[Help] Packs for my Playstyle

My playstyle sounds similar to yours, with the difference that I do like to add children into the mix.

I would recommend

• get together: this pack has great assets if you like to create historical buildings The world is big and beautiful in my opinion. The club feature has nothing to do with clubbing. It allows to manage groups of up to 8 sims to easily get together and focus on certain activities. I use this feature a lot in my game to the point where it is a must have.
• Strangerville: if you like aliens, you might like this one as well. It has a quircky story to play through, very different from other packs. If you get this,  I would recomment taking your time and play through this story at a slow pace to integrate your own story.
• Businesses and hobbies: if you like to run a business, then you will like this pack. You can basically set up your own community lot to own and manage as a business. The stores work a bit different from the ones from get to work. They are perfect for selling crafted good but if I want stores to visit as a customer, I prefer get to work.

To consider for a side feature?

• Island living: mermaids are lackluster but I still enjoy having them in the game. The look awesome and the world is very beautiful to live in.
• Discover University: The most overlooked occult of all comes with this pack: servos. You need to level up the robotics skill and can create some robots to help with practical tasks as well. So perhaps on a sale to get servos in your game. The univesity gameplay can be ignored if you don't like that aspect.
• Batuu: the gameplay is very limited and confined to the vacation world but you might enjoy some of the build buy for sci fi builds and some of the CAS for fantasy stories.

Other packs you mentioned

• horse ranch: the possibilities in this pack are rather limited but if you enjoy cottage living, then you might like this pack as well. Sheep and goats are cute alternatives to llamas and cows without being tied to a shed. Nectar making is fun as well and the horses are fun to play with. Unicorns are unfortunately make believe but can be nice to play pretend in combination with spellcasters and fairies
• cats and dogs: you won't get anything besides cats and dogs. I hardly ever use them but it is a nice option to add to the family if you care about them
• get famous: I bought this pack for the CAS and build buy assest. It is possible to turn off fame so you can avoid it. Some sims come with fame. I usually use mccc to force them to leave the lot or remove their fame in their own household. If you don't play with fame, I would suggest getting this on a sale.
• lovestruck: I decided to skip this pack because the task to keep up romantic satisfaction which will go down on all families even if you don't play them.