Em's Random Sim Pics and Projects

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I've been trying to make time to have family members visit and maintain their relationships.

I like to do that, too, especially with the grandparents.

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I just noticed it looks like Drake's kissing the baby's eye and she does not like it.

I guess I don't blame her.

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Peter is delighted to see their beloved family pet is still alive.

I love that picture!

I like the redecorating. Their house looks comfortable and inviting.

Andre does look serious. I hope (since he IS Enrique's son) that he is very serious about his wedding vows.

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Big sister, Frances photobombed their engagement photos.  But I took the picture anyway, because she's just so pretty.

 She is!

Alice is gorgeous, too. I love her hair.

Mac, spaghetti and meatballs can be romantic.

Cher64 wrote:

Mac, spaghetti and meatballs can be romantic.

Especially if they're ca-noodleing!

I don't remember if I actually threw a wedding party in this case or not.  Sometimes I just invite people over (invite household works well for family groups) or teleported them in.  Either way.  I just leave them to their own devices for the most part and watch the activities.  In this case, with the tiny apartment, there wasn't much to move around once everyone was invited.

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I love that picture!

Me too!  Sadly, after I redecorated, the cage got moved upstairs and neglected and Pandy died.   But I was surprised at how long that little pet lasted.  I can't remember if it was Frances or Alice who was the pet lover as a child and rolled the want for it.

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Andre does look serious. I hope (since he IS Enrique's son) that he is very serious about his wedding vows.

So do I!  I need to go back and look at his memories, because I forget what his romantic history is now, but he's seemed fairly stable and reliable.  I have written down that he's a family sim, so I have a good feeling about him being faithful.  His twin sister on the other hand . . . is a romance sim.  So she may end up more like their dad.

Maybe Enrique's sons aren't going to follow in their father's footsteps.  His youngest son, Javier, also decided to get married to his girlfriend, Elyse.

After graduation, they decided to get their own place together.  This tiny little house was all they could afford.  (This is the situation for most of my new graduates.   I'm making them make their own way in the world.)  There's not enough room for a wedding there (they can barely afford a wedding arch) so they have to hold the ceremony outside.



Elyse is actually the one who pops the question.  (Because she was probably the one with the engagement want.)  His siblings and her mother are the sims in the background.  They must have been invited over to witness the happy event.





I didn't take the time to plan their outfits, so they married in whatever random formal wear they already had.  They were coordinated though.  I guess purple was their color of choice.  



It also must have been a sunset ceremony as it got dark while they were exchanging their vows.  (Either that or it was a very long ceremony.   )

I actually played my game this weekend and did almost an entire rotation of my sims.  I need to go back and play the sims that are still left in the apartments.  I tend to neglect them and they're falling behind.   I'm still way ahead of the pictures I've shared and I'm not sure where I left off.  I hope I don't repeat anything.

My youngest sims in this generation have all graduated from uni, so I moved the ones who weren't definitely paired up on to a lot together so that they could sort themselves out. Some of them weren't having an easy time of it.  I should probably have a spreadsheet to keep track of all of them . . .

Clark (son of Addison and Elena) is finding himself torn between two sisters, Jolene and Jana (daughters of Johanna and Johannes).  He and Jolene were a couple in high school, but he started to notice Jana in university.  It looks like he's leaning towards Jana at the moment.  He accepted her request to go steady (but has a red memory for it.)



And he seems to be committed enough to turn down Jolene's advances, at least sometimes.  But he's a romance sim, so we'll see how long it lasts.  



Amelie (daughter of Anais and Enrique) has her eyes on Clark too, but he's not interested.



Clark's older brother, Jack, who was also involved with Jolene in the past (and apparently, she's still into him), is reunited with Debbie, his "foreign exchange student" friend from high school.





But she's maybe not completely over her university crush, Silas.



Silas is a romance sim though, so he's showing no signs of commitment.  I've caught him kissing Alexandra (daughter of Jade and Stefan)



And newcomer, Lina.  (One of Ari's sims, I believe).



But just to keep things complicated Lina is into Craig (Ming and Drake's youngest child).



Craig tried to make a move on Octavia, but she wasn't interested.  She still has eyes only for Aristokles.



I promise these sims do settle down eventually.   It's just taken them awhile.

Awhile back I decided to make a huge family tree of all of my sims in this neighborhood, because I have fun doing that sort of thing.  It's caught up to my current gameplay whereas my pictures here aren't, so it does give away who ends up with who.  And my sim families are interconnected enough at this point that I managed to fit all of them on one family tree.  They aren't inbred yet, but they're running the risk of it if I play many more generations beyond this without a lot of new blood.

Em, I don't know how I missed your post before this one.

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Maybe Enrique's sons aren't going to follow in their father's footsteps.

Maybe they've seen how that can affect family life, and they want to do better. We can only hope!

Javier and Elyse have the kind of starter that I remember having for my first house -- small, but sufficient. I like to have my Uni grads make their own way, as well. I have a mod that prevents them from getting the $20,000 starting money when they leave Uni. They get a proportional amount of money from the dorm or house they've been in, so they don't lose everything if they've been working or otherwise making money somehow, but they don't get a ridiculous windfall just for becoming adults.

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they married in whatever random formal wear they already had. They were coordinated though. I guess purple was their color of choice.

I particularly like his choice in formal robes.

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He accepted her request to go steady (but has a red memory for it.)

I guess he's a little conflicted about it, huh?!

Clark must be one charming guy; all the girls are crazy about him.

I like the look on Jack's face when Debbie and Silas are getting rather too cozy for comfort.

Lina has fabulous hair; that's all I can see of her. I must say, you could do a lot worse than marry into Drake and Ming's family. All other things being equal, that would be a powerful reason to go with Craig.

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Maybe they've seen how that can affect family life, and they want to do better. We can only hope!

Let's hope! Enrique has settled down quite a bit as he's gotten older. He's finally learned how to gracefully reject other ladies' advances.

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I have a mod that prevents them from getting the $20,000 starting money when they leave Uni.

I have that mod too. It's more fun to make them earn their own way and work their way up. I also have a mod that prevents sims from inheriting money when another sim dies of old age. I'm not so fond of money from nowhere in the game. (IRL would be another story though...)

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I particularly like his choice in formal robes.

He's such a playboy.

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Lina has fabulous hair; that's all I can see of her. laughin I must say, you could do a lot worse than marry into Drake and Ming's family. All other things being equal, that would be a powerful reason to go with Craig.

Oops, I didn't realize I only got pictures of her when her face was otherwise occupied. You can see Lina here. She's Miss October 2013. I think Craig is a good choice. Better than Silas who seems to have enough ladies to choose from.

How about some happy settled couples now?

Stephanie (daughter of Jade and Stefan) and Oswald (by Elle) are college sweethearts that continued their relationship beyond graduation.



Oswald decided to surprise Stephanie with a proposal as soon as she came home from work one day from her entry level architecture job.



(I don't know what the random blond dude's problem is. He needs to butt out. At least they don't let him ruin the moment. They have eyes only for each other.)



They move into their own little starter home and rent a wedding arch.





I really love Stephanie's random formal outfit. It's perfect with her hair and eyes. She's probably one of the prettiest sims in this challenge, if not the prettiest.



Her parents are still romantic after all of these years. A fact that their other daughter, Alexandra, finds totally embarrassing.



Another happy young couple is Patrick and Ava's son, Liam and a random sim who was already living in this hood before I started the Offspring challenge, Venus. Her dad was an alien I made in CAS for Chase when he was interested in my game and she was the result of his alien abduction.

They first had a baby girl, Valerie.



Then, with his proud parents present to witness the happy event, Liam decided to propose to Venus and make their family official.



Family was invited. That's Liam's brother Erik and his wife/girlfriend, Marina. (I can't remember now who is older, Liam or Erik.)

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I really love Stephanie's random formal outfit. It's perfect with her hair and eyes. She's probably one of the prettiest sims in this challenge, if not the prettiest.

I agree with every word.

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A fact that their other daughter, Alexandra, finds totally embarrassing.

The look on her face is perfect!

I really like Patrick in my game, and I guess it transfers to the Patrick in your game. It makes me happy to see how happy his son is with his new family. It's easy to see who Valerie most resembles.

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I really like Patrick in my game, and I guess it transfers to the Patrick in your game. It makes me happy to see how happy his son is with his new family.

That's what I've liked most about this challenge.  Seeing the same sims in other people's games that I have gotten attached to in my own game.   I never got into the premade sims, so this is different for me.

I know I haven't posted in ages.  But suddenly I feel like sharing some pictures.  (These are really old, btw.  Not recent gameplay at all.   )

A few posts up had Clark in romantic entanglements with multiple women.  He finally ended up setting down with Jana.







They're really cute together.



Let's hope it lasts.  I don't know how much faith I have in Clark though.



Shortly after their wedding they had a baby girl, Clarissa.



Marina and Erik also tied the knot.



Their family showed up, but didn't pay much attention to the ceremony.  



Their toddler son, Martin paid more attention than the grown-ups did.

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These are really old, btw. Not recent gameplay at all.

I'm pretty far behind in my posting, too. I'm so glad to see you, and that you're posting game pics again.

Poor Jana, I fear Clark's instant regret is not a good sign. Clarissa is cute; her eyes are gorgeous.

I've been to a lot of boring weddings, but it's never occurred to me to start playing a game of kicky bag! At least Martin cared and seemed happy enough about it.

It always seems to be the mother of the bride or groom that gets up to those shenanigans too.  I don't know what that says about the type of mother-in-law they're going to be . . .  

Forgive me if I re-post pictures.  I try to move pictures I've shared to another folder, but sometimes I skip around to share things that go better together and skip some that don't need sharing, so I lose track of what I've posted or not.

Octavia has some news for Artistokles.


She has a rough time with her pregnancy and I have to rush to find someone to plead on her behalf.  Luckily her father/guardian, Beck, saves the day.  I promise her brother Silas was crying his eyes out about her collapsing in the other pic I took just a moment before.  Yeah, that food right next to her smells really good, too bad she couldn't have eaten it a little sooner.  Beck's pleas are successful and she survives.  I think she's still pregnant in my game now.  I think I'm trying to get her and Artistokles to roll up some marriage related wants for each other.  It's been awhile though, so I can't say for sure where they stand.


In the meantime, Beck finally proposes to his girlfriend, Bethany.  She had a negative memory of it for some reason, even though I thought she was a family sim (or at least had an aspiration that wasn't incompatible with family).  I can't remember where I left off with them either.  I know I had them move into their own apartment together and I thought they'd had a baby, but I don't see any photographic evidence of it, so she may still be pregnant.


Tempest got married to her beau, Jayden Heartbreaker.  


They had a baby girl named Autumn.


Autumn became a really cute toddler.  Since Tempest is much older than Jayden, this is the only child they'll have together as she's approaching elderhood.


They still live in the duplex next door to Tempest's best friends, Ciara and Adam.  Unfortunately the other couple hasn't hit it off well with Jayden.  Adam has started to warm to him a little, but Ciara hates his guts.  I have to lock the doors now to keep Ciara and Jayden from constantly fighting with each other.

Thank goodness for Beck and his awesome pleading skills!

Autumn is really cute; she has a sweet face.

I have to laugh at the feuding neighbors; I haven't had that happen to such an extreme amount. That's some look Jayden is giving Adam.

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I have to laugh at the feuding neighbors; I haven't had that happen to such an extreme amount. That's some look Jayden is giving Adam.

It is trying.   Ciara seems to be the main instigator and it's a shame I have to lock her out because she and Tempest are such good friends.  (I guess it's kind of a true to life situation though.)

I got it in my head last week to start another Royal Kingdom Challenge, but I decided to share it on my tumblr.  I'll keep posting my offspring stuff here when I get a chance to browse through my pictures again and try to remember what happened that long ago.  

My tumblr is here if you want to see what I've been up to with that.  I've set up a queue so that it posts one post a day for now.  I might end up increasing that as I've gotten pretty far ahead of myself.

I've also heard that photobucket is eliminating free 3rd party hosting so I'm going to have to rehost all of the photos on my blogger sites where my sim stories are located.  Hopefully all of my pictures here will be okay since I use the photo upload tool from the forum.  But if anyone else here uses photobucket, you might need to check out their new terms of service.  

The tumblr link takes me to a log in page.

That's not good news about Photobucket; I've used it for most of my posted photos. I started using Flickr in Puerto Rico because of how I had to get photos from my phone to my Kindle to a forum. The problem with Flickr is that I couldn't figure out how to get it to just post the photo, no matter what I did. I ended up just posting links. I may try it out here and see how it works using the forum upload. Thanks for the heads up!

Oops, wrong URL. I thought for a minute it wouldn't let you see it without an account, but I fixed the link. It should take you to the right place now.

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The problem with Flickr is that I couldn't figure out how to get it to just post the photo, no matter what I did.

That's a nuisance. I was having problems like that with some options I was looking into. I'm trying to figure out what I uploaded to photobucket and what I uploaded to Servimg that the forum uses. Some stuff may turn up missing. So far my photobucket pictures are still showing up, but who knows how long that will last. I heard that photobucket is going to charge $400 / year for the plan that allows you to link pictures on other sites which absolutely insane. The ads on their site have gotten awful too. I hadn't logged in for ages until a few months ago and I was absolutely shocked by the number of ads. It was almost impossible to navigate.

Thanks for correcting the link. I've been reading away. That's an ambitious project you have going on. I like building a bit, but I think I'd be overwhelmed if I had to build every lot in a hood. You've done a great job of setting it all up. You were smart to eliminate some of the family ties in the merchant family. I once had a neighborhood that ended up all related to each by the third generation, and that was that.

That butler is just a bit creepy! In Sugah's Pleasantview, Marco Tsang is the butler for multiple households. The maid is the same for all households with a maid, but there is more than one nanny. I'm not sure how that happened!

I love Amalia Smith's hair. Poor Jenee -- as if she had any kind of real chance with Prince Anton. I also got a big laugh out of the Queen falling asleep at the table while visiting.

I can't wait to read more!

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I like building a bit, but I think I'd be overwhelmed if I had to build every lot in a hood.

I was getting a bit sick of building, especially in the upper classes. I started leaving some of their rooms pretty empty or sparse. The lower classes were simpler. I just did quick box houses that weren't too difficult.

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You were smart to eliminate some of the family ties in the merchant family. I once had a neighborhood that ended up all related to each by the third generation, and that was that. laughin

A few times I've started neighborhoods with only 8 sims and tried to see how far I could go without adding any outside sims. It takes some really carefully breeding and if you have all one gender you're in trouble. One time, I think at the third generation, I got stuck because the only sims that weren't first cousins with each other were the same gender. I ended up breaking the family ties between the Farmer sisters too, so the only ones that are still siblings are the Potters. I'll let them marry townies if they want, so that will help too.

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That butler is just a bit creepy!

He's kind of a ineffectual too, but I'm not sure if I've posted that part yet. He might be out of a job before long if he doesn't shape up.

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I can't wait to read more!

Thanks for reading. I got really ambitious over the weekend and I currently have 14 posts in the queue that will automatically post each morning. (If I get much farther ahead I might have to double that, but I'm already slowing down. )

Wow, my last post here was from two and a half years ago and I'm still playing the same Royal Kingdom Challenge neighborhood.  I don't know if it's really an RKC that I'm playing since I have my own loose rules I play by.  I have four classes, Royal, Noble, Merchant, and Peasant, each have their own rules and restrictions.  For example, the Royals and Nobles go to university when they are 8 days from adulthood (it's an abbreviated university with 4 semesters that are 48 hours each), they children and teens go to (usually private) school, they can use aspiration reward points, and they get an annual allowance based on a point system.  I want them to focus on socializing and skilling and not be required to work, but I decided to allow sims of any class get a job, if they roll the want for it (which I do not lock) and it shows up in the paper.  I think of it more as a hobby for the upper classes or some field of interest they are really passionate about pursuing.

I have one Royal family who rule the neighborhood and three Noble families.  Inheritance of the throne and households is matrilineal because the first sim that came up in CAS when I was creating my royal couple was female.  The uppper classes are color-coded for their dress and household decorations.  The Royal family is purple, the Burgos family is red, the Cade family is yellow/orange, and the Durden family is green.  (Their names were randomly generated so it's funny they happen to be together in the alphabet.)

My original royal couple was Queen Lilliana and her husband King Anton.


They had seven children together, twins Rosalin and Florian, Violette, Oliver, Hyacinth, Dahlia, and Petunia.  Rosalin is my current queen and she just became an elder the last time I played.  The youngest, Petunia just left university to start her own household with her new husband and their young child.

From left to right are: Prince Florian, Princess Violette, and (now) Queen Rosalin.  I think in this picture they were all young adults visiting home from university


Prince Oliver and Princess Dahlia


Princess Hyacinth (who is not wanting to listen to her big sister Violette in this photo)


And Princess Petunia as she was first starting university.

Sounds like a combination of Sims2 and RPG. I'd be interested in the limitations on the merchant and peasant classes. Is it possible, if difficult, to move upward, and can the nobles conspire against royalty?

There was a version of Sims3 called Sims Medieval - did you ever try it?

The Merchants and Peasants are uneducated. I use the SimLogical school controller to keep the kids from going to school and they do not go to college. They started out with less money at the beginning and I do not give them an annual income. They don't get aspiration rewards, except I will let family sims get the ability to make comfort soup. They don't have hired help like butlers, maids, and nannies.

The Merchants run businesses. My original merchant families each had a home business. Later I decided I needed more merchant families, so I recruited some townies to join the merchant class. They live in apartments (because I didn't feel like building so many more new lots) and run community lot businesses. Generally they don't have traditional jobs because running a business is time consuming, but some of my merchants have gotten married to townies that already had jobs, so I let them keep their jobs.

The Peasants live in apartments and primarily fish and garden for food and money. I have let a few of them get traditional jobs, but generally try to avoid it. They have the advantage of having a landlady to do repairs, but they have to pay rent. This was the original lot my Peasants lived on, so all four couples and their children could be in a close knit community, but those lots were too small, so I ended up building a different version and as the second generation started to grow up and start families of their own, I had to split them up between multiple apartment lots.

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Is it possible, if difficult, to move upward, and can the nobles conspire against royalty?

Yes, it is! I came up with a point system that I put into a spreadsheet. It takes into account birth rank, household wealth, aspiration points, reputation, skill points, badges (for merchants and peasants), number of best friends (and the rank of their best friends), number of enemies, and (for merchants) business rank. If they reach a certain value they can move up in rank or if someone ranks higher than the queen they can challenge for the throne. So far no one has had more points than the queen, so that hasn't been an issue. But I have had a couple of peasants who were bumped up to the merchant class. There are a couple of families (one noble and one merchant) that should be demoted, but I haven't figured out what I want to do with them yet.

I heard of the Sims Medieval and it looks interesting, but I've never had the chance to try it.

Spreadsheet!!! I wonder just how many simmers beside you and me use spreadsheets for their game.

BTW, at one time there was a guy working with me who helped to develop Visicalc, the killer app for the Apple II that started the whole personal  computer phenomenon. He later worked for Lotus whose spreadsheet program was put out of business when Microsoft included Excel in its Windows software. That was the end of Lotus, a software hi-tech outfit that didn't become a multi-billion success.

So cool, Em! I really love your ideas about your point system and the possibility of moving up in class. I once played a medieval game where classes could move up that was based on the Medieval Charter Challenge. I also think your peasant apartments are a fun and unique idea. Hyacinth is really very pretty. And seven kids! That's one busy royal family!

I would totally have gotten into using a spreadsheet for my game if I knew how to use one. Sounds quite helpful.

Sims Medieval isn't a bad game, but it is a lot different than Sims 2. I did an in depth review here once upon a time. I haven't reinstalled it after that first time I played, many years ago. Part RPG, part Sims, but not enough of either for me.

This might be the first sim neighborhood I've made a spreadsheet for.  I've kept text notes or paper notes before.  I've been using a lot of spreadsheets lately, for my game, for work, for keeping track of my finances.  For my game I have one spreedsheet file with several pages, most are just lists, so it's pretty simple.  I just type the information I want to keep track of in the boxes, like a table.  Once in awhile I'll get fancy and play with graphs or calculations.  On the points sheet I set it up to add rows of numbers for me, but you could also just add it with a calculator and type it in if you wanted to.

I was surprised my royal family found the time to have so many kids, but all of my founding nobles also had 6 or 7 kids.  The second generation of sims born in game has been smaller.  I installed inteen so that my young adults would also have a chance of getting pregnant and it also has a miscarriage option.  I'm not sure if that's why I've had mostly smaller families lately (with a few exceptions) or if my sims are just busier with other things.

Here are my noble families.  Lady Samantha Burgos and her husband Sir Cristobal also had seven children.


Their oldest daughter, and heir is Laurel.


Next are Beatrix, Elodie, and Brett.


Here's an elderly Samantha with her youngest daughters twins Valerie and Cora in the back, and youngest daughter Cynthia in the front


Lady Claudia Cade and her husband Sir Errol had six children.


Trevor,


Erin (the heir), Elaine, twins Claudius and Lorenzo, and Clarissa.


Lady Lady Eloise Durden and Sir Lucien had six children.


Twins Nicolette and Nolan.  (They're still teens here, just about to start university.)


Montague


Lyndon, Kara  (as teens, since it was the best picture I found)


and Jonathan (with a townie)

Em, I really like the detailed setup you have for the classes and their ability to move up or down in status. Like Ari, I would totally love to use a spreadsheet, but I have no idea how to set one up! Instead, I take copious notes while I play.

The families are all nice looking (and I installed a ton of defaults to make sure all of my sims would be!), but the Durden family in particular caught my eye.

Do you have disease mod installed in your game to make it easier for sims to die of The Sickness, or make it easier for disease to spread? I know many people do, but I'm not sure I want to risk losing sims to something other than old age.

Such big families! I love the name Claudia Cade - it sounds so regal. Durden is a nice name, as well. I've always loved the name Laura or Laurel - those are some of my favorite female names. Isn't it fun playing an RKC and going down the list from the royals to the peasants? The playstyle is so different.

Cher - I have that mod - but I don't leave it in all the time because it's brutal. I've had it kill entire families before, even when I do my best to keep them alive. Most of the sims that get it (in my game anyway) die from it. I even played one game with it in where I quarantined the sick people to a separate household to either die or recover - but none of them made it.

If you don't need formulas, using spreadsheets are pretty easy. You just type the information you want to keep track of in boxes. What would you want to keep track of if you had a spreadsheet?

The main spreadsheet page I use is a timeline, where I put the days in the rotation in the first column, then I have columns for the births, deaths, marriages, and college move-ins and move-outs that happen on those days. It just gives me rows and columns to keep everything lined up. I have another page where I try to keep family trees. That one is harder to edit and still keep everything aligned.

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The families are all nice looking (and I installed a ton of defaults to make sure all of my sims would be!), but the Durden family in particular caught my eye.

Thanks! I have some really good looking sims coming up in my next generation. Some of the Cades have suffered in the looks department since Errol had some extreme features.

I do have the disease mod, but like Ari, I don't leave it in all the time, because it really is too much. It's supposed to make it easier for sims to die from sickness and harder for them to recover, but I found that no one ever recovers. Brutal is definitely the word for it. I use a 3 day season mod in my game and I play each house for one season at a time. It works well for me because it makes it easier for me to keep track of who I've played each round and that everyone is progressing evenly. And playing each household for three days at a time seems the right length for how I play. The last two rounds or so, I've put in the sickness mod just for the winter season. By the end of the 3 days I'm more than ready to take it out. But after playing the other 3 seasons without it, I'm usually ready for some randomness to shake things up again. Sims definitely do die with it installed. So if you don't want them to die from anything other than old age, I would not recommend using it. The last winter season I played I kept a death count. I fed my sims as much comfort soup as possible, let them plead with the Grim Reaper about half the time, and still lost several sims that round.

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I love the name Claudia Cade - it sounds so regal. Durden is a nice name, as well. I've always loved the name Laura or Laurel - those are some of my favorite female names.

Thanks! I think they were randomly generated names, so I can't take too much credit. I'm glad you like the name Durden, sometimes I'm not sure that I do.

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Isn't it fun playing an RKC and going down the list from the royals to the peasants? The playstyle is so different.

Yes, it really is! It's kind of like playing two or three different games. There's always something to keep it interesting. Lately my upper classes and lower classes have felt so isolated from each other, it's felt like two separate neighborhoods.

Only my upper classes had such big families. My merchants barely had a second generation. Each merchant family only had 1-4 children. And the ones with more than one kid either had twins and/or children taken by social services for neglect. My peasants actually did a little better and had 3-5 kids each with none of them taken away.