Playstyle Ideas?

I usually always always always play families. But always playing the same thing over and over does get boring. I have this in every Sims game for that matter, there's just only so many times families can be interesting to play cradle to grave (in a row).

So, here's a few things I'm currently playing:
a) Military base: I have 6 Sims (5 now actually but they're looking to recruit), 5 in the military career and one in the scientist career. The goal is to have them each max out their careers but they always need to work from home (except the scientist of course, I follow him to work about once a sim week). They need to complete their daily tasks, and the highest one in rank orders them around. They also go to festivals together sometimes, celebrate important annual events (like Christmas), and also together solved the Strangerville mystery.

b) Asylum challenge: this is a new thing I was trying out. You can look up the rules easily on the forums. However, I'm not 100% sold on it yet because I think I'm too much of a control freak. Having only one sim to play with may not be my thing, but you can try. There's really good lots for it on the gallery.

c) Orphanage: I downloaded Deligracy's orphanage and her sims. I love the lot so much, deleted one of the kids, aged up the vampire. But the rest is the same. The idea is that all kids have some supernatural powers. There's a ghost, an alien, a vampire, one sim that never sleeps, one that is a savant and another very creative kid. The headmistress adopted them all as care dependants. I love playing this SO much! Technically the goal is to complete their aspirations before they age up (to either teenagers or young adults). I do that but I'm not very strict in game. I just love having all these young sims around learning to deal with their powers. I've never even really played aliens or ghosts before, so it's quite new haha. I'm even thinking of setting up my own magical school when we have witches! There's also mods so they don't have to go to school if you're interested.

Challenges can be interesting too. But I think you mostly need to find ways to stop always playing families. Play only adults, or only teens, maybe only supernaturals, just try something you usually don't do! That's how you keep the game fresh. I still have two regular families in this save should I feel like playing them - and for about 2 weeks I've visited them maybe twice ?

"SimTrippy;c-17114215" wrote:
I usually always always always play families. But always playing the same thing over and over does get boring. I have this in every Sims game for that matter, there's just only so many times families can be interesting to play cradle to grave (in a row).

So, here's a few things I'm currently playing:
a) Military base: I have 6 Sims (5 now actually but they're looking to recruit), 5 in the military career and one in the scientist career. The goal is to have them each max out their careers but they always need to work from home (except the scientist of course, I follow him to work about once a sim week). They need to complete their daily tasks, and the highest one in rank orders them around. They also go to festivals together sometimes, celebrate important annual events (like Christmas), and also together solved the Strangerville mystery.

b) Asylum challenge: this is a new thing I was trying out. You can look up the rules easily on the forums. However, I'm not 100% sold on it yet because I think I'm too much of a control freak. Having only one sim to play with may not be my thing, but you can try. There's really good lots for it on the gallery.

c) Orphanage: I downloaded Deligracy's orphanage and her sims. I love the lot so much, deleted one of the kids, aged up the vampire. But the rest is the same. The idea is that all kids have some supernatural powers. There's a ghost, an alien, a vampire, one sim that never sleeps, one that is a savant and another very creative kid. The headmistress adopted them all as care dependants. I love playing this SO much! Technically the goal is to complete their aspirations before they age up (to either teenagers or young adults). I do that but I'm not very strict in game. I just love having all these young sims around learning to deal with their powers. I've never even really played aliens or ghosts before, so it's quite new haha. I'm even thinking of setting up my own magical school when we have witches! There's also mods so they don't have to go to school if you're interested.

Challenges can be interesting too. But I think you mostly need to find ways to stop always playing families. Play only adults, or only teens, maybe only supernaturals, just try something you usually don't do! That's how you keep the game fresh. I still have two regular families in this save should I feel like playing them - and for about 2 weeks I've visited them maybe twice ?

Ask and ye shall recieve! Whoa! These are some fantastic ideas! I'm especially loving the orphanage one, that sounds awesome! I could do an X-Men kind of thing with that one. I could absolutely do this asylum challenge because out of all the Sims I have in my library, there's only one that I use constantly. The military base sounds the least interesting, but I'll give that one a shot first after I finish my own ideas.

If you or any others have more ideas, please share. I'm actually getting excited to play again.

You're welcome, enjoy! :D I personally also like the orphanage best, it's super fun, especially if you like supernaturals. Also check out her build, I think it's super pretty and totally fitting to this type of story (even though I deleted quite a few plants and stuff to make it a bit lighter to run).

One tip I have is to have multiple different types of saves. It helps me to keep each save with a different theme or challenge with it so it doesn’t get boring. Like for the new EP I will be doing an off the grid rags to riches because I know I can get some seriously fun and unique gameplay out of it. I’ve always wanted to do rags to riches but have never tried it. The island and off the grid lot trait make a perfect combo for it I think. I also slowly go through each new pack instead of rushing to try it all. I still don’t have a five star celeb, I’ve never owned a vet but have a sim who I plan on owning one, I haven’t done doctor or detective career, I’ve never owned a retail store, I haven’t done a lot with jungle adventures, and the list will keep going. It keeps me playing and enjoying the game because I’m always trying something new or discovering things I didn't know existed.

Here are my current challenges/fun saves and a challenge I want to do at some point:

1. Legacy challenge: self explanatory I’m sure but playing with families through generations is my favorite. I also never use money cheats with any family, it helps for sure. I’m currently in generation 3. It’s a common one I know but I personally randomize traits and aspirations to keep things interesting.
2.100 baby challenge: this is really a big and hard challenge. I have four tots right now and am losing my mind, but it’s a fun save for sure. My sim is at the beginning and has very little money right now which is also super hard. It’s again a common challenge but is really fun.
3. Evil vampire: I never play occult’s or evil sims so why not combine the two ?. That sim is already a bit crazy and I love her.
4. Not so berry challenge: new thing I want to try. Seems like a lot of fun because it pushes you as the player to do things you haven’t done before.

I just always try and mix it up. That’s the best advice I can give. Keep your saves different and try new challenges. It keeps the game fun for me. I love the game anyway but I take less breaks than ever playing like this :).

I used to start with a single young adult all the time, but that got repetitive. I can't do challenges, too many arbitrary rules for me to follow. Plus, I love my mods, most of them are just small mods, they just amend or get rid of things I find annoying or repetitive. Faster eating and drinking, faster showers and baths, no school goals, faster homework, for example

So, in my current game, I started with 3 separate households. All in living in different worlds and with a bit of a backstory, my goal was to have them connect to each other and/or the premades by marriage or friendship. I'm currently in generation 2.

Although I don't do challenges, I did like the idea of an orphanage. So in one game I put down a big house (link below) and found/made a childless adult couple to run it. My goal was to have some of the kids get adopted by premades or townies I created and follow their lives, while others would grow up there and go out on their own for me to play.

https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/gallery/738C105F2FEE11E480718FF12688DE2F?category=lots&searchtype=ea_origin_id&sortby=downloads&time=all&searchquery=Maxis&max=50&maxis=false

If you are used to playing normal or "nice" sims, change it up:

Make an evil family or club and just go all out with being evil!
Honestly I hardly ever play truely evil sims but when I do, it's so much fun, tormenting the worlds.
For example my evil doers had high aspirations becoming a crime boss, becoming mayor etc. basically everyone had to become somebody with power/influence.
Vampires come in handy for that but they're not needed.
Build venues with the mean vibe and grody traits, restaurants with the grody trait are especially wonderfull >:)
Make a family/ household with only bad mannered sims, lazy, mean, evil, erratic and so forth.
The goal won't be to turn children into wonderful adults but the opposite, they should get all the negative traits from parenthood when they turn into young adults.

Build themed venues where you have to use sims (their skills) to fill them up, for example, I am currently building a museum for the abstract art so I have my painter sims paint abstract paintings like crazy till I got ALL of them plus the quality has to be at least excellent (gonna do this for other painting styles as well).

For me it's the mix of building and playing that really does the trick to keep me interested and always finding new things to do, or old things to do differently.
Sometimes I have a specific idea for a venue but no played sims that would fit as visitors, so I create new sims that would go there and the other way arround.

I have sims collecting only what fits them, for example "spooky" sims only want the spooky fish in their fishtanks and for some of them you'd need quite a high fishing skill (anglerfish), my "nature"witch really needed the treefish, same thing.

But I never do everything with the same sim, hmmm...maybe if I ever want a "Supersim" so to speak, but it would bore me cuz there is no point for me, my sims all have their own characters by which I decide what they do, it's more diverse and more fun for me.
And I also have all my households know each other, for now they are all friendly, since my recent game has no evil sims yet but that will soon change (evil mermaids!).

Anyway, I don't know if this helped, maybe hopefully...just do what you like, it's a sandbox game after all ;)

"Bloosmoo;c-17114614" wrote:
I like the orphanage challenge too, but I also do daft things in my game such as a pet rehoming center and rehome the pets when they have learned all their tricks. Another thing I do is a save where I try and turn as many sims as I can into vampires, while only allowing the aliens to breed so the population is all sorts of funky lavenders blues and greens. I like to make a house full of adults and do like a Big Brother challenge too and have silly little back stories for what is happening and why it's happening. I'm aiming when Realm of Magic comes out to make Willow Creek into some kind of monster ville putting characters like The Munsters, The Addams Family, Edward Scissorhands, Ted Bundy in it and seeing how that goes. You could start a save where you age all the premades down to kids and see how they turn out, I had great fun doing that with the various back stories. This might all seem a bit tame when you think about what other simmers get up to, but it keeps me amused on days where I can't get off the sofa :)

While I prefer TS4 pets as opposed to TS3 pers (primarily because they can't be controlled), I'll admit the pet rehoming idea doesn't appeal to me much. Maybe one day. A save where all Sims are vampires and aliens sounds pretty fun, though. I'll definitely consider that. Aging down all the premades, though... that could have some amusing potential.

"RavenSpit;c-17114871" wrote:
If you are used to playing normal or "nice" sims, change it up:

Make an evil family or club and just go all out with being evil!
Honestly I hardly ever play truely evil sims but when I do, it's so much fun, tormenting the worlds.
For example my evil doers had high aspirations becoming a crime boss, becoming mayor etc. basically everyone had to become somebody with power/influence.
Vampires come in handy for that but they're not needed.
Build venues with the mean vibe and grody traits, restaurants with the grody trait are especially wonderfull >:)
Make a family/ household with only bad mannered sims, lazy, mean, evil, erratic and so forth.
The goal won't be to turn children into wonderful adults but the opposite, they should get all the negative traits from parenthood when they turn into young adults.

Build themed venues where you have to use sims (their skills) to fill them up, for example, I am currently building a museum for the abstract art so I have my painter sims paint abstract paintings like crazy till I got ALL of them plus the quality has to be at least excellent (gonna do this for other painting styles as well).

For me it's the mix of building and playing that really does the trick to keep me interested and always finding new things to do, or old things to do differently.
Sometimes I have a specific idea for a venue but no played sims that would fit as visitors, so I create new sims that would go there and the other way arround.

I have sims collecting only what fits them, for example "spooky" sims only want the spooky fish in their fishtanks and for some of them you'd need quite a high fishing skill (anglerfish), my "nature"witch really needed the treefish, same thing.

But I never do everything with the same sim, hmmm...maybe if I ever want a "Supersim" so to speak, but it would bore me cuz there is no point for me, my sims all have their own characters by which I decide what they do, it's more diverse and more fun for me.
And I also have all my households know each other, for now they are all friendly, since my recent game has no evil sims yet but that will soon change (evil mermaids!).

Anyway, I don't know if this helped, maybe hopefully...just do what you like, it's a sandbox game after all ;)

You know, I was just starting to go for the idea of making my Sim an absolutely terrible person. I did make him a semi-good person, but now I want him to be the kind of guy you wish was dead. He steals, he hurts others, he intimidates them, etc. I think bringing a lot of chaos to the game would entertain me greatly, so that's what I've been doing ever since last night, especially with the help of certain mods. Becoming mayor, though. Is that a mod or a career?

The thing is, I WOULD do everything with the same Sim. I'm the kind of player who will create one Sim and have him do everything and always use him forever. To have the Sim world revolve around him. For example, the supernatural orphanage idea. My main Sim is going to run it. The military idea. My Sim will be a part of it. That's what primarily appeals to me. I suppose I could do a legacy challenge, but just have my main Sim NOT die and have him outlive all his children and fill the game with said children. That would be tons of fun for me.

Building evil venues sounds like a fantastic idea to me. That helps a lot. I don't think my Sim could own them, though like you could in TS3. Which annoys me a bit.

Something I have wanted to try but haven't yet is to set up two identical saves and play a young adult sim whose life starts the same in each but like the movie sliding doors something radically different happens in one of the saves and then play through to see how different the sims life ends up in both saves.

I focus a lot on the community aspect. I fill my game with locations and events that might require some imagination, but that helps me form the community. It's like a huge everlasting puzzle. I switch active households often, and with the community background it's not very important who I play. This way I get variety, too.

I run a Council House, every 5th year there is an election, and the 5 Councilors are given either Department Law & Justice, Trades & Taxes, Culture & Entertainment, Health & Welfare or Science & Education. One of them (most often the one at Law & Justice) will be the Mayor.

I don't necessarily play out the Council in detail, but I found this routine to work well when I want to add something, or to make sure existing routines are kept active. Say, when I want to build and equip a Retirement Home, the Health&Welfare Councilor will take the job of organizing it.

I also have photographers specializing on family portraits, celebrity promo portraits, or even pet photos. Any sim who has a job will specialize according to the community. Say, a sim will not just be in the Business career, but will also have defined goals and tasks - like working with timber import, happy to reach level 5.

I have a social status system too, making it a bit harder to find spouses. Most high status families will want to secure their status through the main heir's marriage, and those on lower levels might dream of climbing a bit.

I have a very old tradition when naming a baby, a system I used ever since TS1. In short, the baby gets first and last letter from grandparents, but whatever in between is open. There is also a system to pick traits, securing that most kids will get one trait from each parent - but not always.

All in all, giving my sims (families) a community function, some history and some hopes for the future, makes the game feel more established. Even if I take a few weeks break, I know most of the residents pretty well, and can quickly look them up in my residents registry, too.

PS: There are several videos with more detail from how I play on my Youtube channel. The "As Sims Go By" series is based on my Council.