The Sims 4: How to play well - character traits, wants, house, career Sims 4 Guide, tips

Last update: 29 March 2022

Although The Sims offer complete freedom when it comes to the gameplay, it is worth following a few basic rules. This page will teach you how to play The Sims 4 well. Our tips will help you fulfill your Sim's wishes and avoid bankruptcy. You will also learn here how to plan a house and why it is better to have a family.

• Choose your Sim's character traits wisely
• Wants, satisfaction, aspirations, and rewards
• Plan your house
• Have a family
• Choose a profitable career
• Make some extra money!

Choose your Sim's character traits wisely

When you will begin a game and you will create a new Sim or you will raise a child in your Sim-family you should be very thoughtful about its traits since you can never change possessed traits. Think what do you want to do with a specific Sim during its Sim-life and choose a suitable trait. If you want to have a big family choose a Family trait, if you want to paint, write books or something like that you should choose a Creative trait, if you want to focus on your income you should choose a Fortune trait and so on.

Wants, satisfaction, aspirations, and rewards

You should watch your Sim's Wishes and if you want you should satisfy them to receive Lifetime Happiness points. Remember that these Wishes are related to the treats, mood, learned skills and overall the situation in which your Sim is in.

Choose your Aspiration which will suit your character and career and complete side quests related to it. Fulfilling your Aspiration will provide you even more Happiness.

You can exchange your Happiness points in a "reward shop" for potions or new, very valuable Sim's traits.

Plan your house

Big residences are beautiful however your Sims will waste a lot of time walking between rooms in such a building. When you are planning your house you should especially focus on their functionality instead of their visual design. You should plan your house so your kitchen, bathroom and bedroom would be very close to each other. Don't be afraid of creating some extra passages between them or, for example, setting up few entrances to the bathroom one from each side. It will safe your Sims' time since they will not wander around to get inside.

Don't place any crucial room on the second floor. Walking through the stairs takes a lot of time. Try to keep every bedroom (including the children rooms) on the first floor. You can use the second floor for example as an attic where you can hide some stuff even without the possibility to get inside (lack of stairs). Just remember that walking through the stairs takes an incredible amount of time.

Have a family

Playing a lonely Sim in The Sims 4 is much less interesting than playing a whole family. If you have a partner and children (and you will control all these Sims) you will receive additional advantages. Even if you have to control more Sims at the same time your life will be much easier. Your Sim will always be able to fulfill his social needs. Having a family helps you meet some promotion requirements during your careers since they sometimes are focused on social contact (for example you may have to give a tip to someone, have a friend and so on). Additionally this way allows you to play forever since your legacy can be passed from one generation to another and the family's wealth keeps growing through this time.

Choose a profitable career

The Sims is the life, and to live you have to earn money. You should choose your career wisely. If you want to focus on the highest income you can check the weekly salaries of the available careers and their branches underneath. We bolded the most profitable values.

Career	Income/week - the A branch	Income/week - the B branch
Astronaut	11 816	14 868
Tech Guru	7 872	7 740
Criminal	12460	8 848
Writer	5580	6888
Painter	4920	6560
Secret Agent	12780	12875
Entertainer	9520	8532
Culinary	9840	5910

In the other chapter you can find the precise description of every career including the way which you have to finish to earn the value which you can expect. Remember that sometimes the better income is related to the bigger effort which you have to put if you want to be promoted. You should also notice that the creative careers (Tech Guru, Writer, Painting) have a low basic income although you can use the learned abilities (Programming, Writing, Painting) to receive some extra money.

To be promoted faster you should complete your daily tasks such as writing new sketches or making meals. You should also go to work with an Emotion which your employer requires.

Make some extra money!

Don't limit yourself to your main career. Thanks to the Writing skill you can write new books and receive daily royalties even as high as 2000 Simoleons. The Painting skill allows you to create and new arts and sell them for even few hundreds Simoleons each. The Programming skill allows you to write new video games, apps or plugins and earn daily royalties for all of them. Theoretically if you would spend your entire time creating new things you could earn even more than thanks to the best careers.