What are your best gameplay tips?

This is a nice idea for a thread.

One thing I always do is to level up Charisma skill early on, to level 4; so that the sim can do a Cheerful Greeting when meeting new sims, and Brighten Day, Heartfelt Comment and Flatter.

A lot in the game depends on the level of relationships and the skill, so this is an easy way of making use of that.

Edit: the game is made to be very simple, probably for perhaps interesting reasons; but one way to further facilitate the speed of learning that I do, is to always use the lot trait Convivial.

> @Auroraskies said:
> This is a nice idea for a thread.
>
> One thing I always do is to level up Charisma skill early on, to level 4; so that the sim can do a Cheerful Greeting when meeting new sims, and Brighten Day, Heartfelt Comment and Flatter.
>
> A lot in the game depends on the level of relationships and the skill, so this is an easy way of making use of that.

Excellent advice. Along the same lines, I also like to work on cooking and handiness as early as I can (each to level 3 or more as soon as possible), in order to more likely avoid incidents of... flames or electricity run amok. Ahem. Not that I know anything about those. Nope. Nothing. ;)

Use Tab mode when taking screenshots. You can move the camera with W, A, S, D, Q, E and use Home, End, Page Up & Page Down to adjust floor and walls. Makes it a lot easier to get the pics you want :)

"Auroraskies;c-17746452" wrote:
This is a nice idea for a thread.

One thing I always do is to level up Charisma skill early on, to level 4; so that the sim can do a Cheerful Greeting when meeting new sims, and Brighten Day, Heartfelt Comment and Flatter.

A lot in the game depends on the level of relationships and the skill, so this is an easy way of making use of that.

Edit: the game is made to be very simple, probably for perhaps interesting reasons; but one way to further facilitate the speed of learning that I do, is to always use the lot trait Convivial.

I probably should be better about using lot traits. I always forget about them! That is a great tip!

Hehe. I always give the sims a good stove, if I don’t plan for them to have an accident prone life, and the lot trait Cursed makes that very easy!

Edit: yes, the lot traits are a fun feature! I like and use it always. I think the only one I have no plans for is the Mean Vibe, but maybe I'll put it in my correction facility.

Since upgraded furniture has not carried over in builds placed from library I have a fixer sim, a care taker, a broker, in charge of buying new houses and upgrading all appliances.
I especially like the addition to do so with beds, making it possible to choose whichever esthetic look that pleases me, still having a good night's sleep.

I do level up the cooking though, but for very shallow reasons; once they know how to make Pan Fried Tilapia at level 3, that is all they get to eat, me being quite disinterested in having them run in a machine to work all the extra energy off.

Not really a live play tip but:

If you've been playing The Sims 4 for a while, you could download new community lots to your save to keep things fresh and exciting.

The gallery is full of refurbished 'Blue Velvets' and such. It helps make your saves feel different from one another, different worlds :smiley:

(or you can always build or refurb them, but I personally don't have time or the skills for that! :smiley: )

1. Consider to pick some lot traits that are skill-related on community lots to be an incentive for your Sims go there
2. Put personal items on your Sims inventory (a toy, a violin, a voodoo doll, whatever) and they will use it autonomously even if you aren't playing that household currently
3. Consider to travel to community lots with a Group so those Sims that go with you will act more interesting autonomously
4. I pick some bonus lot traits on fancy houses or expensive neighborhoods to be an incentive to eventually move my Sims there
5. I also like to put some items with emotional auras at community lots but I'm not completely sure about its effects on Sims autonomy (Angry Bar you say)

I play a lot with families. My tips for playing with families would be:

• Level Toddlers up all the way by engaging parents and older siblings. Use Flashcards and the Wabbit Tablet too. Have parents read to them.
  
• Complete childhood aspirations, level their 4 basic skills (mental, social, creativity and motor) and make sure their character value traits are at about 50% before the age up to teen (except Conflict Resolution which you should try to level up by having parents teach to say sorry until they are in range to receive the permanent trait) I usually have them join scouts too and get all the badges or for artistic sims, the drama club.
  
• As teens, if you play Discover University, try to get the right skills up to at least level 7 for whatever university degree you might be considering them for There are generally 5 skills to work on). Carls Sims has the best resource for this information under the Pack Guide heading. I also work on the athletic aspiration or the Friend of the World. These seem easy for teens.
  
• Lot traits are so underrated. Make sure your lot traits match up with your current goals. You can change them whenever you want or as needed to complete certain goals. This is not a cheat. You just have to go into build mode.
  

For gameplay, I always make sure my sims spend their reward points on these aspirations first:

• For children: Incredibly friendly, Observant, and Stormchaser. These help with the Social Aspiration which I find the most difficult to complete and I like storms LOL.
  
• For Teens: Speed Reader and Savant. I also usually choose a Knowledge Aspiration to get them the Quick Learner trait as well. You don't have to keep it on there to keep the trait but pick one as their first aspiration option.
  
• For young Adults: Shrewd (reward for the Wealth aspiration); Long-Lived (reward for the Athletic Aspiration), Entrepreneurial, Marketable and Professional Slacker.
  

Finally, take vacations and trips to the park, museums etc.

I am a terrible builder and have no building tips to curse you with.

For me, enjoying the game lately means stopping being a control freak and just chill. Sims are not ideal? That's fine, actually more fun. My toddler keeps punching his Blarrfy? Okay, that probably means he will have low empathy and will read his sister's diary when he grows up. Maybe they will ever fight! My siblings are usually so friendly it gets boring.
Also I've decided to randomize toddlers' traits and choose future traits based on that. A toddler is wild? That means he'll be an active child, makes sense. And the first developed toddlers' skill becomes a future kid's aspiration (except potty, of course. ?)
I don't like randomizing all traits, they are too random, but having sort of temperament that lasts all sim's life gives you a direction to develop their character.
Also I'm trying more realistic gameplay now, make sims act more like normal people. When I first moved in with a single sim, neighbors didn't show up, and instead of sighing in relief as I did before, I made him bake a cake, go other sims' houses and introduce himself lol.

@somewhsome I love it <3 I need to chill with my gameplay as well...I am a big perfectionist and control freak when in comes to sims... And here comes my gameplay tip (that is mainly addressed to me XD) Stop pausing every 5 seconds to plan all of your sim's future actions... This is a big playstyle mistake of mine, which I actually only realized recently... I do it so unconsciously that I didn't even noticed it until I decided to start recording videos... On one hand it is a great tool for having control, but it does make the game feel less organic and natural. So now I try to be mindful of it and only pause the game when I need to do some tweaking or want to take a screenshot. I so envy people who can just play without pausing every few seconds :#