What I'm curious about: how do you decide (and follow through) on various particular family-strategies? With all the in-game decisions like scolding and praising behaviours, order of bying upgrades, etc.

For example: I've got one 'Idealistic' family, one 'Realistic' family (as close as I can get to my own) and one 'High Society' family.
I play each family differently. Make other choices for each.

Idealistic (for me that is
Loving outdoor things, nature, family-things, values and happiness are more important than making money.
In effect, moneymaking and upgrading is slower: rather save up some money for the interest and the good foods, no need to become Master to fast, rather have the hammock and radio (dancing, yeay!) instead of swimmingpool or fancy bedsheats.
Some weeds in the yard? Jumping on the bed? No problem!

High-Society: (Named that one Beverly Hills)
Very oriented on money, appearances and status (What will the neighbours think??!) Marriage only to rich or promising spouses (looks don't count).
Weeds in the yard? No way! Traditional woman/man-tasks: woman puts on make-up and beautymasks, reads magazines, does household stuff, while man works his but off and takes out garbage, reads newspaper etc. They first upgrade the kitchen (look how fancy!)and will be the first to get the swimmingpool.
Adopt like 'Madonna-style' and: had the firstborn 'sold off' to a stardom-carriere'. (Would NEVER happen in my other families, mind you!) Tend to neglect the kids, do only family-stuff 'for appearances' (Happiness-bar).

So, now I'm really curious: how do YOU decide how to run a family or various families? And how does this effect your choices in the game?

Or, am I the only one doing this experiment?
No way: I'm pretty sure a lot of you do this!!!

If so: please share your thoughts and experiences?

Greetz!

(If this topic is posted somewhere else, please let me know and close this one. Have read a zillion threads, but there's SO many!?)

I just let them go much as I want my own life to be. I never thought of different types. Great idea!

I usually make them workaholics .

That is a great idea, and I might give that a go. I usually praise dancing always and always buy the mp3 player after the bathroom & air purifier as I love music and it makes me happier, so I hope it does the same for them. They look so cute when they dance, but can they give the boring old radio away.

I usually only scold the drawing on the wall & banging dishes and let all the other stuff slide. They are kids!

@Angeltalena: that sounds a lot like my 'Idealistic' family?
Let them do the things/make the choices I feel are 'right' (for a happy healthy life), but I'm not always able to do in my Real Life. They ARE having great fun, I must say!

@halidog: And that sounds a lot like my 'Realistic' life ;-)

@Bren: I do SO agree with you on that!
The only family I choose to do otherwise, is my Beverly Hills family. Hubby is scolded for doing housework, kids are scolded for playing in the dirt (because: what will the neighbours think? Not proper for these rich kids )

And although this is only a game: I still prefer the 'salty sweets' over scolding.... Never been a big believer in spanking!

How is your Beverly Hills family reacting to the whole method? Are they generally happy and healthy?

Well, funny enough, they are just as healthy & happy as the other families. They do tend to get exhausted faster/more often, but hey: that's the price they pay for their lifestyle

Both parents made it to Master, earn lots of money so they get the luxury stuff. And that makes them happy. Mum seems to get rested/relaxed doing her beauty-things in the bathroom, and hubby loves to admire his new Toolkit and reading the paper.
I think the kids are happy because they get their attention/praises/candy/playtime from me, plus they too like the new stuff in the house.
And with enough money for the good foods and doctor/medicine, the family's health is more than fine!

Guess there's lots of ways to happiness

Beverley Hills Family, that is priceless. There are so many ways to play this game.

I have a family that started as a test what they do during the night (as I play at night I reversed my other families), and because I don't get much time to play during the day they run amok. It's funny to watch them run around a messy house with weeds everywhere, then I get sick of it not being neat and try to fix it up but run out of time - so it's my 'you guys do you want' family.

Does that work to treat the members of the family differently?

I wondered because when I praise 1 member for doing something, it always seems like the others are quick to copy.

Good question.
That seems to be the case in my families also. One family is crazy about dancing (praised them a lot for doing it) and all members seem to join in, even without praising.

With the Beverly Hills Family, it takes some extra effort to make the hubby do other things than the mum. But I just keep scolding him for doing housework, and praise her for doing it.
And vice versa, when I see mum doing 'man-stuff'. As far as I can tell, it has effect.
I encourage mum to do beauty-things in the bathroom, and she does put on make-up and beauty-masks very regularly. Very funny.
The hubby now rarely goes looking for laundry or do dishes. Instead, he does more of the stuff I reward him for (giving sweet candy/fruit works a lot better.)
They do still try to emancipate, though
So I just keep 'brainwashing' them. Gives me something extra to do, and it's fun for me to run a family in this way, because it's sooooo not my own style!

Oh, and another thing: I didn't buy them the radio yet. All that dancing-stuff doesn't match their life-style in this first generation. They'll get the swimmingpool soon, and got the flatscreen first. But I think the next generation will want to get the radio/MP3 player. I think I'll just not praise them if they go dancing, but not scold them for it either. (Unless they go dance-freaky and I'll need to correct them )

Well Bren: In my head I see images of The Simpsons family when I read that

I've been running multiple families as well, but I just let them whatever they want to do (except for work, I sure praise them to earn money) and strangely, each family seems to have their own habbits. One family is crazy about birds and pool, another likes to watch tv, another family never watches tv except for the youngest boy (he sits in front of the tv all alone), another family is so well behaved; grown ups work all the time, teenagers study or do homework, kids play in the sandbox or with toys.

Tamarinde: I like your idea! I can't wait to try something like this out. I tried to do something like this for the VV games but never seemed to make much difference, but this sounds like it would work. I have a question though. Do you change all your little friend's names or keep them the same? I like the names and haven't been changing them much myself, but I think it might be funny to have snooty names in the Beverly Hills family, like Winston or Guinevere. Just a thought.

Wow, that does seem like a pretty good idea. Never thought of it, now I want to try that sometime.
I have two families and I pretty much let them do what they want. The only difference between them is that in the second one they are practically broke. I keep making the mother have kids (they only have 2 so far, though), and I chose as her husband a guy who only brought 46$ with him. They only have 84$ in the bank now. Funny how in my other family, where they have 6 kids, there aren't any money problems.

Hi Fabala.

Nice to hear you like the idea
Yes, I do change the names most of the time, to be fitting the family. But I try to stay close to the originals if possible.
In Beverly Hills the mum was Jota, so I renamed her Nota since she is a lawyer, and hubby I named Bill. They are so keen on money
Luckily the first babygirl was Sunny, that seemed fitting enough. Second babygirl I named Cher. Next generation, I'd like a Posh Spice, Britney, that kinda names...

Hi Jo13,
Thanks!

If I'd have a 'poor' family like that, I think I'd go for the 'Back to basics' family-style
And act/react accordingly with decisions about praising, scolding, order of getting upgrades or stuff from the store.
Like, go for the radio, not the flatscreen or paintings etc, and mostly try to make them happy by doing fun-stuff together rather than be elated with luxury items.
And wait for the 'free hammock' and hoping for a lot of food-at-the-door events!
Don't have a family like that yet, you just gave me a good idea! Gonna try working on that one, thanks!

(Oh, and good to know that your other family gets by okay with so many kids. Proves that it CAN be done )

You're welcome.
Yes, it can be done, I guess I just got very lucky with my first family, after hearing the problems that lots of people are having with getting 6 kids. My little people are just very fertile, it seems...
Oh, and now I have 6 kids in the "poor family" too... 6 girls, including 2 sets of twins in a row. And there was also an earthquake there today. I swear that family must be cursed.