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A couple questions for rotational players
KalopsianDreamer
Posts: 183 Member
Hello all,
Just wanted to gather some opinions from other rotational sims players (i.e. plays multiple households and 'rotates' between them) about how they switch between the households they play.
I have a little bit of a problem when deciding what household to play when I open sims, and was wondering how people decide. Generally I just go for whoever I feel like playing, but I'll occasionally have thoughts like 'oh I haven't played X household in weeks!' or realise that I've only been playing one household for ages which causes me to doubt if my method is currently the best way to play.
Do you have an order-like structure in the way you play households, or do you perhaps play with whoever you feel like at the time?
The biggest issue is comes down to having multiple households within one save when there are upcoming holidays. Let's take Winterfest which just happened in my game as an example, I spent the whole day celebrating with one family, which means I didn't get to do so with all my other households. If I see that a holiday is coming up, that usually prompts me having to make a conscious decision about which household I want to celebrate with.
Is this an issue for you, how do you get around it if it is?
I'm considering changing it up so that I only have one household I play in each save which seems to be the best way to ensure I can at least play all of the holidays etc with each household as they come up in their retrospective timelines.
Have you tried this, what did/do you think of it?
Just wanted to gather some opinions from other rotational sims players (i.e. plays multiple households and 'rotates' between them) about how they switch between the households they play.
I have a little bit of a problem when deciding what household to play when I open sims, and was wondering how people decide. Generally I just go for whoever I feel like playing, but I'll occasionally have thoughts like 'oh I haven't played X household in weeks!' or realise that I've only been playing one household for ages which causes me to doubt if my method is currently the best way to play.
Do you have an order-like structure in the way you play households, or do you perhaps play with whoever you feel like at the time?
The biggest issue is comes down to having multiple households within one save when there are upcoming holidays. Let's take Winterfest which just happened in my game as an example, I spent the whole day celebrating with one family, which means I didn't get to do so with all my other households. If I see that a holiday is coming up, that usually prompts me having to make a conscious decision about which household I want to celebrate with.
Is this an issue for you, how do you get around it if it is?
I'm considering changing it up so that I only have one household I play in each save which seems to be the best way to ensure I can at least play all of the holidays etc with each household as they come up in their retrospective timelines.
Have you tried this, what did/do you think of it?
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All the sims err'day
I like structure and schedules. It's a real life preference that has transferred to my playing style in sims. So, I play for 7 sim days per family. Sometimes it's hard to leave a family, cause I'm having so much fun with them, but I stick to my guns and one week per family. Which, has a bonus, cause when I'm just dragging with a family, not having much fun, not a lot going on, I can just power thru and know I only have to play them for a week, and I've kept my order and structure intact.
I try to have at least one day off holiday a week, for each family. So even if every family can't celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving, they get at least some type of holiday to enjoy. Sometimes I'll add another holiday or two (non-day off holiday's) just for fun for me. (ETA: Also, I make sure ALL my controlled sims know each other and, at least half way, like one another and we throw big Christmas, Thanksgiving and birthday parties where everyone is invited, so they do get to celebrate in a sense).
I'll get out my spreadsheets and notebook and pen and start planning out what family will be played when and I'll add the number of families I want until I get that sweet spot, then I try to stay right around in that area from then on. Maybe have an retirement village for all my elderly sims so their kids can start their own families (so I'm not playing 9 families, only 5) in later generations.
You really have to find what fits you and your play style. I learned mine from doing the same thing you are, asking others what they do and then creating a mash up of a few ideas I read that seemed like they'd fit my style.
I have a BaCC save going that I need to get back to, but I've been playing in my vanilla save since the 15th, so I'm sure I'm forgetting some that I do. But, it really is a learning process. And, there's nothing wrong with playing single family saves, either. I do that, too. Most of my saves are single family saves. It's just an old habit of mine. I'm still learning how to play rotationally.
Seasons set to 28 days. Strictly one week/season per family. (I rotate at 2am on Sunday).
So, every family gets made their own version of Christmas, New Years etc.
One of my households even celebrated Kwanza instead.
Sims 4 Blog
Don't feed trolls. Do feed cowplants.
As far as holidays go, my solution was to plan a holiday for every week of the calendar. (I have 14 day seasons.) This way, every household gets to celebrate something while I'm there. (I just assume that even though I'm only visiting one house, the entire town is actually celebrating each holiday at the same time. Also, since many of my households are related, many of my inactive Sims still end up showing up at the big celebrations so it doesn't really feel like they're missing out.) I've found that it actually gives some added variety to the holidays; even though the traditions stay the same each family celebrates it a little differently. It's also fun to spend a summer holiday with a family in one rotation, and fall or winter one the next. It's kind of exciting to count ahead and figure out who I get to spend each holiday with.
Whichever family I'm on when the holidays hit is who I celebrate with. Sometimes I'll hop over and spend a few Sim hours with another family who maybe just had a baby or had a toddler.
I haven't yet decided what I'm going to do once this generation's kids grow up and start adulting, I don't want to end up with more then 8 families. I may have to age some up and off, or send the elders to a home...hmm I dunno.
Before Seasons, my rotation did get some structure I did follow almost rigurously but after Seasons and the existence of holidays invaded, especially the family holidays, the structure has crumbled some. When the weeks with the family holidays runs around I do sometimes skip the households with no kids and slip into the ones that have some and play the holiday week there. Then I go back into the rotation I am in. I do plan to give each household with kids the experience to have some family holiday if not all of them; for instance the Winterfest. I am also marking which hoods might get a repeat in seasons and which haven't gotten theirs yet. For instance, I've made a note that I started with Willow Creek in the spring when Seasons came around.
But my rotation is huge now. I play with 20+ families/households (which is increasingly getting bigger) that contains a mix of premades, townies I've scrounged from the homeless piles (LOVE that pile), one gallery household and two households I have created myself. About half (haven't counted, might be less) of these families are important and the others aren't. The important ones get a week each the others get about 2-3 days, maybe less, maybe longer. Some might even get skipped over during a rotation drive-by. I even have about 5 households that are not part of the rotation but are marked played (so the game doesn't pull them into NPC jobs). Their function is solely to act as neighbours, co-workers and friends and if they have kids, then they might be future love interests for the kids in my rotation. But I do go into them sometimes to check up on them. They only get a day.
Now, I say that my important households get a week and the others less. That week can stretch though if I find it necessary. I spent once 15 days with my archeology household and my lesser important ones have sometimes gotten a full week. Aging is off for everyone except in the household I play each time, I play on the longest lifespan and my seaons are 28 days each so I can have more holidays.
My rotation is to go through each 'hood until I arrive at the 'top' again. My first hood is Willow Creek, then the city, Oasis is next and after that is Windenburg and my newest last one is Strangerville. I don't play in the others yet because my rotation is so big as it is and I really want to get some generations to at least teenhood, but the premade households in those neighbourhoods are still there in limbo waiting to be added into the rotation. I haven't done so yet but then there is no rush. I don't mind if they are added when my rotation households have aged through a few generations.
But basically, in a nutshell, I do try for structure but it is malleable to fit the circumstances that my households sometimes find themselves in and the external influences (like seasons' holidays).
I have seven households now, so with14 day seasons winterfest is going to happen once every other rotation, so everyone gets to celebrate it eventually unless I don't want them to. I have a holiday of some sort every 3-4 days so almost every family gets one every time.
Since I'm going for 10 generations, I don't worry too much about holidays. I have 2 per season, and I figure that eventually all my households will get to celebrate all the holidays.
If you want your families to be able to interact with each other, I'd recommend keeping them all in the same save file.
Depending on how many families you're playing, you could set up your holidays so that you have 3 or 4 Winterfests in a row, and switch households accordingly. I wouldn't recommend doing this with all the holidays, but it would work for one or two. Your other households don't do much of anything when they're not being played, so it's not like they'd miss work or school.
I am not sure if separate saves would be satisfying for me as I would know it didn't really happen in the other save and it will hunt me forever.
Maybe you can add certain holidays in the calendar day after day, so you get to play with a different household each day celebrating the holiday their own way? For example, if you have 7 rotational household, you take 7 days of winter and fill each day with Christmas. Other 7 days could be new year and so on.
For holidays, since my save is one big family I will either invite everyone over or go to a relatives house, or I'll just spend it with that specific family on their own because we do that in real life, some holidays you just do things at home on your own.
How many households and how many holidays do you have? Perhaps you could shedule the exact same holiday three days in a row, so that three household can celebrate it that season. Of course with many households and many holidays this wouldn't be feasible.
For major holidays I temporarily move in the extended family (playing a housekeeper townie in their original homes). For easter my current main couple had their YA son, his fiance, the son's best friend and that one's girlfriend in their household and only then invited guests for the party. That way I had the maximum number of sims on the lot - a wonderful chaos!
But out of the 18 households only three got to celebrate Easter before I got bored, so my situation isn't any different from if I had the calender, I guess. I just have more freedom when to have a holiday and how long I want to extend it.
One thing I do is cook the Grand Meal the night before then serve it the day of the holiday. It gives the mom more time to interact with her family and it counts as the Grand Meal once everyone is called to grab a plate. All computers are placed in the home lot inventory because even with autonomy turned off everyone flocks to the computers. I use the drink fountain so dad isn't stuck making drinks for the adults the entire day. Game tables keep my Sims busy while they interact with one another. The 'form a group' action works as long as everyone stays inside so the doors can be locked, but during the summer when there are water activities involved, family members will just up and leave. It would have been nice if our holidays had a timer like the events do so we didn't need to use a mod in order to keep invited guests on the lot.
I rotate through my households every few Sim days unless there is something special that has to happen in certain households. Job promotions, babies due to be born, pets needing attention, etc. But my days of rotating through ten to twenty households are finished. In a way, it was difficult to adjust to playing this way. However, I am happy with my decision to keep the number of playable households at six or seven. If every household didn't have at least one pet, children in the scouting activity, toddlers, children and teens working on the new traits from Parenthood, parents working on the parenting skill, I wouldn't have needed to remove the family friends. But the game has become more complex and immersive, and I need fewer Sims to fill the towns because there is so much to do and accomplish. Everyone plays this game differently. It's hard to say what each player needs to do to make the game enjoyable for him/her. I keep a small notebook on hand to keep track of each family. Job, job title, children and their ages and skills, pets, household bills are paid automatically thanks to MCCC. I use every shortcut I can find to cut down on the mundane, or irritating, things that keep me from enjoying doing the things that are fun and interesting.
It's interesting to see how a lot of rotational simmers like to play by week. I cannot do that. I just switch willy nilly.
I got the game and all dlcs... even the deluxe version but this stupid forum dont let me post my questions sooooo... thank you ea.
Now I have no choice but ask questions here haha... I am sorry.
I did some research on archeology and it seems focused is an important mood.
I am not sure if its important to have a high or focused mood in the jungle while finding artifacts or back at home when you ... use the archeology table.
It seems the actual value of the ... artifacts is generated when you use the table and not when you find them and for that reason having ur sim with a huge focused mood is the best thing hence, do it at home.
Yet some people recomend love the outdoors and loner to boost the mood while IN the jungle...
So... when is it important to have a good mood, when ur find artifacts, when u use theh table or both????
And I am sorry.
Sims 4 Blog
Don't feed trolls. Do feed cowplants.
Faints.
lol. I completely understand your reaction. It feels insane to me as well. A lot of my sims are recreations from S2 & S3, and then of course I always want to make new sims so it got outta hand.
Sims 4 Blog
Don't feed trolls. Do feed cowplants.