Let's Play The Sims 2 HARD MODE! - Ottomas Pt 1

Hi everyone!!!! It's meeeee I am back with a video, oh my goodness. TODAY we are starting a fun mini-challenge-series where we will be playing The Sims 2 on "Hard Mode" - aka "vanilla with a huge family" - where I will be trying to discover WHICH is the hardest family to play in The Sims 2 (out of the premade families!) and trying my best to achieve ALL THE THINGS!!
I really hope that you all enjoy this fun little series as I continue to prepare for our next long-running Sims 2 series :)
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[@TeaAddict]

Hi guys I've had a few requests for downloading this house, here is a link! www.simfileshare.net/download/4667930/

[@Delijume]

Additional tracking idea: subtract points every time a sim goes into need failure (like falling asleep at the table) to help with gauging the difficulty between the two families!

[@TeaAddict]

Yes love this idea!

[@milodil]

I would also track every bad memory Every cockroach counts 😂

[@TeaAddict]

Not the cockroaches!! 🤣🤣 Yep I'm keeping track of fears! Dang stinky nappies...

[@lindsayhorning1188]

I think empty nesters is a good end point, all the kids are adults and moved out.

[@ThisFatFunnyLife]

Agreed and in the meantime while everyone is growing up get other mini challenges done like 20 grandkids and raising 20 puppies or kittens

[@Delijume]

Just finished the video, I think a good place to end the “challenge” would be when the youngest kids in each family are at a reasonable age to move out on their own, whether that be moving to university or becoming an adult and getting their own place.

[@simmymom]

Love this! Don't put the sleeping mods back in HAHA! The struggle is real!!!

[@DramatiSim]

What a fun challenge idea!! I love the tracking key milestones. I think you should also track demotions/skill decreases and maybe any need failures and aspiration failures for big deductions. I agree that the ottomas' are harder than the newson's, especially if Samantha KEEPS having babies which she very well may with Peter being... him lol. Love you back on KZbin. A fresh clean game just hits so nicely every time. Can't wait for part 2 and more of your vids more! :D

[@kimmichelle24]

Seeing you hold your baby while you were playing was the absolute cutest. ❤

[@TeaAddict]

@@kimmichelle24 my daily life 🤣🥰🥰

[@x--charlotte--x6980]

Loved this challenge! ❤ What a great idea! 😊 Might be a bit late on the family suggestions, but for me, the Goneril and Albany Capp family definitely get an honourable mention... Their starting funds are just... 😬

[@TeaAddict]

Part 3!! Haha

[@tygertyger91]

So good to see you back, Tea!! I’m addicted to katatty’s Spruceburg

[@diamondinthesky4771]

Spreadsheets are what separate a casual sims player from a true blooded simmer

[@TeaAddict]

🤓🤓 I really need to make some spreadsheet merch lol

[@АнастасияСемененко-н3э]

yes!

[@RhianAutumn]

As a Mum of 2 under 2 I appreciate the fact you juggle this with parenting. ❤

[@TeaAddict]

My 2 are just shy of 6 months old and 23 months old!! I'm almost through the 2 under 2 phase now, but from one 2u2 mama to another, you are doing GREAT! ❤️

[@tryphenarose384]

Same!!! I only find time to play sims at night now, after my kiddos go to sleep. My son is 2, my daughter is one, and I'm pregnant with my last baby, so will have 3 under 4. It's very fun though, having the kids grow up together being so close in age.

[@purplerosegamer1742]

It's great to see you back and I feel like the challenge should end when the children have grown up.

[@brentparsons221]

Loved it so refreshing reminds me of season 1 of pleasantview. Can’t wait for the rest of this challenge.

[@joandsarah77]

This is so much fun. Welcome back to KZbin.

[@beccaf262]

thanks for keeping me company while i smash out my final report! i always loved the chaos of this family! i also cant believe i didnt watch the channel for a bit and now you have another bubby?? CONGRATS!

[@juliaselin8121]

So happy to see you back! Hope you and the fam & lil ones are doing well! This series will be fun to follow for sure 😂

[@EllaReadsFanfic]

I LOVE this so much! Had so much fun to watch this video :)! Thanks for uploading!

[@CordyCordyCordyCordy]

Oh! I’ve been waiting for more sims 2 content!

[@melsie6718]

I love this challenge! It was such a fun video to watch! So good to see you back on KZbin! I'm in Canada so I can hardly ever make streams! ❤❤

[@PixelDreamz]

Love this series! I was feeling similar watching spruceburg! I think ideally, the challenge would end when all the kids are independent. But of course, just play until you feel is enough/as long as it is fun. Also tracking negative things would be a good idea too! I dont think you should add the sleeping mods because it does make it super easy, haha. But the toddler bed is fine i thibk. Yes they can go to sleep on their own but they also wake up more. And its difficult to stop them from going to sleep when they dont really need to. So i think it balances. Cant wait to see more!!! ❤

[@snarkbotanya6557]

Oooh, what a fun concept for a series! I can definitely see arguments for each family as harder. Without peeking forward, I'm going to say my instinct is that the Newsons are harder _at the outset,_ while the Ottomases are harder _long-term._ The Newsons start off with two toddlers and no adults, which is insanely precarious, but once Garrett and Georgia grow up it gets massively easier. The Ottomases, meanwhile, have multiple adults with jobs, but once the twins are born the difficulty spikes like crazy because now you've got way too many very young children to manage. Oh, and just for fun, some names I've gone with for the Ottomas twins... Both Boys: Jacob and Jonah Both Girls: Molly and Polly One of Each: Michael and Monica

[@Sugamama0216]

Tea, I could watch you play Sims all day!!! ❤

[@TeaAddict]

You're so nice thank you :D

[@JoyNichols65]

I loved it thank you! Play as long as it is still fun lol

[@monicar-baldree75]

Love your vids! Thank you for loving the sims 2.

[@AniBats]

Oh my goodness, three videos in such a short time??? I'm feeling so spoiled, my friday is saved! ❤This was such a fun video and it seems like you're having a lot of fun with it, which is always very enjoyable to see. It's a good point that using a lot of mods and cc can make us blind to how challenging the game could actually be running it vanilla. It'll be interesting to see how the Newsons compare to this.

[@TeaAddict]

I've been werkin 😎

[@monicasamaniego3964]

So fun I LOVE THIS you're a gem

[@bibbaaah]

Hi tea! Missed you 🥰 you play TS2 with mods like I play Skyrim with mods- just to make game playing more fun and less stressful. I don't wanna play a game that's gonna stress me out because it's unnecessarily difficult lol.

[@ixelexi]

omg just found your channel and i’m already so obsessed!! can’t wait to check out all of your other videos :)

[@amandalovesthesims2]

I loved watching you play this family! I can’t wait to see what you do with the Newsons 👏🏻

[@thrashman015]

I would love to download your house. Nice home even with a limited budget ☺

[@trashmammal111]

ohhhhh man, i am so looking forward this to after already having binged an embarrassingly big chunk of all your videos in just a few weeks after finding you 😅😂😋💜🖤💜🖤🎀

[@TeaAddict]

Haha thank you for bingeing 😁 fresh content will be a nice change though, it's always fun to have a say in what's going on real time isn't it 😁

[@Atomic-Lola]

This challenge seems super fun to watch - especially since it’s something I’d never try myself

[@Nick--Spears0]

Your UI is sick as heck! ♡

[@TeaAddict]

Thank you! It's called Starship UI, you can get it on ModTheSims :)

[@TheTulipana]

Great to see you back :)

[@katatty]

aaaa I was so surprised and happy to see my series mentioned at the beginning, thank you sm for the shout out! ❤really cool to see you trying it the vanlila-ish gameplay too! :D The Ottomas are one of my favorite pre-made families. Very impressed you managed to make them a decent house on their starter budget! And excited to see how they compare to the Newsons. Learned some cool tips from this video - I had no idea looking at art helped fun so much! (my kids are always in a fun-crisis lol, that will be helpful). Also so funny to see you dancing to the woohoo cutscene music 🤣 Agree with some of the other comments, it would be cool to end the challenge when the last child reaches adulthood/college! But if that's too long maybe just until they are children - I guess it also needs to be a similar length for the Newsons to make it fair? 🤔

[@TeaAddict]

You're so welcome! I've really been loving Spruceburg like I said haha super inspiring 🥰 Yes, looking at art and red hands are the ultimate fun hacks!! Cos yes otherwise kids just don't seem to gain as much fun from things as you think they should?? Another tip is not just for kids but any Sim, when they start watching TV, always get them to change the channel at least once, then their fun starts to increase properly ... #JustMaxisThings Yes I'm thinking that when PJ & Harry get to adulthood, that would be the logical place to end the challenge! If they have any more babies I don't think I'll officially include them in the tracking since we are playing with the "original" family. Also thank you, that house was a challenge haha!

[@ThisFatFunnyLife]

The difficulty levels are always up to you. Like finding space with a large family is totally a challenge. Also how about income tracker? Not with every penny that comes in and out but from memories and available household funds. I’d keep going until all the children are successfully in university or moved out, including any or all future kids born in after the twins. You could also try going for ten children which family sims always want. Keep going generational wise too for 20 grandchildren and raise 20 kittens and puppies. Keep each one of those suggestions as a milestone to complete with the Ottomans specifically. Definitely suggest the ten children for sure and until they all grow up.

[@caitlin8274]

I really enjoyed this it was such a good idea 😄 I turned on notifications to watch the next part as soon as it comes out

[@mel-sg5iw]

ohhhhh i'm soo ready for thiss!

[@sandalaris]

If it helps, the benefit of Toddlers learning to walk is supposed to be that they can get out of their cribs on their own.

[@platasp]

I'm late to the party, but this is so much fun!

[@TeaAddict]

😃 plat!! Thanks so much for coming to the party haha, glad you enjoyed! xx

[@maRRiiH95]

I love a good spreadsheet. when she fell asleep on the wrong side of the bed I cracked up

[@SP-kk8lr]

Loved this! ❤

[@montanam8495]

This makes me want to play them now!! I was actually wondering though, where did you find the items you put in your "Maxis megafolder"? I saw the toddler stuff and was instantly pulled in to searching 😂

[@TeaAddict]

@@montanam8495 all over the place - ModTheSims, Tumblr, Sims2Artists, to name a few. I have a couple of videos outlining how I find CC, but it usually starts with a Google Search, opening some tabs, going over to Images and opening more tabs, and then disappearing down a rabbit hole for many days lol

[@NaomiFerragamo]

A challenge should be challenging, no? ;) I would play as vanilla as possible- it ups the challenge. With the exception of ACR, SimBlender and Batbox, can you do this challenge with zero extras in your download folder? Full-size Cribs, space restrictions and all, etc? I'm here for it regardless- this is a fun idea

[@TeaAddict]

Haha well yes I agree with you 😅 - half size cribs do just make it that little bit easier to squeeze everyone in lol - we do still need to take care of all the babies 🥴🤪 But yes perhaps they do make it too easy cos there's less restriction on space

[@jakofthefrost]

Very excited to watch this series! Looks fun! I pulled up the playlist for this but its in reverse order, do you think it would be possible to change it so the first video is first in the playlist?

[@TeaAddict]

@@jakofthefrost oh sorry yes I will fix that up thank you for letting me know

[@jakofthefrost]

@@TeaAddict thank you! 🙏

[@SamBryans128]

The 2 power wants and the fear you gave to David instead of Peter. Dora is supposed to die on Sharla's birthday. Good luck with that. You know what power want Samantha's going to get now being a family sim with 5 children? Have 10 babies. 😜 Dora's LTW is also to have 6 grandchildren so I don't know if you would consider the bigger families mod "cheaty" or not but something to think about? And Peter has the woohoo with 3 sims want 🙄 Play for as long as you want but I think since you have "overachiever" on your spreadsheet maybe until the last child is an overachiever?

[@TeaAddict]

I noticed that I'd given the power wants to the wrong Sim while I was editing hahaha, it's been fixed. Thank you, editing 😂 YES I know the upcoming power wants are gonna be tough lol... If she has 10 babies I'm gonna cry lol. No, Samantha. Watcher says no. Focus on the ones you've already got 🤣🤣

[@nncsunshine]

The pure unadulterated horror I experience when I log in after an update or such and realize my mods have been disabled, makes me realize I might have a bit of a problem with mod addiction. I don’t even think I could function in game.

[@NaomiFerragamo]

The sims is kind of an infinite game. I think a good endpoint to the challenge might be something concrete that happens in BOTH families, like a day of the week or a season. The end goal is to find out which family is more challenging- how long do you want to be challenged? A sim week? A sim season? A sim year? Depending on your aging system and how many days you have your seasons set to, chances are a sim year will get you through all the milestones/power wants that any one of these families might have. Both families will have the same time restrictions on them, so that might be a good metric.

[@TeaAddict]

I've got maxis seasons and aging in for this challenge! You do make a good point about time restriction - if I wait til all of the Newson kids have aged up, that will happen faster than waiting for the Ottomas twins to fully age up. We could play for one full seasons rotation - that might be a great way to do it! Thank you for the suggestion ❤️

[@sandalaris]

I'm late to the party, but as a general rule in my own game, babies can sleep in single tile cribs, while toddlers have to have the bigger ones.

[@TeaAddict]

@@sandalaris that makes a lot of sense :)

[@marinathebookworm1001]

Your baby's little noises make me sooo happy to a real bad day thank you

[@TeaAddict]

Thank you! There were so many cuts in editing of me turning around to talk to her haha she's a little chatterbox!

[@marinathebookworm1001]

@@TeaAddict she is amazing give her a kiss from me

[@BellaDovah]

Love this series idea! Fun to watch! While I like to think I have a good balance of mods that make the game more challenging vs ones that make things easier, some really do make things easier so I totally agree! I’ve previously avoided the toddlers sleep all night mod as I thought it was too cheaty and unrealistic but if you’re saying that its realistic to your real life experience with a toddler then I might put it in! I don’t think you should for this challenge though😝 I also think it would be interesting to make this challenge cc-free, so no haffacribs muahaha! I’ve realised lately that you know the stats in the item descriptions are literally just text, they don’t reflect the true values as they are determined in BHAVs and most cc creators don’t touch those, so it could be cloned from the highest quality bed but they’ve changed the stat text so you think they’re more balanced, or it could be that they are actually cloned from a cheap bed but they’ve changed the stat text to be higher. So what I’ve been doing recently is extracting a maxis bed at a similar price point in SimPe and copying the bhav values as well as the stat text into the cc items. Not that the stats for maxis items are even really that consistent. Also, for more tracking ideas I’d make it harder and subtract points for things like, need failures, red moods, red aspirations, bad memories, etc. I also agree that Goneril & Albany’s brood would be fun to add into the mix!

[@TeaAddict]

Thank you so much for your thoughts here!! - I can confirm that yes, my toddler tends to sleep all night MOST nights! ... but with my mother's group, it's like a 50/50 between the 6 toddlers haha. However even with that said, most of the toddlers aren't getting up full of energy in the middle of the night, they are waking up and wanting help to go back to sleep. Going completely CC-free is definitely something I thought about doing! I'll... consider it... *eye twitches* hahaha. I actually recently found that out about the beds and other CC objects!! So annoying haha, I'm going to have to redo all of them at some point so I know what I'm dealing with. In my main folder I was actually usually use the "all beds same energy" mod for ages, though recently I've been trying out the "energy gain determined by aspiration level" mod by Episims, which is a cool idea too. Red moods might be hard to track, but yeah I will add tracking for need fails like falling asleep in food or passing out on the floor! Definitely a fun idea!

[@BellaDovah]

@@TeaAddict you’re welcome! Hm that’s interesting. In that case I may edit the toddler sleep all night mod so that either only ones with the heavy sleeper trait do, or they all do unless they have the light sleeper trait (or maybe night owl too), not sure what makes most sense yet! I think in an ideal mod, heavy sleepers would 100% sleep all night and light sleepers 100% would not, and all others would have a 50/50 chance, and for night owls it would need to be after midnight for the 50% chance otherwise 0, but I’m not sure how to do chances yet🤔 I’d say if you do cc-free, recolors don’t count and you can keep those at least! And obviously the store content too, use those amazing dangle mats! I’ve always thought the same energy for every bed would make things too easy, but I have also started using Epi’s based on aspiration mod, I think thats a great, fair idea. Still, I’m a stubborn perfectionist so I’m still going to edit my cc beds😣 now I’ve commited myself to a fresh downloads folder since my new PC build, I swear its going to be a year before I actually end up playing at this rate!😂 Can’t wait to see more and what you end up tracking and how the scores turn out 👀❤️

[@TeaAddict]

@@BellaDovah if you edit the mod to include traits, send it my way! Haha. What we really need is for a full night's energy regain to actually take all night, and then have some kind of mechanic about chance random wakeups where they would then need to be put back to bed. Heavy sleepers have like a 2% chance, regular sleepers maybe a 25% chance, and light sleepers maybe a 50-60% chance haha. I've always felt like the "night sleep" mechanic and "nap sleep" mechanic need to be completely different mechanics in terms of energy gain haha. One day, maybe, in an ideal life-sim game lol

[@BellaDovah]

@@TeaAddict will do! I think as I redo my mods folder my motto will be “can I add traits support to this?” so hopefully I’ll be making a fair few addons soon. Yeah that sounds cool, too complex for me and probably not even possible for the Sims 2 though😂 Yeah maybe in a new life sim game one day🤞 I also think part of the problem is cribs have a very high energy rating, so I’ve been meaning to look into lowering them so they don’t gain energy quite so fast!

[@jodiehardy7220]

Love this! The house you made is cute❤ is it up to download anywhere?

[@TeaAddict]

I hadn't shared it but that's easily done, here you go! www.simfileshare.net/download/4667930/

[@jodiehardy7220]

@@TeaAddict thank you!

[@floraaterra]

i love ittt

[@Hendrik_McSims]

I have an idea for the end of the challenge: The children aged up but they may go early to university if they have an A+ and the want to go to college.

[@TeaAddict]

I might do this if they've gotten everything else ticked off too!

[@cooldusniet]

Juat came here from Facebook. Going watch video tonight

[@TeaAddict]

Thank you for coming over, hope you enjoy the video x

[@cooldusniet]

I did tho!!

[@estreetangel]

To keep it vanilla, toddlers can sleep in pet beds and eat pet food.

[@The101Rurple]

Loving the cameo from cutie Emi 🥰 I think you'd be ok using the Sleep through night, less talk more eat mods, and the smaller cribs. Also, I think Dora had a power want to gain a grandchild that wasn't in your spreadsheet😇 And that's the first time I've seen my name at end of video as a patreon, love it 🤣🥰 Always happy to support you 😇

[@TeaAddict]

Yeah I realised I'd missed Dora's grandchild power want while I was editing! I've updated it 🥰 and thank you so much again for the Patreon support!

[@minmogrovingstrongandhealthy]

I am a data hoarder too. Since day 1 of TS2 I been hoarding stuff and nothing is sorted. I stopped playing TS2 around 2012 and even after that I kept downloading mods for games I don't even play XD

[@TeaAddict]

Mine needs a clean out 🙈🙈

[@celebkiriedhel]

1. I thought that you can nap on the bed without a hack? 2. Even playing noCC, I would include texture default replacements and recolours of game objects - the original textures are pretty horrible. 3. If grandma awakes during the night then grandma can be on night time toddler duty. 4. This makes me want to play again.

[@TeaAddict]

Yeah I've put my recolours folder back in LOL I can't deal without them hahaha, and I have a couple of defaults in... but I could put in more ;) Also nope! No bed napping in TS2 without a hack. Sims 3 you could do it!

[@minmogrovingstrongandhealthy]

I think nap option is only on a sofa and nothing else (maybe on a reclyner too). I vageuly remember sleeping / napping in a car too but that also might had been a mod. I did some challenge of "live in a car" on a community lot decade+ ago and had tons of mods on, I highly doubt I could do any of the things I did back then without mods. Don't get me wrong, I liked TS2 without mods since the games have ton of content but with mods it's even more fun.

[@bethanyedwards3419]

As long as the spaghetti doesn't have meatballs or mince it's Vegetarian.

[@TeaAddict]

Good point!

[@Maddycatwolverinequeen]

I used to love this family

[@pinroshan020]

Its s buggy family when I first played this a decade ago

[@CounterStriker013009]

So their age rise is same with non MOD version of that town, right......?

[@TeaAddict]

@@CounterStriker013009 yep :)

[@cll27]

This family is so hard to play and so boring im trying to figure out what to do with them in my game

[@TeaAddict]

Its always fun just to try and fulfil as many big wants as you can and see what happens!

[@rockerretrogirl21]

Is it just me, or do you really look a lot like Amanda Michelle Seyfried? Wow!

[@TeaAddict]

@@rockerretrogirl21 oh bless you for saying so haha I take that as a massive compliment ❤️ love Amanda Seyfried!

[@The101Rurple]

First 🤣 (I'm never first)

[@TeaAddict]

Congrats 😂🥳🥳🥳

[@JoyNichols65]

I'm second! lol

[@TeaAddict]

Hahaha SO close!

[@JoyNichols65]

@@TeaAddict I know! lol

[@The101Rurple]

I was only first because I loaded YT up at the time it posted 🤣

[@Tasia71144]

Hard mode is No Cheat codes! 🙃🙂

[@TeaAddict]

haha of COURSE!! - just had to fix the stove 😂😂

[@irinairinaa211]

I always avoided this family because i feared it would corrupt my game... 😅

[@TeaAddict]

It used to have a bad bug! But it did get fixed

[@pinroshan020]

I felt asleep while im watching this. This proves that this is a boring lets play from you. Pls have some sense of humor while doing commentary so viewers wont fall asleep.

[@TeaAddict]

Hahaha this comment cracks me up. Usually when people tell me they fell asleep during a video, they say it's because I have a soothing voice and my videos are relaxing. I fall asleep watching videos all the time, not because I'm bored but because it allows my brain to switch off and my body to relax. Sorry that you think I'm boring friend. I suggest watching something else to keep you awake 😘