Why create a new save?

To restore something i butchered,
completely start over with new set of everything, play completely different way or because the old save is totally broken

usually I just keep my main save i have been playing for a long while

and use new saves to do things i don't want to do in my main save like say test neighborhood stories play scenario play simself whatever is the current thing im testing outside of my main save

I used to have over 100 saves, but I deleted most of them and missed some of my Sims, so I kept starting new saves again downloading the Sims back from my library. This happened few years ago and now I have about 60 saves again. :D
I have a big problem with starting new saves and I'm aware of it, but I love playing different Sims with different careers, aspirations and all kinds of challenges and I hate doing it in the same save. I used to have many annoyances with rotational play in one save and I much rather do it in different ones, even if some of those problems have been fixed now.

I do have few saves with several played households, for example families that have expanded and I've had to move the grown up children (or other family members) on their own and I do rotate between them, but there are still things I don't like. Family members suddenly forget that they know each other and I have to introduce them to each other again is the most annoying.

I've recently been playing with the idea that I should do some "cleaning up" again and I even had an idea of deleting everything and starting just one single completely new save, but I know it's not going to happen. I'm way too attached to my Sims to do it and even if I could just choose one save to continue with I could never make that decision which one.
I'll just keep playing all my saves and try not to start too many new ones. :p

I start new saves. I like to have a fresh start, because even with the new Story Progression system, the community becomes all messed up and not at all representative of a real cross-section of the world. My neighborhoods, even with SP in play, become mostly elders and small children and so, new sims starting adulthood don't have anyone to meet and live their lives with. So...I start fresh and give them the best possible chance at happy that I can give them.

I have a number of saves, most of which I use for exploring, testing, and/or developing story ideas. Sometimes I play out some of the parts of a larger story in separate saves and then import the characters (and their homes, if it's important enough to their stories) into another save (where the main story resides). Some saves are more for testing game mechanics or technical things (like to experiment how one mod interacts with another, etc.). I currently have three "primary" saves that act as staging areas to bring all the parts together for three different overarching themes, and each of those has one or more "secondary" save to "feed its master", as it were.

I play a lot of challenges - each has their own rules about life span etc - It means you need a seperate save for each challenge so you don't end up messing up the goals of each challenge while you focus on a different one. Also I like to have a vanilla save for testing the game after updates that has never had mods in it. My build saves are seperate from my play saves as well.

Sometimes I create a different save for different gameplay. For example, in one save, I have NPC voting off, and in another, I have it on.

I sometimes have to restart a particular save. Something goes awry, somebody dies way before their "time", as it were. Sometimes, my save file gets corrupted. Plus, since I'm generally replaying the same cast of characters, if you will, I have to rename the saves. I also have the habit of doing a Save As for each gaming session. So, if need be, I can do a save recovery, which for me is better than starting the entire save all over again from scratch. I really don't know how many saves a saves folder can handle, either.

Sometimes, the new save is to test a mod new to me, so I don't wreck the Main save, too.

I have aging and neighborhood stories on in one save and don t want either to affect the households from my other save.

So I guess there's are a lot of different reasons to just start a new save and few reasons to just create a new family in an old save.

"PenguinFoop;c-18151048" wrote:

"DaniRose2143;c-18151020" wrote:
I start new saves every time. I create each save to tell a unique story when that story is done so is that save. A lot of my saves die of terminal restart-itis before the story plays itself out though.?

But I guess my question is, why start a whole new save with all the same starting characters just to manipulate a new world, when you can keep the save and all of the changes and a new family as the founding family of that save? That way, you can get cameo appearances from your previous family/families.

That's what I am working on now.
I am creating a save that will have all my lots, sims, made over townies, and played to a point where stories are already set in motion.
Any new save will be a copy of this save and I won't have to do all that work all over again in order to give the game more depth and style.

If I want to play a scenario with new sims, all my favorite sims can play cameos in this new sims life.
Also, this master save will be evolving as I add to it whenever I have new ideas, so even when I start a new save with new sims, there will be something new and master save won't feel stale.