Which expansion pack can you absolutely NOT live without?

Seasons hands down for me. I NEED weather in my game. Just feels so empty without it.

Toss up between Seasons, Get Together and City Living. The club aspect from GT is an absolute game changer, I love the new recipes from City Living as well as the Arts Center venue designation (I built one that has all the skill building items and send my families there a lot) but Seasons just totally changes the entire world experience.

"invisiblgirl;c-17091626" wrote:
I haven't been all that excited about most of the EPs for S4 - I preordered Seasons (and I have no complaints), but the other two that I own were bought more for content (CL and GTW). I didn't care about apartments, festivals or active careers. The others have things I definitely don't want in my game (I love cats, but I don't want them getting sick or dying, and I was very disturbed by the strays in previous Pets EPs).

There are several game packs, however, that are must-haves: Parenthood and Spa Day, for sure, and the worlds and content for Granite Falls, Jungle Adventures and Strangerville are quite useful.

The strays seem to be limited to Brindleton Bay, so if you don't spend much time there you won't see them as much.

I've been using GTW more to create shopping locations for my Sims to visit. I'm currently working on making an art gallery with paintings I've downloaded from the Gallery, and also a department store where Sims can purchase some of the science items (like upgraded SimRays and the satellite dishes), some fully upgraded stereos and TVs, and several costumes from Get Famous. That way my other Sims families can shop there and get the items without having the be a scientist, get to level 10 Handiness or build the acting skill. My final project is to have two clothing shops, one for men's wear and one for women, with the best of the career outfits that have to be unlocked in CAS -- business, social media etc. What I do with all these projects is I create a Sim, cheat them the skills to make or unlock the items and the money to purchase the lot, then I mark them as Played but don't touch them, and then I send other Sims to shop. So my Sims can have upgraded TVs for the two extra channels (Music TV and Fireplace), a satellite dish to watch Alien TV, and extra paintings without having to have the Painter skill or the Expressionistic aspiration trait. I put all this in a template save, then when I start a new save (either I have a new story idea or I just want to try something different espcially when we get new content) I select that save, do a Save As with a new name, and everything is set up for my new household. I've also given some families pets (the Bjergsens have a Bernese Mountain Dog named Gracie after a friend of mine's dog, for example, and Bob and Eliza Pancakes have an annoying yappy Chihuahua) and done makeovers on a lot of the base game premades (updating hairstyles and outfits with more recent content -- I give the households I don't plan to actively play a few extra outfits so they're not wearing the same thing everyday. It's been a lot of work but worth it.

I love having them all, however, the calendar has made planning out my sims' decisions/events so much easier. Seasons also make sim-life richer with the variety.

P.S. It does suck when the geek festival ends up being a rainy day more often than not, but that is what makes it more interesting. I just need the university pack and I'll be content. I've always had that expansion and I'm tempted to re-download TS3 with university, if only to get that fix (I hated The Sims 3 by the end due to the lagging).

Get Together forever and always. This is the best thing (IMO) that happened to The Sims. I could never play the game without the clubbing system ever again. And Windenburg? If only every TS4 world would be like this one.

Get together is still my favorite because I use the club system all the time to control my "walk-on" characters who are not in my currently active household. Could not play the way I like to without that. All the others are just nice to have.

City Living, definitely. Makes it very affordable in the start for my sims.

I slightly regret buying Seasons. I don't like the extreme weather, or the requirement to create separate hot/cold weather outfits. I thought I would love the holidays but they're not as customizable as I had imagined. All of the other packs are awesome though!

If we're being honest I could probably do without all of them, but I based my decision on the one I felt we got the most bang for the buck and that was Seasons. I enjoy that the weather is very different in every town and you never know what its going to be like until you travel there. I also really enjoy that calendar and having holidays now, especially since I tend to play with families. The fact they took the time to have all sims affected by weather this time instead of just the ones we are playing with was a nice touch. Its the only EP I have not regretted buying at full price, because it felt the most complete out of any EP, so far, for TS4.

Easily Get Together the club feature is by far the best thing added in any expansion it changes how you play by giving you control of how un played Sims behave. If only other expansion enhanced the Sims this way instead of just giving them more jobs.