Rotations?

[orikes]

For all of you who play rotation style, I'm wondering how you determine who gets played when? Do you have a list you play off? Do you just go into each house on a whim and play until the end of the season? Do you have some other method?

I've been trying to stick with playing rotation style, but I've found a couple of frustrating things. Like Mercedes being a child for five days while Oz is still a toddler waiting for his house's turn. Same with Jacob turning into a teen while Star is still a kid while she was technically born first. It probably comes from me not sticking to a solid play order.

Comments

[smoothiesims.livejournal.com]

I only just now started playing on a seasonal rotation, but the plan is to make an order of houses and stick with it. I may deviate if there's something I need to do at the house that season and can't yet (or am not in the mood), but other than that I think just making an order for playing is the best way to save sanity.

[fireflowersims.livejournal.com]

I play based on a three-day rotation. I actually chose three randomly, but it's worked out really well because that's the length of a college semester. Also, it keeps all the kids at relatively the same age, rather than further apart like with a five-day rotation.

I also do keep a set household order. In Sevenwaters, it's based on when the households were added to the neighborhood- the Halls are first, since they were the first family I created and played, and now the last household is Emma and Paul (or, technically, Cooper (2)) since it was the most recently established. With the Morgans, the main household is first, and then after that it's random- I think that in the old neighborhood it was the main household, then Roxy, then the Fitzhugh-Morgan house, then my simself, then other simself households I was playing, and finally uni. I haven't decided what the order will be in this 'hood, but it'll probably be something along those lines.

[docnerd.livejournal.com]

I don't technically play on a rotation, but last generation, when I had cousins to deal with, I played more on a "milestone" basis than on a specific rotation. I played the spares until their kids were toddlers, then played the main houses until they had toddlers, then played the main houses until they had kids, skipped back to the spares and made them kids, went back to the main houses and played them to teenagers, then played the spares to teens. I found that that kept them all coming home from school with each other.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

That's kind of what I did when I didn't have seasons, but now that I actually have different seasons, I'm trying very hard to keep the houses matched up visually. :) It'd suck to have one house be in summer and another be in winter. It's probably also a little different for me since I play the spare houses fully.

[docnerd.livejournal.com]

It's probably harder with ACR too, since I don't have to worry about end-of-generation autonomous Try For Baby or Risky WooHoo resulting in kids that are a lot younger than their peers.

[ndainye.livejournal.com]

I follow the road around the hood and always start/end with the same houses. I have occasionally held back a child from aging in order to keep them more in sync with others. I only do that if the kid is set to get the 'will grow up in one day' pop up on the last day of the rotation. When I want to hold a kid back I just stop the play at their house a day early and go back to them during a clean up round at the end of the rotation. I did that with quite a few of the 'main line' kids at various times during my current generation.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

I thought about your road trick, but unfortunately I've got them scattered about the neighborhood.

I do like the idea of stopping right before a birthday that's at the end of a season (unless it's baby to toddler - MUST SEE WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE!)

[writeraissa.livejournal.com]

I split my main house rotation in half--so I play either 2 or 3 days (whichever I feel like) at the start of the rotation and then the rest at the end.

I have a spreadsheet that determines which order I play the rest of the households in. I get a few oddities--like Kennit being a toddler before Shere Khan's kids are even born--but I'm kinda okay with that. It'll all even out when they head to uni.

[dgjamie.livejournal.com]

I play based on the ages of the kids who are being born and the seasons. People were not put on a season rotation to match up with the main house until they had kids in their house. When everyone was being born I jumped around all the houses in relation to what order I wanted them to be in, specifically in the house with 6 kids. I had 2 born before any main house children, and then lined them up at the first day of winter, and went and let Saffron be born, then I knew I wanted some kids across the board who were the same age as her so I jumped over to the Kings and had the twins, then Apollo, who hadn't been on any sort of rotation because he was living alone and I was completing his LTW, so even though he is Artemis's twin he might have been a few days older or younger than her when he adopted Orpheus, even though Orpheus is the same age as Saffron.
That was confusing. Basically I order the kids' age in relation to the order they were born in in game, not how many days into a season they were born. I give myself some leeway within the seasons and jump around the houses once I'm on a proper rotation, but when I reach the end of the season at one house all the other houses I'm playing get played to the end of the season too. Similarly if kids are the same age I make sure they all have their birthdays close together, so if one is about to teenify all the kids who were born at the same time get played to the day before their birthdays too, and then I go through the house and play the birthdays in succession.
Since I'm basing it on the kids, houses that don't have kids, like Aria's get played on a whim, and when the kids move to Uni houses go on pause, usually with the parents just about to turn elder, and don't become part of a rotation again until the next generation moves home.
It's not a terribly organized system but it works for me.

[celthephoenix.livejournal.com]

In a very basic way: all the houses are built on what I called "Legacy Lane" (even if they're not on the same road) and I numbered the house from 1 to 9 (so far), 1 being the main legacy house. I just play them in that numerical order...
In Legacy Lane 2 is my generation 2 spare, in Legacy Lane 3 is the eldest of my generation 3 spare, etc... the cousins are put in between houses of spares according to when they graduate, the elder kids always moving back to their parent's houses (since I go with 1st born = heir)

[penguingirl03.livejournal.com]

I play my houses on a rotation based on the supposed birth order and age of the cousins. I can't play seasonally because it's ALWAYS winter (still wondering why I did that to myself) so I try and play Sunday to Wednesday and then Thursday to Saturday. On the current rotation I played an extra day at Columbus and Judy's house because Spacely is "older" than Jade and Pearl who are set to grow up right away when I play them next and I needed him to grow up. This also means that I always play the main house last in the rotation at the moment since they are the youngest kids. Families without kids (Adelina and the college group) get played when I feel like it. Everyone is currently out of order at the moment though because I was holding kids back until the last update was posted in case I needed to stage more pictures.

[avidreader7.livejournal.com]

I have learned that for me, I want the main house at the end of the rotation, because once I finish their house, I'm usually ready for an update - but if I play them first, then I still have all the other houses to play before I update. But other than that, I just pick an order and stick with it. If you do stick to a certain order of play, then the kids will stay pretty in sync.

Oh, and I do a seasonal rotation. One season at each house, ending at about 6:00 in the morning on the day it changes to the next season.

[leaths.livejournal.com]

I used to play the houses in birth order, but that was when I only had two spares and wasn't playing the maxis houses. Now that I've decided that I'm going to add the premades into my rotation and I'm going to have a lot more households after this gen graduates uni, I think I'm going to take a page out of Ndainye's book and just follow the road through the neighborhood.

I thought about making a spreadsheet to keep track, but playing them by layout in the hood seems simpler.

[wtsims.livejournal.com]

I make a list, usually kicking off with the main house and then going in rough age order, and usually play 2-3 days at a time so kids stay near the same age. Also, to keep seasons the same I just manually move them forward every couple rotations. Just post-college, rotations might have short lists if I didn't do any play when individual kids graduated (like this time around).

From time to time I'll do a short (1 day only) or long (4-5) days rotation, if events warrant. Short, like when Nimue was due to die and still hadn't met some of her grandkids... long, if no one's pregnant or everyone's a teen or something and I just want to get things done.

I keep a text file with rotation notes in the folder with the play notes, and usually when I open a house I'll write down what day it was so I don't forget it was Wednesday when I came in or whatever...

[swhedonberry.livejournal.com]

When I'm in play mode instead of plottiness owning my soul mode, I typically do a seasons style rotate until there are children who are about to age involved. When the children get in there, I use the main household as a milestone marker. Yes, this does mean that sometimes the other households get aged up a little earlier than originally planned, but I like for the kids of the same age group to get to experience eachother in the right age range.

Right now, my active households are Aericroft (the main legacy household), Iandale Cottage (the newlywed Legacinas), Miguel Place (Jill, Nery, and Brom), Violets Spring (the home of Horatio and Dane Nigmos, their wives, and children Jasper, Claudia, Kylie, and Vincent), The Grunts, Katrina's Place, and Windsor A-Frame (Westley, Cassandra, and Moses). I have other households that I play simply for plotty scenes or to take a break like Toshiko's Docks at Sparrow Bay and the home of Isaac and Marina Curious-Huffington. I'm sure that I'm leaving something out at this point...

[ohturtle.livejournal.com]

In previous prosperity hoods, I have played an alternate 3 day/2 day rotation so that I don't sync outside of the seasons. My current hood is new and a Legacy so it will be a while before I have additional playable houses to worry about. I suspect I will continue with the same though.

[lady-talaie.livejournal.com]

I've only resently started a rotation because I've ot 14 or so kids this generation, and all of them have to get through college. the college is what is on rotation at the moment the rest of hood has to wait untill most of them graduate. I really should go into insim and change the seasons so tat the rotatoin makes a little more sense, plus I hate winter weddings.