I also have some high-maintenance oversized crops that need tending to, with allotments packed with aubergines, pumpkins and more.

Even dressing my chickens in top hats and waistcoats doesn’t really make the slog any easier.

This all sounds fairly basic, and most it is, but by the time I’ve done the rounds of cleaning, collecting produce, feeding and socializing with the animals – chickens are very needy creatures – the day is done. Cows, not surprisingly, need milking, and they may also refuse to play ball if you haven’t wooed them enough. As for the llamas, you need to shear their wool, though they have a tendency to be uncooperative if you haven’t built enough of a relationship with them. In the case of the chickens, you simply collect the eggs from the coop each morning, with some eggs serving as produce and others hatchable if you pop them in the incubator within the coop – although you can’t have infinite numbers of chickens. Each morning my Sim wakes up, and partakes in their daily routine of eating and washing before cleaning the coop and sheds, feeding the animals, and collecting their produce. Looking after animals is time-consuming but – at least initially – cathartic. And there’s me thinking rural living is supposed to be stress-free.' 'I dressed one fox as a burglar so that I could see when he was coming: my new mortal enemy. I buy some chickens for my coop – a couple of roosters, hens of varying colors, and a chick for good measure – and populate my animal sheds with one cow and one llama (you can only have one animal per shed, and you can only pick llamas or cows, though colors vary).

Once the cottage is built, the hard work begins. It wasn’t long before I found myself cleaning out my chicken coop yet again, as my grizzled poultry clucked around my feet, questioning whether or not I should simply let my elderly rooster, Kentucky, peck me to death to cure the boredom.

However, while the latest The Sims 4 expansion certainly introduces some much-wanted features, the novelty soon wore off. Finally I could farm oversized crops, befriend the local wildlife, care for my own livestock and generally live off the land, enjoying the quiet countryside existence that (pretty much) every city slicker dreams of. As a long-time Sims fan it’s been disheartening to see.īut, like every other The Sims fan, I was still excited by the prospect of The Sims 4: Cottage Living. These packs become novelties that quickly wear off, with little longevity. Where one expansion would cram in a bunch of new content, NPCs and features, it now feels as though that one expansion has been chopped up divided up among packs, kits and expansions. We’ve seen three The Sims base games released since those early days, and countless expansions across them all – with each expansion a somewhat more diluted experience than the last. Fast-forward to 2021 and things are a bit different.

Sim day and night cheats