I have already decided that Rahmi will move to San Myshuno and take the kids with her. Cecilia and Thomas might make a good match. I don't want to wait 2 more weeks. I am super excited and ready to play this pack!
Oh, but maybe you should leave the son with his dad, because he apparently loves the farm, while the girls do not.
The elderly gay couple is adorable and I will protect them with my life.
I really, really like them, too, and I'm struggling with the fact that I really need to evict all of the premades. Usually when I do that with sims, they still hang around the world's community lots, but I may need to also tweak their outfits in CAS and have them quickly make friends with my sims, just to make absolutely certain they're not culled.
You can move them into "My Households" and keep them unplayed, and that will protect them from culling as long as you aren't over the limit you have set. You can always increase the limit if you need to.
My username has been my internet handle for over 20 years since I was 16 and refers to when I had a crush on a very tall boy. I intend absolutely no violence toward beautiful giraffes.
@logion And then have him successfully romance his crush who wasn't feelin' it, that'd be even better.
My username has been my internet handle for over 20 years since I was 16 and refers to when I had a crush on a very tall boy. I intend absolutely no violence toward beautiful giraffes.
The elderly gay couple is adorable and I will protect them with my life.
I really, really like them, too, and I'm struggling with the fact that I really need to evict all of the premades. Usually when I do that with sims, they still hang around the world's community lots, but I may need to also tweak their outfits in CAS and have them quickly make friends with my sims, just to make absolutely certain they're not culled.
You can move them into "My Households" and keep them unplayed, and that will protect them from culling as long as you aren't over the limit you have set. You can always increase the limit if you need to.
Yes, that's what I often do, and what I was planning to do with them. My point was that that's usually sufficient, but that I like them so much I may take a few extra precautions to be absolutely certain they aren't culled. It seems like the more interactions you have with unplayed sims, the less likely they are to be culled.
The elderly gay couple is adorable and I will protect them with my life.
I really, really like them, too, and I'm struggling with the fact that I really need to evict all of the premades. Usually when I do that with sims, they still hang around the world's community lots, but I may need to also tweak their outfits in CAS and have them quickly make friends with my sims, just to make absolutely certain they're not culled.
You can move them into "My Households" and keep them unplayed, and that will protect them from culling as long as you aren't over the limit you have set. You can always increase the limit if you need to.
Also, turn off aging for unplayed sims or they'll eventually die, even though protected from culling.
When I finally get Cottage Living, I'm going to put my Hobbit Cottage in one of the 30X20 lots, my Sleeping Beauty Cottage will put on the 40X30 lot, my Over-the-Rainbow Farm will be put on one of the 50X40 lots & my Little House/Green Gables Farm will probably go on the other 50X40 lot. It's very exciting.
The Creature Keeper reminds me of a Hobbit. I wonder if the person who created him took inspiration from The Lord of the Rings.
They did!π€ I remember simgurugeorge posting something related to the lord of the rings. I was posting about how it could be a hint to something related to the lord of the rings! And everybody was like nah. Lol
I have already decided that Rahmi will move to San Myshuno and take the kids with her. Cecilia and Thomas might make a good match. I don't want to wait 2 more weeks. I am super excited and ready to play this pack!
Oh, but maybe you should leave the son with his dad, because he apparently loves the farm, while the girls do not.
I see your point, however, I am thinking of having Thomas move in with Cecilia. That will free up the 64x64 lot. I am thinking that there won't be enough room for a kid at Cecilia's place.
Of course, it might be that Cecilia and Thomas don't hit it off. I will just have to wait and see.
The Sims 4: Cottage Living Has Me Playing Sims Like Stardew Valley
Additions like lot challenges, farm animals, oversized crops, and pushy
neighbors have transformed how I approach The Sims.
I'm an off-and-on Sims player. I'll pick it up when a new expansion drops that interests me, sink about 10-20 more hours in micromanaging my gigantic household of recreations of my closest friends, and then forget about them for several months until the next wave of new content lands. I also play in a fairly vanilla way β I don't touch mods, and I treat The Sims 4 as mostly a relaxing, straightforward life sim, meaning I'm largely pushing my characters to get jobs, achieve their goals, have a kid, meet the Grim Reaper, and repeat. Nothing thus far in The Sims 4's seven(!)-year existence has moved me from this pattern.
Until Cottage Living.
Cottage Living is the upcoming tenth expansion pack for The Sims 4, and it's completely transformed how I play this game. On the surface, Cottage Living appears to add some fairly straightforward trappings. It includes a new neighborhood, Henford-on-Bagley, complete with the usual parade of new neighbors and lots on which to build a dream home. You can dress your Sims up in a range of new clothing, accessories, and other styles (all infallibly cozy), decorate your home with new furniture and design items, and participate in some new activities for Sims such as cross-stitch and canning. If this were simply a pack intended to satisfy the cottage-core crowd, it would succeed handily with its picturesque depiction of a little English hamlet doused in nature, nosy neighbors, and knit sweaters.
But Cottage Living is up to something more. My adventure started in a preview build sent ahead of launch by EA that was completely disconnected from my existing Sims 4 account, leaving me to start fresh-faced and broke in Cordelia's Secret Cottage, a little lot in the north of Henford-on-Bagley near a river source and waterfall. I emptied my pockets to take the lot fully furnished in twee floral prints, and immediately did what I usually do when I start a new Sims file: get my Sim a job as fast as possible (as a journalist, what else?), and spend all my free time reading books to get good enough at it so they'd pay me well enough to buy a mansion. You know, very normal stuff.
But Cottage Living quickly upended my plans. You see, my little cottage had come equipped with a chicken coop and animal barn adjoining, as well as three patches of land I could grow oversized veggies on. Having had Sims in the past with pets or green thumbs before, I figured I could tackle these in the way I usually handled my hobbies β sporadically, between career goals. But it turns out, plants, chickens and llamas require upkeep! Coop cleaning, egg collecting, socializing with rabbits, brushing, shearing, watering, weeding, and spraying for bugs devoured the better part of each day, and immediately caused problems in getting my Sim to work on time and obtaining promotions in my career. So I figured, whatever, who needs journalism anyway? And I quit my job to devote my life to my farm.
But then the bills came. And I, newly jobless, had no money to pay them. What to do? My crops hadn't come in yet, so I sold off the wool I'd gotten from my llama, barely managing to make ends meet. I went out foraging too, teaching my Sim to fish and dig for treasure β activities I had rarely ever engaged with in Sims 4 previously. I taught her to repair her own toilet instead of hiring someone to do it, a skill that's been in the game for ages but again, I just never messed with. This resulted in me eventually learning to make my own furniture and being able to skip buying more pricey pieces to fill out my space.
For a minute, I thought I might have actually gotten the hang of Cottage Living. But then I discovered a new challenge: a lot challenge, specifically. You see, up to this point my Sim had been subsisting on a strict diet of leftover fruit cake that her neighbor, Derek McMillen, had brought over during a welcome party at the start of my game. It left her uncomfortable but nourished, and I just assumed once I finished it off I could whip up some of the usual hamburger cake or whatever. But when I went to my stove, I realized that the lot I'd picked automatically came with a new lot challenge "simple living," requiring Sims to have all the ingredients for a recipe in their inventory in order to make it. At this point, all I had were some mushrooms and raspberries, having sold off all my milk and watched rogue foxes (another lot trait) steal all my eggs. My only options were to turn off the lot challenge (never!), squeeze out the money for an expensive grocery delivery service, or order a pizza.
Even then, Cottage Living wasn't done with me. As I started to adjust to the new rhythm of the expansion, I started to get calls from neighbors I hadn't met yet. Come down to the pub, they said. We haven't seen you in so long! Can we come over to visit? Will you run errands for us? You seem very social, do you want to help us out? I did, but I was so busy trying to make ends meet I didn't get the chance. Then, good old McMillen dropped by for a visit β except he had died, was a ghost now, and had decided to haunt my fridge. As if the fruitcake hadn't been haunting enough!
It was at this point that I quit fighting and embraced Cottage Living not as an add-on to how I was already trying to play The Sims, but as its own little farming game. I learned to write novels on the side for some extra cash, harvested a crop of nice fat vegetables, turned eggs and milk and mushrooms into meals, and began to improve my little cottage. I befriended foxes and convinced them to leave my eggs alone, and my rabbit buddies helped out with the gardening. I crafted Animal Treats to transform produce into fabulously colored eggs and wool that I could either sell, or turn into glorious dishes and cross-stitches. Without a career, I was able to eke out some time to head down to The Gnome's Arms pub, where Agatha Crumplebottom bid me to quiz every Sim I met on whether or not they were single. Moments later, her cousin Agnes Crumplebottom beat me over the head with a purse for what she perceived as flirtatious behavior. My Sim was furious. It was great.
I think elements of my experience in this preview must be the way people far more creative and ambitious than I have been playing The Sims for some time now, and I'm feeling a bit sheepish about only opening myself to its possibilities because someone at Maxis decided to tantalizingly replicate my one-time week vacation in the English countryside. But even so, Cottage Living's new introductions like lot challenges, animal raising, more robust gardening, and errand-running for neighbors offer a distinct path for people like me to find an almost completely different game within the familiar loop. And that doesn't even get into how these might interact with other packs like Cats and Dogs, which I didn't get the opportunity to test since this was a different build of the game.
The Sims 4: Cottage Living opened its doors wide to me when I stopped trying to play it like a day-to-day career simulator and started embracing it as a farming fantasy, something closer to Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon than what I usually think The Sims to be. By the time I sat down to write this preview, my Sim had a successful farm swarming with chickens, rabbits, and a rainbow llama, multiple giant prize-winning aubergines, close to enough money to move down to the lot on Olde Mill Lane with even more farming and gardening space, and a cute wife and kid poised to inherit it all. Now I'm just looking forward to the launch later this month, so I can dive back in without my former workaholic self-restrictions and focus on being as cozy as Sim-ly possible.
I have been watching a lot of the Game Changers videos and I am getting more and more excited about the Pack. Although some glitches have been found, hopefully they will get fixed by the release date. The gameplay looks great and the animals animations are top notch. I also like the clothing which gives me a medieval vibe. With the clothes and some of the building tools I think I could make a decent medieval village.
I am planning on moving my Medieval family I've tried to create in the Sims 4. It will be soooo much easier for them to live their off the grid life style with this pack! I am so excited. My prep will be getting that family of 5 to move from Newcrest and into a cottage in the new pack. My prep revolves around getting my big family ready to tend the land, crops, and animals :) I am very pleased I already have a large family ready who can have more kids to help out around the cottage. Very curious to see what the kids can do to interact and help Mom and Dad with the farm. So ready to live off the land! Eeeeee!!
So we're getting into the homestretch! This next week and a half are gonna be a bit tense. I've been trying not to watch too much of the early access stuff because it only makes me want to play the pack all the more (I am horrible at being patient) and I want to focus on my builds and save prep.
Luckily Shark Week also starts tonight so I'll be plenty entertained and that should help make the week pass faster.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing my sims live life in the country.
@simgirl1010 loved the article thanks for sharing!!π€π€ that sounds amazing. Even though I haven't played it yet I feel like I relate. I love the struggle challenged gameplay but it's so easy to cheat in this game I often find myself not sticking to the challenges I set for myself.
Or taking the easy way out of things.
Making food without ingredientes is one of them.
I love that this pack sort of "forces" the challenges and the hardwork lifestyle so I stick to them. Can't wait to try this off the grid. ππ
I can't wait to see if my Sims' dog reacts to bunnies and foxes. Sure do hope SimGuruRomeo starts dropping some info about cross pack functionality this week.
Comments
Oh, but maybe you should leave the son with his dad, because he apparently loves the farm, while the girls do not.
The Sims 4 Game Stream Facebook Channel: https://www.facebook.com/hamsternicegamingtime/
You can move them into "My Households" and keep them unplayed, and that will protect them from culling as long as you aren't over the limit you have set. You can always increase the limit if you need to.
I'm not gonna lie, one of the first things I'm going to do is change his height with a height slider mod so he looks like a hobbit.
Yes, that's what I often do, and what I was planning to do with them. My point was that that's usually sufficient, but that I like them so much I may take a few extra precautions to be absolutely certain they aren't culled. It seems like the more interactions you have with unplayed sims, the less likely they are to be culled.
Stealing this straight away! That was an great idea.
Also, turn off aging for unplayed sims or they'll eventually die, even though protected from culling.
Oh, I have aging off for everyone, always. Since TS2.
They did!π€ I remember simgurugeorge posting something related to the lord of the rings. I was posting about how it could be a hint to something related to the lord of the rings! And everybody was like nah. Lol
I see your point, however, I am thinking of having Thomas move in with Cecilia. That will free up the 64x64 lot. I am thinking that there won't be enough room for a kid at Cecilia's place.
Of course, it might be that Cecilia and Thomas don't hit it off. I will just have to wait and see.
The Sims 4: Cottage Living Has Me Playing Sims Like Stardew Valley
Additions like lot challenges, farm animals, oversized crops, and pushy
neighbors have transformed how I approach The Sims.
I'm an off-and-on Sims player. I'll pick it up when a new expansion drops that interests me, sink about 10-20 more hours in micromanaging my gigantic household of recreations of my closest friends, and then forget about them for several months until the next wave of new content lands. I also play in a fairly vanilla way β I don't touch mods, and I treat The Sims 4 as mostly a relaxing, straightforward life sim, meaning I'm largely pushing my characters to get jobs, achieve their goals, have a kid, meet the Grim Reaper, and repeat. Nothing thus far in The Sims 4's seven(!)-year existence has moved me from this pattern.
Until Cottage Living.
Cottage Living is the upcoming tenth expansion pack for The Sims 4, and it's completely transformed how I play this game. On the surface, Cottage Living appears to add some fairly straightforward trappings. It includes a new neighborhood, Henford-on-Bagley, complete with the usual parade of new neighbors and lots on which to build a dream home. You can dress your Sims up in a range of new clothing, accessories, and other styles (all infallibly cozy), decorate your home with new furniture and design items, and participate in some new activities for Sims such as cross-stitch and canning. If this were simply a pack intended to satisfy the cottage-core crowd, it would succeed handily with its picturesque depiction of a little English hamlet doused in nature, nosy neighbors, and knit sweaters.
But Cottage Living is up to something more. My adventure started in a preview build sent ahead of launch by EA that was completely disconnected from my existing Sims 4 account, leaving me to start fresh-faced and broke in Cordelia's Secret Cottage, a little lot in the north of Henford-on-Bagley near a river source and waterfall. I emptied my pockets to take the lot fully furnished in twee floral prints, and immediately did what I usually do when I start a new Sims file: get my Sim a job as fast as possible (as a journalist, what else?), and spend all my free time reading books to get good enough at it so they'd pay me well enough to buy a mansion. You know, very normal stuff.
But Cottage Living quickly upended my plans. You see, my little cottage had come equipped with a chicken coop and animal barn adjoining, as well as three patches of land I could grow oversized veggies on. Having had Sims in the past with pets or green thumbs before, I figured I could tackle these in the way I usually handled my hobbies β sporadically, between career goals. But it turns out, plants, chickens and llamas require upkeep! Coop cleaning, egg collecting, socializing with rabbits, brushing, shearing, watering, weeding, and spraying for bugs devoured the better part of each day, and immediately caused problems in getting my Sim to work on time and obtaining promotions in my career. So I figured, whatever, who needs journalism anyway? And I quit my job to devote my life to my farm.
But then the bills came. And I, newly jobless, had no money to pay them. What to do? My crops hadn't come in yet, so I sold off the wool I'd gotten from my llama, barely managing to make ends meet. I went out foraging too, teaching my Sim to fish and dig for treasure β activities I had rarely ever engaged with in Sims 4 previously. I taught her to repair her own toilet instead of hiring someone to do it, a skill that's been in the game for ages but again, I just never messed with. This resulted in me eventually learning to make my own furniture and being able to skip buying more pricey pieces to fill out my space.
For a minute, I thought I might have actually gotten the hang of Cottage Living. But then I discovered a new challenge: a lot challenge, specifically. You see, up to this point my Sim had been subsisting on a strict diet of leftover fruit cake that her neighbor, Derek McMillen, had brought over during a welcome party at the start of my game. It left her uncomfortable but nourished, and I just assumed once I finished it off I could whip up some of the usual hamburger cake or whatever. But when I went to my stove, I realized that the lot I'd picked automatically came with a new lot challenge "simple living," requiring Sims to have all the ingredients for a recipe in their inventory in order to make it. At this point, all I had were some mushrooms and raspberries, having sold off all my milk and watched rogue foxes (another lot trait) steal all my eggs. My only options were to turn off the lot challenge (never!), squeeze out the money for an expensive grocery delivery service, or order a pizza.
Even then, Cottage Living wasn't done with me. As I started to adjust to the new rhythm of the expansion, I started to get calls from neighbors I hadn't met yet. Come down to the pub, they said. We haven't seen you in so long! Can we come over to visit? Will you run errands for us? You seem very social, do you want to help us out? I did, but I was so busy trying to make ends meet I didn't get the chance. Then, good old McMillen dropped by for a visit β except he had died, was a ghost now, and had decided to haunt my fridge. As if the fruitcake hadn't been haunting enough!
It was at this point that I quit fighting and embraced Cottage Living not as an add-on to how I was already trying to play The Sims, but as its own little farming game. I learned to write novels on the side for some extra cash, harvested a crop of nice fat vegetables, turned eggs and milk and mushrooms into meals, and began to improve my little cottage. I befriended foxes and convinced them to leave my eggs alone, and my rabbit buddies helped out with the gardening. I crafted Animal Treats to transform produce into fabulously colored eggs and wool that I could either sell, or turn into glorious dishes and cross-stitches. Without a career, I was able to eke out some time to head down to The Gnome's Arms pub, where Agatha Crumplebottom bid me to quiz every Sim I met on whether or not they were single. Moments later, her cousin Agnes Crumplebottom beat me over the head with a purse for what she perceived as flirtatious behavior. My Sim was furious. It was great.
I think elements of my experience in this preview must be the way people far more creative and ambitious than I have been playing The Sims for some time now, and I'm feeling a bit sheepish about only opening myself to its possibilities because someone at Maxis decided to tantalizingly replicate my one-time week vacation in the English countryside. But even so, Cottage Living's new introductions like lot challenges, animal raising, more robust gardening, and errand-running for neighbors offer a distinct path for people like me to find an almost completely different game within the familiar loop. And that doesn't even get into how these might interact with other packs like Cats and Dogs, which I didn't get the opportunity to test since this was a different build of the game.
The Sims 4: Cottage Living opened its doors wide to me when I stopped trying to play it like a day-to-day career simulator and started embracing it as a farming fantasy, something closer to Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon than what I usually think The Sims to be. By the time I sat down to write this preview, my Sim had a successful farm swarming with chickens, rabbits, and a rainbow llama, multiple giant prize-winning aubergines, close to enough money to move down to the lot on Olde Mill Lane with even more farming and gardening space, and a cute wife and kid poised to inherit it all. Now I'm just looking forward to the launch later this month, so I can dive back in without my former workaholic self-restrictions and focus on being as cozy as Sim-ly possible.
https://www.ign.com/articles/the-sims-4-cottage-living-has-me-playing-sims-like-stardew-valley
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN.
Award-winning reporter @IGN
You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Luckily Shark Week also starts tonight so I'll be plenty entertained and that should help make the week pass faster.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing my sims live life in the country.
Or taking the easy way out of things.
Making food without ingredientes is one of them.
I love that this pack sort of "forces" the challenges and the hardwork lifestyle so I stick to them. Can't wait to try this off the grid. ππ