For those of you with a ‘play to win’ approach to playing the Sims or for those of you looking to get a little jump start on your families and like to see your families doing well, I present to you a quick Strategy & Tactics article based on my experiences in Creator’s Camp. This is by no means a comprehensive guide. In fact, you’ll notice most of these are “Learn from my fail” style tips. While I am a veteran of the Sims franchise back to the original, I still had a lot to learn when I picked up the Sims 4.

The Miracle of life ain’t easy.

Do not do what I did to poor Lady Cheshire and put the house’s only bathroom a whole floor and three rooms away from where a mother-to-be sleeps. The impact on her needs while pregnant is probably the MOST severe in The Sims 4 of all the Sims games. While she wasn’t 100% miserable the entire pregnancy, her needs got hit hard and often with sharp declines, especially her bladder and especially while she’s asleep. Do your mother-to-be a favor and keep a bathroom close to where she sleeps. Keeping the fridge stocked with leftovers will allow her to grab quick yet-hunger filling meals that will let her fill that hungry tummy fast.

(Note: While there were sharp needs drops, hunger never dropped so sharply that she was in danger of starving to death. She certainly ate a lot more, and bladder-failure and energy-failure became far more likely, pregnancy-induced starvation is not a huge risk.)

Fix the toilet ASAP, not when you have to pee!

When toilets break in TS4, they become unusable for their primary function. This is a change from past incarnations when a clogged toilet still allowed Sims to use them. With no repair man service sim, you have two choices when a toilet breaks: repair it yourself or replace it. (There is a very handy ‘replace this object for $X interaction on a broken item so you don’t have to futz around with buy mode). When a toilet breaks, fix it as soon as you can. Not only does fixing it allow it to be used again, it generates junk piles. Junk piles can be salvaged for spare parts, and spare parts can be used to upgrade items. Do NOT make the mistake I made and forget about the broken toilet, have my pregnant Lady Cheshire race to the bathroom and fail to repair it in time before she had a bladder failure.

Fish for interests (in fishing or otherwise)

When looking for friends, or a potential lover(s) and everybody in the neighborhood is a stranger to you, using your Sim’s trait/job and skill specific interactions to lead off interactions is a smart move. If the person you are talking to has an interest in the topic, you’ll know it and get a healthy boost to the relationship gain from the interaction. If the other person’s interest is due to a trait, you’ll learn that trait. (Note that interests can stem from both traits and skills. An art-lover with a 0 skill in painting and a skilled painter without the art-lover trait would both enjoy talking about art). If the other person doesn’t care about the topic you’ll either get a polite acceptance (minimal relationship gain) or they’ll react with boredom for a minor relationship drop. Even if they reject the interaction, the rejection is gentle and does not cause an embarrassed moodlet. (Failing at other social interactions like flirts and jokes can cause the embarrassed moodlet). That’s not to say that you can’t become friends/lovers with someone who doesn’t share any traits, but it certainly helps!

Say ‘no’ to cheap appliances

Negative moodlets from cheap objects are back and now that moodlets work with emotions, their negative effects are felt a bit more strongly. They manifest themselves in the form of a +1 uncomfortable moodlet that lasts for several hours. If your Sim has any other low needs, this can easily make uncomfortable overpower whatever other positive mood you were trying to develop on your Sim. This is most often felt during work, as going to work in an uncomfortable mood doesn’t do your job performance any favors, and even if you have a few points of happy, energized, inspired, or any of the many other positive moods, if uncomfortable has the highest total score, it will be the dominant mood. These little cheap-item moodlets add up quickly. Do yourself a favor and never buy the cheapest in class. 2nd cheapest seems to work just fine.

Swiss Army Shower

The shower is one of your most powerful tools early in the game before you have career rewards and more expensive items that can help your Sims get and stay in better moods. Depending on which type of shower you take, you can give yourself a point of energized, flirty, or inspired. If your sim has no other really strong emotion, they will emerge from the shower with a four hour long +1 moodlet buff for the mood of your choice. This can be very powerful, especially if your Sim entered the shower with several ‘happy’ points, since happiness acts as a kicker when a different positive moodlet is introduced, making that positive mood stronger. There are a few moods you can’t engineer with the shower, such as confident and focused, but the shower is still a much more powerful tool than just a hygene need refiller.

Master of Multi-Tasking: The Gym Combo

How would you like to fulfill two needs, build two skills, and possibly gain relationship points all at the same time? In previous incarnations of the Sims, the best you could do is socialize in a hot tub, but even that didn’t build skills. Meet the new “hot tub” of TS4: the gym. To pull off the gym combo, you need to have two or more treadmills (might also work with weight machines, didn’t test those) in front of a TV. Have your Sim use the treadmill, then instruct them to watch the cooking channel on TV. If somebody else joins them on nearby, they can interact with them. You can even tell them to do specific interactions without breaking your treadmill running and TV watching action. Thus you build two skills (athletic from the treadmill, cooking from the TV) increase two wants (fun from the tv, social from talking to someone) and gain relationship points at the same rate you would just standing and chatting with someone on the street normally. The ONLY down side is that the combo has a time limit. Once your sim hits 0 hygiene, they end their workout. You can still have them watch TV and chat, but their smelly status won’t do your social interactions any favors. Of course… one steamy shower later and your sim will be clean and flirty and ready to ask their cute gym partner out on a date.