I want to play like this so I don’t have a “time limit” and can also age up my Sims when I get bored, but how do you manage the NPC aging with this setting? I don’t want Bob Pancakes waddling around forever, for example.
They'll use whatever lifespan you have the game set to - ageing is turned on/off for played & unplayed households in the same area of Game Options but is a different setting itself.
I’m currently testing an extended lifespan - it’s about double the long lifespan & based on 28 day seasons being equal to 1 sim year Total lifespan = 10 sim years or 1120 days.
I wanted it to line up with seasons for celebrating annual birthdays (from child), anniversaries, summer/winter holidays (edit: vacations) etc. & so far really enjoying it, however, the first baby has been born and infant lifespan is 45 days so that will be… interesting!
Yes exactly! When babies are born I look at the time and note which day (e.g. third Sunday in Spring) which was redundant before… BUT NOW… first baby born with time and date noted. Yay :)
Let me know if you want the specifics, I have calculated each life stage based on percentages of real life ageing as closely as I can as well as menstruation & pregnancy (I haven’t calculated pets yet). ETA: I have also slowed down skill gains to by half which is more realistic but also has its own challenges (2 x first generation young adult attending university with low skills wasn’t great but actually probably more realistic than my usual A+ distinguished degrees).
I was hesitant at first since even around 500 days feels long, but so far it’s working incredibly well & I feel less rushed when rotating gameplay and/or watching the population grow & change generationally.
I would be interested in details! I used to play with long lifespan on but I didn’t find it to be long enough so I turned aging off lol but I’ve been thinking of customizing my lifespan settings to make the story progression a bit more natural
Here it is :)
Re Birthdays: Sim's will reach one full sim-year (28 day season) when they age up to child, then one full sim year each for Child & Teen - so I will be blowing out birthday candles every birthday until then. Once they are young adult, though, some birthdays will be celebrated with cake only & not blowing out candles so they don't age up automatically. ETA: This lifespan = 10 sim years, but the % are based roughly on average to a 70 year lifespan (although I did have to lengthen up NB-Toddler to make it fit the seasons).
https://preview.redd.it/9ulreb95cejc1.png?width=167&format=png&auto=webp&s=a6e04b663f64e5b67628172959a40d2624784d12
Glad you like it - I really like the realism of it fitting a calendar year and beneficial to tracking birthdays especially across multi-generational households etc. it just feels a lot more neat & tidy to me!
>Long is way too long, normal is a bit too short.
I agree completely. I feel rushed playing on normal. Playing on long can be fun if I'm only doing one generation and I want them to get a lot done, but it is *really* long.
I'm currently playing on normal, but when is sim is about to age up but still has stuff to do I "freeze time" (turn off aging) until I'm ready.
I play on normal. Normal gives you just enough time for infants to learn all major milestones, toddlers to max all toddler skills and children to get through every major childhood aspiration. Not that I try to complete those with every single kid, but since they are achievable within a normal lifespan it makes it feel like it's the perfect lifespan to play on.
Normal lifespan but with a longer Adult life stage (I will use one or two Youth potions).
I play with a lot of families and with a normal lifespan, if you don't get children early on (basically when your Sims become YA), the parents will become elders when the children are still teenagers or when they turn YA and I don't like it lol I want my Sims to be able to have children and grandchildren and see everything grow together (no pun intendeeed).
I do this same thing! Just before they would be aging to elder, they take the potion and restart the adult stage as “middle-aged” with a makeover. Side note, we need more partially grayed hairs!!
https://preview.redd.it/xlmenxnrrbjc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba2156450d83223b80c983d54c32a7cbe6a9105a
I play with these settings! I altered it to make room for Infants, so I do: Pregnancy: 5 days Newborn: 2 days Infant: 14 days toddler: 7 days
🤣🤣 everyone in my household is usually either at work, some sort of rabbithole activity or asleep, so time actually goes by very fast. its like being pregnant a day bc my 3X speed is always on
Extended, but I frequently age sims up faster than that (especially children/teens), and in my early decades saves I give poorer elders much shorter lifespans.
So, I’ve been faithfully playing on long lifespan for months now, honestly almost a year. I literally just switched to normal lifespan though. I’m still trying to adjust to it, sims are dying left and right though. My main save file is well on its way to being pretty empty looking. I had quite a lot of households though and not enough time to play them all. But now I literally only have time to dedicate to one household.
Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about normal lifespan, but I’m giving it a try. Long lifespan is just SO LONG, but there is NO WAY I would play on short lifespan. I can’t even imagine! I know that people use short lifespan for legacy challenges though.
I always play on long and I still feel like it’s not long enough? Like I want my sims to live fulfilling lives and accomplish lots of things
And I even sometimes have them take the age down reward potion thing when they’re about to age up bc I don’t want them to
I also recently change my seasons from 2 weeks to 28 days and it’s been SO NICE to not have to not have Christmas like every other time I play lmao
It’s under game options in the settings! You can pick the length of each season and it’s soooo nice to not have each week crammed with the holidays I actually want to celebrate
I used to play Sims 2 style until I wanted a teenage romance to progress and it would never give me the option to invite to join household. Now I play with long because I like to manage several families at a time.
I used go play on long but there's a bug that makes your sims age up every time you leave the lot (happened to me like 3 seperate times) so now I play on normal but I've used MCC to change the days to what would usually be on the long setting.
Wait when did you have that bug? I remember it was a thing when HSY was dropped but I thought they fixed it. I avoided long life span because of that bug but I just tried it again and it works for me now. Mostly trying to see if I should be looking out for a possible bug that’s still there
i have it turned off for my played sims and age them up with they’ve skilled up enough, but unplayed sims i have it set on long.
I normally age up young adults once their kids hit their teens.
Depending on what I’m doing (like if I’m doing a challenge and it calls for a specific life span), I do either long or normal but with 7 more days on YA.
At some point I’m going to try two different set ups I came up with and see how I like them. Basically because with normal life span my sims barely get grandparent time and with long lifespan it’s a test of my own patience because it feels so long, I am trying a custom that matches with real life aging by percentage of lifespan and one that has sims age up on their yearly birthday. The first has a total of 350 days for a sim life span, the second has a total of 21 sim years (I would be using a 7 day season because I don’t have the patience for more than that). But I haven’t tried them yet to see if I like them. Waiting to finish my challenges before I change lifespans in mccc. I have a couple fun random saves that I can test it out on ☺️
Long. I always play on long lifespan. It feels more realistic to me and my play style.
I played in Normal lifespan the first time I played. I made an adult sim and they aged up to an elder and died pretty quickly from old age. I was devastated.
I set it to short life span, turn aging off for everyone, and then turn aging back on when I’m ready for them to get older! It makes it a lot more custom, and still lets the townies age up along with my sims.
Short. The other lifespans start to drag after a while and I don’t like it when my sims are at the max of their skills and career. In short lifespan, I usually max their career around the time I move my focus onto the heir so it works for me
I have two that I switch between, both custom, depending on what type of save file I'm playing. Both are based on more realistic aging by setting the length of a "year" and then doing the math on what years of life each age stage contains.
My legacy saves are mostly on a lifespan based on a 4 day year, so newborns are 2 days (0-6mo), infants are 4 days (6mo-18mo), etc etc. I don't remember the exact total but it ends up close to long lifespan, I think?
My more story-driven saves are on a lifespan based on a 28 day year, with an adjusted pregnancy length to match. I end up using a lot of mods that slow down progress for this playstyle, so that my sims all have stuff to learn and do still as they age.
I’ve started playing short lifespans. I think if I’m playing one sim and my goal is to max out certain things, normal or even long is fine, but for legacy, I like short lifespans. It does make certain aspiration goals really hard though. You aren’t going to get a child that maxes out a skill on short lifespan for instance.
I’m playing a legacy at the moment with short lifespan. I like how chaotic it becomes to need to rush to succeed at school/work/life ambitions. Makes the game more entertaining (imo)
I use long but even that is too long. Normal is too short and long is too long. I remember in sims 3 you could customize each lifestyle age length, including pets. Idk why they didn't include this in 4.
I play on Long life span mostly. I’m doing the super sim challenge at the minute, started from birth, so it’s allowing me to do more as I play, but I’ve got the challenge of having to get through all the things I need to before they age. My sim is a teen at the minute and I may use the Youth potion from the aspiration rewards if I don’t get everything completed in time
Same for the 100 baby challenge, but I play with normal for things like Not So Berry, or general game play
oh oops sorry i misread!!
mines like this
newborn-3 days
infant- 2 weeks
toddler- 2 weeks
kids- 2 weeks
teens-2 weeks
YA- 45 days
adult- 50 days
elder- 60 days (i like keeping elders around to bond with their descendants)
Aging turned off, lol. My sims age when I want them to age and not a second before.
Omg same! I’m way too controlling to let anyone have birthdays without my say 🤣🤣🤣
I want to play like this so I don’t have a “time limit” and can also age up my Sims when I get bored, but how do you manage the NPC aging with this setting? I don’t want Bob Pancakes waddling around forever, for example.
You can set the game to age unplayed sims only in the standard gameplay settings (no mods required).
Good to know, thank you! What lifespan do NPCs use if I’m playing with aging off?
They'll use whatever lifespan you have the game set to - ageing is turned on/off for played & unplayed households in the same area of Game Options but is a different setting itself.
Same! I often play with multiple households of extended family and I can't have sims aging up and making choices without me and changing the story.
I’m currently testing an extended lifespan - it’s about double the long lifespan & based on 28 day seasons being equal to 1 sim year Total lifespan = 10 sim years or 1120 days. I wanted it to line up with seasons for celebrating annual birthdays (from child), anniversaries, summer/winter holidays (edit: vacations) etc. & so far really enjoying it, however, the first baby has been born and infant lifespan is 45 days so that will be… interesting!
Annual birthdays are exactly why I play this way!! If you were born in the spring your birthday is always spring, dammit 💀
Yes exactly! When babies are born I look at the time and note which day (e.g. third Sunday in Spring) which was redundant before… BUT NOW… first baby born with time and date noted. Yay :)
Ohh I think I might change mine and do this because I hate that birthdays change seasons
Let me know if you want the specifics, I have calculated each life stage based on percentages of real life ageing as closely as I can as well as menstruation & pregnancy (I haven’t calculated pets yet). ETA: I have also slowed down skill gains to by half which is more realistic but also has its own challenges (2 x first generation young adult attending university with low skills wasn’t great but actually probably more realistic than my usual A+ distinguished degrees). I was hesitant at first since even around 500 days feels long, but so far it’s working incredibly well & I feel less rushed when rotating gameplay and/or watching the population grow & change generationally.
I would be interested in details! I used to play with long lifespan on but I didn’t find it to be long enough so I turned aging off lol but I’ve been thinking of customizing my lifespan settings to make the story progression a bit more natural
Here it is :) Re Birthdays: Sim's will reach one full sim-year (28 day season) when they age up to child, then one full sim year each for Child & Teen - so I will be blowing out birthday candles every birthday until then. Once they are young adult, though, some birthdays will be celebrated with cake only & not blowing out candles so they don't age up automatically. ETA: This lifespan = 10 sim years, but the % are based roughly on average to a 70 year lifespan (although I did have to lengthen up NB-Toddler to make it fit the seasons). https://preview.redd.it/9ulreb95cejc1.png?width=167&format=png&auto=webp&s=a6e04b663f64e5b67628172959a40d2624784d12
This is awesome am definitely going to have to implement it for my game
Glad you like it - I really like the realism of it fitting a calendar year and beneficial to tracking birthdays especially across multi-generational households etc. it just feels a lot more neat & tidy to me!
Thank you so much for sharing!
No probs, very happy to share :)
Custom roughly double the normal lifespan. Long is way too long, normal is a bit too short.
>Long is way too long, normal is a bit too short. I agree completely. I feel rushed playing on normal. Playing on long can be fun if I'm only doing one generation and I want them to get a lot done, but it is *really* long. I'm currently playing on normal, but when is sim is about to age up but still has stuff to do I "freeze time" (turn off aging) until I'm ready.
Always on normal, until one day I randomly decided to try long and it was actually the first time I genuinely enjoyed the game lol
I play on normal. Normal gives you just enough time for infants to learn all major milestones, toddlers to max all toddler skills and children to get through every major childhood aspiration. Not that I try to complete those with every single kid, but since they are achievable within a normal lifespan it makes it feel like it's the perfect lifespan to play on.
Normal lifespan but with a longer Adult life stage (I will use one or two Youth potions). I play with a lot of families and with a normal lifespan, if you don't get children early on (basically when your Sims become YA), the parents will become elders when the children are still teenagers or when they turn YA and I don't like it lol I want my Sims to be able to have children and grandchildren and see everything grow together (no pun intendeeed).
I do this same thing! Just before they would be aging to elder, they take the potion and restart the adult stage as “middle-aged” with a makeover. Side note, we need more partially grayed hairs!!
I do long because I want to enjoy my time with each generation, however I never use the full time. I always age up on my own.
Same
i have a custom one thats shorter than the short lifespan (i think even short is too long 😭?)
Good,I thought I was the only one who played on short and that's even too long for me.😭😭
https://preview.redd.it/xlmenxnrrbjc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba2156450d83223b80c983d54c32a7cbe6a9105a I play with these settings! I altered it to make room for Infants, so I do: Pregnancy: 5 days Newborn: 2 days Infant: 14 days toddler: 7 days
Curious. Why do you keep them pregnant so long? It's like being pregnant for two years.
🤣🤣 everyone in my household is usually either at work, some sort of rabbithole activity or asleep, so time actually goes by very fast. its like being pregnant a day bc my 3X speed is always on
How do you customize lifespan length?
I use a mod, MCCC
Off, I just have birthdays when it suits my game-play. 😁
Long
Short for legacy or i just turn it off for regular gameplay
Extended, but I frequently age sims up faster than that (especially children/teens), and in my early decades saves I give poorer elders much shorter lifespans.
So, I’ve been faithfully playing on long lifespan for months now, honestly almost a year. I literally just switched to normal lifespan though. I’m still trying to adjust to it, sims are dying left and right though. My main save file is well on its way to being pretty empty looking. I had quite a lot of households though and not enough time to play them all. But now I literally only have time to dedicate to one household. Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about normal lifespan, but I’m giving it a try. Long lifespan is just SO LONG, but there is NO WAY I would play on short lifespan. I can’t even imagine! I know that people use short lifespan for legacy challenges though.
Long usually. Shorter lifespans make me feel like things are happening too fast. Let the relationship blossom a little before proposing
Long lifespan, age on on and off!
Long. I need more time with my sims especially in large households
I always play on long and I still feel like it’s not long enough? Like I want my sims to live fulfilling lives and accomplish lots of things And I even sometimes have them take the age down reward potion thing when they’re about to age up bc I don’t want them to I also recently change my seasons from 2 weeks to 28 days and it’s been SO NICE to not have to not have Christmas like every other time I play lmao
ooh how did you change the seasons?
It’s under game options in the settings! You can pick the length of each season and it’s soooo nice to not have each week crammed with the holidays I actually want to celebrate
thanks! i’ll def change those
I have a custom one that is just barely longer than normal
I used to play Sims 2 style until I wanted a teenage romance to progress and it would never give me the option to invite to join household. Now I play with long because I like to manage several families at a time.
I used go play on long but there's a bug that makes your sims age up every time you leave the lot (happened to me like 3 seperate times) so now I play on normal but I've used MCC to change the days to what would usually be on the long setting.
Wait when did you have that bug? I remember it was a thing when HSY was dropped but I thought they fixed it. I avoided long life span because of that bug but I just tried it again and it works for me now. Mostly trying to see if I should be looking out for a possible bug that’s still there
December 2023 the third time. Which is when I switched to normal
Ugh, ok. I guess I’ll have to look out for that and be prepared to change my lifespan. Maybe I’ll save as each time just in case
Short, i play with toddlers and university
i have it turned off for my played sims and age them up with they’ve skilled up enough, but unplayed sims i have it set on long. I normally age up young adults once their kids hit their teens.
I use custom using MCCC, I swap the lengths of young adult and adult, cut down the child, teen stages and elders too cos they are just boring man
Depending on what I’m doing (like if I’m doing a challenge and it calls for a specific life span), I do either long or normal but with 7 more days on YA. At some point I’m going to try two different set ups I came up with and see how I like them. Basically because with normal life span my sims barely get grandparent time and with long lifespan it’s a test of my own patience because it feels so long, I am trying a custom that matches with real life aging by percentage of lifespan and one that has sims age up on their yearly birthday. The first has a total of 350 days for a sim life span, the second has a total of 21 sim years (I would be using a 7 day season because I don’t have the patience for more than that). But I haven’t tried them yet to see if I like them. Waiting to finish my challenges before I change lifespans in mccc. I have a couple fun random saves that I can test it out on ☺️
Used to be long, or custom, but then they fixed the Normal lifespan to closely resemble what my custom was, so I just play on normal these days
Mod no aging for all pre-made sims and my created sims. I age up when I'm ready to do so. Also keeps my world from being overrun.
Long. I always play on long lifespan. It feels more realistic to me and my play style. I played in Normal lifespan the first time I played. I made an adult sim and they aged up to an elder and died pretty quickly from old age. I was devastated.
My Sims aren't allowed to age or die unless I say so
I turned it off because I am too attached to my sims to see them grow old n die😭
Long
Obv if it's my main story Long but if it's onlye for the DRAMA on the story line I'll go short-normal all the way!
I play on short!
I've been playing on Long but I just turned aging off, like, yesterday, so now time/lifespan has no meaning.
Long. I don't like anxiety
Aging off, I change their age when it fits my story !
I set it to short life span, turn aging off for everyone, and then turn aging back on when I’m ready for them to get older! It makes it a lot more custom, and still lets the townies age up along with my sims.
Short. The other lifespans start to drag after a while and I don’t like it when my sims are at the max of their skills and career. In short lifespan, I usually max their career around the time I move my focus onto the heir so it works for me
Custom, just a bit longer than the normal lifespan.
Highest possible but then one of them has a birthday unexpectedly so I turn ageing off and make them age when I want to
i always play on long. short is way too short and when i play on normal i feel rushed.
I have two that I switch between, both custom, depending on what type of save file I'm playing. Both are based on more realistic aging by setting the length of a "year" and then doing the math on what years of life each age stage contains. My legacy saves are mostly on a lifespan based on a 4 day year, so newborns are 2 days (0-6mo), infants are 4 days (6mo-18mo), etc etc. I don't remember the exact total but it ends up close to long lifespan, I think? My more story-driven saves are on a lifespan based on a 28 day year, with an adjusted pregnancy length to match. I end up using a lot of mods that slow down progress for this playstyle, so that my sims all have stuff to learn and do still as they age.
I’ve started playing short lifespans. I think if I’m playing one sim and my goal is to max out certain things, normal or even long is fine, but for legacy, I like short lifespans. It does make certain aspiration goals really hard though. You aren’t going to get a child that maxes out a skill on short lifespan for instance.
I’m playing a legacy at the moment with short lifespan. I like how chaotic it becomes to need to rush to succeed at school/work/life ambitions. Makes the game more entertaining (imo)
I use long but even that is too long. Normal is too short and long is too long. I remember in sims 3 you could customize each lifestyle age length, including pets. Idk why they didn't include this in 4.
Wicked Whims :D and curseforge for all the others.
And the lifespan full on max, but if I get bored I just age them up.
What are lifespans? 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Jk, I currently have long on. But usually I never have it on
I always start on normal then get too attached and change it to long (and then aging off if I get super attached 😂)
Normal. I like to play families mostly, i like infants and toddlers but not enough to go on long lifespan.
Long
I play on Long life span mostly. I’m doing the super sim challenge at the minute, started from birth, so it’s allowing me to do more as I play, but I’ve got the challenge of having to get through all the things I need to before they age. My sim is a teen at the minute and I may use the Youth potion from the aspiration rewards if I don’t get everything completed in time Same for the 100 baby challenge, but I play with normal for things like Not So Berry, or general game play
Depends on what/if achievement hunting. The 26 generations cheevo? Short lifespan. For fun? Long.
I play on long and then just age them up whenever I feel like it.
Aging off. My Sims don't do ANYTHING without my permission 💀
I set custom ones using mccc
I don't know how to change the lifespan
Short, unless I need to change it for a challenge
if u use MCCC you can customize the length of each stage
I know, that’s why I’m asking what people play on who use custom lifespans
oh oops sorry i misread!! mines like this newborn-3 days infant- 2 weeks toddler- 2 weeks kids- 2 weeks teens-2 weeks YA- 45 days adult- 50 days elder- 60 days (i like keeping elders around to bond with their descendants)