Gameplay: How do YOU keep track of sim lifes?
LadyArgonna:
I have a green-cover 3 subject notebook. Each family gets three pages. The first page is sim name(s), aspiration(s), LTW, Uni grad (or not), how old (pencilled in), and a week tick mark. I play a week, Monday 8 am to Monday 8 am, give or take, so I can save the lot with no NPCs or visitors on it.
When the family spawns, I jot down what genetics expressed, what I named the tyke(s), and wether or not I bothered to get them trained in the three toddler skills. Children get a note of what other families their friends with, so I know who to invite over on Saturday mornings.
For my legacy house, which has the entire last section to itself, I note down all of the above, plot ideas, who I want them to make friends with (I have a PC vampire/witch husband and wife team who are in the process of stocking up their original supplies to open a witches' store.) and the heir choice system. I HATE the "vote for my legacy heir!11!!1" crap, so it's a simple system. They get a score based on how many Legacy points they earned from the time they were born till the time they graduate Uni and come home. Then I add a bonus based on how high their relationship is with their parents. Whoever has the highest score is the new heir. The second generation has five children, and so far Isaac (named after Isaac Asimov) is in the clear lead, with six points. He gets a bonus of 2 points for having 100/100 Bff with both parents.
This way, I have all the important stuff noted down, and recordkeeping takes me five minutes a game session, if that.
Gastfyr:
Really, the only families I have ever really tried to keep track of are my 3rd and 4th attempts at starting a Legacy Challenge. I wrote all these notes on scraps of paper and index cards that I kept in a drawer on my compter desk. My (real life) kids got big enough to open the drawer and so they pulled all the papers and cards out and mangled them and stuffed them under the couch and who knows where. 4th attempt at Legacy is still in Uni, so I can re-recreate any info I need on her, but I need a real score card or something.
But mostly I just try to play whichever family I feel like playing, and make sure that teen loves age up at the same time. I also use the Elixerof Life a lot, even (especally?) for teens.
vecki:
I use the LotSync timer to keep track of days played. If any new families are added, they get automatically bumped up to the same 'day' as everybody else. Colleges are played on the basis of 'one regular neighbourhood day = 1 college year' and are played in between the main Pleasantview and Bluewater Village, with teens moving to college with 4 days before aging to adulthood.
I use Family Echo to do my neighbourhood's family tree. Almost all of Pleasantview is currently connected, but there are a few that haven't married into the current families.
ElviraGoth:
Hmm, I guess I'm kind of in the middle when it comes to playing styles.
I have a sheet that I made in a drawing program when I first started playing my genetics 'hood. It lists the last name, then husband (or the sim that is the equivalent if they are same-sex), then wife, and then has places for up to four children (name and gender). The info I keep on them is astro sign, aspiration, job, skin, eye and hair colors. I haven't started giving any of them secondary aspirations yet.
At the bottom of this chart are blank areas below the parents for various notes (such as whether they turned elder or when they died) and below the children's info is a Mon-Sun tick-mark area. As I play a day, I put in a tick mark for that day, and if a sim got married I'll put an 'm' by the tick mark for that day. Also "pg" for got pregnant, and when there's a birthday, 'p' for preschool (toddler), 'c' for child, 't' or "tn" for teen, and "c#" (like c1 or c2) for college/child number. But I don't note which one grew up on which day. When there are 4 tick marks I'll put a line under instead of through the other 4 for the fifth Monday (or whatever) so I don't obliterate my other notes and put any 't' or "c#" notes beside it.
When a baby is born I note its name, gender, skin and eye color. At the transition to toddler I write in the astro sign and hair color. At teen it's the aspiration. When they get a job as an adult it gets entered.
I also may note what other sim(s) the children seem to be attracted to for later possible marriage/partnerships. And in the column below where I note their gender, I also note if they are a twin.
I have three charts on one 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper and print it on both sides so I don't have an encyclopedia-sized notebook in front of me! I keep families together on a sheet and have dividers for each family so I can find them fast. My genetics 'hood is now well into its fourth generation, so I have a lot of sims to keep track of.
It also makes it easier to just transfer the info I keep track of into the "parent" info when they start their own household.
I had two user accounts, but got tired of having to keep separate downloads folders and stuff, so I took my second user account 'hoods and moved them into a storage folder. As I complete a round of each house, each 'hood, I swap the 'hoods I played with the 'hoods from the other account. So I have one storage folder for each account and move them back and forth from my sims2 folder to the appropriate storage folder. I also have a loose-leaf notebook of the genetics sheets for each "account".
I recently started using whatever the database I have on my computer is to enter the names and generation of the sims in my genetics 'hood so I'm not marrying any of the youngest of my gen 3 sims to the oldest of my gen 4 sims. And I can see at a glance who's married/partnered and who isn't. But I don't have anything in the database except names and generation. I thought about putting all the other info I track in there, but just haven't done it yet.
debbiedoo:
Spreadsheets.
I would perish without Excel. I use them to keep track of what little real life I have also.
Deb
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