Everyone is Dead

Riverblossom Hills just may be my favorite neighborhood, and the one I've played for the longest consecutive time. (I've spent more game time in Pleasantview, I'm sure, but that's with resetting it a bunch.) Most of the original sims have aged up and hula'd on over to the afterlife, so they've got quite the stories to tell. More than a few mysteriously died from random lightning strikes, fly attacks, and mysterious "disease." It's not like I enjoy killing sims (unless they are ugly, I'm looking at you Ottomas family). I just need to keep the population under control. Besides, if they are already elders, I don't consider cheating them to die of old age "murder." Whose to say Leod McGreggor didn't have high cholesterol? Sure his meals were all sparkly, but he always ate the entire plate. Why should he live longer than Sanjay Ramaswami, whose wife could barely cook? Burnt hot dogs aren't very filling, so he stayed pretty slim. What was he supposed to do, cook his own meals?

That was three servings worth of food, Leod.

Of all the original sims, only Xander Roth and Jacob Martin are still alive, both now elders. Of the binned sims that I placed into Riverblossom Hills, Gallagher Newson is still alive. So is Gabriella Newson Martin. Garrett Newson O'Mackey and Georgia Newson Roth are both alive and still adults, but getting really close to aging up. Tommy Ottomas is still alive, and Emma Ottomas (one of the freak-of-nature twins) just graduated from college. (She's in the showbiz career so I can get Dr Vu's Automated Cosmetic Surgeon and fix her face. Though, even with it, she's still got the guys lining up. But with those genes, she's not allowed to reproduce. She's a Romance sim, so it's not like she'd want to.) And yes, I did break my own rules and create a few custom sim families, and a couple of them are still around, but they don't count since no one cares.

Sims 2 Rules for Population Control

It doesn't take long for my Sims 2 neighborhoods to get a little out of control. I start out with six households, then everyone gets married and has affairs and woohoos like crazy. Kids grow up and move out. I download some new funky eye color and end up adding a bunch of new CAS sims. And then if I place the Newson orphans in the town, all those second generation kids are cousins. (This was a big problem with Riverblossom Hills, as you'll see. Everybody wants to marry a Newson.)

We are teh sexy. (Once we grow up. Let's not get creepy.)

It only takes about one generation for the population to grow out of control and I'm struggling to manage twelve or more overflowing households and eventually the neighborhood gets boring and I lose interest.

So I made some rules:

1. No Trying for Baby unless both sims have the "have a baby" want. (Unless it's Winter. Then only one sim has to want a baby. It is the "family" season, after all. And you gotta keep warm. No one wants to get back out of bed to get the birth control.)
2. No moving out until season 1, unless there's an abandoned house in the current season. This helps out with the next rule:
3. Keep all households in the same season. Everyone ages about the same and no one marries their sibling's grandkids. 
4. No creating new sims. Play only sims that already live in the neighborhood, or are in the bin. 
5. Sims can not marry NPCs. Obviously, this rule needs to be broken in neighborhoods like Veronaville or everyone will end up related.

Pretty simple. Of course, I often break these rules, but they do help keep the population in check. That, and Rodney's Death Creator. Population control is an important duty for any responsible SimGod. The power is yours! (This episode, by the way, was the one that caused my dad to ban my siblings and I from ever watching Captain Planet.)

How can you read this? There's no pictures!

I do not post pictures. I tried saving story pictures once. I was more overwhelmed than my unmarried legacy founder sim after having baby girl triplets.

Lucky for them, my computer can't handle Seasons.

She had to sell her walls for cribs. The dead-beat father only showed up to pass out on the lawn. She peed herself while dressed in her fancy opera clothes. Let me tell you, she was really regretting some of her life choices. (Especially the decision to eat a bunch of watermelons in a row while pregnant.) I'm not going to be like that. I'm going to say "no" to the watermelons. So if you are one of those hairy brutes that needs pictures to enjoy a story, you might want to find a different blog.

Let me guess, you use antlers in all of your decorating. 

And yes, I realize this post about not posting pictures has pictures. I'm tricksy like that.

Plumbob Blog

One day, I started a blog. I named it Plumbob Blog. (I know, quite a mouthful.) Stay tuned.

This is a plumbob.
If you didn't already know that, you probably won't like this blog.