Do you use cheats?

I have a strict rule of no game play cheats, so no money cheating unless it's to remove money and no cheating needs. I don't even like to use the cheat rewards from the reward store in my game.

I do use build mode cheats and also I did cheat to remove the mess that Eco Lifestyle unleashed upon my game with N.A.P's.

I only use cheats when I have to (to make sure Clement Frost is Father Winter) and when I want to quickly make changes to unplayed households (give them different traits, marry them to one another, create children, give them more or less money etc).

I rarely use cheats in my played households.

On occasion. It really depends on the story or building needs. For instance, if I want to start a new sim off as an inheritor, sure, motherlode a few times. In addition, I will sometimes add a maxed-out skill or two if the new sim is a full adult. For building, I only use MOO to get around quirks (things that should work but don't), such as placing a bush near a porch that happens to have a column on it. For some reason, the columns interfere.

I almost chose no. I do not cheat for MY family. They have to do everything the hard way.
I do use cheats on all my townies and "premades" (I put that in parentheses because I replaced the Maxis premades with other versions). I want them to be set up a certain way and already have skills.

I cheat for skills, reward traits, houses and money all the time when I can justify it with the sim's backstory, but not when I'm working towards a goal. A company owner believably can draw money, but they cannot magically improve their skills. An alien spy might start with a cool hideout in their basement and some rocket science, but cannot just call in money. Good luck paying rent for that secret base with your useless rocket science skill! And so on.

Only on a few occasions, like when I feel like populating Newcrest, and the houses cost more than new Sims would normally afford, or this one time when I wanted to see if a Sim could have §9.999.999 stashed in a vault, and still make more money. They can. :smiley: The most times I use cheats, however, is when I want a game of "Rags to Riches", and then use cheats to make sure they don't have a penny to their name in the beginning.

If a game doesn't punish you for using cheats then I say there's absolutely nothing wrong with using cheats!

I do! Mostly because when I make Sims - especially YA and older - I want to give them a "life" before now, not have them emerge without skills etc. I also use cheats to undo stuff the game does that I don't want it to do. Honestly, I think "cheats" is a misnomer for Sims. You can't "cheat" in something that has no rules, no victory state. They're more like commands that aren't in the UI.

I will cheat needs sometimes if the game is being buggy/incoherent and I can't replenish my needs in time because of it. Like I once had a toddler getting taken away because it was apparently difficult for the adults to coordinate a feeding (I had several toddlers that needed to be fed), then I grabbed some leftovers from the fridge for the toddler to grab, but he decided he needed to go down the stairs and to a chair on the other side of the house to eat it. Just as he sat down to start eating child services took him :( never again. I also remove fame quirks sometimes if they are interfering in a nonsensical way (like my famous sim with no touching getting stressed when he was pranking the butler).

Unless I'm playing a particular save in which I've set particular limits, I will use any cheat I want to use whenever I feel like it. B)