Getting Started

Getting started in the Sims 4 Civilization challenge can seem intimidating, but following these steps will ensure you won't miss anything.

Prune Your Mods
Check your mods folder and remove any mods that will give you an advantage over other players who don't use those mods, such as faster skill gain or less fun drain from certain activities. Mods which make your game more difficult(higher bills, etc) are allowed, but this challenge has been designed without them in mind, so you may find the game's difficulty to be higher than you anticipated. See this page for more details on mods.

Download Appropriate CC
If you desire, you may download CC to better fit the thematic tone of this challenge. Keep in mind that these items should not give you a significant advantage over those who don't use them, so for example a cheap bed that has stats on par with a $8000 bed would be disallowed, even if it looks perfect for the Medieval era. See this page for some suggestions to begin your search.

Clean a New Save
Make a new save with a dummy NPC, stashing them anywhere you see fit for the time being. Then, evict all NPCs and demolish all lots except for Willow Creek and Oasis Springs park lots, which should be cleared all except their fish ponds. Yes, I know. I highly recommend you back up this clean save somewhere, because you're not going to want to do this step more than once.

Create Your NPCs
You can either purge the population and create all-new NPCs, or edit existing households to fit the Ancient era theme. You should also assign NPCs to different civilizations at this point. Each civilization should have a roughly equal number of NPCs, at least 4-5 for each.

Choose Your Civilization
Decide if you want to play as Oasis Springs or Willow Creek. Both civilizations are roughly equal, but have certain differences in features that may give you a preference based on your play style, or perhaps simply aesthetics.

Build Your Meeting Place
The Meeting Place for your civilization should be on the large park lot. Think of this as your palace, from the civilizations game. The Meeting Place will be very important in your sims lives while your civilization is young, so take your time with this. See the Meeting Place page for more details on what can and can't be included.

Create a Couple in CAS
Create a married young adult couple, one male and one female, in CAS. You may choose their aspirations and traits.

Decide on a Home Lot
You must decide which lot will be your Home Lot for the duration of the challenge. This lot may never change, so choose carefully! I recommend at least a 40x30 lot, with access to fish and a variety of food.

Build Your Home Lot
Decorate your home lot as you see fit, keeping in mind the restrictions in place at the start of the challenge. You are limited to your starting funds, and remember that, at the start of the challenge, you may only buy or sell on Sundays!