A sim with a LTW outside their usual pool (unless you have wfsanity installed), or a born-in-game child or toddler with any LTW other than Grow Up (under any circumstances) are signs that your 'hood is already pretty badly corrupted.

Sometimes I ignore LTWs and sometimes I don't -- depends on my mood, the sim in question, and the LTW. Numbered woohoo or lover wants pretty well never get filled or attempted, because of my personal feelings on the subject. That said, I do have a sim currently that I'm trying to fill one of those LTWs for, mostly because it suits her to try.

I use a mod that reduces all of the numbered LTW's to more manageable/sensible levels. I don't mind LTW's being challenging (and I certainly don't want all my sims to make their LTW happen!) but I don't like ones that are too extreme. I like them to fit in better with my game play.

In my prehistoric 'hood hardly any of the LTW's will be possible. The marrying off children/having X grandchildren will be unlikely to happen due to the shorter lifestage durations that I plan to use. The one about maximising all the skills is unlikely as no one tribe will have access to things to allow them to build all of the skills, and there will be no books available. I guess they may achieve the best friends/lovers/woohoo's ones but it's unlikely as there won't be many people around, at least to start with. And nobody will have (Maxis) jobs, and there won't be many pets, though I guess someone could achieve the 20 puppies/kittens one when wolves start being domesticated. But no, my prehistoric sims are likely to live short, relatively unhappy lives!

That sounds terrific.

Laura, would you mind linking that mod? I'm sure there are more people that would like it, seeing how many list those as their "not gonna happen".

Yeah, I agree the ones about dates are fairly easy despite seeming the opposite.

But the 20 lovers one, well, it's true you can make 20 best friends (which is not too easy to start, but fairly doable) and then go seduce each of them, one after the other, making sure they do not meet in the short time it takes you to seduce them all. But it's quite hard to fit such a thing into a decent storyline.
"Oh, he was a very nice friendly guy, but suddenly he became wildly promiscuous and all he could think about was whoohooing."

I must admit this is one of the LTW which I used to ignore, because of how hard it is to fit it in a story.
I currently have three Sims which rolled it in my game, and one of them is definetely going after it. But he's suposed to be a very seductive guy who hates commitment and fidelity. So. It fits him.
The other two, well, they also have a fair share of flirting and dedicate some time to it, but they also have some other interests which fit in their stories, so I don't think they have much of a chance of actually achieving it.

Honestly, the '20 Lovers' LTW is really easy if you have the right mods and have townies in your game. Just open up a brothel. I once had a Romance male sim who wanted 20 lovers and at first I used the matchmaker to get him three 'girlfriends'. That got both boring and expensive so I had him move in his lovers (it turned into a polyamorous relationship after that) and the four of them opened a brothel together. All got to 20 lovers very quickly, the family got extremely rich, and I only quit playing them because all the women got pregnant at the same time and I didn't feel like dealing with that...lol

I don't consider any of the LTWs "impossible" except for the owning 5 top-level businesses. Not that I couldn't do it, but one of my rules is one business per household. I'm not interested in playing owners of business conglomerates. I tend to see my player-owned businesses as being part of a specialized artisanal community sort of thing. Conglomeration is sort of anathema.

Other than that, I view LTWs as a guide. It's what the Sim wants, and I never reroll unless they get the 5 businesses one. Rather, I use the LTW to decide what they will do with their lives. If they want to max out a certain career, they'll go into that career but whether or not they'll reach the top is another thing. If they don't have a career LTW, they'll do something besides having a job to make ends meet. Whatever the case, there's no guarantee that they'll actually get what they want. There are a bunch of different factors that have a hand in determining that.

Also, I have a hack that allows any aspiration to have any LTW. It's recently-added and kind of fun in that I'll have Romance Sims who want to be City Planners or to marry off 6 kids and Knowledge Sims who want 20 best friends and Fortune Sims who want to woohoo 20 Sims. (And, like Roseblossom said, such pixels often end up employed in a brothel or working as *ahem* "escorts.") It's added variety to my playing, and I actually like LTWs that go against the Sim's grain, so I'm enjoying the hack.

Check out my post above, you only need to own one business to complete that LTW.

I thought so too, but after breaking out the aspiration adjuster and let them transition into children (toddlers) it was fine. The ones with mismatching LTW's are fine after re-rolling the LTW. My Hood(s) affected by this are OK and there isn't any other borked-like behavior going around in-game or by the Hood Checker .

However, if someone else were to try this method it may/may not work depending on other corrupting factors. But, you could still argue that my game is borked beyond repair, though it has made it through many a corruption scare. (Sorry to take this thread OT!)

Yeah, I know. But to me that's breaking the "spirit" of the LTW, you know? I'm more a "spirit" than a "letter" type of gal, if you know what I mean.

I do, it's just a loop hole for those who want to get the LTW done. A bit like how your sim can achieve the 20 woohoo want with only 10 sims, by doing one at home and one on a community lot. More the kind of thing to do in challenges where you have a set amount of goals to get through. The legacy challenge back when it was bare bones used to do those two a lot.

As far as I'm concerned, the only truly impossible LTWs are the ones CAS elders get that require them to be Adults to attempt (careers, getting more children born/married/graduated than they possess if they are female elders). However, I rarely chase LTWs - to me, they're more like dreams Sims have. Some Sims pursue those dreams, others are more dominated by other concerns such as family, hobbies or their immediate wants/needs. So most of my Sims don't get their LTW because it didn't fit in with choices that Sim (and/or I) made.

My sims must just get around, as I find most romance LTW to be quite easy to satisfy, often before they leave college

50 first dates, 20 simultaneous lovers, 5 top businesses are the worst, imo. I admit I had not considered the matchmaker for the 50 first days, but getting countless cheap dates and immediately ending them sounds to much like cheating and not very entertaining either. I guess my sim will try to date as many people as she can, but her lifetime want will go unfullfilled.

How do you deal with an impossible LTW? Do you re-roll it? Do you ignore it? Do you try it despite knowing it's not gonna happen?

The only LTW that I think are really impossible or just not fun to play are the pet ones like raising 20 puppies/kittens or having 20 pet best friends. I don't necessarily re-roll these, but I don't usually go for them full force either. I usually make sure that that sim is a pet owner and get them involved in other pet activities (training their pets, maybe owning a pet shop, etc.) depending on their lifestyle. Sometimes I re-roll if the LTW does not fit that sim's future life such as their expected wealth, their partner's goals, etc.

Free Time made it a lot easier with the aspiration points. Concentrating on the Sim's smaller daily wants, I was actually surprised when some of my Sims suddenly went platinum. Then I saw in a sim's memory that she had reached all her aspirations. She was not close to reaching her LTW, though! I found the 20 woohoos quite easy (my romance sim had lots of townie friends) but also rather boring. Concentrating on hobbies, though, although some seem to find it boring, I like my Sims to talk about their hobbies, and the more they talk, the sooner the genie lamp turns up anyway. I've never used any mods to ichange or alter a Sims's LTW (I am not fond of mods in general, use only about five; it takes the challenges out of the game for me). Most of my Sims are in platinum and I am ad at killing them or letting them die, so they are drinking Elixir of Life like alcoholics.

Mods are not just things that make play easier, they can also make things harder. No 20K handout, halved wages, slower skilling, slower aspiration gain are some I use. There is also doubled bills and I'm sure others.

You're using the wrong kinds of mods if you think they just remove the challenge! As joandsarah77 said, there's plenty to make things harder. And then there's one's that enhance gameplay without actually making it easier; I'm think of things like useable guns, working surfboards, same sex pregnancy/marriage, female pregnancy for alien abductees and teens in the adoption pool here. And then there's annoying-critical fixes that are there to stop your game from exploding. Annoyance fixes to stop sims going "ooh, what's this?" over every new thing or to stop them congratulation everyone for making a friend. Moderate fixes to make the Bon Voyage maid work properly and to allow teens to use the massage table and to stop sims leaping back and screaming "watch out!" whenever they step on a driveway to work on the restorable car. And then there's the game breaking fixes no-one should be without. Creaturefixes to stop the vampire biting Mrs Crumplebottom. Nounlinkondelete to prevent character files being shredded by deleted/vanished tombstones. And the Batbox. Always get the Batbox. Don't hate on mods, is what I'm saying. They offer a whole lot more to the game than simply making things easier.

LTWs are probably the least satisfactory aspect of my game. Going by the ones the game rolls, loads of my Sims are never going to achieve them. With only Double Deluxe (Base Game plus Nightlife and the Celebration Stuff pack) my Sims have a very limited selection of LTWs, and most of them are career ones. My Romance Sims only have a choice of 3 LTW's: reach the top of the Slacker, the Athletic or the Culinary career. The 20 woohoos and 20 lovers came with University, so my romance Sims never get them. In my totally escapist island 'hood there are only Romance Sims, and all 29 of them have one of these 3 career-oriented LTW's. Since it is totally escapist, none of the playable Sims ever go to work, so their LTWs are all impossible!

Even in Veronaville, which is played by more sensible rules, Bill McBain, a Pleasure Sim, wanted to reach the top of the Slacker Career, but he kept rolling wants to stay home from work. So when it became necessary for someone to stay at home to look after the baby twins, it was Bill who gave up his job (that he never wanted to go to) and his wife Jenny who kept hers. So Bill's LTW has also become almost impossible. In my game, it seems it's only the Pleasure Sims who can get the LTWs for dates. Carol Howe, the female slob wants 100 (not 50 -- at least according to SimPE) first dates, while the current male slob Avri Lawson wants 50 dream dates. Their standards of personal hygiene however makes them somewhat unattractive to other Sims, so both their LTWs seem unlikely. The original slob, Craig Royce, who is now a playable, wants to marry off 6 children, but he is currently single and probably gay. Add in his personal hygiene problems and paucity of friends, and his LTW too seems almost impossible. Then, why do the nicest and gentlest Sims all want to be master criminals? That includes Tricou kid Ravi Bertino, the gentlest Sim in the 'hood, and the ever-helpful Julian Moltke with both parents in the police! I'm trying to clean up Veronaville, so I don't let my playables take criminal jobs.

So, all in all, loads of my Sims have unrealisable LTW's. Since I usually play with aging off, for the most part I just ignore the problem, and hope I can sort it out one day. But, as I think you all know now, I do love my Sims and want them all to be happy. I'd rather they didn't die at all, but if they must die, then I want them to die in platinum and in extreme old age. So I really want them to achieve their LTWs and become permaplat; then I don't have to worry about them dying on a day their aspiration has slipped into the green.

I feel that trying to play all my Sims to achieve their Maxis LTWs would be like a straightjacket on my game. For example a choice of only 3 careers for all Romance Sims is just ridiculous. It's not much better for the other aspirations. I really want more variety.

I was very interested in a thread at the turn of the year where some Simmers described manually administered LTWs, and how they manually make their Sims permaplat, when this "virtual LTW" is achieved. I think I'll modify this system for my own use. For Sims in jobs, I could treat reaching the top of whatever career they're in as their LTW. This could include custom careers. I could also make the 20 woohoos and 20 concurrent lovers LTWs available to my Romance Sims, and I might add another of "Make out with (say) 30 Sims, which they could start working towards in their teens. I also could make the 50 dream dates and 100 first dates available to Romance Sims as well as Pleasure ones -- Romance Sims do enjoy lots of dates. And I could go the whole hog and create completely new LTWs to suit individual Sims. The only disadvantages I can think of are administrative. I'd need a small database or something similar to keep a note of my Sims LTWs, and I'd have to keep track on them being achieved to know when to change them to permaplat. Where the Maxis LTW does suit the Sim (like my Gloria Jones in the Athletic career) I'll leave them alone.

Sorry for the very long post. Now, having described what I want to do, it only remains for me to go ahead and do it!

The "Become Criminal Mastermind" LTW that you, like so many people, find the Tricous come with is a glitch. That isn't even a viable LTW for a Pleasure sim - Fortune and Knowledge only! I don't know what caused it, but it's easy to fix - batbox, "Reroll LTW."

Bill's LTW is not impossible. He just has to get the job again after the kids don't need him at home anymore and before he turns elder. A lot of people behave as if LTWs have to be completed during adulthood; they do not. Careers can be maxed by elders, without any mods, as long as they get the job as adults.

You spoil your sims so much, I wouldn't worry about them dying unfulfilled, anyway.

Thanks Peni. I've changed Ravi's LTW by cycling through until I got to 50 Dream Dates, which suits him perfectly as he's already had 4. I've also rerolled BJ Shaikh's (the Tricou Goth) to Professional Party Guest. The other Tricous are still Downtownies so their LTW's aren't urgent. In making these changes I noticed that in the game the LTW is 50 First Dates, so calling it "100 First Dates" must just be a mistake in SimPE. 100 really would be verging on the impossible!

Bill's problem is that he never wants to go to work! If I gave in to his frequent wants to stay off work, he certainly wouldn't reach the top of his career!

I know I spoil my Sims, but I love seeing them alive and happy! :lovestruc

True. but I'm also not a fan of making things harder for my Sims. I'm not anti-mod, I do have a few (five, to be exact).

The majority of mods I have aren't for making things easier or harder. They're for fixing stupid stuff that EA broke.

I don't hate on mods - I have tried a whole bunch of them and settled for the five I can't live with I have the No Mrs Crumplebottom one, so no vampires can bite her since she's not there. I have the cancel make bed interaction one (cause that irritates the hell out of me). I don't want my females or teens to be abducted by aliens, I already have 34 damn aliens by male knowledge sims, so I don't need anymore. I don't delete tombstones, so I haven't encountered that problem yet, because I like the ghosts. I also regard the no pickpocket one as vital. I live in the mountains, for years we had no proper internet access, so I've played the game without mods for years. Maybe I am just used to it. I tried Inteen, for it sounded promising, but in the end all those Sims having to be put on birth control just drove me over the wall. So my teens can wait until they grow up for I have quite a lot of fun with them without any mods. And, to be honest, I don't even know what the Batbox is! Yet my game has only crashed twice, once when the whole pc crashed and then once after I started putting in mods.

Nobody is telling you that you have to have more mods if you don't want to, I think they just wanted to inform you that there are many more levels to mods than making the game easier, and that many of the mods are about keeping your game safe.