Lack of children in Appaloosa Plains?

[Justwright]

I started a legacy type game in AP.  I love the town and the sims there.  But my family is now 3rd gen having 4th gen kids and I've noticed there are no more children living in town.  The only friends the kids made in school were newspaper boys/girls.   I went to Edit Town, there are plenty of couples but for some reason they are not having children.   Story Progression is ON and aging is ON normal.  I could change households and force babies or adoptions but would rather let nature take its course.  Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this.  

[samoht04]

I started a legacy type game in AP.  I love the town and the sims there.  But my family is now 3rd gen having 4th gen kids and I've noticed there are no more children living in town.  The only friends the kids made in school were newspaper boys/girls.   I went to Edit Town, there are plenty of couples but for some reason they are not having children.   Story Progression is ON and aging is ON normal.  I could change households and force babies or adoptions but would rather let nature take it's course.  Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this. 

That happens in a lot of Towns, especially around those Generations. It's basically where the town is full but it isn't over populated. The Game tries to keep a certain number of Sims in a Town but at this time there are more Elderly than Young and so the game isn't trying to boost the population.

[Justwright]

Hmm, time to kill off some old vampires maybe? heh

[m.sato]

I usually set the elders' lifespam to the minimum. Makes my oldest sims mourn a lot, but keeps the children's population at a "healthy" level.

[Justwright]

good idea except I like to keep grandparents around to help with homework and tutoring children/teens.  I guess I could use life fruit or ambrosia to keep my elders alive while rest of town passes on.  Thanks for the idea!

[Hosfac]

Well, you don't necessarily have to set it to minimum, but you could reduce it a good amount and use the little built in perks (read: bugs  ) to keep them alive until the kids are out of school.

[m.sato]

One other thing you could do is uninstall late night. I started missing children with this expansion (cause of vampires, I guess) and I do not see much use for it when you're not in Bridgeport.

[Justwright]

I actually changed my aging to medium.  I had never tried it but with the way I play, that works well for me.  I get bored easily, short attention span I guess.

I have thought of uninstalling Late Night because I don't like vampires or celebrities, but I really like some of the objects from that pack.  I also have downloaded many lots with Late Night objects in them.  I wish I could keep all the clothes, hair, and objects, but get rid of vamps and celebs.

[Katluvr]

My new dynasty story is in AP and I noticed that all the kids my 2nd generation immortal was meeting at school were paper deliverers and babysitters.  There are no townie kids to speak of quite early in the game (approx. 6 sim weeks).  It ought to be interesting finding spouses as the game progresses if the town is in decline already.   

[Hosfac]

If worse comes to worst, the old townies will die off and new families will move in by way of story progression.  A lot of times, these families have children.

[cathyknits]

A little creepy if you think about it, but stake out the school at the end of the day. All the kids and teens in town will be shown leaving the building, whether you know them or not.

[Pam]

One other thing you could do is uninstall late night. I started missing children with this expansion (cause of vampires, I guess) and I do not see much use for it when you're not in Bridgeport.

Late Night isn't going to be the reason for a lack of children.  I see no reason to uninstall it.

[Justwright]

Maybe not directly but I think due to the fact that the vampires live so long, new families do not move in as fast.   I did uninstall Late Night, not just due to the lack of children.  I started a new game, so I'll keep you posted on my observations about number of children in town in a couple generations.

[TheGoat]

I had this exact same problem in Bridgeport.  I don't know if it's a consistent solution, but I noticed that most of the empty homes were two bedroom homes, so I went into Edit Town and added a bunch of bedrooms, under the theory that the game isn't going to add more sims to a house than there are beds (I built a nursery for each house - complete with a crib and single bed).  It seemed to help.  Perhaps it was just dumb luck, but I'm told (I haven't looked closely myself) that Appaloosa Plains has tons of one-bedroom homes.  Maybe adding some beds would help out.

goat

[MoMoll]

Goat that makes sense, because Bridgeport has a lot of one bedroom apartments. The only townies I've seen have kids had houses or two bedrooms.