Thing is...most of the time I also almost exclusively play with premades (though I do not like the Stealth Hood Sims and have removed them) but my premades or the Bin Sims that come with the Neighbourhoods (the Burbs, for example) never display autonomous Romance either...
So are only the Stelath Hood Sims already activated? Maybe it's exclusive for Premades that were introduced after Nightlife? (So the Stealth Hood guys, Desiderata Valley etc.)?

Wouldn't it just be any sim who already has such a relationship when you start playing them? I should say, too, that I play with aging off, so many of my sims have had a LOT of experiences.

I'm just spitballing here, so take it as you will.

There may indeed be a difference the Sims that populate the Maxis neighborhoods (which I'm thinking is what Orphalesion means by "premades") and the bin families (The Ottomas, Newson, Roseland, etc. families) It could be that one group is generally pre-activated and one group is only pre-activated in terms of their pre-established partners. The fact that Dora Ottomas acted as she did in Sunrader's game would indicate to me that she's activated because of the relationship she initiated with the butler. Her household with the Oldies and Dora is another example. (Though I'm curious as to whether or not the CAS-made guy will interact with anyone romantically outside of that household because that would say something about this issue.) But in Orphalesion's game, the neighborhood premades do not romantically interact with anyone other than individuals who are or have been their romantic partner. This suggests that the initial/existing programming between the two groups is different. I, on the other hand, never play with premades and only very rarely with bin Sims. What I experience is that Sims created as partners in CAS will interact with each other and with other Sims, but others -- like those who are born in the game or created underage -- require a "push" to get them started in terms of interactions and preferences, once they are of age. But, townies seem to just do as they will, with no pushing, and in my game they build up relationships on community lots and are often seen romantically interacting and, since I have ACR, they'll hop into a photobooth for some fun, even. (Usually, I let the game generate townies randomly, when I use them at all, by using the shift-click thing on the mailbox. I don't create them myself.)

Of course, there's another variable here. My and Orphalesion's games have romance-oriented mods in them, mine a more extensive one, and Sunrader's does not. So, Sunrader's game is going to be the most representative of a vanilla game in this respect, I think. She plays mostly with premades but obviously has used bin Sims as well. So now I'm curious about her experience with born-in-games....but since she plays with aging off I don't know how many "of-age" born-in-games she has. There're just too many variables, arrrrrgh!

I know that both are premades, but the Ottomases, Picasos and such are "Stealth Hood Families" because they are added to every neighbourhood via the Stealth Hoods (Weather, Pets, Hobbies, etc) unless you replace those with empty templates.

What I think possible is that since all the Stealth Hood Sims come from expansions after Nightlife (which intruduced Chemistry and Scope the Room) they might indeed be "Activated", while the ISms form the Basegame and uni (pre-Night Life) might not be activated.
It's the same with LTW, some Premades that came with expansions after University have pre-defined LTWs, while the Basegame Sims get assigned a random one when you first load up the household.

Plus even Sunrader has a romance-related mod; No-Jealousy-At-All.

So really none of the three of us has a "Vanilla" game when it comes to romance

Yeah, not many. I have 7 teens (6 boys and a girl, one of the boys, the girl's brother, is gay) who've grown up together and they mix freely with flirts and hugs and stuff. I think they are all in love all over the place. It's pretty hilarious to watch the boys literally line up to interact with the girl. This wouldn't happen at all with jealousy on, because they'd just be fighting all the time.

Ah, yes, that does make sense. I didn't even think about the fact that probably most people, if they're playing a Maxis hood, are more likely to be playing Pleasantview/Strangetown/Veronaville. Or an uberhood, I guess. I've just rarely seen people playing just Riverblossom or Desiderata or Belldonna Cove. But yes, the Ottomas family came with Seasons, so they would likely be "activated" where as a basegame bin Sim/family probably wouldn't be. So, I'm guessing you've mostly played premades (either neighborhood or bin) that wouldn't have been "pre-activated?"

(And yeah, I forgot that Sunrader said she has "no jealousy at all." So, none of us is vanilla, yay! )



Only one of the boys is gay? Poor kid, so lonely...*sniff*

But did you have to do anything to get them to flirt when they grew up? Now that I'm really thinking about it, I'm not entirely sure that I actually did. Like, I recall having pairs of kids who were childhood friends, and they become teens and suddenly when they're together I hear the "first kiss" sound, and I can't remember for sure, but I don't think I had them scope a room or anything. But maybe I did. Just...can't remember.

Yeah, imo, the no-jealousy allows the "natural" autonomy for romance and the vanilla jealousy just distracts them from it.



A couple are bi.

As for the flirting in the vanilla game - I have to make use of my memory here, but I don't believe married sims will flirt with anybody else than their partners autonomously (generally, but there are exceptions.

Single sims, though, will flirt with married sims. Just ask anyone who has ever played Chester Gieke in a vanilla game - no brown-haired lady was safe from Chester. Chester is a knowledge sim, but has a lot of playful and nice points.

I believe playful sims will flirt easier with others, whatever their aspiration, in the vanilla game - I don't think mods always provide for that, so one has to improvise - the one thing I dislike about mods is that they tend to treat all sims with the same aspiration as if they have the same personality too.

I do have some mods these days - I have ACR (settings took me months to get right) and Pescado's romance mod - I still like a bit of jealousy and drama

@iCad I use ACR as well, although I'm having to relearn how to use it. Thank god I saved the manual.

I had forgotten you could use it to randomize gender preference so when I built this hood I used the sim blender instead, not sure it makes much difference. I have in the past set individual jealousy for sims but in general, I go with no jealousy for Romance and Pleasure sims, spouse only for Popular and love for knowledge, fortune, and family sims. That is just what makes sense to me though so others might view that differently. I have in the past had sims that had such extreme personalities you just knew they would be jealous and possessive so I set them accordingly.

I resisted the ACR for a long time way back when I don't even remember why tbh. Once I installed it though I wouldn't play without it. I need to have some of the control taken out of my hands and I especially like having the "try for baby" autonomous. I say that but there always comes a point I put them on birth control. This time it was after having back to back to back kids I focused on something else and next thing I knew I was hearing the baby-making music. I was like "are you kidding me?" so I promptly turned the autonomy off after that. Although there still is a chance of a risky woo-hoo.

I can be very controlling when I play and I did a long time ago experiment with turning freewill off. It wasn't for me but that doesn't mean it doesn't work for others. To each their own, that is the very great beauty of this game and all the wonderful mods that people have created for it. You can really customize to fit you and you alone.

A couple are bi.

I am pretty sure I did not do anything to get them to flirt as they grew up, because I was very curious which boy the girl would choose to make a relationship with, since it's sort of a Snow White situation. Turns out they are all pretty open to falling in love with her, except for her brother, and she doesn't seem to mind all the attention. The relationships do seem different, though, and that's cute to see.

I think most people fear it because it's a "big" mod, and they think it's going to conflict with other things. Which it generally won't because it's very self-contained. (Inteen's the big mod that conflicts with lots of stuff. ) All of ACR's autonomous interactions are basically "clones" of the Maxis ones, so mods that affect the Maxis interactions won't affect the ACR ones at all and ACR in turn doesn't affect the Maxis interactions. ...Which is why for it to entirely work as advertised you have to make ALL of the Maxis romantic interactions non-autonomous or else all the settings you set for Sims or the neighborhood as a whole will be for naught because the Maxis interactions ignore the ACR settings, and Sims can autonomously do everything but woohoo and try for baby. I don't think this is mentioned in the manual, but it ought to be; it took me a long while to figure out why my settings just weren't working like they should!

I think the other main reason people fear it is because of loss of control and/or because they've been led to believe that if they install it it'll turn all their Sims into horndogs who'll end up with 100 babies each and/or there will always be lots of "drama." Which is not really the case, of course, though if you leave it at default settings the Sims are rather on the horny side, yes, and that will tend to create drama. But it (along with making all the Maxis romantic interaction non-autonomous) is also the only mod that I know of that'll allow you to create, as a for instance, a single completely asexual Sim that also has free will, without affecting any other Sim in the neighborhood. And also, the "ideal family size" setting is great for limiting family size. Yeah, they'll likely still have their kids close together, but if you use that setting it'll curb how often they try for baby and/or how often they'll succeed. And there's the fertility curve as well so that the chance of conceiving declines with the age of the woman. (Or the, er, recipient if you play with same-sex pregnancy mods.) To me, if you're going to mod romance at all AND you're willing to mess with settings (because it's not just a "drop in and go" kind of mod), then it's the mod to get. But of course that's just my opinion.

I've still never tried it, really the only things I would want from ACR are the fertility curve and the birth control, I can't think of anything else that interests me enough to cope with all the settings on such a large mod. My sims already flirt and stuff on their own, risky woohoo gives surprise babies and I never want sims trying for babies on their own. The Gender Preference Adjuster kite has a no preference setting on it and romance mod helps make jealously realistic and no instant love makes falling in love more realistic.

As for ACR - my married couples are the ones who benefit the most from the mod, I think

However, I kind of enjoy the unplanned things that comes with ACR, eg.

Two of my students ended up on probation because of it - they were late for their final exams
My one knowledge Sim has never flirted with anyone else but his Popularity wife, but she flirts with the much younger Knowledge son of the Mayor.
Another married knowledge sim does flirt with the wife of the general, who is also a knowledge sim, but he is married to a romance sim who does not flirt with anyone else and seems quite happy - even though she does roll the romance wants. She has a LTW to be a celebrity chef, so it seems she has her priorities in order
Lazy but successful, my single mad scientist flirts with almost everyone. He is knowledge too. He does seem to have a thing for the daughter of my married knowledge sim, though.

Contrary to popular belief, I think that family sims should be the most patient when it comes to jealousy - getting to the golden anniversary, keeping the family together and saving the marriage ought to be their top priorities. A knowledge sim can always move on to more learning, a fortune one to more money and a romance one to other partners without caring that much.

I can’t remember life without ACR tbh. It’s what caused the cutest sim couple I’ve ever seen to happen (Meadow autonomously kissed Vivian and they just constantly are affectionate to each other it’s so cute)

I double click the desktop's short cut icon to load up the launcher, from where I start up the game. Also, in windowed mode.

There's one feature of ACR that a lot of people overlook-the "stability" of the autonomy, which is at the top of the pie chart when you're looking at the settings for ACR.

You can have either "Static" or 'non-static' (not the the precise term for that option) autonomy which enables the the autonomy to either change or not.

If you pick the 'static' state, their autonomy will never change. You'll always have the same autonomy day in and day out. Otherwise they'll go off on their own and call up their partners according to their social needs and wants. I keep mine on 'non-static' which means it will change no matter what their aspiration or mood is. Knowledge pixels are almost always low-needs for romance, and fortune pixels are mostly that. It's also true that astrological signs also have a stake in it. A always needy Taurus will be more apt to call their lover for a quick romp in bed than a Virgo, for example.

Family pixels will almost always be committed to only their spouses by their aspiration. Romance pixels will change their minds whenever the sun rises...

"Dynamic" is the term you are looking for. You can also set their OTS to either static or dynamic, although even on dynamic sims don't change their OTS very often. Even a romance sim will pick their perfect "partner" and stick to them pretty faithfully for booty calls at least.

Yes, it was. I had an elder moment while writing the paragraph and it lingered on longer than it should have!

I have two different setups for how I play depending on what mood I'm in. I load up The Ultimate Collection when I want to play in storyline heavy rotation with lots of custom content and mods. Life Stories is when I feel like playing a more basegame, vanilla vibe.

I never play any of the EAxis sims. I did the change so they don't appear in neighborhoods.

I never really play them either, not since I was first getting into the game. I decided to change that and made a hood with all the Maxis hoods as subhoods. Set it up perfectly and as yet have never played it. XD

I don't play the EA hoods, but I do like the bin sims, although they are not in my new hood. I also like the townie and BV teens and normally send them to Uni with my sims.

I like Strangetown, though, but I don't think I will play it again - sorting them out once was enough! Still, some of the best sim characters I have seen anywhere.

I'm always experimenting with ways to change my playstyle by trying different challenges and such. My play has definitely changed over the years. Overall, I've found that the older I've gotten, the less controlling I've become over their lives. When I started out, they were essentially dolls living in a utopia. No drama in my sims' lives back then. They were all straight A students who married the perfect match and grew up to raise perfect children who grew up to raise more perfect children. No free will allowed. It wasn't about story for me, just control. It was therapy, I guess. These days, I'm a lot more relaxed with them. I leave free will on, and I've been pleasantly-surprised at the personalities that have emerged from the sims I've made, the stories they and the game have created while I watched. I do direct them, though. It's a mix of wants-based and what I've come to see of their personalities. For instance, I might create what I thought would be a serious, hard-working sim, but they turn out to be sort of flaky and dreamy instead. I'll interpret their wants based on that information and whatever limitations I've decided to place on the world as a whole. It's all subjective, I suppose. I'm not out to tell a story so much as I am to discover one.

And some days, I don't want to play the sims themselves at all. Sometimes, I want to build a house, or a neighborhood instead. I don't care about who might live there. I just have an image in my head and a desire to create that image in the game. It might be a house I saw online or in a book, but it's a challenge of creativity, of design.

I just think it's stupid by default you have the same sims in EVERY neighborhood. How could anyone want that?

I do like Strangetown and Pleasantview and play them (or variations thereof, such as the Beginnign Hoods) regularly, but I dislike (and removed) the Binsims and the Townies.
Really I still wonder how on Earth they created the base-game Townies. A lot of them have dyed hair (their hair and genetics don't match) which would point towards them being created by hand....but at the same time even among the Pleasntview ones you have many that repeat the same names (with the same first name/last name combinations even) and most of them look like it was the RNG that dressed them, both of which (I think at least) should have been avoided if they were hand-crafted.