Anyone else having trouble getting the CowPlant to eat a Sim?

[PugLove888]

Anyone else having trouble getting the CowPlant to eat a Sim?  Compared to TS2, the CowPlants in TS4 are difficult to manage!   My poor plant will be out in my front yard waiting for an unsuspecting Sim to take the cake bait, but there are no takers!  My CowPlant also dies very quickly while I'm waiting for this to work!  In TS2, it was quite easy to get someone to eat the cake and therefore get eaten themselves, but I've only managed to just finally do it in TS4 today!  I was playing a family without money cheats, but I had to use money cheats to build enough fencing around my cow Plant, and unlike in the past, if you totally enclose tan area with fencing, the grass automatically disappears, and your plants go into the Family Inventory.  Thank God for the Undo button!   The only way I managed to keep all my grass. as well as all my plants is to leave a one tile gap in the fencing and put the decorative rocks on either side of the opening.  But I had to do this after I called the Garden Gnomes meeting at my Sim's house and got one of them tending to a nearby plant.  Then I fenced them in and took all other plants out of the fenced area, and only then did they take the cake and get eaten!  It took me a lot of time, and cost my Sims a lot of money so I had to use a money cheat to do this!  Previous to this, all of my CowPlants died waiting for someone to take the cake, or I would end up feeding them, and then they would never send out the cake lure, which made them just another decoration, and not a plant that eats Sims!   I never tried sending my own Sims to take the cake because I wasn't' sure if it would kill the Sim or not, and I was afraid they would be killed and I would forget to exit without saving the game and accidentally saving a game with  a Sim that died when I didn't want them to!  For the record, the Sim I finally got to be the victim of the CowPlant did not die, she was spit out and was extremely dirty and my Sim was able to milk the CowPlant.  Does this always happen,, or do they sometimes die?  Thank you!

[crinrict]

Do they get eaten if you give the order to eat the cake ? Mine used to be obsessed with the plant and ate the cake all the time but only if my Sims were hungry. Haven't tried lately.

You have to be eaten twice in order to die. So if you still have the moodlet from the first time, have them eat another cake and then they'll die.

[jpkarlsen]

Unless a Sim is hungry they will not take the cake and they must be invited to the lot or live on it.

The cowplant does not kill a sim the first time they get eaten but their essence will be taken and if they get eaten another time before it is restored they will die.

[PugLove888]

Crinrict, I've only managed to get a Sim o eat the cake once.  I got the CowPlant to eat Moira Fryes since the Garden Gnomes were helping my Sim maintain her large garden and Moira happened to be the one standing closest to the CowPlant so I built a fence around her and the CowPlant leaving one gap in the fence blocked by decorative rocks so as not to get rid of the grass and have the CowPlant be moved to the Family Inventory.   There was no command to direct her to eat cake since she was a guest on my lot.  I never tried this with a Sim I was playing since I was afraid it would kill my Sim and I would accidentally save the game and loose my Sim! 

I just tried this again on the next day and the CowPlant died before anyone took the cake !  This didn't happen in TS2!  Sooner or later someone would always take the cake, and the plant wouldn't die!   Now I have to find another CowPlant berry!

Thanks for replying!

[PugLove888]

Thanks for replying, JPKarlsen!   That makes since that a Sim that can't be directed would only take the cake if they were hungry enough.  The problem is that the Cowplant usually dies before anyone takes the cake!   Thanks for explaining that if the Sim who gets eaten doesn't have their essence restored before they get eaten again, they will die the second time!  

 Do you happen do know about how long it takes before a Sim's essence gets restored?

[jpkarlsen]

You can milk the Cowplant and drink it immediately.

I can't remember how long it takes. You can hover the mouse over the debuff they get to see it if it is one of your own sims.

I use the dead cowplant as a decoration so I fence them in so nobody can feed them.

[PugLove888]

JPKarlsen, thanks for replying!     Like I have said, I never tried this on one of my Sims before, since I didn't know what the effects were (such as death, sickness, unconsciousness, shortened life span, etc.) so I was not able to hover over the debuff since it wasn't one of my Sims who I managed to have the CowPlant eat!  I guess I will have to experiment with one of my own Sims in that case, since no one remembers exactly.  I did have my Sm drink Moira Fyres essence, but I was wondering on how long I had to wait for Moira to recover from the incident before I could have my CowPlant strike again without killing her!

Now I have to wonder what happens to Plant Sims, Vampires, Ghosts, etc..  Can the CowPlant eat them?   What if a Vampire drinks from one of my Sims and then a CowPlant eats them?  I'm thinking that even if it is the first time a CowPlant eats them , in this case they are already in a weakened state and it would probably kill them!

Thanks for replying!

[ninapeters28000]

The MySims have eaten the cake without being eaten by the plant and I'm trying to get one of my Sims to be eaten by the plan just to see what goes on and now it works but it's not happening.

[jpkarlsen]

Do you have any Mods or CC? If so move your Mods folder to the Desktop and delete localthumbcache.package. Then test the game. 

[stbnchristine]

My botanist has a cow plant at work. At the science lab, I had to fence in the cow plant so people would quit getting eaten. If one of my other scientists went to work and I forgot about the cow plant, another worker would always get eaten. Several died. So it is definitely an issue with it needing to be a visitor on the lot. Try planting one at a venue. Lol. You will get plenty of milk essences!