I'm a control freak - I can't tolerate playing with autonomy on, and I can't have more than three Sims in the house - two is ideal. (Right now, I've just got one - my teen was orphaned when her mother died of old age.)
I never got beyond the third generation in previous Sim games, but I've been playing legacies in Sims 4. I got to eleven, I think, before Seasons, and I would have continued it, but I thought it was best to start a new save because it was such a game-changing pack. I believe I'm up to five or six, now.