"Simmerville;d-992576" wrote:
So, I'm trying to get an overview of the enormous alternative produce we now can grow. Having Outdoor Retreat and a few more packs adds to the list. Most of my HoB households grow something, but I realize that it might be more interesting if they go diverse rather than having them all grow random stuff to fill their gardening plots.
When reading up on misc produce I find that ie OR herbs and mushrooms have certain effects on sims. Effects were designed for herbalism, but do anyone know whether those effect are still active when same produce is canned? Perhaps none of the OR herbs etc can be used un canning and new recipes, but I'm sure there are other ingredients that might come with certain effects when eaten plain.
I have played with herbalism quite a lot and a number of my nature-loving sims are herbalists at a high level. All of the plants from OR are available for sale at the gardening stall/ shop. (The potions though do not seem be sellable at either the grocery or gardening stalls). However, I have not noticed though that they are available for canning or as ingredients in any of the food dishes from the new pack (Walleye Surprise, from OR, of course still requires Locust and Huckleberry, but it always did). I think the game sort of treats all of the harvestables from OR as herbs rather than as foods. This is disappointing because I would have loved the ability to make elderberry jam and elderberry pie, for instance.
Generally I love the addition of canning and the huge revamp they did to the ingredient system in the game (to the point where specific spices from City Living are now required for certain dishes -- it's great). But I wish sims could make more harvestables from the basegame into jams (cherry jam and lemon marmalade in particular) and that they were spreadable on every currently-existing bread in game. I also wish the new ingredients (like custard and mayonnaise) were useable in more dishes as required ingredients. (Considering all the wonderful trifles and desserts there are in England that use custard, for instance, it shouldn't just be an ingredient in Animal treats). Oh well, maybe they will add a toaster some day, and then maybe more jams will be added, and sims will also be able to spread jams on all kinds of bread.
The herbalism potions from OR are still really powerful, and seem to hold up against later systems in subsequent packs; they continue to work well on the sims themselves, especially the ones that remove long-lasting mood buffs like the Sadness Allevation Lotion, De-Stressing Concoction, and Rage Relieving Salve. The Tummy Therapy elixir works really well on Squeamish sims, morning sickness and even after eating bad food, while the herbicide remains the best weed killer in the game, and the Insect Repellent works on all insects in the game, including those from JR and SE. So I still think Herbalism is an extremely useful skill in the context of later packs and especially CL.
As for cross-pack compatibility, for some mysterious reason the local sims in HoB seem to like to make De-Stressing Concoction on the outdoor barbecue on my sims' lot and leave jars around as presents. They now have dozens of these jars in their inventories and in the fridges. It's a low-level potion, so I guess it is easy to make, but one bonus is that it completely removes tense buffs, and my sims seem to get stressed quite a lot while working on the farm so that is a great help. Another bonus is that sometimes these local visitors are interrupted and leave an incomplete pot of this potion bubbling on the stove or grill. Both my sim parents in my current save have gained up to level 3 of the herbalism skill just completing these half-finished potions.
