At what rate is the neighborhood aging?

I have my household aging set to the game default, and aging is on. I accidentally transitioned an adult to elder 15 days early -- sorry, Clarence. RIP -- but other than that mistake, my Sims age up when the game tells them to. So when Oliver (Sim child) met Penny (another Sim child) midway through his childhood, I assumed she would be a child or a teen when he became a teen. Childhood friendship would lead to teen romance which would lead to marriage and I could kick the happy couple out of the house while I continued to play Oliver's older sister. Except not. Because when Oliver's mother invited Penny to his child-to-teen birthday party, Penny turned out to be a Young Adult already. How?

Maybe the neighbourhood ages differently than your active household. Or it's bugged or switching lifespans a few times makes trouble. I can't get myself to experiment with aging, though that's an integral part of my gameplay, to know how that works.

I just wish the damned manual would give some detailed descriptions as to how that works. What's wrong with a 50 pages manual? Though, maybe not even EA knows exactly how the creature they have created really works...


I think the Sims AI has somewhat of a life of its own.

I hope someone comes out for a hack that makes the neighborhood all the neighborhood age together. I don't mind if there is a reasonable age gap, so long as that age gap is consistent.

I also want the aging to match my house no matter which lifespan I choose to play. I have to believe that's a major screw up. EA kept going on and on about how ever yone in the neighborhood would age at the same time and that you could play at different lifespans. I can't imagine anyone deciding on purpose that when you changed the lifespans that you really wanted freakishly immortal sims that outlived their counterparts by 900 days or sims with the lifespan of mayflies compared to their neighbors.

Oddly, the npcs in my game seems to age at the same 900 days level as my sims do.