Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 11:26 AM
Default What are your game cliches?
Like things you always do in your game.

In my old game it was making hoods full of women. I don't know why but my game would only generate female townies and I didn't bother to add more, there were maybe like...6 men in every town? Not in a misandrist way. It's just my guys always look so damn ugly, I can't even. There's not enough good cc out there for men. Or maybe there is and I'm just too busy shopping vicariously through my female sims to notice.

Oh and when I was like 10 I'd always break Morty and Dina up as soon as I loaded pleasentview, then never touch the Goth household again. I even learned how to use SimPE just to erase their memories those were the days, man.
Advertisement
Alchemist
#2 Old 10th Feb 2019 at 11:00 PM
This was surprisingly hard to come up with, as I was trying to think of things that I do in all hoods, no matter what. But I didn't have too many of those, so I'll just have to go with what I usually do when restarting a premade hood. First, I always get rid of the Ottomases. Not sure if it's an old superstition or what, but, even though the family has been fixed, I've only ever played the Ottomas family once, in a hood where I only used all bin sims. I grew to like them there, but still, every time I start a new hood I always delete them, whether I keep other bin families or not. (And yes, I do mean delete; I know doing so from the sim bin is supposed to cause corruption, but, eh. *shrugs* I don't think I've ever played a hood long enough to see true corruption in effect. I just delete them first thing and roll with it.)

And when I play the premades, I love to break up sims, teens especially. I always break up: Dustin & Angela, Lilith & Dirk, Johnny & Ophelia, and Juliette & Romeo. I always keep "that hussy" Vivian Cho away from Timothy Riley, everyone in Riverblossom away from Leod McGreggor, and break up Patricia Wan & Gabe O'Mackey. I always let Daniel cheat on Mary-Sue with Kaylynn, Jacob Martin cheat on Sandra Roth with Jules O'Mackey, and Don always sleeps with Nina, Dina, and Kaylynn before whatever is going to happen with him and Cassandra happens.

And whenever I start a new, empty hood, it's hard for me to stay away from the uni premades. Tri Var & Urele-Oresha-Cham are the stereotypical college frats where everyone parties and everyone sleeps with everyone. Then I always try to make Heather Huffington fat, idk why, probably from reading Ten Caesars oh-so-long ago. Oh, and if I'm in the Academie, Roxie Sharpe breaks up with her boyfriend Jonah Powers, because I do not like his face. I usually make him cheat and let her catch him. Delilah O'Feefe always seems like a quiet witch to me, and Emily Lee, as one of my favorite uni premades, almost always gets to be played if I'm playing the Academie, even if she's just going to be a placeholder.

Other than all that, if I'm moving in a townie, I have a few that get favored over others; they're usually face 1, but it also doesn't hurt that they come with some cash and/or high job levels. I think that's it for now.

"May the sunlight find you, thy days be long, thy winters kind, thy roots be strong." -Grand Oak Tree, DAO

XPTL Mod Archive | Change a Mod's Mesh into a CC Object | Increasing the Game Difficulty | Editing ACR 4 Your Age Mod
Bored? Read an unfinished legacy or sim story. | aka Kelyns | she/her
Field Researcher
#3 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 1:01 AM
Oh, my sims always have incredibly messy romantic entanglements. They're constantly cheating on one another and having babies with the wrong people. It cracks me up when ACR causes them to do it on their own, but sometimes I'll direct them to just for my amusement.

A lot of the non-supernatural sims in my neighborhoods tend to be really suspicious of supernaturals, too. I play that there's a divide between them that takes some work to bridge.
Scholar
#4 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 1:16 AM
In general, I tend towards a 'happy families' style of play and getting couples together to produce the next generation. I've always kept Johnny and Ophelia, Roxie and Jonah, and Vivian and Timothy together. Nervous and Ophelia always share Olive's estate amicably. Before I had University, Ophelia would keep the house and give Nervous the money; these days Nervous moves in and takes over the house, letting Ophelia leave for university with the money. Considering what a dysfunctional aunt/mother they share, they're amazingly laid back and unselfish.

I always play all the bin Sims in every hood, though their stories play out differently every time, and I move the Belladonna Cove Sims out of their apartments and re-home them somewhere appropriate to their funds. I separate the Singles girls and the Cordials, and I break up the Greek houses - I just don't like same-sex households where everybody is looking for a mate but there's no time to play each Sim individually.

And an odd one: Chester Gieke always has a cat. I don't know why. He might get married, or have alien children, or both, but whatever else happens in his life, he always has a cat.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#5 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 3:16 AM
I was already married when sims 2 came out and I had played sims 1 first so I never did anything really silly or crazy.

I am sure I have some, but I can't really think of anything except I do make every female sim (close on 95%) have at least one baby. I love families with kids. Most families will also end up with some kind of pet, might be a cat, dog, bird or a cc one like a lizard. Kids and pets are kind of my thing.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Field Researcher
#6 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 3:34 AM
I'm a big fan of playing with genetics in the game, so I usually try to have all my sims end up with at least one genetically-related child (not adopted etc). I've started using a mod that lets you put sims up for adoption, so I think I'll let ACR run wild.. my sims that don't want kids can give them up if they get pregnant lol
Theorist
#7 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 5:53 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Modder
I'm a big fan of playing with genetics in the game, so I usually try to have all my sims end up with at least one genetically-related child (not adopted etc).


Oh, same here. In general I only let same-sex couples adopt in my game. Though I do try to have at least some Sims not have children at all, since I like the idea of some branches of the family tree just ending. It seems more realistic that way.

As for other cliches...this might sound weird, but when I start playing a premade neighbourhood I usually tend to try to "breed" brown haired Sims. Since brown hair is the most common hair colour where I live, I always thought there were far too few of them in most maxis neighbourhoods, like Pleasantview for example (two, and they are father and daughter!) So i tend to create more of them, marry them to other brown haired sims/Sims with recessive hair genetics and tend to make them have at least 3 children.

I have some set storylines with a handful of the premades that I tend to follow each time I play a neighbourhood where they are involved (Angela and Dustin must marry. No ifs or buts. Don and Nina also tend to have a shotgun wedding after Nina gets pregnant with his baby. The baby must be a son. Then the marriage will go sour, Nina becomes a vampire queen, kils don, bites her son and eventually said vampire son will marry Cassandra's daughter. He'll become a Rock God and stay an undead singer until he eventually falls in love and marries his own great-granddaughter and becomes mortal to grow old with her.I've played that each time in every Pleasantview I've played, even Apocalypse versions, ever since I was a child when Nightlife was released. It's just become tradition at this point. The only thing that changes is Cassandra's husband. Early on it was always Darren Dreamer. Once it was Lazlo Curious, but now it's always Malcolm Landgraab)
I also always modify Malcolm Landgraabs face to look less cartoony evil.

I also love to play sweeping and melo-dramatic storylines involving powerful family clans that feude for control of the neighbourhood.

And not sure whether that's a cliche, but I need families to keep me entertained, singles or empty nesters just don't hold my attention.

Avatar by MasterRed
Taking an extended break from Sims stuff. Might be around, might not.
Mad Poster
#8 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 7:01 AM
Lots of gay teens. Lots of teens in fact. "Moral" Romance Sims who do their own thing in open relationships and free love communes, without breaking up other Sims' relationships. Very few pregnancies and births.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Instructor
#9 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 10:40 AM
well, the first thing I always do when starting a new household is getting them to stock up the fridge and change their one true hobbies.

Oh when I want to send them to vacation, Three Lakes is always the first destination, because I don't know I just like the chance cards.

LGBTQ+. Fans of RAMMSTEIN, GOJIRA and Architects. Check out my favorite YouTube channels: Second Thought, Adam Something, Climate Town, and Not Just Bikes
Mad Poster
#10 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 11:58 AM
In my game (modern, or not):
Check the house & lot to see that I didn't miss anything in furnishing it-then change it if I did.Same with pixel-change personality, set sexuality.
Send pixel off to community lot/bank to deposit the rest of the funds into said bank for the future.
Get pixel a job if so wanted or find something for them to pass their time with.
Then play game & let pixels proceed to live their pathetic pixel lives. (I'm stuck in a rut).

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Alchemist
#11 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 12:10 PM Last edited by Sunrader : 11th Feb 2019 at 12:46 PM.
If I have a long break and start sims over again, which has happened several times over the years, I always start with the Broke household. More play-style than cliché, I always turn aging off as soon as I enter a new lot. So Brandi has never aged out of her pink crop top...though I did give her a few wrinkles when I finally let Dustin become an adult.... I mean, Angela died in childbirth leaving him with little Angelita, he married a townie on rebound, immediately had another baby... if that doesn't adult you, nothing will.

Quote: Originally posted by AndrewGloria
"Moral" Romance Sims who do their own thing in open relationships and free love communes, without breaking up other Sims' relationships. Very few pregnancies and births.
Me, too. Lots of polyamorous relationships. I hate the fighting so have nojealousyatall. If anyone fights in my game, they have a very good reason.

There must be tons of cliches because there are many things, according to the things-you've-never-done thread, that I've never done. Never even seen Crumplebottom, Bigfoot, Father Time... (isn't there a New Year's baby and a Santa?)... never played vampires or werewolves, alien abduction, only just now accidentally had puppies. I'm creating a challenge, though, based on a career I'm writing to guide the story, for doing ONLY things I've never done before and using ONLY Maxis stuff I've never used before. That should be really fun!
Mad Poster
#12 Old 11th Feb 2019 at 7:55 PM
I always use the bat-box to clear junk, and change LTW and interests to match their personalities (& maybe change their personalities too). If that causes a married couple to no longer be in love, I end the marriage. And EVERYON gets appropriate clothes. It always bothers me that Brandy Broke has a bedroom for a ROMANCE sim, and that if I sell all the unnecessary stuff there is enough money to fix that stupid house. I'm all about "unique" faces, and creating lots of skin colors. While I use ACR to make my nice married people stay faithful, everyone else runs wild; everyone (men too) has babies with everyone - sometimes with people (or aliens) they never even met! I keep trying to create a ISBI huge family, but I just can't bare to leave toddlers unhappy.
Then my hood gets so full of Sims I get overwhelmed/bored with it all and delete it..

Stand up, speak out. Just not to me..
Forum Resident
#13 Old 12th Feb 2019 at 12:44 AM
- Drama. There's always at least one male sim with kids from different women. My record at the moment is 5 children from 4 different mums. #IBlameACR
- Super high reproductive rates = Pyramidal growth. It's just a habit of mine to set fertility with ACR to around 38%, and then I let my modded token do the bell curve. The result is always that I end up with a large population right at the start of a hood that grows larger with every subsequent generation since my sims are rather long-lived. I like this personally, since hoods can be quite dead with notownieregen, and I like to have lots of children carefully separated into cohorts by age. On each rotation the cohort ages up a set amount (whatever length of time I felt like playing the first house.) This keeps the cohorts on schedule for things like class assignments and social groups. I do it the same way every time lol.
- No supernaturals in Pleasantview (all the other hoods get one each except for Desiderata who gets two lol)
- No zombies. ever. never. ever.
- ACR + Inteen = More Drama
- Complex storylines. I swear - I don't do it, my sims do! But Guy gave up his parental rights to Valeria's daughter even though he sort of loves Valeria, because he'd rather marry Adele who also has his child, but then he thought about Valeria and wanted to talk to her again - because he realised he was missing out on Chevonne's life and...
- Neurotically setting clothing based on personality. Some girls only wear pants okay? Okay.
- Complicated rules - I have all the rules and a lot of the mechanics of how said rules work within the game mechanism (which bits are pretend and which bits can be cobbled together with a series of mods and process tweaks) written out in evernote. I read it. I refer to things. Rinse and repeat. And then I update it based on how I've actually played it and what I've found most enjoyable, so that I'll remember it for next time. I started it in an LJ, but realised that no one really needed to read all that complicated stuff.
Alchemist
#14 Old 15th Feb 2019 at 3:03 AM
Quote: Originally posted by terula8
but realised that no one really needed to read all that complicated stuff.


I live for that complicated stuff! I love to make up my own rules, too. I've got pages and pages of notes for things & scenarios I'll probably never get to.

"May the sunlight find you, thy days be long, thy winters kind, thy roots be strong." -Grand Oak Tree, DAO

XPTL Mod Archive | Change a Mod's Mesh into a CC Object | Increasing the Game Difficulty | Editing ACR 4 Your Age Mod
Bored? Read an unfinished legacy or sim story. | aka Kelyns | she/her
Lab Assistant
#15 Old 16th Feb 2019 at 5:19 PM
My favourite thing to play with is genetics and breeding my sims, but I also have same sex couples in my hood. Therefore, I have a storyline which restarts in every new neighbourhood. One Sim belongs to the custom Geneticist career path. If they get promoted high enough, they can open a fertility clinic for female sims to have children with eachother.
Male sims are a little trickier - the geneticist also has to work out how male pregnancy works. Therefore, they need to study a pregnant victim of alien abduction to see how it all works. They also need to reach the top of their career path before they are able to impregnate a male sim.
In my current hood they have reached all of these goals, and one of my Sims did run a fertility clinic. There have now been two babies born to a female couple and two born to a male couple. However, the geneticist has passed away and I don't have anyone else working that career path at the moment, so no more same sex babies until someone comes along and learns the trade so they can understand his notes. It was a lifetime of research for him and I look forward to seeing what his successors achieve!

I'm also considering making it compulsory to have a doctor in the hood to carry out the actual procedures in future. And making a few more career based rules because I quite enjoy having neighbourhood needs to fill - it's fun to have goals to work to outside of individual sims/households.
Lab Assistant
#16 Old 17th Feb 2019 at 12:25 AM
Making happy nuclear families with 2.5 children. It's fun, but when every family in the hood is like that, it's just boring and not that realistic. That's why I'm constantly trying to diversify things recently, but I do find it a bit difficult sometimes because I often won't get as attached to my sims as I do when playing nuclear families.
Theorist
#17 Old 17th Feb 2019 at 4:04 AM
Stuff I always do...

- A household always has a pet...even if it's just fish (thank goodness for Bienchen's Animated Lizards and Rodents for more variety)
- There are always permanent single sims in the 'hood (just not into coupling everyone up)
- There are always childless couples in the 'hood (it adds more balance and not everyone wants children anyhow)
- Some divorced or widowed elders move in with their adult children if they have grandchildren and seem a bit lonely (this tends to open up new story possibilities for the elders)
- Homes never have a television (as I'm not much of a TV watcher in real life and have no interest in watching my sims watch theirs)
- Homes never have a burglar alarm, functional vehicle (will sometimes use a deco one for aesthetic purposes), dishwasher or trash compactor ('cause Sim suffering)

That's all I can think of right now.


“Seize the time... Live now! Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.” ― Jean-Luc Picard
Mad Poster
#18 Old 17th Feb 2019 at 10:11 AM
I always break up Cassandra and Don. I've never had them marry, not even once. A few times when I was younger they'd have a child but then break up before the wedding or he'll leave her at the alter. Usually I'd set her up with Darren, but in my current hood I wanted to do something completely different so I set her up with Timothy Riley instead. She always has a good life either way, with a big family (Her third pregnancy was quads in my current game!). We have the same name and I have this weird supersticious believe that anything bad I have happen to her, will end up happening to me eventually - for example, her and Timothy had a glitch where they could never marry - just be engaged. I was briefly engaged to someone called Tim (which is why I set her up with Timothy Riley), but we broke up before the wedding. Now I'm just hoping I don't give birth to quads one day...

All sims have children. All. I don't want to waste genetics! I love looking at how different genes come into play and pass along through the generations. It's my favourite part of gameplay, so everyone will have atleast one child. Or if they're Carlos Contender, several, that they're not aware of (he thinks he got out of my "1 child" rule ). Angela will always get pregnant as a teenager, I'm not really sure why that is. Sometimes it's an accident, sometimes it's on purpose because she's under too much pressure from her parents... Lilith never does, and always lives a happy life (and usually runs away from home). Maybe it's because I was a little goth kid who was very defensive and didn't like the popular kids.

Crystal Vu will always become a playable character, usually so will Marsha Bruenig - she's a teenager in my current hood and has yet to be set up with someone, although I've found a few potential suiters. Also for some reason Ricky Cormier is always bi, Sullivan Buckingham and Sophie Miguel are always gay. I have no idea why. But they are. Always. Come to think of it... I don't think I've really seen Sophie about in my megahood, how odd. I think I turned her into an adult at some point and her days of stealing the newspaper are over, maybe she's busy with a job or something.

~Your friendly neighborhood ginge
Mad Poster
#19 Old 17th Feb 2019 at 10:31 AM
Quote: Originally posted by PenelopeT
- Homes never have a burglar alarm ... ('cause Sim suffering)

My sims always have a smoke alarm and if they can afford it, they get a burglar alarm too. This does not guarantee that emergency services will arrive in time to do any good.
http://www.modthesims.info/d/606911...er-amp-cop.html

I also use the "more dangerous fires" mod just to make things more interesting.
http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=6757

Each of my neighborhoods does have a sizable fire brigade though. If they do arrive in time, they'll get the job done. It can be quite fun watching the horde of firefighters pop out of the truck. Thanks to a really big fire, one of my neighborhoods now has eight of them!
https://simfileshare.net/folder/15677/
Theorist
#20 Old 17th Feb 2019 at 12:26 PM
Quote: Originally posted by bubble101
My favourite thing to play with is genetics and breeding my sims, but I also have same sex couples in my hood. Therefore, I have a storyline which restarts in every new neighbourhood. One Sim belongs to the custom Geneticist career path. If they get promoted high enough, they can open a fertility clinic for female sims to have children with eachother.
Male sims are a little trickier - the geneticist also has to work out how male pregnancy works. Therefore, they need to study a pregnant victim of alien abduction to see how it all works. They also need to reach the top of their career path before they are able to impregnate a male sim.
In my current hood they have reached all of these goals, and one of my Sims did run a fertility clinic. There have now been two babies born to a female couple and two born to a male couple. However, the geneticist has passed away and I don't have anyone else working that career path at the moment, so no more same sex babies until someone comes along and learns the trade so they can understand his notes. It was a lifetime of research for him and I look forward to seeing what his successors achieve!

I'm also considering making it compulsory to have a doctor in the hood to carry out the actual procedures in future. And making a few more career based rules because I quite enjoy having neighbourhood needs to fill - it's fun to have goals to work to outside of individual sims/households.


I love that idea. In my current hood I currently have some Aliens moving in (as in CAS created alien Sims I treat as extraterrestrial immigrants rather than alien-sim hybrids) and I was struggling with ideas for what unique aspect they could contribute to SIm society; and now I know it, one of them will spread alien technology enabling same-sex reproduction among Simkind
Do you use same-sex reproduction mods or do you impregnate same-sex couples with the pregnancy adjuster?

Avatar by MasterRed
Taking an extended break from Sims stuff. Might be around, might not.
Alchemist
#21 Old 17th Feb 2019 at 12:27 PM
Quote: Originally posted by RoxEllen1965

Each of my neighborhoods does have a sizable fire brigade though. If they do arrive in time, they'll get the job done. It can be quite fun watching the horde of firefighters pop out of the truck. Thanks to a really big fire, one of my neighborhoods now has eight of them!
https://simfileshare.net/folder/15677/


Nice mods. Is the fire brigade just more firefighters coming to the house?

Quote: Originally posted by bubble101
My favourite thing to play with is genetics and breeding my sims, but I also have same sex couples in my hood. Therefore, I have a storyline which restarts in every new neighbourhood. One Sim belongs to the custom Geneticist career path. If they get promoted high enough, they can open a fertility clinic for female sims to have children with eachother. ...

I'm also considering making it compulsory to have a doctor in the hood to carry out the actual procedures in future. And making a few more career based rules because I quite enjoy having neighbourhood needs to fill - it's fun to have goals to work to outside of individual sims/households.


This is brilliant. Are you writing the careers yourself? I do a lot with my careers to further plot, so I'm interested in how others might.
Mad Poster
#22 Old 17th Feb 2019 at 2:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Sunrader
Nice mods. Is the fire brigade just more firefighters coming to the house?

Yes. The bigger the fire, the more firefighters are spawned to deal with it, up to a maximum of eight (one for every 7 tiles of fire on the lot). The game should use any existing firefighters first and if they aren't enough, the game will spawn more.

I had an incident where lightning struck a backyard tree while the single playable was at work, but the rain stopped without putting out the fire. The dangerous fire mod made the fire spread even to empty squares and piqiwi's mod caused a bit of a delay before the fire truck arrived, so the fire had plenty of time to spread even farther.
Screenshots
Theorist
#23 Old 17th Feb 2019 at 2:05 PM
Quote: Originally posted by RoxEllen1965
My sims always have a smoke alarm and if they can afford it, they get a burglar alarm too. This does not guarantee that emergency services will arrive in time to do any good.
http://www.modthesims.info/d/606911...er-amp-cop.html

I also use the "more dangerous fires" mod just to make things more interesting.
http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=6757


To spice things up, I use those two mods as well, and a few months ago I'd posted a screenshot https://modthesims.info/showthread....690#post5449690 (with details about the mods) showing the devastating effect they can have.

It really does add some unexpected danger to the game...which I love.


“Seize the time... Live now! Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.” ― Jean-Luc Picard
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#24 Old 17th Feb 2019 at 6:44 PM
This is my image from using those two mods:


Even the fire engine caught fire!
Mad Poster
#25 Old 17th Feb 2019 at 7:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by simsample
This is my image from using those two mods:


Even the fire engine caught fire!

I literally snorted with laughter at this that's insane.
I'll always remember years ago when Seasons first came out and I had a nanny who would randomly combust every few minutes. Occasionally setting alight the kids she was looking after.

~Your friendly neighborhood ginge
Page 1 of 2
Back to top