Sims 2 Aspiration Calculator

The default game in it's originality uses zodiac signs to generate aspirations for townies, whilst premades seem chosen at random by the creators to suit storylines of the towns in my opinion, and as a child like many simmers my choice of aspiration was solely selfish.

Returning to the Sims 2 as an adult had made me need a more quantitative way of generating this.

A quick google search will show you multiple aspiration calculators for the Sims 2 having been lovingly produced by my fellow simmers. Whilst all are uniquely brilliant in their own right, often they feel too complex for my gameplay style, producing subcategories and other complexities I don't want for aspirations. Or alternatively, they have heavy emphasis on a sim's interests, which I find often fill in entertainment and sports far too quickly in my games.

Evaluating this idea, I generated my own aspiration calculator.

Just like Helena Summerdream, I was experimenting away with my calculator.

In my calculator I have (in my eyes) combined all the pros of most other calculators, developing this organically years ago (early in my Sims 2 return) and can now see upon research how much of an amalgamation of other calculators my own one is, hence me sharing it with the world.

My calculator works on a points system. In short the aspiration with the highest points score is that sims true aspiration.

My calculator uses varying subsections to generate their "true aspiration".

Zodiac

Zodiacs are a more recent addition into my calculator, I felt abandoning the Maxis intended method (sort of) for choosing all sims aspirations was wrong of me to do, so I decided to include it to some extent. Each sim gets 10 points added to their zodiac.

Credit goes to Pleasant Sims for her use of zodiac to select aspirations which inspired me to use them in the way they align to each aspiration within my calculator and in my gameplay, she additionally gave me a lot of inspiration via her secondary aspiration calculator to produce my own for aspirations overall.

Interests

Interests should have an above average amount of weighing on aspirations in my eyes and so they do here, but they shouldn't be the sole aspiration giver. A sim can have up to 10 points of interest per interest and thus they are inputted as below.

As you will see later on in the blog, the interests I have linked to aspiration based on how I feel they should link, this was a key aspect of my original calculator and formed the foundation for it. Fortunes care about money, Family for schools and Romance sims are buzzing about fashion and (sexual or otherwise) health.

I have tweaked some interests over time. All of my sims are often highest in Entertainment and Sport (Never below 5 in both), also I find many sims high in Culture and Animals often. 

SPOILERS for the end result but these 4 being high meant I was getting lots of pleasure sims and once I tweaked that my town was over a third popularity sims, so all 4 of these interests now only provide half points so I can get some variety and remove those two (most boring!) aspirations from my gameplay and for my newer generations.

Skills

What amazes me to think is that in some forms of gameplay throughout the Sims 2 community there could be a sim (picture it!) who is Grouchy, mid-level Shy/Outgoing with high skills in Logic and Mechanical and a high interest in both Sci-fi and Environment and that that sim would placed as a Pleasure sim simply because they are a Taurus, this sim is clearly a knowledge sim in all iterations of a knowledge sim!!

Therefore skills in my calculator are important and skills match up to certain aspirations.

1. Knowledge Sims link to Logic and Mechanical (the "smart skills" in my eyes)
2. Family Sims link to Cooking and Cleaning (Sounds cliché but I think of the perfect househusband)
3. Popularity Sims and Fortune Sims both link to Charisma (Good Salesmen and Extrovert energy)
4. Romance Sims also have Charisma with the addition of Body (Flirts like to flirt and only like you for your body is my thinking for the sims here)
5. Pleasure (lastly and least-ly) link to Creativity (Playing and fun items often give creativity and that suits the pleasure sims in my eyes)

You can see this sim has worked on Charisma, Logic and Creativity. A common combination I find due to the 3 toddler skills/toys.

Personality

Personality I felt should be reflected in what they want to 'aspire to' in life. A lazy and grouchy sim would not make sense as a Fortune or Popularity Sim, and so I matched these so each aspiration had 3 personality aspects linked to it.
E.g., Knowledge Sims are Serious, Grouchy, and Neat, whilst Pleasure Sims are Playful, Lazy, and Shy.

I add 5 points to each of the 10 personality aspects if they meet the threshold. 7 points and more will get points for the upper aspect (Neat, Outgoing etc.), whilst 4 and below points get points towards the lower aspect (Sloppy, Shy etc.)

In this example you can see this Sim has 7+ points in Sloppy/Neat and Shy/Outgoing. 4 or below in the Grouchy/Nice, and either 5 or 6 points (my middle range) in Lazy/Active and Serious/Playful and thus got no points in those categories.

Here is a second example:

Meet Bertram Monty-Flexor who recently grew into a teen, gaining the Popularity Aspiration.

Let us take a closer look at his personality:

With 4 points in Sloppy, 9 in Active, 7 in Playful, and 1 in Grouchy. Bertram gained 5 points in each of those personality aspects.

His Shy/Outgoing bar being at 6 points fell in the 'No Points' category for my calculator.

Meet Lucentio, one of Bertram's fathers:

With his personality, he received points in Sloppy, Active, and Nice.

Hobbies

If you read a previous post I did, you will know I have quite a sophisticated hobby system. Once I had that sorted in my gameplay, I added it to my aspiration calculator. I felt they were important because imagine a Cancer sim who had a sports hobby. Sports to me is a popularity things both in game and real life and therefore that sim should not automatically be family due to their zodiac, sims are more than the month they were born in (is my premise with this entire calculator basically...).

My original addition of hobbies had Pleasure Sims in it too, taking the aspiration count to 6. If each hobby was given 3 allocations (30 allocations in total) then each of the 6 aspirations could have 5 allocation, making the 30 in total.

So each aspiration got 5 allocations spread out between the hobbies. Romance Sims would be focussed on woohoo and their body would need to be 'good' so fitness gained two allocations for romance, they enjoy hooking up at night clubs and so music and dance would be one, they would enjoy romance films and novels (or for the 18+ amongst you, enjoy some more adult watching and reading). Last allocation was games, romancers enjoy 'playing games' and not the board or computer variety haha! 

In my eyes a romancer, flirter or 'local bike' would not want to cook every night, they would not enjoy science and being handy at home, they would have no interest in art, sport or nature.

Once I removed Pleasure from this (hoping to get less pleasure sims) it meant each of the now remaining 5 aspirations went to 6 allocations from the previous 5. A lot of aspirations gained a second allocation to a hobby they were already linked to and so Romance sims got a second allocation to games to make it up to 6 allocation across the hobbies.

Each allocation score 5 points to specific aspirations. So if a sim has a Music and Dance Hobby, they would get 5 points in Popularity, 5 in Family and 5 in Romance. The allocations add up if there are multiple aspirations per hobby, such as Sports only linking to popularity and thus 3 allocations and thus 15 points added to popularity.

I appreciate that some of these may feel very opinionated and stereotypically subjective, that is because they are, I had to go with the limitations of the gameplay and a need to meet the equal number allocations between aspirations and hobbies.

Extras (Friends, Family Funds, Aspiration Level)

Most calculators would leave it there because most of the quantitative features of a sims characteristics are included. However I felt some other aspects of their life would imply their aspirations and thus included Number of friends for Popularity, Household Funds relating to Fortune Sims and lastly Aspiration bar linked to Pleasure. Note this last one has been the feature I changed the most. Initially all 3 added 5 points maximum but with my inundation of pleasure sims, I scrapped most points for the aspiration bar to reduce their numbers down.

Adding these 3 extras to only 3 aspirations could have knocked all the equality out of the system, but Popularity, Pleasure and Fortune each only had 1 skill associated with them in my calculator so this actually evened it out.

Overall Results

Here you can see is a final tally of my calculator based on what has been discussed above. As you can see this sim is clearly a knowledge sim being well above all of the other aspiration options. Currently my calculator doesn't auto calculate the hobby points and so I add them on after, and so would be added onto this example calculation below. One because it is difficult to implement due to the allocation system within excel spreadsheets where this lives, but secondly because I want to see what impact the rest of the data generates first before adding in those points.

It may seem a done deal that this specific sim is a Knowledge Aspiration, but imagine they had a sports hobby and thus would take the Popularity points up by 15, to 43 points.

This nicely takes me to some of my rules I implement.

1. I start the aspiration calculator on a child's last day of childhood, often when they are at school and the game can run 'safely' on speed 2 or 3 without my support.
2. If they generate a second aspiration within 5 points (Sometimes 10 if I feel it adds to the story) of their first, I often put this as their secondary aspiration (Like the example above I described 44 points in Knowledge and 43 points in Popularity would be a Primary Knowledge Sim with a Secondary Popularity).
3. If they generate Pleasure I always pick their next one as the primary, giving them a secondary pleasure aspiration. 
4. If they generate Pleasure as the second aspiration, I sort of wing this. Sometimes I will give it them but often I leave it off unless it feels like they are a Pleasure sim.

How do you choose aspirations for your sims? Are you as meticulous as I am with your gameplay or are you more easy going?

Insert this into your Game and Insert the Sims into your life!

Meet Peaseblossom Summerdream a Primary Romance and Secondary Knowledge Sim. Will her marriage to the Popularity Sim Florizel Frost last for the decades ahead?

If you would like to contact me, please comment down below, or alternatively send me an email at insertthesims@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you.

If you want to use my aspiration calculator you can find it on Dropbox linked here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/4mh88qgjmj72g1z91lq4g/AIwkw7UI3ASmcxjreF-3Pe0?rlkey=zrmxkhucf3to8lm5pcoagn667&st=7xq0mtej&dl=0