Long Life

In addition, I'd like to say that in my opinion it's only cheating when codes or mods are used. ;)

I don't see this as cheating. Yes, your sim gets more time to do things, making it easier to complete multible aspirations, get to the top of their career and get some bonus levels, get toddlers that Top Notch Toddler trait, may out many skills and more. Long lifespan is simply normal times 4.
Benefits for me are that as I'm a rotational player who only has the active household age, I get longer time to play with an household and get less dramatic effects from CAS aging glitch. Though one disadvantage is that it can be too long. Adults and younger sims can be aged up simply with a birthday cake/age up treat, but if I want an elder to die by old age, I'll have to get the AllCheats mod and use cheats to do it (more annoying with pets as I have to get their SimID first and that SimID can't be copied).

Usually when I think about cheating, it's filling the needs to the max and freezing them that was, maxing out skills instantly, getting from career level 1 to 10 in a one day (+ 50 bonus levels for higher salary), giving your sim many beneficial traits and university degrees so you'll have to scroll a lot to get to the bottom of the Simology panel, instantly maxing out your sim's fame level or reputation ect. At long life span, you do have more time, but you still have to work towards happier and richer sims. So I don't see it as cheating. Rather I see it as a less stressful patience training.

While the game is tuned around normal lifespan, I feel like normal is too short. Either way, it's a choice present in the game so I can't see it as cheating.

I guess that means playing with aging off is super cheating.

Also like everyone else said it's a casual game meant to played however you want, even if it was cheating there is no competition between players built into the game so it really doesn't matter.

I like the long life, as normal seems to be a bit too short for me. o:)

Seriously, no. I must be the worst criminal in the world then, as I have a modified normal that doubles the length of their days in each stage but baby. Normal is just too short, but long is OMG too long for me lol. I don't particularly think most of the cheats are cheating either, depending on how and when they are used. Setting up a story? Not cheating. Motherloding a nonstory legacy founder? Cheating. It's very situational. But changing game settings? Never.

No, it's not cheating, but I don't do it because it kind of ruins the generational aspect of the game for me. Sim 1 has a baby called sim 2, and then sim 100 is probably alive by the time sim 1 dies. I've never even made a long life family since the sims 3, so I'm just assuming that's how it works. If I want a sim to be immortal I make them a vampire or earn it as a spell caster.

I think that now, particularly with University out, that it's kind of necessary to play with longer life spans in order to fit college into a Sim's life. I personally play somewhat rotationally with aging off because I just don't want to be bothered racing the clock to do what I want to do with all of my Sims. And I play University by taking only two courses per semester so my Sims can squeeze in a little bit of party time and some irresponsibility now and then. If I had aging on, my Sims would never get out of college, lol.

So no, it's not cheating at all, especially if you want educated Sims.

It's just a setting. Sure, you have more time to gain skills and accomplish things, but it's up to the player what they choose to do with that time. Most people I've seen playing on long life span (or even aging turned off) don't even do it because they want to sit there grinding through skills, careers and aspirations, they do it to have time for both normal, realistic achieving as well as storytelling. If anything, people who specifically want to accomplish an unrealistic amount of stuff tend to be the ones doing super sim challenges and have life spans set to short just to challenge themselves. Or they're players who just aren't fans of generational play and want to experience everything the game has to offer with the same sim(s). Even for the latter I don't consider the setting cheating. It becomes cheating if they use cheats to achieve everything and maintain needs and relationships while doing so.

I have aging turned off entirely and it's my primary mode of operating unless I'm adhering to strict rules for specific challenges. Besides the normal grind I have plot points to get through and as a rotational player I wouldn't be able to do that if sims were aging up too quickly. If I chose to use all that free time to just grind aspirations, skills and money to infinity then that's on me, a player choice, but it's not inherently tied to just the setting. Even though my aging is turned off I still keep things realistic. Sims achieve only one primary aspiration in adulthood, max a realistic amount of skills, make the amount of money that fits their career, and die off when I deem their life to be over, be it of old age or player decided deaths for plot. I just don't want to stress over having only x amount of time to get through storylines and also do the necessary things of raising children, career advancements, skill gains etc. My generations of sims would feel boring to me if I didn't have sufficient time to flesh them out.

It depends on how many households you’re playing. Since you’re playing rotationally, I don’t think it’s cheating since the time you spend on each household will average out to the same you’d spend on a normal lifespan.