It took me a lot of Sim time to figure out the exercise thing was done when energized and not whenever I wanted to make them...that is why Gen 1 ended up chubby little Sims :)
Definitely wait until Adulthood to have children and limit that the first few generations - good point...of course my Gen 2 had twins on me :)
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I realized too late that gardening was a lot of work, Generation 2 has a limited garden to sell the produce for cash, but nothing like Gen 1.
Building and decorating slowly is key. Even in Gen 2 right now, I have a very boxy 3 bedroom...with a great room for eating, studying and watching TV....although my bills are due soon and I am about $1000 short so may be moving walls and selling things off to pay them...Gen 1 had their power turned off 3x ;0
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As I have been playing, I have been trying to figure out if there would be a way to adapt the A&E Challenge to Sims 4. The problem I see is random sims all over the place, making it easy for Gen 1, 2 and 3 to meet people...and not sure if there would be a way to "buy" additional lots etc. HMMMMMM......
One more thing, I don't know if it made a difference, but my Sim dug up a treasure map early on and used that to dig for treasure versus just dig....not sure I that gave me the voodoo doll or not.