Sell me on the sims

Sims 2 is the best in my opinion, it has the most content rich base game, and the DLC is worth while, it's also well optimised and runs smoothly unlike the sims 3 (which is also good but not as good as sims 2), people will knock it points for not being as open as sims 3 and the actual sim customisation in terms of how they look not going as far as sims 4 but the personality and info aspect of the sims is way more customisable, plus because the game runs so will loading between areas isn't as tedious, it also has a genuinely engaging gameplay loop, sims 4 is very lacking in the actual gameplay aspect, it doesn't encourage progression like sims 2 does and has a lot of mediocre and expensive DLC.

It's hard to give tips because it really depends on what you want to do in the game, there's no real "win" condition, you make your own goals, money is never hard to get in any of the games except maybe the sims 1, so people tend to set goals beyond just obtaining a lot of money.

No matter what you choose to do and which one you play though I hope you have fun!

game's free