[FIXED] NPCs Sims almost always having twins [ Edited ]

[lkrecic]

Preface: I play with the base game and GTW expansion. No mods.

I have two separate households where I'm actively planning children. One household, a wife/husband, has had one set of twins (boy/girl). I had read that was really rare, so I thought that was pretty cool. This happened about one week ago (real time).  I have not tried for children with them again.

My second household is a single male. I'm doing a bit of a challenge in trying to see how many townies he can have a baby with. So far, he's had a baby with 4 different women. One woman was in play (first mother), the other three were unhoused townies out of play that I added to a Lot before they gave birth. Every single one of these women have had twins: boy/girl, boy/girl, boy/girl, girl/girl. The fourth woman, before she gave birth, I played her while she was in labor (I wanted to send her to the hospital and see how that played out, but couldn't figure out how). I was surprised (and pleased) to see she gave birth to a single daughter. Being a programmer by trade, I was curious if the singular child made any difference in me playing her. So I reverted to a save just before she gave birth, played my male Sim and he got a call shortly thereafter - TWINS: girl/girl. So I loaded the save again, played the mother a second time and she gave birth at home where she had only one child: daughter. Reverted a third time to the save, played the man and got the call for twins: girl/girl.

Breakdown:

Mother 1: boy/girl twins
Mother 2: boy/girl twins
Mother 3: boy/girl twins
Mother 4: girl single; girl/girl twins; girl single; girl/girl twins

I did some research and it looks like back in December an overabundance of twins was reported as a bug and reported as resolved.  I will say that my male Sim did "Try for Baby" with all of the women at least twice, with the exception of the fourth woman. The first mother didn't get pregnant the first try, so from that point forward I've always tried for a baby twice in a row, one right after another. With the fourth woman he didn't get a chance to try a second time as she left before there was an opportunity to (a guy has got to eat). The married Sims that also had the twins tried for a baby only once, so trying multiple times may not matter.

It's also important to note that none of my Sims have the fertility buff. The only similarity between the married couple and my single male is that all three are "romantic", otherwise they are completely different.

Edit: Clarified some information.

[crinrict · Accepted solution]

I had this very reproducible in one of my earlier saves but not in the current one.

One pair of twins, 6 single babies. 

I'm marking this as fixed but feel free to come back

@lkrecic

[crinrict]

@lkrecic Merged

[lkrecic]

@crinrict  Is my post the same as the original post it's been merged with?  That involved active families, mine is geared more towards unattended Townies.

I continued the pattern and tried for a baby with now 6 women.  The first 4 are the original mothers from my earlier report.  The last two are from just today.  The same thing happened with all 6 women, the first 4 all had twins again of varying gender, and the last two mothers all had twins too.  I tested with each of the 6 mothers how the births behaved based on when I controlled them, versus when they gave birth while I controlled the father.  When I controlled the mother, she gave birth to one child.  When I controlled the father, they had twins.  This was repeatable every single time.

I have since had to cull the siblings as I have no clue how wide his family tree can be.  He's currently at 17 children with 6 different women after doing so.

[crinrict]

The probability is no different for NPCs then it's for active sims (unless fertility traits are involved of course).

Unless there is something else going on, don't think we need two threads on the twins. It's a bit weird that it's so repeatable but did you try if you can repeat it in a new save game as well or with a different father ?

[lkrecic]

This has become a bit of an experiment for me... the developer side of me wants to start jumping into some sourcecode.

The fact that all of the mothers had a single birth when I was playing them, versus them having twins each and every time they were unattended seems to be different from the original reported bug of there being twins born consistently in active families.  Almost seems they've fixed it in one part, but not in the other.

The 6 mothers have all given birth again.  5 of them gave birth to twins, the 6th had triplets.  With the exception of the mother that had triplets, they all had 1 baby (the same gender as the first born of the twins) when they were being played by myself, but twins when they "phoned in the birth".  The mother with triplets had twins when I played her and triplets when I didn't.

Based off all these numbers, it's almost like it's automatically adding 1 additional child when the child is born while the mother is inactive.  I would say that it's possible the percentage chance of the mother giving birth to twins is higher when the mother is not being controlled, but the fact that they've all had at least twins thus far, suggests there might be something else going on.

I took your advice and tried a different couple.  They were boyfriend/girlfriend and lived in different households, when she had the birth by herself, she had twins.  When I controlled her, it was only one child.  So it seems to be repeatable across all Sims, old and new -- the father I've been testing with was created this past weekend.  This testing couple I created weeks ago.

I took the original married couple who I first seen have twins (boy/girl) and had them try for baby too.  I used cheats to level up the doctor of the house and she said the baby was going to be a boy, but didn't say anything about it being a multiple birth.  The mother gave birth and she had twins again, two boys this time.  I reverted to a save and tried a second time and she had twins again, both at home.  I tried sending her to a hospital the third time unaccompanied and I got the prompt that she had twins.  I went with her the 4th time to the hospital and still had twins.  I even tried sending the dad to the gym for 14 hours after she went into labor and she never called with an update, but popped out the twins as soon as he returned home.

None of these Sims have the Fertile trait (it's never been necessary for me to consider even taking it).  It seems to mainly be a problem with one Sim having a child with a Sim from a different Household and the player not actively controlling the pregnant mother.  I tried having the father Sim be there for the birth of the children, but that woman won't pop them out while he's there.

I also noticed that an active Sim seems to give birth after around 3 game days.  Whereas a pregnant Sim that isn't being controlled has the baby in about 1 in a half.  I'm not sure if that matters, but thought I'd report it if it does.

[crinrict]

I know my inactive only had one child whereas I had twins too when the bug was around.

Did you make the new couple in the same save game or started a new one ? Also not sure if you stated: Have you ever used mods with that save game ?

[lkrecic]

Seems to be the bug might have flipped then?  From active to inactive?  *shrugs*

The father with all the children is on a new save.  The other couples are on a 4+ week old save.

Found an "alien" and got the Father pregnant just to see what would happen.  The father had one baby, the "alien" mother had twins.  All of the children appear to be human.  I was curious if alien/human made any difference -- it doesn't seem to.

Strangely enough, when I went to play the father again tonight, he had lost all of his traits and all of his friendship/romance meters were about a 1/4 of what they had been -- some were completely blank.  He even had to reintroduce himself to a bunch of people.  But I suspect this is a separate bug altogether as I've seen the latter happen on a different Sim.

I've never used any mods (haven't even looked into how to install them).  I only play with the base game and the GTW expansion.

[crinrict]

Could you try renaming your user folder for testing purposes and let the game create a new one. Then start another new game.

Wonder if some cache files are bugged out.

[lkrecic]

Renamed my save folder and started fresh.  Created "Dude Bro" and tried for baby the first single woman he ran into.  She called 3 days later to say she had twins.

She was dark-skinned and I've noticed the babies seem to be somewhat inconsistent when they are twins.  With my other guy, he has light tanned skin, black hair, and green eyes.  One of the mothers has very dark skin, black hair, and brown eyes.  Her twins with him were as pale as the palette goes and one had red hair and blue eyes; while the other had pale skin, black hair, and green eyes.

So it doesn't appear to be a cache issue.

EDIT:

I got a response to this same topic on another forum and others have been reporting the same issue.  One said her Sim's kids have all grown, married, and had babies and each of the 3 kids all had twins when they gave birth while inactive.

[crinrict]

Really strange indeed. 

EDIT: New thought on this but maybe the randomizer kinda locks up. It's a bit like the issue where you get the same household structure for new families over and over. There's no logical explanation for that cause all should have the same probability so what if once you have a certain structure, it just keeps repeating that ? Really just fishing in the dark though.