I'm working on a world in Create-a-World, and I want it to be pre-industrial. What I want to know is if it's possible to get around using only equine and not have any roads or vehicles. I know I'll have to spend some time playing the game, but I'm really tight on time right now and would appreciate experienced Pets players sharing their impressions with me...

Thanks

Yes, I've had several game saves where the only mode of transportation for my sim(s) is by horses.

Great...so I can do it..Thanks! Anything else I need to be aware of, like glitches or horse routing issues?

It's the Sims. Of course there are horse (or anything moving) routing issues. I've seen my horse and sim run the jump course in the park and suddenly appear on some hilltop across town.

Still, I can't think of a reason it couldn't work. I've used my horse at times in place of a car around AP just fine (a little slow, but not terrible).

The sims you're playing won't have any issues... though, of course, you always have to direct em to get onto the horse. I don't think a sim will ever use a horse autonomously for travel, which means the other sims in the town also will not be using horses to go to work, school etc. Not sure if they'd walk or just stay home.

I had forgotten about that. Maybe there's a mod out there to fix that?

I'm sure it can and will be done. You've also got to be aware of this, though: Sims won't autonomously ride a horse unless they have riding skill. Even if they own a horse. So you could add a horse to every household in town and they still wouldn't use it. *rolls eyes*

So, yeah, someone needs to make a mod that gets rid of the stupid riding skill issue and advertises horses as a means of transportation.

Yeah, I was wondering about the work thing. When I use Awesomemod to switch households, I've noticed that the game sometimes will stabilize things. Like, if the unplayed sims go out on the town all night, they will be magically caught up on their sleep when I switch back to them. I'm hoping their careers and jobs will behave in a similar fashion...but it's definitely an area of concern.

Well, you basically have to use a no cars mod (that simply makes cars unattractive to sims so they rather walk) or, if you want cars in your game but want your simmies to ride around town rather than drive you have to find a way to advertise it to them. I believe this can be done by editing some XML or the other, at least that's what I seem to recall for cars. Basically, sims will do a target->distance check and the XML defines whether or not the distance is too far to walk. Now, that's where the riding check needs to be performed so sims don't run to the target but rather mount up and ride there. I don't know if it's harder than that as I haven't checked the files.
I kinda imagine it takes a little more effort than that, though, as you need to tell the game going to work/entering a rabbit hole is a valid riding interaction and it needs to dismount sims on their work lot and probably tie their horses to a hitching post, too, unless you want them to run around town like crazy. ;P

Edit: Oh, and the hitching post needs to be modified, too, in order for this to work as your simmies will spend many hours at work while your horsie suffers motive loss waiting outside. So we'd have to make a hitching post that keeps their motives balanced while they wait.

I think some xml tunings will be needed, yeah. I'm going to have to put the map into play to determine which ones, most likely. I need to do a bit more height compression on the lowlands first, to help stabilize the routing, and so people have some flat lot areas.

Actually horses use the hitching post autonomously to eat and drink when they need to. If you had a way to force them to stay there as opposed to going home when they get bored, you'd be fine.

Yup, I was mainly thinking of their exercise need. My horses just want to run, run, run and get frustrated very quickly.

I do have a cop in my neighborhood who is an NPC - and he rides his horse a lot without being told to do it.
Seems it's always bareback... I think the last name is Hobble.

He's got the equestrian trait. I suspect it has to do more with that then with simply owning a horse.

This is a great idea! I'll have to keep my eye out for mods that can help this happen. The horses are my favorite part of the game

Thanks out to zhyzathn & Zokugai for inspiration...I'll look into giving all the inhabitants the equestrian trait. Probably Awesomemod would do it, and still leave 5 traits open. I may need to come up with a mod or tuning for their children, though.

Dragonshy, you can follow my progress with the 'View My Journal' link by my name. I have a slide show posted at the bottom of my 11-27-2011 entry. I'm going to try to update the slideshow at least once a week and give it it's own spot at the top of the Journal.

Thanks all

Woohoo! I'm checking it out for sure! <3

It has nothing to do with traits. Sims may occasionally autonomously ride their horse if they have enough riding skill to operate the horse at full speed, as determined by a random chance tunable. Horses, however, are not like cars, and therefore it is very difficult to teach a sim to use their horse as a vehicle. The process is currently being explored in AwesomeMod, however: Supreme Commander currently has rudimentary horse-handling routines that will allow a sim to use a horse if available, and a Supreme Commander For Horses that will tend to keep the horse satisfied and keep it from wandering off so you can't use it.

The ITUNs on this have the following:

<Change type="TraitEquestrian" advertised="200" locked="True" actual="200" updateType="ContinuousFlow" timeDependsOn="False" updateEvenOnFailure="False" updateAboveAndBelowZero="Either" />
<Change type="TraitLovesTheOutdoors" advertised="200" locked="True" actual="200" updateType="ContinuousFlow" timeDependsOn="False" updateEvenOnFailure="False" updateAboveAndBelowZero="Either" />

This is used to attempt to push sims with these two TRAITS to ride horses (if they have one).

One of the XMLs has this:

<kLevelForUsingHorsesAsPreferredVehicle value="0">
<!--Range: 1 - 10 Description: Minimum Riding Skill Level for Using horse as preferred vehicle-->
</kLevelForUsingHorsesAsPreferredVehicle>

Which almost implies that horses are supposed to be sort of like CARS.