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I am finally getting the hang of this building stuff haha!

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I am finally getting the hang of this building stuff haha!

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I have been working on my building skills lately and this is the latest one! All I can say is I am pretty proud of this house! Inspired by some building company plans! More photos to come of my other builds hehe

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Chilling & Glitching...

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MICAH HAIR

This hair has been sitting in the folder for quite some time...

Female Teen to elder

24 EA colours SOLID & HIGHLIGHT

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

Hat Compatible

DOWNLOAD ON PATREON [FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures

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SAVANNAH HAIR

The second I saw this hair, I knew I wanted a ponytail version!

Female Teen to elder

24 EA colours SOLID & HIGHLIGHT

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

NOT Hat Compatible

DOWNLOAD ON PATREON [FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures

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GEORGIE HAIR

Nice edit of one of the hairs that came with Life & Death!

Female Teen to elder

24 EA colours

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

Hat Compatible

DOWNLOAD ON PATREON [FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures

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PARKER HAIR

This one was a pain to mesh but so worth it!

Female Teen to elder

24 EA colours

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

Hat Compatible

DOWNLOAD ON PATREON [FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures

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Just in time for simblreen!

I’ve had this in my inbox for 12 months ☠️

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ADRIAN HAIR

I'm a sucker for a middle part hairstyle. Has a nice mullet side profile!

Male Teen to elder

24 EA colours

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

Hat Compatible

DOWNLOAD ON PATREON [FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures

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Myshuno’s tips on rotational gameplay in The Sims 4

This guide describes how I’ve been approaching rotational gameplay in The Sims 4. You will find some tips on gameplay settings, links to mods, and some ideas on how to keep things interesting.

A bit of an unconventional post from me, but I hope that this inspires some of you to try out new things, and perhaps rediscover your passion for The Sims 4 gameplay with all (or most) of its nonsense. Read more below.

Why rotational gameplay?

Throughout The Sims 4's entire lifecycle, I really tried to get into generational gameplay a few times: I tried to focus on playing with and expanding one specific family. However, I found myself getting bored each time, ultimately abandoning both the save files and the game itself. Prior to The Sims 4, I'd always gravitated towards rotational gameplay, especially in The Sims 2.

For me, rotational gameplay is all about variety. It involves playing with storylines across different households and neighborhoods. These narratives may intersect or remain entirely separate.

You would enjoy rotational gameplay if:

You want to explore different game mechanics

You want to focus on specific gameplay features that come with various DLCs

You want to play with a diverse set of households (with varying traits, relationship dynamics, careers, etc)

You get easily bored with the progression of your save file when you play with a single household

You fall under the “chaotic” axis on this alignment chart

You probably wouldn’t enjoy rotational gameplay if you know that you’d rather focus on playing with the same household over a long period of time. Some people juxtapose generational and rotational gameplay styles, but I think you can nicely combine the elements of generational gameplay when playing rotationally.

Households that I currently play with include:

Sims of all occult types (some of them aim to excel at their occult shenanigans)

Varying family and relationship dynamics, conflicting personality traits, and conflicting preferences

Different age groups (unless it’s a household comprised of a single Sim)

Sims who pursue all sorts of careers and aspirations (or don't)

Progression and other settings

The story progression principles outlined below are a combination of gameplay settings and personal guidelines I follow.

My general rule is to switch households when a child, teen, young adult, or adult Sim in my current household ages up. I then play through another age phase with a Sim from a different household, and repeat this cycle.

This approach works well if you're managing multiple households with interconnected storylines. It allows me to engage with all my households while ensuring that Sims with related narratives grow and develop together.

For households with a single teen, young adult, adult, or elder Sim, I switch when the household expands or when that Sim dies.

The foundational setup:

Autonomy is set to full

Auto age is enabled for the active household and unplayed households, and I do not speed up aging

Auto age is disabled for played households

Sim lifespan setting is set to normal, with a small adjustment for young adults via MCCC (set to 30 days, more about recommended mods below)

I have the vast majority of pack settings set to default, with a few exceptions:

Sims are not opted out of fame

Lifestyles are disabled

Werewolves are limited to Moonwood Mill

It’s up to you whether you want to enable neighborhood stories or not. I find that the vast majority of the changes that this system introduces in the world are not super balanced (I have a similar issue with lifestyles), so I opt for only enabling a few configurations for other households. I occasionally adjust these settings just to see what happens during one week of in-game time, but I typically have only these enabled:

Leave a career

Retire from career

Join a career

Ok, let’s say you started a new save file. You created a new household, or picked one of the pre-made households. Once you play through the entire age phase of one of the Sims, it is time to switch to a different household. You can create a new household, or pick one of the pre-made households.

Feeling overwhelmed? In case you can’t keep track of what’s going on in your save file, I’d suggest focusing on 2-4 households in your rotations.

Right now, I rotate between 5 household. There were more played households in my save file, but I decided to “give them up” and let the game take the wheel - as mentioned above, I have age up enabled for Sims under other households.

Mods and enhancing game difficulty

Some of the vanilla mechanics and settings already work for rotational gameplay, but mods can definitely make it more exciting and challenging. If you’re looking for a challenge, of course.

Some weeks ago, I decided to return to my save in The Sims 2 after a very long hiatus, and I was absolutely bamboozled by how difficult that game is. The difficulty levels combined with the lack of story progression outside of the played household pushed me to play rotationally.

Personally, I think that such challenges encourage me to try out different gameplay mechanics, and subsequently approach the game differently within the context of each household. Enhancing the difficulty is not a definitive prerequisite for enjoying playing rotationally, but I believe that it can help you discover things that you may not have necessarily reached for previously.

I enjoy it when choices that I make, or events that are out of my control, have consequences. In other words, I like playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes.

Can you play rotationally without any mods? Absolutely. I like a good challenge - however, I don’t personally find the balance of existing systems to be very compelling. That’s why I wanted to include a few of my favorite mods in this post.

You can find the full list of mods that I use here, but below are just a few notable highlights:

MC Command Center. Probably no introduction needed, but you can check out the mod’s documentation and see what kinds of core adjustments you can make using MCCC. Things that I have adjusted include, for example, age phase duration for young adults and relationship culling settings. You can also adjust modifiers that impact relationships, skills, and fame gain.

Random Traits & Aspirations by graycurse. This has been my must-have mod for a long time. I like the idea of not being able to assign traits myself as Sims age up. This also forces me to play with traits that I typically would not typically gravitate towards.

Career Overhaul by kuttoe. In short, this mod significantly enhances the career progression difficulty.

Lower Payments by satira. This is a nice companion mod for kuttoe’s Career Overhaul.

Home Regions by kuttoe. This mod adjust the way townies and household Sims spawn across the different neighborhoods. For instance, it prevents Sims who are not residents of the active neighborhood from spawning there.

Compatibility Matters by bienchen tweaks the relationship changes based on Sim compatibility.

Whim Overhaul by bienchen (in my opinion) vastly improves the whim system.

Trait Overhaul by bienchen tweaks all EAxis traits and makes them impact the gameplay more.

In summary

The key word of this post is variety. Each time I get back to The Sims 4 when playing rotationally, I notice that I’m always looking forward to it.

I think that a lot of really nice The Sims 4 systems and features are not that easy to explore when playing with the same household. This rotational approach to playing the game has definitely helped me discover things that were simply not on my radar, because of how attached I was to specific game mechanics.

Anyway, hope this was helpful! If you have any tips, feel free to share them under this post.

Follow and support me here: Tumblr / Patreon / Instagram / Bluesky / PayPal / Creator code

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KRISTEN HAIR

Simple braided ponytail for your cutie simmies!

Female Teen to elder

24 EA colours

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

Hat Compatible

DOWNLOAD ON PATREON [FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures

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JORDYN HAIR

Who doesn't love some nice braids!!

Female Teen to elder

24 EA colours

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

Hat Compatible

TWO VERSIONS - SOLID/OMBRE

DOWNLOAD ON PATREON [FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures

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SKYE HAIR

Sleek & simple bun ready for any occasion!

Female Teen to elder

24 EA colours

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

NOT Hat Compatible

DOWNLOAD ON PATREON [FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures

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ANNA HAIR

Nice half up half down hairstyle. Definitely vibing this one!

Female Teen to elder

24 EA colours

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

Hat Compatible

DOWNLOAD ON PATREON [FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures

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MALE FACIAL HAIR SET 03

I wanted to do some more facial hair because I just love it on my male sims!

Male Teen to elder

24 EA colours

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

Hat Compatible (Of course)

DOWNLOAD[PATREON/FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures

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HARPER HAIR

Obsessed with this hair from Lovestruck. I will be meshing the crap out of this...

Female Teen to elder

24 EA colours

BASE GAME COMPATIBLE

Custom Thumbnail

Hat Compatible

DOWNLOAD ON PATREON [FREE]

TWITTER/X *THIS IS WHERE I POST WIPS*

Credits:

EA for the meshes and textures