Sexual Preference Not Changed By Woo-Hooing?

[Ancient Sim]

I heard the harps play

I sometimes imagine I hear this sound sometimes in dorms, but I never know for sure.  I did come across one weird thing today.  I noticed that Don Lothario's son, Adrian (Romance), who I hadn't played in a while (I just can't because he's about to turn into elder and he's SO gorgeous I just don't want him to, but if I prolong it he'll be out of synch with all the other Lothario spawn) ... anyway, I noticed that his last memory was of having an affair with Brittany Upsnott (positive memory!) who is also Romance as I changed her.  He's engaged (and also in love with quite a few other Sims) and she's just started living with another Romance Sim (Castor Nova, changed him too!) who she's in love with, plus she has one other love.  She has no memory of any recent contact with Adrian.  Their relationship is 60/60 (him) and 30/30 her, so they're not even friends.  As I recall, she greeted him when he was passing by her house, so I'm wondering if there was some autonomous flirting or something going on.  I'm not sure what constitutes an 'affair' for someone who's engaged, but knowing Maxis' logic it was probably nothing more than a wolf whistle. 

[Brynne]

I know what you mean about not wanting to age the "gorgeous" sims. My avatar (that would be Joe, the hubby in that story), is of a character that has great-grandchildren. My families are all out of sync with each other! But I'm not aging him until maxis adds another age group, so he doesn't have to turn from a young, good-looking sim directly into a hunched-over old guy with an annoying voice. 

My Castor Nova is gay and married to Ashley Pitts!

[ZephyrZodiac]

I don't want to age any of mine!  So I don't - wouldn't be much good at a Legacy challenge, but then, I'm not really into competitions, never have been.

Cassandra Goth is very good at chasing after Romance sims she fancies!  In one version of my game, she was married to Beau, and in the Athletic career.  One day she brought Daniel Pleasant home from work (he'd had loads of elixir!) and leapt into his arms in front of Beau!   Well, Beau went berserk, and would have killed Daniel except Danial had more body points than Beau!

In my present game, she's in the police and for some reason always comes home with any Captain Hero around.  Ty Crewe, who's not only gay and married, but has three daughters (2 CAS, one his own after I treated him as female) and is very definitely not interested in females, but it made no difference to her, she followed him everywhere - even when he was pregnant!  She'd keep phoning up, or calling round!  She eventually took him home from work to her own house, and started flirting with him, got caught by husband Max and thrown out!  (He's a Fortune sim, and did very well out of it all, but he was still very upset!)

Family Sims are nearly always home-wreckers in my game!

[J. M. Pescado]

I had two sims autonomously develop crushes on each other a long time ago. It's the only time it's ever happened, as far as I know.

It could be one of the "bugged" interactions, like teach/play handheld/cheer up, none of which are supposed to be romantic but are accidentally flagged as such. The "No Random Crushes" fixes the teach/cheer up crushes, and the handheld fix eliminates the schizophrenia and handheld crushes.

It is, however, possible for sims to decide to autonomously flirt, but this is often quite rare as it requires a confluence of several traits which normally don't occur: First, a sim has to exhibit a gender preference (they don't come with one, so homemade sims never attempt it). Secondly, the sims have to be unattached. I've actually seen this happen once: Beau Broke decided to spontaneously and deliberately flirt with Lucy Burb during a wedding party. I saw it actually pop up, and paused the game, to look at it in confusion. And maybe X it out. Then I decided, "Nah, why the hell not?", and let them run with it. This is much more likely to occur with Maxian sims, however, for one reason: Maxian premades *DO* ship with a gender preference wired into them. Circe Beaker, for instance, amusingly enough starts out as a lesbian. I saw her do the "attraction" thing....at a FEMALE Romance sim. You can actually confirm this if you dig up a clean Strangetown in SimPE.

[Sandilou]

Circe Beaker had a lesbian affair in my original game with a barmaid; it cost her her marriage to Loki, who never forgave her.  Does Circe have a tendency to have twins?  She had 2 sets; with Loki and with townie Abhijeet Cho.

[Ancient Sim]

First, a sim has to exhibit a gender preference (they don't come with one, so homemade sims never attempt it). Secondly, the sims have to be unattached.

How strong does the gender preference need to be and what exactly is "unattached" in Sim terms?  If they are living with someone but not engaged, only in love, would that qualify?  What if they are engaged but not married?  I made two Romance Sims very strongly in favour of the opposite sex and threw them together, but all they did was talk.  Both are living with someone, one is engaged and the other isn't.  They had only encountered each other in passing (had a 0/0 relationship), but the male is 100/100 best friends with the female's live-in.  Not sure if that would stop them flirting with each other or not.  I think flirting is coded-in with some Sims anyway.  Not sure if I mentioned it here, but in my game Buck Grunt always flirts spontaneously with Jill Smith (maybe others too, haven't tested it yet) and it's the only time I've ever seen that happen with a pre-made Sim.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Keanu Broke flirts with anything in trousers that he doesn't happen to be related to!

[Oddysey]

I wish there were more configurable options in the game . . . like maybe two seperate power want trees for Rromance sims: one that was all about promiscuity, and one that was about romance but not kids. The "Have a child" fears would come up more for the second one; the first wouldn't really care. And multiple power want trees for Family sims would be nice: one that was about having tons of kids, and one that was more about having a larger extended family, so they would get more "relative gets married" and "relative has child" (I don't know why that's not a want that ships with the game . . . seems kind of obvious.) and wants like "Have/Be Friends With X family members". Heck, while I'm on the subject, having seperate "paranormal" and "science fiction" want trees for knowledge sims, and some more non-personal power wants (relative saved from death, self/relative saved from death X times, relative abducted by aliens X times, self abducted by aliens some obscene number of times, etc.) would be nice.

Also, it'd be nice to be able to pre-configure a CAS sim's gender preference. I guess they didn't put that in because they don't want to be accused of shoving the whole idea of having "gay sims" in peoples faces. They could have at least made a cheat code, though.

Is it even possible to hand-edit sexuality in game?

I think the WooHoo not affecting it thing is probably a combination of technical stuff associated with it being an object-based interaction and the thought that if a sim is at WooHoo level with another sim, they've done enough romantic interactions to define their sexuality anyway.

At least it's not binary. Maxis does seem to grok the idea that sexuality is a range rather than a "gay/straight/bi" choice.

[gali]

You can choose the sex preference with the SimPe. When you select the character (sim), You can set his/her sex preferences - equal/women/men. It a slider, which can be dragged wherever you want.

[Oddysey]

Yeah, I know. It's just a bit of an annoyance that there's no way to do it in-game. <sigh>

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, if you create a couple of gay sims who are married in CAS I've found that the slider is usually slightly higher for male preference.

[veilchen]

JM's romance modification seems to be taking preferences into account, at least in my game. Once I have committed a sim with the auto-socializer/romantic to a certain gender, they seem to lock onto that gender and the higher the commitment (crush/love etc.) the more fixed the preference seems to become.

I don't have many romance sims, perhaps one or two per hundred, but I have to keep switching their conquests pretty evenly, so that their hunting ground stays larger and does not focus on one or the other gender.

Ah, what do I know, I ususally make them do what I want anyway :D

G.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I would say about 40% of my sims are Romance Sims at present!  But usually I reroll their LTW to a career one, then the Woohoo with x different sims don't really matter, they are usually quite happy just fulfilling the Woohoo in Bed/Woohoo in Hot Tub wants!

[Brynne]

At least it's not binary. Maxis does seem to grok the idea that sexuality is a range rather than a "gay/straight/bi" choice.

There aren't any gray areas in my game. I make all my straight sims as straight as they can be, all my gay sims as gay as they can be. With simpe. I'm-a-poet-and-didn't-know-it.

Remington, the maid, immediately took notice of my male romance sims upon entering the house. I guess he "shipped gay". (The Maxian version of the age-old question of homosexuality: nature or nurture, shipped or trained). He and Alexander Goth are a couple, now. Alexander is one of my few middle-of-the-road sims. Only because I keep forgetting to set his preference higher in simpe.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, if you create a couple of gay sims who are married in CAS I've found that the slider is usually slightly higher for male preference.

If you create sims that are already married, they'll come with a preset bias towards their existing partner. Otherwise, they start out completely neutral.

[jrd]

My playable Sims are all SimPE-enhanced normal (damn Maxis for not doing THIS right, either).

For homosexual NPCs and townies there's the Cow Plant or buyable fire.

[Ancient Sim]

There aren't any gray areas in my game. I make all my straight sims as straight as they can be, all my gay sims as gay as they can be.

So, does the fact that you are maxing out their yays and minimising their nays mean that they will autonomously flirt?  Or do they still just prefer to have stupid pillow fights?

[J. M. Pescado]

Probably pillow fights. There's a ton of other conditions involved, such as that the sims involved must be unattached, and then it's just up to random chance. And there's an awful lot of very useless socials which tend to be preferentially chosen instead. Like kicky bag.

[Ancient Sim]

I tried the Romance function on the auto-socialiser last night (nearly laughed myself silly at "Romanticate").  Got Don Lothario to start romancing the Romance sim mother of his illegitimate grandson (who he didn't know).  He went from 0 to 100 daily using nothing but chat, bust-a-move and dirty jokes, with just one wolf-whistle thrown-in once they'd made it to friends status.  This was the person he had the crush with who gave him the affair memory I mentioned in my thread on the topic.  I didn't save it, was only testing it out, but it was interesting how he only needed that one actual romance interaction.  He concentrated mainly on busting his moves.

[ZephyrZodiac]

And there's an awful lot of very useless socials which tend to be preferentially chosen instead. Like kicky bag.

I get so sick of kicky bag!  Why do they always decide they want to play it when there's no room?  And why can't kids play?  It's a kids' game, for heavens' sake!  And I'd love to see kids kick a can (not the dustbin) when they're bored!

Is there any way of treating kicky bag in the opposite way to pillow-fights?  So that it can only be played outside?

[jrd]

Twojeffs has (have?) a mod for that. http://www.variousimmers.net/vsimforum/showthread.php?t=527

[ZephyrZodiac]

Thanks, I never noticed that one!  I'll go take a look now!

[Brynne]

There aren't any gray areas in my game. I make all my straight sims as straight as they can be, all my gay sims as gay as they can be.

So, does the fact that you are maxing out their yays and minimising their nays mean that they will autonomously flirt?  Or do they still just prefer to have stupid pillow fights?

My married sims autonomously flirt, or sims that have just woohoo'd. Usually if I get the ball rolling with a flirt or kiss interaction, they'll take it from there. Sometimes I don't even have time to queue the next interaction before they're already making out. But there's still an awful lot of annoying pillow fighting.

[ZephyrZodiac]

But can you get them to woohoo autonomously?  The flirting between couples I never had a problem with - the gay Romance sims are at it all the time (flirting, I mean) but they still have to be given the ok to woohoo!  And how many couples do you know who have to wake up, get out of bed and then relax ON the bed, before they can have an early morning woohoo?

And why the heck don't they get social in bed - after all they cuddle up to each other and talk to each other in their sleep?

[jrd]

I have yet to see an autonomous woohoo or makeout session with my Sims.