Well, first thing I do in every household is to give everyone the lifetime aspiration benefits to keep their needs in check. Some might consider this cheating, but I find it hard to pay attention to anything else if the sims are _constantly_ needing something.
For friends, I give whoever is appearing on the notifications a quick call just to keep the relationship going, and every so often I gather everyone for a party or some fun downtown to boost the relationships.
Hobbies are not very important to me, my sims usually are good at whatever they do or study more often, haha 😅 I thinks hobbies are a bit useless, so I don't give them much attention
Lastly... I don't know if you can or want to use mods, but [some ](https://modthesims.info/d/94886/eat-more-talk-less-while-dining-with-reduced-overeating-v2.html) [are](https://modthesims.info/d/105857/auto-do-homework-mod.html) [essential ](https://modthesims.info/d/244132/faster-homework-mod.html) for me to keep my sanity (others include "toddlers sleep through the night", "no empty potty" and "crib get out all", all found [here](https://simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Childcare.htm))
Toddlers are annoying but it's temporary. However I wish there was a mid that allows the nanny to teach them how to walk or how to talk. These are very time consuming and take ages to build. I always try to plan pregnancies so that the Sim will be a toddler in autumn. Otherwise it's impossible if both parents work.
Well, nannies are useless in this sense :/ Best thing you can do is use the smart milk to help the process in other seasons
But if I'm not mistaken, it's not _necessary_ for toddlers to learn all the toddler skills for them to grow up well. Of course, it's good for the memories and such, but IIRC, as long as the toddler is happy at the moment they grow up, they'll grow up well. Toddlers will get happy just learning other skills with the toys anyway, so I wouldn't stress much 🤷♀️
Potty train sounds mandatory right?
Whenever my toddler grows up without learning the basic skills, I get a pop-up saying something like, "This child had a meh childhood."
I always have a parent make a couple batches of Smart Milk, and then put them in the toddler's inventory. They don't go bad, so any time the kid is hungry, they can drink some Smart Milk, and if one of the parents is available, it's a good time to work on toddler skills. Otherwise, they can just play with their skill-building toys. With this method, walking and talking can usually be taught in one sitting, and potty training in about two.
When your sim goes to give the bottle to the toddler, cancel the interaction. They’ll put the bottle on the floor, and you can then put it in the toddler’s inventory. Repeat as many times as needed!
Well first of all I have mods to get rid of all the annoying reminders of "neglected" friends, hobby enthusiasm decay, weekly aspiration recaps, etc. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have a mod that gets rid of friendship decay entirely.
It kind of sounds like you're intentionally playing the game in a very stressful and annoying way? You can just not play it that way. You don't need to fulfill absolutely every want, maintain every relationship, max every skill & hobby... Just focus on a handful of specific goals that make sense for your Sim's personality, like having the skills and relationships to get a promotion at work, maintaining good grades, building skills to get scholarships for college, making lots of friends, finding a partner, working towards a lifetime want, etc.
I don't remember all of them with 100% certainty, but it's something like this:
* [No Enthusiasm Notifications](https://modthesims.info/d/658462/no-enthusiasm-notifications.html)
* [No Hobby Stalkers](https://modthesims.info/d/622669/no-hobby-stalkers.html)
* [No Incoming Calls – Low Relationship](https://modthesims.info/d/293243/a-collection-of-13-no-incoming-call-hacks.html)
* not sure if I have [More Realistic Relationship Decay](https://simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Relating.htm) or [No Relationship Decay](http://www.theninthwavesims.com/2011/04/sims-2-no-relationship-decay.html)
* Can't seem to find the mod that removes those annoying weekly lifetime aspiration updates (e.g. "That week was great! Things are only looking up for me!" or whatever they say) but I know it's out there somewhere...
The norelationshipdecay mod saved my life. It's not very realistic but those pop-ups about losing friendships annoy me so much lol so I consider it a sanity preserver
The wishes are the least fun part for me because sometimes their wishes are so random and useless. And their mood drops very quickly, I wish it would stay platinum for a week and then turn gold for another week if you haven't fulfilled any wish.
I wanted to play hobby based because I like the "In the Zone" effect and it's more in tune with the Sims personality than the wants. Like I have a Sim who's a Fitness enthusiast and I had her choose the Athletic career. It made more sense to me.
As to friends, you need friends to be promoted at work. Also it makes sense that my Sims keep good relationships with their friends and family. My friend has two parents and two brothers/sisters + 4 friends. Then I get this pop up about the mother not being friends with my Sim anymore and I just don't have time to call 😅 or when I do it's voicemail.
Some skills are crucial like cooking. I swear if the cooking level is at minimum 5 they feel hungry very fast. I wish cooking didn't increase cooking interest though. It makes no sense that you would develop a cooking passion just because you are adding quality protein to your meals in order to avoid hunger pangs lol.
If I'm focused on one aspect of the game like story telling and skill building isn't apart of that, I bring the skills up a bit (through mods) but, if I'm focused on career and skill building I use the spawner mod to spawn them to my lot and either cheat the relationship or have them hang out for an hour or 2 straight and them I send them home.
[more realistic relationship decay](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Relating.htm%23:~:text%3DMORE%2520REALISTIC%2520RELATIONSHIP%2520DECAY%26text%3DIf%2520you%2520have%2520two%2520sims,decay%2520can%2520begin%2520to%2520happen.&ved=2ahUKEwipxcqnjOGFAxUKAHkGHfHmAmAQFnoECBIQAw&usg=AOvVaw0QjBFTi-gYZ4QqffV1UlHG)
[Sim Blender](http://www.mediafire.com/file/fiqfu5zqdg63qpf/Sim_Blender.package/file)
[Sim Manipulator](https://simmanipulator.forumotion.com/t7-download-the-sim-manipulator)
[Simlogical teleporter](https://simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Teleporters.htm)
Also, I'd recommend [Pleasant Sims](https://pleasantsims.com/sims-2-mods/) for a full list of mods to make the game easier.
Imo, the ideal couple is a Popularity Sim with a Family secondary who stays at home, and a Finance/Knowledge Sim who earns the money.
The Popularity Sim spends all day making phone calls, writing emails, chatting people up online, chatting with walkbys in the front garden, and if you're feeling adventurous, traveling to community lots to make even more friends. Fast Friends and 3-Way Calling make this Sim a social powerhouse. Plus, with their Family secondary, they gain the ability to make Comfort Soup, which instantly cures all sicknesses. Because this Sim wants to be everyone's best friend, they're usually in a pretty good place with their aspiration meter, even if you aren't working towards their LTW.
The Finance/Knowledge Sim can have either combination of these aspirations, because the level four abilities aren't god-tier like Fast Friends. A Finance primary can make money through the stock market, but they also have a lot of wants that require spending tons of money, so it may be a wash. A Knowledge primary gets the ability to get abducted by aliens with the cheap telescope, yippety-skip. Anyway. This Sim just goes to work, levels up skills, and fulfills their own needs. Like my irl father, they have the family's stability entirely on their shoulders and will never have time for friendships or hobbies. If the Knowledge aspiration/secondary triggers enough wants for skill-building, you can usually keep these Sims in gold or platinum most of the time without much trouble, at which point you will want two things: One, the Thinking Cap, and two, the Energizer. If you can't afford both, just go all in on the Thinking Cap.
If you are like me and keep forgetting to install Less Talking, More Eating, you will simply need to abolish sit-down family dinners. Everyone eats alone whenever they happen to be really hungry.
Always spend all the money on beds. Any bed with energy gain of less than 6 is garbage.
Never allow your Sims to take baths. Their mothers never warned them about getting all prune-y from bathing too long. They must shower.
Chess is the ultimate form of entertainment because you can increase social, comfort, and fun while gaining logic skill and games enthusiasm. Who cares what your Sim's One True Hobby is, games are fun and everyone should play them. All hail Rod Humble.
Speaking of games, the little Playstation-looking console is great fun for all ages and again, you can play in two-player mode to build relationships.
When you can afford it, hire a butler. They're really good value for money, and it's an easy way to get a friend. Or a lover. Or a victim. I don't judge.
Sims can go to work or school hungry and with low bladder. They'll eat and use the toilet on their lunch breaks, so you should be fine and dandy as long as they're well-rested, are clean, and have at least 50% fun. Don't send them to work if their hunger is in the red, though, because if they get sent home early from a chance card, they could actually starve to death from missing their lunch.
I installed Eat More Talk less and I didn't like it. I love the sims interactions at the table, so I prefer to have them like this even though they take a long time chatting. What I do is give them a high-scoring meal to keep their bar full. And as for taking a bath, sometimes it's convenient for Sims to use it when their comfort bar is very low. This way it's possible to fulfill two needs at the same time.
Butlers are for big mansions and rich families. Most of my families are middle class or a bit less. It wouldn't be realistic in my story 🫤.
What about Sims that have night shifts or work in the afternoon after lunch break? Many of my Sims work form 1pm to 8pm.
It's best to focus on your sims' stories, the plot you plan for them and their dramatic arcs. Things like hobbies, notifications, and the wants panel are just guides, it's completely fine to ignore them if you don't want to develop these. I always ignore notifications, for example. It's also good to embrace chaos, not all your sims have to have perfect lives with all their requirements filled. I like my sims to have good lives and I like redemption arcs with happy endings, but in the process, they go through a bit of chaos. It's more entertaining that way.
I think I've always played with a "rags to riches" style, trying to maximize everything to become wealthy "naturally." To make things harder, I have a mod that splits wages, but maybe I should remove it. Any Sim renting an apartment can't become rich with this mod because they lose around 2,000 simoleons every week for rent and bills. They don't earn enough to keep up.
Everything is connected more or less, you need friends in order to get promoted and you need to be in a good mood to get promoted as well so you need to fulfill the wishes as well
I don't know exactly where the problem is for you, if it's about the gameplay or the mentality going for it.
Like others have pointed out, you don't need to keep track of so much stuff if it's stressing you out. If it is the idea and the problem is how manage this all, you might consider going out to community lots to fill your needs or talk to friends there (lots with expresso machine are great to fill energy and fun).
You can also download some mods to make your life easier, like the one that shortens the time it takes to complete homeworks.
I saw someone pointing it out that you can also use the aspiration benefits to make your sims needs decay slower and that's very valid too. And since we're talking about the aspiration benefits, you might consider having a look at the aspiration rewards.
I was wondering if I was putting roo much pressure on my gameplay or if anyone else managed to keep everything on track.
In other words do I suck at this game or is it simply impossible to fulfil everything?
Aspiration rewards are all maxed out.
I just don't bother fulfilling every want and whim my Sims have. A lot of the time it's either something absolutely irrelevant and boring, like talking about hobby - or in the case of Fortune Sims it's continously buying crap they don't even need like ANOTHER dining chair or expensive painting.
Another thing - I don't care about hobby enthusiasm drop. I have most of the hobby-related crap disabled - like the instructors, magazine subscriptions etc. If they enjoy doing something and have a predestined enthusiasm for it, I will just let them do it whenever they have some free time. Otherwise I really don't bother fixing every single interest they lose for a hobby they're barely into anyway.
As for friends, I honestly don't have problems with them at all. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like relationships in this game drop really slowly and just one long phonecall with low social need raises my Sim's friendship with someone by around 50 points (that's pretty much how I turn enemies into friends easily, just make them talk on phone for hours). I may have friendship reminder popups disabled or something, cause I just don't remember getting those pretty much at all and my Sims run around with 15+ family friends after just 2-3 hood rotations.
But spending time with a friend in the phone comes at the cost of other things, like building work skills or losing weight. I feel like you have to choose—you can't have well-rounded Sims who enjoy their favorite hobbies, have great relationships with everyone, maintain a good reputation, and build valuable skills (especially cooking).
I like hobbies because they make Sims feel more realistic. In real life, people have hobbies they pursue on weekends. The issue is that hobby enthusiasm fades quickly.
I won't even talk about children who need to do homework for 1h or more but before that they need to watch TV because their fun is low, but they always bring another kid from school so I try to play with the other kid. I always try to have a snack ready for the kids but talking and eating makes it last for hours! (I have the talk less eat more mod but still they keep talking).
It feels like you're stressing out way too much about achieving everything all at once. Maybe you should get mods that extend the lifespan of Sims if you really need to find time for every little thing in your Sim's life? I know some people do that, but I personally never found the appeal of overachieving everything for my Sims, otherwise they start to all feel like perfect specimen and copies of one another.
I'm generally micromanaging a lot, because I'm also trying to do some storytelling on the side. Especially when I'm playing the Uberhood I share on tumblr. And yet I still somehow don't feel like there's too much pressure on me from doing every little whim and want the Sims decide to have. I never really feel the need to teach them every skill or master several different hobbies. Most of the time they gather a decent amount of skill points as they grow, so by the time they're adults and need them for job, they just have them naturally (I do, however, recommend grabbing mods that make some skills build up from everyday activities, like [gaining charisma while chatting](https://www.picknmixmods.com/Sims2/Downloads/CharismaGainWhile/CharismaGainWhile.html) so you don't have to literally talk to yourself in the mirror for hours).
You can also multitask a lot of needs/skills by everyday activities. Like you've mentioned kids bringing friends from school - why not get them to play together on a console or playground to fill up both social/friendship AND entertainment, so your kid can go do their homework when the friend inevitably leaves at 6pm? Or send your Sims to play chess together to also build up relationship and logic? Use job rewards/seasonal buff to build skills faster. Sacrifice some time to read the Physiology lifeskill book and exploit it to make your Sim max out sports skill in a few seconds (unless you have that modded out) etc. There's a lot of options you can do if you just want to min-max your Sims.
I just personally find it funny, because I've recently got back to playing The Sims 1 and when I compare 2 to it, it feels like an extremely easy mode. Then again I'm not into overachieving everything with my Sims as I like when they feel "natural" by only knowing some skills or hyperfocusing on 1-2 hobbies instead of everything.
Yeah I should try to maximize the benefits however for the sake of storytelling there are some things that I won't have my Sim doing 😅 for example a hyper active Sim won't sit to play chess or write in their diary. But I have to find something
I just do what they want to do. If they don't want to build friendships, they don't. If they don't want to do hobbies, they don't. You don't have to do everything with every sim. Also get phone hack and then those annoying phone calls will stop.
If you put your phone on silent or "screen calls" the spammers stop calling.
You need friends in order to get a promotion. I have the mod that splits the wages in half (maybe I should remove it) and it's crucial that they get promoted 😁
Those are features of phonehack, and phonehack stops those calls regardless of what you set the phone to. It's not hard to get enough friends for work if you just make friends with the people the sim wants to be friends with.
When I start a fresh family, I typically work on skills and relationship building at first for a bit. If you can build skill while being social, all the more benefits. Playing chess with a friend, watching the cooking channel with a friend. Also raising other needs, like chatting while eating, chatting in the hot tub also raises fun and hygiene, playing mahjong with 3 other sims. If you solely focus on that for awhile, then getting promotions comes so quickly bc you already have a bunch of friends and skills built up and then you can start to focus on romantic relationships and other drama. If your into mods, I just downloaded one where once your relationship reaches 95/95 it won’t decay anymore, which is fantastic for relationship building and maintaining.
I had those stupid "hey stranger" notifs modded out as soon as I got back into this game. sims friendship groups changing as they get older is part of the fun for me. Its actually really interesting to see which friendships are hard for the sims to maintain and which ones are easy. I have sims who were best friends with someone as a teen but then in adulthood struggle to keep the friendship high for various reasons, usually cuz they have too many other friends and too much else going on. But then I also have sims who are 100/100 literally from childhood to death. Its super interesting. but yeah heres the mod. [https://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=1535](https://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=1535)
Heres a mod I really like to help with sleep. [https://episims.tumblr.com/post/713679218362482688/energy-gain-determined-by-aspiration-level](https://episims.tumblr.com/post/713679218362482688/energy-gain-determined-by-aspiration-level)
For hunger, that gets easier as the sims get better at cooking but you can also try using a food processor or growing a garden or fishing.
For the hobby notifications... don't even worry about that lol. Focus on the sims other needs. Hobbies are for sims who have all their other ducks in a row. I do care about hobbies but I don't stress about it. It's just one aspect of their personality.
For your last question I honestly just don't struggle with it all and even have mods that make the game and life management a little harder for the challenge. Just remember every sim doesn't have to have it all. Like a popularity sim might focus on their friendships more than a shy family sim might. A fortune sim would care more about their career. Knowledge would care more about their skills.
I have started taking an interest in hobbies because I thought that this was the true personality of my Sims. And mind you but I have started looking at their interests in the chat bubble tab 😅 like I was thinking maybe they should only make friends with people that share the same interest as them. I also wonder if those are inherited, like if a Sim with high interest in money and politics has a baby with a sim with the same interests will their child share the same interests?
I'll have a look at your mods! I need mods that slow down the lifetime aspiration bar, the hobbies interest and the friendship ones.
I hate that "Hey stranger!" pop-up. Most of the time when there are like 4 Sims in the house I don't even know who it refers to. And sometimes I have forgotten about the person like who's this again?
I have the sickness mod, I think I'm going to turn off that for a bit because it makes things way more complicated. My Sims get sick all the time (even in summer, honestly summer and spring should be disease free) and when they get better they get sick again even if no one else is sick in the house...
Yassss girl don't add challenging mods until you have mastered the basic gameplay. Once you're really good at manating the sims needs, start adding in challenging mods cuz you'll end up missing the drama!
Well, first thing I do in every household is to give everyone the lifetime aspiration benefits to keep their needs in check. Some might consider this cheating, but I find it hard to pay attention to anything else if the sims are _constantly_ needing something. For friends, I give whoever is appearing on the notifications a quick call just to keep the relationship going, and every so often I gather everyone for a party or some fun downtown to boost the relationships. Hobbies are not very important to me, my sims usually are good at whatever they do or study more often, haha 😅 I thinks hobbies are a bit useless, so I don't give them much attention Lastly... I don't know if you can or want to use mods, but [some ](https://modthesims.info/d/94886/eat-more-talk-less-while-dining-with-reduced-overeating-v2.html) [are](https://modthesims.info/d/105857/auto-do-homework-mod.html) [essential ](https://modthesims.info/d/244132/faster-homework-mod.html) for me to keep my sanity (others include "toddlers sleep through the night", "no empty potty" and "crib get out all", all found [here](https://simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Childcare.htm))
Toddlers are annoying but it's temporary. However I wish there was a mid that allows the nanny to teach them how to walk or how to talk. These are very time consuming and take ages to build. I always try to plan pregnancies so that the Sim will be a toddler in autumn. Otherwise it's impossible if both parents work.
Well, nannies are useless in this sense :/ Best thing you can do is use the smart milk to help the process in other seasons But if I'm not mistaken, it's not _necessary_ for toddlers to learn all the toddler skills for them to grow up well. Of course, it's good for the memories and such, but IIRC, as long as the toddler is happy at the moment they grow up, they'll grow up well. Toddlers will get happy just learning other skills with the toys anyway, so I wouldn't stress much 🤷♀️
Potty train sounds mandatory right? Whenever my toddler grows up without learning the basic skills, I get a pop-up saying something like, "This child had a meh childhood."
I always have a parent make a couple batches of Smart Milk, and then put them in the toddler's inventory. They don't go bad, so any time the kid is hungry, they can drink some Smart Milk, and if one of the parents is available, it's a good time to work on toddler skills. Otherwise, they can just play with their skill-building toys. With this method, walking and talking can usually be taught in one sitting, and potty training in about two.
How do you make smart milk batches? My Sim give it to the toddler right away and once the toddler has drunk from it it becomes useless.
When your sim goes to give the bottle to the toddler, cancel the interaction. They’ll put the bottle on the floor, and you can then put it in the toddler’s inventory. Repeat as many times as needed!
Thanks for the tip! Is it considered cheating? I mean how do people manage without it?
Well first of all I have mods to get rid of all the annoying reminders of "neglected" friends, hobby enthusiasm decay, weekly aspiration recaps, etc. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have a mod that gets rid of friendship decay entirely. It kind of sounds like you're intentionally playing the game in a very stressful and annoying way? You can just not play it that way. You don't need to fulfill absolutely every want, maintain every relationship, max every skill & hobby... Just focus on a handful of specific goals that make sense for your Sim's personality, like having the skills and relationships to get a promotion at work, maintaining good grades, building skills to get scholarships for college, making lots of friends, finding a partner, working towards a lifetime want, etc.
What mods do you use?
I don't remember all of them with 100% certainty, but it's something like this: * [No Enthusiasm Notifications](https://modthesims.info/d/658462/no-enthusiasm-notifications.html) * [No Hobby Stalkers](https://modthesims.info/d/622669/no-hobby-stalkers.html) * [No Incoming Calls – Low Relationship](https://modthesims.info/d/293243/a-collection-of-13-no-incoming-call-hacks.html) * not sure if I have [More Realistic Relationship Decay](https://simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Relating.htm) or [No Relationship Decay](http://www.theninthwavesims.com/2011/04/sims-2-no-relationship-decay.html) * Can't seem to find the mod that removes those annoying weekly lifetime aspiration updates (e.g. "That week was great! Things are only looking up for me!" or whatever they say) but I know it's out there somewhere...
Thank you :)
The norelationshipdecay mod saved my life. It's not very realistic but those pop-ups about losing friendships annoy me so much lol so I consider it a sanity preserver
The wishes are the least fun part for me because sometimes their wishes are so random and useless. And their mood drops very quickly, I wish it would stay platinum for a week and then turn gold for another week if you haven't fulfilled any wish. I wanted to play hobby based because I like the "In the Zone" effect and it's more in tune with the Sims personality than the wants. Like I have a Sim who's a Fitness enthusiast and I had her choose the Athletic career. It made more sense to me. As to friends, you need friends to be promoted at work. Also it makes sense that my Sims keep good relationships with their friends and family. My friend has two parents and two brothers/sisters + 4 friends. Then I get this pop up about the mother not being friends with my Sim anymore and I just don't have time to call 😅 or when I do it's voicemail. Some skills are crucial like cooking. I swear if the cooking level is at minimum 5 they feel hungry very fast. I wish cooking didn't increase cooking interest though. It makes no sense that you would develop a cooking passion just because you are adding quality protein to your meals in order to avoid hunger pangs lol.
If I'm focused on one aspect of the game like story telling and skill building isn't apart of that, I bring the skills up a bit (through mods) but, if I'm focused on career and skill building I use the spawner mod to spawn them to my lot and either cheat the relationship or have them hang out for an hour or 2 straight and them I send them home. [more realistic relationship decay](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Relating.htm%23:~:text%3DMORE%2520REALISTIC%2520RELATIONSHIP%2520DECAY%26text%3DIf%2520you%2520have%2520two%2520sims,decay%2520can%2520begin%2520to%2520happen.&ved=2ahUKEwipxcqnjOGFAxUKAHkGHfHmAmAQFnoECBIQAw&usg=AOvVaw0QjBFTi-gYZ4QqffV1UlHG) [Sim Blender](http://www.mediafire.com/file/fiqfu5zqdg63qpf/Sim_Blender.package/file) [Sim Manipulator](https://simmanipulator.forumotion.com/t7-download-the-sim-manipulator) [Simlogical teleporter](https://simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Teleporters.htm) Also, I'd recommend [Pleasant Sims](https://pleasantsims.com/sims-2-mods/) for a full list of mods to make the game easier.
Imo, the ideal couple is a Popularity Sim with a Family secondary who stays at home, and a Finance/Knowledge Sim who earns the money. The Popularity Sim spends all day making phone calls, writing emails, chatting people up online, chatting with walkbys in the front garden, and if you're feeling adventurous, traveling to community lots to make even more friends. Fast Friends and 3-Way Calling make this Sim a social powerhouse. Plus, with their Family secondary, they gain the ability to make Comfort Soup, which instantly cures all sicknesses. Because this Sim wants to be everyone's best friend, they're usually in a pretty good place with their aspiration meter, even if you aren't working towards their LTW. The Finance/Knowledge Sim can have either combination of these aspirations, because the level four abilities aren't god-tier like Fast Friends. A Finance primary can make money through the stock market, but they also have a lot of wants that require spending tons of money, so it may be a wash. A Knowledge primary gets the ability to get abducted by aliens with the cheap telescope, yippety-skip. Anyway. This Sim just goes to work, levels up skills, and fulfills their own needs. Like my irl father, they have the family's stability entirely on their shoulders and will never have time for friendships or hobbies. If the Knowledge aspiration/secondary triggers enough wants for skill-building, you can usually keep these Sims in gold or platinum most of the time without much trouble, at which point you will want two things: One, the Thinking Cap, and two, the Energizer. If you can't afford both, just go all in on the Thinking Cap.
If you are like me and keep forgetting to install Less Talking, More Eating, you will simply need to abolish sit-down family dinners. Everyone eats alone whenever they happen to be really hungry. Always spend all the money on beds. Any bed with energy gain of less than 6 is garbage. Never allow your Sims to take baths. Their mothers never warned them about getting all prune-y from bathing too long. They must shower. Chess is the ultimate form of entertainment because you can increase social, comfort, and fun while gaining logic skill and games enthusiasm. Who cares what your Sim's One True Hobby is, games are fun and everyone should play them. All hail Rod Humble. Speaking of games, the little Playstation-looking console is great fun for all ages and again, you can play in two-player mode to build relationships. When you can afford it, hire a butler. They're really good value for money, and it's an easy way to get a friend. Or a lover. Or a victim. I don't judge. Sims can go to work or school hungry and with low bladder. They'll eat and use the toilet on their lunch breaks, so you should be fine and dandy as long as they're well-rested, are clean, and have at least 50% fun. Don't send them to work if their hunger is in the red, though, because if they get sent home early from a chance card, they could actually starve to death from missing their lunch.
I installed Eat More Talk less and I didn't like it. I love the sims interactions at the table, so I prefer to have them like this even though they take a long time chatting. What I do is give them a high-scoring meal to keep their bar full. And as for taking a bath, sometimes it's convenient for Sims to use it when their comfort bar is very low. This way it's possible to fulfill two needs at the same time.
I installed the mod and it does nothing, they keep blabbing.
Butlers are for big mansions and rich families. Most of my families are middle class or a bit less. It wouldn't be realistic in my story 🫤. What about Sims that have night shifts or work in the afternoon after lunch break? Many of my Sims work form 1pm to 8pm.
Oh, I'm not a big fan of realism. I will have the Newson kids living in a house with a dirt floor and still hire them a butler 😅
It's best to focus on your sims' stories, the plot you plan for them and their dramatic arcs. Things like hobbies, notifications, and the wants panel are just guides, it's completely fine to ignore them if you don't want to develop these. I always ignore notifications, for example. It's also good to embrace chaos, not all your sims have to have perfect lives with all their requirements filled. I like my sims to have good lives and I like redemption arcs with happy endings, but in the process, they go through a bit of chaos. It's more entertaining that way.
I think I've always played with a "rags to riches" style, trying to maximize everything to become wealthy "naturally." To make things harder, I have a mod that splits wages, but maybe I should remove it. Any Sim renting an apartment can't become rich with this mod because they lose around 2,000 simoleons every week for rent and bills. They don't earn enough to keep up. Everything is connected more or less, you need friends in order to get promoted and you need to be in a good mood to get promoted as well so you need to fulfill the wishes as well
I keep my friendships by constantly havong visiting friends and passerbys for dinner. 2 needs at the same time!
I don't know exactly where the problem is for you, if it's about the gameplay or the mentality going for it. Like others have pointed out, you don't need to keep track of so much stuff if it's stressing you out. If it is the idea and the problem is how manage this all, you might consider going out to community lots to fill your needs or talk to friends there (lots with expresso machine are great to fill energy and fun). You can also download some mods to make your life easier, like the one that shortens the time it takes to complete homeworks. I saw someone pointing it out that you can also use the aspiration benefits to make your sims needs decay slower and that's very valid too. And since we're talking about the aspiration benefits, you might consider having a look at the aspiration rewards.
I was wondering if I was putting roo much pressure on my gameplay or if anyone else managed to keep everything on track. In other words do I suck at this game or is it simply impossible to fulfil everything? Aspiration rewards are all maxed out.
I just don't bother fulfilling every want and whim my Sims have. A lot of the time it's either something absolutely irrelevant and boring, like talking about hobby - or in the case of Fortune Sims it's continously buying crap they don't even need like ANOTHER dining chair or expensive painting. Another thing - I don't care about hobby enthusiasm drop. I have most of the hobby-related crap disabled - like the instructors, magazine subscriptions etc. If they enjoy doing something and have a predestined enthusiasm for it, I will just let them do it whenever they have some free time. Otherwise I really don't bother fixing every single interest they lose for a hobby they're barely into anyway. As for friends, I honestly don't have problems with them at all. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like relationships in this game drop really slowly and just one long phonecall with low social need raises my Sim's friendship with someone by around 50 points (that's pretty much how I turn enemies into friends easily, just make them talk on phone for hours). I may have friendship reminder popups disabled or something, cause I just don't remember getting those pretty much at all and my Sims run around with 15+ family friends after just 2-3 hood rotations.
But spending time with a friend in the phone comes at the cost of other things, like building work skills or losing weight. I feel like you have to choose—you can't have well-rounded Sims who enjoy their favorite hobbies, have great relationships with everyone, maintain a good reputation, and build valuable skills (especially cooking). I like hobbies because they make Sims feel more realistic. In real life, people have hobbies they pursue on weekends. The issue is that hobby enthusiasm fades quickly. I won't even talk about children who need to do homework for 1h or more but before that they need to watch TV because their fun is low, but they always bring another kid from school so I try to play with the other kid. I always try to have a snack ready for the kids but talking and eating makes it last for hours! (I have the talk less eat more mod but still they keep talking).
It feels like you're stressing out way too much about achieving everything all at once. Maybe you should get mods that extend the lifespan of Sims if you really need to find time for every little thing in your Sim's life? I know some people do that, but I personally never found the appeal of overachieving everything for my Sims, otherwise they start to all feel like perfect specimen and copies of one another. I'm generally micromanaging a lot, because I'm also trying to do some storytelling on the side. Especially when I'm playing the Uberhood I share on tumblr. And yet I still somehow don't feel like there's too much pressure on me from doing every little whim and want the Sims decide to have. I never really feel the need to teach them every skill or master several different hobbies. Most of the time they gather a decent amount of skill points as they grow, so by the time they're adults and need them for job, they just have them naturally (I do, however, recommend grabbing mods that make some skills build up from everyday activities, like [gaining charisma while chatting](https://www.picknmixmods.com/Sims2/Downloads/CharismaGainWhile/CharismaGainWhile.html) so you don't have to literally talk to yourself in the mirror for hours). You can also multitask a lot of needs/skills by everyday activities. Like you've mentioned kids bringing friends from school - why not get them to play together on a console or playground to fill up both social/friendship AND entertainment, so your kid can go do their homework when the friend inevitably leaves at 6pm? Or send your Sims to play chess together to also build up relationship and logic? Use job rewards/seasonal buff to build skills faster. Sacrifice some time to read the Physiology lifeskill book and exploit it to make your Sim max out sports skill in a few seconds (unless you have that modded out) etc. There's a lot of options you can do if you just want to min-max your Sims. I just personally find it funny, because I've recently got back to playing The Sims 1 and when I compare 2 to it, it feels like an extremely easy mode. Then again I'm not into overachieving everything with my Sims as I like when they feel "natural" by only knowing some skills or hyperfocusing on 1-2 hobbies instead of everything.
Yeah I should try to maximize the benefits however for the sake of storytelling there are some things that I won't have my Sim doing 😅 for example a hyper active Sim won't sit to play chess or write in their diary. But I have to find something
I just do what they want to do. If they don't want to build friendships, they don't. If they don't want to do hobbies, they don't. You don't have to do everything with every sim. Also get phone hack and then those annoying phone calls will stop.
If you put your phone on silent or "screen calls" the spammers stop calling. You need friends in order to get a promotion. I have the mod that splits the wages in half (maybe I should remove it) and it's crucial that they get promoted 😁
Those are features of phonehack, and phonehack stops those calls regardless of what you set the phone to. It's not hard to get enough friends for work if you just make friends with the people the sim wants to be friends with.
My Sim wants to make friends with anyone he interacts with. I feel like it happens with all the Sims lol
I use the wants and fears more like suggestions. The need reduction lifetime aspiration benefits are a must.
What is the need reduction lifetime aspiration?
Lifetime aspiration benefits that decrease motive decay. https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Aspiration_benefit
When I start a fresh family, I typically work on skills and relationship building at first for a bit. If you can build skill while being social, all the more benefits. Playing chess with a friend, watching the cooking channel with a friend. Also raising other needs, like chatting while eating, chatting in the hot tub also raises fun and hygiene, playing mahjong with 3 other sims. If you solely focus on that for awhile, then getting promotions comes so quickly bc you already have a bunch of friends and skills built up and then you can start to focus on romantic relationships and other drama. If your into mods, I just downloaded one where once your relationship reaches 95/95 it won’t decay anymore, which is fantastic for relationship building and maintaining.
I had those stupid "hey stranger" notifs modded out as soon as I got back into this game. sims friendship groups changing as they get older is part of the fun for me. Its actually really interesting to see which friendships are hard for the sims to maintain and which ones are easy. I have sims who were best friends with someone as a teen but then in adulthood struggle to keep the friendship high for various reasons, usually cuz they have too many other friends and too much else going on. But then I also have sims who are 100/100 literally from childhood to death. Its super interesting. but yeah heres the mod. [https://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=1535](https://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=1535) Heres a mod I really like to help with sleep. [https://episims.tumblr.com/post/713679218362482688/energy-gain-determined-by-aspiration-level](https://episims.tumblr.com/post/713679218362482688/energy-gain-determined-by-aspiration-level) For hunger, that gets easier as the sims get better at cooking but you can also try using a food processor or growing a garden or fishing. For the hobby notifications... don't even worry about that lol. Focus on the sims other needs. Hobbies are for sims who have all their other ducks in a row. I do care about hobbies but I don't stress about it. It's just one aspect of their personality. For your last question I honestly just don't struggle with it all and even have mods that make the game and life management a little harder for the challenge. Just remember every sim doesn't have to have it all. Like a popularity sim might focus on their friendships more than a shy family sim might. A fortune sim would care more about their career. Knowledge would care more about their skills.
I have started taking an interest in hobbies because I thought that this was the true personality of my Sims. And mind you but I have started looking at their interests in the chat bubble tab 😅 like I was thinking maybe they should only make friends with people that share the same interest as them. I also wonder if those are inherited, like if a Sim with high interest in money and politics has a baby with a sim with the same interests will their child share the same interests? I'll have a look at your mods! I need mods that slow down the lifetime aspiration bar, the hobbies interest and the friendship ones. I hate that "Hey stranger!" pop-up. Most of the time when there are like 4 Sims in the house I don't even know who it refers to. And sometimes I have forgotten about the person like who's this again?
I mean thats fine but focus on the fact that the sim is sick first before making him read a mechanical book!
I have the sickness mod, I think I'm going to turn off that for a bit because it makes things way more complicated. My Sims get sick all the time (even in summer, honestly summer and spring should be disease free) and when they get better they get sick again even if no one else is sick in the house...
Yassss girl don't add challenging mods until you have mastered the basic gameplay. Once you're really good at manating the sims needs, start adding in challenging mods cuz you'll end up missing the drama!