How to do Rotational Play and how to do it right?

I believe that there's no right or wrong on how we play the game. As long as you're comfortable and it keeps you interested.

Anywho, here is how I play with my rotational play.

1. I don't play with any mods at all.
2. I play with 14 days seasons, and long life span. I've experimented with multiple combo, and this is the best combo for me. You might want to try & choose whichever suits your play.
3. I play with ageing on only on active household. I prefer to control my Sims age so I won't missed any huge milestone such as birth, birthday, and even death.
4. I rotate every 7 Sims day (Sun to Sun) because of their works and schools.
5. I keep track of all my households (11 households as of now) in a worksheet and I numbered every household so that I know which house I should play next. I have all their details from traits, careers, aspiration, etc and I even created a family tree (It's going to be huge as I also play with the townies).
6. I'm quite flexible if I feel the rules that I set is too repetitive. I change the rules but I do keep track so that I know that I made some changes.
7. Most importantly, have fun! :D

I don’t think there is any right way to play rotational as it seems many simmers rotate differently. I tend to rotate when I feel that households story has been told for that specific point in gameplay, if a birthday or anniversary is coming up for another household in the calendar or if I notice I haven’t played a different rotate household for a while. I’m now on 3rd generation and I have 13 main households I currently rotate between and I don’t know how many background households as extras I also rotate with. Currently I go with how my game goes and it’s mainly led by the upcoming 4th generation toddlers and children’s birthdays so I can max out their skills before they age up. I do play with ageing off.

Don’t let six months go by without playing a household. When I did this, all their furnishings disappeared.

It can be fun to find your perfect play style.

Ever since sims 1 I play rotationally with all the premade families the game offers.
So in Sims 4 that means all premades in all world. I play each family for 7 days and move on Monday 12am.
I have ageing on for active household and a normal life span.
This way I get to use all features from all packs and do not get bored (sims 3 forced me to change my play style as I play without mods and the story progression and aging made it difficult, so I played one family but I was so bored and felt like I only used some stuff from packs.)

"Rouenpucelle;c-17499948" wrote:
Don’t let six months go by without playing a household. When I did this, all their furnishings disappeared.

Oh no, do you know how this happened @Rouenpucelle ?

This never happened in my game.

'Only' problems I had/have are relationship culling (Sims I wanted to be a couple forgot about each other three times...), outrageous fortune by vegetables left in the inventory, sick pets, starving children - and University. Lately, I had some issues with loosing the Sims' inventory. But I don't know if that problem is related to rotational gameplay. :neutral:

Step 1 - Create your new Sim family

Step 2 - (BEFORE Sims even start walking) Pause game

Step 3 - Save game (this is your day 1, week 1 "BASE" game)

Step 4 - Name BASE using family name (ex. Burns Family)

Step 5 - (while you still have the game paused) Create your PLAY save - for normal save

Step 6 - Name PLAY with a description of the family (ex. Musician Burns)

Step 7 - Play game! Make sure you save as your PLAY save.

May seem like a lot, but it's worth it in the long run.


After you leave the game, remove your BASE and put it into a desktop folder for safe keeping. You now have a day 1, week 1 BASE to return to. Just copy and paste the BASE, when/If you wish to do a 100% restart with your family.

I myself still have BASE games from 2014! I'm currently working on updating them to include SEASONS update, but I'm not rushing. Update as soon as I need the family. :)

Happy Simming

Forgot to mention -


Step 6-7 will be the ONLY steps needed from now on. Plus that COPY of the Base can be deleted from now on. The ORIGINAL is safe in the desktop folder.