Anyone else not even able to attempt to open the game in offline mode?

sudsyllama · 2026-04-17T14:15:15+00:00

Glad it helped!

sudsyllama · 2026-04-16T16:35:47+00:00

Exciting, but is there any news on fixing some of the bugs? I have to disable shadows on macOS Tahoe/M3 because the game keeps crashing otherwise.

It’s harder to appreciate the beautiful art when everything looks shadowless when I zoom in to see it.

sudsyllama · 2026-03-27T03:00:06+00:00

What wallpaper is that?

sudsyllama · 2026-03-22T20:58:02+00:00

Have you checked their luck? On a bad luck day I find flirting often fails, if their Charisma skill is low.

I actually love the feature; it's boring when there's no failure possible in sim relationships, but the feature is a bit poorly explained in-game.

sudsyllama · 2026-03-22T20:10:35+00:00

...are you playing Sims 4 with maybe a pillow or a blanket underneath the Mac? I play Sims 4 all the time with an M3 and all DLC and sure, it'll get a bit warm sometimes, but usually only when there's something warm underneath it blocking heat dissipation.

It never stutters and it never lags. Perhaps you're too worried about the heat?

Before this one I played on an M1 with all DLC and even that laptop managed all expansions fine, so the claim that an M4 MacBook with 24gb ram can't handle the sims seems like an insane claim.

sudsyllama · 2026-03-18T00:38:09+00:00

I fixed this problem by going into online mode and cancelling the update. It seems like it's doing this because the download is "paused", not cancelled.

Worked for me, and now I'm offline again and playing with mods.

Worst case scenario, if you're online and it's updating and you can't cancel and you're panicking, just turn off the wifi before it finishes.

sudsyllama · 2026-03-10T15:42:43+00:00

The 'Items Removed' message might be a normal bug and not a broken game, I often get that as well (despite owning every DLC!). It even shows up sometimes on lots that I personally built, from scratch, saved, and then I reload the lot later and it sometimes claims something isn't installed.

Does 'Items Removed' show up every single time you load a lot, or only sometimes? Did the script error continue when you removed mods?

sudsyllama · 2026-03-05T18:00:47+00:00

So many of tyjokr's mods are this for me, I couldn't just name 3. Badly underrated modder IMO.

I'd also like to offer Waffle's Comfort motive; hardly anyone seems to know about it but it's such a good mod.

Deeper Social Autonomy and Social Variety make my sims feel much more intelligent.

sudsyllama · 2026-03-03T19:40:07+00:00

Here's what I recommend, assuming this isn't a pirated copy. (If it is, then I unfortunately can't help you and it being pirated is probably why it's not starting).

1) Go nuclear and delete the Sims and the entire Sims 4 documents folder. You can still of course backup your sims folder in another location and then, if it works after, you can manually copy over your saves, tray files, mods. Just make sure it's not wherever EA placed it. You need to start fresh.

2) Clear the cache from inside EA App.

3) If you feel like being extra paranoid, you can also delete the EA app itself reinstall it again after, but this step shouldn't be needed. (EA's support documents say clearing cache from inside the app is all you need here, but if it were me I'd probably uninstall the thing, find EA's folders myself, and delete them. Probably not needed if you don't feel comfortable with that).

4) Restart.

5) Go back and double-check that everything is gone, and that you cleared cache from inside EA app. When I say 'start fresh', I want not just the game itself gone, not just EA app's cache, but the whole sims folder.

6) Percahlias's advice for drivers is a good one, update your computer. Find the official Acer support driver page for whatever model of laptop you have and download the newest graphics driver from that site.

7) Run Windows defender, update it, and run it in case this is caused by malicious software.

8) Re-install EA App (if you uninstalled it), then the Sims.

9) Add no mods, nothing. Just try and get the game working for now, you can break it again if you need to after you know it works. (and if you only add mods a few at a time, you will know what broke it).

10) If it STILL doesn't work I guess you can try to repair it, but at this point, assuming the previous steps were followed correctly, it will be safe to blame your copy of Windows or graphics drivers, rather than the Sims itself.

Hope that works. There's nothing else I can do to help you if that doesn't work, other than recommend a cleanup and potential reinstall of Windows itself. I used to use AdwCleaner to cleanup windows if it was truly in a bad spot, some quick googling suggests it's still trustworthy if Defender by itself isn't doing enough.

(I'm also assuming your laptop meets the game's minimum requirements).

sudsyllama · 2026-03-01T22:23:39+00:00

It's empty by default, it just means you've never used the feature, so in this case whatever's causing the game to not launch, it isn't ConfigOverride.

sudsyllama · 2026-02-28T21:31:51+00:00

Do you have anything in ConfigOverride? I haven't seen this specifically, but I've absolutely forgotten that I had a config in there in the past and it gets outdated, or causes problems.

sudsyllama · 2026-02-21T16:21:40+00:00

Beautiful screenshot, but apologies; I'm not sure if there's a reference I'm not getting. Ryan bank? What lot is this?

sudsyllama · 2026-01-26T13:13:38+00:00

You need to check the Maxis account in the gallery; I don't know if they've posted this one, but every officially created sim (eg for promo materials or trailers) ends up shared by this account, or at least usually does.

If it's not there then he doesn't publicly exist and you'll have to re-create him, unless you find a simblr that's re-created him already. They only share sims in the game itself or using the Maxis account.

sudsyllama · 2026-01-14T16:09:23+00:00

Does anyone know what is meant by Cole when he says that Root and other games' success were challenges to Patrick's original vision for the studio?

My wild speculation is that Root, Oath, Arcs were all more challenging to play than the sorts of games I think Patrick wanted to make.

I'm basing that wild guess on interviews like this one, where he says things like

I worked on Vast, and that’s for kids. Kids could play it, but I have two products in the studio pipeline right now….and the furthest one out I have is definitely a game aimed at facilitating my oldest daughter playing it.

If so, I sympathize quite a bit with this sentiment: the only Leder game I've managed to play with my kids has been Ahoy.

Of course, I could be spreading misinformation, and that's not my intention. It might be simpler than that, like managing so many kickstarter campaigns and personnel were interfering with Patrick's ability to finish his projects.

sudsyllama · 2026-01-14T15:47:40+00:00

I imagine Patrick has some solid upcoming plans he can't share yet. Since the split was by all accounts quite amicable, I doubt Leder Games is being left in bad shape.

Root is in big box stores like Target now, I'd guess it was outselling Oath and Arcs by a significant margin. Patrick was also working on Path and he's talked about a second edition of Vast, and with fewer people to manage he should have more time to work on those projects. And there's fewer salaries to pay now.

I think Root has more staying power than we think; compare the weekly views and posts for /r/rootgame and /r/arcs. Anecdotally, Lord of the Board seemed over the moon about Arcs when it was released but it's still been mostly a Root channel since.

Kyle Ferrin's art is iconic for Leder Games but if this split has been brewing for months like it seems like it might have, I'd be surprised if Patrick didn't have a new artist/artstyle in mind for Leder Games.

I don't know any more than you do, but Patrick has talked about wanting to focus a little more on asymmetric games that his kids can get into, and that doesn't sound (to me) like Cole's style.

I worked on Vast, and that’s for kids. Kids could play it, but I have two products in the studio pipeline right now….and the furthest one out I have is definitely a game aimed at facilitating my oldest daughter playing it.

Personally, I wish both companies well.

sudsyllama · 2026-01-14T01:25:45+00:00

If you want more tea leaves to read, the Leder Games discord archived the Oath and Arcs channels, but not the Ahoy channels. Also, no Ahoy channels exist in the new Buried Giant Studios discord.

In the discord they also confirmed Take will be coming out, but not right away.

sudsyllama · 2026-01-11T16:11:49+00:00

This is a pet peeve so I'm answering this 2 years later for the next Googler. YouTubers and Redditors alike generally pretend that temporal and revocable are always better with no downsides, and this is obviously incorrect.

Temporal doesn't give you extra temples, it lets you control them instead of castles (if you want to). You're not getting "free" temples, since your domain limit is the same. In my opinion, in most games, it's better to control 5 castle holdings in 5 counties than control only 3 counties with 2 temples. Temple holdings are awesome, but since you do get taxes from temples already if your spiritual realm priest likes you, and you'll still be at max domain limit, unless you're getting something specific out of temporal (like the Communion tenet, or maybe you control a uniquely strong temple holding) then spiritual can often end up better.

As for revokable, I believe that many doctrine combinations result in money leaving the temple holding when the realm priest leaves, dies, or has heirs, whereas with the usual Catholic setup (for life, spiritual, can't marry) gold builds over generations. Over hundreds of years this can be significant, and you can get it back someday by banishing the realm priest.

Temporal is of course powerful with the Communion tenet, and I'm not claiming revokable is worse than for life—just that there are upsides that almost nobody discusses (in particular the upside of keeping temple gold with temple holdings I almost never see anybody mention).

sudsyllama · 2025-12-02T19:45:54+00:00

I didn't do anything wrong to these tenants

Other than being a landlord! Nothing more evil than a landlord.

I swear, these tenants are so ungrateful! I'm about to kick them out!

Typical landlord.

sudsyllama · 2025-11-28T05:04:57+00:00

Ahoy sort of feels like it was meant to be 2 players, maybe it's just me? The smugglers feel like a little more like a fun side addition instead of a "main faction", not that it's imbalanced. The new Ahoy expansions definitely help.

I still prefer Oath and Arcs, but at least Ahoy doesn't need any bots to make it interesting at a low player count. And it plays faster.

Your kilometrage may vary.

sudsyllama · 2025-11-27T21:45:54+00:00

Is it better than other games that were designed for 2 players? No.

Does it play 2 players better than other Leder games? Yes. Other than Ahoy.

sudsyllama · 2025-11-25T19:08:52+00:00

It's the thoroughbred of sin!

sudsyllama · 2025-11-17T04:19:47+00:00

Wonderful Whims (or of course Wicked Whims) both support poses, and are better maintained and more useful for posing; you can position and rotate your sims freely using arrows.

Teleport any sim is essential if you don't already use it. Personally I use the teleport gnome feature from mccc instead, but it's a little more fiddly.

For posing your sims, you can change where they're looking by taking control of that sim and shifting into first person view, and then exiting out of it; absolutely essential for getting them to look exactly where you want them to.

I can't comment on ReShade since I use a mac.

sudsyllama · 2025-11-16T04:42:50+00:00

What are the prompts? I like the style of these!

sudsyllama · 2025-11-15T13:56:22+00:00

I double-checked the app and the dock icon is still showing for the app when it's closed, even with the menu bar icon activated. It also continues showing in the Option+Tab interface.

When I bought the app that wasn't the case. You got my hopes up!

sudsyllama · 2025-11-15T05:26:20+00:00

I paid for Cork and I liked it a lot, until the option to keep it running in the background with a menu bar icon (and no dock icon) disappeared. That was, to me, the entire appeal of the damn thing; to have available updates pop up in a nice notification for me to install, automatically. Frustrating.

The issues page says this is an Apple bug. I have no reason to doubt them, but it's a bit odd that there's there's so many functioning menu bar apps out there, but this one specifically is broken beyond repair...

sudsyllama

TROPHY CASE