How do you keep things fun/interesting? Considering playing as child up instead of starting at YA.

I keep things interesting by planning little to none and letting things happen organically. If I do plan, I always find a way to screw that up. lol So my sims are at the mercy of my mind's whims... and aliens.

Also, I never personally keep a specific sim. I have many in my library that I have created but seldom, if ever intentionally bring them even into the game.

However, raising your favorite sim from a child might be interesting. It could work quite well and maybe you'll find out things about her that you didn't know from the choices you make with her as she grows... Why stop at child though? Raise her from toddler and see what delightful chaos she gets into...

That certainly depends on what I am doing, but I usually follow the flow of the game. This is why all mods that add randomness are so valuable. People get married, divorced, babies being born. Everything adds interest. When it comes to gameplay I usually just say "I want to do this or that in the specific way" and follow that rule.

I have one save with a sim who's entire goals revolve around completing aspirations so he goes to Batuu, he has uncovered all the secret worlds, completely leveled his spell casting, will do the Strangerville storyline (although I did that on another sim). Then I have my main save with my 9 families so I am doing all the careers, all the college degrees, etc. I started it all with one sim, a rags to riches sim. So start with one, give her parents and maybe a sibling. Grow your story from there!

@ashcrash19 There's a challenge called Just One Sim (you can find the rules here) which involves starting out your Sim's life as a toddler. The twist is, they can't ask for any kind of help with their needs from their parents or any other Sim. I've played it a few times, it's not easy but that's what I love about it! It's fun if you love a challenge, which I do, and do a bit of pre-planning before starting it. I've also played starting out as a runaway/homeless child making up my own rules too. That was equally fun!

As you might've guessed, I love challenges! That's one way I keep things fun and interesting while playing this game. My favorite way to start out with my Sims in almost every save game is Rags to Riches style. I like to combine that style with other challenges that allow it too. I've played so, so many challenges, some more than once or twice and it never gets old or boring to me. I also love to build/decorate and enter build challenges sometimes. Other times I'll just make a Sim and wing it with a vague idea what I want them to do. That's how my Super Sims started out and my Collector Sim, which sounds similar to your experience @SimsLady2000. :)

I've read some Simmers have more fun just going with the flow letting their Sims have full autonomy and let them guide you, and others prefer to build a background for the Sim they want to play first. Others will swear by playing rotationally to keep things fresh and interesting. Some like to play with a brand new Sim whenever a new pack comes out and explore all it has to offer. I like to do that sometimes too. There's so many different ways to play and have fun in this game and that's one of the main things I love about it. Variety is the spice of life as the saying goes. :) I doubt it could ever get boring, at least for me, and I've been playing for over 20 years!

Happy Simming! <3

I like to focus on individual packs, for example I'll have my sim start by focusing on university, then I'll focus on the Get to Work careers, then I'll move my sim to Sulani and focus on island gameplay, etc etc

I am using MCCs Population part. So that the unplayed people in my town don't just grow old and die, but marry, get children and so an. As I let the mod do it's job, sometimes funny things happen. For example Vladius Straud married the poorest women in Forgotten Hollow he could find - and moved from his castle into her starter home. When they even got a kid I decided to play them as well.

I can really recommend playing more than one family at a time. I always prefered the long life duration, as the normal one always was a little bit too short for me. But long life duration is so much longer, that now it is too long for me. The game always got boring as I finished my aspirations too early and as soon as you choose a new one the character of a sim changes also (what I don't want). But if you play like 3 families, you share the lifetime of your sims and don't fulfill each ones aspirations that fast.

Within one family or sim I also focus on that gamepack. So if I play the Vatores or Strauds, I focus on Vampires (an on Get Famous, as Caleb Vatore got an actor). My next Sim likes Star Craft, so when he is travelling there with his father or twin sister, I fokus on that pack (while his father - cooking aspiration - is heading for all recipes there).

Now it's the next fun part as I have to decide who my sims will marry. As I didn't check the aspirations of the future groommates before, there will be some surprises as soon as the kids of my favourite family move out to start a new life.

And always when I planned some stuff, MCC is changing everything for me (e.g. the women I wanted to marry just married someone else).

I treat The Sims 4 like a creative app, same way I would treat digital imaging software, writing software or a music app to create content. It’s just the app in which I can create characters, build structures and set scenes for their stories all within the same system. The more options the better of course!

CAS, Build Mode and Live Mode are therefore of equal importance to me.
If one was to ask me whether I’m a builder or not I would say yes. I’d have the same answer when asked if I’m a CAS creator or Storyteller. Yes and Yes. I need as many options available to keep my creative juices flowing when playing a game and The Sims offers the perfect solution for that.

I understand why many folks can get quite bored of playing The Sims 4, but I don’t feel that way. For me it’s actually the opposite. Of course the game could always do with more options and customization, but I’m far from bored. I do use some interesting mods to spice things up and add realism, although these are only mods that implement gameplay elements that will never be part of a sims game due to their rating. I mean I’m not a kid anymore...physically that is. Let’s not talk about my mental state. ?

I also don’t play each pack separately. My stories, builds and characters require everything to be available at once. I usually make optimal use of all that is offered, but there are plenty of features that I haven’t even looked at yet, such as running a veterinary clinic or a restaurant.

I play rotationally, and with many different saves, because not all worlds can look the same in each save.
I’m not a legacy player but I play quite slow. Something like the 100 baby challenge sounds like an absolute nightmare to me. ?

I only play the game when I feel inspired. If not, I just do something else instead.

A lot of my sims are born-in-game. I basically play a rotational legacy with some families but then I add new characters whenever I want and increasingly, I will cut out households that just do not interest me.

More recently, my gameplay centers around doing whatever I want while switching between households. I actually like the sentiments update a lot because it adds more complexity to relationships in the game.

Gameplay is often about relationships and interactions between the characters but I would like more themes to play with as more content comes out.