The way I play is kind of rotational, kind of themed, and not themed.
I have at least 5-6 current save files at the moment, and each one varies with what I am doing.
When I first started my Sims 4 game when I bought it I didn't know what I wanted to do, and for a couple months I didn't play it, when I loaded it again, i deleted my first saves. I knew what I wanted to do, which leads into my gameplay.
One save file is recreating my Sims that I created in Sims 2, did this to kind of compare and contrast with what I end up doing with the families. I have three families so far, and rotate between them. My goal is to at least get the families together in some way, and use their offspring in a legacy type thing, before adding any other families. Two of the families are mages, because i like having Sims with magic. I usually play the family I want to have a goal in. For example, I made a male Sim for a female Sim, who has five kids. I played them long enough for her to get pregnant and have a baby. She had a son, and the second family had twins. for context, I have one family with a dad, mom, two teens, two kids, and two toddlers born in game. Another family is a mom, her five kids, her new husband, and her new sixth kid. The final family so far has a mom, her daughter, and her sister.
Two save files are a mixture of my own Sims, and ones that I download from the gallery, which are mostly fictional based Sims. One save file has multiple versions of one series, and I like having them interact with each other as well as my Sims. I jump around like the reason above, and play a family for awhile before switching. Some families are only one Sim, or multiple Sim families.
One save file has two families only. I got Get Famous, and I am focusing on a the specific career for that save file. The two families were sisters, but I had one move out. One sister is a mage, and other is a normal Sim. They were originally in one big family. The first family was one sister and her husband, their teens, and a son born in-game. The mage sister had two teens, and I moved her out, and gave her a male Sim I downloaded from the Gallery. They have a daughter I created in edit mode to see how their genes would look together.
Another save file is more themed, and I am loosely basing it on Harry Potter. I have three families so far, and plan to add more. I have the Weasleys, Potters, and the Grangers. I have Harry, Ron, and Hermione as toddlers, so that Ginny can be born in the game. The families have Harry with his mom and dad, and aunt, uncle, and cousin live in the same family too. Hermione is just her and her parents, and the Weasleys have everyone except Ginny. I plan to add more canon versions soon, and other Harry Potter based Sims.
Finally, I have my Frozen save file, which is my testing file, and my most played file. I have one family where Elsa and Anna's parents are still alive, and Anna is married to Kristoff. At least a few families where it is just Anna and Elsa, Some with Kirstoff, Anna, and Elsa, and one when they are kids with their parents, and one where they are teens with their parents. I made genderbent versions of them as well. I gave them some kids, and had some kids born in-game to them. I have quite a few things going on in that save file. One Elsa and Anna are testing out Batuu. Another Elsa and Anna are undertaking the Doctor and Detective career, while others are undecided. My plan is to slowly ease the game into a legacy, where I can add other series I like. For example, one Anna had a son I named Hiccup, and another Anna had a daughter named Astrid, so the next generation will be How to train your dragon, and for from there.
I don't know if I described it right, but I am a rotational player, with a theme going on in some worlds, which will be a bit of a legacy as time goes forward.
I have a few different saves and mostly just play one family until I get bored.
I'm kind of intrigued by rotational gameplay and have dabbled with it. I started with just one family and as it grew, I began rotating between the family line. That was my first experience with rotational gameplay. In my opinion, it's probably the best way to play around with rotational gameplay because you're already invested in the family.
I just started a new save with just young adults and I'm attempting rotational play without anyone being related (well except the Pleasant sisters and the Gonzalez siblings). I've also added a lot of premades and Maxis gallery sims to this file, instead of just using my sims. I've started them all out with a small starter house. I'm only a few households in though, so time will tell how long it keeps my interest. They're all only in the base game worlds for now, but as the generations progress (if I choose to progress), I'll populate the other worlds.
I made Sulani and Mt. Komorebi vacation worlds only. I don't really play in those worlds with normal gameplay so I thought by making them vacation worlds, I would be more likely to use them; which is another idea I got from a thread on here. All the other worlds have nothing but community lots and I do allow my sims to visit them but no one lives in them. I made it this way to give myself a personal goal. To populate the entire save with descendants of the original sims.
I think as I make more sims, I may just add them to this save as well, to keep things interesting.
I attempted this a while back but I gave myself too many restrictions, and got bored before making it through my first rotation. I got overwhelmed with having to build everything before my sims could use it. Plus, my sims felt stale and boring before I even got started. They were sims I had made forever ago and never played. They felt too familiar for me to even start their stories, if that makes sense.
All in all, I enjoy trying new playstyles here and there. I love threads like this because it gives me more ideas.
One of the things I do is start off with a completely empty world. I have starter sims/families that I use to populate the neighborhoods. I usually start with just a few, maybe like 6. I build them each their own custom home and keep everything else empty. As I need more things, to go places, to buy things, restaurants, etc, I add them little by little. And as their kids grow up, they move out and need a home, they get one somewhere. Sometimes the families are really close and the kids stay nearby, but sometimes the kids are like get me as far from here as possible. They may even move to a different country like my komorembei or windenburg (or however it's spelled). And little by little, I'm building up a whole world, playing and having fun with a lot of different families.
Maybe this would be something that interests you or keeps you going. You can also grab from the gallery if building isn't your thing.
That's definitely something to think about. Thanks for the tip.
I do love to build. I've already built every lot in the game. I just used my unpopulated save file, and deleted all of the residential lots. There are 26 sims in all, and they're only occupying the 30×30 lots or smaller in Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, and Newcrest. As they move forward in their lives, I plan on them moving to the bigger lots.
This plan isn't set in stone or anything. I'm trying not to overthink anything because that seems to be where I get bored. I'm really trying to take things slow, and play everything by ear. I'm very much a control freak when it comes to my sims but I'm really trying to let things happen organically. I feel like that's why I give up on saves so often.
Thanks again for your tips. I may actually delete the community lots in the "unexplored/undiscovered" worlds, and let future generations discover them and build them up.
I love the idea of future sims being able to trace their lineage back to the original founders. I've always been fascinated with genealogy in real life so it makes sense.
I love reading all these. It gives me a lot to think about. I'm generally just a builder will play the house for a bit and then get bored and build a new family/house Lol. I'm actually wanting to start doing more legacy or rags to riches gameplay its just getting past the urge to build a new place after finishing a build and playing on it for tiny bit.
Also need to get my saved files in order to (and teach my daughter the same). I always forget and then just start a new one with each build
I like to play legacies. I don’t follow the rules super strictly or anything, I just like to play one family through many generations. I also don’t usually make it to 10 generations. I’ve done it once, with my first legacy, but I haven’t been able to since then. I get bored when my sims get too rich and successful and sometimes I just want a fresh start so I’ll start a new one.
I tried rotational play and it didn’t really work for me. You’d think that I would like rotational play because I get bored easily and always want something new and fresh, but I wasn’t a huge fan. I just ended up focusing too much on one household and not wanting to rotate to the others before I got bored and abandoned the save.
Like I said, I like playing legacies, so I have one main save for that legacy that I play in. I also have a building save because I like to build sometimes, too. I’ll also sometimes make a test save if a new pack comes out and I want to play with it but it doesn’t fit with my legacy at the moment. I also have a bunch of abandoned saves that I don’t play anymore but am too sentimental to delete.
I play with aging on, normal lifespan. I do turn aging off when a sim is in University because it takes too long and I don’t want them to spend most of their young adult life in University. For each generation, I’ll usually have somewhat of a plan on what I want them to do and I’ll set different goals. Sometimes, those plans will change and sometimes I don’t really have a plan, I’ll just randomize the sim’s traits and see what makes sense for them to do based on those traits.
I also have the tendency to micromanage my sims. The pause button is my best friend and I rarely do fast speed unless the game automatically speeds up or I’m playing with a sim in university and I want to speed through class or homework. I used to play with autonomy off because I like to micromanage so much, but recently I’ve been playing with it on. That might change in the future if I get really annoyed with my sims, but for now I’m liking having it on. I do disable autonomy for the selected sim, though, because I don’t want the sim I’m focusing on at the moment to do stuff I don’t want them to do.
I play in a weird way that allows me to spend days on my game without really playing it I focus a lot on community, history, and the more detailed it gets the better. Such details are of course not technically part of the game, but they make my game feel more real. I play on rotation, all age up on New Year's Eve, +/- 370 sims and 80? households. There are elections, nobility (but no royals), finer houses have their individual coat of arms. For most houses I know their detailed story more than 200 years back - like I would know if a great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother needed glasses at young age or only as an elder - get it?
When I'm not playing, I can spend those days on altering the ever growing community pages or the individual residents register with details and life lines. I feel a bit nerdy going this detailed, I work as a writer and originally I thought I could use my game for creating plots for my writing, but I must admit that aside for some Machinima on my youtuube, I mostly just deal with it as a hobby. Wish I had RL friends who were into this as well, as it I never tell anyone about my addiction, LOL.
My manner of playing is very story-focused. I am even attempting to get into using poses (once I download a lot of them) as my play is centered around taking a lot of screen-shots. Often times, I write out ahead of time where I want the story to go. I have one major story (one save) and some smaller ones, but I always end up either going back to the major story out of losing interest in the others or I tie in the smaller story into the big one.
I primarily focus on the one Sim as the main character and let the story evolve around him. The Sim is an adult that used to be a young adult, but I later changed it as I felt calling him an adult suited his appearance more. Because of this, I tend to ignore anything related to families and legacies. I've tried it numerous times, only to end up getting bored of it quickly after. I will try a single dad kind of story some time in the future, though. I am interested in rotational play, but I am afraid that my other Sims will end up doing things I don't want them to do. I am also way too fiercely loyal/attached to my main Sim, a habit I'm trying to break. Other Sims can be main characters too, of course.
I play with aging off as a lot of my stories last a very long time and by the time they end, they'd be dead for multiple generations. Whether I use autonomy depends on how many Sims are in the household. 4 or more, I'll have it on. Less than that, I leave it off. Recently I've been enjoying playing with just 2 Sims, but I often go higher than that. I rarely use fast game speed as I prefer to take screenshots alongside what my Sims are doing, from multiple different angles, from multiple perspectives, as well as the rare-ish environmental shot. Something that would make me use fast game speed would be like a Vampire hibernating to outlast an apocalyptic scenario. This also means I am not against using occults. I often welcome it, although I primarily use Vampires more than anything else. I am looking to include more spell-casters in a future story, though. I tend to avoid Mermaids as they are very location-based and Aliens for their overall uninspiring gameplay. Often, I treat Alien sims as no different than human ones.
I'm a very goal-oriented player, which I get to use more in TS3, but whenever I use a Sim in TS4 and no major story event is occuring, I like to complete Aspirations, especially ones that I feel the Sim I am using would be interested in. However, my main Sim has finished most Aspirations already, although I'm considering restarting the Aspirations on him. I don't know how, though. Because of my interest in making numerous stories, I also love creating Sims and am often in CAS, creating and customizing a concept. I'll make almost anything, as long as the Sim suits my playstyle, interests, and could be a potential character.
There's way more on my playstyle, but this post is getting big enough as it is.
I've been mixing it up lately, and I tend to find that my play style changes a lot these days.
Mods:
NPC Control - This is always turned on, no matter what the save is. I own all of the packs, so finding unemployed Sims to do all of the vendor/bartender roles is easy enough, and it means I don't have to look at townies and their awful fashion sense lol.
Old Play Style:
I always started a new save whenever there was a new pack out, or if I just wanted to start with a new household.
Aging is always turned off, as I like to age Sims up at my own pace.
I play at x1 speed for the most part, unless my Sims are sleeping or going to work etc.
I would stick with one household, and never played rotationally.
I usually have an idea of what direction I want the story to go. For example, if there's a new pack with a new world and residents, I might have my Sim start a family with one of those NPC's, but I am open to changing direction should something happen in game that I like.
I don't usually play any of the NPC residents (such as the Goths, or Pancakes) but I do sometimes merge those residents with my household. For example, one Sim that I made ended up moving in with Johnny Zest.
New Play Style:
I'm now experimenting with one ultimate save file, instead of multiple. I like the idea of all the Sims I've created being in one save file, so if I fancy a change, I can just pick up where I left off with another household, but still continue to make progress on the same save file.
Aging is still turned off, and probably always will be lol.
I still play at x1 speed the majority of the time, but I still fast forward the mundane stuff.
I'm now playing rotationally, and I find it stops me from getting bored with a save too quickly.
Again, I usually have an idea of what direction I want the story to go, but still open to changing my mind depending on what happens in game.
I still don't play any of the NPC residents, but do sometimes merge my household with theirs or vice versa.
Sims 4 Wish List:
> Option to toggle on/off random townie generation.
> Turn vacation worlds into residential worlds.
> Option to purchase separate worlds or a world pack.
I have a few different saves and mostly just play one family until I get bored.
I'm kind of intrigued by rotational gameplay and have dabbled with it. I started with just one family and as it grew, I began rotating between the family line. That was my first experience with rotational gameplay. In my opinion, it's probably the best way to play around with rotational gameplay because you're already invested in the family.
I just started a new save with just young adults and I'm attempting rotational play without anyone being related (well except the Pleasant sisters and the Gonzalez siblings). I've also added a lot of premades and Maxis gallery sims to this file, instead of just using my sims. I've started them all out with a small starter house. I'm only a few households in though, so time will tell how long it keeps my interest. They're all only in the base game worlds for now, but as the generations progress (if I choose to progress), I'll populate the other worlds.
I made Sulani and Mt. Komorebi vacation worlds only. I don't really play in those worlds with normal gameplay so I thought by making them vacation worlds, I would be more likely to use them; which is another idea I got from a thread on here. All the other worlds have nothing but community lots and I do allow my sims to visit them but no one lives in them. I made it this way to give myself a personal goal. To populate the entire save with descendants of the original sims.
I think as I make more sims, I may just add them to this save as well, to keep things interesting.
I attempted this a while back but I gave myself too many restrictions, and got bored before making it through my first rotation. I got overwhelmed with having to build everything before my sims could use it. Plus, my sims felt stale and boring before I even got started. They were sims I had made forever ago and never played. They felt too familiar for me to even start their stories, if that makes sense.
All in all, I enjoy trying new playstyles here and there. I love threads like this because it gives me more ideas.
One of the things I do is start off with a completely empty world. I have starter sims/families that I use to populate the neighborhoods. I usually start with just a few, maybe like 6. I build them each their own custom home and keep everything else empty. As I need more things, to go places, to buy things, restaurants, etc, I add them little by little. And as their kids grow up, they move out and need a home, they get one somewhere. Sometimes the families are really close and the kids stay nearby, but sometimes the kids are like get me as far from here as possible. They may even move to a different country like my komorembei or windenburg (or however it's spelled). And little by little, I'm building up a whole world, playing and having fun with a lot of different families.
Maybe this would be something that interests you or keeps you going. You can also grab from the gallery if building isn't your thing.
That's definitely something to think about. Thanks for the tip.
I do love to build. I've already built every lot in the game. I just used my unpopulated save file, and deleted all of the residential lots. There are 26 sims in all, and they're only occupying the 30×30 lots or smaller in Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, and Newcrest. As they move forward in their lives, I plan on them moving to the bigger lots.
This plan isn't set in stone or anything. I'm trying not to overthink anything because that seems to be where I get bored. I'm really trying to take things slow, and play everything by ear. I'm very much a control freak when it comes to my sims but I'm really trying to let things happen organically. I feel like that's why I give up on saves so often.
Thanks again for your tips. I may actually delete the community lots in the "unexplored/undiscovered" worlds, and let future generations discover them and build them up.
I love the idea of future sims being able to trace their lineage back to the original founders. I've always been fascinated with genealogy in real life so it makes sense.
This is truly what keeps me playing. It's so hard to let go of the dynasties I've created over the years. I'm still playing TS2 and TS3 for that reason. All of my sims can be traced back to the founders.
-one of the reason I play like building as I play is because, like you, I'm a builder. I delete everything and set out to build the world myself. However, building before playing can be daunting and overwhelming and get tiring. So building as I need things helps to break up the monotony and also lets me be creative when I'm getting bored of playing. I've found that this is what keeps me in the game the most. Otherwise, it takes me years to build a town...TS2 it took me over 10 years to build my neighborhood from scratch, including all subhoods. TS3 took 3 years. TS4 took me 6 years the first time.
I basically have two saves at any given time... my original save/ legacy family that I play pretty much every day and a fresh save I create whenever a new update arrives.
In the legacy save, I tend to follow challenges so I have goals for each generation (currently in the extended not so berry). I focus on one heir for each generation and let the rest of the save go on with their lives. I have my focus sims interact with their parents, siblings, and other family, of course, but I rarely play those others except to update clothing or make little storyline adjustments like skill and relationship fixes. To avoid the too much money thing, my sims will occasionally suffer some unfortunate event (fire, stock market crash, illness, divorce, kicked out of home, etc) so the money gets reset to nothing or next to nothing.
My updates checking save tends to be a rags to riches style gameplay, because I enjoy the challenge and it gives me a fun way to try new careers and skills. For example, when knitting came out, my sim could only make money from knitting.
I try to imagine a story and reason for every sim I play. As an example, in my current legacy generation I have a social media star. She is very outgoing and self-centered. She got this way because she was in a family of lots of kids and felt the need to stand out. Now, as an adult, she has an awful relationship with her daughter and uses her dad (who adores his family and is a retired teacher) as a free nanny. The daughter and her grandfather have an amazing relationship and he has taught her to be a caring and fair person. She will go on to be a judge someday.
In both saves, I play with 3 week seasons and used MCCC to adjust the lengths of each age level to something between normal and long lifespan. I also used MCCC to make it harder to skill up and get promotions. I aim to send my sims to university when it makes sense for their career (doctor, law, teacher, etc). I have loads of custom traits and aspirations as well as the mod that allows for more traits to try to make each sim as different as possible.
Explore the story of my over 50-generation legacy family!
In sims 3 i play one household, legacy style. No rules, just go with the flow (and with the wishes...). I play in a custom lifespan, which is a bit bigger than normal.
In sims 4 i prefer to play in rotation. I have played only one neighbourhood, one world, some selected households from different worlds or even all households in all worlds. I like to throw different challenges into different households because it helps me to have a flow, which is something i have a great difficulty to have in sims 4. Latelly i have played with aging off and age my sims when i want, cause i find normal lifespan too long and short too short.
It's weird that in 3 i play in a lifespan bigger than normal and in 4 i feel i fall between short and normal. I think this is related to how less time i need in 3 for daily routine stuff. I feel i do much more story related stuff or just fun stuff with my sims daily, so i don't get bored easily. Also goals are harder, deeper and funnier to complete, so it takes more time without boring me...
I have a few different saves and mostly just play one family until I get bored.
I'm kind of intrigued by rotational gameplay and have dabbled with it. I started with just one family and as it grew, I began rotating between the family line. That was my first experience with rotational gameplay. In my opinion, it's probably the best way to play around with rotational gameplay because you're already invested in the family.
I just started a new save with just young adults and I'm attempting rotational play without anyone being related (well except the Pleasant sisters and the Gonzalez siblings). I've also added a lot of premades and Maxis gallery sims to this file, instead of just using my sims. I've started them all out with a small starter house. I'm only a few households in though, so time will tell how long it keeps my interest. They're all only in the base game worlds for now, but as the generations progress (if I choose to progress), I'll populate the other worlds.
I made Sulani and Mt. Komorebi vacation worlds only. I don't really play in those worlds with normal gameplay so I thought by making them vacation worlds, I would be more likely to use them; which is another idea I got from a thread on here. All the other worlds have nothing but community lots and I do allow my sims to visit them but no one lives in them. I made it this way to give myself a personal goal. To populate the entire save with descendants of the original sims.
I think as I make more sims, I may just add them to this save as well, to keep things interesting.
I attempted this a while back but I gave myself too many restrictions, and got bored before making it through my first rotation. I got overwhelmed with having to build everything before my sims could use it. Plus, my sims felt stale and boring before I even got started. They were sims I had made forever ago and never played. They felt too familiar for me to even start their stories, if that makes sense.
All in all, I enjoy trying new playstyles here and there. I love threads like this because it gives me more ideas.
One of the things I do is start off with a completely empty world. I have starter sims/families that I use to populate the neighborhoods. I usually start with just a few, maybe like 6. I build them each their own custom home and keep everything else empty. As I need more things, to go places, to buy things, restaurants, etc, I add them little by little. And as their kids grow up, they move out and need a home, they get one somewhere. Sometimes the families are really close and the kids stay nearby, but sometimes the kids are like get me as far from here as possible. They may even move to a different country like my komorembei or windenburg (or however it's spelled). And little by little, I'm building up a whole world, playing and having fun with a lot of different families.
Maybe this would be something that interests you or keeps you going. You can also grab from the gallery if building isn't your thing.
That's definitely something to think about. Thanks for the tip.
I do love to build. I've already built every lot in the game. I just used my unpopulated save file, and deleted all of the residential lots. There are 26 sims in all, and they're only occupying the 30×30 lots or smaller in Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, and Newcrest. As they move forward in their lives, I plan on them moving to the bigger lots.
This plan isn't set in stone or anything. I'm trying not to overthink anything because that seems to be where I get bored. I'm really trying to take things slow, and play everything by ear. I'm very much a control freak when it comes to my sims but I'm really trying to let things happen organically. I feel like that's why I give up on saves so often.
Thanks again for your tips. I may actually delete the community lots in the "unexplored/undiscovered" worlds, and let future generations discover them and build them up.
I love the idea of future sims being able to trace their lineage back to the original founders. I've always been fascinated with genealogy in real life so it makes sense.
This is truly what keeps me playing. It's so hard to let go of the dynasties I've created over the years. I'm still playing TS2 and TS3 for that reason. All of my sims can be traced back to the founders.
-one of the reason I play like building as I play is because, like you, I'm a builder. I delete everything and set out to build the world myself. However, building before playing can be daunting and overwhelming and get tiring. So building as I need things helps to break up the monotony and also lets me be creative when I'm getting bored of playing. I've found that this is what keeps me in the game the most. Otherwise, it takes me years to build a town...TS2 it took me over 10 years to build my neighborhood from scratch, including all subhoods. TS3 took 3 years. TS4 took me 6 years the first time.
I never really played TS2, I came in really late into TS3 (around a year before Supernatural was released). I never built much in TS3. I have since gone back and attempted a small world in TS3 but I wasn't satisfied and scrapped the whole thing.
I guess building as you go is kind of realistic, if you think about it. As times change in the real world, buildings' purposes do change as well. In context of the game, it would also keep the game fresh with each new pack. My actual goal for this way of playing is to have a save that I can play until the end of the game. As new worlds are added, new sims can be added. This thread has definitely given me some new ideas to try and also a renewed excitement in the game itself.
I always just play with one save file at a time
First I create a story for that world, and assign it a thematic, for example historical, modern, steampunk, or a mix of everything. I design my characters and give them a story, and I make them according to the general world idea, and I build them the houses that suit them better
I erase the default sims and lots, to add my own and make my own custom world
And then for playing, I always disable the age, so they will be eternally the original age I assign them. I like it that way, I feel if I let them age it will kinda break my original idea and story. I also tend to use cheats like extra money, to help me achieve the story I want to play, and build the houses without limitations
I play with my different families, roleplaying them according to their story, I don’t like the play them random
I also get bored I play too much with the same family, so I rotate between them, playing one and the other, that way I don’t get bored
And sometimes I want to create a new world and a new story, so I make a backup of the sims and lots from the last one, and I erase it, and start the new one
Rotational, builder, family player, sci-fi, fantasy player, normal speed, walls either down or partially up, ultra setting, aging on and off, make my own CC recolors, use mod and cheats, playtester without mods and cheats, casual streamer, Twitch mod for Sims and non Sims channels, Maxis veteran player pre-Sims days, and last but not least deviant preferably a pyro.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
1. Call me a control freak: I like to oversee everything in my sims' lives, I tell them what to do even though autonomy is on, the idea of story progression is my worst nightmare, and I even have an Excel file listing all my sims in alphabetical order, along with their traits, careers, occult status, world they live in, and clubs they've joined. I do this mostly because I love statistics.
2. I've been playing rotationally in one save since the beginning, because I like having one big sim world with everything in it. Needless to say, my game is pretty broken since EA have stopped fixing bugs in existing saves and always tell us to just start a new one, which isn't an option for me for obvious reasons.
3. Ageing is on, but very slow, and I use youth potions, serums and magic to keep sims from ageing past the point I want them to.
4. I've downloaded lots of CAS cc, a little BB cc, a few gameplay-altering mods, and I use the freerealestate cheat to move new families into the houses I want them to live in, but from then on, they have to work for their money. Other cheats are only used to fix the game's many mistakes, such as when it doesn't register a whim or an aspiration milestone being fulfilled.
5. I spend most of my time in Live Mode, followed by CAS, and I only build when I absolutely have to because I hate it. Many of the builds in my game are downloaded from the gallery and just modified by me, because I don't suck as much at interior furnishing, but I have no sense of architecture, especially when it comes to roofs.
6. My sims must mean something to me. Usually they're either real people turned into sims (like myself, friends and family), fictional characters I like, or original sims I created for specific purposes. I don't enjoy playing with a bunch of random nobodies, which is why I rarely ever touch the premades, love interests are also created by me, not chosen from the abominable townie pool, and sims only have children if I have an idea what to do with those, too, which leads us to the next point...
7. I need goals to work towards. Every sim I create comes with an aspiration (I don't just pick a random one), a few hobbies (i.e. skills they wish to max), and usually a career that I rarely change (although I do have a few sims without a traditional job, too). Once a sim has achieved everything I wanted for them, I find it hard to keep playing with them.
8. I take a lot of screenshots of important events (most of which I never look at again afterwards, but hey, they're there if I need them!). My Screenshots folder has subfolders for all the households where their respective screenshots go.
9. Worlds are themed and only inhabited by sims whose lifestyles are coherent with those themes. Willow Creek, for example, is divided between aristocrats (Pendula View, Sage Estates) and aspiring artists (Foundry Cove, Courtyard Lane), Newcrest has two rivalling churches in two different neighbourhoods while the third is neutral, Magnolia Promenade is a dirty post-apocalyptic industrial city, etc. Every world (or town, as I call them) also has a mayor that represents its respective theme, and they are identified by club tags that say "Mayor of [insert world here]".
10. My entire sim world's population currently consists of 262 played sims in 72 households (thank you, Excel file!), and pretty much all personalities, occults, sexualities, gender identities, ethnicities and lifestyles that the game allows are represented. I need this variety in my game to not get bored, and so I can't fully identify as an occult player, family player or what have you, because there's a bit of everything in the mix. I do lean strongly towards the occult side, though, and rarely play romantically.
Saves
I used to have only one save with aging turned off. But with time I learned that I didn't like it that way because I get bored of seing the same sims. So now I have three saves. I have my original save, which is where my more scripted stories happen, but meanwhile I've turned aging back on again and I play rotationally.
Then I have two rather new saves. One is a legacy type save, where I just play one household and let the rest of the world be handled by mccc. In this save I am playing a freegan mermaid that lives off the grid in sulani and I'm playing only in sulani, ignoring the other worlds.. I'm really focusing on the Island Living and Eco Lifestyle features of the game. (aging on, normal span)
My last save is one where I play rotationally all the households in a single neighborhood, right now I am playing 4 households at Foundry Cove, and the 5th lot is a park / community space. I plan to move my favourite sims of a given generation to a different neighborhood and fill the remainding households of that nbh with new sims once I get bored of this particular setting. (aging on, long span)
Style
I play with normal speed, and fast forward when everybody's asleep or at work or when a sim is, for example, making a candle. I don't really micro manage what my sims do. I also take screenshots, for different reasons. In my story focused save, I take them because I like to write out the story on my tumblr. On my other saves it is just because I like to look back at them.
In my rotational-nbh save I like to plan a lot of social events both for the particular household I'm playing and for the whole nbh. Some nbrs are friends, some nbrs only tolerate each other.
I also overuse the club system. For friend groups, coworkers, in my legacy save I have a group with my main sim and a bunch of sulani townies where the main task is to clean the ecosystem.
Also on the legacy save, I have allowed NPC voting on the bulletin boards. And I pay attention every weekend that nothing too annoying gets voted. It adds a nice challenge in this particular case where I only play one household in one nbh.
I spend most of my time on live mode, I sometimes am in the mood to build, so I renovate an existing lot. And I'm rarely on CAS, I prefer taking sims from the galery and giving them makeovers ocasionally.
Also, recently I started turning off autonomy for the selected sim. And I prefer playing this way because I used to get annoyed at all the dumb autonomous actions that would interrupt the activities I had chosen for that sim.
I also used to try to max out careers and skills, and complete aspirations, but now I don't really care about that anymore.
Goals
Something that I want to improve in my game is the use of occults. I have yet to find a way to incorporate vampires and the RoM stuff into my gameplay in a way that suits how I like to play.
I also don't really know what to do with urns, when sims die. I've tried "graveyards" but I don't really like them...
I just wanted to jump in quickly to say how interesting it is reading through the replies! Everyone has such different play-styles, it's so cool. Makes me feel weirdly cosy knowing you're all out there enjoying the game in your own individual ways while I'm here enjoying mine thank you everyone for your replies. Keep them coming!
I just wanted to jump in quickly to say how interesting it is reading through the replies! Everyone has such different play-styles, it's so cool. Makes me feel weirdly cosy knowing you're all out there enjoying the game in your own individual ways while I'm here enjoying mine thank you everyone for your replies. Keep them coming!
Same! These are my favourite type of threads to read through.
I just wanted to jump in quickly to say how interesting it is reading through the replies! Everyone has such different play-styles, it's so cool. Makes me feel weirdly cosy knowing you're all out there enjoying the game in your own individual ways while I'm here enjoying mine thank you everyone for your replies. Keep them coming!
Same! These are my favourite type of threads to read through.
Agreed! There's a lot of things here that I'm thinking might be fun to try.
I have a few different saves and mostly just play one family until I get bored.
I'm kind of intrigued by rotational gameplay and have dabbled with it. I started with just one family and as it grew, I began rotating between the family line. That was my first experience with rotational gameplay. In my opinion, it's probably the best way to play around with rotational gameplay because you're already invested in the family.
I just started a new save with just young adults and I'm attempting rotational play without anyone being related (well except the Pleasant sisters and the Gonzalez siblings). I've also added a lot of premades and Maxis gallery sims to this file, instead of just using my sims. I've started them all out with a small starter house. I'm only a few households in though, so time will tell how long it keeps my interest. They're all only in the base game worlds for now, but as the generations progress (if I choose to progress), I'll populate the other worlds.
I made Sulani and Mt. Komorebi vacation worlds only. I don't really play in those worlds with normal gameplay so I thought by making them vacation worlds, I would be more likely to use them; which is another idea I got from a thread on here. All the other worlds have nothing but community lots and I do allow my sims to visit them but no one lives in them. I made it this way to give myself a personal goal. To populate the entire save with descendants of the original sims.
I think as I make more sims, I may just add them to this save as well, to keep things interesting.
I attempted this a while back but I gave myself too many restrictions, and got bored before making it through my first rotation. I got overwhelmed with having to build everything before my sims could use it. Plus, my sims felt stale and boring before I even got started. They were sims I had made forever ago and never played. They felt too familiar for me to even start their stories, if that makes sense.
All in all, I enjoy trying new playstyles here and there. I love threads like this because it gives me more ideas.
One of the things I do is start off with a completely empty world. I have starter sims/families that I use to populate the neighborhoods. I usually start with just a few, maybe like 6. I build them each their own custom home and keep everything else empty. As I need more things, to go places, to buy things, restaurants, etc, I add them little by little. And as their kids grow up, they move out and need a home, they get one somewhere. Sometimes the families are really close and the kids stay nearby, but sometimes the kids are like get me as far from here as possible. They may even move to a different country like my komorembei or windenburg (or however it's spelled). And little by little, I'm building up a whole world, playing and having fun with a lot of different families.
Maybe this would be something that interests you or keeps you going. You can also grab from the gallery if building isn't your thing.
That's definitely something to think about. Thanks for the tip.
I do love to build. I've already built every lot in the game. I just used my unpopulated save file, and deleted all of the residential lots. There are 26 sims in all, and they're only occupying the 30×30 lots or smaller in Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, and Newcrest. As they move forward in their lives, I plan on them moving to the bigger lots.
This plan isn't set in stone or anything. I'm trying not to overthink anything because that seems to be where I get bored. I'm really trying to take things slow, and play everything by ear. I'm very much a control freak when it comes to my sims but I'm really trying to let things happen organically. I feel like that's why I give up on saves so often.
Thanks again for your tips. I may actually delete the community lots in the "unexplored/undiscovered" worlds, and let future generations discover them and build them up.
I love the idea of future sims being able to trace their lineage back to the original founders. I've always been fascinated with genealogy in real life so it makes sense.
This is truly what keeps me playing. It's so hard to let go of the dynasties I've created over the years. I'm still playing TS2 and TS3 for that reason. All of my sims can be traced back to the founders.
-one of the reason I play like building as I play is because, like you, I'm a builder. I delete everything and set out to build the world myself. However, building before playing can be daunting and overwhelming and get tiring. So building as I need things helps to break up the monotony and also lets me be creative when I'm getting bored of playing. I've found that this is what keeps me in the game the most. Otherwise, it takes me years to build a town...TS2 it took me over 10 years to build my neighborhood from scratch, including all subhoods. TS3 took 3 years. TS4 took me 6 years the first time.
I never really played TS2, I came in really late into TS3 (around a year before Supernatural was released). I never built much in TS3. I have since gone back and attempted a small world in TS3 but I wasn't satisfied and scrapped the whole thing.
I guess building as you go is kind of realistic, if you think about it. As times change in the real world, buildings' purposes do change as well. In context of the game, it would also keep the game fresh with each new pack. My actual goal for this way of playing is to have a save that I can play until the end of the game. As new worlds are added, new sims can be added. This thread has definitely given me some new ideas to try and also a renewed excitement in the game itself.
It does keep the game fresh. And I don't know if you use CC, but some people make new lot types or traits and I'm always like...ooh...now I can put a working movie theater in one of my neighborhoods. I usually use San Myshuno for all the fun stuff like you'd find in a real city. But, ya know, as the game grows I can add more and more. I'm actually in the middle of a shift because more of my sims are aging. I realize I have to put the lifespan on long because normal goes by way too fast and I feel like my sims can never accomplish anything.
Vast majority of the time I've played Rags to Riches of some form or another. I'll try to make it as hard and challenging as possible for a play, another I'll try to see how quickly I can make it happen, etc. Typically get bored quickly and soon delete them.
Have had more bad experiences with aging then good so have aging turned off.
Have autonomy turned off for my own sanity. At the start I enjoyed watching the autonomous interactions but then they got really stupid, haven't read any new developments that want me to turn it back on.
No mods, yet. Been using cheats more, last time my garden all popped away to the just-planted state I shft+click'd them back to Mature with a smirk on my face
Two of my save files are sims I've grown a sentimental attachment to, can't come up with a reason to play them again but can't bring myself to delete them.
Got a save with a sim who's primary mission is to complete all the collections.
Got a super-sim in the making.
My households have almost always been single sims. One time I took a sim the game randomly picked for me and added her in the household just so my bodybuilder sim would have someone to boss around to satisfy the mentor requirement for her athletic career and ended up enjoying it. Yet I haven't tried repeating the experience. Two or three times I played with the intention of doing a family which apparently is way outside my comfort zone, after a short time it reverts to a single sim play or I give up altogether.
Lately I created a sim to enact/inspire stories in Jungle Adventure. Lots of fun and stuff to write about, where I'm stuck is trying to write about her exploration of a temple that doesn't comes out like a tedious read of a dungeon crawl.
I just wanted to jump in quickly to say how interesting it is reading through the replies! Everyone has such different play-styles, it's so cool. Makes me feel weirdly cosy knowing you're all out there enjoying the game in your own individual ways while I'm here enjoying mine thank you everyone for your replies. Keep them coming!
Same! These are my favourite type of threads to read through.
Agreed! There's a lot of things here that I'm thinking might be fun to try.
I have a few different saves and mostly just play one family until I get bored.
I'm kind of intrigued by rotational gameplay and have dabbled with it. I started with just one family and as it grew, I began rotating between the family line. That was my first experience with rotational gameplay. In my opinion, it's probably the best way to play around with rotational gameplay because you're already invested in the family.
I just started a new save with just young adults and I'm attempting rotational play without anyone being related (well except the Pleasant sisters and the Gonzalez siblings). I've also added a lot of premades and Maxis gallery sims to this file, instead of just using my sims. I've started them all out with a small starter house. I'm only a few households in though, so time will tell how long it keeps my interest. They're all only in the base game worlds for now, but as the generations progress (if I choose to progress), I'll populate the other worlds.
I made Sulani and Mt. Komorebi vacation worlds only. I don't really play in those worlds with normal gameplay so I thought by making them vacation worlds, I would be more likely to use them; which is another idea I got from a thread on here. All the other worlds have nothing but community lots and I do allow my sims to visit them but no one lives in them. I made it this way to give myself a personal goal. To populate the entire save with descendants of the original sims.
I think as I make more sims, I may just add them to this save as well, to keep things interesting.
I attempted this a while back but I gave myself too many restrictions, and got bored before making it through my first rotation. I got overwhelmed with having to build everything before my sims could use it. Plus, my sims felt stale and boring before I even got started. They were sims I had made forever ago and never played. They felt too familiar for me to even start their stories, if that makes sense.
All in all, I enjoy trying new playstyles here and there. I love threads like this because it gives me more ideas.
One of the things I do is start off with a completely empty world. I have starter sims/families that I use to populate the neighborhoods. I usually start with just a few, maybe like 6. I build them each their own custom home and keep everything else empty. As I need more things, to go places, to buy things, restaurants, etc, I add them little by little. And as their kids grow up, they move out and need a home, they get one somewhere. Sometimes the families are really close and the kids stay nearby, but sometimes the kids are like get me as far from here as possible. They may even move to a different country like my komorembei or windenburg (or however it's spelled). And little by little, I'm building up a whole world, playing and having fun with a lot of different families.
Maybe this would be something that interests you or keeps you going. You can also grab from the gallery if building isn't your thing.
That's definitely something to think about. Thanks for the tip.
I do love to build. I've already built every lot in the game. I just used my unpopulated save file, and deleted all of the residential lots. There are 26 sims in all, and they're only occupying the 30×30 lots or smaller in Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, and Newcrest. As they move forward in their lives, I plan on them moving to the bigger lots.
This plan isn't set in stone or anything. I'm trying not to overthink anything because that seems to be where I get bored. I'm really trying to take things slow, and play everything by ear. I'm very much a control freak when it comes to my sims but I'm really trying to let things happen organically. I feel like that's why I give up on saves so often.
Thanks again for your tips. I may actually delete the community lots in the "unexplored/undiscovered" worlds, and let future generations discover them and build them up.
I love the idea of future sims being able to trace their lineage back to the original founders. I've always been fascinated with genealogy in real life so it makes sense.
This is truly what keeps me playing. It's so hard to let go of the dynasties I've created over the years. I'm still playing TS2 and TS3 for that reason. All of my sims can be traced back to the founders.
-one of the reason I play like building as I play is because, like you, I'm a builder. I delete everything and set out to build the world myself. However, building before playing can be daunting and overwhelming and get tiring. So building as I need things helps to break up the monotony and also lets me be creative when I'm getting bored of playing. I've found that this is what keeps me in the game the most. Otherwise, it takes me years to build a town...TS2 it took me over 10 years to build my neighborhood from scratch, including all subhoods. TS3 took 3 years. TS4 took me 6 years the first time.
I never really played TS2, I came in really late into TS3 (around a year before Supernatural was released). I never built much in TS3. I have since gone back and attempted a small world in TS3 but I wasn't satisfied and scrapped the whole thing.
I guess building as you go is kind of realistic, if you think about it. As times change in the real world, buildings' purposes do change as well. In context of the game, it would also keep the game fresh with each new pack. My actual goal for this way of playing is to have a save that I can play until the end of the game. As new worlds are added, new sims can be added. This thread has definitely given me some new ideas to try and also a renewed excitement in the game itself.
It does keep the game fresh. And I don't know if you use CC, but some people make new lot types or traits and I'm always like...ooh...now I can put a working movie theater in one of my neighborhoods. I usually use San Myshuno for all the fun stuff like you'd find in a real city. But, ya know, as the game grows I can add more and more. I'm actually in the middle of a shift because more of my sims are aging. I realize I have to put the lifespan on long because normal goes by way too fast and I feel like my sims can never accomplish anything.
I'm trying to avoid CC because I know how addicted I was to it in TS3. I do have several custom lot traits by KiaraSims, I haven't used them that much though. I'm still figuring out everything I want to do in this save as I go. Like I said in my previous post, I'm trying not to overthink it too much.
I've also changed the normal lifespan in MCCC to 56 days for YA, A, & E, all other lifestages are 7 days apart (babies are 7, toddlers 14, etc.). It seems like a good number for me because long is too long and the default normal is too short for me as well. I used to play on long but I noticed I got really bored by sims not aging fast enough, and I know I could age them at my own pace but I never really did that. I usually just kept playing them at the same lifestage. I've discovered that I like it when the game tells me to age them up. It puts a little pressure on me to make sure I accomplish the goals I have for that sim but not too much pressure that I feel like I have to grind.
I love to plan for my sims, but I also change my plans on a whim. Basically I'm a control freak but with ADHD, and I like rigid systems with room for randomness. I have autonomy on but micromanage a lot.
I started my current rotation with one female sim in the Serial Romantic aspiration who had children with multiple sims, and now I play her children and grandchildren in 11 households (will be 14 when all the current spares age up). I have a lot of goals for those households, including collectively finishing every aspiration and career in the first three generations and then each career that could benefit from a degree a second time in the fourth or fifth generations. And each household is assigned an EP or two GPs to help make sure I engage with all of the content I paid for.
In addition I play a separate household for almost every occult I have the DLC for, so that I can play with their powers without family and career distractions. Some have stories, some I use to explore new packs (my ghosts have been to the jungle, to Batuu and now have a haunted house - doubly so). Rather than have a separate save for that type of gameplay, I just work them into my rotations.
All my sims have to age together, so any household with at least one mortal in it has to be played every rotation so they all age at the same rate (aging for active household only). Elders who don't live with their children and townies/premades who have substantial relationships with my sims end up in the retirement community so they will eventually pass away, but get to have some fun together first. I'll be adding university households when the fourth generation is old enough.
I am slowly taking in every premade sim in the packs I own, either marrying them into the families or turning them into occults. I adopted a few random townies in the beginning but now I primarily play premade and born in game sims. Usually I manually age the child and teen sims and marry them into my families, then have their parent either move in with the couple or age to elder with cake and move into the retirement village. Occasionally I give a premade couple a CAS child, such as with the Heckings, whose daughter married one of my born in game sims. I'm planning to pop into the Pancakes, Sterling-Rico and Charm families to have those couples try for baby before the next time I play my doctor sim, as he needs to deliver a baby for his next promotion.
Comments
In the Sims 4 I play family rotational with all the premades families.
I like family play mostly but I do include occult’s in my play.
In my pajamas with a carton of ice cream?
Hold SHIFT while using the FRIEZE tool to apply it to a single wall, and not an entire room!
** SailorCeti's Builds **
If you download one of my builds, by all means, leave me a message and tell me what you did and did not like about it.
I have at least 5-6 current save files at the moment, and each one varies with what I am doing.
When I first started my Sims 4 game when I bought it I didn't know what I wanted to do, and for a couple months I didn't play it, when I loaded it again, i deleted my first saves. I knew what I wanted to do, which leads into my gameplay.
One save file is recreating my Sims that I created in Sims 2, did this to kind of compare and contrast with what I end up doing with the families. I have three families so far, and rotate between them. My goal is to at least get the families together in some way, and use their offspring in a legacy type thing, before adding any other families. Two of the families are mages, because i like having Sims with magic. I usually play the family I want to have a goal in. For example, I made a male Sim for a female Sim, who has five kids. I played them long enough for her to get pregnant and have a baby. She had a son, and the second family had twins. for context, I have one family with a dad, mom, two teens, two kids, and two toddlers born in game. Another family is a mom, her five kids, her new husband, and her new sixth kid. The final family so far has a mom, her daughter, and her sister.
Two save files are a mixture of my own Sims, and ones that I download from the gallery, which are mostly fictional based Sims. One save file has multiple versions of one series, and I like having them interact with each other as well as my Sims. I jump around like the reason above, and play a family for awhile before switching. Some families are only one Sim, or multiple Sim families.
One save file has two families only. I got Get Famous, and I am focusing on a the specific career for that save file. The two families were sisters, but I had one move out. One sister is a mage, and other is a normal Sim. They were originally in one big family. The first family was one sister and her husband, their teens, and a son born in-game. The mage sister had two teens, and I moved her out, and gave her a male Sim I downloaded from the Gallery. They have a daughter I created in edit mode to see how their genes would look together.
Another save file is more themed, and I am loosely basing it on Harry Potter. I have three families so far, and plan to add more. I have the Weasleys, Potters, and the Grangers. I have Harry, Ron, and Hermione as toddlers, so that Ginny can be born in the game. The families have Harry with his mom and dad, and aunt, uncle, and cousin live in the same family too. Hermione is just her and her parents, and the Weasleys have everyone except Ginny. I plan to add more canon versions soon, and other Harry Potter based Sims.
Finally, I have my Frozen save file, which is my testing file, and my most played file. I have one family where Elsa and Anna's parents are still alive, and Anna is married to Kristoff. At least a few families where it is just Anna and Elsa, Some with Kirstoff, Anna, and Elsa, and one when they are kids with their parents, and one where they are teens with their parents. I made genderbent versions of them as well. I gave them some kids, and had some kids born in-game to them. I have quite a few things going on in that save file. One Elsa and Anna are testing out Batuu. Another Elsa and Anna are undertaking the Doctor and Detective career, while others are undecided. My plan is to slowly ease the game into a legacy, where I can add other series I like. For example, one Anna had a son I named Hiccup, and another Anna had a daughter named Astrid, so the next generation will be How to train your dragon, and for from there.
I don't know if I described it right, but I am a rotational player, with a theme going on in some worlds, which will be a bit of a legacy as time goes forward.
That's definitely something to think about. Thanks for the tip.
I do love to build. I've already built every lot in the game. I just used my unpopulated save file, and deleted all of the residential lots. There are 26 sims in all, and they're only occupying the 30×30 lots or smaller in Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, and Newcrest. As they move forward in their lives, I plan on them moving to the bigger lots.
This plan isn't set in stone or anything. I'm trying not to overthink anything because that seems to be where I get bored. I'm really trying to take things slow, and play everything by ear. I'm very much a control freak when it comes to my sims but I'm really trying to let things happen organically. I feel like that's why I give up on saves so often.
Thanks again for your tips. I may actually delete the community lots in the "unexplored/undiscovered" worlds, and let future generations discover them and build them up.
I love the idea of future sims being able to trace their lineage back to the original founders. I've always been fascinated with genealogy in real life so it makes sense.
Also need to get my saved files in order to (and teach my daughter the same). I always forget and then just start a new one with each build
I tried rotational play and it didn’t really work for me. You’d think that I would like rotational play because I get bored easily and always want something new and fresh, but I wasn’t a huge fan. I just ended up focusing too much on one household and not wanting to rotate to the others before I got bored and abandoned the save.
Like I said, I like playing legacies, so I have one main save for that legacy that I play in. I also have a building save because I like to build sometimes, too. I’ll also sometimes make a test save if a new pack comes out and I want to play with it but it doesn’t fit with my legacy at the moment. I also have a bunch of abandoned saves that I don’t play anymore but am too sentimental to delete.
I play with aging on, normal lifespan. I do turn aging off when a sim is in University because it takes too long and I don’t want them to spend most of their young adult life in University. For each generation, I’ll usually have somewhat of a plan on what I want them to do and I’ll set different goals. Sometimes, those plans will change and sometimes I don’t really have a plan, I’ll just randomize the sim’s traits and see what makes sense for them to do based on those traits.
I also have the tendency to micromanage my sims. The pause button is my best friend and I rarely do fast speed unless the game automatically speeds up or I’m playing with a sim in university and I want to speed through class or homework. I used to play with autonomy off because I like to micromanage so much, but recently I’ve been playing with it on. That might change in the future if I get really annoyed with my sims, but for now I’m liking having it on. I do disable autonomy for the selected sim, though, because I don’t want the sim I’m focusing on at the moment to do stuff I don’t want them to do.
https://www.theplumtreeapp.com/public/616a83a072616b1d18fb3268
When I'm not playing, I can spend those days on altering the ever growing community pages or the individual residents register with details and life lines. I feel a bit nerdy going this detailed, I work as a writer and originally I thought I could use my game for creating plots for my writing, but I must admit that aside for some Machinima on my youtuube, I mostly just deal with it as a hobby. Wish I had RL friends who were into this as well, as it I never tell anyone about my addiction, LOL.
I primarily focus on the one Sim as the main character and let the story evolve around him. The Sim is an adult that used to be a young adult, but I later changed it as I felt calling him an adult suited his appearance more. Because of this, I tend to ignore anything related to families and legacies. I've tried it numerous times, only to end up getting bored of it quickly after. I will try a single dad kind of story some time in the future, though. I am interested in rotational play, but I am afraid that my other Sims will end up doing things I don't want them to do. I am also way too fiercely loyal/attached to my main Sim, a habit I'm trying to break. Other Sims can be main characters too, of course.
I play with aging off as a lot of my stories last a very long time and by the time they end, they'd be dead for multiple generations. Whether I use autonomy depends on how many Sims are in the household. 4 or more, I'll have it on. Less than that, I leave it off. Recently I've been enjoying playing with just 2 Sims, but I often go higher than that. I rarely use fast game speed as I prefer to take screenshots alongside what my Sims are doing, from multiple different angles, from multiple perspectives, as well as the rare-ish environmental shot. Something that would make me use fast game speed would be like a Vampire hibernating to outlast an apocalyptic scenario. This also means I am not against using occults. I often welcome it, although I primarily use Vampires more than anything else. I am looking to include more spell-casters in a future story, though. I tend to avoid Mermaids as they are very location-based and Aliens for their overall uninspiring gameplay. Often, I treat Alien sims as no different than human ones.
I'm a very goal-oriented player, which I get to use more in TS3, but whenever I use a Sim in TS4 and no major story event is occuring, I like to complete Aspirations, especially ones that I feel the Sim I am using would be interested in. However, my main Sim has finished most Aspirations already, although I'm considering restarting the Aspirations on him. I don't know how, though. Because of my interest in making numerous stories, I also love creating Sims and am often in CAS, creating and customizing a concept. I'll make almost anything, as long as the Sim suits my playstyle, interests, and could be a potential character.
There's way more on my playstyle, but this post is getting big enough as it is.
Mods:
Old Play Style:
New Play Style:
This is truly what keeps me playing. It's so hard to let go of the dynasties I've created over the years. I'm still playing TS2 and TS3 for that reason. All of my sims can be traced back to the founders.
-one of the reason I play like building as I play is because, like you, I'm a builder. I delete everything and set out to build the world myself. However, building before playing can be daunting and overwhelming and get tiring. So building as I need things helps to break up the monotony and also lets me be creative when I'm getting bored of playing. I've found that this is what keeps me in the game the most. Otherwise, it takes me years to build a town...TS2 it took me over 10 years to build my neighborhood from scratch, including all subhoods. TS3 took 3 years. TS4 took me 6 years the first time.
In the legacy save, I tend to follow challenges so I have goals for each generation (currently in the extended not so berry). I focus on one heir for each generation and let the rest of the save go on with their lives. I have my focus sims interact with their parents, siblings, and other family, of course, but I rarely play those others except to update clothing or make little storyline adjustments like skill and relationship fixes. To avoid the too much money thing, my sims will occasionally suffer some unfortunate event (fire, stock market crash, illness, divorce, kicked out of home, etc) so the money gets reset to nothing or next to nothing.
My updates checking save tends to be a rags to riches style gameplay, because I enjoy the challenge and it gives me a fun way to try new careers and skills. For example, when knitting came out, my sim could only make money from knitting.
I try to imagine a story and reason for every sim I play. As an example, in my current legacy generation I have a social media star. She is very outgoing and self-centered. She got this way because she was in a family of lots of kids and felt the need to stand out. Now, as an adult, she has an awful relationship with her daughter and uses her dad (who adores his family and is a retired teacher) as a free nanny. The daughter and her grandfather have an amazing relationship and he has taught her to be a caring and fair person. She will go on to be a judge someday.
In both saves, I play with 3 week seasons and used MCCC to adjust the lengths of each age level to something between normal and long lifespan. I also used MCCC to make it harder to skill up and get promotions. I aim to send my sims to university when it makes sense for their career (doctor, law, teacher, etc). I have loads of custom traits and aspirations as well as the mod that allows for more traits to try to make each sim as different as possible.
In sims 4 i prefer to play in rotation. I have played only one neighbourhood, one world, some selected households from different worlds or even all households in all worlds. I like to throw different challenges into different households because it helps me to have a flow, which is something i have a great difficulty to have in sims 4. Latelly i have played with aging off and age my sims when i want, cause i find normal lifespan too long and short too short.
It's weird that in 3 i play in a lifespan bigger than normal and in 4 i feel i fall between short and normal. I think this is related to how less time i need in 3 for daily routine stuff. I feel i do much more story related stuff or just fun stuff with my sims daily, so i don't get bored easily. Also goals are harder, deeper and funnier to complete, so it takes more time without boring me...
I never really played TS2, I came in really late into TS3 (around a year before Supernatural was released). I never built much in TS3. I have since gone back and attempted a small world in TS3 but I wasn't satisfied and scrapped the whole thing.
I guess building as you go is kind of realistic, if you think about it. As times change in the real world, buildings' purposes do change as well. In context of the game, it would also keep the game fresh with each new pack. My actual goal for this way of playing is to have a save that I can play until the end of the game. As new worlds are added, new sims can be added. This thread has definitely given me some new ideas to try and also a renewed excitement in the game itself.
First I create a story for that world, and assign it a thematic, for example historical, modern, steampunk, or a mix of everything. I design my characters and give them a story, and I make them according to the general world idea, and I build them the houses that suit them better
I erase the default sims and lots, to add my own and make my own custom world
And then for playing, I always disable the age, so they will be eternally the original age I assign them. I like it that way, I feel if I let them age it will kinda break my original idea and story. I also tend to use cheats like extra money, to help me achieve the story I want to play, and build the houses without limitations
I play with my different families, roleplaying them according to their story, I don’t like the play them random
I also get bored I play too much with the same family, so I rotate between them, playing one and the other, that way I don’t get bored
And sometimes I want to create a new world and a new story, so I make a backup of the sims and lots from the last one, and I erase it, and start the new one
2. I've been playing rotationally in one save since the beginning, because I like having one big sim world with everything in it. Needless to say, my game is pretty broken since EA have stopped fixing bugs in existing saves and always tell us to just start a new one, which isn't an option for me for obvious reasons.
3. Ageing is on, but very slow, and I use youth potions, serums and magic to keep sims from ageing past the point I want them to.
4. I've downloaded lots of CAS cc, a little BB cc, a few gameplay-altering mods, and I use the freerealestate cheat to move new families into the houses I want them to live in, but from then on, they have to work for their money. Other cheats are only used to fix the game's many mistakes, such as when it doesn't register a whim or an aspiration milestone being fulfilled.
5. I spend most of my time in Live Mode, followed by CAS, and I only build when I absolutely have to because I hate it. Many of the builds in my game are downloaded from the gallery and just modified by me, because I don't suck as much at interior furnishing, but I have no sense of architecture, especially when it comes to roofs.
6. My sims must mean something to me. Usually they're either real people turned into sims (like myself, friends and family), fictional characters I like, or original sims I created for specific purposes. I don't enjoy playing with a bunch of random nobodies, which is why I rarely ever touch the premades, love interests are also created by me, not chosen from the abominable townie pool, and sims only have children if I have an idea what to do with those, too, which leads us to the next point...
7. I need goals to work towards. Every sim I create comes with an aspiration (I don't just pick a random one), a few hobbies (i.e. skills they wish to max), and usually a career that I rarely change (although I do have a few sims without a traditional job, too). Once a sim has achieved everything I wanted for them, I find it hard to keep playing with them.
8. I take a lot of screenshots of important events (most of which I never look at again afterwards, but hey, they're there if I need them!). My Screenshots folder has subfolders for all the households where their respective screenshots go.
9. Worlds are themed and only inhabited by sims whose lifestyles are coherent with those themes. Willow Creek, for example, is divided between aristocrats (Pendula View, Sage Estates) and aspiring artists (Foundry Cove, Courtyard Lane), Newcrest has two rivalling churches in two different neighbourhoods while the third is neutral, Magnolia Promenade is a dirty post-apocalyptic industrial city, etc. Every world (or town, as I call them) also has a mayor that represents its respective theme, and they are identified by club tags that say "Mayor of [insert world here]".
10. My entire sim world's population currently consists of 262 played sims in 72 households (thank you, Excel file!), and pretty much all personalities, occults, sexualities, gender identities, ethnicities and lifestyles that the game allows are represented. I need this variety in my game to not get bored, and so I can't fully identify as an occult player, family player or what have you, because there's a bit of everything in the mix. I do lean strongly towards the occult side, though, and rarely play romantically.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
I used to have only one save with aging turned off. But with time I learned that I didn't like it that way because I get bored of seing the same sims. So now I have three saves. I have my original save, which is where my more scripted stories happen, but meanwhile I've turned aging back on again and I play rotationally.
Then I have two rather new saves. One is a legacy type save, where I just play one household and let the rest of the world be handled by mccc. In this save I am playing a freegan mermaid that lives off the grid in sulani and I'm playing only in sulani, ignoring the other worlds.. I'm really focusing on the Island Living and Eco Lifestyle features of the game. (aging on, normal span)
My last save is one where I play rotationally all the households in a single neighborhood, right now I am playing 4 households at Foundry Cove, and the 5th lot is a park / community space. I plan to move my favourite sims of a given generation to a different neighborhood and fill the remainding households of that nbh with new sims once I get bored of this particular setting. (aging on, long span)
Style
I play with normal speed, and fast forward when everybody's asleep or at work or when a sim is, for example, making a candle. I don't really micro manage what my sims do. I also take screenshots, for different reasons. In my story focused save, I take them because I like to write out the story on my tumblr. On my other saves it is just because I like to look back at them.
In my rotational-nbh save I like to plan a lot of social events both for the particular household I'm playing and for the whole nbh. Some nbrs are friends, some nbrs only tolerate each other.
I also overuse the club system. For friend groups, coworkers, in my legacy save I have a group with my main sim and a bunch of sulani townies where the main task is to clean the ecosystem.
Also on the legacy save, I have allowed NPC voting on the bulletin boards. And I pay attention every weekend that nothing too annoying gets voted. It adds a nice challenge in this particular case where I only play one household in one nbh.
I spend most of my time on live mode, I sometimes am in the mood to build, so I renovate an existing lot. And I'm rarely on CAS, I prefer taking sims from the galery and giving them makeovers ocasionally.
Also, recently I started turning off autonomy for the selected sim. And I prefer playing this way because I used to get annoyed at all the dumb autonomous actions that would interrupt the activities I had chosen for that sim.
I also used to try to max out careers and skills, and complete aspirations, but now I don't really care about that anymore.
Goals
Something that I want to improve in my game is the use of occults. I have yet to find a way to incorporate vampires and the RoM stuff into my gameplay in a way that suits how I like to play.
I also don't really know what to do with urns, when sims die. I've tried "graveyards" but I don't really like them...
Same! These are my favourite type of threads to read through.
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog
Agreed! There's a lot of things here that I'm thinking might be fun to try.
It does keep the game fresh. And I don't know if you use CC, but some people make new lot types or traits and I'm always like...ooh...now I can put a working movie theater in one of my neighborhoods. I usually use San Myshuno for all the fun stuff like you'd find in a real city. But, ya know, as the game grows I can add more and more. I'm actually in the middle of a shift because more of my sims are aging. I realize I have to put the lifespan on long because normal goes by way too fast and I feel like my sims can never accomplish anything.
Have had more bad experiences with aging then good so have aging turned off.
Have autonomy turned off for my own sanity. At the start I enjoyed watching the autonomous interactions but then they got really stupid, haven't read any new developments that want me to turn it back on.
No mods, yet. Been using cheats more, last time my garden all popped away to the just-planted state I shft+click'd them back to Mature with a smirk on my face
Two of my save files are sims I've grown a sentimental attachment to, can't come up with a reason to play them again but can't bring myself to delete them.
Got a save with a sim who's primary mission is to complete all the collections.
Got a super-sim in the making.
My households have almost always been single sims. One time I took a sim the game randomly picked for me and added her in the household just so my bodybuilder sim would have someone to boss around to satisfy the mentor requirement for her athletic career and ended up enjoying it. Yet I haven't tried repeating the experience. Two or three times I played with the intention of doing a family which apparently is way outside my comfort zone, after a short time it reverts to a single sim play or I give up altogether.
Lately I created a sim to enact/inspire stories in Jungle Adventure. Lots of fun and stuff to write about, where I'm stuck is trying to write about her exploration of a temple that doesn't comes out like a tedious read of a dungeon crawl.
I'm trying to avoid CC because I know how addicted I was to it in TS3. I do have several custom lot traits by KiaraSims, I haven't used them that much though. I'm still figuring out everything I want to do in this save as I go. Like I said in my previous post, I'm trying not to overthink it too much.
I've also changed the normal lifespan in MCCC to 56 days for YA, A, & E, all other lifestages are 7 days apart (babies are 7, toddlers 14, etc.). It seems like a good number for me because long is too long and the default normal is too short for me as well. I used to play on long but I noticed I got really bored by sims not aging fast enough, and I know I could age them at my own pace but I never really did that. I usually just kept playing them at the same lifestage. I've discovered that I like it when the game tells me to age them up. It puts a little pressure on me to make sure I accomplish the goals I have for that sim but not too much pressure that I feel like I have to grind.
I started my current rotation with one female sim in the Serial Romantic aspiration who had children with multiple sims, and now I play her children and grandchildren in 11 households (will be 14 when all the current spares age up). I have a lot of goals for those households, including collectively finishing every aspiration and career in the first three generations and then each career that could benefit from a degree a second time in the fourth or fifth generations. And each household is assigned an EP or two GPs to help make sure I engage with all of the content I paid for.
In addition I play a separate household for almost every occult I have the DLC for, so that I can play with their powers without family and career distractions. Some have stories, some I use to explore new packs (my ghosts have been to the jungle, to Batuu and now have a haunted house - doubly so). Rather than have a separate save for that type of gameplay, I just work them into my rotations.
All my sims have to age together, so any household with at least one mortal in it has to be played every rotation so they all age at the same rate (aging for active household only). Elders who don't live with their children and townies/premades who have substantial relationships with my sims end up in the retirement community so they will eventually pass away, but get to have some fun together first. I'll be adding university households when the fourth generation is old enough.
I am slowly taking in every premade sim in the packs I own, either marrying them into the families or turning them into occults. I adopted a few random townies in the beginning but now I primarily play premade and born in game sims. Usually I manually age the child and teen sims and marry them into my families, then have their parent either move in with the couple or age to elder with cake and move into the retirement village. Occasionally I give a premade couple a CAS child, such as with the Heckings, whose daughter married one of my born in game sims. I'm planning to pop into the Pancakes, Sterling-Rico and Charm families to have those couples try for baby before the next time I play my doctor sim, as he needs to deliver a baby for his next promotion.