Love is, for better or worse, one of the main things we care about as human beings. Naturally, then, love will play a huge part in the lives of your digital humans in The Sims 4. Having a family has always been one of the most fundamental aspects of playing The Sims, after all.

Fortunately, navigating the ins and outs of your romantic endeavors in The Sims 4 is going to be familiar to anybody who’s been in a relationship before. A romance in The Sims works more or less the same way it does with real people, with your sims navigating the same emotional complications that we have in the real world when we deal with each other. Let’s dive into the particulars so you can see exactly what that means.

First, though, a disclaimer. The expansion pack Lovestruck added a bunch of romance-related features to The Sims 4, some of which are included with the base game and some that you must own Lovestruck to access. This guide will focus on base game romances first, with the Lovestruck-exclusive features getting their own section.

Sims 4 romance basics: it’s just like real life

As your Sims go about their lives, they will have many opportunities to meet other Sims. Even if they just sit at home all day every day grinding out paintings, neighbors will occasionally visit, Father Winter will pop in for the holidays, and other Sims will hover around the neighborhood doing activities. It’s very easy for your Sims to meet others–which is helpful, since your Sim can’t make romantic advances toward folks they haven’t met yet.

Once your Sim meets another Sim and gets to know them, they’ll be able to go on dates and begin the courtship process, and the game will tell you if the two are compatible. This just indicates how well they’ll get along–folks with high compatibility will become friends easily without the need for you to micromanage your Sim’s actions. Ideally, you’d want your Sim to be compatible with their hypothetical romantic partner, because otherwise the relationship could turn sour quickly.

Sure, you can manually force your Sim to do all the things that the other Sim likes, but they’ll be in trouble when they act autonomously. It’s similar to the way real people attempt to present their “best self” when dating, and then reveal their true self once the relationship has been established for a while–it’s not really the best foundation for something lasting (unless romantic drama is what you’re looking for, of course).

Compatibility between two Sims is determined by a number of factors, such as their personality traits,likes, and dislikes–Sims who are very earnest and sincere may have a tough time having a happy marriage with mischievous Sims, for example. But two of the biggest factors go beyond that–your Sim’s romantic orientation and boundaries.

How to establish your Sim’s romantic identity

In the top-left corner of the Create-a-Sim screen, you’ll see the binary pair of gender options, but just under that is a menu that will let you customize your Sim’s gender, orientation, pronouns, and boundaries. You can change these settings in CAS whenever you want, so no need to worry about being stuck with a specific setup that you might not want to keep forever. The options are fairly expansive at this point, so there’s no need to stick to tradition if you don’t want to. Likewise, you use any pronouns you choose, as you have the option to add your own identifiers for your sims. Take a look.

Once you’ve figured out your fundamentals, there’s another subset of options that will help determine your Sim’s compatibility with others. Just below the previous menu is an option that determines your Sim’s likes and dislikes, including activities, colors, music genres, and so on. Your Sim will be most compatible with other Sims who like the same things. For those who own Lovestruck, there’s an additional preferences menu for romantic turn-ons and turn-offs, which will further hone your Sim’s compatibility.

One particularly useful base game feature added with Lovestruck is the relationship interaction menu. While your Sim is active in live mode, you can click on another Sim to interact, then click the relationship sub-menu. This menu is your one-stop shop for romantic decisions–your Sim can ask them about their relationship status, preferences, and boundaries, and can even suggest changes to those boundaries. This is also where your Sim can ask another Sim to be partners, join the household, or get married.

Romance traits

There are several traits that can aid in your Sim’s romantic pursuits. Romantic is a trait you can choose for your Sim that will make them better at all romance-related pursuits. If you choose a love-related aspiration for your Sim to start out with, they will also immediately receive the Alluring trait, which, again, will make your Sim better at all romantic activities. There are two love-related aspirations in the base game–Serial Romantic and Soulmate. Completing those aspirations will grant you other extremely helpful traits, but if you’ve gotten that far then you are well beyond the point of needing this guide.

There’s also a particularly useful aspiration reward trait, Beguiling, that you can purchase for 2,500 reward points. This trait will let you shoot anyone with Cupid’s arrow, immediately putting them in a flirty mood.

How to make your Sim flirty

Unfortunately, your Sim can’t beguile themselves, though if another Sim in the household has that trait then they could do it. But it’s more likely that your Sim will need a different method for becoming flirty. Fortunately, there are plenty.

• Take a steamy shower, which will give your Sim a +2 flirtiness moodlet.
• Drink a Flirty Potion purchased from the rewards store or brewed in a cauldron.
• Do romantic activities with another Sim.
• Listen to romantic music or watch romantic TV.
• Eat flirty cookies (made with the Cooking skill) or drink steamy tea (using a coffee maker).
• Fill your home with decor items that have a flirty aura.
• Click a mirror and choose the Freshen Up option.

Getting married

When your Sim is in a relationship, they’ll have the option to propose marriage to their partner. If they do so, and the other Sim accepts, you’ll need to have a wedding. This doesn’t have to be any big thing, though, as you can simply click on the other Sim and make them “elope,” which in this case means just having the wedding ceremony by themselves wherever they happen to be.

If you want your Sim to have a big wedding, though, then you’ll need to set up a social event–you’ll choose the guests to invite, caterers to hire, and a venue, which can be at any lot. Once the wedding actually begins, you can perform the ceremony by doing the tasks in the event panel. When the wedding ends, you’ll be prompted to merge the other Sim into your Sim’s household, if they weren’t already living together.

Romance features exclusive to The Sims 4: Lovestruck

Romance skill

Lovestruck includes an entirely new five-level Romance skill that will unlock lots of new interactions as your Sim levels up, like the ability to seduce other Sims with dances, or a significant increase in WooHoo stamina.

Attraction

The previously mentioned turn-ons and turn-offs portion of Create-a-Sim, which determines the initial level of attraction between two sims, is only available with Lovestruck.

Relationship satisfaction

In Lovestruck, there’s an additional relationship meter that goes along with the base game’s friendship and romance meters. This essentially separates the status of the relationship from the romance meter, adding a bit of nuance to how relationships work.

Traits and aspirations

There are two new choosable romance-related traits added with the Lovestruck expansion: Romantically Reserved, which makes it tougher to foster romantic relationships; and Lovebug, which makes every aspect of romantic pursuits work faster or more effectively. Lovebug Sims also get flirty very easily.

There are two new romantic lifetime aspirations your Sims can pursue over the course of their lives. Paragon Partner is a polyamorous aspiration that involves your Sim having multiple simultaneous satisfied relationships–completing it will make it very easy to maintain positive relationship satisfaction with anyone. The other is Romantic Explorer, which involves trying everything. Your reward for completing this aspiration is that all your Sim’s romantic relationships will grow faster.

Cupid’s Corner

There’s a dating app your Sim can use, either on their phone or any computer. There’s no swiping involved–you just set your preferences, and you’re given a set of matches that you can refresh every 12 in-game hours. Any of your matches will be available for a date.

Relationship counseling

For those Sims whose relationship is on the rocks, they can do relationship counseling for 1,000 simoleons. As in real-life, these sessions don’t always help, but the idea is to change both Sims’ likes/dislikes and turn-ons/turn-offs enough to make them more compatible.

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