SNU, rules and notes on a fake university

This topic was requested by an anon, but it's one I'm happy to talk about anyway because I've always loved running universities for my towns. I've been faking universities since the early TS2 days before the Uni EP came out. TS4 doesn't have a Uni EP yet, but like all the other versions of the game, I imagine we'll probably get one eventually. And when we do, like in the other games, I'll probably use some of it and mod the rest to work into my own custom university system.



why go to university?

I use a harder skilling mod because of the long lifespans I play, and my sims have plenty of drama and chaos in their busy lives that leveling up is actually very hard for them. Considering their 4 allowed play-days per year, and that they only skill when they want to (and for many of my sims, that is not very often at all!), many of my less studious sims never reach more than a level 2-3 in most skill areas.

The system I'm using was something I made up for my TS3 sims, but nothing really ever came of that project, so I'm using it again here with more luck. With the combination of harder skilling and my town career limitations, going to university is a real benefit for many of my sims.

a bit of backstory for Bell and Cam

The backstory for Ophelia's birth is a little all over the place between a few different blogs. She was born in the messy haze of my transition between playing TS2 and TS3, so I wanted to gather some of it together so people didn't have to do too much digging for this branch of the story.

Ophelia was conceived in TS2, on her parents' honeymoon, actually. Bell was worried then about losing her job. Her producers were annoyed at the first two surprise pregnancies, and when the third came along, she knew she was going to be in trouble. And she did lose that part in the end, especially as her pregnancy became complicated and she would not have been able to work at all for a very long time.

first comes love... gameplay notes on love and marriage in TS4

Jacob is a sweetheart. But he is also very trusting and naive and a little bit oblivious. Lauren is moody and dramatic and a little bit narcissistic. Are they a match made in heaven or hell? I don’t know, but I’m gonna throw my hands up at them and let them find out.

He has not dropped any pressing questions just yet, but he did say three very heavy words, and I caught him in this very romantic scene with a very telling thought bubble over his head. I do think that he means it. Whether or not he should mean it is another question entirely, but I do think that he’s in love with Lauren. He thinks about her constantly. He wants to kiss her and hug her when she’s near, and he’s rolled several very weighty engagement/marriage wishes for her. For a sim, in my gameplay style, that means love. And maybe that love will at best drive him crazy, and at worst destroy him. I guess we’ll see, but one way or another, he’s in love.

Liebster questions from Muzegoddess

Thank you, Muzegoddess (of the Life, Love, & Lies TS2 story) for tagging me. These are such awesome questions! :)

modified aging and pregnancy

Thank you to Dark Gaia for the aging mod, and Tanja1986 for the pregnancy mod, from which my own mods are tweaked.

First, before you install any of these mods, a couple of notes: 

Keep in mind that I DO intend to change the distribution of these ages in the event that we finally get toddlers, pre-teens, or any other aging stage. I do not promise to keep updating older versions of the mod, only the one that I'm currently using. 

Also note that I am NOT a modder. I know my way around S4PE, and I can tweak mods that other people have made, that's all. If a patch breaks these mods (which happens often!), I cannot fix them. I have to wait for the original creators to update first, and then I'll update my versions. If you use any crucial game mod (like aging and pregnancy are) that can't be taken out without messing up your sims' ages and pregnancies, please always wait before updating your game. You can continue playing in "offline mode" until updates are available. Sometimes this can take a couple of weeks... or longer, if a creator decides to abandon the mod. All of that is out of my control. 

Aging: 

My aging stages currently look like this. Ages are in "years."

0-1, baby
2-11, child
12-18, teen
19-35, young adult
36-59, adult
60-89 elder

On the "long" setting, there are 120 sim-days in a year. 120 x 89 = a total lifespan of 10,680 sim-days. Yes, that is LONG, lol! That's the way I like it. 

Medium is currently 30 sim-days per year. 

Short is currently 15 sim-days per year. 

TS4 Aging Download

*** update notes:
- 2/16/2016: oops, I had 22 years instead of 24 for the adult stage. Fixed!

Pregnancy: 

My sims are pregnant for 90 days, to represent 9 months of a 120-day year. Note that this mod matches only the LONG setting of my aging mod, and it does NOT scale if you change the aging length. Tanja1986 at MTS does have some shorter versions available, too.  

This mod also changes the rate of twins to 3% down from 33%, because I don't like that many sets of twins in my game. Just a personal preference.

*** note: this pregnancy mod is obsolete and will be overridden if you use the pregnancy module of MCCC, which allows you to set pregnancy length in game. 

TS4 90-day Pregnancy Download

These mods are extensively play tested in my own game and working to the best of my knowledge as of the most recent patch.

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*** update, 11/14/16: You can now modify both aging and pregnancy lengths very easily as part of MCCC, which is a highly supported mod that I totally recommend. I will leave these mods available in case anyone still needs them, but I am not using them myself any longer and they will not be updated. 

the Liebster award

Accepting the nomination comes with these conditions:

1. Post the award on your blog.

2. Thank the blogger who presented the award and link back to their blog.

3. Nominate 5-11 bloggers whom you feel deserve this award and have fewer than or equal to 3,000 followers.

4. Answer 11 questions posted by the nominator, and ask your nominees 11 questions.

Thank you, Maisie for the nomination. This came along at just the right time, since 1.) I actually have time to do it, and 2.) I have felt so out of touch with the sim-blogging community lately, I am eager to find some new, active blogs to read!

And I only just saw that Carla tagged me, too. Thank you, Carla! I will answer both sets of questions here.

Dallas and Lucy, a history

This is just a bit of a refresher for those who read the TS2 version of Dallas and Lucy, or a history for those who didn't, and to fill in the missing gaps between where their story left off in the year 2084. I did make Dallas and Lucy as TS3 sims, but I never added them to my 1980's version of LH, so there was nothing missed in that "era."


First, a recap:

In TS2, the last we saw of Dallas and Lucy together was July of 2083. Lucy had just turned seventeen, and Dallas was eighteen. In the coming fall, Dallas would be going off to study abroad after winning a very prestigious scholarship, and Lucy would be stuck at home finishing out her senior year of high school. They only had a few weeks left together.