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Forum Resident
#376 Old 11th Sep 2015 at 9:44 PM
To spice up my game I have created a business oriented custom town where I have created a community business or home business lot for most of the homeless premade Sims (such as the Goodies and so on.) For example, the Travellerr's own and manage a camping supply shop called Travellerr's where they also offer a selection of rustic cabin furnishings and décor. A family was created (Pepe, Pettina and young daughter Petula) to own Pepe's Pet shop and Pettina's Pet Park. Nerissa's Own Clothing belongs to the romantic fashionista Miss Nerissa Bee. The Goodies own a shop offering garden décor, gardening supplies and potted plants. Scotty McThrifty was created to open a thrift store offering furniture, décor items, appliances and clothing all at half price (this shop is the most popular so far!!). These are not all of the shops I've dreamed up! Not all of the town folk are shop owners although a few are employed at local businesses.
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Test Subject
#377 Old 30th Sep 2015 at 6:57 AM
Thanks for helpful suggestions (I recently was able to install the Sims 2 and playing nonstop since but this shall keep me preoccupied ! )
Scholar
#378 Old 30th Sep 2015 at 3:52 PM
I'm going to completely redo Veronaville in medieval style. Also the vacation 'hoods attached to it. I have a lot of work ahead of me. I never play Veronaville but in medieval style I have so many ideas! I'm excited!

"Oh look, my grandchild is now an elder. They grow up so fast. Gee, I wonder when I'll finally graduate college." Sims 2
Test Subject
#379 Old 18th Oct 2015 at 5:49 PM
Quote: Originally posted by lazyviolet
when the game nauseates me, i just stop playing or i'll play ts1 again.


That's what i always do! go and plug the old gaming machine and play.
Mad Poster
#380 Old 27th Oct 2015 at 11:58 PM
I've found that creating a 'playbook' for a neighborhood really helps a lot.
I use this utility: KeepNote, which is a sort of notebook with the ability to break down pages. (Open source, free)

I will have pages with the
General theme of the neighborhood
Special rules of the neighborhood
Business and community lot information
List of all the families, and under each listing, specific family members and their particular personality, etc.
A sort of "newspaper" to record special events or the town gossip

It's very useful, and you can use it while playing the game in windowed mode-switching back and forth while the game is paused to take notes.

Otherwise, everything can become complicated very quickly-especially if you have a lot of families in your hood.

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Forum Resident
#381 Old 29th Oct 2015 at 3:40 AM
I like to combine families from the pre-made bin, or sims I have made on my own, with the existing families. This is especially fun with Olive Specter.
Test Subject
#382 Old 3rd Nov 2015 at 4:04 PM
My Sims work very hard and play very hard. We will spend one day building skills and businesses and then we spend the next day having fun. I have made a lot of fun community lots for them to enjoy and we take lots of vacations. I upgraded all the vacation lots to make them more fun. I do take breaks so I don't get tired of the game. But I get to where I miss my little friends and have to pop in every few days. I have been playing for about 10 years so I do get tired at times.
Forum Resident
#383 Old 12th Dec 2015 at 8:30 PM
Like others have said before me, cutting down on the cheats and generally slowing down makes it way funnier. A bunch of my old households consists of sims scooting through their lives on motherlode and motive_decay off, and I really can see why I eventually tired of it like that. Not to mention all the rushing with getting kids, because new sims always puts some spice in a dull household, marrying, growing sims up etc. Now I try to take it easy, focus on being in the moment and spending time with my sims.
I've also approached a more individual- and wishing-based style of playing, and I feel like I'm getting more out of the game that way. I try to take time to see all my sims and get to know them, and since the wish- and fearpanels are the closest things the player has to look into their sims minds, I try to fulfill as many of their wishes as I can (and want to), simply because that shows what the sims themselves want in their lives at that point, whether it's having a baby or simply playing in the sofa, and it gives me a good hunch of who they are. Like, when one sim's wife cheats on him and he breaks up with ther and then his entire two panels are full of wishes and fears concerning her, it might be a sign he wants her back, or at least get some closure... Another couple had a baby and I was only planning for them to have one child, but then one of them wished for a new one, so there we are. Every time I switch sim in a household, I try to go through their wishes and see what I can do about them, molding my playing after the sims rather than the other way around.
Another thing is their personality points. I used to complain about them not having enough of an influence on the sim, but now I've started making them matter myself, by playing my sims around them. For example, playing games and telling jokes are surefire ways to boost up relations, and if a serious sim have a harder time making friends because they're not willing to use these interactions, then so be it. Likewise, a very shy sim might not be the one to take the first step in various relations. I find taking stuff like that into consideration makes it a little more fun and challenging, and the sims themselves become more dynamic. Paying attention to personality points in general makes it a little more interesting too - for example, I have a sim with, I think, only one nice point and as many neat points. Still, he's a really sweet guy as shown in his interactions, and despite his lack of neat points he'll constantly take out trash, pick his toddler cousins bottles off the floor and so on if I leave him to his own will. Comparing what his personality points say and what he himself chooses to do makes him a pretty multifaceted character to me.
Also, since a few years back I've played with just one family - that is, several households but they're all related. I started a family from one CAS-made sim who married and had kids who had grandkids, and seeing this family grow and knowing my sims since they were just babies makes me way more invested than when I made a bunch of families and played them a little until I got bored and started a new one. Just seeing the genes getting passed on and being able to distinguish the "look" of that family makes it awesome.

I am Error.
Field Researcher
#384 Old 13th Dec 2015 at 7:02 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Kligma
or simply playing in the sofa


Yeah, I know you mean playing on the sofa, but it doesn't half conjure up some wonderful visions.

"Get the hell out of that thing right now!"
"Kid, I'm your grandfather, I can do what I want."
Forum Resident
#385 Old 13th Dec 2015 at 7:12 PM
Damnit with prepositions being used differently in different languages xD But after a long day, resorting into the sofa to play a little seems reasonable enough.

I am Error.
Theorist
#386 Old 14th Mar 2016 at 3:56 PM
A romance sim, prior to starting a relationship, with a secondary knowledge aspiration is like a knowledge sim on fast speed. My most recent has 5-6 wants filled with skill points and the 6th is most often to see a ghost. The busiest fun community lots for my sims seems to be the cemetery or a night club. The cemetery offers a more varied choice of options to do. They can make friends, play darts, dig for treasure to build up some cash, gain aspiration points from those 3k see ghost wants. Although the ghosts don't fill their aspiration points as fast if they have a fear of ghosts too. It's still profitable as the fear is minus $1500 while the want is plus $3000. My sim was digging for treasure while the occasional ghost showed their disapproval. Not sure why the selected sim seems to be the most often scare victim. Don't forget those dance skills, getting a smustle group going is great fun and the dance skills build faster, saving your poor sim the embarrassment of doing the funky-just-learning-how to dance. This particular sim finally met a female at the cemetery, she was very much alive and also a romance-knowledge. They hit it off right away and since she was the controlled sim, I wasn't sure what would happen to his wants after. I played his house a bit later, after they had run into each other at several more community lots and got a shock that he had rolled a want to get engaged along with a flirt and his skill wants.

Another romance-knowledge sim had twins by abduction and filled his wants right after with teaching toddler skills. They each got all 3 skills and the nursery rhyme done with no problem. Unlocking any wants prior to birth gives space for these wants to roll. Secondary, versus just main aspirations, give sims a wider variety to their their personalities. They are much more fun and entertainment.

When you forgive, you heal. When you let go, you grow.
Field Researcher
#387 Old 15th Mar 2016 at 9:50 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Duine
The busiest fun community lots for my sims seems to be the cemetery or a night club.


When I was playing a family in the House of Fallen Trees, I built a night club called Danse Macabre and moved the HoFT graves there. So now it's a cemetery as well as a night club. Only one ghost sighting there so far, though, but I tend not to send my sims there very often.
Test Subject
#388 Old 27th May 2016 at 11:25 AM
Thanks! Definitely intrigued in Living off the Land.
Lab Assistant
#389 Old 25th Jun 2016 at 4:41 PM
What I sometimes like to do is randomly combine families. Y'know, make them tenants living in the same house?
Or I take couples from college and put them in separate households of other people. Like there was a mixup.
Link Ninja
#390 Old 12th Dec 2016 at 7:55 AM
So this was something I thought of today talking to Yaolicious but it might spruce up the life of a sim you just aren't that excited to play, maybe they don't really have a personality or they live by themselves but one thing is for sure, they need some love! I call it the 'Eat, Pray, Love' self-discovery challenge (though not really a scored type challenge)

1. Your sims learns cooking skills, the goal is to max it out. Secondary goal to cook all existing recipes in your game and feed their friends. If they don't have any they can just dine by their lonesome. Also they try every food avaialble at the restaurant. Of course not all at once, maybe over the course of 4 seasons.

2. Your sim finds religion. It could be some in-game religion you have already established or maybe they call the fortune teller once a week to get spiritual advice. Extreme mode - your sim joins a cult or meditates for a few hours everyday in a community lot that you have built meant for worship.

3. Dates to find their true love. Let's say 10 partners of one or both genders. They are really looking for a connection.

4. Hit up every vacation spot and get all the mementos. Go to each place once with the sim by themselves and then each place again with a lover. This takes care of that travelling the world to 'find themselves' portion.

Once all three of the 'Eat, pray, love' steps are complete your sim hopefully will have been played sufficiently and will come out with more of unique personality.

Uh oh! My social bar is low - that's why I posted today.

Mad Poster
#391 Old 1st Feb 2017 at 12:31 PM
Here's an idea (probably aired before, but whatever): Make a neighborhood of all pixels having the same career, and see how it shakes out. This could be a bunch of slackers, or wanna-be tycoons, or even a military base setting. See how far they all progress and make rules for their lives.
Not so much a challenge as a real-world imitation. I have a 'military installation' hood in my game, with 20 pixels and their roomies. For the sake of simplicity, I've written a short set of rules that I think would go along with such a neighborhood.

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Mad Poster
#392 Old 9th Mar 2017 at 6:14 AM
One thing my husband and I did in our game (was actually intended as a rule for our medieval hood that we have yet to actually start), was to give each female adult sim a "fertile" day each season. We roll a 6-sided die (and re-roll on 6), noting in the sim's bio which of the 5 days she's fertile. As I said, this was intended to add challenge/realism to a medieval setting where birth control options would be quite limited, so on a sim's fertile day she'd have to "try for baby" rather than regular "woohoo" (or avoid woohoo all together). We've been using this system to test it out in a regular modern hood, and so far it's worked great. It ends up being a lot less about when a sim has to try for baby and more about when they actually can. The babies aren't all being born on the same day of the rotation, but instead are being staggered out a bit in what I think looks more natural and realistic manner. It's also adding a bit more challenge to fulfilling "have x# kids" wants by preventing anyone from getting pregnant again immediately after giving birth (we might actually end up with situations where that "super fertility" perk might actually end up being useful now!). Anyway, I know this wouldn't suit everyone's play style (and obviously would be redundant for anyone using mods like ACR or whatever), but it's something that's adding a bit of extra enjoyment to the game for us.
Mad Poster
#393 Old 16th May 2017 at 8:49 AM Last edited by FranH : 17th Sep 2017 at 10:29 AM.
What I've started to do is rather time consuming, but rewarding-while the game is running, write up a 'diary' entry for the household you're playing. Make it as detailed as possible, and include things that ordinary diaries would have. Concentrate on that house only for the whole day. I've got a notepad (on the computer, makes it easier to write it down quickly) with the day noted and each household written up in detail. Then I save it and repeat the process for the next day. I will admit that if one has a lot of lots to play, it can be overwhelming-but it does have the consequence of becoming immersed in the game to a degree that just playing the lot at hand would not.
It can give a running commentary on the neighborhood and even put things in context where there seemingly isn't any.

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Forum Resident
#394 Old 18th May 2017 at 1:13 AM
I do something very like that too, Fran; having a household journal of just about *everything* that happened in a day can deepen gameplay so much. Actually, to the point that it takes much longer to get through a rotation because there becomes so much that I want to do in each household, often in response to things that have happened in other households! I especially like to make sure I get down what happened during community-lot visits, not just for members of the household but also what happens in the background---and then I add those background bits to the appropriate household's journal.

Like, "Spotted on a community lot: Pascal serenading that pretty dark-skinned townie with the side-bun hair!" or "Spotted at the library: Vincent playing chess for hours with the Grand Vampiress." Although I always used to think that I'd remember those extra glimpses of other households, the truth was that something interesting usually slipped through the cracks (although granted, in my megahood, there are around 45 households, so perhaps it's not surprising I couldn't remember everything before journaling!).

Here's my contribution to this thread: consider making each household's experience different by differentiating/limiting hobby proficiencies and even using the Visitor Controller to limit whom they are likely to know. Also, in playing a megahood, consider making each subhood mostly self-contained except for some major services that might only be found in the main hood---this can boost realism and also allows for creation of more realistic subhood identities.

Let me explain further. I know playing integrated hoods is a thing, as far as creating economies. I do that, but I also partition some hobbies by the actual interests (in the Interests section of their UI) that the sim has; so even though in my game, with the mods that I have, all Arts and Crafts sims have at least significant interest in Fashion, I make sure that I find the Arts and Crafts sims who have special interest in Nature/Environment (pottery but also basketweaving; for the latter I use a station from PlumbBob Keep that involves growing and harvesting reeds to use in weaving) or in Culture (painting). In those cases, those A&C sims focus on those hobbies instead and only occasionally get to sew (if they can additionally afford a sewing table at all).

Why is this useful? Because then not all sims with the same hobbies are doing all the possible crafts for that hobby. And it means that despite the size of my hood, there are only a handful of sims that can (or that I encourage to) make custom clothing or weave furniture or paint a portrait. And if they don't own a business,* that means that other households can only get those things by happening to be friends with those specific sims. So Household X doesn't know any sewing sims, so they don't have custom outfits or have anyone to gift them new outfits---they buy their clothes. But they have a nice set of family portraits on the wall, because they do have a friend who paints portraits, for example. And maybe they have a few nice baskets, because the teen son of one of mom's coworkers is working up to weaving furniture someday.

I also have enjoyed making it much harder for all sims to know each other, to bring more realism to the hood, since it's spread across four subhoods plus the main one. Sims will typically want to be friends with whom they know, but each household is more likely to end up having a unique set of friends, which I feel adds to their distinctiveness. To get this done, I set TwoJeffs' Visitor Controller to "Ban Nonlocals" on almost all community lots (there are a few exceptions, only in the main hood, like the main library and the largest park there, as well as the seaside shopping promenade that has a little beach---for that last, I edited some interiors of this amazing lot ). Otherwise, each subhood has their own shopping and entertainment/dining and graveyard lots---each decorated to emphasize the feel and socioeconomic class of that subhood---so sims mostly stay local when they shop or dine or play or visit their late loved ones.

*Most of my sims don't; again, there are only a few owned businesses, such as two clothing shops, each meant to serve only a couple of the subhoods, and one restaurant for the swankiest subhood plus one takeaway place for a lower-middle-class subhood---so again, sims stay mostly local to shop, and depending on the nature of the subhood they live in, not everyone has access to all the types of facilities available in the hood, like they may not have libraries or public pools but might have a couple of local fishing holes. This also helps me give a different feel to each subhood and thus to the lives of the sims living in it.
Lab Assistant
#395 Old 16th Aug 2017 at 8:01 PM
Haha... What i do is a make two romance sims in CAS who are married and see how many affairs each can have without getting caught. I can't get past 5.
Lab Assistant
#396 Old 16th Aug 2017 at 8:08 PM
Quote: Originally posted by vorpalit
I prefer to be rather.. sadistic to my sims. Find new ways to make their lives miserable, make a king and put the rest in a dungeon, etc.
... Its not unhealthy... right?


Nope... I had a basement and i had the bookshelf/door thingy and they couldn't get out and i kept their hunger just high enough so they wouldn't die. But there was nothing in there, no toilet, no shower, no entertainment... They don't like me much.
Test Subject
#397 Old 13th Sep 2017 at 3:23 PM
I just play slowly. My game is always more interesting when I slow down and take my time playing. Instead of speeding things along (a brand new sim, two sim days in has a boyfriend and is now pregnant) I try to play one day at a time: a family where neither of the sons is dating, just watching them work and interact with friends, fulfilling the most pertinent of their wants, helping their father open his business etc. etc. instead of rushing them to marriage and children. I love babies, both in Sims and real life, but I find that when I let them run wild and have babies everywhere (I use ACR and Inteen) sometimes I don't get to really enjoy the sims themselves. So I've got a brand new hood where I'm just letting them take their time. There's only one pregnancy but it's because that particular sim is 'fast' and is the type to fall in love and get pregnant in a few months (and even so, she and her baby's father hung around together for like, 6 months before they got a baby.) It's literally magical seeing them build these relationships slowly and emerge into what I wanted them to be.
Mad Poster
#398 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 10:28 AM Last edited by FranH : 18th Sep 2017 at 12:05 PM.
I've found a great way to burn through excess money!

First-get Squinge's college hack suite: http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,96190.0.html
and Monique's computer (updated for AL, & MG) http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,93501.0.html

With the first hack, all teens will grow up to be YAs automatically without using the cake actively.
Second, using the feature of 'donate money' from the computer, have the parents send an appropriate amount of money out (presumably to the college registrar)-I use $20,000 for 4 years of college-you can do any amount, per year.

It burns through any excess money a pixel has, especially if they're a working stiff, with mods to limit skill gain and career advancement.

Who says life is easy?

On the other hand-there is a way to get money beyond the usual in-game methods: create a 'town dump' (make it look like one, too.) and stuff all the 'junk' you can find in the deco area of the catalog there-make it outrageously expensive to own. If you have the 'enable build and buy' mod in installed in your game, you can take a broke pixel (who has no other option to make money) and delete everything on the lot while they're visiting. I just had the judge in Bellefleur 'dump surf' there to get the required amount of funds necessary to send his daughters to college.

Quite a profitable venture that was-$35,0000 worth. Now he won't have nightmares about going broke...

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Link Ninja
#399 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 4:10 PM
@FranH so you don't have to use the cake anymore at all or...? I'm just wondering because I have been using the cake but it looks like you can just install the teen to young adult no college EP8file. Is that right?

Uh oh! My social bar is low - that's why I posted today.

Mad Poster
#400 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 10:54 PM
PM'd you, but the same answer-it appears to be that way-I've got the entire set and all the kids grow up autonomously without any cake shenanigans.

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
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