Forum Discussion

Nishaaa14's avatar
Nishaaa14
Seasoned Newcomer
20 days ago

Does anyone else play this way? (Rotational gameplay)

I have been playing the sims for years. I started playing with Sims 3 about a 1-2 years before the Sims 4 came out and started playing ts4 upon release and I’ve always played mostly rotationally.

 I used to play with one household until my founders died then create another and just let the first household fend for itself while checking in every once in a while, but now I play exclusively in rotations with only families that I’ve made because:

  1. I enjoy playing the sims that I make and creating different household dynamics ( large families, young couple starting out, grandparents raising their grandchildren etc)
  2. I get so bored playing with one household in the slower moments when they are having to go to work/ school and nothing is going on for 2-3 days at a time ( I’ve always been this way for me, even with ts3)
  3. it adds so much variety and to see how multiple families grow and interact.
  4. i get to experiment with the different career paths and aspirations as well as different methods to achieving them without having to wait until someone the next gen picks that career/aspiration
  5. im generally really impatient and like to move around a lot 🤣

 

I know that rotational gameplay itself is not new at all but I’ve never seen someone play the way that I do. The typical rules for rotational play are:

  • Auto- Aging is off for either everyone or unplayed sims which means you’ll either be manually aging everyone or turning on/off auto-aging between rotations
  • Stay in the household between 3-7 in game days 
  • I’ve seen some rules state to turn off neighborhood stories to ensure you can control who is doing what when it comes to moving, having children etc

The only difference I have with most I’ve seen who play is I allow aging to stay on and I keep neighborhood stories on for unplayed households. So all of my rules are :

  • Auto aging is on for all households ( long lifespan)
  • Leave households every Sunday (with the exception of weddings and births because I want to name all children)
  • All households that are not in my rotation have neighborhood stories on
  • No cheating for money unless it’s part of the family’s initial story (rich family moving into town etc)
  • Adoption and science babies allowed for 1 sibling every other generation ( if there is an adoption in gen 3, no adoptions until gen 5)

Currently I am playing 9 households (originally it was 5 the other 4 are new branch offs of them) I would like to create more, but I know these 9 will become more as the next gens grow up 🥲

I like this method of playing because everyday is different and I think it keeps things fresh. I like seeing the my other sims walking around in the background, living their lives. I don’t like feeling like a “God” over the characters (if that even makes sense 😭) and having super control over every detail. I like letting a story naturally unfold, while managing and guiding their choices. While I’ve been playing, two of the funniest unplanned scenarios were:

(Starting family : YA woman, man and their dog) - I’d just updated their house so they had about $700 simoleons in their account, the women was pregnant and at work (criminal career) and the husband was at home. He can’t cook so he died by fire the day before the baby was born so she had to quit her criminal career & turn her life around because she had to take care of the newborn and a dog. She got a job as a babysitter and started painting on the side. Now she has a new husband $30,000 in the bank and paints full time. It was a struggle to get them to that point but they’re my favorite household now.

 

(Starting family: a couple and their twins, m&f)

As the twins grew up their parents continued to have more children, causing a financial burden so great that they had to fit 6 people into a two bedroom house. Both twins found love but since the family only had about $4,000 in the bank, the parent had no money to help them move out with their loves. The girl twin married a friend from childhood and ended up in one of the richest townie families, going from sharing a bunk bed with her brother to living in a mansion with 1,000,000 in their account ( this was completely unplanned as I don’t play the townie families and didn’t know who lived where)

So I really enjoy how much randomness can be in the game when played rotationally.

 I used to play on pc but I had to switch to console but once I’m back on pc I want to improve my game play using mods to :

  • Decrease the likelihood of pregnancy ( I feel like everytime I try for a baby I have one and that’s not realistic. I’d like it to go down at least to 50%)
  • increasing the length of my sims lives to at least 1000 in game days 
  • make the seasons longer( I know there currently isn’t a mod for this but a gal can dream)

 

What do you think? Could you play like this?

Sidenote: I did find ONE other creator that keeps aging on and increased her sims lives to 2400 days. let me know if you all know anymore https://simsarahsarah.tumblr.com/howiplay

 

  • I play like that but more extreme. I do not use neighbourhood stories and my rules is no money nor skill limitations. I populated my town w full skill sims full cash. That is to fully experience the potential of all interaction. I dont really spend set time periods, its all improv. Mostly i have one main household and a few supporting households,  much like a movie or a teleserie. Like for rn i got Heartland in two households and i am managing my own ranch in the same neighbourhood. 

  • Jehane40's avatar
    Jehane40
    Rising Veteran

    I play rotationally, too, because it makes for a nice challenge and like you said, it's a chance to play around with different aspirations, careers, character traits, gameplay mechanics and so on. Currently, I have eight households with I think 19 or 20 Sims total, with one still being an infant. 

    I started out with just one household, played that one for months on end and eventually decided I wanted a second one. Then, when the kids of the first household started to grow up, I figured they needed their own homes, too, so now the two oldest daughters have their own places.

    But like you, I don't want to wait until all the kids are grown up because with five kids, that can take some time. So I added more households: a shared house with three Sims (a policeman, a scientist and an aspiring actor); a young adult couple who just got married and had their first kid; a young adult couple where he is a criminal and overall such a nasty guy that everybody hates him while his wife is well-liked and training to become a lawyer.

    Usually, each household gets one Sim week, and usually I switch on Sunday morning around 3 a.m. unless there's a wedding underway or a Sim is pregnant, or when one of my Sims is in college and gets to live on campus.

    I have auto-aging off and age them up manually, and a few Sims that are especially dear to me have familiars so they won't die by accident. They all have to work their way up if they start from scratch, i.e. if it's a brand new household. The kids from my main household start out rather privileged after college, though, because their parents are insanely rich and can give them enough funds to buy a nice home. 

    Oh, and most Sims of those households know each other, some of them have become besties, too 😁

  • susanleona's avatar
    susanleona
    Seasoned Traveler

    I used to play rotationally with aging on long but when the rental xp came out it messed up the timing so I switched to normal aging but what I do is play on normal for one round of saves (I have many) and then with aging off for a couple of rounds. I usually have only one main family per save but like to see how the other families are getting on so play them too but for a shorter time.

  • blueybluesky's avatar
    blueybluesky
    Seasoned Hotshot

    I play rotationally between the children of my original sims, so far I'm on generation 3. I keep aging on at all times and have a custom lifespan so I won't miss out on too much when rotating. I'll eventually increase the lifespan when I have more households, I'm only rotating between 3 at the moment.

    I find there is too much that you can do in game to just have one household and I get attached to my sims, so would never be able to just pick one to focus on.

  • I play rotationally, in one save. I keep aging off except for the active household and play them one week at a time, then switch to the next household. I use the manage households menu and pick one who has not been played the longest. I slowly make over NPC's and may move them to a different neighborhood, if my game has placed them willy-nilly throughout the neighborhoods before I can get into MCCC and turn off moving in homeless. I will delete NPC's occasionally, if they aren't fitting the game I am playing. 

    When do I stop? Unfortunately, I didn't realize what I was doing wrong so that when EA updated the game, everyone was reset and I would spend forever trying to get EVERYONE back to the way they were before the update. This fall, with EA updating nearly every two weeks, I have finally figured it out and now and trying to set up a save to keep playing. But, I didn't want the Reaper event to mess it up, so I have kept it out and have been playing with a new set up with only the one family to play the event. As soon as they get the little grim icon off my computer, I will try to put my saves back in and get back to play.

  • YorksRob's avatar
    YorksRob
    Rising Adventurer

    I play rotationally approx 25 families , now just over 6500 hours on this save file

    Currently I have at least one family in every single neighbourhood apart from the latest one as i haven't yet got down my list to that neighbourhood . Just now switched to normal life lengths as i found long life was too long . 

    I also swap every Sunday apart from if i play my famous sim i switch from them on a Monday so they can go to the awards ceremony at the end of their week .

    I only have ageing on for my current family and townies can move in , move out , find jobs . All my families started with the basic 20k handout and either their house was upgraded or they moved to a better place when they could afford it . I try and give each one a different career and i have , Aliens, witches, vampires and plantsims , No werewolves as i tried them and  soon got bored and deleted that family , although i may try again one day .

    I have totally rebuilt every neighbourhood with at least one nightclub , bar , lounge , karaoke bar , spa , gymnasium , park  in each .

    The biggest annoyance for me is the sheer number of townies that the game spawns constantly , I go through other households  at the end of each week with my family and delete the ones i do not want in my game . Ones i keep i check the icon to let them move in out etc which puts the newly created townies at the bottom of the list so they are easier to go through and remove the ones that annoy me 

     

    • EnchantedOatmeal's avatar
      EnchantedOatmeal
      New Rookie

      I cull the townies too! I've even tried using MCCC to stop it but it's still absolutely ridiculous

  • Gamer_Cat24's avatar
    Gamer_Cat24
    Seasoned Rookie

    I have played multiple families since I started playing Sims 2. 

    For my PC, I do focus on one family, but have added more Sims so I can take a break from the main family for awhile. Plus, I have moved out some of the teens from the families to play more rotationally. 

    My PS4 version, however, is more rotational in play, because I have created multiple families to play between. They have different dynamics, and are set up differently. Downside of doing that is that you have only so many houses and lots to have your families, so my plan is to combine some of my played families. My population right now is huge, so next generation only the heirs will have kids, with some exceptions. Planning to get For Rent on sale to add more homes for my families. 

  • alergos's avatar
    alergos
    Rising Traveler

    Well, i don't know if how i play can be called rotational... I have one main household with which i play various legacy or not, following the new pack out or else.... but i like to have a real family tree so i switch to the household of the siblings/cousin/uncles and aunts/... to develop it. I don't stay in those household per say, just enough to chose the spouse and move out....Recently, i had to start over new because of a save problem and i was just able to take some of my old household to put them in a new game...so i started with around four families plus my main one and i follow them through time....I had fun trying to pair my young adults with some major houses of the games....I naturally let the aging on, that's the goal here after all, as i let the neighborhood stories on except the adoption one (They could go a bit crazy with this one), the adoption of pets and horses for all my household barring the main one where i disabled everything...

    Sorry if there are spelling or grammar mistakes, english is not my first language....

  • I always played rotationally, so whenever I add a new world (I call them districts in my game), I will also add every single residential lot to my rotation. I must have more than 100 households. I play with aging off, but turn it on for New Years Eve only. Then all sims age 1 year. Downside is that this many households means I mostly stop by each house only for a day, maybe up to 3 days if there is some reason for it. Some houses I won't even check unless there is a birthday etc. My routine and focus has changed over the years, and when I need it, I might squeeze in one extra year without the aging, just to have enough time to explore say a new world. When I implemented aristocracy and a royal family I probably added two extra calendar years to play them and get time enough to add their history to their homes etc. So, although my routine is very strict and calculated, I can take a break from the routine whenever I see it needed. Because I focus more on the community aspects than many other simmers, I also want to develop community and play through minimum 3-4 years every RL year. There is an election coming up every 5 years, and other repeating community aspects like sports tournaments and film productions etc. You can see much of my progression as I share it online:

     https://www.hinsides.no/ts4/registry/community00.html

    Blog: Simmerville's Sims

    • Jehane40's avatar
      Jehane40
      Rising Veteran

      How do you manage to keep track of so many households and Sims?? I only have eight households, and that's still pretty manageable because every household gets a full Sim week, but since a few have kids, those kids will grow up and start their own families sooner or later and so on, so I'll end up with more than just eight households. Any hints on how to keep track what's going on where? I already use MS Notes but I think in the long run, a spreadsheet might be better for a quick overview.

  • I play almost exclusively like this. Normally I start with some sort of orphan legacy or a household of non related friends who go to University together and then all branch out with their families. I'm currently on Gen 6 in my longest save file, have almost completely rebuilt the world, and have about 8-12 families I rotate through.

    I have auto aging off completely for this save and sometimes I'm not super thrilled with one family or another so they get skipped over and every once in awhile, I go through every single household and age them up several times (or kill a few in different ways to keep my numbers down) to get to the next generation of young adults. It's really cool to see how they pair off, have kids of their own, and then have their grandparents and greatgrandparents living in the different siblings' households. I love seeing sims from birth to death and I love seeing how far back and interconnected their family trees get. I only add 1-2 sims each generation to keep the bloodline fresh.

    The in game family tree isn't super useful for understanding familial connections so I made my own in Canva using their whiteboard and I'm excited to update it for this next generation