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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 3rd Jun 2009 at 6:52 PM
Sim Levels: Who Are The Sims?
These are my thoughts on the simulation behind The Sims 3. I have not looked at the code. This is conjecture from observed game behaviour. There are several classes of sim in the game.

The Sims:
These are the little guys running around staring bewildered at doors, stairs, and toilets so that you want to pick them up and shake them until their little necks break and you toss them on the compost. They will take care of their basic needs (eating, sleeping, going to the bathroom) but they will not make any decisions on their own. They will not get a job, buy anything, get married without player nudging. They can fulfill promised wishes autonomously if the wishes can be fulfilled by an activity that can be autonomous—"Chat with Sim X," not "Buy a painting."

There are two sub-species of sim, active and townie. These two types have different decision trees. A townie sim is far more likely to autonomously visit a community lot. Townie sims don't have bills. Either type of sim can stumble into relationship and skill opportunities if they encounter another sim or a skill-building object as they wander around. Skilling does not seem to stick for townies. I have made two identical sims, placed them in two identical houses, and left them alone. The active sim slowly gained skills. The townie sim didn't gain any skills. But townies must gain skills or the game breaks. If only your active sims could gain logic skill, for example, after the first generation there would be no one to play chess with as all the in-play generated townies would have no logic skill. Perhaps townies just build skills slower. Or perhaps sims created by the game as adults and moved into the neighbourhood have some random skills.

Career Rabbit Holes:
Those buildings your sims vanish into during the work day are themselves sims. This is where decisions for employment of townies occurs. Each career rabbit hole has an ideal structure. The rabbit hole will recruit townies to fill holes in that structure. My journalist sim's boss, Victoria Andrews, never retired and one day dropped dead as soon as she stepped out of the building at the end of her day. The next day Cylon Sword (sorry, can't be bothered with the silly spelling) was a new co-worker at the bottom rung of the career ladder. Cylon Sword cannot autonomously get a job, but a career rabbit hole with a vacancy can scan the town and appropriate Cylon Sword to fill that vacancy.

I'll have to run more tests to see if townies gain skills while at work. They might not even be promoted. When my journalist sim got her job, Victoria Andrews was assigned as her boss. Victoria never advanced in the career, and remained my sim's boss even after my sim advanced past her on the career track. Cylon Sword did receive one promotion, but that first advance doesn't require any skills.

The Neighbourhood:
The neighbourhood itself is a sim. The big decisions such as marriage, moving in or out of town, and birth do not arise from the actions of the little sims. The neighbourhood keeps track of population and moves people away or in or creates babies to keep things within a predefined range.

Townie X and Townie Y cannot fall in love, get married, and have a baby. But the neighbourhood can decide a baby is needed and assign it to Townie Y. The neighbourhood can also decide it is time for a marriage and merge Townie X and Townie Y into one household. Or it could merge Townie X and Townie Q. There may be algorithms to improve the chances that events are assigned to appropriate sims (marriages happen between sims with good relationships, babies are given to young couples preferentially) but early evidence suggests it is completely random.
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Lab Assistant
#2 Old 3rd Jun 2009 at 10:07 PM
I like this post...I like to observe and play too

Earlier evidence suggested we would get pop up's e.g this sim is hungry click here to feed and that sims were capable of looking after themselves but whenever I take my sims to visit family and friends they all stand around not interacting with thier own house.

I have seen one bedroom houses with 4 townies living in there

The spawned babies are really annoying often with one parent at least have couples?

The funny thing is I have seen townies relationship panels, they have romantic interests but still get the spawned baby?

Quote: "The sun feels cold today"
Lab Assistant
#3 Old 3rd Jun 2009 at 10:33 PM
It really does seem random on the last count - I was playing a different family and when I finally visited the Goths for the first time, Cornelia had just died and Gunther had a 2 day old baby (by himself) named Eva (he was something like 86 - 88 days at the time). There are several young families, or at least younger than THAT around, so I was really shocked it assigned him a baby.
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