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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 19th Aug 2018 at 12:11 AM
Default How long are your lifespans?
I feel like I ask this question a lot in multiple places, but I'm always curious!

So I've started another legacy that I'm super invested in, but I have a recurring "issue" when it comes to ages in my families that I noticed isn't such an issue for other peoples' legacies. In short, I can't seem to have my elders live to see their grandchildren. This makes it kinda difficult for me to fulfil family aspirations that require interacting with grandchildren, and it's always nice to have and I don't always want to feel rushed into make my Sims' children start having children of their own right away.

I play with custom lifespans but they're only a few days more or less than the default "normal" lifespan in the game so I'm not quite sure where I'm going wrong. I don't like to make them too long, either.

So! I'd love to know what other people have their lifespans set to, especially those who play legacy families. I'm willing to experiment at this point.
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Forum Resident
#2 Old 19th Aug 2018 at 12:48 AM Last edited by Lodakai : 19th Aug 2018 at 1:01 AM.
Pregnancy 3 days
Babies 3 days because... boring.
Toddler 53 days to round out my 56 day year (2 weeks per season)
Children 56 days
Teens 112 days - 2 years
YA 112 days
Adult 112 days
Elders get 28 days unless I manage to save up potions or whatever to extend it.

Kittens 28 - 56 days
cats 56 - 112 days

Puppies 28 - 56
Dogs 56 - 112

This plays for a very long game per Sim year. I reduce skill learning by 4x as well.
Using this method it takes just about a year to fully train a toddler. half a year if I spend a good portion of my day on them. If I quit my jobs and fully devote, maybe even in one season or less.

ETA: If you like shorter lifespans you can do 1 week season instead of 2 week seasons per sim year. just cut all the numbers in half.

When an engineer says that something can't be done, it's a code phrase that means it's not fun to do.
Test Subject
#3 Old 19th Aug 2018 at 12:56 AM
Quote: Originally posted by luxford
I feel like I ask this question a lot in multiple places, but I'm always curious!
So! I'd love to know what other people have their lifespans set to, especially those who play legacy families. I'm willing to experiment at this point.


I have been playing with the following settings for a long time:

Pregnancy: 1 day
Baby - 1 day
Toddler - 4 days
Child - 7 days
Teen - 8 days
YA - 10 days
Adult - 30 days
Elder - 10 days

If you think of it as 1 day = 1 year in real life, the ages are fairly realistic. And I certainly do have grandparents interacting with grandchildren using this setup.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 19th Aug 2018 at 7:22 AM
I play the standard ones and play legacy style. My elders always live long enough to help raise the grandkids.
Stupid people are stupid
#5 Old 19th Aug 2018 at 8:59 AM
Baby: 2
Toddler: 7
Child: 10
Teen: 10
Young Adult: 18
Adult: 18
Elder: 10

I age them up two days before their actual birthday.
Forum Resident
#7 Old 19th Aug 2018 at 12:46 PM
I play with the normal life span and my heirs have children right away because that caters to my play style anyway , so I don't have your problem. Sometimes, if I like a sim very much, I'll give them a youth potion at some point in their life once (it's even allowed in the official rules of the challenge), so you maybe could try that for those with an aspiration goal you can't complete otherwise?
Scholar
#8 Old 19th Aug 2018 at 1:06 PM
Currently have normal lifespans, but aging turned off for everyone. I want to get used to the Sims 4 style of things, since it is very different from Sims 3.
But when it comes to doing challenges, I keep the default lifespans.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#9 Old 19th Aug 2018 at 6:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Mondenkind
I play with the normal life span and my heirs have children right away because that caters to my play style anyway , so I don't have your problem. Sometimes, if I like a sim very much, I'll give them a youth potion at some point in their life once (it's even allowed in the official rules of the challenge), so you maybe could try that for those with an aspiration goal you can't complete otherwise?

I took a look at my custom lifespans and noticed they're basically at normal but with 2-3 days added on to YA+ ages, maybe an extra day or two for teens, so I'm not quite sure why I'm having the issue of no grandchild/grandparent interaction! But I did recently start to use the youth potions, actually. I've never really been one for using the reward potions but I do sometimes use the youth potions halfway through the YA lifespan once they've increased some of their skills for their career (I kind of play by my own altered version of the legacy rules, anyway, heh)
Space Pony
#10 Old 20th Aug 2018 at 11:54 AM
Eternal. If I want them gone I delete them or have them taken care of. I age them as I please as well. I realized a while back when I have time procession on a bunch of Sims kept multiplying like rabbits.

Dag-Dag
Test Subject
#11 Old 4th Oct 2018 at 1:12 AM
This the best one honestly.
Baby: 3
Toddler: 11
Child: 20
Teen: 19
YoungAdult: 42
Adult: 56
Elder: 38
Mad Poster
#12 Old 4th Oct 2018 at 1:22 AM
I usually have the babies only for three days. Sometimes even less. Toddlers for about a week. And every other age tends to vary. I actually gotta get better with that. I like playing multiple generation households but I'm always so hesitant to age sims up. Especially adults.

The Receptacle still lives!
Scholar
#13 Old 4th Oct 2018 at 6:12 AM
Long, for all life stages. Except for adults; immortal. I have never been able to get my sims to become elders and die of old age, unless I make them AS elders for that purpose! Not since I started playing this game have I aged sims to elder and then let them die of natural causes. Occasionally I age up sims a few days early just due to circumstances (I prefer to have birthday parties on the weekend) or timing.
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