MarianT's Rotational Play Guide

[Carl]

MarianT has furnished a guide to Rotational Play - managing multiple households, which is something we definitely needed given how many folks will enjoy playing several Sim families at once in the same save file. She provides a lot of useful tips in this, like how to transfer funds along with a Sim if you don't want to cheat, managing the game settings, and changing up the town itself. Good stuff.

Her writing ability has really impressed me, because there's a great flow to the article and it explains things in detail. If you haven't played this way before, you might even consider it after reading. The developers definitely made this playstyle very manageable. Back with Sims 3, I always started with a brand new file and was doing the same with 4. This is making me question that as I've definitely got some attachment to a few of the Sims that I made for guides.

Many thanks to Marian for this, and do let her know what you think.

This is the first full guide someone has written for the new site. If any of you out there have a great idea for a piece like this and you're also a capable writer, PM me and we'll see if your article could be added to the guide! I'm not too picky.

[ClayMask]

Congratulations on being the first one to do this, MarianT!  I'll read your guide soon.

[Tixxis]

I've read your guide and I think it's absolutely fabulous!
It is very comprehensive. The lay-out is both logical and neat.
Personally, I most liked the part where you describe what happens in the households that are not played at a given time.
It gives a good idea of what is (or might be) happening there, even if you do not role play.
Thank you, Marian.

[Trip]

Congrats on your very own guide article!

[Playalot]

This is great MarianT, thanks heaps!

[MarianT]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. And, as I wrote to Carl, I'm really glad to have the opportunity to give something back to a place and a community that has given me so much.

[oshizu]

@MarianT , what a wonderfully detailed guide with so many insightful tips!

I do have one question, if you don't mind.
You explain the steps for moving families to a new save file. Considering the considerable loss of gameplay, this seems like a drastic last resort.
What scenario(s) would require us to move families to a new save file?

[MarianT]

@oshizu, so far TS4 has been much more stable than TS3 was. In TS3, while working on a 10-generation game, I had to move my family twice.

Basically, you might want to move to a new save file if you start experiencing problems that "repair game" won't fix, and that you can't put up with. To take an example, the refrigerator glitch, where you can't get food out of the refrigerator and your sims can't cook, can be fixed by repairing your game in Origin most of the time. It's not a serious problem if all your sims need to do is eat -- they can still get quick meals and cook on the grill. But if you need to make birthday cakes and you have a sim with the Master Chef aspiration, then it is a serious problem.

Crashing is another scenario where you might want to start a new file. If your game crashes after installing a new game pack, I'd say wait for the patch, but if it starts crashing for no discernible reason, then your file is probably too large.

At this point, I don't really know how large a file can get -- on my computer -- before it becomes unstable. Once I find out the upper limits, I'll let people know.

[oshizu]

Thank you for your response, MarianT.
My dynasty file actually began crashing frequently so I cleaned out all the inventories (household and personal).  I've started saving at the Manage World/Travel screen which hasn't crashed on me yet.  I'm just playing one household but I imagine playing mutiple households rotationally would eventually result in an even larger save game (some of the new legacy achievements are insane....)