How d'you begin your game?

I started off with my couple (River McIrish-Chikamori and Haruo Chikamori) as teenagers with a text backstory stating that they met as toddlers.

What was really nice in my choice of couple was that they immediately got hearts for one another.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-glWRFFOriNI/WdfTUGEWD1I/AAAAAAAADVk/zi4fNVA0pGID9Se9glOlXROGkBzoGND3ACLcBGAs/s1600/Screenshot-13.jpg

and now they're married with four kids and adopted Haruo's uncle's son so that they could raise him right. (His uncle has the Party-Animal trait and his mother is a slob - boy I sound nice...but well...those are their actual traits, The mother is a pre-made (Molly French)).

I generally build my own houses and invariably they end up big.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lDXuWmFQi-0/Wjq2KJB2g6I/AAAAAAAAIGQ/wqsI_NwyWuwu5Ivl0luYgQ3uvoQj5VXjQCLcBGAs/s1600/Screenshot-100.jpg

I also play epic lifespans (over 1400 days), which gives me lots of times with my Sims.

As in a typical Asian family, I also have Haruo's father and River's mother living with them. I call them the Pre-Founder Generation.

Sometimes I make a single sim start from absolutely nothing (binning for a living; no jobs allowed); families I usually give a helping hand (I see too much of the scraping by in real life; so if I'm going to escape and enjoy myself, I'm going to make sure that my sims have a comfortable existence).

Without fail this is my process:

Step 1. Meticulously create a single new sim (a la mashing the randomize button until a half-way decent sim shows up)
Step 2: Move into a pre-made house (I am a horrible builder)
Step 3: Immediately get distracted by all of the truly *hideous* generated townies walking around my neighborhood.

I am not exaggerating when I say that CAS is 75% of my game.

"beeblegox;c-16229864" wrote:

Without fail this is my process:

Step 1. Meticulously create a single new sim (a la mashing the randomize button until a half-way decent sim shows up)
Step 2: Move into a pre-made house (I am a horrible builder)
Step 3: Immediately get distracted by all of the truly *hideous* generated townies walking around my neighborhood.

I am not exaggerating when I say that CAS is 75% of my game.

As skilled as I like to think I've become in CAS (I'm fooling no one but myself), some of the best sims I've ever "made" over the years started out with that randomize button mashing thing. Then many, many fine-tuning adjustments from there. :)

I can't even tell half the time when a townie or other kind of NPC is "vanilla pudding" (all or mostly all zero sliders beyond weight and fitness) just by looking at them in-game. Sometimes I suspect. But they still often look so varied to me that I have to bring them into CAS to see for sure. And, for those not averse to using mods, NRaas StoryProgression's Immigration and Advanced Genetics features tend to minimize that kind of thing. AwesomeMod has similar features, although they work differently.

I usually start a save with two sims. I play favourites over and over but mix them with different partners in different saves. As for the town, I totally annihilate all townies and populate towns with sims I have made, sims that have been born in older saves and heavily tweaked townies from different worlds. I like to watch the genetics in my active household and that of the town over several generations. I spend an awful lot of time in CAS because I dress and modify traits of sims born in my town. There's usually several birthdays each sim day and I make sure everyone is dressed well and in their favourite colours. After a few generations, when I get a popup that a child has aged to toddler, I immediately take them into CAS and try to guess which of my original townies the sim is descended from before aging them up for a sneak peek :p

@Mikezumi - Oh yes, those "sneak peeks" to check out the genetics are very important to me too. ;)

One of my favorite, actively being played sims just aged up to YA yesterday. He is very athletic, and has several workout outfits. Usually the game gives me something at least reasonable to work with when it re-rolls outfits but this time his main (1st) athletic outfit was a three piece suit that looked like something from the very early 1900s. He actually did look great in it (not sure where he would wear it), but not quite for working out. His re-rolled swimwear was almost as ridiculous. Should have taken screenshots I guess, but was too busy laughing and rushing to fix it all. :p

@igazor Although I have been playing since the game came out, I have only very recently been installing new EPs and worlds. In my current save about 80% of the males have been getting this as their athletic outfit! :o
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4729/24366793797_ea7bd9f4b9_o.jpg

"Mikezumi;c-16230261" wrote:
@igazor Although I have been playing since the game came out, I have only very recently been installing new EPs and worlds. In my current save about 80% of the males have been getting this as their athletic outfit! :o

@Mikezumi At least they aren't getting girls' hair anymore. >:)

I generally start with a single sim (occasionally multiple sims) and have them work their way up from the bottom. I don't use money cheats, unless money isn't relevant in the context on that particular game.
If it's an EA world, I generally leave the residents, but I sometimes do some tweaking.
I have some unpopulated custom worlds that I populate them with some favorite families from EA worlds as well as households from my Library.

I am really bad at playing the sims and I get tired of gameplay after an hour and end up making a new family every time. Oops. Next time I have a chance to play the sims though I am going to make a single person and make them get married and than have kids and make them last a couple generations and not use cheats. I also am not going to control the toddlers because that makes the game much harder and more fun.

"Sophiaaaa;c-16230356" wrote:
I am really bad at playing the sims and I get tired of gameplay after an hour and end up making a new family every time. Oops. Next time I have a chance to play the sims though I am going to make a single person and make them get married and than have kids and make them last a couple generations and not use cheats. I also am not going to control the toddlers because that makes the game much harder and more fun.

My toddlers usually play with their toys, watch TV, go to the potty once they have been toilet trained, etc. on their own and have to wait for someone to feed them and put them to bed when needed. Not sure how leaving them uncontrolled would change much, except they wouldn't be likely to read the toddler skill books on their own that I may want them to. Perhaps you are playing TS4 where toddlers have more of range of actions open to them?

1. Choose a starting town
2. Create 1 Sim by randomizing and improvising. Give that Sim one "bad" trait to shake things up.
3. Purchase an unfurnished starter home (to furnish as time passes!)
4. Import all my mod tunings, then NRaas Master Controller TOTAL ANNIHILATION every townie and homeless living in the town (most of the time)
5. Use NRaas Story Progression rapid immigration to repopulate the town with new townies: usually between 5-10 families to start, then immigration remains open indefinitely. Edit the new immigrants and their families if necessary.
6. Enjoy a stress-free, no pudding-face, peaceful game with new Sims each time. Have 10 kids! Stalk the neighbours! Makeovers when everyone ages up! Micromanage! etc.