By Phil Owen on
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The Sims 4’s newest expansion pack, Enchanted by Nature, introduces a new occult type with fairies, adds a robust and unique new world with Innisgreen, and drops a couple new skills, Natural Living and Apothecary, that make for a surprisingly fresh gameplay loop. The Sims 4 may be getting a little bit long in the tooth after 11 years since its release, but the developers at Maxis still have plenty of new tricks up their sleeves, apparently.
For my money, Enchanted by Nature often feels like it’s just got more going on than your average new Sims 4 expansion, but it may simply be that this pack so frequently breaks from the norms of The Sims 4 that it can be tough to take it all in at first. So to help you get acquainted with the new status quo of the Irish-inspired Innisgreen, we’ve put together this list of tips that can help speed up that process.
Local vendors sell all the basics
When you’re getting started with Natural Living, which involves living outdoors without modern amenities or the Apothecary craft, it can feel overwhelming just how much stuff you need to get going. Just keep in mind that there’s no need to get frustrated if there’s some random ingredient you’re missing early on–because anything you need for low-level tasks or recipes can be purchased from the local vendors, like Glen Nhoam and Apothecary Todd.
Fairies need a fairy home…
While your fairy Sim may be the same size as a regular Sim most of the time, they’re actually naturally tiny like Tinker Bell. That’s why you can purchase tiny fairy homes in build mode–fairies need fairy-sized houses. A fairy home is particularly necessary for a fairy to recover its Emotional Force, as it’s the only method for doing so that has no cost. Without a fairy home, your fairy Sim would have to either consume Fairy Dust for Emotional Force, or steal emotions from other Sims, which they don’t usually like.
…but not a house
I’ve become a little bit enamored with the Natural Living skill, because living outdoors without a house at all is a very different experience from my usual day-to-day in The Sims 4. It’s just liberating to be free of the normal trappings of life, and the Natural Living gameplay loop is so unique it almost feels like a new game. For longtime Sims 4 players who desperately need a change of pace, give this new type of off-the-grid life a try–at least for a little while.
Stock up on Fairy Dust
So many random things in Innisgreen require Fairy Dust, and that goes extra if your Sim is an actual fairy. Fortunately, there are several methods for obtaining a steady supply of Fairy Dust:
- Get the daily ration from the Mossveil Fairy Hub
- Ask any fairy Sim for some
- Shake a fairy home
- It randomly falls off fairies onto the ground
- Fairies can brush it off themselves
Some of the Innisgreen villagers have quests
Perhaps the best way to learn the ins and outs of Enchanted by Nature is to play through its fables–quests given by townsfolk that will show you some of the cool new stuff you can do with the new gameplay mechanics in Innisgreen and beyond. Beyond that, Fables also reward you with items that can kickstart your adventures, like seeds, crafting ingredients, furniture, and even a new simology perk–so these Fables are very much worth your time. If you find yourself struggling to figure out the solutions to any of these quests, check out our Fables guide here.
Use emotion potions to keep yourself balanced
My main Sim is an immortal ancient spellcaster whose friends and family are constantly dying of old age–and since I started playing Enchanted by Nature, that steady stream of sad moodlets has been ruining his emotional balance and making him get sick with Ailments. The best way to keep those moodlets under control for me has been to invest in potions and elixirs that alter my Sim’s emotions, and this new pack offers new sources for them.
One of the key new gameplay features in Enchanted by Nature is the ability for a Sim to bottle up an emotion using the Apothecary skill, by visiting Moondrop Springs in the Everdew neighborhood of Innisgreen, harvesting them from an Aura plant (pictured) or by becoming a fairy and using the relevant fairy power to bottle up emotions on demand. If you find your Sim is frequently suffering from these new Ailments, emotion potions will help.
Bringing gnomes to life is actually useful
I’ve been a Sims 4 gnome hater for a really long time. I hate them so much that I deleted the holiday gnome tradition from Harvestfest years ago and never looked back. So I didn’t really have much desire to mess with the new ability to bring gnomes to life in Enchanted by Nature. But, to my shock, it turns out these gnomes can actually be useful.
The ability to bring gnomes to life, which you can obtain by becoming a fairy or completing the My Sleeping Giant Fable for Glen Nhoam, allows you to task a gnome with helping you out around your Sim’s home lot by gardening or doing other chores. Doing this too much will apparently trigger intervention by evil gnomes, but you can handle them by tasking other gnomes with guard duty. There’s a weird little game with these guys.
A new, easy way to visit secret areas
The Sims 4 has a bunch of secret lots that you’ve typically only been able to access through specific methods. The alien planet Sixam, for example, is normally only visitable through the Scientist career or by building a rocket ship. But the new world of Innisgreen has an object in its Everdew neighborhood, called the Starseed Teleporter, which allows a Sim to instantly travel to five of the Sims 4 secret lots, provided you own any required DLC.
The Starseed Teleporter allows travel to the Sylvan Glade (base game), Forgotten Grotto (base game), The Magic Realm (Realm of Magic), Mt. Komorebi Peak (Snowy Escape), and Sixam (Get to Work). No shortcuts to the Omiscan temple from Jungle Adventure or the Hermit’s House in Outdoor Retreat, sadly.