Maximum Sim Count Total Confusement

[Spiderkeys]

This has been driving me crazy since the main patch, of how this actually works, I only have 60 played sims so I just set mine to just 80.

So my big question...

1. Are Unplayed sims that are  living in houses safe from deletion and the Not In World sims are not (just like before the patch)?

I do have some individual unplayed sims that are my favourites but I never play their families/houses, so unsure if I should mark the entire family a "Favourite" or not

[MrsFlynn]

It is my understanding that households that are in the My Household tab are considered "favorites" These saved households will not get deleted or culled.

If you have any households in the Other Household tab, they may loose their progress info, such as skill levels, relationships etc.

More about the new culling system can be found with the link below:

New Cullling Mechanics
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=29133.msg472099#msg472099

[Playalot]

Sims living in houses are only free from culling if you have added them to the 'My Households' tab (favoriting them). Otherwise when the game population cap of '575 sims in all the worlds' is reached they may be culled/deleted.

It is up to you entirely who you favorite/add to My Households. In one of my saves I have added a lot of the Maxis made townies as my sim has friendships with them and I don't want them being deleted. In another I only have 2 households in My Households. You'll probably find that any sims you have added to the game manually will automatically be added to the My Households tab anyway.

In some ways the less households you have in there the better your game can potentially run, as all sims that are not favorited are less 'work' for the game as their skills and friendships don't have to be maintained or remembered.

If you have a decent PC then I wouldn't worry about the amount of households you favorite. Just add all the ones you would hate to lose to culling. If you see your total population is growing quite large you can always delete a lot of the game generated townies using the Manage Households tab etc.