The Sims 4 Horse Ranch vs. Cottage Living... which is actually better?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ส.ค. 2024
- Comparing The Sims 4 Cottage Living with Horse Ranch to see which is the best animal pack!
COTTAGE LIVING REVIEW • My Brutally Honest Rev...
HORSE RANCH REVIEW • A Brutally Honest Revi...
There are many different animal packs for The Sims 4. I broke down which I think is the best Sims 4 pack for animals between Horse Ranch and Cottage Living.
*im not wearing lipstick my lips just naturally look like this.
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Timestamps:
00:00 The big dilemma
00:35 Animals
03:26 Competitions
06:05 Worlds
07:52 CAS/Build
08:36 Activities
10:02 Careers
11:49 NPCs
12:51 Deaths/Woohoos
13:12 Random Features
15:07 Skip the whole video - เกม
Throw Cottage Living and Horse Ranch into a blender and boom you got an awesome pack. EA wants your money.
exactly. every little piece of content the studio makes is packaged individually and sold at crazy prices by EA... and why? because they know they can, and they do keep getting away with it. i'm sure their shareholders are happy at least
This is why I just pirate the packs. LMAO
@@AdaWongRealCats and Dogs should have been blended with my first pets stuff. Where as Cottage and Horse Ranch are both Country Lifestyles beyond the horses. The stuff you get outside of the animals in these two packs make them great as a singular pack. Throw in horses and some object farm animals it’s well worth the money.
What would have been cool is new mechanics for dogs and cats, for example. Like herding sheep (dogs) or chasing vermin (cats). But I think it’s fine to have Dogs and Cats in a separate pack as long as that pack also has other common household pets like hamsters and birds.
And seasons
In the other sims games in the Sims Pets you would get cats, dogs, parrots, lizards. A shop where you would go and adopt… so much better
One thing that annoys me about the pack is that milking goats gives you regular milk and not goat milk. I was unpleasantly surprised. Also upset we didn't get squash, beans and corn to plant and harvest.
I'm guessing their sensitivity reader who collaborated on the horse pack didn't advice about that to the developers, eh? LOL
Really? That would’ve been a perfect opportunity for it
@@mewletter I was so excited to hear about the Three Sisters Chili so I figured (wrongly) that we'd get to grow them. What a missed opportunity. They half-assed the entire pack
@@lucapeyrefitte6899 also a missed opportunity to add goat cheese and new recipes
@@yasminni485and they could've even added special mechanics for growing them like how in real life planting them together helps all 3, but they didn't!
“Object animals” are the new babies.
Except object animals are more fun. Mini-goats are more adorable then a bassinet locked crying baby. For small animals and misc farm animals, I am a fan of object animals.
@@TheDawnofVanlife I don’t disagree. Specially when object animals are just in the world and don’t have that a deep connection with the sims, like rabbits and birds.
When it comes to goats and sheep, where there’s deeper gameplay, I’m not so sure.
@@anahenriques. The problem is the more ‘sim’ they become (like horses) for example then they start taking up family slots and such. I really am ok with certain animals not being too complex as long as there is interactivity and movement with that animal that is farm relevant. I am okay with a farm/country life setup not having super complex animals if it means I at least have enough NPC object animals that have some sort of object-interaction to make the place feel/look like a busy farm. I value that over every animal having the full life state of horses.
@@TheDawnofVanlife totally agree with your points. I think however the new “object animals” could be a bit more fleshed out, specially the goats, giving you goat milk and new dairy products with it.
Small animals don’t need to be part of the family (count) but they could still have a bit more consideration. Same with the larger animals, cows and llamas, they don’t need to be part of the family but do they really need to be stuck to the black hole shell?
Honestly I don't want them to be actual Sims.
They really missed out on having a hay pile decoration that you could woohoo in, like the Get Together bush.
Yeah, there is a Horse Ranch woohoo bush but it's just the same old bush with different colors so it looks a bit out of place with the other plants in the world, hay pile would have made Way more sense and then we could "have a roll in the hay"
You could have also used it as a bed and it would have been called "hit the hay"
@@sasariwtf That would have been perfect for rags to ranches(riches)
cottage livins is still currently one of the best (if not the best, on par with seasons) Expansions in terms of what 'we pay, and what we get'.
Absolutely agree.
Eco lifestyle as well I'd say
@@MarieShalanovaI’m not a fan of eco lifestyle. You can only positively affect the world. You should be able to make a smog world.
@@brycebeverly9537you can make a smog world, you use industrial items and make sure there are no eco friendly neighborhood action plans. It happened in my Newcrest after I moved out during a legacy challenge. I used too many industrial floors, fireplaces, and expensive electronics/plumbing fixtures when I built all the houses and turned off npc voting so there were no NAPs. When my sim came back to visit her family it was smogged.
@@brycebeverly9537 RIGHT i wanted to keep the world industrial but theres no community initiative to do so so im just being fined and punished for wanting the freedom i was told would be given! i was JUST thinking about that
Cottage living is much more worth the money imo. Less glitches, more gameplay and a prettier world
so true, i pirated all the packs but despite that i am still mainly using Cottage living over any other pack
@j-jackquinn5540 please tell me how you did that
@@Sillyquackquack it’s really easy, just google something like “sims 4 all dlc cracked” or “free download” until one looks legit. can’t remember the name of the site but there are a bunch out there, takes ages unless you have good internet. like it took my the whole day but was so worth it.
I got Horse Ranch EP today after getting Sims3 Pets but for some people want to save more money Sims3 pets are worth it i got so many animal in one EP
prettier world is subjective, but I definitely agree about the rest of it.
Horse ranch x cottage living x cats and dogs x my first pet stuff =
An amazing expansion pack
yeah. like sims 3 pets.
A.k.a. 'Sims 3 Pets'
I actually don’t mind object animals when well done. It allows you to fill out a farm without worrying about knocking out family slots 🤣🤣 Especially for things like chickens. I just don’t know they’ve done enough with Horses right now that they deserve the spot they occupy as a full Sim.
I mean, you can always just have a family with 2 of each and let them breed. But I think you need a cheat for it, I’m not sure which one.
I was thinking the same thing! You can’t even “be” the horse or see it emotions directly, so it just feels like a wasted slot.
@@superthevibe TS2 and 3 had pet side slots so the family pets were basically more then object animals, but had their own number limit outside human-sim family spots. They didn't take away from growing your human-sim family.
@@superthevibeThat also disappointed me but someone pointed out that it’s more realistic that way. I agree. If I could play as my horse, my horse and sim would rarely interact with each other. Now though, I have to raise skills to influence the horse to do stuff like real life and it’s growing on me. But taking up family slot is BS that EA needs to address
@@refiaatmaca3008 I am a big Sims 2 fan, so I actually don’t mind not controlling pets. I like them having to be trained and interacted with by the human-sims. And doing uncontrolled things like a real pet. But if I can’t control them even, give them a separate demi-slot maybe higher then small animals, but not a whole human-sim family slot.
I get talking about Cottage Living vs Horse Ranch but I think we need to add one more circle to the Venn diagram: Cats&Dogs.
I think it’s two worthy but very different comparisons that don’t mesh well into one video without being too much. Cottage and Horse Ranch would be more a lifestyle add-on comparison where as Horse Ranch vs Cats and Dogs would be more an animal integration into lifestyle comparison. They are basically two separate conversations despite some overlap. It’s smart not to tackle all three in one video.
imo, Horse Ranch > Cottage Living > Cats and Dogs
I can explain in another reply if you want!
@@anonymouslol7010 I agree based on stuff I heard lilsimsie say. (She doesn't always blow smoke up EA's ass)
Horse Ranch has more detail with the limited things to do and the concerns about the Chickens/Cows/Llamas from Cottage Living got addressed with free-roaming sheep and goats and horses.
Cottage Living was more suited for...cottage living. A lot more gardening and ways to be self-sufficient like canning, knitting, etc.
Cats and Dogs imo is better if you're just looking for pets rather than thinking of the horses/goats/sheep or chickens/cows/llamas as pets since you can even use dogs and cats in San Myshuno.
@@anonymouslol7010 I am curious because im debating on buying the pack since I mostly build and don't really do a lot of the eventy stuff in game. I liked cottage living because I adore the build items (genuinely some of the best I haven't stopped using them since they came out.) I haven't even bought the high school one because I don't know if it's worth the money 😭 (I want the window)
US vs UK ; who has the most romanticized muddy pathways and manures.
Thank you! Saw Lil Simsie say Horse Ranch was better than Country Living yesterday, and I was like, "hell no!" 😂 And now you've proven it for me 👌 thanks! 😅
I love Lim Simsie, but when she said that I nearly fell out of my chair. Like, GIRL, what are they paying you?
We all know by now she's paid by EA to say positive things about the new packs even if they are horrible. C'mon now lmao
I think she enjoys it more because she also has cottage living and all the other packs but as a standalone pack cottage living is just better
@@adar9058 and she's American? Probably plays a part into her bias? When they launched Country Living, I was so excited - I'm a daughter of a farmer from England so I was like, hell yes! But llamas? And then goats and sheep and horse released in another pack? Ok then EA....
@@alexanderboutin Also, James Turner going way beyond with the theatrics? Love it so much, but they're really trying to SELL it to us
Thank you for making this video! Many of the "EA Game Changers" have been incorporating gameplay from Cottage Living in their reviews of Horse Ranch, and it's bee driving me CRAZY!
To be fair- similar to how I enjoyed cottage living WAAAY better with seasons and off the grid I think horses gets the same bonus from cottage living so if someone like horses they should play them together for the best experience!
Horse ranch eventually gets boring fast if you don't have cottage living
Or strangerville 😂
Agreed, although I personally find nectar making oddly addicting and watching Sims randomly do that one country dance to a song that isn't country at all is freaking hilarious, other than that it's a really boring pack.
@@crazyarso2097 A horse pack with very little things for a horse to do. Rabbit holes don't count. If they were just going to give us a horse and empty world, why not give us tons more cas for the horses. This is more of a kit with a world.
Similarly I found cottage living to be wildly boring without seasons it was way too easy, I did also stop entering the competitions because they were SO buggy and never really worked right for me if they even worked at all. :(
I feel like Cottage living had more stuff tbh
probably the Henford town is way more livelier than Chestnut Ridge town
Yeah, in horse ranch we only got like 10 more hairs in cas, meanwhile cottage living had a bunch, but I’m kinda sad they didn’t make the cows/chickens/llamas the way they made horses. I also wish that we got bulls in horse ranch. Bull riding would’ve been so funny to watch! And, they could’ve even added a death by bull/horse.
@@mewletter yeah because you would think with the npc horses/sims that it would be fuller but not really
@@sodamisc don't get me wrong the cas for horse ranch is good but like people already pointed out some of the hairs are reused and for me personally the bottoms except a few are ugly to me. And it's funny that they didn't make a new death considering the fact that the lore is built on a death.😂
I dont mind all the cute little npc animals they give a little dopamine just to look at or play with ❤
Also the foxes look hilarious in the "manage households" menu, it's so cursed
@@fruity4820 lmao! I kinda hope they add owls one day. They should have in the vampire/werewolf packs actually.. that would have been cool!
i love satch's videos because of the absolute honesty in regards to different dlc, games etc
yup. Personally, I love his brutal honesty (and his laugh, lmao).
@@yasminni485 fr fr
I like his honesty but not his delivery, sometimes it comes across abrasive and it makes me feel bad when I don't agree because it's aggressive. :( Not saying everyone needs to share the same opinion but I wish I didn't get slammed by him for enjoying something he doesn't sometimes ya know?
@@Riazey I know exactly what you mean. I'm sure he doesn't mean to make you feel that way. Just try to enjoy his silliness. You are entitled to your own opinions :)
Already have Cottage Living and I still haven't bought Horse Ranch bc of it. Thanks for this vid, makes It easier for me to decide if I'll buy or not like is it even necessary
If you have CL already HR is a good addition to it, but wait for it to go in the sales
Horse ranch doesn’t have much, so I pair it up with cottage living and cats and dogs. But if you really like horses (like me) , then you should get horse ranch!
Get it on sale if you want horses, but that is the only reason to get it. Horses. And the horses get boring quick, they have nothing to do after you level them up. Nothing. Also, glitches are bad. My sim has topped out on nectar making without ever making a bottle, it just never finishes. When doing the nectar making aspiration, you have to sell each bottle individually..any other way will not count. Including selling to the mysterious stranger. Can't finish the other aspiration cause no matter how many times i win gold in master class in the competitions, it doesn't count it. Do not age up your foal while they are dazed or they glitch when they grow up.
Gardening in Cottage Living is definitely one of the best features of the pack! Combine it with seasons and you get an amazing combo!
There are several new crops that you can grow: oversized ones (lettuce, mushrooms, pumpkin, watermelon and eggplant) and regular ones (chocolate berry, blueberry, raspberry and I think one more, forgot the name), plus you get a new object-dirt square, it doesn't affect the growth of the plants, but it does make the garden look neat.
The oversized crops can be turned into decorative objects, you can compete with them, and if you cook them you'll get 12 servings instead of 8.
For the berries, you can turn them into jams and chocolate syrup and use them for cooking or sell them.
There are new types of fertilizers that can help you grow the oversized crops, you can either buy them or find them in chicken coop or cow/llama stalls.
Compare it to Horse Ranch where the only new crop you get is prairie grass, which is not even a crop but rather a feed for the animals. You do get a new fertilizer with the horse poop.
So, I'd definitely give one more point to Cottage Living for gardening since it's a big part of the gameplay, and it goes hand in hand with "simple living" lot trait.
Btw, the market stalls in Cottage Living are active ones with owners, unlike in Horse Ranch where the marketplace is a rabbit hole.
Also, if you befriend rabbits and birds in Cottage Living they'll help you with gardening by eating the weeds, and they'll also occasionally bring gifts, same with foxes, if you befriend them they'll stop stealing from you, and they'll bring you gifts. (btw, foxes will appear f you have the "wild foxes" lot trait, and they'll steal your crops and eggs, and they'll attack bunnies as well).
Overall, Cottage Living has more interesting gameplay, and I'd definitely recommend buying this pack first and wait for the Horse Ranch to go on sale because it doesn't offer anything aside from horses and juice making, oops, sorry, "nectar" making, my bad, they are just so similar (sorry, couldn't resist x))
This video is a good comparison between two packs, and it puts into perspective of what you get with each pack!
Cottage living also had the special mushrooms.. i think there we're six different Kinds of mushrooms that are actually difficult to find/collect or earn - unlike the big crops and the three berries that you can simply buy. I enjoyed the challenge with those, but honestly haven't bothered to collect them even with my gardener Sims for at least half a year 😅
@@organicstorm oh yeah! I forgot about mushrooms! The night mushroom is so difficult to get! I also love that you can make hallucinogenic soup with mushrooms if you do one of creature keeper's quest x)
If I could only get one I’d get cottage living. The clothes, build/buy, recipes, gameplay all wayyyy better than Horse ranch.
I completely disagree lol
@@anonymouslol7010 why?
@@eanyrosethey probs just like western stuff or horses.
@@sodamisc yes maybe
Yeah, so many new recipes with Cottage Living, Horse Ranch has what, 3? very disappointing
As an american i can assure you i preordered cottage living and i doubt i will ever buy horse ranch. 😂
No same. 😂 Cottage Living was the only Sims 4 pack I ever pre-ordered. Horse Ranch doesn't appeal to me especially with the lack of Native American additions.
I myself am not a fan of the whole cowboy/southwest thing. I wish the Great Lakes region would've been represented instead in some pack instead of the worlds constantly being based on the west coast.
So I recently downloaded another game (The witcher 3) and downloading that game made me realise how small sims 4 packs actually are. TW3 is about 50GB and costs now 40$ and that is ironically also how much the horse ranch pack costs, but when I downloaded it, I realised that it only has 1,3 GB. TS4 with all their packs in fact has only 50GB. About as much as any other "normal" game out there on release. So just by comparing these numbers we can get some sense of how overpriced the sims 4 actually is
exactly like. that's why pirating ts4 is morally good 😊
Exactly my issue with Sims 4 packs.
You won’t care about sims anymore after you play the witcher lol
It’s just so funny to me how The Witcher 3 runs perfectly on my laptop but The Sims 4 doesn’t 😂 Also … Buy the Witcher 3 DLCs as well, you will love them
@@hicranakdeniz haha I know! I have already played TW3 and all DLCs I went to basically every question mark on the map I just loved that game so much!! I think I played the sims 4 to fill the void I was feeling after completing TW3 but realized it wasn't filling any void so now I'm going back to TW3😂😂
I pirated Horse Ranch and still feel ripped off😂 the world is big but completely empty and useless.
Okay illegal and hurting the innocent developers not the top 1% of the company who is actually making all the horrible decisions. I get the smoll wallet syndrome (we all have to make hard monetary related choices) but to BRAG about being poor and screwing over game developers is so cringe xD It's like taking it out on the person at the front desk haha!
How does pirating hurt the developer directly? They work by hourly pay, meaning they get their money when the pack is developed. No one goes "let's wait and see how well the pack does and then decide how much you deserve for your work" or "okay so X people pirated instead of buying the thing, so we are going to cut Y amount of money from your salary".
And tbh I don't think many people who pirate actually give a shit about anyone at EA, I can tell you that I don't. The only reason I stopped is bc it just became too much of a hussel and the game was simply boring. Even with all the packs installed, the game got boring, which I think says a lot about the sims
@@fruity4820 Layoffs, workplace pressure increase, mounting dev times for anti-pirating taking away from other areas and other small things may seem insignificant but they add up quickly. A higher up can glance at sales reports and say "Okay we made slightly less that we hoped so lay off 3 people thanks." And laying off 3 people might not seem like a big deal but it IS to the person getting axed. :( Or an intern can lose a possible opportunity/position because of decreased sales (even at reduced prices a sale is a sale according to financing).
@@fruity4820 Ah, to respond as well to your "I dont give a shit about EA employees": Most of us just out here trying to make a living, I'm nice to cashiers because I know they got feelings too. :/ If someone is not mean to cashiers but is to developers then maybe it's just a bit of perspective because someone doesn't meet devs face to face. If someone IS mean to cashiers for no reason they're just horrible people period.
@@Riazey I see your point about the distance from devs. I notice that the games I don't want to pirate are the ones that have devs that like to interact with the fan base. I know the sims team have live streams and such, but it really feels like they are very alienated from their player base.
Well, my personal comparison would definitely have Cottage Living winning, because 1. it feels like it has more stuff to do, and 2. I much prefer the English countryside aesthetic to the Southwestern U.S. country aesthetic . . . That would have been a really dull video - I'm glad you do these comparisons rather than me! 😁
Thank you for this video and making me realize (again) how these packs should’ve just been one expansion pack. Also why are we getting these big worlds with nothing in them in every pack now? Wish the budget went into actual gameplay instead of just empty worlds…
The world is so empty in horse ranch, and I never have seen the mysterious stranger no matter how long i hang out in town on the right days. I wish they had bothered with a town if this is what we got. Just give us bigger lots instead.
I agree that this expac is a bit sad but horses are INCREDIBLY difficult to do (ask any game dev that's worked on a horse game lmao). Setting that aside, I may not agree with EA's pricing but I never blame the devs it's really the top 1% of the company that make these decisions. Far a bit of perspective just the balancing/compatibility work that needs to be put into a single expansion is probably a SIGNIFICANT time and money investment, with how much gameplay the sims4 has across it's entirety I'm surprised they're even making new expacs still to be honest- like it's every game devs WORST NIGHTMARE.
I love collections in game and look forward to a new one with every EP (and am pleasantly surprised when we get bonus ones like in Werewolves or MWS.) Horse Ranch could have made the Racing Trophies a collection if they couldn't think of anything else. Very disappointed there's not a new collection!
Or a new Woohoo spot or death those come in almost every expansion but this 😭
I haven’t seen anyone mention that the goats can be milked for milk and the little sheep can be sheared for wool if you’ve got the cottage living pack.
‘If’ is the word I don’t like in that sentence. Everyone I’ve seen talking about it just seems annoyed that without cottage living, you literally have nothing for the goats/sheep.
Oh that's only with Cottage Living? I didn't realize, I have both, so wow they are pretty much completely useless decorative animals then without it. Wow, that makes Horse Ranch even sadder than I thought.
Actually even without Cottage Living you can shear wool and get milk for simoleons. You won't have them in your inventory same with how it is when you "sell" your plants directly instead of harvesting them.
But it is just regular milk...why not goats milk for cheese making and soap making. Missed opportunity.
@@mintish_ Yeah I think a lot of packs have synergy and that's a good thing (although not for our wallets)! For example I probably would never play cottage living without seasons the same way I'd not enjoy horses as much without cottage living.
At the flower and grocery stalls you can actually sell all you collectibles and produce
Cottage Living ❤
I agree with this so much! I personally LOVE Cottage Living's gameplay. Opening a pie shop, a jam/produce little market, and living off the land are a few examples of things that give me goals to work for, make money, and create stories. Even a flower shop goes well with the Henford-on-Bagley vibe. Combining llama wool with Nifty Knitting works like a charm to sell stuff on Plopsy. Overall I enjoy CL much more than HR. But I do love Nectar Making!
Wait, I think I'm missing something, how can I open a pie shop etc?
@@trude8073 You’ll need Get To Work to own a business. Combined with the Canning Skill, cow milk, and fresh eggs that come with Cottage Living, growing and farming your own ingredients for the Baking skill makes running a bakery or pie shop a very profitable and fun business. Cottage Living introduced a few more pie recipes, and the Pie Contest during Town Fair events. I just love how well a pie shop fits in Henford-on-Bagley, and how versatile Cottage Living is cross-packs.
Personally I think the Horse Ranch pack and Cottage Living pack complement each other nicely, and if you’re not too uptight about immersion they’re fun to mix ☺️
I'm from Texas and we pronounce "prairie" almost the same as "prayer". Like "prayer-y".
Also I think both worlds are beautiful! Horse Ranch seems very inspired by parts of Arizona and Utah. Google some pics of Zion national park and Vermillion Cliffs, they're so beautiful!
I just want the goats and sheep from Horse Ranch in my Cottage Living.....
Can you do that? x
thank you for this! it's a really well thought out comparison and made me realise i don't actually want to get Horse Ranch, but i do want to pick Cottage Living back up again; i forgot how much fun the combination of building up a farm and Simple Living is ☺️ more videos like this please! your skills really shine in these structured review/analysis/opinion pieces! (i know you've already done loads, but still 😅)
Cottage Living all the way!!! I will buy Horse Ranch when it’s on sale because I have every other expansion and game pack. But, I’m mostly interested in it for the cross play with Cottage Living (sheep and goats - yay!) I’m sure I’ll play the horses at least once or twice - for the training up/winning all competitions challenge, and to breed and raise a foal. I also like the nectar making/aging piece - will be fun to incorporate into my ‘rags to riches’ gameplay. But I definitely do not see it ever becoming my “go to” pack like Cottage Living is.
Ultimately I agree. I think horses are the big thing from this new pack that really sets it apart. I've been having a lot of fun with it but I think that's because horses are more interactive, they're very different from the cats and dogs we have so it's a new type of gameplay, and I've done everything else in the game 100,000 times. However, half of the outdoor plants we got were either recolors of ones we already have or like....literally the new flower thing is just the debug flower patch from strangerville, cut in half and sized down. It feels insulting and I'm surprised more people aren't talking about it.
Horses, after leveling up and winning everything, just don't have that much to do. Breeding them is all that is left to do with them. With the empty world and lack of horse things to do, could have beefed up the pack with more horse cas. For a pack about horses, why was cas so small.
Horse ranch should have been a game pack. They aren't even trying anymore.. it's so cash grabby it's pitiful, and the more the years go on, the worse it gets. I got Sims 3 again for the first time in years and it's so much better, also you can actually control your horse on the sims 3. The amazing modders are the only thing keeping the sims 4 going.
To be completely fair though, Sims4 is WAY more complex and WAY more money/time to develop anything for. Additionally the more they add to the game the harder it is to add anything else because coding for the level of compatibility required when you have this much content in one game is literally the WORST NIGHTMARE of any developer. It's not even just making the new one compatible you can literally only add things in that every other game pack that came before will naturally just have to work with the new one- YIKES! And that's just the tip. Lets be honest though- it's the top 1% of the company making most of the decisions we don't like not the actual devs working on it xD
There is only one thing I dislike about the object animals (cows, llamas, chickens, goats, sheep) and that is you can't get a tombstone for them, but the reaper still comes to collect them when they die. -_- That being said, if this bothers anyone else and you'd like to make a faux grave spot for your object animals, I've used the little metal signs from the ranch pack and just making a pretend memorial spot lol.
I actually liked it when animals weren´t objects. I´d like the option to control them even if that meant giving them a family slot. Makes it way more interesting in my opinion. I spent so many hours just playing as a cat or horse in The Sims 3 it was really fun x) And it makes it easier to move them around. But I get that some people don´t have the need for that and I can see why as well. Maybe give us the option to choose between control or no control? Would be really neat!
I actually don't get why some people wouldn't want pets to be controllable. If we are going on the argument of realism and how you can't really control your pet irl or know exactly which of its needs are low, why should toddlers and infants be controllable? But pretty sure that there is a mode to make the pets controllable so it's not that big of an issue, it's just an odd choice of game design on ea's part imo
I still can’t believe the competitions for horses are a rabbit hole - that is basically why I won’t be getting the pack. Really disappointing for an expansion pack all about horses!
Cottage living has to be my favorite pack. I love it so much since I adore that type of country aesthetic and the modest clothing!!
A few things you missed. The mini goats and sheep produce milk and wool, they can also kill you if you’re mean to them. And you can woohoo in the bathroom bush. 😊
But the bathroom bush wohoo is from get together and later added on snowy escape and jungle adventure. Its not a new woohoo spot. Get together has the closet wohoo also which is exclusive to it.
On the one hand : horses & nectar
On the other hand : gardening, canning, giant plants, animal treats to discover with different effets, cows, lamas, cross stitch, new foods, new collections, new lot traits that actually had an impact and made the game more challenging, new weekly events that incorporate new game play and older game play, the community jobs... so so much more ....
Horse Ranch has community jobs, new collections of competition badges and different nectar with different effects, goats and sheep, new events, a new type of dance, and a cave with really cool features. I would give this pack a few more weeks to discover everything you can or cannot do before I judge it and buy it for Christmas on sale 😅
Not saying your opinion is wrong, but if you're going to leave out everything other out of one expansion you should leave a bunch of stuff out of the other too to be fair xD Ie that'd be like saying cottage living had farm animals and gardening (which is way better with seasons which is a seperate pack, similar to how horses has great synergy with cottage living)
This is the second video I’ve seen of yours and immediately subscribed 😅 love your personality!!
hey satch! i love your videos
I completely lost interest in the cave when I found out from onlyabidoang that the level number was set to a billion (so glad I checked). For me it just feels like the illusion of progress because clearly the sims team doesn’t expect you to reach a satisfying end and the rewards are meh. Should’ve been 20 levels and you go to a secret area with unicorns.
7:50 a big part of the horse world being big is that it feels even more empty. They do not increase the amount of sims being generated. Another thing is that because there are no wild horses. You hardly ever see any horses that aren’t your own. I highly recommend filling at least one of the lots you aren’t going to use with some more horses and this will make it feel a little better.
Idk if placing them without any sims might break the game or not lol I really want them to feel like wild horses
I am one of those ugh there was too much gameplay to me people. I got burnt out on cottage living animals, crops, fairs, etc. because it got to be so grindy. I love the goats and sheeps as objects. I can get their needs up with basically one or two interactions and it doesn't take forever. I also love that they can wonder around and WISH the cows, llamas, and chickens could as well. I don't like them stationary. I love the ranch hand service in horses. It's game changer and it doesn't feel as grindy to me. Some days I can work on nectar, some on horse days, some on garden days. Cottage living didn't come with that option, so I got burnt out. I might revisit now that I have a ranch hand. I wonder if they help the cows, llamas, and chickens as well?
I do wish the competitions weren't so rabbit holey in horses. Even a nectar set up like the cottage living milk fair would have been a nice addition.
you can sheer the sheep! they have different color wool that can be used for knitting
Cottage Living allows you to swim in the rivers. I love having my sims have a swim in the river. There are a few places you can do this.
Horse ranch has a lake with a rainbow and waterfalls in the Gulch where you can swim too!
Honestly I love both of them I have been doing a rags to ranches and both have been very useful with all the jobs from horse ranch and the cottage living garden/cross stitching ❤
Nice review! Must Have Sims 4 packs: Seasons, Cats & Dogs, Cottage Living, and Horse Ranch. Love those! Side note.... Horse ranch DID ADD a NEW woohoo bush! You keep forgetting that lol
I agree with all your points. I will say that I love the gulch section of Horse Ranch and I'm enjoying having my Sim canter around all the trails. I like that you can take a sleeping bag, your horse's bed and a cooler and camp out anywhere under the stars. I like that the animals in Horse Ranch aren't tied to the barn the way the cows and llamas are in Cottage Living. Also, I'm glad training the horses isn't super quick and easy and took a couple in-game weeks to completely accomplish. I wish the nectar sold for a more reasonable price to make rags to riches more challenging. If they did that, people who wanted to get rich quick could just sell theirs on a selling table for 300% profit. The normal milk and eggs in Cottage Living sold for a semi-reasonable price and made gameplay more interesting to me.
The mini sheep and goats are a major pain and are always threatening to run away even though they are full, clean, and content, just like the cows and clams in Cottage Living. I'd just let them go, but unfortunately, they come back once you spend some time with your other sheep and goats. I think this would have been a phenomenal expansion pack if they had been combined. But if I was rating them the way you did, Cottage Living would have won for me, too.
Side note-I finished the nectar aspiration, but nothing changed with my nectar. Was supposed to come out of the machine finely aged and worth more, but doesn't. Since I want it to be more reasonably priced, that doesn't bother me, but the glitch might bother some.
At least you are getting bottles...my sim maxed out on nectar making but never actually made a single bottle.
Cottage living does actually come with a 64x64 lot too 😊
Only if you don't mind kicking out the townies that live there (unless there is another 64×64 I am forgetting about). I don't really mind kicking out the townies if they live on the lot I want to play at, but if you are starting a new save, you first need to put the sim you made at a temporary house, go to manage world, avict the townies, bulldose the lot so that your sim can buy it, and only then you can start out your farm at the big lot
@@fruity4820 that's true, that would be a pain. My save is like 3 years old so I didn't think of that, I hardly make new saves
cottage living is one of, if not THE MOST ambitious sims 4 expansion pack, it honestly had so much love involved and i love this pack just so much, i never get bored of it and this is why i love it just so much
For me personally both packs are complementary, its hard for me to say which is better or worse
For me the minisheep and goat format is cooler than the locked animals to object format
But both packs complement each other well
I think theyre quite different in style so i cant compare aesthetics
I love both worlds but cottage libing def wins in terms of lot sizes
And horses are complete life stage animals with traits and skills
Nothing like that is in cottage living but i do love the cows llamas and chickens along with bunnies ❤
Are they worth tye money? If u love animals and farm play and get it maybe on sale yes
If you arent that bothered probably not
Love your videos
thanks you and rekowcski are the best the sims TH-camrs to me
I do like Cottage living but if I had to choose between the two I'd get Horse Ranch
The real play is to wait until they're both 50% off and get both for the price of one because honestly they just compliment one another so well on a true ranching gameplay!
Omg both of the pack together are AMAZING!!! 🎉❤
Thank you so much for the side by side comparison! I was struggling to decide which of the two I should put on my wishlist. ♥And then likely never buy anyways lol.
It's really a pity Horse Ranch object animals don't live up to the expectation for them set by Cottage Living. I was hoping when I saw the animals in Horse Ranch that it would be capable of serving as a (weaker) substitute for Cottage Living, with the bonus of having a whole new pet type as well to make up for that. But it seems Cottage Living is still the farmiest farm pack.
The likely never buy anyways part is such a mood haha!
Bunnies? There you go, that one is better.
"OBJECT animals"? I call them "objects with friendship bars" XD
Not even a comparison for me. The only pack I paid for was cottage living, for the world, aesthetic, gameplay, lot traits, overall vibe. If I were to ever buy the horse ranch (not gonna) it would be for the horses alone. Nothing else in the pack is appealing to me.
I have just launched the EA App. I noticed that the Horse Ranch pre-order bonuses are not pre-order bonuses at all. If you buy the pack before 31 August, you will get the 3 items...
It's probably to incentivise people who wait until the sale.
You never have to pre-order to get the bonus items, but you do have to buy within a month or so of it being released. I will only ever pay when I can play, not before.
They always give you a month to get them. Its so you don’t wait for less than full price as satch said and so people buy even if there are bugs/glitches that they haven’t fixed because they “might” fix it later so why not get the “free” stuff.
@@DwarfDragonwulf Maybe that's the case. I just never paid attention to it. I just found it strange that the dreadful EA app tried to lure me into buying the pack right at the start with those "pre-order bonuses".😂
@@benn8793 Well not paying attention to it is probably your own fault...
I love canning and simple living lot traits because i like a storyline of a farmer living off the land and trying to make when he can
I get so much use out of Cottage Living because I like making my Sims homestead. (In Sims 3, I actually had a post-apocalyptic world where everyone had to live off the land, and I created a generational-type challenge where each generation had to build a new public building (like a school, military base, etc.) and they got to unlock some items which were not previously allowed in a survival situation. You basically re-built civilization.) I also love the British countryside, so I love all the decor. It's the best expansion since World Adventures for the Sims 3 (which is by far and away my favorite).
World Adventures is so OP, I don't think any pack can beat it, it had so much depth & gameplay it was almost like a different game. Sims 4 could never
@@BlueRoseFaery It allowed me to live out all my childhood fantasies of being an archaeologist a la Indiana Jones. I love puzzles as well, so I loved all the traps and mysteries. I couldn't get enough of it. My sims always came home and established a museum in their hometown that I filled with all their collectibles.
Prairie is “prayer-ee” 🙏🏻
Right now i’m definitely giving love to the horse ranch. It’s bringing the horse girl out of me, for sure. I think I like horse ranch a little better rn but I think with time, I’ll rank them at the same level. Both have really beautiful worlds and tons to do. I just like to keep my sims busy
I was really against getting horse ranch, but I love horses and am in the middle of finishing my dissertation so I needed something fun and I have to admit, I actually absolutely love that pack.
My ranch hand just quits everyday. Apparently my farm is a mess, they get out when they can
I just started to look for equestrian CC in case I would buy this pack on sale, because, obviously, EA could not give us proper horse stuff. They even screwed their eyes and make them look like f*cking derps because of it, I'm so annoyed, gods...
Omg Satch I genuinely did a WOOP when you said prairie grass correctly. I knew you could do it LMAO. Honestly, as a fellow British person....you speak so weird, doesnt mean I dont love you to bits though. Plus I'm from Essex and live in Weston-Super-Mare I'm sure I'm in no position to talk at all lol. Where in the uk are you actually from? I can't place your accent x
Devs could put window pop cut scene for horse or equestrian competition, either win or lose cut scene depends on skill level.
I loved the way you outlined this video. Thanks again!
I don't care nothing, Cottage Living is the Best EP of TS4 and nobody cans change my mind😌
Agreed. For me, Cottage Living, Eco Lifestyle, and Get Together are the strongest expansions because they both actually EXPAND on gameplay across the board and aren't restricted to their own world.
(Although I don’t think anyone should give you trouble about how you pronounce things…you have a British regional accent which sounds great and I love…but in the US, you’d pronounce it preh-ree grass…saying it out loud to myself, I think the emphasis is on…either, sorry…my accent is US newscaster, meaning, I don’t have much of a particular regional accent.) Anyway, I think you’ve convinced me to buy Horse Ranch…when it’s on a massive sale…for the sole purpose of making Cottage Living more fun. Cottage Living is my favorite pack, and my favorite world for prettiness (so why I always start my endless Rags to Riches games in Willow Creek, I have no idea, lol.) Thanks, Satch, I love your humor, snark and even when you rant on Sims, I think you’re being fair and honest in what you say!! Looking forward to more adventures of Shanice and Shantelle in their Horse Ranch Let’s Play!
The best pack is when you close The Sims 4 and go back to play Sims 2/3
As I will likely get the new pack for Christmas, I can't judge really, but from what I've seen Cottage Living is more dynamic. I find it very harsh in Sims 4 that animals are part of a household but you can't even see their needs. I can kinda understand not being able to control them but not even being able to see their needs but they take a household slot. It makes them feel like objects more than the "object animals". For that reason alone, the horse pack is a negative for me. I feel that way about cats and dogs as well. Maybe I've been playing Sims 3 too much, but always in every household in Sims 3 I added a pet and I don't in Sims 4 because of the reasons mentioned. At least the animals in Cottage Living ARE objects and don't take a household slot. I kinda feel they should bee more like roommates from University, they live in your house but are not under your control and don't take a household slot.
Now, as I live in Texas the aesthetic of Horse Ranch, does appeal. A lot of the gameplay does look fun. But it doesn't seem to have the cross pack compatibility that Cottage Living does. You didn't mention that and its a big big part of my judgement on a pack. The animal clothes for knitting are a big plus for CL and I have not been made aware of any major cross pack for HR. CL ties in cooking and baking and gourmet cooking and gardening, while HR doesn't even tie in the animal treats from CL or anything like that. Its always the missed opportunities that hurt the most. The interface for the equestrian center in Sims 3 is more interactive, they could have done that rather than the fade out and its much more exciting to "see" the race than just be informed afterward. Can the wool for the lambs be used for knitting? I haven't heard that it can, but there is not a lot of intense gameplay available yet from the youtubers I follow.
Recently, I have started a new game in Sims 4 because my niece asked me to. I'm playing a bear, someone who is always in a bear suit, who is living in Henford on Bagley because of the berries in the park there. You know, bears eat berries... Anyway, my game flickers when I move the screen. It's fine if I find an angle and just leave it alone but when I move the screen for any reason it flickers. This is a new issue that is a MAJOR issue. I'm not playing it often, just when my niece is over visiting, but it really really really bothers me that the screen is flickering that way. I'm pretty sure its from after one of the recent updates. So I don't know how much I will be playing 4 again, or if I'm going to just go back to Sims 3 completely.
I love both packs both Have their own unique things to offer as a USA citizen and A former horse girl I needed Horse ranch more than anything
Idk why they didn't just put them in one fucking pack to begin with...
Probably because development takes "fucking" resources, "fucking" time and "fucking" coordination between teams, other packs, etc all of which when a game gets this big gets slower and more expensive with every new release- you know stuff like that. Haha all jokes aside though, just glancing at the code for sims 4 shows it's WAY more complex than sims3.
@@Riazey Let's not act like theyre a broke company please. Way more complex, but was supposed to be for mobile? Lacked basic vanilla features from previous games? Seperates unoriginal content into multiple uncessary packs? You know what, In a way you're right...the game is complex. They can't seem to get it right. YOU GOT IT! :D
Cottage living seems really great!
Cas, animals, the style just hits the spot
The part about Agnes Crumplebottom is so true, my sims just got married in a park and Agnes went around beating all the guests with her bag 😂😂
Does anyone know of a good horse mod??? I just don’t want to spend like 40 something dollars on a new pack just for horses. I’m a horse girl without the horse and really want to build a horse ranch in the sims
The biggest problem I have with the Sims these days is everything seems to be created through a "Is it cute" lens rather than a "Is it realistic and cool" lens.
Honestly - I think the best thing to do is to get both (on sale). One of my friends lives in Phoenix, Arizona so I visit her there sometimes (though I haven't in a while it has been like 118°F Which I think is about 47°C - my math might be a little off). Thing I don't like about horse ranch is that there are no pools - everyone has a pool there because it's always hot there in general., because well it's a desert.
I think both the worlds in general are pretty in their own way. I don't know the british countryside thoug - I have never been to the UK basically only to Germany, France, and Czech Republic in Europe. So it's a rare treat for me to go there because the plane flights are sooooo long even living on the east coast of the US. but next time I am planning on going to Dublin, London and Athens - might stop by in Berlin for a day or 2 because I love that city. In general. I just stick to somewhere I can get a train to like NYC, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, and DC. I already live in Philadelphia where I grew up so nothing is never new to me here. Hrm maybe I should go to the west coast of the US but people have told me that I would need a car (I don't drive and never learned - never needed to because I could alwaysn walk, bike or bus wherever I wanted to go.) So maybe not.
THE HORSES NAME IS SENDING MEEEE
I so thought you said the mysterious rancher had a big willy!!! I did a double take and had to go back.
I don’t think anything can live up to Sims 3 set up for the animals and farm packs. However I do I think the best part about it was that the Pets pack included all your average pet animals, and then you were able to pick and chose what extra animals you’d like from the store. It probably equaled out in price eventually compared to what we have now.
It would have been great for the team to implement cows, llama’s, chickens, pigs and sheep as kits, or game packs if they’re feeling etra money hungry. It was just a way more fair and personal option for players to have more customisation and choice in their games. I’d also like to believe their was more effort into making them which resulted in better gameplay feistiness and fully rounded out assets
Cottage Living is still the best bc i still enjoy the pack meanwhile Horse Ranch I don’t really enjoy it after a day of playing 😭
You need to look into Roberto Crinkletop (not sure if I got that right) some more
I literally don’t play the game. I’m a CAS girl but this video is making me want to play Cottage Living!
Are you posting the next episode of the horse ranch series you're doing tomorrow?
The two packs seem very complimentary. Cottage living seems to have more but if you are a horse person I suppose that's the most important element. Exciting for farmers to combine the two for a giant farm.
I'm glad the horse ranch competitions aren't a live event. The Finchwick Fair doesn't work most of the time STILL. The smaller competition items don't usually award you with anything, you don't even get any results once it ends. I prefer if we just have more to do, even if they're rabbit holes, as long as they work. Having to go into build mode after a chicken, llama or cow competition and having to enable bb.showhiddenobjects just to get your animals back is such a chore. That being said, I haven't gotten Horse Ranch yet, since I don't think it's worth the full pack price so I can't say for sure that the horse competitions work as intended. So far I haven't seen people report bugs with it, but I haven't been looking as actively either.
The mini goats you can milk for milk, the mini sheep you can get wool, and you can trade them for money, meat or goods.
really wish the competition was something you were able to view/ play like the acting job in get famous
OK, so did family cooking and family gardening come out as base game with cottage living or is it exclusive to cottage living? Like, I know they came out together but I can’t remember.
In the rabbit hole for the horse competitions we should have been given a mini game star stable styled or like a little movie
Basically, I paid $40 USD to have horses in Cottage Living.
I think I'll get horse ranch when it's on sale. Going to take a while but yeah :)