Hey, I'm Leslie! 👋 I've been playing The Sims since its inception in 2000, and love that I'm still learning new things about the game from other simmers every day.
I'm not an "aesthetic" person (IRL or in the game), so don't come to me for inspirational content or beautiful gameplay - there are plenty of others' content out there to drool over! If I had to name the vibe of mine, it would be awkwardly chaotic 😂
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My biggest problem is that I want to do all the things, so I haven't figured out what my focus will be on this Simblr yet 😅 But at the moment...
Always WCIF friendly!
I like building and CAS creation and have recently started sharing those builds (for free) on my Patreon
I also like making funny little TikToks and YouTube videos
I've recently started learning how to create custom content and my personal goal is to begin releasing high-quality Maxis Match CC in 2025 🤞
My Original Posts | Reblogs | Maxis Match CC Finds | Sims Tutorials | Christmas CC | My Builds | My Gameplay
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.
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The pregnancy test was negative 😌 (which Madeline is apparently painting sadly about??), but it's all good because my girl's got her favorite grilled cheese 🥪🧀
FYI: This build only uses items from Base Game and the Businesses & Hobbies pack - I don't know why the EA Gallery says it includes other packs 😭
Welcome to the Old Torget House renovation! 🏡
Facing one of the oldest squares in Gammelvik, this dreamy little house was recently renovated and turned into a 1BR 2BA home with an attached cafe called "Clatte" for anyone wishing to immerse themselves in the culture of this historic neighborhood. You can enjoy your cozy home, run a coffee shop, and sell your homemade ceramics to the locals!
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LOT SPECS
20x15
Residential & Small Business
1 bed, 2 bath
$80,405
LOT TRAITS
Home Studio
Convivial
Peace & Quiet
EXPANSION PACKS/STUFF PACKS/KITS USED
Expansion Packs: Businesses & Hobbies
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ABOUT ME
About me💃🏼 Hi, my name is Leslie and I identify as a broken Sims patch update \(ツ)/ I mean well and do my best, but sometimes I'm glitchy. But hopefully, my builds never will be!
Base Game only? Nope! 🏡 I own almost every Sims 4 expansion pack, game pack, stuff pack, and kit - and I intend to use them! That's not to say I'll never have builds that are base game only, but if that's what you're in search of, I'm probably not the right creator for you.
Custom content🎨 I also own a decent amount of custom content from amazing creators who make Build/Buy and CAS items - and I intend to use those, too! I will always provide a list of the custom content used in each build in the description of each release. I don't make my own custom content at the moment (but never say never).
Playtesting ▶️ I'll never roll out a build that hasn't been playtested. I'm not about builds for the sake of aesthetics - I want them to work! And if for some weird reason I do release without playtesting, I'ma call that out in the release post.
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DOWNLOAD
Download this lot on the gallery (@lesliesaurus) or on my Patreon for free!
I've brought Girl Scout Cookie season into The Sims 4 with the Llama Scouts Mod! Your Scouts can buy and decorate their own sales tables, then head out into the neighborhood to sell cookie boxes for their troop. Whether it’s Sim-si-sos, Simfoils, Thin Whims, or Simoas, the community is sure to love them! Plus, your Scout can earn all three limited-time badges by selling cookies and supporting their troop.
Items List
FEATURES
Buy Llama Scout Cookies
Sell Cookie Boxes
Decorate Your Sales Table
Earn Custom Badges
Be the Consumer
For more information about the set, how it works, and what’s included please refer to the official download page: Patreon
Early Access: Feb 14. Feb 21. Feb 28.
Public March 7
Mod Showcase
Madeline arrived for her date, but they were nowhere to be found. She ordered a glass of wine while she waited, and scoped out some of the singles around the bar... no dice.
Once she resigned herself to being alone for the evening, she whipped out that damn embroidery hoop again and struck up a conversation with the bartender.
Maybe she felt bad for Madeline being stood up, maybe she was just bored (or maybe a little of both), but she showed her some bar tricks she'd be working on and sat down for a drink with her at the end of her shift.
It wasn't a date and she went home alone, but at least she made a new friend!
Madeline has a blind date tonight, and she's so excited!
After a little dancing in the kitchen to get out the nervous energy, she's going to chill with a gardening book for a while before she heads out to meet her mystery date... 📖
