Calling Non-Rotational Players!

"MVWdeZT;c-18252889" wrote:
@elanorbreton, I've read this thread with interest because I've always played rotationally except when I was doing a challenge. But I just rotated back to one family and found that the infant had lost all his milestones except being born and first smile. So I need to come up with something else.

Horrifying flashbacks to Sims 3. They lose data when you switch families now? I've never seen that before in Sims 4. In the past,
when I went back to a previous family after playing another they still had the same psychology.

I use different saves. My main save is my supersim. If I get bored, I start a new save for a little while, but soon grow far more bored with that new save, and return to my supersim.

Sometimes I upload my supersim, and download her into a new save and do something very different with her for a bit, like change her age. I treat it like a dream, delete the save file when I am done, and go back to my main game.

"elanorbreton;c-18253241" wrote:
Grrr... I'm falling at the first hurdle...

I completed my uni sims and split them up between saves in their new homes but I am constantly re-saving when one household updates with something new. I just can't get my head around not playing them all in the same save! I might have to have a mini rotational game for them and play separate saves for totally unrelated sims.

@Flap do you know if that works properly now? I had read previously that the beloved trait only works for one sim per saved game.

@musteni @Brd709 @IndiiAna do you peeps all play vanilla? If so, how many households and how long are you away each time to manage to keep friends relationships?

I play vanilla, over 30 households, rotating irregularly. I can be gone from one household for a very long time (several sim years). Like I mentioned losing friends has mostly happened on acquaintance level. Maybe it depends how many friends your sim has? Mine usually have just a few + relatives.

"elanorbreton;c-18253241" wrote:
@musteni @Brd709 @IndiiAna do you peeps all play vanilla? If so, how many households and how long are you away each time to manage to keep friends relationships?

I play with custom content and mods. I usually reset the parents of each household's age back to the start if they are near the end of the life stage if i'm not ready for them to age up yet. Or i play until all the kids in the household have aged up if their birthdays are close to each others.

"musteni;c-18253460" wrote:

I play vanilla, over 30 households, rotating irregularly. I can be gone from one household for a very long time (several sim years). Like I mentioned losing friends has mostly happened on acquaintance level. Maybe it depends how many friends your sim has? Mine usually have just a few + relatives.

Hmmm... interesting. My sims tend to just have a few friends and relatives. Maybe I'll try again cos I haven't been vanilla for a year or so, maybe an update changed things?

I have multiple Saves going with different themes but stick to one household in each of those Saves. In one of my Saves, it's 100 Baby Challenge. The other Save is Not So Berry Challenge & the other Save is the original Legacy Challenge, that I finished to Gen 10 but decided to keep it going with no rules or scoring. By having 3 entirely different Saves...that's what keeps me motivated, as they're all different and I can explore different aspects of gameplay.

I will mention that I am also a rotational player. I do have a Save dedicated to like 20 households I rotate between. It's occult/supernatural theme and I've kept it going since vampires GP. But I do enjoy the non-rotational game play with different Saves dedicated to different things as mentioned above.

When I'm not in the mood for my big rotational saves I usually pop into my Perrin family save. They're a couple I've been playing since early sims 3 days I remade in the sims 4. I usually have multiple saves with them but I always start them off living separate and seeing how they meet again, always playing her side and have him move in. I play them with aging off and have them experience whatever new feature while still keeping them in character. I ts3 they had a daughter and eventually died of old age but now I don't let them age. In some saves they might have kids, they might not. Their house will look different and their home world will change. I start them off rags to riches style and develop the house as they earn money, in a house lot or in an apartment.

To keep things fresh I make them friends in CAS, I never play them but I make sure they have full families, houses and jobs. I also made her parents and added a brother, I'll probably do something for him too but haven't been very inspired yet. Usually what ends up happening (and I hate that it's always the case) their house becomes too laggy because of all their collections and things so instead of moving them I just restart sadly. If I had aging on, it's like from starting a sim to when their kids are young adult. Back when I played legacies that's usually when I'd get "bored" but it wasn't boredom, it was lag and seeing how deformed the genetics made my kids look so I gave up on generational play.

Some other ideas, I had a barbie save back in ts3, basically playing barbie as a supersim maxing all careers. I made her a big pink mansion and would recolor everyone and everything in sunset valley in pink/turquoise/flashy pop colors. That's a good one for when you feel a little down. And then no really a rotation but playing all the premades. Aging off, pick a household and play them until you think they're "done", then move on to somebody else. I did that with Ned Whalen, made him climb up the tech guru career, then he decided to become a scientist, met his alien wife. Nowadays he's just the weird nerdy dad inviting people to barbecues. I moved on to other households, I'll never play them once they're done but it's nice that they are in the save, familiar faces and all that.

"elanorbreton;c-18253241" wrote:

@Flap do you know if that works properly now? I had read previously that the beloved trait only works for one sim per saved game.

Can't guarantee 100% but I think it works now, all mentions to be broken are very dated (2017 and before).

I started a new rotational with the Infant update so time will tell me if Summer and Zoe (I guess they both have the FotW aspiration) will maintain the relationships they acquired :smile:

I just started a 31 generation Not So Berry Challenge and I'm considering playing the non-heir siblings a little bit. I want to make sure they all get married and have kids so that the family tree grows. Not sure how I'll manage it though since I almost never play rotationally.

@becks1112 If you don't mind a bit of randomness you can use the Neighborhood Stories feature. It will do everything for you except find spouses for your unplayed sims-- if you want them to get married and have biological children you still have to do the marriage part yourself.
Or come to think of it NS might generate biological children for engaged couples too? I'm pretty sure I've seen some younger Charms and Ernests about...