One of the most important things to know about The Sims Mobile is that households do not work the same way as they do in The Sims 4.
When you start the game, you have two possible household slots for Sims, with two more being purchasable with SimCash. This might lead some players to think that you’re forced to spend real money to have a household of more than two Sims, but this is not true. Your Sims can have multiple children and grow large families even with just two household slots.
The household slots represent Sims that are playable by you, not necessarily Sims that live in the home. More than four Sims can live in the home at a time, but you can only directly control up to two of them. If you choose to spend SimCash, you can control up to four of them, but this is not necessary to play the game the way it was intended.
Here’s a breakdown of how household slots work when it comes to marriage and children:
Marriage
When your Sim gets married, their spouse will move into the house with you. If you have a free household slot, you will have the option to make their spouse playable in the family portrait. Making your Sim’s spouse playable will use up a free household slot.
If you do not have any free household slots available when your Sim gets married, you will not be able to make their spouse playable, but they will still move into the home. Your Sim can still interact with them the same way they interact with any other Sim. You just cannot directly control the spouse’s actions.
The exception to this is marrying a Sim that is being played by another player. Read on to find out how relationships with other players’ Sims work.
TIP: After unlocking the second household slot, the game will prompt you to create a new Sim to move into the household as a playable Sim. This Sim will take up the second household slot. Many players prefer having their initial Sim marry this second Sim. Your second Sim is already playable and living in the house, so marrying them is the most straightforward choice.
Children
Children cannot be made into playable Sims until they become adults, so even if you have an extra household slot free when you have a baby, you won’t be able to assign them that slot. This means you don’t need to have any available household slots in order to have children. It also means you can have more than two children if you’d like.
When a child becomes an adult, you’ll be able to promote them to a playable Sim through the family portrait. Promoting an adult child will take up a household slot and that child will become playable. If you have no available household slots for them, you will have to wait until your current Sims become elderly and retire in order to free up a household slot.
Extra adult children that you don’t want to make playable or have hanging around can be moved out, instead. If you have more than four children, you’ll have no choice but to move out some of them when they become adults, since you cannot have more than four playable Sims at a time.
Other Players’ Sims
Understanding how relationships with other players’ Sims work is very important. They don’t follow the same rules as NPC Sims do.
Your Sims can marry the Sims of other players, but since these Sims belong to another player, this means they will have to leave that player’s household to join yours. When you ask another player’s Sim to move in with you, the other player will receive a request, asking them if they would like to send their Sim to your household. If the other player accepts, the Sim will leave the house and they will lose control of the Sim. By asking another player’s Sim to move in with you, you are essentially asking that player to transfer ownership of that Sim to you.
If you accept a request to have your Sim move away to someone else’s household and have no other Sims left in your household, you’ll be taken to the CAS screen and see a notification informing you that a long lost cousin has come to live in the home. You will be able to customise this Sim to your liking just like any other Sim in your playable household.
TL;DR Version
All of that can seem confusing, so to break it all down more simply:
- Household slots are playable Sims, not necessarily Sims that live in the house.
- You can have more Sims living in the house than household slots.
- Your playable Sims can still interact with other Sims living in the house.
- Only adult Sims can become playable Sims.
- Other players’ Sims can be married and moved into your household, but keep in mind this means that the other player will lose control of their Sim.
Thank you to our reader, Erick, for providing some helpful information about building relationships with other players’ Sims.
90 Comments
I’m actually having a hard time wrapping my head around how relationships with other players’ sims work. If you start a relationship with another player’s sim, does that player see the relationship, too? If you marry that sim, does that player lose the sim? Do they have to play in your house now? Or does the game create a carbon copy of that sim for you to play with? Does that player have any say in any of this?
To keep it simple, I mainly stick to cultivating relationships with NPCs.
Reply to Caitie
I’m trying to pin down the specifics about this but I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting anyone to offer up a Sim for my Sim to romance. No one wants to run the risk of losing their Sim, which makes it hard for guide writers like me to get the mechanics 100% figured out. I may need to resort to asking an EA Game Advisor.
Reply to SnarkyWitch
My girlfriend and I decided to start playing this game recently and found a few things out.
1) relationship status is not shared between accounts. Her sim and my sim can have different levels of the same relationship with each other at the same time. We didn’t try having different kinds of relationship. However, the owner of the sim gets a message in inbox when a friend has reached a new level in the relationship with them.
2) marrying another player’s sim only seems to notify the owner of the sim that their relationship with so and so changed. My gf’s sim status changed to fiancé after I propose and several times it reverted said status (I’m assuming this is a bug of some sort). I married her sim prior to our relationship being lv8 and it didn’t move her in. It’s important to note I also didn’t have extra sim slots in my household.
3) once I finally had a sim spot in my household and my relationship with my gf’s sim was lv8, I invited her sim to move-in. She then got a notification in her account inbox asking if she accepted. Her acceptance made the sim move out of her household and into mine where she no longer has control over her sim. Because she didn’t have any other sims in her household, the game created one for her saying “a long lost cousin has come to live at your house”.
I re-proposed (for the 5th time) and re-married (1st try got reverted back for whatever reason) and now she has stayed my wife for more than a few minutes.
Hope the experience above helps answer your questions.
Reply to Erick
That is all amazingly helpful, thank you so much. I’ll be sure to post a guide on this and credit you for any of your information I use.
Reply to Erick
I am really confused. Is this a bug or somewhat but I have re-married some sim because i didn’t ask them to move out.
Reply to Winter
I’m not sure I understand the question. Playable Sims can’t be moved out until you retire them. Having to remarry someone else’s Sim is a common glitch. Read more about that in this article: https://simscommunity.info/2018/03/17/the-sims-mobile-building-relationships-with-your-friends-sims/
Reply to Erick
Hey, can you tell me what is household? Im not from english and i use translate but translate is not so ok
What if my sim have married to other player’s sim, and i don’t ask them to move in??
Reply to Jess
This feature is apparently glitchy. Ideally you’re supposed to stay married but just not live together but lots of players report that the game keeps erasing the spouse relationship if they don’t live together. More details on that here: https://simscommunity.info/2018/03/17/the-sims-mobile-building-relationships-with-your-friends-sims/
Reply to Jess
I dont know but i make. Nothing. If u dont ask to a move in, you can call over sim and sim here
If I didn’t buy the last 2 household slots, can I have two babies and promote them as playable for free when they’re adults? Or do I have to buy the slots with Simcash first?
Reply to Justin
You unfortunately cannot promote adult children to playable Sims without a bought and open Sim slot, at least not for myself. You have to buy the slots (w/ Sims cash) if you wish to promote them.
Reply to Justin
You cannot have more than two playable Sims at a time without using SimCash. If you want to play your Sims’ children when they become adults, you have to retire the parents to make room for the children.
Reply to Justin
You can promote them once you’ve retired your current sims and freed your household slots without buying the other two slots.
Reply to Justin
You need slots in order to promote. Until you have a slot for the 2 sims they will stay a child/toddler/baby.
If you move out an adult child, can you still play as them with their own house? Or does the “move out” feature essentially work as the “retire” feature does wherein the Sim leaves your household and simply exists in the game? If the latter is the case, it should be looked into being able to play children in their own household so you can keep generations going but in new houses.
Reply to Aly
You can only play with one household. Moving out spare children makes them disappear from the lot and the family portrait. You cannot play with them in another household, but they will remain in your Sims’ contact list and your Sims can invite them over to socialise. Essentially, moved out children just become random townies.
Reply to Aly
Once you move out a sim. They will be deleted from the game hence you will not be able to see them anymore.
I’m dating with a sim without green diamond on it or maybe NPC, idk. I have lvl 10 flirt relationship with and so named fiance. Why I can’t find propose in option?
Reply to Waygo
If you already have the fiance relationship status, a proposal has already taken place. You can’t propose again. If the Sim has a plumbob above their head, they belong to another player. If you marry them, the other player will have to approve the marriage request and their Sim will come live with you.
Greetings. I have one Sim and a random NPC just moved it and I can’t get them to leave. Help! Is thus because i have extra household slots not used?
Reply to Tiwana
They’re coded into inviting themselves into our house just for interacting with them.
How do you Chang the family picture to another picture?
Reply to Vaughn
Changing one of your sims clothes changes their position in the portrait randomly
Reply to Vaughn
You just go to your house and tap on the portrait. Make sure you do it in regular mode, and not when you’re editing the house and furniture.
Thank you for this! I was almost going to create a fourth playable sim, but then I found out that I need an empty slot to be able to control my sims’ children! I’m glad I don’t have to wait for my first sims to retire!
I have 3 sims slots available. I am using 2 of them for a girl and a guy who are at a level 6 relationship, and the other one for the girl’s sister who is at a level 3 relationship with an NPC player. I want both of them to get married even though I know I won’t be able to control the NPC player. (I don’t have enough sims cash to buy the 4th slot) Is it possible for both sisters to marry and have kids in the same household?
Reply to Maricarmen
Yes, the children from both relationships will stay in your household.
Reply to Maricarmen
No. You would need another slot to control the NPC because when they get married they will move in with your household.
My sim married a sim player by another player. When I wanted to ask to move in her husband, it said that there was no more room in household. I dont want to make them playable, I just want them living in the same house
My question is that if my sims have multiple children and they all become adults do I have to move them out of the house or can they still stay in the household even if they are not playable ?
Reply to Jess
My sims had three adult children living with them and never had to move any of them out.
How many elder sims can I have living in my house at one time? I’m assuming theres some limit.
How do you make the sims control themselves?
Reply to Brooke
I hope this answers some people’s questions if you leave sims them alone long enough then they will control themselves I will post another reply if they change it
How do you make the sims control themselves?
I bought all the Newly available lots and built homes for my sims adult children to live in. They got married, but I am not able to move in their partner’s (opc’s) due to “not enough room in household.” This doesn’t seem right. I want to grow my sims families in the Briny Heights homes I created.
Listen hear EA I’m not playing when I say YOU NEED TO MAKE KIDS PLAYABLE YOU NEED TO MAKE KIDS PLAYABLE !!!!!!!! OR ELSE
Hello. i missed a quest in the wedding quest so i could not unlock the honeymoon suit. Still, i was able to marry the NPC i have been in relationship with and i made it playable. Now, my initial sim is living with the new sim i made playable, which is a good thing except i was not able to complete the other quests required after the wedding and this makes me kinda sad. Is there something i could do? Thanks
Thanks for that I have never played the game and just downloaded it yesterday and never got a chance to play it I always like to get information on a game before playing it so thanks for this I really appreciate it
I am thai and have play The sims The sims 2and I sas addicted to yhis game. Once I got this game. It recall my childhood’s time. Well, I have support you EA team a lot by never use amy cheating program to have those simelones either simcash bla bla. When I can control only 4 sims max. Even I move sim put to new house. I still can not control more sim who I jave just moved out.
I am completely disappoint to The sims mobile..really. if I have known that this game would be like this. I might not started. And wait till I have computer then play The sims 4 whoch is more realistic. But cheers up! You have done your best anyway
Br.Rinyaphit
Is it worth buying and building on the other plots on Sims mobile? I’ve brought every one of the available plots including the fully furnished one and every time I through a party, it only takes you to the original house you had when you started the game! So no one ever gets to see your other houses and what you’ve done to them. I’m now concentrating on making my original house the nuts! Which makes it kind of pointless and wasteful buying the other plots, in my mind. Has anyone else noticed this or am I just slow on the uptake?!?
How do I get the picture of the family?
Hey i want help! I cant ask to a move in. Me and another sim has relationship level 8 and to ask a move in write: no more rooms in the household. What can i do? Please help mee!
Thank you for this! I was almost going to create a fourth playable sim, but then I found out that I need an empty slot to be able to control my sims’ children! I’m glad I don’t have to wait for my first sims to retire!
If I didn’t buy the last 2 household slots, can I have two babies and promote them as playable for free when they’re adults? Or do I have to buy the slots with Simcash first?
Reply to Justin
You can promote them once you’ve retired your current sims and freed your household slots without buying the other two slots.
Reply to Justin
You need slots in order to promote. Until you have a slot for the 2 sims they will stay a child/toddler/baby.
Reply to Justin
You unfortunately cannot promote adult children to playable Sims without a bought and open Sim slot, at least not for myself. You have to buy the slots (w/ Sims cash) if you wish to promote them.
Reply to Justin
You cannot have more than two playable Sims at a time without using SimCash. If you want to play your Sims’ children when they become adults, you have to retire the parents to make room for the children.
What if my sim have married to other player’s sim, and i don’t ask them to move in??
Reply to Jess
I dont know but i make. Nothing. If u dont ask to a move in, you can call over sim and sim here
Reply to Jess
This feature is apparently glitchy. Ideally you’re supposed to stay married but just not live together but lots of players report that the game keeps erasing the spouse relationship if they don’t live together. More details on that here: https://simscommunity.info/2018/03/17/the-sims-mobile-building-relationships-with-your-friends-sims/
Is it worth buying and building on the other plots on Sims mobile? I’ve brought every one of the available plots including the fully furnished one and every time I through a party, it only takes you to the original house you had when you started the game! So no one ever gets to see your other houses and what you’ve done to them. I’m now concentrating on making my original house the nuts! Which makes it kind of pointless and wasteful buying the other plots, in my mind. Has anyone else noticed this or am I just slow on the uptake?!?
How do I get the picture of the family?
Reply to Parshuna Karki
ZG3WIpartner.yahoo.Com
I bought all the Newly available lots and built homes for my sims adult children to live in. They got married, but I am not able to move in their partner’s (opc’s) due to “not enough room in household.” This doesn’t seem right. I want to grow my sims families in the Briny Heights homes I created.
My question is that if my sims have multiple children and they all become adults do I have to move them out of the house or can they still stay in the household even if they are not playable ?
Reply to Jess
My sims had three adult children living with them and never had to move any of them out.
I am thai and have play The sims The sims 2and I sas addicted to yhis game. Once I got this game. It recall my childhood’s time. Well, I have support you EA team a lot by never use amy cheating program to have those simelones either simcash bla bla. When I can control only 4 sims max. Even I move sim put to new house. I still can not control more sim who I jave just moved out.
I am completely disappoint to The sims mobile..really. if I have known that this game would be like this. I might not started. And wait till I have computer then play The sims 4 whoch is more realistic. But cheers up! You have done your best anyway
Br.Rinyaphit
How do you Chang the family picture to another picture?
Reply to Vaughn
You just go to your house and tap on the portrait. Make sure you do it in regular mode, and not when you’re editing the house and furniture.
Reply to Vaughn
Changing one of your sims clothes changes their position in the portrait randomly
My sim married a sim player by another player. When I wanted to ask to move in her husband, it said that there was no more room in household. I dont want to make them playable, I just want them living in the same house
Hello. i missed a quest in the wedding quest so i could not unlock the honeymoon suit. Still, i was able to marry the NPC i have been in relationship with and i made it playable. Now, my initial sim is living with the new sim i made playable, which is a good thing except i was not able to complete the other quests required after the wedding and this makes me kinda sad. Is there something i could do? Thanks
I’m dating with a sim without green diamond on it or maybe NPC, idk. I have lvl 10 flirt relationship with and so named fiance. Why I can’t find propose in option?
Reply to Waygo
If you already have the fiance relationship status, a proposal has already taken place. You can’t propose again. If the Sim has a plumbob above their head, they belong to another player. If you marry them, the other player will have to approve the marriage request and their Sim will come live with you.
Greetings. I have one Sim and a random NPC just moved it and I can’t get them to leave. Help! Is thus because i have extra household slots not used?
Reply to Tiwana
They’re coded into inviting themselves into our house just for interacting with them.
Hey i want help! I cant ask to a move in. Me and another sim has relationship level 8 and to ask a move in write: no more rooms in the household. What can i do? Please help mee!
Thanks for that I have never played the game and just downloaded it yesterday and never got a chance to play it I always like to get information on a game before playing it so thanks for this I really appreciate it
How do you make the sims control themselves?
Reply to Brooke
I hope this answers some people’s questions if you leave sims them alone long enough then they will control themselves I will post another reply if they change it
I have 3 sims slots available. I am using 2 of them for a girl and a guy who are at a level 6 relationship, and the other one for the girl’s sister who is at a level 3 relationship with an NPC player. I want both of them to get married even though I know I won’t be able to control the NPC player. (I don’t have enough sims cash to buy the 4th slot) Is it possible for both sisters to marry and have kids in the same household?
Reply to Maricarmen
Yes, the children from both relationships will stay in your household.
Reply to Maricarmen
No. You would need another slot to control the NPC because when they get married they will move in with your household.
How many elder sims can I have living in my house at one time? I’m assuming theres some limit.
Listen hear EA I’m not playing when I say YOU NEED TO MAKE KIDS PLAYABLE YOU NEED TO MAKE KIDS PLAYABLE !!!!!!!! OR ELSE
How do you make the sims control themselves?
I’m actually having a hard time wrapping my head around how relationships with other players’ sims work. If you start a relationship with another player’s sim, does that player see the relationship, too? If you marry that sim, does that player lose the sim? Do they have to play in your house now? Or does the game create a carbon copy of that sim for you to play with? Does that player have any say in any of this?
To keep it simple, I mainly stick to cultivating relationships with NPCs.
Reply to Caitie
I’m trying to pin down the specifics about this but I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting anyone to offer up a Sim for my Sim to romance. No one wants to run the risk of losing their Sim, which makes it hard for guide writers like me to get the mechanics 100% figured out. I may need to resort to asking an EA Game Advisor.
Reply to SnarkyWitch
My girlfriend and I decided to start playing this game recently and found a few things out.
1) relationship status is not shared between accounts. Her sim and my sim can have different levels of the same relationship with each other at the same time. We didn’t try having different kinds of relationship. However, the owner of the sim gets a message in inbox when a friend has reached a new level in the relationship with them.
2) marrying another player’s sim only seems to notify the owner of the sim that their relationship with so and so changed. My gf’s sim status changed to fiancé after I propose and several times it reverted said status (I’m assuming this is a bug of some sort). I married her sim prior to our relationship being lv8 and it didn’t move her in. It’s important to note I also didn’t have extra sim slots in my household.
3) once I finally had a sim spot in my household and my relationship with my gf’s sim was lv8, I invited her sim to move-in. She then got a notification in her account inbox asking if she accepted. Her acceptance made the sim move out of her household and into mine where she no longer has control over her sim. Because she didn’t have any other sims in her household, the game created one for her saying “a long lost cousin has come to live at your house”.
I re-proposed (for the 5th time) and re-married (1st try got reverted back for whatever reason) and now she has stayed my wife for more than a few minutes.
Hope the experience above helps answer your questions.
Reply to Erick
Hey, can you tell me what is household? Im not from english and i use translate but translate is not so ok
Reply to Erick
I am really confused. Is this a bug or somewhat but I have re-married some sim because i didn’t ask them to move out.
Reply to Winter
I’m not sure I understand the question. Playable Sims can’t be moved out until you retire them. Having to remarry someone else’s Sim is a common glitch. Read more about that in this article: https://simscommunity.info/2018/03/17/the-sims-mobile-building-relationships-with-your-friends-sims/
Reply to Erick
That is all amazingly helpful, thank you so much. I’ll be sure to post a guide on this and credit you for any of your information I use.
If you move out an adult child, can you still play as them with their own house? Or does the “move out” feature essentially work as the “retire” feature does wherein the Sim leaves your household and simply exists in the game? If the latter is the case, it should be looked into being able to play children in their own household so you can keep generations going but in new houses.
Reply to Aly
Once you move out a sim. They will be deleted from the game hence you will not be able to see them anymore.
Reply to Aly
You can only play with one household. Moving out spare children makes them disappear from the lot and the family portrait. You cannot play with them in another household, but they will remain in your Sims’ contact list and your Sims can invite them over to socialise. Essentially, moved out children just become random townies.
One of my Sims has 4 kids, I moved 3 of them to a different household and one of them, just vanished from the family portrait, and from my Sims’ contacts. I don’t know why, and it happened again with another one of the kids. Can someone explain what’s wrong or why that happened please?
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