I love that you can talk a tree/plant into mouthwatering AFTER the fruit has set!  Just one more reason why Sim World is better than Real World. 

I don't like putting too many birch trees on the lot because I HATE having to manuver around trees to see into the house.  That's why I liked the Japanese Maple trees - they give as many leaves, but aren't as tall.

None of the previously downloded trees work - of course.

Servos are great for raking leaves - AND mine actually composted the garbage - directly from the compactor (even though the trash can out front was upright!). 

I'll have to try that.

Last night I found out that the little lollipop trees make as many leaves, so I'll try them.  They don't look as nice, but there you go.  Once I had pine trees shed leaves - but I don't know if they were game original or not.  Very weird.

Why would you have "leftovers" at all? Don't prepare meals that are too large to be eaten. Macrotastics computes the optimal meal for eating anyway.
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I have my Sims make a full meal, even if they're the only ones eating.  Then I put all the left-overs in the fridge - including half-eaten food (with garden-enhanced food, they're almost always "full" before they finish).  I'll even select "grab plate" and cancel it out when they reach the table before they sit down and have them put away the individual plates (so they don't have to take out the whole platter and let it sit and maybe go bad).

The reason?  This is great for pregnant women and kids (especially).  For mom-to-be, it's always a race to get her fed before she falls asleep in her food (it seems), and left-overs are the quickest thing next to snacks.  And kids can't cook - but they can get a full meal without parental support from left-overs.  Some of the high-end meals - with garden goodness added - are SO enhanced that sims can get THREE half-full-need meals out of a single plate!

The first good harvest will fill up the fridge for almost a life-time.  After that, I have the kids (as they come along) tend until they're gold, and give them part of the harvest so that they have something to start out on.  I haven't had to buy food/refill fridge since I started playing Seasons.  Add a $20 fishing hole on any lot, and you're set for life!

Thanks - sorry about that.

Damn.     I like the maple trees - I'm obsessed with raking leaves for compost, and the little maple trees make as many as the big ones, but because they're small they don't get in the way of the house views.  Of course, the trees in the house DO...so... 

I did a search and didn't see this anywhere - if I'm repeating, I'm sorry.

I have everything through Seasons - and once I added that I noticed a problem with phantom trees showing up INSIDE houses!  They reflect whatever season that lot is in, but they're not selectable (from the lot or from neighborhood view), and they're not completely in focus - sort of like neighborhood terrain or neighbor lot views.  They also show up in the street - even though I carefully clear all lot areas before adding lots.  I suppose I wouldn't see them if I turned off being able to see outside of playing lot - but I'd prefer not to.  Any ideas?

OK, so I've been playing Seasons quite a bit.  I have my sims rake and compost because compost is better for the plants.  I have them tend and talk to the plants, because - again - that's better.  I use lady bugs instead of spraying.  All of this to get mouthwatering veggies and fruit for best effect.

And it takes SO MUCH TIME that I have to maxmotives to do it all - so they never actually eat any of the stuff I've stocked up!  There has to be a happy medium in there somewhere.

You know, a cool hack would be one that lets you "serve" juice with the same or near the same as making one.  I say this because, seriously, it takes a whole tree's harvest to serve one round of lemonade or orange juice or apple juice!

I use the lightening conductor, and though no humans have been struck by lightening, lots of trees have.  The stupid Prima Guide said that there was only a 10% chance of rain in the fall, but the first Fall I played not only did it rain at least once a day, but there were severe lightening storms that set trees on fire every time it rained.  Majorly annoying.

Because there was so much to do - with the raking and the composting and the planting and the weeding and the watering - I used two cheats a lot; in debugging I used "make sim my contact" (if you do it 5 or 6 times in a row, you can make even a passer-by your best friend without so much as greeting them) and "maxmotives".  Of course, what good is stocking up on produce and fish if no one ever eats?  Anyway...

On one of the daily fireman visits, I made the fireman everyone's best friend.  So once the rain put out the fire, he asked if he should hang out - and I said "yes".  So, since I was Maxmotive-ing, he stuck around for DAYS, with the firetruck sitting out front, lights going, while he played chess with a truant Orlando and racked up over $1000 in tips at the piano.  Finally I just had someone send him back to the fire station.

Ok, *I* found that funny.  Of course, I was home sick all week and heavily medicated...still...

I had one little girl freeze after making one snowman, and a little boy get very very hot jumping on a bed, but I quit without saving both times before the Social Worker could come.  Now I keep a very close eye on everyone's heat.  Though it's annoying to see a Sim go into red while fishing 2 days into Fall.

I've been farming/growing non-stop, but have only even gotten the possibility of spraying twice.  Over use of lady bugs, I guess.  (Higher quality food if you don't spray!)

OK, I play really REALLY boring - I try to keep everyone happy, I've never had a vampire, a zombie a warewolf or a plant person - or even an alien.  No one bursting into flames.  I almost never have romance or party sims.  Almost no affairs or fights.  None of my children flunk out or get taken away from their parents.  

I just realized that I must be the most boring person to ever play any of the Sims games!    Is there an award for that - or at least an intervention?

That's it - when I get home from work, grandpa's going on the treadmill!  And grandma's having a fling with the gardener!

Sorry - dummy here.  What does that mean?      

OK, here's a fun bug (and I have very few hacks) that showed up today.  New family, new home - they used the phone to hire a gardener - and about 5 or 6 of them showed up!  And they didn't actually do any gardening, they just started watching TV, playing the piano, reading and playing chess.

Also
Apple Juice: 4 apples = faster homework
(which is why I want the "serve" option, since kids can't use the machine!)

That's human logic you're using.     The Prima guide has a list of things that warm up or cool down Sims.  A big way to warm up sims is to have them bath - which is great when it's winter and your sim is about to pass out from the cold.  But when one of my sims got really hot, I sent him into what I assumed would be a cool bath - only to see him get hotter!  Though the guide does seem to say that the heat should max out well below SHC...still...

But one my first house, I had WAY too many storm created fires.  The Guide says that there was only a 10 percent chance of rain in the fall, but I got several storms every day, and they ALL had lightening that started fires (even though I had a weathervane).

I played this game almost non-stop over the weekend (I know, that's really really sad, I have no life - why do you think I have to live through my sims?).

One thing I noticed is that the Prima guide seems to say that you can "serve juice" (it mentions a batch of juice that serves 6 only needs 6 pieces of fruit, where serving one - say orange juice - takes 4 pieces) - but I don't get that option.  The juice maker only makes one glass, and I can't even get the person making it to put it down (even by canceling as soon as they finish making it) so that a child can drink it.  It would be nice to let kids drink the apple juice to do their homework faster, or orange juice if they get sick.

I also noticed that trees go dormant in the winter even if they're in a greenhouse.

Finally, I'm a little bit slow, but I finally figured out that the smartest way to build a greenhouse cheaper (if you don't use money cheats - which I rarely do) is to use regular walls for just under half the wall space of the greenhouse.  They're a LOT cheaper, plus you can put lights on them for gardening in the dark.  For instance, I'll use them on the corners, and a few squares here and there in the middle of the walls.  They don't look too bad. 

Sorry I jumped in with this, even though I'd just played one family.  I moved the family, leaving behind all their stuff, and now they work fine.  It was really weird - the clock only moved forward one Sim minute every eight seconds.  But the garden acted like time was actually moving forward - it needed watering every couple of hours.

I haven't had any other problems - except I had to quit without saving last night because one of the kids got too cold building a snowman and passed out in the snow before I could get her inside - and I was afraid the social worker would come and take the kids away.  The Prima guide makes it sound like it takes quite awhile for them to get that cold - but it seemed to happen pretty fast.  For adults, it they're getting cold and you don't want to go through bringing them inside, just have them make out a little bit - that raises their temperature.

Plants (except for trees) will still grow and produce even in winter.  And trees will go through their production cycle up until winter.  Also, if you use enough of the ladybug houses, you never have to spray (you don't need them in the greenhouse, of course).  Finally, I also noticed that a greenhouse attached to the house has to have more than half it's walls be greenhouse walls.  I had two walls that were greenhouse walls, and only weeds grew.  Then I replaced a wall between the house and the greenhouse with a greehouse wall, and they started growing - go figure.  Actually, even though I haven't tried this, the Prima guide seems to say that it doesn't matter where a greenhouse is, if it has greenhouse walls.  It just has to be on the ground.  I want to try to have one in a basement...hmm....


According to the Prima guide, flamingos are considered one of the "messes".  I guess the folks at the Garden Club are snobs - go figure.  

Not unless I accidently downloaded it in a lot.  But even if that's the case, why wouldn't this time issue start before I loaded Seasons?  I haven't downloaded anything, placed or entered any new downloaded lots since adding the EP.  I went into two lots that were part of the new neighborhood that comes with Seasons, and into the lot I had been playing before.  And THAT house was one I had created from scratch.

Well, during that day Dad fertalized, planted and water a new (twelve square) garden in the greenhouse, got a bronze shield, and joined the garden club ALL while Mom (with 10 Charisma) was training a Genius cat to "Come Here" (in only about 2 or 3 Sim Hours)  That includes the Garden Club inspection and report.  The triplet toddlers were upstairs playing with their skillbuilding toys.  Like I said, Sim time was moving VERY slowly.


I thought I saw it under "Call" and "Service".

I bought Seasons yesterday (but they didn't have the guide - so that should be coming by Fedx today from Amazon), installed it and played it with an existing family for about 3 hours.  Now some of that time was buying/building a garden, etc.  But still - I only made it through ONE SIM DAY!

Sim time moves slower in this game.  Like half as fast.  The Sims still move the same speed - but less time ellapses.  I guess it makes sense, since I was wondering how they'd have time to add outdoor family activities to their schedule.  And it's cool that you no longer need a whole hour to get one out of bed, dressed and out the door.  But acquiring skills or teaching animal commands take forever.

Am I just nuts?  Tell me someone else has noticed this.  Or is this a feature of the game that everyone else but me knew about?