So...

[mzyra]

Further to my last post: I still haven't experimented with my game yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to recreate my neighbourhood.

Comments

[katrisims]

Hmm... Both have their benefits and drawbacks I guess. With imports, there'd be fun possibilities for inter-dimensional story aspects, and seeing beloved characters in your own game could be fun. On the other hand, at least to me the random, batch-generated townies have the benefit that you don't immediately know everything about them the moment you see them walking on the lot, there's a little bit of a surprise in there. Plus it's less effort of course, and then there's no temptation to make everyone and everything "perfect".

I think the batch creation gives you something like 30 townies if you run it once. If you want less, for instance if you want to combine the two approaches, then you'd have to make them by hand I suppose. Of course, it's still possible to randomize many things by just throwing a dice or so, if you want.

I would recommend using the empty templates as suggested - and don't forget the hacks that prevent respawning, or otherwise you'll get the random townies whethere you want them or not. Without those, the game will give you literally hundreds of characters, as all the expansions add some more and so. I think I have something like five or six hundred characters in Alphabetia, and even though I play the whole hood, in total about 70 are mine - and that's if you count everyone dead too. For now it's manageable for the game, but that may be something that necessitates a rebuild for me at some point.

Alright, that's all I can think of atm. :)

[mzyra]

Oh, well 30's not many - I could have one or two of those plus imports... *hmm*
You can get blank templates of all (or at least some of) the subhoods as well, so theoretically it wouldn't add anything too much... Plenty of time for experimenting with that too ;)

[katrisims]

Yeah, not too many, although it *might* be one of those things that varies game by game. I think I've read that some people get more than that, but about 30 was what I got when I did it for Terra. And I think about 50 dormies when I did the same in the college hood I attached to it.

And yes, there are templates for the subhoodst and hidden hoods as well, so at least theoretically you can start with no sims at all (except for the absolutely necessary Grim Reapers and whatnot) before you start making your own. Although I think it's sometimes said that adding a Downtown could add downtownies no matter what you do to prevent it. I haven't tried adding one to Terra, so I don't have first-hand experience on that.