I'd love to hear about your playstyle in The Sims 4, and more specifically when it comes to the number of characters/sims you can manage at one time.
I'm asking this because I recently tried to properly play a family of 4, and that is 2 more members than what I am used to for many years (not counting pet)...
And I find it extremely overwhelming to manage them and it sort of feels like a job than a game whenever I try to play that household, does that make sense?
Is it because of my own playstyle, constant pausing trying to make sure nothing goes wrong and have no time in the day "wasted" (I blame you Harvest Moon) -- or is it generally difficult for players who are more chill too?
If you've been there before, I'd love to hear your tips on how you made it easier on yourself to manage a larger household and enjoy playing them without cheats.
And if you can manage 8 members needs & skills with ease... teach us master! lol
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As far as aspirations go, childhood aspirations are so tedious to me, so I tend to micromanage sims as toddlers to max their skills, then max out scouts so they get scouting aptitude. That's enough childhood bonus traits for my play style; I can then focus on their parenthood traits instead of making them meet 5 friends or whatever those levels are. This also makes it easier to focus on the adult's aspirations, with the knowledge that the kids will get attention when they move out and start their own families.
The other key piece for me is playing favorites and focusing on their development. In a family of 8, probably at least two of the kids are going to be favorites that I focus on, with the rest taking a backseat. If one of the not-favorites wants to skip their homework and watch a movie, it's not the end of the world. I also let each member of the family specialize their interests instead of trying to be overall skilled. If a sim has the neat trait, she gets to clean whatever she wants and do all the laundry. If one sim is creative, then they'll get all their fun from painting and cross stitch, even if there's technically time for them to build all of the skills. Sims feel more three dimensional to me if I let them keep knitting whatever they want after hitting level 10 rather than moving on to a new hobby just to build the skill. For me, it's not "wasting" their time if they're developing a personality and family dynamic.
Also, not going to lie, I do occasionally use UI Cheats to top off a motive if I've directed them to fulfill it, but the action drops from their queue or they having issues fulfilling it. I don't consider it cheating since if the sim had listened and the game behaved, the motive would have increased.
I too think any household over 3 sims is too much chaos for me personally. That isn't fun for me, I don't need my heart to race like I'm playing some video game that I'm trying to rush to beat the clock.
Nope!
I play sims to relax, not to stress me out.
And, I have no problem cheating needs if I need to (and sometimes I actually set them to not decay if I'm trying to accomplish something for story telling screenshot purposes).
I also always play in a single floor home so I can keep an eye on everybody. (I don't like overly cluttered houses that have large items like tall bookcases that block my view.)
That's probably the reason I don't do challenges with some pre-defined rules on family size/generation, etc.
I'm not a micro-manager, never have been. I play with full autonomy and aging off 90% of the time unless I'm needing a certain screenshot for story telling then I'll turn autonomy off so I don't feel like I'm hearding a bunch of cats or toddlers to do something.
often someone ends up sleeping a lot if there is 5-8 sims
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This is interesting. Thank you for sharing @HavenRose.
Maybe one day I'll find the courage to turn the autonomy back on without constantly panicking lol
YES!
I think 2 is my sweet spot. Even adding a pet to that adds stress. LOL. I was doing pretty good with a family with a mom, dad, child, and teen. Then I added a cat and a toddler. It is now chaos. No one gets fed, and everyone is exhausted. Forget about having jobs or after-school things or even taking a bath. I just watch it go down and sign off to another household. LOL.
Agreed, just the thought of playing with a toddler in a 2 story home makes my brain go 'nope'!! I currently have a 2 story with a toddler and it's driving me crazy. There is always too many trips up and down the stairs for everyone.
I play with mods, so for me, UI Cheats is a necessity. LOL! I do have 8 sims in my household, though three of them are actually cats. My sims I began with have twin daughters(school-aged) and a toddler son.
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It gets a little too much with six+.
In those cases I just focus on four and let the rest do whatever they want until I need them to do something else, then I focus on them.
I feel like if I'm not watching a specific Sim long enough I rarely get to connect with them and truly get to know who they truly are.
..That or I check on them and they're going around to randomly berate and insult family members, since evil often runs in my Sim families.
My current save started with autonomy off, and I got to like micro-managing everything. Now, I prefer small households. Trying to control everything for 8 sims means that you don't get a lot of quality time with each one.
Tips for full households:
I'm sure there are a million more, but those are my Top Most Important Tips for playing a full household, not accidentally passing out in a puddle of their own bladder failure (this has happened), and still having fun.
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It can get annoying, especially when you are trying to focus, another one can be having a meltdown.
I do keep autonomy on for my Sims, so they can take care of themselves, but sometimes I have to cancel an action that they do.
For me, I have had 6 teens and two adults, the teens can be annoying when they are having their mood swings. Some families are 4 adults and 4 teens, and others vary from there.
Also, prepare to download a house of 8 Sims households, because the houses available can't really handle them unless you use cheats.
Another thing is you have to keep track of what the Sims need to do, for schools and careers, because they may always do the stuff they need to do with autonomy on.
My playstyle is autonomy off, since free willed sims act and rout too unpredictably, not to mention inefficiently. If I have to keep autonomy on for specific challenges, I feel I'm more often canceling unwanted actions than actually giving instructions. It's an uphill battle that I don't want to fight. Same for the nanny, my poor toddler had to constantly keep nanny occupied so that they didn't break stuff or fill the house with half-finished dishes.
The pause-key was already mentioned a lot, another thing working in my favour is to keep aging off. With no more time limit it doesn't matter when the sims reach their goals. (Going by that logic, I perhaps should allow free will, but I just can't. It drives me crazy.)
And finally I cheat. If I see a sim approaching mine for some unwanted chit-chat or if a conversation goes downhill and I cannot cancel quickly enough, then I sometimes use shift-click "reset object" to regain control. Resetting townies this way can be a sanity saver.
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But when they release the babies I want to see what these sims' babies would look like. So I'll be trying 3 or more when they release the babies.
https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/gallery/C8B73483089911ED8524B94D9C023555
https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/gallery/1711244F8FCE11EC8AAE1D73EDB81A2A
One of my sims gets up earlier than the other 2 for a 5am start, and the other 2 both work in the evenings, so I kinda neglect the early one when the other two are there and then really focus on her when they’re out.
My cat has ran away a couple of times because I must have missed that it needed something and I’ve had some accidental deaths, but generally this is kinda the level of multitasking I’m happiest with. I think one sim would be boring to me and always have at least 2.
With this particular household the aim is just for them to have fun and adventures and be successful so I drink the potions of youth and I would reset or use potions if they get too depressed or they failed something I want them to pass. It doesn’t really matter if I mess up because it’s all fixable.
What I don’t like so much is they don’t autonomously stick to their favorite activities. The sister who has never done any cooking always wants to cook, and the one who doesn’t do yoga always is running to the yoga mat. It would be nice if it could emulate your playstyle better.