes to stay in control of his social life and decide who he makes friends with. He seems to resist it if somebody else makes the first approach. At the same time as Maurice was failing to make friends with him a new townie also tried. The townie was also initially rejected but he had more sense than Maurice. Instead of keeping on trying and getting both himself and Cony into a bad mood, he waited till Cony was at home and then phoned him twice in one day (the second call coming at one minute to midnight!). The two phone calls took Cony's relationship with him from -1 to +19 leaving the townie near the top of the list of Cony's potential friends.
For their part Maurice and his brother Damian are finding it unexpectedly hard to be accepted. Along with two other boys they have taken a house on the island, hoping to join in all the fun. For some reason the four of them are finding it hard to fit in, with Maurice probably having the hardest time of all. Despite his usually good nature (10 nice points), seeing everyone else dancing, kissing and making out, but not being allowed to join in, was too much for him and he snapped. He's probably best now to stay at home till he's calmed down. Then he could phone Cony and say sorry.
When I created the island and only allowed romance Sims with 8 or more nice points, I thought it would be a fight-free zone. It isn't that, but it does seem to be a place where they quickly kiss and make up (make out) after a disagreement. And maybe that's more interesting than not fighting at all?