Aging Settings in TS3

[Whitnerd]

So I usually just play with aging set to the default setting. This is what I like best for my Legacy-style playing. In my new neighborhood though, I'd like to play rotation style, but I feel like the default setting just isn't long enough for this.

So I was wondering, does anyone here play with different aging settings in different worlds? Do you just have to remember to switch them every time you want to play a different world? Is there a tool for this that I haven't discovered yet? An add-on to the Master Controller or something? Or more importantly, does the game already do this and I'm just not aware of it?

If I must, I'll write a script to swap the Options.ini or something, but I'd like to know what other people do.

[Jessica]

Oh, thank you for openining this thread, Whitney! I'm always struggling with this. I play three different worlds with different aging settings.

• I have one world (Storybrook County) in which I play several families in rotation, like you want to do. When I started playing like this in another world, what I did was set Aging "off", play every family in the rotation but the very last one on the list, and turn Aging "on" again when playing that last family. That way, everyone aged exactly one week and when I went back to family nº 1, I turned it off again.
  
  I then moved my families to another world (this happened a couple of times, actually...) and I started using Awesomemod's configuration file to set the aging to TS2-Style (I don't use Twallan's SP because it makes my game lag a lot). However, AM's TS2-Style has been broken for a while, so I have been using Buzzler's Aging Manager. Please let us know how you set up your world in the end and how you manage the rotations! How long are you planning them to be in sim-days? If you wanted to turn aging on permanently I guess you would have to calculate the days in the aging span depending on the number of families you play and such...
  
• In Moonlight Falls, I'm playing with aging off for the time being. No stress, no rush, no one ages.
  
• In Pounawea, as I am playing a challenge, I'm using the time span specified in the rules. It's mostly the "Long" timespan with a few changes.
  

As for your question, I don't believe there is a way to adjust aging settings per save, though that would be cool... there could be a way I don't know of, I guess. Unsure.

[trystiane]

I have separate Electronic Arts folders for my worlds, so I can individualize the settings for each one. It does mean you have to update all your mods and downloads and such too, but I like the control.

[Whitnerd]

I was thinking that I might use the "Long" lifespan setting and then switch families every two weeks to start, and then make adjustments if I feel like they need to be made.

Thanks for sharing, Jess. The idea of turning aging off until the very last family of the rotation cycle is a kind of a cool idea. I was hating the idea that I would leave a young adult to play a few other families and find them an elder by the time I got back.

Karen, I was tempted to do that, especially now that I have this new computer with a nice big hard drive, but I don't if I want to bother. So what do you do when you want to play one? Do you have them all in the same directory, but change the name when you want to play it?

[Theachen7]

Aging setting confuse me a bit. It's ok for my normal hoods, but I can never decide what I want to with the hood(s) where I play multiple families.

For now in Winchester I've played with Twallan's SP's Sims 2 Aging, which I think I'll go back to as it's working well. My las play session I'd turned normal aging on (although with a longer life span than default), because I started to fear running into my old TS2-problem of people aging at different speeds because I can't play rotation if my life depended on it. I have to play the family I feel like at the moment, if I have to much system I get bored and stressed
Anyways, I suddenly got the message that people had inherited Michelle Birch's stuff, and I got really sad that she'd died without me (not sure yet if she actually did, as the next day I got the "won't be around for ever spend time with her"-notification. A couple of toddlers grew up as well, but as I'm not that much of a micromanager I think I'm ok with that.

I think that on those occasions that I'll need to have global aging on because my hood needs to "move forward" a bit as it were, I'll just have to turn aging off on those families where I know I'll have something come up that I don't want to miss.

But I agree with Whitney, that playing with aging of until the last family seems cool!

[Jessica]

Thanks girls, I read about that method elsewhere and it sounded good to me. The only problem is that if someone ages in that week, you will miss their birthday, but oh well... the game's not really designed for playing several families anyway.

The problem for me is that it takes forever to play everyone for one week. It depends on how many families you actually play of course, but having few families makes the world seem empty. Do you girls have "background" or townie families?

The aging issue is very frustrating indeed. Like I said, it's one of the things I always struggle with in this game. And now we have seasons to take into account too!

[Theachen7]

In my Winchester hood I have several families, and although I haven't created anyone specifically to be background or townie, there are certain families that I really enjoy having around but never really get the urge to play. So I suppose they're sort of like townies to me.

[trystiane]

Yep, I just rename the folder for whatever world I feel like playing in.