Rouensims ...i love that you just suddenly ran with something very different then what you planned to do and had invested time setting up. I am thinking that maybe the two guys from my play may not be best friends ...lol you are so right it is the whimsical things that just kinda fall out of the sky that makes your play fun for you!
..do you often find that relationships between your played households changes significantly as your rotate?
Only through unwanted NAPs, I think it was the Free Love NAP that really messed with some of them, but not the way you'd expect, they didn't suddenly love each other nope, they were very, very high in the red.
Other than that I haven't noticed anything severe.
The Romance Festival can also cause alot of damage to romatic relationships, it almost broke up one of my couples cuz one of them was flirting with another autonomously at the festival and it happend very fast, I was playing the other one and just noticed him being mad and didn't know why, soon as I realized I send them both home, their romace bar was almost empty
BTW I find the club system to also come in very handy in rotational play, I have alot of "family clubs" for families who are spread out over the worlds and some friends clubs, it just makes it easier to keep up the relationships between those sims, since any member can start a gathering and depending on the club activities they will autonomously be friendly/do positive socials with each other.
You can also have sims introduce other sims to one another and determine wheather they'll like each other or not, by doing the friendly interaction "ask (or talk?) about another sim" and then either talk another sim up or down.
They one you talk to will then go talk to that sim (if both are present you can even see it) and report back to you with either a positive or negative comment (depending on what you told them before) and their relationship with that sim will be positive or negative. It is very cool, I often use that mechanic to introduce new romantic partners to friends/families.
I switch whenever I get bored with my current family. Generally, it happens after I complete an aspiration or after a child grow up and since I have Seasons, I also switch after I played a full season.
RavenSpit...i didn't know there was a introduction sims could do but i will look for it and use it. Should mention that i did get the sims 4 when it first came out but it didn't grow on me so i took a long break from the sims...just came back in October of 2019...so where this series is a few years for most ..(hard to believe it is six years..this is the longest any series has ever lasted) I am relatively new to it.
I have all the packs except eco living and everything functions extremely well for me in game...very happy with it compared to how sims 3 was for so many folks.
I really do appreciate the feed back from so many who have taken the time to reply to this thread. I wondered if many used the club feature with rotational play and it would make sense that it could be helpful for group outings.
SimsAddict...i have a feeling that i will play more/less that way ...rotating when i need a change of pace. Thank you so much for posting!!
Rotational play is the only thing I can have fun at. I have tried legacies, but just haven’t been able to do it..... they were too boring for me. My main game is rotational and I have been playing it since 2014. It was the first game I began, and I do have more than one save of it in case a save messes up, I may have to back travel some.
1. I don’t have any particular rules. I do however usually play with aging turned off, if I decide I want to age a family I will turn it on. I get tied to my characters and put a lot of time into them and then don’t want to lose them..... lol. I do try to switch families before morning comes so I don’t mess up school or work.
2. I play all types of house holds from single sims to a household of 8. I now have over 20 rotational families. Some of my first were downloaded from the galaxy long ago. Now I will create my own usually, or use families which come in different expansions. Sometimes, I will even take a favorite townie and Family, or I will take a townie and create a family for them. Many times I will add a family with a new pack. When get to work came out I added a family of 4 brothers and sisters ( now split living or married to others, the oldest brother is a boss in the villain career, one of his sisters is a level 10 scientist, the other brother is a tech guru gamer, and one sister ( non commital) has changed jobs a few times, she is trying to become an influencer now, I also made a family with a young adult sister with a teenager and child sibling, she is now a chief at the police department. My doctor is a married adult with a wife, a son and the sons teenage daughter and child son, and also the sons wife’s parents. I have a family with a grandmother and granddaughter. I have a group of 8 male sims that have broken apart to single house holds or smaller groups, they are all advancing in their careers, and forming relationships. I made a single military sim for strangerville, he became the hero. I have family of journalist, elderly father, adult daughter with teenage son, and young adult son. I have a couple family of 3. A family or two with toddler or baby. A 🐸🐸🐸🐸 family with 5 children, teens, children, baby. A few couples and then nuclear families with 1-2 children of various ages. Some households which are just friends. And a few of my famililies have pets, from frog and insects, to rodents, to cats or dogs. Without the variety of households I would be really bored. Most sims know other families I play,,and are often in groups/clubs together. My child sims know the other child sims, my teenagers know each other too.
3. This save which culminates from 2014 occupies about 90-95% of my played time with about 10% creating families or creating or downloading lots, mostly community lots.
4. I have all the packs and my sims live in every land sometimes changing home and communities. I have lots of community lots, all types. Newcrest is a normal neighborhood with residential and community lots of all types. I believe my favorite land is Windenburg and San Myshuno, but my sims live everywhere.
5. The biggest problem is decidingcwho to play with so many households, and trying not to have more than 200 Played favorited sims! Also university is a bit of a draw back. I have just started playing th pleasant sisters to get them through college, but don’t feel I can switch when I want to or they may flunk out. So University is a bit of a problem.
6. My singles sims start out as young adults usually. My couples usually YA also, However I do have other various Nuclear families ranging from baby to elder. The variety keeps me from boredom.
I have a system I use for rotational play so that each household’s days roll seamlessly, which means no holidays are skipped or repeated. Here’s a thread I made describing how I calculate that: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/959329/seasons-rotational-play#latest
I check off each day with graph paper and note their ages as I go, along with any little notes I want to remember like first kisses or holiday gifts. I began playing on long lifespan with 14-day seasons, rotating between 8 households and playing each one for 8 days each. It’s a nice amount of time because everyone gets a weekend and I have enough time to get promotions. I switch as soon after 5am as possible, which usually allows enough time for kids to finish their homework before school (they won’t remember if they did it before the last switch) or catch up on some sleep.
I originally populated Newcrest with 8 families, each with a teen and a child. My goal has been to pair up their kids and continue through the generations, keeping extensive relationships with their peers and extended families. I’ve been playing this save file for at least a year now with no desire to change it up. Each time I switch families I save as new, just so I can revert back to any stage I need to, if necessary.
I found it really helpful to create a club for the 8 teens (Gen 2A), the 8 children (Gen 2B), the “P.T.A. Moms”, sporty dads, etc. As mentioned above, sometimes relationships are culled and they forget they knew one another which is annoying. It’s not like it’s every relationship, probably just the less meaningful ones. Having clubs makes it easy to get them back together. Some of the families were more successful than others, so I have a more exclusive club for Ladies Who Lunch, and there’s a good variety of careers throughout (I want to check each one off my list).
Gen 2A is finishing college. As posters above me have mentioned, rotational play at college is trickier because anyone enrolled will continue their term while you’re playing a different household, and you might not be happy with their grade. So I choose not to re-enroll them at the end of each term. It says they’ll lose their scholarships but 3 terms in, that hasn’t happened. And even so, it’s too cheap anyways. I just enroll them again when I rotate back.
So Gen 2A has paired off. Soon I will have 12 households and I plan to change to 28-day seasons, playing each household for 10 days (one house will be 12 days) which allows me to pick up exactly where I left off when I reach the first family again.
For a change of scenery, I’m branching a few of the families out to Del Sol Valley and Willow Creek. Some will remain in Newcrest. I like to keep a few of the households in the same neighborhood. Some of Gen 2B might move to Strangerville and I’ll actually play through the story there finally. As the parents age, they’ll either live with their kids, retire to Sulani, or downsize to the downtown area of Windenburg where they can meet up and play chess.
I think it will be fun to see how the genetics play out as the families intertwine, and keep track of cousins while still having other unrelated offspring to continue the line with. I look forward to bigger holiday dinners and BBQs as the families grow. I have a lot of fun seeing what my characters do while I’m not playing them, I just wish the AI was better. It just makes the game feel more like it’s mine when I’m so invested in all of them.
sherisim57.....you also have a household you have played for a long time..your rotational play sounds involved as one would imagine since it all began in 2014.
You have mentioned you have some back up saves..have you ever needed to use them?
RavanSpit talks about University and how she manages it for her rotational play....i think i will not use university in my rotational play.
you mention placing community lots ..which venues do you prefer?...i would think most everyone uses a restaurant....i like to see what folks have placed for ideas
babajayne...it would appear i am going to need a notebook just for my rotational save...it is a brilliant way to keep track of those special moments.
when i play a single household..i factor in those special moments in the holiday calendar...like a "happy day" (what i call the holiday) is a birthday ..it can have a name in front ..so like say ie; jane's happy day...i do the proposal ..marriage ..etc but i can see how you cannot do that in a rotational play so that notebook is necessary.
you really got serious about pacing your rotations...very nice you added the graph to show how you do it...i dunno if i will do that or just wing it but hopefully this thread is an inspiration to others that might be interested in changing up their game.
Really appreciated your input ...thanks for your time and sharing!
@Justin I guess that that could be a problem. I've always been good about remembering what was going on. It could help to write down a short bio for the family so you can easily get back into it. That's what I do for TS4, so I know what I was planning on doing next and I keep it updated.
I will actually write down their story the
next time I try rotation play. I’ll prob only start off with 3 first. The first 2 times I tried to do a whole neighborhood but failed because I couldn’t keep up & kept forgetting lol. Thank you for your the tips
you could hop back in this thread and let us know how it worked out for you with rotational play...maybe you will have your own take on how it was fun for you..i think i will stay small too ..maybe four families.
@wickichick I’m glad to share. I know it seems like overkill a bit, but I tried playing rotationally before this and I didn’t follow any plan. I suddenly noticed that some families had Winterfest multiple times, while others had never experienced it at all (poor kids!) and there were gardeners that weren’t getting around to all the seasons so they weren’t growing everything. Therefore it’s become really important to me to make sure the seasons flow right for each family.
you mention placing community lots ..which venues do you prefer?...i would think most everyone uses a restaurant....i like to see what folks have placed for ideas
I hardly use restaurants tbh, even when they are not bugged they aren't that much fun to me, I guess I use nightclubs, lounges and (karaoke) bars the most, I got a couple of musician sims who perform there (including a DJ) and I really like the pub games.
Parks come second, cause I can add alot activities into them, for all ages and dogs, plus for some reason I love building playgrounds...
Right now I am on a mission to build themed shops, a gift shop, a "healthy living" shop, a shop for spellcasters...
I have a sim working day and night to fill them all up
there were gardeners that weren’t getting around to all the seasons so they weren’t growing everything.
I'm guessing you already know this, but having a green house/planters indoors also helps with that problem.
Yes, but I prefer outdoor gardens. The plants grow faster and it’s more fun for me to design. Even still, I want my sims to experience all seasons, which they weren’t doing before. I remember this perpetual winter in the same household... I felt so bad for them, lol.
Yes, but I prefer outdoor gardens. The plants grow faster and it’s more fun for me to design. Even still, I want my sims to experience all seasons, which they weren’t doing before. I remember this perpetual winter in the same household... I felt so bad for them, lol.
I figured as much, do you have any pics of your gardens online or how you organize them?
that's one thing that is really giving me trouble, outside gardens...
Yes, but I prefer outdoor gardens. The plants grow faster and it’s more fun for me to design. Even still, I want my sims to experience all seasons, which they weren’t doing before. I remember this perpetual winter in the same household... I felt so bad for them, lol.
I figured as much, do you have any pics of your gardens online or how you organize them?
that's one thing that is really giving me trouble, outside gardens...
No pics, but I like to keep flowers near porches (except if it’s something special like an orchid plant, I will keep that one sheltered). I like having the fruit trees in the yard to help break up the spaces and I usually graft different ones onto the lemon trees since they produce all year long. The other herbs and veggies are usually in planters and I like grafting them onto sage bushes since they also produce in all seasons. I love the romantic garden accents and one of my gardens uses the brick fence with ivy. Somewhere else, I have lots of rocks sized down bordering the flower beds in curvy shapes. I just like things to have more of a sprawling look.
RavenSpit...i usually have very large gardens...i don't always include the herbal ingredients ..magic and space plants. if the produce renders cheap returns such as mushrooms ..i will only plant two mushroom plants. if the plant offers high returns then i will do four plants. If i am going to do both vegetables and flowers then i will have flowers on the roof top...just have a flat roof with a small green house that opens up to the outdoors. I will split my vegetable/fruit garden into seasons fencing in each garden but with a gate leading down to the next garden etc.
oh I think a healthy living shop is a great idea...thinking one of my single guys is going to be a spell caster.
1. Have no rules. I usually switch between families when I get bored.
2. Don't keep track. There's a good mix between single sims and families. But my favourite is a couple of siblings (adults and teens, or two adults). It helps with social needs and it's less overwhelming to manage a household with just two sims.
3. Often switch between families multiple times per day.
4. Use all the world but my fav is San Myshuno. Love apartment living and i like the aesthetic better than all the other neighbourhood. Most of my main families live in San Myshuno.
5. None that I could think of.
6. I honestly don't know. I switch between how I play all the time. Sometimes I play families, sometime I try to be a completionist, and sometimes vampires. I have different families for different gameplay. I guess that's why I like switching between families so much.
1. When you begin your play what rules do you abide by (if any)
I don’t really consider these “rules” like in a challenge but more just guidelines to keep my families organized and prevent things from happening that I don’t want to happen when I’m not playing them. I usually play a family Sunday - Saturday and then switch to the next one. I switch families at around 8am Sunday morning so each family gets a full week and I don’t risk them missing work or skipping work due to when I rotate in. I play with aging turned on only for the active family so that I don’t miss out on birthdays and life events in other families and no one dies outside of the active household.
2. How many characters do you play and are they usually single..married...married with kids or are they direct family members (example ..mom dad and/or siblings
Varies. In my biggest rotational save, I have like 40 different a sims I rotate between. Just depends on the sabes and what goals I have for the storyline in it.
3. how long does this type of play hold your interest approximately? ( for example..a week...a month ...longer?)
Infinite because I also rotate between saves, so I have endless possibilities. If I get bored with a particular save I just avoid it for a few months until I want to play it again, and I play in other saves during that time.
4. Do you usually use NewCrest so you can create your own town or do you have a favorite neighborhood and why?
Also depends on the save and my goals for the game / personalities of the sims and families I’m playing.
5. Would you say there is any draw backs to rotational play and if yes then what would those draw backs be?
No drawbacks. That’s the glory of the sims. You can play however you want and if you don’t enjoy a certain play style you just end the game and open a new one
6. other then using rotational play what type of simmer are you in game...for example ...do you prefer family related play....single sims over couples...do you prefer to begin as a teen in a family or something else.
Both family and single sims, all life stages. I play it all because it just depends on what storyline I have in my head for whatever save I’m playing.
gothbunie....i have not used apartments in the sims4 series...does it take longer returning home because you are in an apartment? btw thanks for posting i enjoyed reading your input!
amp107...i think that among the many ideas i have gotten to use in alternative play in this thread ..the first one is that i can play on my own schedule ...i think rotational play would have lost its appear to me if i had to stick to something concrete ...i would agree that is the glory of the sims.
1. When you begin your play what rules do you abide by (if any)
None, which is why I'm not sure if my play style really fits the definition of rotational play. I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but from what I understand, many players have a set amount of households and a set amount of time they spend with each before moving on to the next one in the list, and I don't even have a list to begin with (at least not for that). I have only one main save with 50+ households, some of which I haven't played in years, because I generally just open my game and decide then and there who I feel like playing with today. My only rule, if you want to call it that, is that when I play with a household that has a university student in it, I do not switch to another household before the end of the semester, otherwise there might be some nasty surprises when I come back.
2. How many characters do you play and are they usually single..married...married with kids or are they direct family members (example ..mom dad and/or siblings
My ever growing sims community currently consists of over 200 sims spread across 50-something households. My favourite household size is 3-5 sims, and the relationships between members wary a lot. As you can imagine, with 50+ households, they can't all be the same or else the game would get boring rather quickly, so I have pretty much everything: Traditional families with two kids and a dog... Patchwork families where almost everyone is somehow related, but no one knows exactly how... Groups of friends with similar or completely opposite hobbies and interests... Occult households where every member is a different type of occult, sometimes with a token normal person among them… Even people who hate each other and are forced to live together under curious circumstances. I try to be creative about it and not repeat the same pattern too many times.
3. how long does this type of play hold your interest approximately? ( for example..a week...a month ...longer?)
Indefinitely. I've never played the game differently, except maybe in the very beginning, when I only had one big family spread across two households. But even then, I used to rotate between the households.
4. Do you usually use NewCrest so you can create your own town or do you have a favorite neighborhood and why?
I use all the worlds for different purposes that are reflected in the households living there and the public lots. Newcrest is my religious town with two different religious communities living in two of the neighbourhoods with a church in each, and the third being neutral. Oasis Springs is mostly for aliens, but with one neighbourhood dedicated to Selvadoradian culture, Willow Creek is for artists, nobles, and noble artists, Brindleton Bay is for animal and nature lovers, etc. My favourite worlds are Forgotten Hollow and StrangerVille, I'm not much of a fan of San Myshuno and Magnolia Promande, but as I said, I play in all of them.
5. Would you say there is any draw backs to rotational play and if yes then what would those draw backs be?
As I mentioned above, Discover University wasn't made with rotational play in mind, so switching households at the wrong time can have disastrous educational consequences for any students. I also sometimes find that little things such as the chosen colours of sims' mobiles and umbrellas, progress in collections, and the amount of recycled bits and pieces in the household inventory can get reset upon rotating, and consumable items such as herbal remedies or magic potions that were placed on shelves or other surfaces may disappear.
6. other then using rotational play what type of simmer are you in game...for example ...do you prefer family related play....single sims over couples...do you prefer to begin as a teen in a family or something else.
I always play with goals in mind. Every sim I create has a purpose in life, which involves skills, careers, aspirations, and relationships. I sometimes enjoy traditional family play with children growing up, but most of the time I end up aging babies prematurely and speeding up the toddler life stage as well because they always get on my nerves sooner or later. There would be more children among my played sims if there was more to do for them, but since every expansion basically ignores that a sim's life doesn't begin in their teen years, my game has basically become a young adult simulator, with families often consisting of elderly parents and young adult children.
grumpy Glowfish..i definitely feel what you do with your game is rotational play...i have read each post in this thread ..some excellent advice in here and ideas as well..i am impressed with how you have set up your towns though....that is pretty awesome for an idea. I think if someone doesn't play with goals and purpose then the game looses its flavor very quickly
@wickichick I’m glad to share. I know it seems like overkill a bit, but I tried playing rotationally before this and I didn’t follow any plan. I suddenly noticed that some families had Winterfest multiple times, while others had never experienced it at all (poor kids!) and there were gardeners that weren’t getting around to all the seasons so they weren’t growing everything. Therefore it’s become really important to me to make sure the seasons flow right for each family.
Have fun finding what’s right for you!
In my huge, irregular rotation I also have a system to track seasons/holidays. I mark each family with a number from one to four (1 = spring, 2 = summer, 3 = autumn, 4 = winter). That way I can easily keep track of what season they had last time I played and avoid repeats. This is the only system I could come up that would work for my game and it's still relatively loose. I may jump over a season if I feel like it. Also sometimes I need to change the numbers for everyone involved if there's a big gathering (for example a new year's party) or something significant happens (some could start dating for example).
I've become a rotational player with TS4. I've always been a family legacy player. With TS2 I was too young to play long enough so I could have my Sims' kids have kids which would have resulted in rotational play in the end, my parents wouldn't let me play a lot. But I do remember playing 2 families rotationally once because I wanted their kids to marry one day (I think it never came to be). With TS3 I didn't play rotationally, I had a story progression mod which made everyone I didn't follow live their lives, so I picked an heir in my family to play them actively. But we all know the troubles with TS3: when you played a save for too long, it used to blow up and became unplayable, so I think I made 2nd generation once, but I never made it beyond that.
So even though I miss open world and I am sometimes annoyed by all the loading screens, I am happy the game is much more stable with TS4. The 2nd generation has just been born and my game runs smoothly. I'm an adult now so I can play as long as I want and I've been playing my current save since 2017 (with long breaks in between).
Now to your question:
1. I change households at 5 AM (like everyone else here, haha) so my Sims won't miss work or school. I usually play a family for 4 days (did 3 days up until a little while ago, but I noticed it was just too short to really develop their story). I try to be very strict about the time I play each family because I don't want them to age differently as I play with aging off except active household. I randomize the amount of kids my Sims will have, otherwise I would just let everyone have 5 kids or something and I'd end up with too many Sims. I also randomize their traits and aspiration and then I create a story along the randomized traits and aspiration (otherwise I'd end up with the same traits and aspirations all the time). I give them a new every day outfit with every seasonal change when I return to the family.
2. Right now I have 5 families: the legacy founder couple (who are old and my dear Sim will die soon) and their four kids who have already moved out, 2 of them have kids of their own already. So I've got 12 Sims in total right now, pets not counted. 3 seniors, 3 adults, 3 young adults, 1 child, 1 toddler, 1 baby. Another baby will follow soon.
3. As I said: I've been playing this save since 2017 with long breaks in between. It's not that I lose interest but I always think playing Sims consumes so much time and when I work or have much to do academically, I won't have that much time left for playing, so I often rather stop completely than just settle with an hour a day or something (you can hardly do anything in an hour of sims gameplay and it's not that immersive). I am really enjoying the different storylines right now, it's become more fun with more gameplay options of course because you can do different things. With TS2 and TS3 I hardly got to try all of the stuff the game offered because of lack of time and blown up save files, TS4 doesn't offer as much and I wish it would offer more. But it is enough for me right now as there are a lot of things I haven't played (probably won't ever play Vampires and Stranger Ville, but apart from that there is so much I still haven't done).
4. I tend to fill up my neighbourhoods with premade houses I download from speed builders (love watching speed builds). I usually change them to fit my needs and taste. But as this takes a lot of time and I don't want to JUST build, I tend to build between family rotation for a little while, so my neighbourhoods are a mess right now. In Newcrest I have a church, lots of community lots (also a school on which I am working right now, I play with Zerbu's school mod) and as for now only 1 family home for one of my families (others will follow though).
5. Yes, there are drawbacks. You can set seasons to 28 days the longest. I wish I could play my families 5 days each and not 4, but I want everyone to experience every season and it won't work so well anymore with 5 families and just 28 days. I would have to give them new outfits everytime I change family and that is a bit tedious. Otherwise there is gameplay for which you need more than 4 Sim days and which will not freeze when you change family. For example the actor career or University... I don't know yet if the actor career even is playable for me whith my playstyle... Relationship culling would be another drawback, but I use a mod to prevent that (it still happens sometimes though, it's really annoying).
6. As said, I am a family legacy player. I usually start with a couple I made in CAS, sometimes they already have kids (in my current save I made them toddler twins), sometimes their kids are born in game shortly after. My first family will always have lots of kids, 3 at least, but most of the time it's 4-8. In this save it was 4, but I would have loved more haha, love playing with families.
@wickichick
Yes, I had a problem once and had to go back to an older save ( this was years ago). I got al
back up drive with my new laptop.
I have played my sim self longest. She has no job, but paints and gardens an lol d other things.
I have about 5 or 6 different types of restaurants, all different types and an icecream shop all down loaded and some slightly changed. I downloaded a bowling alley in BB and I also added a basement to a cafe in Windenburg and added another bowling center on a basement floor complete with toddler tunnels. I also added on to the gym there, and I created an arcade/park for Windenburg. Ihave 3-4 gyms, many I have changed to add other things like a pool, sauna basketball court, and or yoga etc. have a few spas. I have several nightclubs, my favorite is in Sulani...., in the ship wrecked lot with a hotel as well as a night club. I made a hospital/mall retail that is in OS. I downloaded the GrandCanyon’ from the gallery and added a bit to the outside, that’s a spa that is in OS too. I down loaded a small military base ( and added other activities to it. That’s in strangerville, I also downloaded a cafe there and added a small gym and laudramat to it. A long time ago some one made a beach ( before pools came out) that I downloaded in OS that is still there ( it is labeled as a pool because I added it to the edge). I also made a small park w/pool in OS. In SM In one of the karaoke bars I added a second story and that is a Scout room, and I added a basement with a laundromat, and play area. In Newcrest I have a grocery store, outdoor lounge, nightclub, movie theatre, a church ( I also have a different church in WC), an office building and an apartment I made, also a big park I downloaded and I have a special residential lot there, I downloaded someone’s yacht for my photographer to live in. I have a photography shop in OS, I believe it was maxis made. I also Downloaded a lot called ‘Dragon Inn’ which has a small bar and I use it as a hotel in OS. In BB I made an Arts Center which I need to update. I still have open lots in BB and Sulani to either create or download.something for. I haven’t changed Siverdorado much yet, but Granite Falls has a Spa, a cafe and a rental that is called ‘the fishing spot’. I think that’s most of the ones I added or changed much..... oh I did add someone’s western ghost town too which was really cute.
Comments
Only through unwanted NAPs, I think it was the Free Love NAP that really messed with some of them, but not the way you'd expect, they didn't suddenly love each other nope, they were very, very high in the red.
Other than that I haven't noticed anything severe.
The Romance Festival can also cause alot of damage to romatic relationships, it almost broke up one of my couples cuz one of them was flirting with another autonomously at the festival and it happend very fast, I was playing the other one and just noticed him being mad and didn't know why, soon as I realized I send them both home, their romace bar was almost empty
BTW I find the club system to also come in very handy in rotational play, I have alot of "family clubs" for families who are spread out over the worlds and some friends clubs, it just makes it easier to keep up the relationships between those sims, since any member can start a gathering and depending on the club activities they will autonomously be friendly/do positive socials with each other.
You can also have sims introduce other sims to one another and determine wheather they'll like each other or not, by doing the friendly interaction "ask (or talk?) about another sim" and then either talk another sim up or down.
They one you talk to will then go talk to that sim (if both are present you can even see it) and report back to you with either a positive or negative comment (depending on what you told them before) and their relationship with that sim will be positive or negative. It is very cool, I often use that mechanic to introduce new romantic partners to friends/families.
I have all the packs except eco living and everything functions extremely well for me in game...very happy with it compared to how sims 3 was for so many folks.
I really do appreciate the feed back from so many who have taken the time to reply to this thread. I wondered if many used the club feature with rotational play and it would make sense that it could be helpful for group outings.
SimsAddict...i have a feeling that i will play more/less that way ...rotating when i need a change of pace. Thank you so much for posting!!
1. I don’t have any particular rules. I do however usually play with aging turned off, if I decide I want to age a family I will turn it on. I get tied to my characters and put a lot of time into them and then don’t want to lose them..... lol. I do try to switch families before morning comes so I don’t mess up school or work.
2. I play all types of house holds from single sims to a household of 8. I now have over 20 rotational families. Some of my first were downloaded from the galaxy long ago. Now I will create my own usually, or use families which come in different expansions. Sometimes, I will even take a favorite townie and Family, or I will take a townie and create a family for them. Many times I will add a family with a new pack. When get to work came out I added a family of 4 brothers and sisters ( now split living or married to others, the oldest brother is a boss in the villain career, one of his sisters is a level 10 scientist, the other brother is a tech guru gamer, and one sister ( non commital) has changed jobs a few times, she is trying to become an influencer now, I also made a family with a young adult sister with a teenager and child sibling, she is now a chief at the police department. My doctor is a married adult with a wife, a son and the sons teenage daughter and child son, and also the sons wife’s parents. I have a family with a grandmother and granddaughter. I have a group of 8 male sims that have broken apart to single house holds or smaller groups, they are all advancing in their careers, and forming relationships. I made a single military sim for strangerville, he became the hero. I have family of journalist, elderly father, adult daughter with teenage son, and young adult son. I have a couple family of 3. A family or two with toddler or baby. A 🐸🐸🐸🐸 family with 5 children, teens, children, baby. A few couples and then nuclear families with 1-2 children of various ages. Some households which are just friends. And a few of my famililies have pets, from frog and insects, to rodents, to cats or dogs. Without the variety of households I would be really bored. Most sims know other families I play,,and are often in groups/clubs together. My child sims know the other child sims, my teenagers know each other too.
3. This save which culminates from 2014 occupies about 90-95% of my played time with about 10% creating families or creating or downloading lots, mostly community lots.
4. I have all the packs and my sims live in every land sometimes changing home and communities. I have lots of community lots, all types. Newcrest is a normal neighborhood with residential and community lots of all types. I believe my favorite land is Windenburg and San Myshuno, but my sims live everywhere.
5. The biggest problem is decidingcwho to play with so many households, and trying not to have more than 200 Played favorited sims! Also university is a bit of a draw back. I have just started playing th pleasant sisters to get them through college, but don’t feel I can switch when I want to or they may flunk out. So University is a bit of a problem.
6. My singles sims start out as young adults usually. My couples usually YA also, However I do have other various Nuclear families ranging from baby to elder. The variety keeps me from boredom.
I check off each day with graph paper and note their ages as I go, along with any little notes I want to remember like first kisses or holiday gifts. I began playing on long lifespan with 14-day seasons, rotating between 8 households and playing each one for 8 days each. It’s a nice amount of time because everyone gets a weekend and I have enough time to get promotions. I switch as soon after 5am as possible, which usually allows enough time for kids to finish their homework before school (they won’t remember if they did it before the last switch) or catch up on some sleep.
I originally populated Newcrest with 8 families, each with a teen and a child. My goal has been to pair up their kids and continue through the generations, keeping extensive relationships with their peers and extended families. I’ve been playing this save file for at least a year now with no desire to change it up. Each time I switch families I save as new, just so I can revert back to any stage I need to, if necessary.
I found it really helpful to create a club for the 8 teens (Gen 2A), the 8 children (Gen 2B), the “P.T.A. Moms”, sporty dads, etc. As mentioned above, sometimes relationships are culled and they forget they knew one another which is annoying. It’s not like it’s every relationship, probably just the less meaningful ones. Having clubs makes it easy to get them back together. Some of the families were more successful than others, so I have a more exclusive club for Ladies Who Lunch, and there’s a good variety of careers throughout (I want to check each one off my list).
Gen 2A is finishing college. As posters above me have mentioned, rotational play at college is trickier because anyone enrolled will continue their term while you’re playing a different household, and you might not be happy with their grade. So I choose not to re-enroll them at the end of each term. It says they’ll lose their scholarships but 3 terms in, that hasn’t happened. And even so, it’s too cheap anyways. I just enroll them again when I rotate back.
So Gen 2A has paired off. Soon I will have 12 households and I plan to change to 28-day seasons, playing each household for 10 days (one house will be 12 days) which allows me to pick up exactly where I left off when I reach the first family again.
For a change of scenery, I’m branching a few of the families out to Del Sol Valley and Willow Creek. Some will remain in Newcrest. I like to keep a few of the households in the same neighborhood. Some of Gen 2B might move to Strangerville and I’ll actually play through the story there finally. As the parents age, they’ll either live with their kids, retire to Sulani, or downsize to the downtown area of Windenburg where they can meet up and play chess.
I think it will be fun to see how the genetics play out as the families intertwine, and keep track of cousins while still having other unrelated offspring to continue the line with. I look forward to bigger holiday dinners and BBQs as the families grow. I have a lot of fun seeing what my characters do while I’m not playing them, I just wish the AI was better. It just makes the game feel more like it’s mine when I’m so invested in all of them.
@Justin - this is how I keep track of all my households on graph paper.
You have mentioned you have some back up saves..have you ever needed to use them?
RavanSpit talks about University and how she manages it for her rotational play....i think i will not use university in my rotational play.
you mention placing community lots ..which venues do you prefer?...i would think most everyone uses a restaurant....i like to see what folks have placed for ideas
when i play a single household..i factor in those special moments in the holiday calendar...like a "happy day" (what i call the holiday) is a birthday ..it can have a name in front ..so like say ie; jane's happy day...i do the proposal ..marriage ..etc but i can see how you cannot do that in a rotational play so that notebook is necessary.
you really got serious about pacing your rotations...very nice you added the graph to show how you do it...i dunno if i will do that or just wing it but hopefully this thread is an inspiration to others that might be interested in changing up their game.
Really appreciated your input ...thanks for your time and sharing!
you could hop back in this thread and let us know how it worked out for you with rotational play...maybe you will have your own take on how it was fun for you..i think i will stay small too ..maybe four families.
Have fun finding what’s right for you!
I hardly use restaurants tbh, even when they are not bugged they aren't that much fun to me, I guess I use nightclubs, lounges and (karaoke) bars the most, I got a couple of musician sims who perform there (including a DJ) and I really like the pub games.
Parks come second, cause I can add alot activities into them, for all ages and dogs, plus for some reason I love building playgrounds...
Right now I am on a mission to build themed shops, a gift shop, a "healthy living" shop, a shop for spellcasters...
I have a sim working day and night to fill them all up
I figured as much, do you have any pics of your gardens online or how you organize them?
that's one thing that is really giving me trouble, outside gardens...
oh I think a healthy living shop is a great idea...thinking one of my single guys is going to be a spell caster.
Wow that’s dedication! Thank you for sharing that. This post has a lot of good tips
2. Don't keep track. There's a good mix between single sims and families. But my favourite is a couple of siblings (adults and teens, or two adults). It helps with social needs and it's less overwhelming to manage a household with just two sims.
3. Often switch between families multiple times per day.
4. Use all the world but my fav is San Myshuno. Love apartment living and i like the aesthetic better than all the other neighbourhood. Most of my main families live in San Myshuno.
5. None that I could think of.
6. I honestly don't know. I switch between how I play all the time. Sometimes I play families, sometime I try to be a completionist, and sometimes vampires. I have different families for different gameplay. I guess that's why I like switching between families so much.
1. When you begin your play what rules do you abide by (if any)
I don’t really consider these “rules” like in a challenge but more just guidelines to keep my families organized and prevent things from happening that I don’t want to happen when I’m not playing them. I usually play a family Sunday - Saturday and then switch to the next one. I switch families at around 8am Sunday morning so each family gets a full week and I don’t risk them missing work or skipping work due to when I rotate in. I play with aging turned on only for the active family so that I don’t miss out on birthdays and life events in other families and no one dies outside of the active household.
2. How many characters do you play and are they usually single..married...married with kids or are they direct family members (example ..mom dad and/or siblings
Varies. In my biggest rotational save, I have like 40 different a sims I rotate between. Just depends on the sabes and what goals I have for the storyline in it.
3. how long does this type of play hold your interest approximately? ( for example..a week...a month ...longer?)
Infinite because I also rotate between saves, so I have endless possibilities. If I get bored with a particular save I just avoid it for a few months until I want to play it again, and I play in other saves during that time.
4. Do you usually use NewCrest so you can create your own town or do you have a favorite neighborhood and why?
Also depends on the save and my goals for the game / personalities of the sims and families I’m playing.
5. Would you say there is any draw backs to rotational play and if yes then what would those draw backs be?
No drawbacks. That’s the glory of the sims. You can play however you want and if you don’t enjoy a certain play style you just end the game and open a new one
6. other then using rotational play what type of simmer are you in game...for example ...do you prefer family related play....single sims over couples...do you prefer to begin as a teen in a family or something else.
Both family and single sims, all life stages. I play it all because it just depends on what storyline I have in my head for whatever save I’m playing.
amp107...i think that among the many ideas i have gotten to use in alternative play in this thread ..the first one is that i can play on my own schedule ...i think rotational play would have lost its appear to me if i had to stick to something concrete ...i would agree that is the glory of the sims.
None, which is why I'm not sure if my play style really fits the definition of rotational play. I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but from what I understand, many players have a set amount of households and a set amount of time they spend with each before moving on to the next one in the list, and I don't even have a list to begin with (at least not for that). I have only one main save with 50+ households, some of which I haven't played in years, because I generally just open my game and decide then and there who I feel like playing with today. My only rule, if you want to call it that, is that when I play with a household that has a university student in it, I do not switch to another household before the end of the semester, otherwise there might be some nasty surprises when I come back.
2. How many characters do you play and are they usually single..married...married with kids or are they direct family members (example ..mom dad and/or siblings
My ever growing sims community currently consists of over 200 sims spread across 50-something households. My favourite household size is 3-5 sims, and the relationships between members wary a lot. As you can imagine, with 50+ households, they can't all be the same or else the game would get boring rather quickly, so I have pretty much everything: Traditional families with two kids and a dog... Patchwork families where almost everyone is somehow related, but no one knows exactly how... Groups of friends with similar or completely opposite hobbies and interests... Occult households where every member is a different type of occult, sometimes with a token normal person among them… Even people who hate each other and are forced to live together under curious circumstances. I try to be creative about it and not repeat the same pattern too many times.
3. how long does this type of play hold your interest approximately? ( for example..a week...a month ...longer?)
Indefinitely. I've never played the game differently, except maybe in the very beginning, when I only had one big family spread across two households. But even then, I used to rotate between the households.
4. Do you usually use NewCrest so you can create your own town or do you have a favorite neighborhood and why?
I use all the worlds for different purposes that are reflected in the households living there and the public lots. Newcrest is my religious town with two different religious communities living in two of the neighbourhoods with a church in each, and the third being neutral. Oasis Springs is mostly for aliens, but with one neighbourhood dedicated to Selvadoradian culture, Willow Creek is for artists, nobles, and noble artists, Brindleton Bay is for animal and nature lovers, etc. My favourite worlds are Forgotten Hollow and StrangerVille, I'm not much of a fan of San Myshuno and Magnolia Promande, but as I said, I play in all of them.
5. Would you say there is any draw backs to rotational play and if yes then what would those draw backs be?
As I mentioned above, Discover University wasn't made with rotational play in mind, so switching households at the wrong time can have disastrous educational consequences for any students. I also sometimes find that little things such as the chosen colours of sims' mobiles and umbrellas, progress in collections, and the amount of recycled bits and pieces in the household inventory can get reset upon rotating, and consumable items such as herbal remedies or magic potions that were placed on shelves or other surfaces may disappear.
6. other then using rotational play what type of simmer are you in game...for example ...do you prefer family related play....single sims over couples...do you prefer to begin as a teen in a family or something else.
I always play with goals in mind. Every sim I create has a purpose in life, which involves skills, careers, aspirations, and relationships. I sometimes enjoy traditional family play with children growing up, but most of the time I end up aging babies prematurely and speeding up the toddler life stage as well because they always get on my nerves sooner or later. There would be more children among my played sims if there was more to do for them, but since every expansion basically ignores that a sim's life doesn't begin in their teen years, my game has basically become a young adult simulator, with families often consisting of elderly parents and young adult children.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
In my huge, irregular rotation I also have a system to track seasons/holidays. I mark each family with a number from one to four (1 = spring, 2 = summer, 3 = autumn, 4 = winter). That way I can easily keep track of what season they had last time I played and avoid repeats. This is the only system I could come up that would work for my game and it's still relatively loose. I may jump over a season if I feel like it. Also sometimes I need to change the numbers for everyone involved if there's a big gathering (for example a new year's party) or something significant happens (some could start dating for example).
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
So even though I miss open world and I am sometimes annoyed by all the loading screens, I am happy the game is much more stable with TS4. The 2nd generation has just been born and my game runs smoothly. I'm an adult now so I can play as long as I want and I've been playing my current save since 2017 (with long breaks in between).
Now to your question:
1. I change households at 5 AM (like everyone else here, haha) so my Sims won't miss work or school. I usually play a family for 4 days (did 3 days up until a little while ago, but I noticed it was just too short to really develop their story). I try to be very strict about the time I play each family because I don't want them to age differently as I play with aging off except active household. I randomize the amount of kids my Sims will have, otherwise I would just let everyone have 5 kids or something and I'd end up with too many Sims. I also randomize their traits and aspiration and then I create a story along the randomized traits and aspiration (otherwise I'd end up with the same traits and aspirations all the time). I give them a new every day outfit with every seasonal change when I return to the family.
2. Right now I have 5 families: the legacy founder couple (who are old and my dear Sim will die soon) and their four kids who have already moved out, 2 of them have kids of their own already. So I've got 12 Sims in total right now, pets not counted. 3 seniors, 3 adults, 3 young adults, 1 child, 1 toddler, 1 baby. Another baby will follow soon.
3. As I said: I've been playing this save since 2017 with long breaks in between. It's not that I lose interest but I always think playing Sims consumes so much time and when I work or have much to do academically, I won't have that much time left for playing, so I often rather stop completely than just settle with an hour a day or something (you can hardly do anything in an hour of sims gameplay and it's not that immersive). I am really enjoying the different storylines right now, it's become more fun with more gameplay options of course because you can do different things. With TS2 and TS3 I hardly got to try all of the stuff the game offered because of lack of time and blown up save files, TS4 doesn't offer as much and I wish it would offer more. But it is enough for me right now as there are a lot of things I haven't played (probably won't ever play Vampires and Stranger Ville, but apart from that there is so much I still haven't done).
4. I tend to fill up my neighbourhoods with premade houses I download from speed builders (love watching speed builds). I usually change them to fit my needs and taste. But as this takes a lot of time and I don't want to JUST build, I tend to build between family rotation for a little while, so my neighbourhoods are a mess right now. In Newcrest I have a church, lots of community lots (also a school on which I am working right now, I play with Zerbu's school mod) and as for now only 1 family home for one of my families (others will follow though).
5. Yes, there are drawbacks. You can set seasons to 28 days the longest. I wish I could play my families 5 days each and not 4, but I want everyone to experience every season and it won't work so well anymore with 5 families and just 28 days. I would have to give them new outfits everytime I change family and that is a bit tedious. Otherwise there is gameplay for which you need more than 4 Sim days and which will not freeze when you change family. For example the actor career or University... I don't know yet if the actor career even is playable for me whith my playstyle... Relationship culling would be another drawback, but I use a mod to prevent that (it still happens sometimes though, it's really annoying).
6. As said, I am a family legacy player. I usually start with a couple I made in CAS, sometimes they already have kids (in my current save I made them toddler twins), sometimes their kids are born in game shortly after. My first family will always have lots of kids, 3 at least, but most of the time it's 4-8. In this save it was 4, but I would have loved more haha, love playing with families.
Yes, I had a problem once and had to go back to an older save ( this was years ago). I got al
back up drive with my new laptop.
I have played my sim self longest. She has no job, but paints and gardens an lol d other things.
I have about 5 or 6 different types of restaurants, all different types and an icecream shop all down loaded and some slightly changed. I downloaded a bowling alley in BB and I also added a basement to a cafe in Windenburg and added another bowling center on a basement floor complete with toddler tunnels. I also added on to the gym there, and I created an arcade/park for Windenburg. Ihave 3-4 gyms, many I have changed to add other things like a pool, sauna basketball court, and or yoga etc. have a few spas. I have several nightclubs, my favorite is in Sulani...., in the ship wrecked lot with a hotel as well as a night club. I made a hospital/mall retail that is in OS. I downloaded the GrandCanyon’ from the gallery and added a bit to the outside, that’s a spa that is in OS too. I down loaded a small military base ( and added other activities to it. That’s in strangerville, I also downloaded a cafe there and added a small gym and laudramat to it. A long time ago some one made a beach ( before pools came out) that I downloaded in OS that is still there ( it is labeled as a pool because I added it to the edge). I also made a small park w/pool in OS. In SM In one of the karaoke bars I added a second story and that is a Scout room, and I added a basement with a laundromat, and play area. In Newcrest I have a grocery store, outdoor lounge, nightclub, movie theatre, a church ( I also have a different church in WC), an office building and an apartment I made, also a big park I downloaded and I have a special residential lot there, I downloaded someone’s yacht for my photographer to live in. I have a photography shop in OS, I believe it was maxis made. I also Downloaded a lot called ‘Dragon Inn’ which has a small bar and I use it as a hotel in OS. In BB I made an Arts Center which I need to update. I still have open lots in BB and Sulani to either create or download.something for. I haven’t changed Siverdorado much yet, but Granite Falls has a Spa, a cafe and a rental that is called ‘the fishing spot’. I think that’s most of the ones I added or changed much..... oh I did add someone’s western ghost town too which was really cute.