🎉Calling All Rotational Players!🎉 «123...Next Go

JayandMeeka

I want to start a rotational legacy save. Do you have any tips for making it as awesome as possible?

I am not opposed to well known and well used CC/Mods - especially if they fix bugs or improve game play, so if there are any you swear by let me know. I have used MCCC but I don't want my families to have an insane amount of kids, and I don't know, it just doesn't feel as authentic as it did in S3, which is why I want to move the story along myself. Again, I am not opposed to using that mod at all as it is very popular and consistently updated, but perhaps suggest some settings for me that would help me play rotationally; meaning, I don't want random families, but I do want the town to feel "alive". I don't know if I'm making any sense.

Also, I want to play a legacy save where I make it to 20 generations. That way when holidays roll around the family gets together and it feels so real and awesome. So any tips on generational play are welcomed, too.

TL;DR: I just want some tips on how to play a rotational game as I have never done it before. My goal is to make it to 20 generations.

Thanks everyone!

Writin_Reg

I play an alphabet Legacy which takes you to 26 generation, where each new generations offsprings first names start with the next letter of the alphabet. Rotating between households depends on the player and how they play. But I generally put households on my rotations when I am grooming a mate for my legacy generational infant so the mate sort of grows up with certain skills, etc to make a good match for each generations heir. Plus if they are in my rotation there is no chance they will be culled by the game by accident before they marry.

Or you can do a search on Sims Legacy games - and find many types of Legacies you might be more interested in as well. Pinstar Legacy games have rules which can make it really fun to not cheat and has point systems. I like playing his Sims 2 Legacy the most as it can be the most challenging.

I forget who actually made the actual original Alphabet Challenge - but it has less strict rules - just basic idea on how to have fun with it. That is if they are all still on the internet like they use to be. I am sure there are plenty though as Legacies have been a big thing since Sims 2 and adapted for each new series since.

AfterMidnight

With MCCC, I have it set up so that it doesn’t interfere with households that are marked as played. That way it keeps the town alive without messing with my own plans for my sims. You can also flag individual sims so that MCCC doesn’t bother with them if you find a sim you want to save for whatever reason (like a future spouse).

elanorbreton

For my rotation, I pick at least one household per world (a couple of them I have two), have seasons set to 28 days and ageing off.

I play each household for a while, no set days - usually from 3 to 7 sim days per house, depending on how much I am enjoying them - and then move on to the next. When I get to my last household I turn ageing on for a sim week so that everyone (including NPCs) will get a little older. And then turn it back off for my next rotation.

I set up jobs and clubs, even in households I am not playing, so that it adds to my overall story.

I also tend to take a lot of screenshots as I go along, to remind me what has been going on in a particular household. Sometimes I put them together as a story in Word or something like that. Or sometimes I just add really brief details to the info tab in game.

For me, it is enjoyable for my sims to get involved with other sims I play in the same save - as friends, co-workers or romance. It adds to the fun this way, instead of concentrating on only one household.

storyy

Love this! I've been wanting to try rotational play because I sometimes get bored with one household, but hate that I have so many legacies at like, gen 2 and then I start again lol! Thanks for posting

JayandMeeka

You're very welcome, @storyy
Keep us updated on how you do! We have some wonderful suggestions here already so I am excited to start later today.

Simmerville

Guess there are many ways to do it. I play all households, not like one legacy, but the entire community, and in all worlds. I need to skip half of them every now and then, because it would be impossible to reach all during a year. I play with aging off, then on New Years Eve I play with aging on to age everyone 1 year. If I play more than normal, or feel like focusing more than normal on a few houses, I might skip the aging on day, meaning I get one extra round.

I don't stop by houses in a given order, I just jump around as I like. Sometimes I stop a few days, sometimes I just stop a few sim hours to fix or check something. I use a spreadsheet and in one column I write if something needs to be taken care of, like a birthday, funeral, skill focusing, career switch, moving out, etc. I have a year count, and on years ending with 1-3-5-7-9 i focus on half my worlds, on the other years the rest. Skipping half of the houses on any given year makes it easier to stop for longer.

I also make a new save every year, in the long run I will delete all saves not with a year ending with 0 or 5. I like to keep a few old saves in case I need to go back to take a picture etc.

I could never do 20 generations, because I am lucky if I make 12 sim years during 1 human year. I try to play a year a month, but it's not always possible.

musteni

I play vanilla so I don't think mods are needed for rotational play. I have set aging on for active household only and sometimes tick the box to age unplayed sims if I feel they're falling behind. My seasons are 4 weeks. I rotate irregularly so I just jump on a new household whenever I feel like. It might be different if you play a legacy with branching family tree. I suppose it would be more important to keep them aging evenly, so maybe a rotation schedule will help? I've found 5 am is a good time to rotate because very few sims work at those hours. Some (criminals) do though and will take performance hit unless you adjust the time.

Edit: Forgot to mention I play around 30 households.

calaprfy

I've rehashed my current game and am playing one child per household so each lot will hold a different family. I try to use only the lots with three bedrooms minimum. I spend a week with each family before moving to the next.

lillibattenberg

For my rotations, I have 5 households, seasons set to 2 weeks (I did have it set to 4 but my child sims are already halfway through their time as children and I want to see what the seasons look like with kids) and lifespan on long. I rotate between the households as and when I like or when the story (I'm using it to write a "legacy") dictates. MCCC has been a lifesaver - possibly literally with all the "change all outfits to cold weather" I keep doing. I also have Controllable Pets (but barely use it), Andrew's Pose Player/Teleport Any Sim (because as previously mentioned, it's story-based and I need custom poses for Drama™️) and a metric plumton of CC (which isn't needed but I'm a CC addict).

Simpatsyann

My main save is a rotation that started with four households on a strict schedule - one week per HH. I really did not expect it to take off the way it did, it's up to 28 actively played households now, all related in some way to one (or more) of the original four. Over time when I've been bored by a household or felt like there was no more to do with them I've marked them as unplayed and it's actually a lot of fun having some of my sims mingling with the rest of the townie populace. (When I started it, all the premades were in place so a lot of the current sims are also descended from them as well.)

I used to switch at 6am on Sundays precisely, but it kept messing with some of my criminals and then I got to wishing I could play through the whole weekend instead of splitting it, so now I switch on Mondays at any point that seems to work between around midnight and around 6am. If I really don't want to play a household I'll skip it, and if I skip it more than once or twice I'll release those sims into the wild. I have aging off for everyone but the played household and turn on aging for NPCs during the first HH of the rotation. The only really disconcerting bit is that I have seasons set to 28 days, so even though they're all supposed to be living through the same "week" in the rotation the seasons change around them. I don't think I could stand to keep playing the same season for 28 sim weeks in a row, though.

I use MCCC and have adjusted it over time to meet my needs - it bypasses played households and I have the maximum offspring count set very low because I realized after the first rotation or two that the townies were having four times more kids than I needed. I think Eric Lewis alone had something like 16 kids before I put a stop to it. I also (after some experimentation) have the marriage percentages pretty low because I want my sims to have the pick of the litter among the unmarried partners. So far though I haven't had too much trouble partnering up everyone that wants to be or adding in new blood.

In an effort to add in a little more structure I've started doing things like taxing each household at the end of their week, doing a random occurrence roll at the beginning of the rotation, and setting up a fake college, among other things, but those are just things that I enjoy playing with, not any kind of requirement for a successful rotation.

MLadyAzzera

Hmmm...for 20 generations I would only have a few families so you don't loose patience. I rotate between 10 families right now, with each season set to 2 sim weeks, so each family can experience each season. I play each family 1 sim week at a time, Saturday morning to Saturday morning. I have auto-aging turned off all households. If you have Get Together, put kids, teens, and singles each in their respective club so it's easier to have those sims meet each other. I am thinking of expanding my playable household rotation to 17 since we received two new neighborhoods recently, because I like 1-3 families in each one. That, and currently not every family experiences each holiday, but changing it to 17 will solve my problems (I miscounted the first time, I should have only had 9). Anyways...

If I was to take on 20 generations, I would play 5 families with each season set to 1 week. Everything should rotate like this:

Family A: Spring
Family B: Summer
Family C: Fall
Family D : Winter
Family E: Spring

Family A: Summer
etc.

Play each family for one week, I recommend the club set up that I explained if you want only your played families to continue the generations. Try not to have sims have different baby's moms because I learned the hard way, Don Lothario made too many people related. And again, turn off auto-aging.

Hope this helps!

JayandMeeka

This is great everyone, thank you!

AlbaWaterhouse

If you are new to rotational style, I would recommend you start little by little and focus firstly on just one world and only 2 or 3 families to get used to it.
There are many ways to play rotationally and none of them are wrong, it's just a matter of preference. Some players would keep a strict schedule and program everything, others would just go with the flow and of course there are many options in between.
My usual setting for ageing is "only active household" if I'm feeling like I want to be more organised and spend one sim week with each family.
But in bigger saves with a lot of households or when I feel like I want to play with a specific household for longer or shorter than that, I have ageing off completely.
When I feel like it's time to age a sim, I make sure that all of the sims that are their age age as well because I want them to grow up together.
I normally play a lot of households, but I am not a very organized person so I go with the flow. Sometimes I play a household for 2 sim weeks straight, other times I only play them one day.
My biggest focus is always the community as a whole. I like to build a community feel to my worlds and interconnect their stories is many ways. Clubs (from the Get Together EP) are the best tool to accomplish this. I have clubs for the rich and snobby, the gardeners, the rebelllious teens, the geeky sims, the bbq mates, the scouts kids, the old ladies' book club, you name it. It helps to have a cohesive world.
In between all my households I have some that are a bit like a legacy type of thing (altough totally freestyle) for them when they start to move out and you start to play the same family in different households, together with the club system, the calendar (from Seasons EP) is your friend. It is ideal to gather them all together for holidays and such.
I know it sounds a bit messy and perhaps stressful but it is a lot of fun and I can't imagine playing with just one household per save.

JayandMeeka

I just want to thank everyone in this thread for all your wonderful ideas.

I've started my rotational play and I can honestly say this has completely changed the way I play sims! It's crazy!

S3 took so long to load any household that I always stuck with one and played out that legacy from start to finish. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but this is a whole new experience. S4 has such short loading times for me that to go from one household to the next is nothing!

The developers truly have made it such that you can honestly tell your own stories. It's amazing.

I am in LOVE

Thank you:
@AlbaWaterhouse
@MLadyAzzera
@Simpatsyann
@lillibattenberg
@calaprfy
@musteni
@Simmerville
@storyy
@elanorbreton
@AfterMidnight
@Writin_Reg

You have changed how I play this game - and I can't thank you enough

Happy simming everyone!

JayandMeeka

Also - the founding couple I've used to start filling in my neighbourhood with their heirs is my new DP

elanorbreton

@simmer_jay I am so glad you are having such fun. Welcome to the wonderful world of rotational play

MLadyAzzera

simmer_jay wrote: »

I just want to thank everyone in this thread for all your wonderful ideas.

I've started my rotational play and I can honestly say this has completely changed the way I play sims! It's crazy!

Oooo tell us all the details! How many families did you decide to rotate with? Do you have seasons too? What neighborhoods did you decide on? Are you playing with aging off?

ohSnap

This is making me want to try playing rotationally... Thanks for all the tips, everyone!

JayandMeeka

Thanks, @elanorbreton

Oh, @MLadyAzzera let me tell you! I've had so much fun! Click the spoiler if you want to read the background story I've created

So my story began with Kiera. She's a family oriented girl who loves to cook.

She recently got hired at a restaurant, and met a customer there named Sarah, who was a stylist and offered her tips to improve her fashion sense. They hit it off and became good friends. Sarah invited Kiera over to the family house one night for dinner. There, she met Sarah's family; her father Harvey, mother Lisa and her brother Reece.




Kiera really took a liking to Reece. They began dating. Reece got the approval from his entire family.



Eventually, they got engaged. Kiera was the one to pop the question! Of course, Reece said yes.


- Their wedding photo is my DP -

They went on to have a little boy named Derek:


Meanwhile, Sarah's life has come a long way as well. While at her stylist job, a handsome gentleman by the name of Kenneth came into her store, looking for new clothes (very "Rachel and Joshua" from Friends). She was instantly in love, but he was oblivious to her feelings. Eventually, she came clean and spilled her heart to him, and he realized just how much he loved her. They got engaged and eventually married.



Sarah has recently learned she is pregnant, and Kiera has just had her second child, Curtis.

That is where my story is at now!

So what I decided to do was turn aging off for played households, and age everyone up on new years (or close to there). I'm still trying to figure out the aging for the kids. Perhaps age the kids at the start of summer, and then again on New Years? I'm still deciding that.

I've left aging on for NPCs.

I rotate between households as I see fit. I haven't done a strict schedule or anything. I'm mostly focusing on Kiera and Reece's family for now, and just making the story start with them as I build up the town.

Thank you all again because I am having just the most fun! I'm so sad I started this near the end of my March Break!

Karon

I think the best advise I can give is to use mccc to protect sims from culling, and just play it. As you play you'll find out things you need to do, or add to the game to make it better. Oh, i would suggest you to play each household with a challenge. Like one is the Black Widow, the other is the Asylum, etc... It makes my game so fun to play!!!

Daephene

With Seasons I change households after 2 am, so there's never a conflict with the holidays. Then when I move to the next household I send everyone to bed right away and then feed them when their energy is mostly full, and they generally are ok for the rest of their rotation.

The clubs from Get Together are a good way to keep family members who don't live in the same household in touch.

I have aging turned off for everyone but the current household, but I'm also making an effort to gradually marry in all the premade sims over several generations. If you don't have that goal, they may as well age.

This is my first save with rotational households since I switched from Sims 2 to 4 a few years ago. It's been fun so far! I am moving one household into each neighborhood and having them each focus on one expansion pack, or a couple of game packs, to keep things diverse.

BerryCharming

Thank you so much for writing this post, I had no idea this was a thing, and now I really want to do this in my save, more then one legacy in one save is the most genius thing I have heard in a while!!!!

BlkBarbiegal

How i play is,

1.Aging off. I'll control when sims age. When ready for an elder to die in my current household, turn aging on. They may or may not die in that sim week. I can't remember if aging is set for short or long span. Turn aging and try again in next rotation.

2. I start in the first world, which is Willow Creek then play the furthest top left house. Play them for one sim week, at 5pm Sunday then rotate to the closest house for the next sim week same time. Keep going from house to house until it's time to move to OAsis Spring and start the process all over.

3. When it comes to seasons, I keep it at whatever season i'm in in real life. I've been doing that since sims 2 seasons. I enjoy sims weather so much more that way. After real life Christmas and New Years is over I tend to ignore it in game then my sims get negative moodlets. Poor sims. Actually when I get in game today I can switch to spring for the first time. yay

4.A few of the households in my worlds are fillers. Maybe for club purposes. Such as, I married Diana Prince to Bruce Wayne and they have a toddler. I only pass through their house for maybe a day or two to age them, update decor and etc. I like seeing them at venues, and Diana Prince is in my simself's Besties' club. I mean who doesn't want Wonder Woman, Barbie, Storm, and so forth in the "Besties" club.

5.Another fun thing I like to do is temporarily move relatives in with other family members. For instance, when I go in my game today, It'll be time to play husband and my simself. In game they are now elders, with grown children and grandchildren living elsewhere of all ages. One of the things I like to do is have my sim visit one of the households to help take care of the children, and do some cooking. Maybe even spend the night. Or, I'll move in one or more grandchildren of the family, pretend their parents need a week away from the kids so grandma and grandpa can spend more time with them. It raises relationships and changes things up. At the end of the sim week, I move the children back to their own home. I also like to move grandparents, aunts, cousins to a household for a week to help take care of kids, or for that extra income.

6. I like to go through my townies for deletion, and to replace with gallery sims just to see new faces.

Kita5399

BlkBarbiegal wrote: »

3. When it comes to seasons, I keep it at whatever season i'm in in real life. I've been doing that since sims 2 seasons. I enjoy sims weather so much more that way. After real life Christmas and New Years is over I tend to ignore it in game then my sims get negative moodlets. Poor sims. Actually when I get in game today I can switch to spring for the first time. yay
.

How are you choosing your seasons? Mod, cheats, or weather machine? I used to do the same thing with Sims 2 & 3, but I find it difficult in this game.

BlkBarbiegal

Kita5399 wrote: »

BlkBarbiegal wrote: »

3. When it comes to seasons, I keep it at whatever season i'm in in real life. I've been doing that since sims 2 seasons. I enjoy sims weather so much more that way. After real life Christmas and New Years is over I tend to ignore it in game then my sims get negative moodlets. Poor sims. Actually when I get in game today I can switch to spring for the first time. yay
.

How are you choosing your seasons? Mod, cheats, or weather machine? I used to do the same thing with Sims 2 & 3, but I find it difficult in this game.

to set a specific season, open the cheats window, type:
seasons.set_season0 (this is summer)
seasons.set_season1 (for fall)
2 is for winter and 3 spring