Need help understanding settings - rotational play etc?
Hi everyone, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to The Sims 4 and apologies for so many questions. Some help would be really appreciated. It's not a bug report or anything like that, I just want to understand the settings of the game and how to set it up for what I want to do.
1. I renamed a save and I notice that the previous versions have the new name of the save, apart from the very first save which says 'New Game Save 1'. Is that okay?
2. On a brand new game, how do I play with pre-made sims - the game always takes me into CAS. Would I have to create a new household, delete the household on manage worlds and then play the pre-made sim I want to play?
3. I want to play two different sim households on the same game / save. Not sure how to word it, but in this case I see rotational gameplay online is commonly used to word it. I have created a sim and have played for a few hours. I saved the game and then went into manage worlds and selected a pre-made sim household and pressed 'save as' which worked so I now have my two different saves on the same game if that makes sense - (two played households). In the settings for game options I changed the 'age household' from 'on' to 'off' and left the 'age unplayed' off. I then got a bit confused and couldn't remember the original settings so I pressed the 'reset to original' settings button but I note that seems to have only restored the options such as data usage, Sims 3 camera option & display resolution. The length of age for households which I had sent to long and the 'age household' off was still active. I also note that it thankfully didn't reset the tutorial and tips. Is that correct? I don't want the tutorial tips again. After reading online it seems that changing the 'age household' from 'on' to 'active household' only seems appropriate in my scenario. Does that mean if I play one household, my other household won't age up? I also note that story progression is turned off, so does that ensure that whilst I'm playing with one household, the other household doesn't have a baby etc? I definitely don't want that to happen without my input.
4. Does changing the settings such as Sims 3 camera option, aging length etc. affect the households on that particular game or if I create a new game from the main menu, will those settings also apply? Effectively, will I be able to play rotational play on one game and then create a new game and have the settings applied completely different and independently.
5. If I played as a landlord and then visited the lot of a tenant and switched play option to them, if I've just evicted the tenant before will the gameplay match up, will they be sad and move for example? Is it all in sync?
6. Finally, and sorry for all this long text, on one rotational game play save I am landlord and on the other one I am a tenant - (completely different, no relation in ownership etc.) The tenant I'm playing is a pre-made sim and is in the block in Tomarang where there is no landlord assigned and an empty lot. I note that when playing, a random sim has been picked as a landlord. Is that the correct behaviour? Will I be able to complete the 'discerning dweller' trait even though on manage worlds there is no landlord officially assigned but when I play there is a sim assigned and visits the lot?
Thank you so much everyone, apologies for the lengthy post. I am Autistic and could really do with some help as I don't want to delete the EA folder and start over from scratch as I'm worried about having changed / reset and then changed again the game settings.
Cheers.
[CM Edit: Title update, formatting]
2. Yes, you can just take the random Sim it starts you with, quickly randomize their name, traits, and aspiration, then drop them on an empty lot or something and go back to manage worlds to play with whatever household you want.
3. If you hit "save as" you now have two separate saves. Think alternate realities rather than same world; while they started the same, the longer you play the more different they will become and what happens in one does not affect the other, nor does time pass in the unplayed save while playing in the other.
Rotational play is when you play multiple households within the same save. So you would go to "Load Save" and then from manage worlds pick a different household then you were previously playing. In rotational play, time passes for all households (though you can set aging to active household only, as you found) and changes you make in the world will still be there when you switch households. As @ttuthill said, your Neighborhood Stories settings will determine whether or not your other played households will have/adopt kids, adopt pets, die in accidents, etc. By default, Neighborhood Stories are off for played households, but on for unplayed. However, if you leave a household while a Sim is already pregnant and switch to another household in the same save, the pregnancy will continue to progress and the baby may have been born by the time you return.
- Active = the household you are currently controlling
- Played = all households you have loaded into
- Unplayed = townies/npcs/any household you haven't created or played with
4. I believe aging settings are per save. I'm not as sure about camera settings; perhaps someone else can chip in with which settings are account level and which are per save.
6. I believe that an auto-generated landlord for play as a tenant is the intended result of not having one assigned to your building. I do not own the pack, however.
