Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Scholar
Original Poster
#1 Old 18th Jul 2021 at 8:57 PM Last edited by Florentzina : 19th Jul 2021 at 3:12 AM.
Default Maintaining future Population (Global playstyle)
Ive seen plenty of threads regarding save size and avoid getting bored with the save, but not many about global or rotational gameplay which doesnt involve moving them to different worlds.


I'm more of a fast global kind of gamer where I focusing on genetics and passing it through multiple generations, instead of just playing one or a few specific families. So I tends play through ALL families where I age up them when needed, kill sims on occasions and choose pregnancies and marriages, but let them skill, pursue careers however they want as long as their age progress at same rate.

But unlike TS2, TS3 seems to be very sensitive when it comes to overpopulation, an issue I usually get by generation 3 and the save game tends to become corrupted by 5th generation even if I only played technically a few sims weeks. Every sim tends to have at least one child and start at early age (late teen and young adult. sometimes I randomize it), so a family can have 5 generation living in same save unless I kill them off. Which I did with 1st and 2nd generation in my current save.

Now, I currently have 244 playables (about 160MB size save) where 130 are sims from 3rd/4th generation which Im looking for pontentional mates. The 1st and 2nd generation had 2-5 kids each and I play ALL premade of the Sunset Valley (including townies) where it was about 100 playables. Cassandra, the daughter of Mortimer and Bella Goth has turned Young adult and has her first child. But when her children has grown up, the game tends to throw errors so Ive to restart the world every time SV reach 5th generation.

So I wonder, other than moving them to a new world - how to keep a save runs smoothly pass the 4th and 5th generation, has anyone does it yet while playing most playables?
...which doesnt seems to a big thing in TS3...

Other than killing them off, Im consider having most sims have just one pregnancy (like China had 1 child policy), but that is a bit hard when Im always tempted to give them more when they remarry or have family related traits or LTWs.

For reference, I only play with Nraas mods when I micromanage the families (story progression and master controler) and reduce some erros with the overwatch,error trap etc.

Advertisement
Mad Poster
#2 Old 19th Jul 2021 at 1:41 AM
An alternative to killing sims off or having them move to Traveler mod connected worlds within the same ongoing game is to embrace SP's emigration feature . It does move sims out of your world to destinations unknown and they become unreachable for further gameplay, but it doesn't kill them or destroy family trees in the process like deleting them in other ways might. Since emigration is totally shut off by default, you have the luxury of deciding which sims are subject to it if you so choose such as by using the "-1" trick as described in the FAQ linked to.

This not might be what you had in mind either, but you have a bathtub (your world). The faucets filling it are births, adoptions, and sims you add or move in yourself along the way -- counting playable residents only here. The drains are deaths for any reason, moves to other worlds, and emigrations (and I suppose deletions if you use Total Annihilation by habit). If the drain rates do not keep up with the faucet rates, then overflow is bound to happen and what changes is only the pace at which it does.
Scholar
Original Poster
#3 Old 19th Jul 2021 at 2:21 AM
My only concern with immigration is it might be harder to micromanage their aging which is one of the things I priotice in the game, because I dont like immortality or sims are alive in another world but their descendents has passed away.

I use Total Annihilation on service and animals only and Ive disable immigration and minimize the register and traveling as far I could (like no paparazzi because I dont use celebrities).

The ones I tends to kill off (with Force Kill) are the older generation (to prevent having 4th generation alive at the same time) and once a generation I roll a dice to create variety to the scenarios (where they have second chances or misfortune) because I dont like playing a "Disney" where everyone gets a happy ending. I prefer a more "semi-realistic" sim world where crime, teen pregnancies/miscarriages and deaths exist.

The only time I dont like killing them is with out any other reason than to "cull" the population. In TS2 I used to have 1000 playables (uberhood) but I find that harder in TS3. Im not sure whats the population size that TS3 can handle, but its usually when its 250-300 I try to downsize the population.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 19th Jul 2021 at 2:33 AM
It depends on the world and various other factors. I've never played a world with over about 270 resident sims and even then I would say that game performance got very iffy. We used to have a longtime member at NRaas, was around since the beginning but we haven't seen him in quite a while, who played with over 800 residents. It was a labor of love for him and he had a computer system that would be the envy of most medium sized countries' defense departments at least by 2011-15 standards, but honestly it sounded like he spent more time maintaining that world than actually playing it. But he certainly enjoyed it for many years.

I would say for most players who use the more typical tools and maintenance routines, the limit beyond which performance will begin to suffer noticeably especially with any form of story progression running would be 175-200 for some worlds but more like 250-275 for others. We can't really compare resident populations and resulting performance to other iterations of sims games because TS3 is the only one that has the open world to simulate and, at least as far as I understand TS2 and TS4, again TS3 is the only one that even attempts to progress/move forward more than just the currently played household.
Scholar
Original Poster
#6 Old 19th Jul 2021 at 3:06 AM
Nitromon. lol yeah, my previous laptop crashed a few month ago and I didnt install TS3 until recently, so Ive not been active on MTS for a while.

It seems like my main concern when it comes to Error 12 was number 2) the family tree. I had a habit of having "father to many children" scenarios where several males had 10+ children but each women can only have 2-3 unless being family oriented. So the family trees were huge by the 5th generation. I might reconsider setting family level to 6 on MC and just have default. I didnt know Family tree could use so much RAM. My laptop is average Intel i3 with 8 RAM with big harddrive but TS3 plays somewhat smooth (as long I keep other processors and program off. I exist any unnecessary programs before starting the game).

My sims lives up to 90s "realistic" years (1 Day = 1 Year) where elder is 60 to 90 (65 where I retire them so I want to be live a bit longer), but then use Random.org and MC to remove days of their lifespan so they pass away at different ages. That was my solution to Elder aging - having their Days left randomized and manually adjust it with Master Controller.

I plan to create a personalized pregnancy circles and risks where I roll when they can have a pregnancy and whether they keep it, abortion or die from childbirth or cant have more children etc But Im consider doing "China" route with the families I dont care much about. The only annoying thing with this is that I end up having many extra single males (I dont play much LBGTQIA because I want realistic pregnancies). Only idea is have some of them die from military and criminal scenarios.

For animals and off world, because Im focusing on genetics and generation, I choose to disable it with this safe, where they are not allowed to have pets or traveling .... to reduce bloating. I did play university and immigration before and it really bloated the save file ..... along with deleting (total annihilation) service sims.
Scholar
Original Poster
#8 Old 19th Jul 2021 at 3:17 AM
Yes, I changed a setting which suppose to show more levels, but Im not sure if that does anything.

Now Im gen 3/4 but have a few 5th generation being born as well. They have children at different rates so sometimes Ive uncles and nephews in same age. So that makes generation counting a bit tricky. I tried to delete the older generations before, but ended up messing the family tree of the living sims because they lost their relation (I tried to kill off the 1st gen parents in Sunset valley, like Bellas parents because she was close to elder in my previous save, but she lost her family relation with her siblings). I allow cousin/inlaw/stepfamily romance, but I still like them having it displayed as family.
Field Researcher
#9 Old 19th Jul 2021 at 3:38 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Florentzina
My only concern with immigration is it might be harder to micromanage their aging which is one of the things I priotice in the game, because I dont like immortality or sims are alive in another world but their descendents has passed away.


World Adventures tries to handle that by updating everyone's ages as soon as someone visits. That doesn't keep things updated in real time unfortunately.

[Next time I get too many old people in a save, I'm going to Traveler link to a world set up as a massive retirement community. Congrats on retiring, Grandpa! Enjoy moving to Florida. We'll come visit sometime, promise.]
Scholar
Original Poster
#10 Old 20th Jul 2021 at 5:24 PM
Oh well... seems like this save also is having a RIP moment as well. I dont get Error 12, but I ended up with regular "no warning" crashes which I rarely get normally.

Because I use MC aging cheat, the save only lasted 5 real life days of playing and Sim week 3 so I suppose no big deal. So I think I will have a stricter population control because the game cant deal with 250+ playables in a long run. I deleted some of the deceased sims as well as the 3rd generation sims but that didnt help. I feel that the Save size is one reason it become playable. Now its 190MB. It often crash by 200MB.
Scholar
Original Poster
#12 Old 25th Jul 2021 at 5:27 PM Last edited by Florentzina : 25th Jul 2021 at 5:43 PM.
I just wanted to add an update. I was playing around a little bit and searched on here. '

One thing I wasnt aware about was KureeĀ“s Save Cleaner with reduced a gen two population 80MB save size to 50MB! (Changing their appearances plus using some CC seems to quickly bloat the game )I think that program is gonna help the save last a bit longer. Also I decided to total annihilate the service and townie sims and just play with the residental premades.

Currently Ive speed up and on "Year" 30, halway from my first borked save and the save size is around 60MB with 130 playables and beginning of Gen 3. The population increase about 70 sims each generation (but culled down with death rolls). Cassandra has been "reborn" and now a child.So the whole fiddling with new saves doesnt take that long time to fix, fortunetly..

My orginal save lasted to Year 60 (I use Nraas MC and Tagger to keep track of their ages plus spreedsheets), beginning of 5th generation. Lets see if this save will now last beyond that with help of Save Cleaner and a smaller population. The average kids per adult is 2, with a few having mroe, while a few had only one child. I still use my death rolls because I find it more realistics when sims dont all live to their 90s.

The only con with a smaller founder population is that the families become quickly related to eachother with tons of step-relations and in-laws. Oh well, as long its not incestious sibling/parent/grandparent relations I fine with that. Ive a game rule where i dont allow townie/npc/new cas added to the breed pool. only the founders. To see how far it will go until everyone is related to eachother.

Nitromon: I can play about 4 real hours per session and save about every 12 sim hours before the game get tired from it, but everytime the a save frequently crashes when sims aging up or Error 12, I give up and start over.
Scholar
Original Poster
#14 Old 25th Jul 2021 at 9:30 PM
I just tends to use Nraas MC Total Annihilation and remove them from time to time so I dont feel NPC is going to be an issue. Most of the time its gets to 40-50 sims.

Assigning residents would be a bit tricky because I age sims up. Today I technically played 3 sim days but the time that passed was 10 years. Now on Year 40 and end of second week. (So I feel my playstyle is a bit different. I just play to see the generation. I dont bother much with the rest of their sims life. Watching them eat, study etc makes me bored).

Used Kuree, the save size is 65MB and population is about the same (the last sims from 2nd generation are aging up to teens+) due death and pregnancies even eachother out. The service is 44 which I delete maybe twice a sim week.


One thing that bugs me thought.... the wild animals. I tried everything - put a max population of 5 each, disabled pets in the global settings and disable pet adoptions --- yet there are over 30 pets that can be seen through MC population view. .
Mad Poster
#15 Old 25th Jul 2021 at 10:35 PM Last edited by igazor : 26th Jul 2021 at 1:58 AM.
Quote: Originally posted by Florentzina
One thing that bugs me thought.... the wild animals. I tried everything - put a max population of 5 each, disabled pets in the global settings and disable pet adoptions --- yet there are over 30 pets that can be seen through MC population view. .

Can't say for certain without investigating them individually, but possibly the MC filter is picking up animals that populate slots in the adoption and horse breeding pools. These sim animals never materialize or progress, they are just tiny bundles of data not doing anything until someone adopts a pet by way of the invisible shelter or breeds a horse at the Equestrian Center. If this is who they are, then they like other Service Sims that aren't really being utilized all of the time wouldn't be adding any measurable overhead to a game.
Scholar
Original Poster
#16 Old 25th Jul 2021 at 10:49 PM
Igazor.Yeah, I think the adoptable horses are from Equestrian Center, because after using max population on both SP, MC and Register, I dont see any animals in the actual world except for one Unicorn (which I adjusted to allow to happen) and MC show 20 of those. The dogs and cats seems to the ones that just called "wild" cat/dogs.

I dont play much with the Pets expansion pack (debating whether to keep it installed, but I use some of the other items and might use later after I gone bored with my generation experiement) so I find it a bit annoying because they are seens as singles child and adults when checking the population.
Back to top