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I turn off aging too. I have to mentally prepare myself before my sims get old. I get way too attached.

I turn off aging. I feel more pressure when it’s on. I like to play leisurely and let my stories evolve at a natural pace and aging off let’s me do that. I age up Sims when I think it’s time.

Quick note to everyone: unless your aging is OFF for all sims- make sure you don’t use the cas age-up! The length of the bar carries on, so if they were in the later stages of adulthood, they would now be in the later stages of elderhood and die faster.

I personally play in the long setting. I do want my sims to age eventually, but I want to explore more and make memories for them from infants to elders, slowly but surely. And I’m definitely gonna play long setting when growing together comes out to explore everything too

I turn aging off. I play in my own terms. My young adults for example study, let them travel, do part time jobs. I let them meet new people. My adults are building their family. Go through professional transitions. Break up, find a new s/o. And so on. I do not want to feel rushed.

I've been playing with aging off ever since I realized it was an option! I used to get so bored with the game, but once I realized I didn't have the rush through my sims lives I was able to enjoy playing out different storylines. I always struggled with keeping my sims friends the same ages though, so I'm happy you made this guide!

I recently started doing this. I play a story based game. When I went to another family to build up the story line and my main sim passed away I was legitimately sad.

I typycally play with aging off or on Long lifespan too, and I usually play with seasons set to the longest setting. I it that way so that my sims have more time to experience each of the seasons as well as the holidays I set up without it feeling like there's a ton to do back-to-back everyday. Also, I just always find myself getting anxious and feeling like I'm running out of time if I play on Normal or Short 😅

Why are we the same! I'm awful with aging. So I have decided to have age burns. During the Summer period, I turn aging on which allows unplayed Sims to age along with my played sims. Playing with aging turned off lets me play in a leisure style.

Idc if I’ve been simming for more than half of my life, I love videos like this. 😂 I wish the age settings were different, I feel like none of the options ever felt right, some stages felt like they needed to be longer, others shorter. I adjust all ages with mccc, bc I like for families I don’t interact with to keep aging and having kids so if my sim ever ends up with one one them, I can look at their family tree and be like, “wow this is Eliza and Bob’s great great granddaughter”, or whatever. 😅 I've just always loved that! I would LOVE a video(s) on different life stages and planning unique events for them. I’ve started a list of things I can plan with different life stages like field days for kids/teens, senior day for high school/Uni, grad party, field trips (idk how those work yet), quinceañeras without aging the sim up. Those are the moments I enjoy most with sims!

I’ve just started playing with aging off. It started as a thing that I did so that I could still play the game while I was waiting for the most recent update/pack, but I really enjoy the family that I’ve been playing( I’m attached for the first time to a family )and also really enjoy giving them unique birthdays and going by ‘ real time ‘ with a few tweaks bc…well…it’s the Sims and timelines aren’t really accurate. 😂 I like being able to act as though I’m living the years with my sims and it’s not just ‘ oh, after 40 days of this Sim being a child, he’s now a full teenager. ‘

Your playstyle is incredible and has changed my game so much! The calendar especially!

i play with aging off too. in previous games, i would only have aging on when a newborn arrives just for the first 3 days to age them up! but other than that, i manually age them! i dont like seeing my sims get old since i get wayyyyyy too attached. i'll have an older sim for family tree purposes but i'll age them back down.

I tend to have aging off myself, mainly because I tend to actually play sims games with my OCs and have a very specific and meticulous story that I want to go through with all of them. So many great tips here, never considered using calander events to create birthday parties. Also love the LittleMissSam mod reccomendation, going to definetly implement all this when I start playing again (after the infant update, of course).

I don't know what compelled me to turn off aging, but it was around two years ago. And honestly that's what made the Sims 4 more playable for me. Before that I was a die hard Sims 3 fan (I still am.) I used to play a lot more chaotically and would often get bored really quickly. I might have had a few favorite sims, but that was rare. Now I've been playing with the same save for like three years... I'm only on generation three, but that is besides the point! I'm able to flesh out these sims lives, develop skills, relationships, maybe change jobs or general paths in life. It also allows me to play with ages a bit more. For example, when my sims first age up into teens I play that as if they are preteens in a sense. They have an awkward stage. Their hair and make and clothes are kinda dorky and their rooms are still very reminiscent of when they were children. But when time moves on their room will age with them. Maybe toys will be replaced with makeup and their clothes are a bit more intentional. I'm attached and so are my friends! I'm able to experiment with a lot of areas in the game that I didn't before. I actually tried playing with a different household with aging on and I was so overwhelmed! I had so little time to do anything and it felt so wrong.

I play like this too and I use MCCC to set world time to be 25% so the days arent so short and feels way more realistic! I get to do all the mundane things with my sims like brush teeth, shave, freshen up, vaccum, clean, do laundry, cook, workout, and its all done before lunch time haha

I've started playing with aging off and also doing "patient play" since I've started watching your channel -- and it's improved the gameplay for me so much, thank you!!

I still use your calendar guide videos to make new holidays for all my save games! That school holiday mod you showed is so useful! But I've been out of the sims scene for a while now (you know how we all play this game in cycles...) and I didn't know they did something to the aging options! I usually play with aging off, unless I'm doing a rotation or a legacy -type play where it's more about the generations than individual sims. But i turn the aging on when I want to age up kids and then turn it back off when they have had their birthday. That way everyone still ages a bit and it feels like time is advancing anyway.

I just switched aging off for the first time. I thought I'd hate it, but I've fallen back in love with the game! You can tell richer stories and connect with your families so much better. I've been dreading aging up their friends in CAS, so you're basically my hero :) I may turn on aging once I'm ready to move forward just so the random townies they've met throughout their lives age up too. Either way, this was so informative! Thanks for sharing

I have a really hard time playing with aging off so I normally play on long life span in addition to editing the life stage times in MCCC or using UI cheats to add days back when I don’t feel like it’s time for my sim to age up especially with the Teen to Adult stages. With the infant update and the new pack coming this might change for me and this video was very helpful.

i like playing with many households, with aging off, i can make it without pressure, i can make career, change the partners, discover news hobbies

Thanks so much for this, Oshin! I've always wondered how you do this. I'd love to see how you set up your gameplay for new saves, maybe! Like, your thought process and how you plan it - I think that'd be really cool 🤩

Yes I play like this! Honestly I’m so glad I’ve found this channel, Oshin you are such a different experience from other Sims Let’s Play channels. Don’t get me wrong everyone’s great in their own way, but I’ve never known someone else who plays sims the same wavelength as I do. Like I get so attached too my sims too, and I try to be realistic. You and like one other channel (the girl with a plumbob tattoo- her zombie apocalypse lp is soo good😭) but you two remind me of my own gameplay and I bounce off of more ideas thanks to you to make my gameplay even better. Maybe sims is my sort of therapy but I love creating new storys and life’s it truly feels real. It’s an escape. So thank you! I’m nearly up too date on lovesick and then I can finally watch as episodes are released😂I just started a new job so whenever I’m home I’m binging it!!

I play with aging off as well. Too much time and investment is spent making my Sims and backgrounds that I couldn’t bear losing them. I only manually age up toddlers/children for storyline purposes, but beyond that, everything is like a cartoon sitcom/soap opera where everyone just stays the same age forever.

I have aging on like a very long custom setting with mccc. I like that they age but I don’t let them age fast, it gives me time to like process and build stories, I love my storytelling Fr

I find it so hard to make my sims adults and elders, yet alone pass away. I often just stop planning with a family instead of making them grow older 😂

Thank you so much for this guide! I have played the sims for years but only recently started getting into playing sims for their story lines rather than maxing skills and careers. You inspire me so much! :D

this is such a great video oshin

Also can you do a video on your favorite cozy homes? I often feel like a lot of homes on the gallery can be a bit much or two unrealistic. I like mid century modern but not ultra modern houses. I definitely prefer cozy homes and I know Oshin knows “cozy”. ❤️

I've only been playing sims 4 for a few months but I found that the way I like to have my sims "age up" would be to make alternation saves of a family during a specific period in their life. I would have one save profile based in the past and the other being in the present that way it feels like I'm playing though a flashback. I found that method to be a lot of fun since it feels almost as if anything that would happen in the past would shape the present. I don't have auto aging turned on though because it made the game feel too rushed for me.

Yes! A new OshinSims video! Thank you Oshin - I love you and your videos! ❤

I used to handle aging similarly to how you showed in this video. I do things a little different now and it's works really well for me. Mainly because I got really into customising the calender and different holidays and events. So when I feel its getting close to the time sims should age up, I'll turn aging back on for everybody, but set it to 'short'. That way I only have a few days until everyone ages up, but on different days so that I can plan parties and events for them. This also causes the world to gradually age up between around a 2 week period so I don't need to go manually do it for everyone. Then as soon as the last sim I care about has had their birthday, I'll turn aging off again. This has been working pretty well for me so I thought I'd share. Thanks for the video, I love watching videos where you go into how you organise your game.

Oh man, I been waiting for this video! Thank you for posting it. The way you play is wonderful and I love to learn your way of thinking with playing the game. Seriously, thank you for these helpful videos. Please keep posting videos about tips and advice on playing in the future, it helps me learn and play with more satisfaction :’)

I've always enjoyed playing on "long" because it gives me more time to focus on goals and skill building :) plus I always make each season 28 days so you get the most out of your harvest! With MC command center I would make pregnancies 7 days instead of 3 :) to make them feel a bit more real, and I liked how the newborns stayed newborns for about 1 week instead of 2 days. I'm just more leisurely like that and hate the rushed feeling of "normal" lifespan. I know with the update coming on the 14th they've adjusted lifespans again, so I haven't played on "long" for a while and am avoiding tweaking it until I see if this update is gonna break ages again lol. Let's hope not!!!

I don’t use aging either…ever since they didn’t add the Epic Lifespan (my favorite lifespan to use) in TS4, I would leave aging off and only age up for certain milestones…or when I figured that it was time to age up, though none of my sims have made it to elder before. I will usually get bored and play with a different family.

After getting Growing Together this week I turned off aging which I haven't done often because it seemed like there was so much more to do with the children and there wasn't time to do it all with regular aging. I didn't want the kids to grow until I accomplished all the goals I wanted to meet with each kid. I had so much more fun playing with children this way.

I turn off auto aging, and I might turn it back on because I play with multiple households. I just get attracted to them... It's hard to let them go but I have to start on the next generation..

I was literally wondering if you play with aging off the other day as I was catching up on Lovesick, thanks for sharing! I’ve been feeling like I want to manually age my sims up, too. Also, I’ve used Hello Fresh for a couple of years now and it’s been so nice - when you’re in constant high stress, knowing what’s for dinner and not having to go grocery shopping has been a huge plus. 👍

Im curious how you set up MC command center when aging is off to prevent pregnancy booms :) loved this video Oshin! I've just recently started to play this way and I find it so calming

I play with long life, but I do always find certain Sims I interact with will age up before my played Sim. I’ve always contemplated turning aging off. I may just do this now! Great video.

Thank YOU! this is the exact content im interested in right now. been playing regularly for 5 years and still learn more in depth details of the game. im currently changing the way i play the game, and i was wondering about playing with aging off and what happens when you toggle it back on.

I am planning on starting to use custom lifespans with MCCC. I already saw a perfect lifespan configuration that I figured it might work for me and my legacy. I even want to change the time the pregnancy lasts to be longer

i thought i was the only one who gets so attached to their sims! glad to know there's people out there also obsessively micromanage their sims

Not new but you taught me a lot , thank you so much! I too get attached, hate when one dies. I have been playing the same family line since the game came out.

you have such a soothing voice love the video

hello! first video of yours I've watched and a) those are great tips and b) you have such a beautiful, soothing voice

Seriously. You're the best. I always wonder how different players play, especially my KZfaq faves. I currently have aging off and I also use MCC to flag my Sims parents (elders) to not die cuz I can't deal 😭😂 I find it also helpful to keep aging off so the world doesn't get filled with crazy looking random townies every generation.

Love the lighting/environment mod!

Please do more gamestyle videos! I’m fairly new to playing Sims 4 in a storytelling manner (I’ve always just mindlessly played it) and I’ve been a bit overwhelmed with how to play. This video definitely gave me ideas and I’ll try turning aging off to see how it goes (:

Love this thank you for sharing

I'm playing with the same families since 2020 and to be honest I love it because I do love trying different game packs and stories with each family

See I'm different I love a challenge and that includes doing everything before the sims age up!! It's so fun especially quick life span!!

I’ve been playing on long lifespan lately, and I love it! Sometimes I put aging off for bit but I will never go back to normal life span, I felt rushed and wasn’t attached to my sims.

Same, I always play the game with auto age turned off. I age up individual sims when I feel the time is right. I also play with one save file and connect the different families' story lines. I can create very realistic and in-depth stories that way. I love it!!!

I have two saves, one with aging off and the other with aging on. The aging on save I've been playing since sims 4 launched and I've played through over 30 generations. My aging off save is my special save where I micromanage everything and take my time to curate everything including different storylines and drama and I manually age them up when I want.

When is there coming a perfect life challenge part 2 🦋🥺🥺🥺🥺 i loved that series!!!!

I play with against off too! I just don’t like to see my sims get older lol

I personally play with aging on a long setting and looking forward to growing together since i have two of my households on pause so i can have a baby shower. Hope your day is going good.

Same here. I turn my aging off and only age up when I feel they are ready. Usually I'd play with the long setting - but I have too many families and I feel like I'd only be able to spend a little bit of time with each family that the next time I see them they've aged up. I love taking my time with each family :)

I put in a lot of effort for each sim, hours in CAS sometimes with whole personalities and stories in mind and houses built specifically for them. I am not about to let them die.

I turn aging off in my Sims as I play with all mine as one, big world and then just switch from household to household. That way my created Sims can meet each other, work, play, whatever... With aging in I found that some parts of households would die and I would never know.

I usually play on long. But I feel the same as you. And it’s hard when you’re so attached. I will play a family for a long time and honestly I don’t think I’ve ever had a fave family age to elder lol ❤

I feel you girl. I have aging off too for my main gameplay.

I really love the idea with the birthdays in the calender. Maybe i will do this with my own gameplay. For me i use MCCC to expand the lifespan. I counted the days for one sim year, which is 4 times 28 days and then i take some reasonable years for my sims. For example: 3 years for baby, 3 years for toddler, 7 years for child, 7 years for teenager, 10-15 years young adult etc. Its about a few thousand days for one sim lifespan. XD

heyy oshin can you make us a video on one of your let's plays save fils the houses looks amazing here (i know you've done so many videos on lots but we just want more)

Again thank soooo much I knew there were a mod for birthday thank you thank you a lot you simplayers savior ❤❤❤❤. And the Bhandari omg one of the OG gameplay 😊 Yash noooo why 😭😭😭

I play with aging off! I tried long lifespan but I like being able to decide (especially when babies and toddlers!) when they’re ready to age up! I’m sure with the new update I’ll play the same.

i love u so much thankkssss :)))

Hi Oshin! I would love to know how do you plan your gameplay’s events, for example sometimes when i am playing with a female sim and i want her to date, I don’t know how long to wait since they get to know each other til they become a couple, break up or marry, etc. What I mean is that one day in The Sims is like one year in real life so sometimes I get stuck thinking if I’m being too slow or fast when making things to happen. I hope that made sense ❤️

this is literally me, whenever my sims die or age up without me knowing I bawl my eyes out 😭 i have more attachments to sims than actual people besides my parents, siblings and dogs

Instead of playing with aging off, I like to make my lifespans SUPER long with MCCC. That way I don't have to age up every single sim by myself, while also having plenty of time to explore and not rush!

I NEVER played with aging on. Even with the long lifespan setting, it's too short for me. I have SO much I want to do, and I love my Sims very dearly. I play with them for ages. So I only ever age them up manually, when I feel ready!

As soon as I get Seasons, I'm turning aging off. Part of the fun of birthdays in my family is that certain seasonal things happen around the same time--I was born in the spring, so when I was little my mom would take birthday pictures of me framed by blooming daffodils. But the Seasons calendar in the Sims doesn't line up with birthdays no matter what lifespan setting you use or how much fiddling you do with custom season lengths, since not every lifestage lasts the same amount of time. And even if you did manage to line it up, a Sim could get pregnant and push their next birthday ahead a few days. A baby born on Winterfest might have their next birthday in the summertime. A toddler celebrating New Year's might be a teen by the next midnight countdown. I don't think I'll try and make them last as many in-game years as someone would IRL because that would get boring and make legacy challenges take way too long, but I'm thinking at least one in-game year per lifestage, maybe more for Adults and Elders because those stages last longer IRL.

I did not realize you could do this, because when my son gave birth like the smallest point, which is like a newborn, basically, I only had that for like not even a day, and you can have your newborn for like two days or whatever until they fully age out or whatever And I regret not knowing how to turn them off because I really want like save my newborn. I wanna have at least two days or more with my newborn and like if it’s eight days I’m gonna age him up but like two days or more to age up and then for infants I don’t even want them for a while because they’re just like so cute and right now mines a toddler .

Do you have a video of what skins you use on your sims? I’m obsessed ❤

Thank you for this, sometimes I feel jealous of other simmers who have many generations finished, or are going for their 15th gen when I am now going for gen 3 in 2 years because I do rotational gameplay and I have too many families In my save, it's horrible when I realize that some child from my other family has grown up and I couldn't take pictures of they when they was a child o something like that. I love to create stories with all my sims I don't like to miss anything, that's why I play in long lifespan or aging off. But sometimes when I want everyone to grow at the same time I leave it in normal for a few days.

I always play with aging on normal life span and it's a good length for me and gives the game a bit of a challenge. I guess my style is goal/aspiration oriented. Recently doing a short legacy challenge because I never get pass generation 2 with my sims 😅. Currently on Gen 5 and I'm attached to this Gen for some reason but I gotta play it through 😩. I wanna reach Gen 10 before the update. The townies look a mess but I do find some diamonds in the rough.

You can also shift click a sim on the lot after testing cheats are on and can age them up that way!

I always play with aging off & do it on a long lifespan. This way, I like to age up my Sims when I want to. I get too attached to my Sims & I don't want to age them past Young Adult. I might only do that for my young Sims' parents (age them up to Adult) when the young Sims reach Young Adult & use CC to make them still look like Young Adults. I make sure that no one ages in my game. I make all the Sims be "immortal" in mine since it makes me happy & I don't see anyone die. I also will continue to keep Neighborhood Stories off so everything stays the way that I want it to be.

By using McCmd and using the "normal" lifespan setting, I can set the length of each lifestage. I like to use a realistic time frame so if I decide that 5 in-game days is equivalent to one real life year, I'll set the length for children to 40 days. I consider a child Sim to be between the ages of 5 to 12 which is 8 years. So 8 years X 5 days/year is 40. I use this same analysis for each age group except for newborns to which I arbitrarily assign 2 days. I'm currently using 7 days/year, so an infant's lifestage will last for 14 days since I think of an infant as being between 0-24 months which is 2 years. I would probably arbitrarily assign a different length to the infant lifespan if I were playing with just 2 or 3 days per year just to have a chance to see the infant fully develop. I also rotate between different families, so every in-game week, I switch to a different household. I set aging on for the current family only and when I reach the last household in the rotation, I also turn on aging for unplayed Sims for that one week.

I do the same with making their birthday a holiday, although I now have 5 generations with a beloved family so every other day is someone in the extended family’s birthday 😂

sometimes, when i wanna micromanage my sims ages and also make the whole town kinda grow, i use mods too. one is, a mod that lets you have more people in a club, and the let friends age up mod. that way, for example if i wanna age up a huge number of young adults that my sim is friends with, i can filter the young adults in the club requirement, add them to the club then age them all up. that way, all young adults that I CHOOSE will grow to an adult.. it feels like the world is moving and growing

Thinking of starting to play with aging off. I always play on long

i cant listen to most youtubers because of their loud/stressful/annoying voice and my hypersensitivity. just wanted to let you know that YOUR VOICE IS SO BEAUTIFUL, so calming and i could listen to you for hours! xx

I've mostly been playing with mccc mod so I just customize my own lifespans for each life stage. Because normal is too short but I think long is too long. The lifespans I set place them long enough that I can reach the goals that I want with them but short enough that I don't get tired of them. However because of the infant update I recently took mccc out because I don't want wreck my game. Once mccc is updated for the new update, then I'm adding it back in pronto. For now I'll just be playing on long.

I can only play with long lifespan myself. And if I have a sim die due to an accident I see it as a fun challenge to bring them back to life. Or if I want to keep a sim young I love working towards fulfilling whims/wishes to get a potion of youth. Also I don't mind playing with ghosts-but then never had one die by fire. (Heard those kind can set off fires, yikes.) I like a bit of drama. I currently have this very cheerful sim who told a joke to a bunny and then dropped dead when she became hysterical before I could get her to a mirror to calm down. I learned something valuable from from that. Beware, bunnies can be deadly in more than one way to cheerful sims. I had a good laugh over her dying from basically cuteness overload. Luckily, she was not living alone so now I have her boyfriend add her back to the houshold and he's now working hard on becoming a powerful spellcaster to bring her back to life so they can continue theirs together.

I’m going to start playing on long lifespan. I feel like playing on normal I’m always on go go go mode. I feel like I’m obligated to do certain things before they age up. It doesn’t give me time to get to know my sims, develop their personalities and interests, and see their relationships grow slowly.

my legacy sim is curently at Uni and has aging off, sometimes I turn it on for like two days and then back off :P his mothers are both adults and I feel like the adult lifespan is too short in comparison to YA so I keep their aging off. But I think it's possible to lengthen it with MCCC so I will eventually do that. I also try to age up my sim's friends along with him :)

This makes sense for seasons!

Right now I play a speed legacy in sims 3. It’s a bit wild, because my sims only live for about 64 days. 17 as a baby to teen, but it’s tells fun.

I don’t use mods, because I play on PS5, but I could go into households and age up my sims friends. Lately I’ve been playing an entire neighborhood and have had the game on normal. I find the sims age up way to fast though and I sometimes have a hard time keeping up 😂 Great video!

I turn aging off on personal gameplay and my machinima save. I prefer having the freedom to story tell with those saves. Most of my other saves are challenge based and I have a lifespan restriction if I choose to follow the rules as written. I get attached to my sims too easily. I actually cried when my original 100 baby challenge matriarch passed away.

I never turn on aging either because I just love my sims too much!! Like I gotta make sure I age them up when I WANT to age them up. Happy to find others that do the same

I am with you, I just get too attached! I like to imagine the entirety of my playtime with TS4 is only within a a few years where most of them never age much. I keep telling myself I will start a new save for a true legacy play through with aging and random deaths on, but… I just can’t lol

I also get so attached to my Sims, and I play rotationally. So what I do in a save is I designate one household as the primary. When I play that household I have aging on for current played household only and unplayed households. When I play in other households I turn off aging for unplayed households so only the current unplayed household is aging. This way, the world doesn’t age out around me, but also my other households stay “frozen” age wise until I go back to them.

I have long lifespan on but have been debating on turning aging off. Because I have maybe 2-3 sims I love and I can’t imagine them dying.

I remember playing Sims 2 ageing up the sims close friends without a mod and they didn't have to be in the same household. The mod really make Sims 4 come alive.

i actually JUST turned my save from short lifespan to normal bc i was so attached to my current sims and even w them i’m like shocked by how long lifespans how lmao. i get a little restless sometimes

ive been playing with the same legacy for years and like to jump between a bunch of households. I have aging on long most of the time to keep track of birthdays but if I know i’m playing with the same family for a while i’ll turn aging off so my other sims don’t age too much while I’m not playing them!