What have you learned about your game style «12...Next Go

wahini2024

I've tried a variety of saves and options. This is what I've become as a player

I hate normal life span. Loathe
I only enjoy aging set to off
I age manually and that takes a long time
Death isn't something I let happen to my sims or even pre mades that often
Teen and Elder... I'm not real sure how to fill their time so that's the shortest life span in my games

Rotation over Legacy all the time

I play predominantly in the city and in warmer locations.

NAPS are set by world and then never change after I pick them. I have some loads where it's disabled

Sims must choose to enter fame.

I must clean Sulani in every load.

Not an occult fan
Pre Made sims are basically immortal background characters unless I need their home.

I'll kill an npc just for bad fashion or for interrupting my date or any other reason. I have no problem with the death of random townies. They have a graveyard.

I don't like Windenberg as much as I try to enjoy it, I accept that it's not a world I like living in. Free love is always on there however if it's a load with Naps on.

New crest is community lot central

I hate building but enjoy interior decoration so I gut homes from the gallery and refurnish.

I enjoy university and want more athletic arena options and rival teams my sims could join as a side activity.

I sometimes clean up Evergreen if I have a Sim for it.

Neighborhood Stories fully disabled.

Clubs. I love clubs and rivalry between them.

I enjoy challenges but take time restrictions off (aging) because I get mega stressed by birthdays.

I turn blizzards off... random but I don't like snow irl lol

SweetieWright_84

I have to have aging on because without it, I get bored. I'm so used to my sims aging, that when it's off I forget to age them up. I use normal aging but with MCCC customization.

I don't really care for challenges except for legacy challenges with a different set of goals for each generation. However, I have never finished a challenge, except the Bachelor/Bachelorette challenge.

I discovered over the years that I like rotational play but I prefer there to be a connection between households, something like one neighborhood or bloodline. I have dabbled with rotating through all the premades but that got a bit overwhelming. That save is on hold until I fully decide what I want to do.

I don't care one way or the other about occult sims. In general, I don't gravitate toward them over regular sims but I don't mind having the option. A lot of it is because I never really knew what to do with them, vampires especially. In my mind, vampires are usually centuries old and would have all the money they need. It feels weird for them to have a normal 9:00-5:00 job. With the other occults, it makes more sense for them to have normal jobs.

As for Neighborhood stories, it all depends on the save. The one I'm currently playing, I'm not rotating between households. They non-played ones can do whatever they want. Father Winter and the Henford-on-Bagley sims have their stories turned off.

That's all I can thing of right now. Sorry for the novel.

EnkiSchmidt

Things that surprised me to learn about my playing habits:

- Despite clamoring for laundry for a long time, I do not really enjoy that feature. Hardly ever use it anymore. Dusting is on in all saves, though.

- For a story focused player I can get tempted by satisfaction points far too easily. Current example is my programmer Susan. Her husband is doing the Soulmates aspiration and I switched Susan to it, too, so she can get the same points. I don't even know what to spend her points on that would still be in-character, but it doesn't matter. I NEED those points.

- My playstyle didn't change much since Sims 1. It's still aging off, free will off, story progression off, control pets on and irregular rotations.
But there are two changes that I didn't expect to occur: I now prefer small and medium sized households over full ones and I hardly update the household bio anymore.

wahini2024

@SweetieWright_84 what prompted this post was me finally doing an age on, normal life span legacy challenge. I tried the Not So Berry challenge with Naps, neighborhood stories and set up in Windenberg and I hated it once I got to the second gen. I like the challenge and am continuing it in another load where my settings are what I... now understand to be a strong preference lol
I don't have vampires so I never thought about them having a 9 to 5 😂

@EnkiSchmidt I used to play maxed households and love mansions but now I prefer 4 to 5 max in a medium or smaller house. I have no idea why this changed in sims 4 but totally agree

Chicklet453681

I only play with aging off and age up according to my story, which sometimes is just never.

I have weather related deaths always turned off. I have probably only deliberately killed off a sim in all of the games couple times, and then it was only for story purposes.

I rarely play teens because they are pretty boring in TS4, they are just YA’s with some restrictions to me.

I’ve never played rotationally, not even sure how to begin, although it is something I’ve thought about trying.

I play 90% of the time play in Newcrest, set as a retro/mid-century modern residential neighborhood.

NAPS are turned off completely in my game, only some of them interested me and like most things in TS4, when they are turned on they are at max level, excessive and annoying

I have never play famous sims, that does not interest in me.

I have never, ever cleaned Sulani, probably because that is just a beach destination to me and not some place my sims live in.

I also don't care one way or the other about occult sims in TS4. In general, I don't knowingly interact with them but it’s ok in my game if they’re doing “occulty things”, I just don’t actually play them. In TS2 & TS3 I did enjoy playing witches.

Pre-made/Townie sims are typically just background fillers for my stories.

I don’t hate building, I’m just not proficient at it. I enjoyed it much more in the previous games. But I do enjoy interior decoration so I too gut homes from the gallery, TSR, MTS, and Tumblr and renovate to fit my needs. I’m also HORRIBLE at landscaping and do NOT enjoy that, so most of the houses I D/L have to be aesthetically appealing with good curb appeal on the outside (I can always gut/remodel the inside to fit my needs).

90% of the time the houses I play are single story only, not overly large, and have minimal clutter/objects blocking my view. If I D/L a 2-story or taller home, it’s for the look of the home and I typically delete everything on the upper levels and make it so the entire living space is only on 1 level.

I have never took a sim through University in any of the games.

I have never been interested in planning a Sims wedding in 20+ years unless I needed pics for storytelling purposes, and then basically it was nothing more than a staged photoshoot.

I’m obsessed with CC shopping and spend almost as much time D/L’ing and looking at new CC as I do playing the game. I used to be ALPHA CC ALL THE WAY, but have gradually over the years become drawn to MM CC. Although, some things I MUST HAVE are alpha (such as Eyelashes, Body Hair, Eyebrows, and Facial Hair).

Most of the time, my sims are comfortable money wise and don’t need a job because I don’t enjoy the grind of climbing the ladder because it leaves very little free time to enjoy other activities in the game.

I play with autonomy and whims on because I like my sims to direct their storyline, unless they are just doing something totally out of character

I have yet to actually try out the updated Neighborhood Stories as I was never interested in it and actually D/L’d a mod to turn it (and the phone calls) totally off when it was first introduced. I will test it, but if there are a million/trillion births/adoptions of kids and pets in my game with excessive phone calls, it will be shut off again and the mod to disable EVERYTHING put back in my Mods folder.

I too enjoy Clubs and find them quite useful for storytelling.

I use a mod to control the weather, once again it’s in excessive in TS4 (at least to me), I live in a 4-season area in RL and we don’t have rain EVERY SINGLE DAY in Spring/Summer, we do NOT have constant snow in Fall/Winter. We have rain sometimes, snow sometimes, cool weather some days, ridiculously freezing temps some days, some days are blazing hot where you’d sweat just walking down the porch steps to get the mail, some days are pleasant and seasonably warm, some days are much cooler than normal for that season but it’s not constant for the entire season. That’s how I want my game to behave.

I hardly ever have skill building objects on my home lot, this forces me to get my sims out of their lot. Plus I don’t like sims to be overly obsessive with certain things.

I use a TON of mods to enhance my personal gameplay style, and a ton MORE to either turn off or tone down the excessive default behavior of the sims or to simply fix things that should have been fixed a long time ago.

My played couple sims are ALWAYS monogamous! I have to use a mod to keep it this way. Cheating is an absolutely deal breaker for me in RL and I don’t want that happening in my game, even if they are just little virtual beings, if they commit to someone they better be committed! Now my single sims can flirt, woohoo and hook up with whomever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want.

I like drama to happen on its own without me trying to force it, so I welcome game generated curveballs in my story line.

I start (never finish, forget about, or lose) wayyyyyy too many saves. When a new pack comes out a storyline will pop into my head and then ……. SQUIRRRRELLLLL!!! Something else has piqued my interest and I need to start fresh with a new save for that storyline, and yeah …. Rinse and Repeat.

wahini2024

@Chicklet453681 I would love a good weather mod and in part why I don't like certain worlds is I don't like cold weather irl and I find it rains way too often in most. So they're either in rain or in cold weather outfits for too long imo unless I play the warmer climates. I clean Sulani because I have sims live there, and because I used to live in Hawaii. Once it's clean there's a baby sea turtle 🐢 "festival" to watch the babies go into the ocean which I love because i adore sea turtles (it's kinda boring as an activity but it's so cute to me)

Stormkeep

The main thing I've learned about my game playing style is that I don't have a defined style. I like constant variety. So my main thing is I really love playing rotational, and rotating frequently when doing so. Some people who rotate play one household for a whole sim year before switching but I much prefer to switch once per sim week.

The other main thing that my craving of variety leads to in my gameplay is that my sims are constantly traveling to other locations, both community venues and the homes of other, unplayed Sims that they know. My sims usually visit other lots multiple times in a day. As a result, this also means I tend to have my sims live on smaller lots or apartments, because other than bedroom, kitchen and bathroom I don't need much on their home lot.

And aging has to be on for both played and unplayed sims. With a need for regular variety, playing the "same sim who never dies" is not at all appealing to me and because I like to see a variety of townies, having them age keeps that pool constantly changing too.

@Wahini2024, you may be interested in bienchen's mod lessrainmoresun, available here. It won't take care of the cold weather for you, but it will cut down on the rainy/snowy weather.
You also might want to consider dipping your foot into using Sims 4 Studio to edit your own tuning. If you know how to use a text editor, it is SUPER easy to make your own adjustments to the weather for any of the worlds that you choose.

SikoahGrace

Aging is off at all times. I only age when appropriate for the storyline.

I rarely have my sims adopt pets. When they do they live forever with my sims.

I really don't do a lot of legacy play. I play rotationally.

My supernatural save is separate from my "normal" save. Which isn't ever normal.

All my male sims have muscles and big booties, my female sims are thicker with big booties. Just how it goes in my sims world.

NAPs are off.

I opt my sims into the celebrity system.

Weather related deaths are off.

Autonomy is almost always off.

Premades usually get deleted.

I find cheating a trite way to cause drama so I never do it. I think about other ways in RL that cause it like money, jobs, school, parents hate the boyfriend/girlfriend, the fridge broke, etc. There are so many things to cause drama, some more than others, than to just...cheat.

With all that being said I like happily ever storylines.

My sims play and play hard. They travel to different places all the time.

I use the club feature all the time.

My sims usually have best friends that are in the same neighborhood. They all meet and build relationships. They are only acquainted with sims that live in other neighborhoods.

I have a lot of saves...just because.

InuMiroLover

Babies, Toddlers and Elders are my least played life stages. Child sims basically raise themselves.

On average my sims will have 1-3 partners their entire lifespan. Some sims have too many.

There is a 50% chance that the parents of child sims are absolute messes and need some form of therapy.

I have a very select group of male sims that are never allowed to die under any circumstance because they're too hot and I cant make hot male sims to save my life.

Some of my families will stay poor and struggling.

Most NAPs are fine, but "Sharing is Caring" is absolutely forbidden.

I get more use out of builds I do myself rather than ones downloaded from the gallery.

Alot of my sims have skeletons in their closets.

Any random sim I dont like for any reason is subject to immediate death sentence.

If I feel I have too many useless townie sims I'll usually use vampires to thin the herd. They get fed, I have one less sim to look at. Win win! Plus its really fun to watch xD

I have a mod with a feature that allows sims to be attracted to one another. If a sim is attracted to another sim without my intervention, chances are i'll try to cultivate a relationship between the two.

On the rare occasion I play a family with several kids, there can only be one toddler at one time. Im not dealing with multiple toddlers, unless its twins or triplets.

Occult sims entering into relationships with human sims are quite common.

My favorite sims tend to live in San Myshuno.

I like to take alot of screenshots of my sims and edit them, (particularly when there's something really interesting going on) but I dont really do anything with them. Its just for my own enjoyment.

simgirl1010

I have one main save/family that I've played for the last five years. I recently started a couple of new saves for scenarios but am looking forward to trying some with my existing family.



Juliette, Hannah, and Isabel started out as triplets. Once they all mastered toddler-hood I aged them up to child. Juliette was the first to age up to teenager. She's now a young adult. Hannah was aged to child and Isabel remained in the toddler stage for about another year before aging up to child. Hannah will be aging to teen very soon.



Aging is off. I age up when I feel it's time and don't consider one sims' age in relation to another. My parents and eldest daughter Juliette are all young adults.

There is no death in my game. (Except for the one time I killed off a bunch of townies to get headstones for my cemetery.)

Julianna (mom) is sort of my do it all sim. Whenever a new GP or EP with a new world is released I'll move her out to check out the new world, features, aspirations, careers, etc.

There's always plenty to do with several family owned businesses, bakery, vet clinic, wedding boutique, spa retail, two restaurants, farming animals, clubs, lots of friends and extended family.

I've played this way with each version of the sims and never get bored.

wahini2024

@Stormkeep I'll take anything that'll cut down rain and snow. I've always wanted a way to view weather in every world before leaving home especially if I'm about to book a vacation. I don't always have handy sims around to change the weather on that machine. So anything to lessen the rain or snow would be great, thank you. I just have a strange personal aversion to cold weather so I can only handle living in warm worlds but they travel frequently. Still I'd love to make use of other worlds as Strangerville, oasis springs and Sulani are packed. Myshuno is my one major exception and it's about to overflow as well. I feel like they get cabin fever in the winter in places like Brindleton lol i don't know it's a weird thing with me

Stormkeep

@wahini2024, Yah, I'd really love if there was a "weather channel" pie menu category on TV's where you could select it and then get a choice of all of the worlds, giving you the forecast for each world when you select them. There is a mod that adds weather forecasts for other worlds to the phone, but it's not compatible with mods which change the weather from EA defaults.

DaniRose2143

I totally agree with the aging off.

I'm freestyle with my game play. I take each and every save as the spirit moves me. I might play rotational, I might do legacy, often I just focus on one or two households and just see where things go.

Right now I'm locked into San Myshuno. I love the city and the apartments are my thing. I live in an apartment irl so I'm just attuned to that life.

NAPS are the tool of the devil.

I adore occults. I can't imagine my game without them. Vampires in particular.

CAS is my favorite toy in the world. I get lost. It takes forever for me to create a sim, even if I'm using that one in my avatar. Every time I use her in a save I give her a totally new look, new vibe, always something different. I have 100+ different version.

Renovations is not far behind. Every time I start a save I have to completely renovate every house for every family I intend to play. I can't stand the humdrum interiors of any of the pre-made builds. There are a lot of extremely talented builders out there, who make gorgeous lots, and I guarantee at some point something about their build will clash with my OCD, and I'm renovating.🤣

I have an addiction to creating actresses or self-employed painters. I love the work when you want freedom which gives them time to explore, and get into activities, make friends, just generally explore the worlds.

I love all the pre-mades, except Dustin Broke. I'm ready to completely re-trait him to dial down his schtick. Ugh!

mightysprite

I usually have a direction I'm going in with any particular family or save, but I need weirdness/randomness to keep things interesting.

I like having weird and random things happen to me that I didn't plan on. Neighborhood stories, emotional deaths, Murphy bed, you name it. I rarely intentionally create occults but I definitely jump on the boat and take the ride whenever something occult happens to happen, or needs to happen story-wise.

Sometimes even things that are clearly glitches/bugs end up becoming important story-wise.

I like using random rolling systems for traits, aspirations, gender identity, sexual orientation, and glasses, where the traits and glasses are affected by heredity and the other things not. Traits and aspirations give me a small set of randomly generated options and then I choose from there.

I absolutely love the wacky variety of random townies in the world.

I get bored when things are too much the same for too long. Relatedly, I usually play on normal lifespan, except one save with a challenge where it has to be on short.

theemaskedsimmer

It really depends on my save file. For the Sims that I am invested in I will turn aging off. Other saves I am usually a long lifespan type. I like to try to accomplish as many things as I can with my families. I also love to play multiple households on the same save. I am enjoying the new progression update. I think it has made my neighborhood a little more...interesting to say the least.

CAS is a lot of fun. I do not spend too much time on it though. I like the dice roller on the names, traits, all that. I like to plan out a 5 day week worth of clothes for each Sim. I think its funny how they will randomly change to a different one each day once they shower.

One thing I never play with is the vampires, witches, magic stuff. I own every game pack but it just does not interest me. I also have been trying to force myself to add animals to my game because for the most part I don't.

mitchiebanjo

I play with aging off. I don't allow Seasons to load cause EA doesn't do anything with moderation. I love the vampires pack and the spellcaster somewhat less. I play very very relaxed. I've just decide I can't have pets anymore, they're just too problematic. I am allergic to rules so I can't play challenges. Most simmers would be bored stiff by my gameplay. But the Sims shouldn't be a challenge unless that's what you want.

Atreya33

Very interesting to read everyone's experience. My conclusion is that my playstyle seems to vary between the different sims iterations.

In sims 1 I greatly enjoyed playing a selfsim
In sims 2 I enjoyed playing the legacy challenge. The family tree and the genetics system were great. I hate how culling sims in the sims 4 can ruin family trees. As for the genetics but loved them in sims 2. That version also had a cheat that let the player check on the genes of a sim, even recessive genes. I loved tracking this through generations
Sims 3 was during a real life break from the game. I only played it a little but never liked it because of the look of the sims, the fact that most EP had their own world, separated from other worlds. I also dislike story progression and what it does to other families I placed in the world.

In sims 4, I started out playing families like I did in sims 2. But the lack of proper genetics and the threat of culling deceased family members in family trees has made legacy style play less attractive for me. I have started occasionally playing adult only households because of all the packs centered around playing adults. To my surprise I enjoy this from time to time. Sims 4 is also a game that lends itself towards building up a supersim because we can freely switch between aspirations and master so many skills .

Elements of my gameplay in sims 4:
- I turned off the effect of heat and cold on the sims. I enjoy the weather in the game but don't want to worry about freezing to death
- I don't play the fame system
- if I want more challenge in a household I turn on laundry, the dust system and the simple living challenge. But I don't do this for every household.
- no NAP's in my game except the ones that change the look of evergreen harbour
- no neighbourhood stories
- aging is off for unplayed households. For played households it depends
- most households have at least one occult family member. This is not a set rule, but I just can't resist adding them

amber_ilumire

I also play with aging off. I rarely ever age any of my sims up past the young adult stage because I get too attached to them and don't want to see them go! I mostly play with NAPs off too except for a couple of cases where my sims have lived in Evergreen Harbor and I've wanted to play with the Eco Lifestyle features.

I've also only played with the same family for the past four years. I used to play random households made in CAS until the Seasons expansion came out and I became so attached to the 'fair weather friends' premades from the trailer that I immediately downloaded them and have used them as my legacy founders ever since. I'm up to about generation 8 now. I like to take my time with legacy plays and really make the most out of each generation. Aging up til the young adult stage takes a long time and when that happens I move them out and switch to playing with them, so the previous generations become background sims. I love having them appear on community lots and getting calls from them.

I usually plan out what a sim's look and lifestyle is going to be like before they're even born. I name them and decide on their traits and aspiration/careers/etc. way in advance. It keeps me motivated and gives me something to aim towards, even if it takes a while to get there.

I don't really use occults all that much, although I do love that they're included in the game. I made one vampire in CAS and made him a background character who my sims interact with, but he gets treated like a normal sim for the most part.

Elliandre

I like to play with autonomy off the majority of the time, but sometimes I set them free to have a little break from playing and watch what they do.

I don't love the dust bunnies as much as I thought I would and my Sims often step on them.

I rarely take any photos in my game.

The paper bag NAP gives me so much anxiety.

I delete and start new saves often.

I like to imagine past histories and back stories for my Sims to give them more life and character.

I still don't know how to make a roof and I still miss the auto roof from Sims 2.

I love the weather in the game. I love to watch rain fall on water, trees bend from the wind, and I like to see snow on the ground.

I will rarely walk a Sim's pet.

I like the occult Sims just as much as the humans, but families with toddlers and kids are still my favorite.

I love the cooking in the game so much and always love getting new recipes.

I love giving the premades makeovers and learning their biographies.

I like to play on rotation and never stick with one Sim for too long, although I play favorites with the ones I created.

I play with aging off and don't let my Sim's die.

I hate seeing my elder Sim's slouch and just want them to stand up straight.

I just have to give every elderly grandmother the knitting object and a rocking chair.

My Sims drink tea or coffee when I am drinking tea or coffee while playing. It's a tradition since Sims 1. We drink tea and coffee together.

I will forget to put a thermostat in the house every time.

I like to redecorate more than build.

I can't remember any cheat codes except the money ones.

RedDestiny92

I guess I like to do a lot of things already mentioned but while some things depend on the save file, there are things that may be different family to family.

I don't sell puppies or kittens I would rehouse them myself if I absolutely had to.
I don't care how much or how little time my sims spend on work so many of them aren't ever going to reach the top of their career, just like life many just need to keep money coming in for their families.
Aliens always get make up, I wish kids and tots could use it, I like to dress them up with "special birthmarks" they may have traditional clothes and normal human wear that I may not change if they just walk around without a disguise on.
Babies are aged up immediately, pretty indifferent to them, some families may get a picture of them beforehand.
I prefer if the firstborn can't have their own room they only share with the second, any other children may get stuffed in the same space, but they all work on skills and do their homework right after school. If I think of a story for them just homework and I'll take them out whenever.
I tend to go with whatever happens rarely would I ever quit without saving, sometimes I don't let the sims plead either as if Grim is invisible to them.
If I want to rotate while in uni I do whatever schoolwork they have and just go don't care about weekends or anything my other sims may still have lives to get to.
The only saves that I would play with aging after it's been set is for legacies, generally if I'm aging up played households I just wait till their birthday and if that means other kids in the world are behind I'll pick and choose a few to age up with them, most others I'll leave alone.
Depending on sim I would give them outfit changes as time goes on as we have so many clothes now it feels like a little change for them, tots tend to stay the same unless I'm working on their skills. I also only prematurely age in saves I haven't played in for a while.
Parties are the most time they get for family and friends outside of the house, other wise they only talk to who I would assume is absolutely necessary...but I still don't have many homebodies.
With that I have a few things I always place down, I updated the free restaurant we got and I will put that in osasis springs, I'll usually put down another family spot and use my builds or other freebies for the shopping district of Willow creek. Generally a new park and hang out for the springs, newcrest only gets hangout spots if I see a reason too or of course if I put families there. My sims don't stay home just because they have kids, tots are given the little wabbit tablet it keeps them quiet. I never set up a whole world before playing.

Hmmmmmm I guess I have a few things don't really think about it until it's all out in front of you huh.

That last thing I can think of that I'm not currently doing is ghosts may be added to households but not everyone can get access to ambrosia, also if vampires can change others they can't change everyone. As if some can't be because of a issue with genes so they may only keep one friend and family member in long running saves where many others die of old age.

I just know there is more but I'll cut it there ha.

CK213

The Sims 4 has turned it upside down.
I held off starting families and only played never-aging young adults because the family game play just wasn't there when the game first began.
But that changed when we got Toddlers and Parenthood.

So I took all my YAs and aged them down to toddlers and gave them parents in CAS.
I was finally going to have my sims marry and start families. However, I had to play them through their toddler, child, and teen years.

But...
I had to stop when the first teens in Rotation were about to become young adults.
I need University. So I put them on hold until we got University.

But...
I discovered teens were boring.
So I came up with the idea to create a prep-school for teens that were going to University.
I could have a bunch of teens from the various neighborhood under one roof in a prep-school setting.
I would use the prep-school as a rotation point for group of sims rotating in and out of Uni between terms.

I found this quite enjoyable and teens were more interesting.
I could play them all through Uni. And I discovered I loved making over the dormies. I thought my group of sims would pair up with each other. The dormies changed all that. I wanted to add them to my collection of sims and make the world so much richer.

But...
The TS4 sim world is huge now, and I have a huge amount of sims I really like.
I have more sims than I would want to rotate through. I have tons of new lots that I have added. And we have game scenarios now.
My approach to these scenarios is to create new sims and play them through the scenario and involve my favorite sims in their scenario.

What I really need to do is create a Master Save.
I don't want to rebuild my rich world with each new sim I create for a scenario. I need a Master Save with all my sims and lots already built and I can just play a copy of it when I want to start a new game.

So that's where I am.
I have all these sims that I have played since the start of Sims 4.
About a third of them have finished or are still in Uni, or prep-school.
Between playing the master save, I play other saves when a new pack comes out, so I can test it out before having my main sims use it. Any new creations that I like are transferred to the master save.

I need to do a major update to my master save.
It's been on hold for a while while I experimented with other game play.
But it will be complete when I have updated the lots, sims, and played everyone through Uni.

But...
I will still need to play it a smidge to give it that Sims 2 pre-existing story feel.

But...
Neighborhood stories.
Omg.

GalacticGal

I have a tendency to fall 'in love' with my Sim characters. (I create my own in CAS and rarely play a premade). I play the same ones over and over and over again. This is mainly because something has gone wrong every time I try to reach the ultimate goal. I want to see Erik on stage giving it his all as an Elder. The oldest he's gotten in my game to date, is about 30. Then a patch hits and breaks mods I need, or I play risky with a broken mod and that blows up the save. Face/palm Or the latest was when the game decided to kill Erik off (not for the first time, either). It was a glitch, so I did a save recovery to find out just what happened. Made for an interesting plot twist, at least.

I only turn aging off when I have Sims in Uni and that's for everyone in the save. I turn it back on (if I remember, once I totally forgot), after the YAs have graduated.

I play on Long. I can handle death when it's timely.

I turned off Emotional deaths after I lost two Sims at the very same Event (my first experience with it) and later the game seemed to target my Main Character, Erik Cantrell. He died three separate times by Hysteria. He was on his way to dying again when another player asked if I had made a backup of my saves, prior to whatever patch that one was. I substituted the save for the copy and the game stopped targeting Erik. Phew. Yes, I am one of those who campaigned for more random deaths, too. There, I have written it aloud.

I love farming since HoB. I used to garden begrudgingly in Sims2 & 3.

I love large houses for my Sims. I feel all cramped by smaller abodes.

I'm not opposed to changing the house on the lot if the old one bores me. I changed Erik's house three times on the very same lot. The last time I had to 'fix' it so it sat on the lot facing forward instead of it facing the long side of the lot. Sad, I didn't keep a copy of that one. Just had to rebuild it, this time on the 64 X 64 to allow for chickens and maybe a cow and a llama, this time. I may need to tweak it, still, as it seems too narrow, on the whole.

I have to have a singer Sim in my game.

I can't play a proper rotation in this game, as I must stay with Erik and his family.

Sometimes, when starting over I have to switch a few things out to make it new again.

Sometimes, I find myself playing things the same way, particularly in the beginning of a new Iteration of Erik.

I created my own twist when I decided to go off-script and have Kayleigh be one of identical triplet sisters. I just gave them the names of the women my Cantrell boys married in my mini-series (see my siggie). I've since decided this go-around to put the other families back in game so that the grandchildren won't all look so much alike it's hard to distinguish whose Child is whose.

I would much rather sit and play my game over doing about anything else. (This is bad news.)

NightlyCoffee

I discovered I really love legacy and family play.

I hate short and normal lifespans.

I love aging on. I love having my townies grow old and live their lives alongside my Sims. I enjoy making backstories for all of my townies, too.

In the past I've played rotationally, and I liked it, but I prefer sticking to one household.

Recently, I've taken note of how often I gravitate toward celebrity gameplay. I've come to realize I just really love playing with celebrities, and it's made me love Get Famous all the more.

I prefer worlds with warmer climates like Oasis Springs and Del Sol Valley.

I have a love/hate relationship with building.

I've tried playing with occults in the past, but I really don't enjoy that type of gameplay. It's just not for me.

I love having pets in almost all of my played households. Dogs are, by far, my favorite pets to have.

cyncie

In Sims 3 I always played single households through a story. When that story ran out, I started a new save with all new characters. I never rotated households because the sheer size of the Sims 3 worlds was intimidating. I started that way in Sims 4, but my current story expanded out into the bigger world, and I’m really now enjoying playing a world story, instead of just one household. I still don’t think I would do that in Sims 3.

Since I’m playing a story that needs time to develop, I always play with aging off. Age ups only happen when they fit the story.

I hate building and have a great appreciation for the builds on the Gallery. I do like decorating. No one gets a mansion unless it’s necessary for their character, though.

I like my main characters to have a unique style of dress. If you’re a townie and you show up in something that I’ve carefully selected for one of my main sims, imma gonna take your backside into CAS and pick out some nice base game outfits for you before I drop you back off.

Families and careers have to fit the story. I don’t play them otherwise.

When I set up my story, I cheat each principle character’s skills to where they should be at the start of the story, then finish them out with gameplay. Same with funds and type of house.

I don’t play scenarios or challenges. I do like story play through game packs, like Strangerville and Jungle Adventure, though.

When random and unexpected things happen, I love watching it play out. If I can incorporate it into my story, I save it. If not, I roll it back.


The game cannot kill any of my main Sims. Townies are fair game.

Because I play with aging off, managing Seasons is tricky. The sim year progresses more quickly than my story sometimes, which makes the holidays occur too frequently. They’ve become pretty redundant, in some cases. I’ve recently taken most Holidays out, just leaving some events on the calendar. When I want Winterfest, etc. I add it back in.

83bienchen

I play on normal life span.

I play rotational.

I don't like my townies to age or evolve.

NAPs are off.

All of my households have children at some time, at least 50 percent have pets.

I stick to 1-story-builds.

I avoid my Sims getting rich.

I hardly ever play with occults.

I could not play without mods, but I don't use any of the most hyped ones (MCC, UI Cheats, Wonderful Whims, SoL, Tool).

I mostly play whim based even though I hardly ever use aspiration points.

I've been waiting for horses since launch and still have high hopes for them to return soon.

I prefer to use my own lots even though I'm not a builder.

I constantly tweak my mods during playing.

I don't keep pet grave stones.

My Sims mostly socialize with played households.

I prefer colorful houses and outfits for my Sims.

Umbreon12

I play with aging off, and autonomy on. If my Sim worlds become too overpopulated, I plan to turn aging back on.
Neighborhood stories is turned off in some saves, and altered in other saves. For neighborhoods stories that are altered, random death is turned off, and moving in and out is not an option either.
If I have Sims based on series I like, I tend to have the same Sims in my worlds. Like normal, Alternate Universe, and gender bend all living in the same world. So, I tend to have multiple versions of the same Sims running around, but have different lifestyles to each other.
I have multiple save files, and families based on different things. I have my franchise-based Sims, franchise=based Sims mixed with my own Sims, or remaking Sims I created in Sims 2, and adding them to Sims 4.
Occult Sims are a must for me. I have a mixture of occult Sims and normal Sims in the same save files. It makes things pretty fun.
I tend to spice up my Sim families if I have a lot of families in a save file. I have the two parents, kids, and pets living together in some families. While others consist of grandparents, parents, and kids. I have a mother living with her children from another Sim, married to another Sim, and has a kid with him. Her daughter and anthor Sim I want to pair off together are currently living with a young adult Sim. I have sisters living together, etc. Point is, not every family structure is exactly the same.
Pets are a must in my save files as well, most of my families have 2 pets at least.
I have so many different families to go to if I get bored with my current one.
I leave townies alone, and tend to ignore them. However, if my Sims fall in love, and marry a townie they get a makeover. One of my young adult male Sims married Judith Ward, and another male Sim married Liberty Lee. One of my female Sims married Clement Frost as well.
I just download houses from the Gallery, I like how they are set up, and don't try to make one myself.
I download Sims of characters I like, partly because I want variation with my Sims. I tend to favor a certain look, and bringing Sims from the gallery gives me different looks. I made one Sim, and then downloaded Sims from the gallery, I alternated between gender, and ended up with unique looking Sims.
My female Sims have hourglass figures, and my Sims are muscular with actual rears. Not crazily so, but I make them look a bit like models. Any other traits brought through are from townies, or Sims downloaded from the gallery.
I try not to use cheats in the game, except for a couple specific saves. I want a bit of a challenge when it comes to money, and worst case scenario, I can move in a new Sim to help with the money situation.
I have more fun creating the Sims than I actually do playing them at times.
I like to mix up my Sims, and choosing the one I like the most, and using them for experiments for creating Sims. I have a Sim named Yuki Snow, who is a female Sim created from an Elsa I made, and a male Sim I liked. She was used to mix with at least three other male Sims that I found for three different families.