What have you learned about your game style

@wahini2024, Yah, I'd really love if there was a "weather channel" pie menu category on TV's where you could select it and then get a choice of all of the worlds, giving you the forecast for each world when you select them. There is a mod that adds weather forecasts for other worlds to the phone, but it's not compatible with mods which change the weather from EA defaults.

I totally agree with the aging off.

I'm freestyle with my game play. I take each and every save as the spirit moves me. I might play rotational, I might do legacy, often I just focus on one or two households and just see where things go.

Right now I'm locked into San Myshuno. I love the city and the apartments are my thing. I live in an apartment irl so I'm just attuned to that life.

NAPS are the tool of the devil.

I adore occults. I can't imagine my game without them. Vampires in particular.

CAS is my favorite toy in the world. I get lost. It takes forever for me to create a sim, even if I'm using that one in my avatar. Every time I use her in a save I give her a totally new look, new vibe, always something different. I have 100+ different version.

Renovations is not far behind. Every time I start a save I have to completely renovate every house for every family I intend to play. I can't stand the humdrum interiors of any of the pre-made builds. There are a lot of extremely talented builders out there, who make gorgeous lots, and I guarantee at some point something about their build will clash with my OCD, and I'm renovating.?

I have an addiction to creating actresses or self-employed painters. I love the work when you want freedom which gives them time to explore, and get into activities, make friends, just generally explore the worlds.

I love all the pre-mades, except Dustin Broke. I'm ready to completely re-trait him to dial down his schtick. Ugh!

I usually have a direction I'm going in with any particular family or save, but I need weirdness/randomness to keep things interesting.

I like having weird and random things happen to me that I didn't plan on. Neighborhood stories, emotional deaths, Murphy bed, you name it. I rarely intentionally create occults but I definitely jump on the boat and take the ride whenever something occult happens to happen, or needs to happen story-wise.

Sometimes even things that are clearly glitches/bugs end up becoming important story-wise.

I like using random rolling systems for traits, aspirations, gender identity, sexual orientation, and glasses, where the traits and glasses are affected by heredity and the other things not. Traits and aspirations give me a small set of randomly generated options and then I choose from there.

I absolutely love the wacky variety of random townies in the world.

I get bored when things are too much the same for too long. Relatedly, I usually play on normal lifespan, except one save with a challenge where it has to be on short.

I play with aging off. I don't allow Seasons to load cause EA doesn't do anything with moderation. I love the vampires pack and the spellcaster somewhat less. I play very very relaxed. I've just decide I can't have pets anymore, they're just too problematic. I am allergic to rules so I can't play challenges. Most simmers would be bored stiff by my gameplay. But the Sims shouldn't be a challenge unless that's what you want.

Very interesting to read everyone's experience. My conclusion is that my playstyle seems to vary between the different sims iterations.

In sims 1 I greatly enjoyed playing a selfsim
In sims 2 I enjoyed playing the legacy challenge. The family tree and the genetics system were great. I hate how culling sims in the sims 4 can ruin family trees. As for the genetics but loved them in sims 2. That version also had a cheat that let the player check on the genes of a sim, even recessive genes. I loved tracking this through generations
Sims 3 was during a real life break from the game. I only played it a little but never liked it because of the look of the sims, the fact that most EP had their own world, separated from other worlds. I also dislike story progression and what it does to other families I placed in the world.

In sims 4, I started out playing families like I did in sims 2. But the lack of proper genetics and the threat of culling deceased family members in family trees has made legacy style play less attractive for me. I have started occasionally playing adult only households because of all the packs centered around playing adults. To my surprise I enjoy this from time to time. Sims 4 is also a game that lends itself towards building up a supersim because we can freely switch between aspirations and master so many skills .

Elements of my gameplay in sims 4:
- I turned off the effect of heat and cold on the sims. I enjoy the weather in the game but don't want to worry about freezing to death
- I don't play the fame system
- if I want more challenge in a household I turn on laundry, the dust system and the simple living challenge. But I don't do this for every household.
- no NAP's in my game except the ones that change the look of evergreen harbour
- no neighbourhood stories
- aging is off for unplayed households. For played households it depends
- most households have at least one occult family member. This is not a set rule, but I just can't resist adding them

I also play with aging off. I rarely ever age any of my sims up past the young adult stage because I get too attached to them and don't want to see them go! :D I mostly play with NAPs off too except for a couple of cases where my sims have lived in Evergreen Harbor and I've wanted to play with the Eco Lifestyle features.

I've also only played with the same family for the past four years. I used to play random households made in CAS until the Seasons expansion came out and I became so attached to the 'fair weather friends' premades from the trailer that I immediately downloaded them and have used them as my legacy founders ever since. I'm up to about generation 8 now. I like to take my time with legacy plays and really make the most out of each generation. Aging up til the young adult stage takes a long time and when that happens I move them out and switch to playing with them, so the previous generations become background sims. I love having them appear on community lots and getting calls from them.

I usually plan out what a sim's look and lifestyle is going to be like before they're even born. I name them and decide on their traits and aspiration/careers/etc. way in advance. It keeps me motivated and gives me something to aim towards, even if it takes a while to get there.

I don't really use occults all that much, although I do love that they're included in the game. I made one vampire in CAS and made him a background character who my sims interact with, but he gets treated like a normal sim for the most part.

I like to play with autonomy off the majority of the time, but sometimes I set them free to have a little break from playing and watch what they do.

I don't love the dust bunnies as much as I thought I would and my Sims often step on them.

I rarely take any photos in my game.

The paper bag NAP gives me so much anxiety.

I delete and start new saves often.

I like to imagine past histories and back stories for my Sims to give them more life and character.

I still don't know how to make a roof and I still miss the auto roof from Sims 2.

I love the weather in the game. I love to watch rain fall on water, trees bend from the wind, and I like to see snow on the ground.

I will rarely walk a Sim's pet.

I like the occult Sims just as much as the humans, but families with toddlers and kids are still my favorite.

I love the cooking in the game so much and always love getting new recipes.

I love giving the premades makeovers and learning their biographies.

I like to play on rotation and never stick with one Sim for too long, although I play favorites with the ones I created.

I play with aging off and don't let my Sim's die.

I hate seeing my elder Sim's slouch and just want them to stand up straight.

I just have to give every elderly grandmother the knitting object and a rocking chair.

My Sims drink tea or coffee when I am drinking tea or coffee while playing. It's a tradition since Sims 1. We drink tea and coffee together.

I will forget to put a thermostat in the house every time.

I like to redecorate more than build.

I can't remember any cheat codes except the money ones.

I guess I like to do a lot of things already mentioned but while some things depend on the save file, there are things that may be different family to family.

I don't sell puppies or kittens I would rehouse them myself if I absolutely had to.
I don't care how much or how little time my sims spend on work so many of them aren't ever going to reach the top of their career, just like life many just need to keep money coming in for their families.
Aliens always get make up, I wish kids and tots could use it, I like to dress them up with "special birthmarks" they may have traditional clothes and normal human wear that I may not change if they just walk around without a disguise on.
Babies are aged up immediately, pretty indifferent to them, some families may get a picture of them beforehand.
I prefer if the firstborn can't have their own room they only share with the second, any other children may get stuffed in the same space, but they all work on skills and do their homework right after school. If I think of a story for them just homework and I'll take them out whenever.
I tend to go with whatever happens rarely would I ever quit without saving, sometimes I don't let the sims plead either as if Grim is invisible to them.
If I want to rotate while in uni I do whatever schoolwork they have and just go don't care about weekends or anything my other sims may still have lives to get to.
The only saves that I would play with aging after it's been set is for legacies, generally if I'm aging up played households I just wait till their birthday and if that means other kids in the world are behind I'll pick and choose a few to age up with them, most others I'll leave alone.
Depending on sim I would give them outfit changes as time goes on as we have so many clothes now it feels like a little change for them, tots tend to stay the same unless I'm working on their skills. I also only prematurely age in saves I haven't played in for a while.
Parties are the most time they get for family and friends outside of the house, other wise they only talk to who I would assume is absolutely necessary...but I still don't have many homebodies.
With that I have a few things I always place down, I updated the free restaurant we got and I will put that in osasis springs, I'll usually put down another family spot and use my builds or other freebies for the shopping district of Willow creek. Generally a new park and hang out for the springs, newcrest only gets hangout spots if I see a reason too or of course if I put families there. My sims don't stay home just because they have kids, tots are given the little wabbit tablet it keeps them quiet. I never set up a whole world before playing.

Hmmmmmm I guess I have a few things don't really think about it until it's all out in front of you huh.

That last thing I can think of that I'm not currently doing is ghosts may be added to households but not everyone can get access to ambrosia, also if vampires can change others they can't change everyone. As if some can't be because of a issue with genes so they may only keep one friend and family member in long running saves where many others die of old age.

I just know there is more but I'll cut it there ha.

The Sims 4 has turned it upside down.
I held off starting families and only played never-aging young adults because the family game play just wasn't there when the game first began.
But that changed when we got Toddlers and Parenthood.

So I took all my YAs and aged them down to toddlers and gave them parents in CAS.
I was finally going to have my sims marry and start families. However, I had to play them through their toddler, child, and teen years.

But...
I had to stop when the first teens in Rotation were about to become young adults.
I need University. So I put them on hold until we got University.

But...
I discovered teens were boring.
So I came up with the idea to create a prep-school for teens that were going to University.
I could have a bunch of teens from the various neighborhood under one roof in a prep-school setting.
I would use the prep-school as a rotation point for group of sims rotating in and out of Uni between terms.

I found this quite enjoyable and teens were more interesting.
I could play them all through Uni. And I discovered I loved making over the dormies. I thought my group of sims would pair up with each other. The dormies changed all that. I wanted to add them to my collection of sims and make the world so much richer.

But...
The TS4 sim world is huge now, and I have a huge amount of sims I really like.
I have more sims than I would want to rotate through. I have tons of new lots that I have added. And we have game scenarios now.
My approach to these scenarios is to create new sims and play them through the scenario and involve my favorite sims in their scenario.

What I really need to do is create a Master Save.
I don't want to rebuild my rich world with each new sim I create for a scenario. I need a Master Save with all my sims and lots already built and I can just play a copy of it when I want to start a new game.

So that's where I am.
I have all these sims that I have played since the start of Sims 4.
About a third of them have finished or are still in Uni, or prep-school.
Between playing the master save, I play other saves when a new pack comes out, so I can test it out before having my main sims use it. Any new creations that I like are transferred to the master save.

I need to do a major update to my master save.
It's been on hold for a while while I experimented with other game play.
But it will be complete when I have updated the lots, sims, and played everyone through Uni.

But...
I will still need to play it a smidge to give it that Sims 2 pre-existing story feel.

But...
Neighborhood stories.
Omg.

I have a tendency to fall 'in love' with my Sim characters. (I create my own in CAS and rarely play a premade). I play the same ones over and over and over again. This is mainly because something has gone wrong every time I try to reach the ultimate goal. I want to see Erik on stage giving it his all as an Elder. The oldest he's gotten in my game to date, is about 30. Then a patch hits and breaks mods I need, or I play risky with a broken mod and that blows up the save. Face/palm Or the latest was when the game decided to kill Erik off (not for the first time, either). It was a glitch, so I did a save recovery to find out just what happened. Made for an interesting plot twist, at least.

I only turn aging off when I have Sims in Uni and that's for everyone in the save. I turn it back on (if I remember, once I totally forgot), after the YAs have graduated.

I play on Long. I can handle death when it's timely.

I turned off Emotional deaths after I lost two Sims at the very same Event (my first experience with it) and later the game seemed to target my Main Character, Erik Cantrell. He died three separate times by Hysteria. He was on his way to dying again when another player asked if I had made a backup of my saves, prior to whatever patch that one was. I substituted the save for the copy and the game stopped targeting Erik. Phew. Yes, I am one of those who campaigned for more random deaths, too. There, I have written it aloud.

I love farming since HoB. I used to garden begrudgingly in Sims2 & 3.

I love large houses for my Sims. I feel all cramped by smaller abodes.

I'm not opposed to changing the house on the lot if the old one bores me. I changed Erik's house three times on the very same lot. The last time I had to 'fix' it so it sat on the lot facing forward instead of it facing the long side of the lot. Sad, I didn't keep a copy of that one. Just had to rebuild it, this time on the 64 X 64 to allow for chickens and maybe a cow and a llama, this time. I may need to tweak it, still, as it seems too narrow, on the whole.

I have to have a singer Sim in my game.

I can't play a proper rotation in this game, as I must stay with Erik and his family.

Sometimes, when starting over I have to switch a few things out to make it new again.

Sometimes, I find myself playing things the same way, particularly in the beginning of a new Iteration of Erik.

I created my own twist when I decided to go off-script and have Kayleigh be one of identical triplet sisters. I just gave them the names of the women my Cantrell boys married in my mini-series (see my siggie). I've since decided this go-around to put the other families back in game so that the grandchildren won't all look so much alike it's hard to distinguish whose Child is whose. :open_mouth:

I would much rather sit and play my game over doing about anything else. (This is bad news.)