How do you "rotational" play

Auroraskies.....What do you mean with having NewCrest as an extension of Willow Creek?

I "pretend" that New Crest is on the out skirts of WillowCreek because it is where many of the larger businesses are set up. I wanted Willow Creek to have its own story and because of the little streams about in the center of town ...I decided Brindleton Bay would be a neighboring town ...just so their stories could cross over. Towns need a rival town ya know! WillowCreek is a bit more classy and wanted their neighborhoods to be beautiful without the clutter of a busy downtown area ..Brindleton has allowed their fishing industry to not only mess things up but there is a certain "air" about.
So the part of town where all the businesses are located is called Willow Creek North ..aka NewCrest.

"TS1299;c-17672690" wrote:
Question Guys, How do you utilize Seasons with rotational Play?

Hi there...I bet this could almost be a question generating it's own thread..lol!! Let me share with you what i do and hopefully others will as the answer will be extraordinarily varied.

My Seasons is set to a 28 day rotation.
I wanted each family to begin their own "traditions" based on personality, believes, and business. Each family will offer a service beneficial to others in my rotational play and seasons will play a large part in how they manage and build on their "chosen" path.
Spring....Easter holiday is prominent and each family will create their own tradition ...example: John and his new wife Julia Easter is a holiday signifying "rebirth"/New beginnings...they plant and name a tree in honor of that tradition ...They own a bakery and dream of feeding their community with healthy recipes with earthly fresh ingredients. Since John and Julia live on a farm their spring season begins their planting and seasonal rotation crops that their business is built upon.

Summer is a booming busy time for currently single Keri who is a fitness coach for her business. Keri loves all things outside so summer is her season to shine...swimming..basket ball....rock climbing...and outdoor yoga is popular with her clients. She embraces celebrating 4th of July and remembers her family leaving Sulani to setting into Willow Creek. She puts on a community wide Park celebration with free yoga ..fireworks and plenty of grilled fruit and peppers.

Fall is single Gregory's particular favorite time of year. He was born with extraordinary "gifts" that he uses to the fullest extent ..but in secret of course. What would the fine citizens of Willow Creek think if they knew what all Gregory can do..he keeps that a secret...especially from girl friend Keri. While the citizens enjoy the changing colors of the "harvest" season Gregory appreciates halloween when he can be a bit more who he really is without "letting the cat out of the bag" so to speak.

Winter...Willow Creek celebrates their annual Snow Festival with ice skating and hot chocolate in the park. Raven Whitely owns an art museum and Winter is when she hosts her Young Artists Fair for all of Willow Creeks aspiring little creatives. The whole town participates in this whimsical annual event whose only contender is Father Christmas. Everyone adores him but the man does harbor a deep personal secret.

I use seasons to create traditions, build on the various storylines, and to create a bonding between my own imagination and the lives that it affects in my town.
What a very good question ..thanks for your interest in rotational play.

@wickichick Oh, I'm glad to hear that! I had fun writing it down.

What do you mean with having NewCrest as an extension of Willow Creek?

I think sims aging and sims being culled are different things. Some sims are permanently removed from the game, for performance reasons, to keep the sim amount down, and can be removed 'culled', despite aging being off. I think the sims that have no or weak relationship with the player's active sims are the ones taken first. Therefore I save any sim not often socialized with, but that I think I might want much later on in gameplay, just in case; like the special sims from the packs, for instance Father Winter.

To make service sims, that is the sims that work as nannies, bartenders, in the spa etc; you give them their 'job', that is, a 'trait'; with a cheat. I plan to give my orphans matching traits (in CAS), and skills for their intended 'career'. So for instance create a sim with CAS traits Cheerful, Good and Creative, and skill them up in the orhanage in cooking and parenting, and also give them some nice reward traits, like Great Storyteller and Incredibly Friendly; and then give them their nanny trait with the cheat: traits.equip_trait isNanny, careers.add_career Nanny

Here is an informative thread on how to give the service sims their traits/jobs:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/941386/tutorial-turning-your-sims-into-service-npc-no-mods-required

If you want to try it let me know if you need more info.

@RavenSpit Thank you, that made me very happy to read.

@catmando830 I took a few pictures for you.

@TS1299 Speaking for myself, I don't worry about the seasonal rotation lining up with my family rotation. I set my seasons to 4 weeks each because I have 15 households now and will move to 17 soon, and I like spreading out the repetition of the weather. I play every household once before I play any of them the next time, so they all age at the same rate, but I don't play in the same order every time. I usually choose my order based on who I want to play in a specific season or on a particular holiday.
In my mind, each rotation everyone ages about 4 years, so they are really all experiencing all seasons four times, I am only watching each house for one season during that time.

Question Guys, How do you utilize Seasons with rotational Play?

I'm very random and unorganized when it comes to who I play and when. I have one main heir each generation but will check in on relatives now and then and make sure things are running smoothly (or not so smooth, depending on my storylines).

I started my save file with two sims, one founder and the guy she ultimately married. I didn't play with the guy until he moved into my female sim's household so there was no rotational playing going on at the time.

Fast forward an entire generation and I now have three adult kids for generation two, as well as my heir's future wife's family (that I've played with a bit to give them some jobs and relationships). I have a specific heir that I'll be focusing on, but I also really love the two other kids and will likely play with their households once their respective families start growing. At the moment the eldest is married and pregnant. She'll be having the first gen 3 babies.

I played with her household for major events like her wedding day and to get her pregnant. I also went in and out of her household a few times over the next couple days to get some baby bump pictures. My sim pregnancies last six days instead of three so I'm not feeling too rushed when I'm in other households. That's definitely an important part for me- having longer lifespans and longer pregnancies so I can do more and not feel like people are going to age up on me. Having MCCC is good for controlling sims in the meantime too, and making sure they won't have surprise birthdays. (I have paused aging altogether at some points when I wanted to do some storytelling and not have everyone grow up too quickly. You can do that if you're feeling stressed out!).

My heir is the middle child and he lives with his brother at the moment in an apartment in San Myshuno. They'll eventually go their separate ways when they get together with significant others, but for now I get to develop both of them.

I'm sure when I start getting gen 3 kids and they start growing up, it'll be A LOT harder to rotate between all of them. I might have to choose a few favorites to focus on and let MCCC do the rest of the story progression for me. I don't think I can handle 20+ active households LOL.

One day when I get bored of this save file (hopefully not for a VERY long time!), I want to make Newcrest into a "soap opera" type town where I play with 9-10 families at once. If I do end up doing that, I'll probably play one sim week in each household and have a specific schedule so everyone will get equal play time. I haven't done it, it might end up feeling too strict for my taste, but it's something I'd like to at least try.

"Auroraskies;c-17667211" wrote:
Willow Creek is the place for environmentally aware scientists, gardeners, botanists and florists; it will have a green footprint, a communal garden, a huge flower production garden selling its flowers in a shop, a botanical garden for cultural visits, a vegetarian restaurant and an old crashed alien ship where the descendants of Mother is living, waiting for their destiny to start... and so forth, for each world.

Do you have pictures of your version of Willow Creek? Would love to see what you've done with the place.

I just started rotational playing. The tip to rotate like between 6 and 8 am is a good one. I have a married couple as my central focus. They have one child who is a toddler. From there I rotate through their parents and their best friends, another married couple and their parents. Once the kids are old enough to have their own families, I will lump them in the rotation. I have at least two that have jobs where I can go with them, a police officer and an actor and at least one in college. It makes for a very interesting playstyle. Before I went to this I was playing my core family and their children only (who at the time where young adults). I decided to back up to a much earlier version of my main family and start over again since I had learned so much recently about certain aspects of the game. I am so happy with my decision to do that :D I love all the tips in this thread too. Thank you everyone!

I started a rotational save recently. I play with aging on only for the active household. I spend one day on each household before rotating at 8:00 am. I’m playing all of the premade families in Willow Creek and Oasis Springs.

"Auroraskies;c-17667211" wrote:
Willow Creek is the place for environmentally aware scientists, gardeners, botanists and florists; it will have a green footprint, a communal garden, a huge flower production garden selling its flowers in a shop, a botanical garden for cultural visits, a vegetarian restaurant and an old crashed alien ship where the descendants of Mother is living, waiting for their destiny to start... and so forth, for each world.

this sounds so awesome!
that...that is all I wanted to say really :)