Basic Game Play

It may not be entirely obvious to you when you first begin playing the game, but the basic path to success is found in moderation and covering as many elements of the game as you can with the Sims you have.

That being the case your first goal as you start you new game is to get through the tutorials as quickly as you can (while learning what they have to teach of course) as once you do that for the first few weeks of game play you are going to want to play a lot more than casually.

The idea is to level your town up as soon and as often as you can - the reason for that is largely due to the fact that your town level controls how many Sims you can have, and ideally you want as many as you can get!

Building industry is your first major focus following leveling, so that you create careers for your Sims to work in. With each new industry that you create, you should try to get a few Sims actively involved in working up the ranks for those careers.

Building Population

Part of the tutorial process will be creating new Sims by having kids - which means building romantic relations, then having a couple move in and marry, then having kids. Later in the game that will be the focus you will want to use for adding Sims but early in play you are much better off adding adults by saving up the money to buy and build new houses, and add adult sims instead.

Bear in mind that the best formula for this is to build a house, place an adult sim and then have them immediately begin building a romantic relationship with any available single sim so that they end up moving in together, which then allows you to place another sim in that now empty house instead of having to build a new one for every sim!

In that way you will rapidly be able to get your town to its capacity, and each new sim you add speeds up the process of leveling you town, which then increases the population cap, and you can repeat that process over again.

The Importance of Hobbies

Each of your adult sims can have a career but they can also have a hobby, and having a hobby can be an incredible game-changer for your city. It gives your sims an activity to do when they are not working (or practicing their job to master it) that can earn lots of XP, Simoleons, and even LP once you have fully mastered the hobby and begin repeating its collection.

The Task Bars

Early on in your game the importance of the Task Bar will become very obvious - as it provides you with constant goals towards which to work, which often result in positive rewards.

At first the Task Bars will be split between the tutorials - the Sim development tutorial, and the town upgrade tutorial - then later it will be divided between the core missions, social networking, and special events.

The Leveling Process

As was previously noted, leveling your town is of critical importance due to all of the various game objects that hang on levels.

These include max population of Sims, Workplace unlocking (new Industry), Stores (like the Children's Store, the Pet Store, and Promotions R Us), and of course special community structures like the Snow Park and Community Center, which are crucial to hobbies.

Bear in mind that levels are not the sole matter in unlocking these new structures and in expanding your town - for example the Snow Park requires both reaching Level 16 and the quest "An Alien Concept: Weather Machines."

More to the point though is the fact that you will not even see most of those build sites until you get close enough in level for the game to want to show them to you - to encourage you to continue to progress, so that you can unlock them and thus expand your game.

Game Expansion

The first major expansion to the game is the Mystery Island Expansion, which in addition to adding a new class and two new types of home sites, also adds new hobbies, new pursuits, and new special areas, which means that you are going to want to get that added to your game as soon as you can.

To do that you will need to get your town to Level 10 as fast as possible, then complete "The Mysterious Island" quest and build the bridge to the island. Once you do that you then begin a very long and drawn out primary quest to rebuild the four monuments which has its own hidden reward in the Volcano on the island!

The Importance of Social Networking

You will find that the social networking side of the game - in which you first need to add your Facebook account (or GameCenter) and then start adding friends so that you actually have neighbors you can visit - ends up offering yet another means for gaining money, XP and premium currency.

In fact the only way for you to earn Social Points (or SP) is to complete quests via the Social Task Bar, though it should also be understood that doing it that way is a lot slower than buying them.

A major element of the social media side of the game is the Party Boat, which is docked in your town and is the gateway to visiting your neighbors - in addition to being how the game rewards you with a mix of money and LP for the number of neighbors you have (up to give rewards).

Staying Inspired

Inspiration is the gateway to success in the sim world - and keeping your Sims Inspired (sparkling) is accomplished by having their stats all at max state.

Each Sim has six stats that can be raised to cap whenever they are depleted. These are:

Hunger: Use Fridge to Eat.

Toilet: Use the Toilet to void.

Sleep: Use bed to sleep or furniture to daydream.

Hygiene: Use bath, shower, or sink to stay clean.

Conversation: Talk to other sims or use the phone.

Morale: Do fun things like gardening or watching TV.

By keeping those max as often as possible your Sims will gain the maximum benefits from each task that they undertake, so it is worth doing.

Bear in mind though that all of those tasks take time - that will not matter until you complete the quest later in the game that adds finite life spans to your Sims, but once you do that you are going to want to be sure to use the shortest and most efficient methods for maintaining their stats so you do not waste too much time in their life stage in the doing of it!

Building Your Bank

The final important basic play strategy is to remember to build your bank because this is an expensive game in terms of Simoleons and there is no such thing as extra money!

The best way to do this is to keep your Sims busy at tasks and ALWAYS remembering to log in at least once per day to reset them to new tasks and to collect the daily bonus which, as you can probably guess, increases as the value of your town increases.

Note that the value of your town adds up to everything you add to it - that includes buildings, homes, and the objects that you place in them as well as community structures - basically ANYTHING that costs Simoleons contributes to the value of your town!

Think about that for a moment - it means that no matter what you spend your Simoleons on you end up getting a percentage of it returned to you over time. That works out to be an immense bonus for several reasons - not the least being that, while you are focused on quests and events you are not usually spending money, which means you are saving it.

In that fashion everything your Sims earn from tasks plus the daily bonus goes into your account - which is how you end up saving the often massive amounts you will need later in play to add the next Industry or Community Structure.

If you follow these basic strategies you will find that you can play the game for free (or spend very little) and yet obtain the maximum entertainment value that it has to offer!

After you absorb these basic strategies, you should check out the advanced strategies and tips in that section.