How d'you begin your game? «123...Next Go

Saviourofpotatoes

What is your preferred way to begin a new save?

Do you start with a couple, or let your Sim meet their love interest later on?

Do you start in a house or begin from nothing?

Do you slowly make an entire neighbourhood?

Genuinely interested in others play styles, Im thinking of redoing SV and making it a bit more modern with more things to do. Cant wait to hear from others

Elleysims

Now I normally do challenges but whenever I start a game with no idea what I will be doing, I always just create one character and see where it goes from there. I like to mix it up where I live but normally I will get a big log and start a small house so I don't have to worry about moving later. I hate having to unload furniture.

puzzlezaddict

I usually start with a couple who are engaged and place them in a cheap house that they can afford without cheats. They get married immediately (+50 moodlet for 2 full days really helps them learn skills quickly) and then the wife gets pregnant. Then the husband gets a job (that way no days off to get "settled in" after marriage) or starts a craft; if the wife is going to have a career, she'll wait until the baby is born because she'll actually get an extra day or two of work instead of time off. What can I say, I like the challenge of having no money, only one income and a baby on the way. Oh, and someone plants a small garden to get things started.

Occasionally I start with a single sim who wants to be a writer or fisherman, but I find it lonely and sometimes frustrating to try to get a career like that off the ground while also making friends. It's only fun later, when the sim has enough money coming in to stop worrying.

Saviourofpotatoes

Thanks for your input guys.

@Elleysims Ive attempted to start a few challenges but never see them through, have you completed any challenges?

@puzzlezaddict Im exactly the same when it comes to enjoying a struggle throughout the game, even when my sims earn fairly and are comfortable I make up scenarios, like a broken down car or get them into a fight and receive a "fine" to charge 'em to the point in where they're struggling again

My current play I started with 2 adults, played them until their daughter turned into a teenager and then played her until young adult where she moved out and started all over again, there's also a serial killer in this play so she may be forced into unwanted accommodation soon if you catch my drift aha which sucks for her because she's only just been able to afford to build a hut in the woods.

TadOlson

I've started with empty worlds and set up a few basic community lots before moving my first settlers into town.I will slowly add more population to the town over time and even have them breed as they become settled into the town enough to be able to take care of a child.I'm playing it very heavily Modded and use a Modded story progression so I play TS2's rotational ply with my town and story progression is set up to run like the TS2 version.

Nedryn

The most recent thing I did was start with seven unrelated sims, haha. Two sets of couples came out of that, and one married someone I added in specifically for him. The other two are single to this day.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "house or nothing." I usually start with an empty lot, and design the house myself.

Through adding people in manually and my sims having tons of kids, by the time I get bored with a save I'll usually have at least half of the world populated solely by sims I've caused the creation of, in one way or another.

TreyNutz

I don't really have a preferred way to start a save. I mix it up to whatever interests me at the time, and whether I'm doing a challenge or not.

Most of the time I start with a single sim created in CAS and have them meet a love interest (often at university), but occasionally I start with a steady couple. It all depends on what I want to do with that game.

Usually I start my sims in a starter house, but I've done the rags to riches thing (staring my sim on an empty lot with no money), and I've had a sim couple start on an empty lot and immediately enroll in university to make money and later moving into a nice home once they've graduated.

I'll customize worlds before I use them, but I don't make over an entire neighborhood.

Jestina

Single sim and money cheat down to zero. Even doing it that way, the game unfortunately is not all that challenging. I usually don't like dealing with children as they are even more annoying and less productive than adult sims. Sometimes i'll limit myself as to how I can make money, what I need to do before I can invite someone to live with me(it's highly unrealistic that someone would just move onto an empty lot with you), and don't accept any outside funds(people moving in). I basically play the same way in 3 and 4. 3 can be tougher with seasons as you need to get a home before winter.

igazor

At the risk of boring everyone to tears who has heard this all before, I was kind of a latecomer to TS3 and started my first game towards the end of 2011 with the base game, one EP, and one SP (no mods yet). It was not a very notable beginning, a single sim of my own design starting out in Sunset Valley in a modest home in what seemed like would be a challenging career, the Military. I made a lot of mistakes as a player back then as I was really just learning how to play, but managed to recover from all of them.

The thing is, no one ever told me that you were supposed to start over every so often, so I never did. That's still the same game I am playing today, over six years later, and that first sim is the great great (etc.) granddaddy of them all. I really have to load up a very early copy of this game one of these days and have sculptures made of my founder and his partner. All I have now are some horrible paintings of them that the grandkids made, some even more horrible blurry screenshots, and lots of stories to talk about when the family gets together.

CheyTheHuman

Ahh man, I remember my very first time with The Sims 3. After how I watched videos of Vargskelethor (Joel from Vinesauce) playing The Sims 3, I thought "This looks like a blast, I wanna play!".

One day (over a year ago), My sister purchased the Xbox 360 version of The Sims 3. She played it for several moments and decided that she hates it. A few months later, near Thanksgiving, She moved out and left her copy as well as her Xbox behind. I decided "Well, Let's give this a shot."

I made two Sims, Myself and the Second Doctor from that good old British show Doctor Who. And with those two, I played out a absolutely amazing Harlequin romance-type love story. They soon got married and had two children; Alistair and Leela. All was going well when my sister decided she wants her Xbox back. Don't panic, She did give me a spare Xbox she had and let me keep TS3. So I immediately started over. I had to rush their relationship. OH! And there was a bit of a mishap when trying to remake those kids. I accidentally let my female Sim watch KidZone while pregnant. So they had twin boys Alistair and Benton. They did have a daughter too but her name was Victoria.

Then one night, After watching British sitcoms on PBS, I decided "Let's make a household full of my favorite TV show characters!" and made Sims of Mr. Humphries from Are You Being Served?, Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf, and Illya Kuryakin from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and added my Second Doctor Sim to the household. And thus, The Smegheads household was born. It was great. Everyone hated Rimmer at first, Humphries got married to a female townie and had a daughter, Humphries' wife actually became a successful author, and everything went well. Then the game started freezing when I try to save it. By then, I thought "Well I enjoyed the console version, Let's get the PC version!"

Just this June, After saving up my allowance plus a week of preparing my computer for it and begging my mother to order it for me, I finally got The Sims 3 Starter Pack for the PC. I did stumble upon a problem while installing; I got a "invalid code" error trying to get it on my Origin. After calling EA's customer support and talking to a VERY nice lady, The Sims 3 was added to my Origin library and I was in business. I recreated all of the Smegheads albeit made them look better than their console version counterparts and added a fifth member; Robin Gibb from the Bee Gees.

Now several months, Installations of a EP and a SP, and many long sessions later, I have a household to be proud of. With three Sims having accomplished their lifetime wishes, One of my Sims married to a Sim of myself (see my avatar) with two beautiful children, and one Sim who was married to a Sim I made that I randomly put in my town but divorced on amicable terms but has a great military career, Everything's all hunky-dory in the Smegheads-verse. I'm already planning a second generation for my two Sims' little family. I also wanna do a second Smegheads household.

My Sim-making, house-building, and house-furnishing skills have also improved since then as well, Kinda impressive if you ask me.

Namaya92

I always start with a single young adult female sim. I don't cheat any money, I even prefer starting out with absolutely nothing or only a really basic house. Then I usually spend a day getting to know the people around town, while I wait for collectibles to spawn into the map. The next day I spend on gathering stuff, I just love scanning through the entire world to find animals, minerals and plants. It also helps me to get to know my way around the new world I'm playing (I hardly ever play the same world twice within a short time). Once my sim has enough money to give herself a roof over her head, I find her a job (usually self employed) and a spouse. I work on their lifetime wishes and on completing their jobs and once I have enough money for a nursery, I let them have children. What I love most about sims is playing multiple generations and to see how all the family trees develop themselves! But yeah that's how the start of my game looks like most of the time unless I play a special challenge.

JoAnne65

It depends on the heir, I always start with a kid of my sim and move to the next generation. There’s one constant: I always build their house first. I used to take all the money earned with me and a lot of convenient items in inventories of parents, but nowadays I prefer them to start from scratch financially (except for my current heir because she lives in an apartment building and I figured she didn’t have to pay for the other households in there; she started living in one part of the building with cheap furniture).

Elleysims

Saviourofpotatoes wrote: »

Thanks for your input guys.

@Elleysims Ive attempted to start a few challenges but never see them through, have you completed any challenges?

Only my legacy challenge but I keep going with that. I haven't actually finished other types of challenges since they start of really hard and then become easy after a while. Then I will see a new challenge and go onto that instead.

BlackSand

Saviourofpotatoes wrote: »

What is your preferred way to begin a new save?

Do you start with a couple, or let your Sim meet their love interest later on?

Do you start in a house or begin from nothing?

Do you slowly make an entire neighbourhood?

Unless it is a challenge save I usually do the same thing when starting new save.

I evict and delete most of the townies (except some I like for whatever reason).
I tear down all the houses I don't like and replace them with any number I have in the library bin.
Same thing with commercial venues (gyms, consignment store, clubs and whatnot).

I add any additional opportunities from the library bin (more venues).
Then add a pile of previous 112 Day Challenge participants from the library bin.
Fill in the holes with families from the library bin (some previously played, others fresh every time).

I always start with a single Sim and see where the world takes them.

.

Saviourofpotatoes

Wow, great feedback guys. I love everyone's different styles of playing and it's great to have ideas for the future. I can definitely see myself building up a town from scratch soon.

BlackSand

Saviourofpotatoes wrote: »

Wow, great feedback guys. I love everyone's different styles of playing and it's great to have ideas for the future. I can definitely see myself building up a town from scratch soon.

If you really want a challenge, and to build a town from scratch ... Try a NIF Challenge ...

.

nickibitsward

I always start by editing the town, putting in the community buildings I want, redoing most of them. Then deleting all the existing townies. By the time I start my own families, it's six months later. But it keeps me busy and because I have been unable to move on the Sims 4, that's a good thing. Still enjoying Sims 3 after all these years.

Saviourofpotatoes

@BlackSand That is a challenge and a half! Not sure I could deal with that aha!

@nickibitsward Im a late starter on TS3, Ive only been playing it for several months. I was an avid TS1 and TS2 player, missed TS3 entirely and played TS4 several years after release but grew bored of it easily, TS3 has kept me interested for months so far, I'm loving it.

bekkasan

If I have a specific story in mind then I will create the sims or family that I need for the story and using Nraas mods I will build the characters to reflect them in the story. In other words, my founders will have the traits and skills needed as if they have been in the world for the length of time the backstory determines. I don't start them all at zero. Only sims born in game start at zero. I add new sims periodically for marriage or to add a new direction for the story to go. I don't use EA sims, they are background sims. They can be friends, but not relations. I either make my own sims or steal err...borrow from friends studios.

If I am doing a rags to riches type story I will start with one or two sims and they do start with zero skills and zero finances based on their back story. I usually allow them to dumpster dive for items to sell or put on the lot to use, pick flowers, seeds, rocks, bugs etc to sell, and as they learn skills they can then earn money with the skills. They can get a part time job once they have a small home built on the lot, but, if they get the part time job, no more collecting. Careers require at least half of a needed skill to be learned before they can enter a career. Those are my own rules and I also have a rule that I can change rules at will.

Right now I'm trying to have a long running story with connected worlds like @igazor so I can play various members of the family or their friends as the story develops.

Sephardic

I usually make a family of 5 with a dog, two parents (adults), one oldest kid (teen), one second oldest kid (child) and a toddler. I start them off in a re-decorated version of a NPC house then get the adults jobs so I can earn enough for maybe like a vacation home as I have outdoor retreat. My families are pretty weird aswell!

Buttersims

I usually start with a random sim, random traits, etc. I'll let 'em go from there. Sometimes I will make them uglier than normal, sometimes they'll look like rockstars. They do get a full clothing tweak if they look silly. (bee hood and swimsuit, no thanks!)

As for Generational playthroughs - It's always the youngest child that becomes Heir, unless I am doing a gender specific legacy. So if I happen to have six kids, the baby grows up and it allows the parents to age up to Elder. Sometimes they have a career, sometimes not. Agespan is normal. I usually have around four kids just to see the genetics at work. And the family always has a horse or three

Most recently, however, I downloaded Glenvale County just to see if I *could* make a neighbourhood from scratch. It's extremely challenging. I placed sims I'd saved in my Bin and in CAS and basically just let my mods take over. It's interesting to see all of the offspring of So-and-So - usually they're okay. I delete/change any "pudding faced" NPCs though because they get annoying when they move into homes that I have set up for my sims. The houses are . . . interesting, I've built them from scratch too. It's a neat Sim experiment, but I am having a ton of fun with it

igazor

bekkasan wrote: »

Right now I'm trying to have a long running story with connected worlds like @igazor so I can play various members of the family or their friends as the story develops.

I will point out, with apologies again to those who have heard it all too many times, that I play many different kinds of households within this ongoing game deploying Rotational Play (NRaas SP mod) and also rotating through all the worlds I have connected (Traveler mod). The story lines are all connected, or will be some day, some more tightly than others. It never really occurs to me to begin a new game, if I want to try something new then I create or work with sims in a "corner" of this game that I never had before. Or create a new "corner."

I did start a new game entirely once, sometime after installing Supernatural to begin playing a household of one each of the then new occults. Liked it so much that I just linked that instance of Moonlight Falls to the others and let the storylines crossover. One of those original occults married into my main household, the others are now doing different things in other connected worlds.

So I guess I'm "cheating," I do start over and have the same experiences and choices to ponder when sims grow up and move away from home for the first time or when I create or choose some new characters to play, sometimes with no money or possessions at all and none of the childhood developmental advantages that player-controlled sims might have, and start playing them within this game someplace. I really have around 16 ongoing games in one here, they are just all connected in some way. By the way, when your sims have absolutely nothing, not even a cardboard box to sleep in on their empty home lot, and are living on the streets saving up to build or buy their first real home, the Firehouse can be a very comfy place to stay for a while.

cleo00

I typically start off with a guy and girl in university with the backstory of them being family friends as I make each a set of parents in the town that I never touch. They get married, have between 4 and 10 kids, a handful of pets, countless home remodel sessions, and move to a new world approximately every six sim weeks when I start getting bored. I get very attached to my sims so I do what I can to keep playing as long as I can.
I used to move the children out with their own partners and play rotationally, but I found I got bored of it much quicker as I wasn't bonding with the sims that much.
Now my current house I decided to go back to a more legacy style of play, which is what I used to do back in 2009-2010 where I played the same house for 21 generations. Once I stopped legacy play (only one child ever gets a s/o and carries on) I never made it past the third gen being toddlers/children so I figured I ought to go back to that.
Currently, with the Camdens, the youngest boy carries on that way I get to spend as much time with the older siblings as possible. Once they complete their ltw I move them out and stick them in the Camden caste I made with Nraas SP so they dont do anything I don't want, then I move them back in as elders so I can witness their deaths because I must screenshot everything for the folder of 630 images labeled "Camden Screenies" on my desktop.
Right now the house is the youngest boy Alex, his wife Becky, his triplets from his first wife and twins with Becky. One is a boy so Logan will get a gf soon. The triplets are YA's and twins are teens. Alex's three eldest siblings have passed and two just became elders so I decorated the guest room. He and his twin Ailieah were the youngest of 7. He himself has 5. They recently moved to Lucky Palms after I got bored of Hidden Springs, and I am running out of EA/Store worlds

Edited out some autocorrect typos.

polrbear

I've been playing my current save for months now... I started with one sim. Then he met his partner at uni and had 8 kids.

He started in a house but immediately went to uni to find his partner and stayed in a dorm rather than a private house on campus. I prefer the dorm life or sorority life, etc. I was not shy about using money cheats as I didn't want money to stress me out when I knew I was becoming attached to the sims and would be playing the save for a while.

There are a few buildings that I liked to add to the town once they got back from uni and started their family. The Butterfly Escapade from Bridgeport, and the greenhouse from the store, for instance.

Then I populated the town just a little bit more with some sims of my own creation, then went on to even transplant some of my favorite sims from Bridgeport into Starlight Shores.

I chose one kid to be heir and she is going to have children.

A lot of people move out their non-heir children, but I'm too attached. I'm keeping them all unless there are extenuating circumstances in the future. (Example: My computer saying 'no' to how many sims I have.)

Nikkei_Simmer

I started off with my couple (River McIrish-Chikamori and Haruo Chikamori) as teenagers with a text backstory stating that they met as toddlers.

What was really nice in my choice of couple was that they immediately got hearts for one another.



and now they're married with four kids and adopted Haruo's uncle's son so that they could raise him right. (His uncle has the Party-Animal trait and his mother is a slob - boy I sound nice...but well...those are their actual traits, The mother is a pre-made (Molly French)).

I generally build my own houses and invariably they end up big.



I also play epic lifespans (over 1400 days), which gives me lots of times with my Sims.

As in a typical Asian family, I also have Haruo's father and River's mother living with them. I call them the Pre-Founder Generation.

Sometimes I make a single sim start from absolutely nothing (binning for a living; no jobs allowed); families I usually give a helping hand (I see too much of the scraping by in real life; so if I'm going to escape and enjoy myself, I'm going to make sure that my sims have a comfortable existence).

beeblegox

Without fail this is my process:

Step 1. Meticulously create a single new sim (a la mashing the randomize button until a half-way decent sim shows up)
Step 2: Move into a pre-made house (I am a horrible builder)
Step 3: Immediately get distracted by all of the truly *hideous* generated townies walking around my neighborhood.

I am not exaggerating when I say that CAS is 75% of my game.