Sims 2 Gameplay Rules: My Custom Lifespan

This post is about my custom lifespan, you can find my general gameplay rules here: Gameplay Rules

I've devised the following life-span for my gameplay as I like to spend a little bit more time with my teens and kids than the typical 1 day = 1 year lifespans allow for. The table below shows it's relevance to the Maxis default and the accumulated total if you like to see how this relateds to 1 day = 1 years (although it doesn't align with real life). The maximum total is 100 days or 100 years.

You can download my custom age span if you want to use it, and I also recommend using this mod by LazyDuchess with it.

Life-Stage	Maxis Default (Days)	My New Settings (Days, Range)	Accummulated (Days)
Baby	3	2 (Ages 0-1)	2
Toddler	4	4 (Ages 2-5)	6
Child	8	7 (Ages 6-12)	13
Teen	15	10 (Ages 13-22)	23
Young Adult (if Sim went to Uni)		8 (Ages 23-30)	31
Adult (that did go to Uni)	24	39 (Ages 31-69)	70
Adult (that did not go to Uni)	29	47 (Ages 23-69)	70
Elder	9-30	9-30 (Ages 70-100)	79-100

I have a mod that makes shortens University to 8 days, if a Sim does not go to University their life-span does not change and they have 47 days of adulthood, if they do go to University 8 days are removed from them at the end of University so they have 39 days of adulthood (as they spent 8 days as a YA). This is to sync up their ages with Sims that did not go to University. I use a mod to do this, and then I use an adjusted version of the Sim Blender mod if I need further corrections.

It is important to remember that in the Sims 2 if a Sim ages to the next lifespan before 6pm, they will also age up again when 6pm occurs later that day. Therefore, if a baby is born at 4pm it will age up 1 day after 2hrs have passed and it reaches 6pm on that day. You can let this happen if it doesn't bother you, or after 6pm you age the Sim back down a day using SimPE or a mod such as this adjusted version of the Sim Blender mod that allows for corrections of 1 day.

Calculating Ages

You can count ages manually as shown below, but I also have a formula in my excel spreadsheet to calculate how many days old a Sim is out of 100 automatically.

Manual:

Example 1: Don Lothario has 15 days of his adult life stage remaining, and did not go to college. He is therefore 55 days old based on my custom lifespan. This is because we know he had 2 days as a baby, 4 days as a toddler, 7 days as a child,10 days as a teen and has had 32 days so far as an adult (because his total adult span would be 47 days since he didn't go to Uni, but, he only has 15 days remaining so has used 32). Don Lothario: 2+4+7+10+32 = 55 days old = 55 years old.

Example 2: Cassandra Goth has 18 days of her adult life stage remaining, and did go to college. She is therefore 52 days old based on my custom lifespan. This is because we know she had 2 days as a baby, 4 days as a toddler, 7 days as a child,10 days as a teen, 8 days as young adult and has had 21 days so far as an adult (her adult span would be 39 days since she did go to Uni, but, she has 18 days remaining so has used 21). Cassandra Goth: 2+4+7+10+8+21 = 52 days old = 52 years old.

Formula:

The formulas below correspond to the Sim in row 2 of my excel spreadsheet (Row 1 are my column headings), you can then drag this formula all the way down to the bottom of the list of Sims in your spreadsheet there-after (deleting out gaps if you have them) and it will auto-calculate the Sim's age and populate the cell with it. For these formulas to work you need 3 columns with 3 pieces of information:

• The number of days left in current life stage (I fill this in at the end of the round, but you can do it at 6pm each day if you want to, this must be filled in for the formula to work correctly. In my spreadsheet this is Column J and so J is used in the formulas below).

• The name of the life stage (must be typed exactly as the following for the formula to work correctly: Baby, Toddler, Child, Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder. In my spreadsheet this is Column I and so I used in the formulas below).

• If the Sim is currently in or went to college (Yes) or did not go to college (No). This must be typed exactly as Yes or No for the formula to work. In my spreadsheet this is Column Q and so Q is used in the formula's below).

  
  

Note: You will need to change the cell references (J, I and Q) in the forumula to match the layout of your spreadsheet if the data is not already in these columns. You can also change the values for each lifestage (2, 4, 7, 10, 8, 39, 47 and 30 for baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, adult that went to college, adult that did not go to college and elder) to suit your own lifespan. If you use a different number of days for University than I do, or you use the Maxis original, then you'll need to change the value of 8 in the formula to the corresponding value as well.

Note on Elders: As elders show how many days they've lived, rather than how many days they have remaining I check this using the days left shrub mod to enter the number of days remaining in my spreadsheet.

Not using a University Age Correction Mod?

If you are NOT using a mod to remove 8 days from a Sim's lifespan automatically after they attend University, you will need the formula below that will include 8 days for the YA stage.

=IF(I2="Baby",2-J2,

IF(I2="Toddler",2+4-J2,

IF(I2="Child",2+4+7-J2,

IF(I2="Teen",2+4+7+10-J2,

IF(I2="Young Adult",IF(Q2="Yes",2+4+7+10+8-J2,""),

IF(I2="Adult",2+4+7+10+IF(Q2="Yes",8,0)+47-J2,

IF(I2="Elder",2+4+7+10+IF(Q2="Yes",8,0)+47+30-J2,"")))))))

Are using a University Age Correction Mod?

If you ARE using a mod like I am to remove 8 days from Sims automatically after they attend University, you will need this formula that doesn't add 8 days for the YA stage as it's already accounted for in the days remaining via the mod.

=IF(I2="Baby",2-J2,

IF(I2="Toddler",2+4-J2,

IF(I2="Child",2+4+7-J2,

IF(I2="Teen",2+4+7+10-J2,

IF(I2="Young Adult",IF(Q2="Yes",2+4+7+10+8-J2,""),

IF(I2="Adult",2+4+7+10+IF(Q2="Yes",8,0)+IF(Q2="Yes",39,47)-J2,

IF(I2="Elder",2+4+7+10+IF(Q2="Yes",8,0)+IF(Q2="Yes",39,47)+30-J2,""))))))))