After pulling my hair out not understanding what was going on I went on a quest today. These are just some things I learned about Seasons both by hard knocks and from various sources, including the Prima Guide I just bought today. I haven't read it all, just scanned it so if you think there might be something useful you'd like to know just let me know. I thought I had something seriously wrong in my game because all my Sims were getting was romance wants...only to find out it was because I myself was making them drink a love potion over and over. So hopefully this will save some headaches for someone else, as to why some options aren't available during some season's, etc...

Use coatrack to change into Outerwear or take off Outerwear.

Too hot- go to sink and drink water or buy lemonade -35

Too cold- hug, drink hot chocolate, coffee, expresso, exercise, fireplace warm self, bonfire, campfire, hot tub, In Line Skating, Joy Buzzer
40-85

You can direct another controllable sim to help out a heatstroke or frozen sim by having them child through elder use the douse or warm up command. It is critical you help a child or elder in both conditions.

Normal Sims Temps 50-80
Alien Sims 80 to -100
Plant Sims 50 to -100
Vampire and Wolfman 100 to -50 -80

Weather doesn't effect pets.

Hail can kill teens and elder sims.
Lightening stikes can kill all ages.
Overheating can cause all ages to burst into flames.

Plant Sims should stand in rain.

Rain never causes plants to be overwatered.

Schools get cancelled during heavy snow with no effect to grade.

A child's snowangel stays till snow starts to melt.

Several normal interactions are disabled during certain seasons. For instance in winter hang out, work out, stargaze, yoga are no longer available if your sim is outside.

Sims can now swim underwater, doggie paddle, shake water from their ears, play marco polo, wash the windows on their home if they are dirty, etc...

You can paint pool walls and floors.

Newspapers and TV give weather reports.

Weathernaught found in aspiration rewards
Change Season To
Prolong Season
Create Weather

To stop weather actions you must Turn Off

If you use it without gold or platinum status you could bring down a rain of fire. Take Cover, it can kill your Sims.

Place a smoke alarm on the exterior of your home for those lightening fires or rain of fire.

More hunger points recieved for food eaten from crops you grow. If you stock the fridge with fresh produce the fridge gains fresh food points.

Red face by plants means sickly/bland
Orange really bad
light orange bad
yellow ok
light green good
medium green better
grenish blue great

Gardening in the fall gets an accelerated talent development. But your plants won't produce as good.

No badge Tomatoes
Bronze Strawberries, cucumbers
Silver Pole Beans, Peppers
Gold Eggplant and very potent gardening ability to talk to your plants which can bring them from sickly to great as well as build social.

Gardening talent is linked to Sims Charisma skill.

Compost is more potent than fertilizer. Fertilizer adds 12 to 24 points for plants and compost adds 60 to 75.However no points are earned towards badge for using compost.

Plant
Eggplant, Peppers, Strawberries in Spring

Cucumber, Pole Beans, Tomatoes in Summer.

Member of Gardening Club seeds are discounted by 25 percent

Do not water plants more than once a day.

No points given for using sprinklers. So wait till you have your gold badge to get one or more.

Always fertilize before planting.

Ladybugs eat bugs, still getting bugs get another lady bug house.

Quality per chat to plants and trees 3 to 80 points.

Harvest Season
Eggplant, Lemon, Orange, Pepper, Strawberries in Summer.

Cucumbers, PoleBeans, Tomatos, Apples in Fall.

Grow plants indoors using green house walls for exterior and no foundation all year.

Sell produce at home with a produce stand or on community lot by placing a display case and placing produce on it.

You can also use greenhouse roofs on your regular home to make a house with a glass roof and to allow sunight in all day long. Make a sunroof. Or as a partial roof and regular roof on the rest of the house, etc...etc. Objects can also now sit on top of the roof even at the highest peak. Like the weathervain, lightening rod, even the scrarecrow or a chair, toys, anything.

Drinking Juice from Juicer effects:
Apple juice effect faster Homework.
Beauty cocktail effect Love potion.
Eggplant Juice effect Random Skill Point.
Lemonade effect cools sims down.
Orange Juice effect cures cold.
Orangeade effect Random Badge Points.
Pepper Punch effect Engery Boost
Pureed Boot effect freaked out Sim with weird animation.
Strawberry Lemonade effect Platinum mood.
Tomato Juice effect Warms Sim.
Vegetable Cocktail effect build skills faster.

To join Garden club you must have at least five of these items.

Garden plots
Garden Plants
Orchard Trees
Flower Bed
Shrubs
Trees
Eight Potted Plants

Score between 700 to 1,000 to get a wishing well left by the gardening club on your lot.

Highest to lowest scores.

Garden Plant scores from Thriving 25 per plant to -10 for grossly underwatered.

Compost 5 if empty 10 if it has compost.

Garden plots dirt 4, composted 10, empty -5

Flowers 10 for watered to -5 for dead flowers

Shrubs under 79 dollars 6 up to 200 dollar ones score 10.

Potted Plants from 1 to 5 points depending on cost of item, same with trees except they score per tree 3 to 15. Fountains also from 5 to 25 per fountain. Sculptures the same from 5 to 25 per sculpture depending on cost of item.

Orchard trees thriving 25 to Untended -5

Garden lamps 1 to 2

Flowerbox 1

Stepping Stones 2

negative points ashes, dirt piles, leaf piles, trash, debris, flamingos, old newspapers, weeds, diapers, food dishes, puddles.

Wait 24 hours for each wish you only get 5 and don't wish for romance if your married it won't be with your spouse. Use it more often than every 24 hours and you could get a twisted version of what you wish for.

Money 1,000
Friends 3 new friends
Romance a new love

Negative if used more than once in 24 hours

Money blow to the head and 50 simoleons
Friends 3 new enemies
Romance a Beat down and they always win.

You can get more than one wishing well through another review however if you score lower the second time all discounts will be revoked and you can't get them back.

For fishing pond to fish it has to be at least 4x4 tiles and two tiles deep.

What you can catch
boot, catfish, golden trout, bass and
rainbow trout are what you can catch. Each fish brings a new recipe and comes in regular and jumbo sizes. Even children can fish.

Lures
Worm, Minnow, Stink Ball, and Sparkle Spinner.

Fishing in fall raises talent faster.

Leave fish in inventory they don't add to the fridge and you can't mount them on the wall once they're in the fridge. They won't go bad and you can always sell them and can hold an infinite number of them. You still get recipes and cooking options with them in inventory. To sell from inventory click on fish and then delete. Sell your fish at home like the produce stand just place a refrigerator stand or display stand from OFB and sell. You can also sell mounted fish from 65 for Catfish to 295 for a jumbo rainbow trout. Mounted fish attract pengiuns. Fish can also be fed to penguins. If placed on the floor kittens and cats will also eat them. They do not spoil ever as long as they are uncoooked.


New Career reward bookcase allows Sims to gain skills in everything. Nothing all too great about the rest to me yet. Oh, You can earn money with the pinball machine, other things like that.

New mailbox just click on the mailbox and click on pay all bills its that simple now. No more searching for mail.

Set a different hair style per outfit now. Just click on mirror change appearance and choose hair style for each outfit. Or Hat, but you can't pick a hat for formal, pjs, athletic, or swimear if you do Sims will still take them off.

You can't put away as lefovers birthday cakes, pizza, chinese food or any juices or drinks.

Leftovers don't have to be re-cooked.

Have Sims view Scarecrow there is a chance it will come to life for a moment and scare or delight your Sim.

Have Sims view or turn on the new painting the Waters flow it's animated and it's also a light.

Use refreshing Commode to max fun.

Sims juggling hot chocolate mugs can have another sim join the fun by clicking on the juggling sim and clicking join making both gain in fun and social.

Roller skating, Ice Skating commands
Skate, Join, Twirl, Jump, Twirl With, Switch Lanes

Beach Party Bar max fun 50 for juggle, 80 for making drinks, 50 for consuming drinks and 70 to 90 for drinking from the bottle.

A built snowman can be moved in buy mode. Knocking over a built snowman brings a hail of carrots. Joining someone building a snowman increases social.

Gift giving:
happy huge gains to daily and lifetime bars
Ok small increase
Rejected negative to daily and life bars.

0 to 10 dollars -10 points, up to 50 dollars 0, up to 100 10, up to 500 20, up to 1,000 30, up to 5,000 40, 5,000 or more 60 points are gained.

Plant Sims can prank with a pollen cloud they're the only ones that can use this prank.

toddlers and dogs can eat snow.

You can catch butterflies or fireflies. Fireflies can be used as lights. But they will die eventually unless you use the new cheat in the cheat window bugJarTimeDecay off

To become a plant sim spray your plants trees 100 times, everytime after that increases your risk of becoming one 10 percent.

Plant Sims lives are shorter by 26 days than regular sims, but they don't need to eat or sleep. Plant sims born in game are born as toddlers able to both walk and talk. Toddler plant sims go straight into adults no child or teen years. Then you can cure them, but they cannot go to college and they are only toddlers for 4 days. In winter, heavy rain to satisfy your plant sims need for sunlight use the toasty garden lamp sans toast. Use it during the night also when their sunlight needs run low, it can be found in the build mode and garden.

Satisfy water needs by bar, lemondade, drinking water, rain puddles, water wiggler, water balloon fight, rain, shower, bath, hot tub, swimming, water balloon prank.

For toddlers, bath, eating flowers, puddles, playing in toliet, sitting in rain.

If either toddler or adult go totally dry you can direct another sim to water them same as you would your flowers or plants. So never let plant sims live alone or they may never revive. Also hire a gardner they may save a plant sims life.

Plant sims are great gardeners with automatic gold badges and retain the gold badge even when cured. Toddlers are also born with the gold badge. Plant Sims send out spores of happiness when they are happy and and any sim in the same room or close by recieves satisfaction of hunger, comfort, energy, fun and social. To have a baby click on yourself and choose grow plantbaby anytime. Or you can have a baby normally with a human sim they don't get the try for baby option so you have to use the human. Plant sim babies are basically a clone of the parent, exact same personality, skills, and a 50 percent chance of inheriting their parents other badges. Buy the cure from the gypsy or the garden club.

Flowerboxes can now be used on windows.

Easter Island Egg
In Riverblossom switch into camerman mode and look out at the sea, then zoom here and you'll find easter island.

That's about it. Like I said I haven't read the whole guide, just scanned it and that's how I figured out why my Sims are getting nothing but romance wants. I'm sure there is much more other's can add to this.

Thank you for the info PegasusDiana, it's really helpful!!I never read guides or previews of ep's because i enjoy discovering things during game play, and i admit i just scanned your post but i can see it's useful even by that but i will return here if i notice anything wrong lol .

Thank you for taking the time to type all this out I'm sure people will find this information about the new EP very useful.

Your both very welcome. I had to do something, my guy drunk some juice and next thing I knew he walked up, grabbed and started trying to make out with the 90 year old nanny! I thought what the heck is going on in this game! She's been poking and shoving him since and I can't fire her lol I never realized if dummy me is making him drink a love potion and his wife isn't around who's he going to want to love? Anybody! She went off on him, started poking him over and over and I almost killed him off...That stuff is potenent! At least now I know why everyone was getting romance wants with people they didn't know. Thought maybe I could save someone else from going bald with me. The rest I pretty much learned through trial and error getting the badges and caring for the plant sims.

thanks for posting all that info :D
one question though, what is refreshing commode?

Thanks a lot for all this wonderful info. VERY useful! I don't play all that much and would never see some of these things without your great help

PS: Some nice moderator should 'sticky' this thread, as it contains such helpful info... I'm sure I'll check it more than once :lovestruc

Your all very welcome, the refreshing comode is the new comode that comes with the EP, it sort of looks like an old fashioned comode with chain coming down. But actually very cute. It's in the plumbing section for 450. The sunlamps are really, really ugly shop looking lamps and in the gardening section of build we have a new little garden Icon it's in there. But hopefully with all the talent around here someone will make it into a neat little flower or plant or something to match our plantsims. If I could mesh I'd do it, but I am just working on the bare beginner tutorials. Never felt any real dire need to recolor, texture or mesh before this EP now I have all kinds of neat idea's.

Oh thanks :D

but I think I don't have the options to swim underwater, doggie paddle, and shake water out of their ears... How to do that? I can only play marcopolo...

They try to hide during Marco Polo and thats when they swim under water. You should get the options during game play. Just like with skating. I think they just shake water out of their ear alone after swimming under water. I'm attaching a few pics I just have to share these with you. The toliet pic is attached for you. The other pictures are of one of my girls, she just got out college and bought her own place I've had the penguin in spring, winter and fall but never in summer. We'll she went fishing and fed him during college so guess who pops up to welcome her to the neighborhood? The penguin lol She had no fish so had to do a little emergency fishing. These are a very high compression rate at 25 so not good quality but it saves on the kb and you can still see how pigish this penguin is. She gave him two fish on the ground and he still tried to fly up and get her fish off the wall.

wow thanks I really appreciate it...
I guess I should make them play marcopolo more often, don't know why but my sims don't like to play it, they stop playing after only a few sim minutes..... what about the doggie paddle?
also, what new interaction are there in the skating rink? besides skating of course lol sorry to ask so much but I just got the game and really want to try everything new on it

Skate, Join, Twirl, Jump, Twirl With, Switch Lanes. These are the new skating options. Once you get to the rink click on skate. If you have more than one Sim click on join. Then click them individually to get them to do the rest. At first they fall more than anything. I think they learn to ice skate quicker than roller skate at least for me. Learn gardening quicker than fishing. Your very lucky I seem to have brain damaged Sims they want to play Marco Polo, be stuck by lightening Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Oh and those stupid water balloon fights. And they never want to quit they'd play till they died if I didn't stop them I think. It's pouring rain and lightening yeah! I'm going to go swimming and before I can catch them, their in the pool. Get out of the swimming pool stupid...can't you see the lightening? I've had to plead with Grim for over 20 of those ijots now. Swimming pool or I should say lightening strikes, I seem to always win when I plead for my loved one back from Grim. However about half of them haven't been anywhere near water when they were hit. 2 strikes their dead and double stikes happen OFTEN. Combusting, rain of fire, I haven't gotten one back so had to exit, loose all my work and start over. What I did now is I removed all hot tubs, and give them back just during winter. I will not allow them to have the new aspiration reward, I put fire alarms outside, Haven't had a hail death yet thank goodness. I have over 200 Sims now living in Veronaville and 8 at college. I'm gonna have to give up and start letting some of my elder Sims go ahead and kick the bucket. I usally play them till they are elders make sure I fullfill their lifetime wants, skills, then go to their children and do the same, then the grandchildren, etc... I am on my 5th generation of Sims now and I've only allowed 6 pets and 4 adults to die. I really have to get over that. lol To me the most valuable new things are the juicer because you can make them healthy with orange juice. The new bookcase for teachers because they can learn all their skills not just some and seem to learn them quicker. Fishing, Gardening with the new greenhouses although I do just as well without them as long as I pay attention to the season. The pay all bills on the mailbox with actual reminders. And I love all the snow options. I could care less if they go skating or play Marco Polo. They have more than enough to keep them happy. I'm not into fancy buildings, I have to have small lots with all the sims I have so my lakes on their lots are just basically squares, doesn't seem to bother them. Small pools and three story homes. And a tiny greenhouse or none if I have chittlens, because I need a swing. But I love all the new goodies and the NPC's, Grim. They all seem to actually have a personality now where they didn't before. Of course my favorite is the pigish penguin. I have everyone pet, feed them whenever they see them.

lol, thanks for replying :D

Wow i really appreciate you sharing all this information with us. I really learned some things that I didn't know the sims could do in seasons.

0_0 wow so much info.*shakes head* oh yeah thank you

Thanks for all the helpful hints! I was wondering how I could get my sim to stop overheating...I kept trying to make him go to the fridge. :-)

Your all very welcome, glad I could be of a little help. I've learned a few more things nothing too exciting though. Like the Plant Sims play he loves, he loves me not sometimes with their plants and crops. They also blow dandelions. I asked Eric on another update of Insim if he could please make it so all Sims can blow them. I think it'd be adorable if the children could do it. I know I'm such a sap. lol

Since we're discussing aspects of the Seasons EP, can anyone tell me why the cooked dishes made with caught fish sparkle? I can't figure that one out.

They will also sparkle if you stock your fridge with produce. Fish and produce are considered 'fresh' food and they carry extra hunger satisfaction. The sparkles are there to tell you that this food will boost hunger quicker with more satisfaction. Watch it though....the sparkly food is really fattening!