A new spin on an old question

[OverCoffee]

I have all EPs, FFS, GL, and Mansion & Garden.

Okay, I created a new custom neighborhood. 275 sims and 12 lots (Secret Lots, I presume) were automatically generated.

In that hood I added a Downtown. This pushed up the sim number to 353.

Otherwise I did not add any of my own sims or lots or play any of the game-generated sims.


In effort to reduce the population, I then went to the Characters folder and deleted all files for sims from 275 to 353, and the Downtown lots from #13 on, then changed the Downtown template using Mootilda's Hood Replacement Program (MTS2) to have a prettier Downtown.

I am guessing that all the new (now deleted) Downtownies were never initialized, thus had no memories or connection to other sims since none of them were added to my Sim Bin.

Question: was this a good strategy, or can I expect neighborhood corruption after I start playing? And will I be missing the Master Vampire or any other important characters by removing the Downtownies files?  Thanks.

[jolrei]

Considering that there are empty templates covering all these contingencies, you may have been better off creating clean/empty hoods rather than just deleting character files.  Using empty templates, you would not have had to ask this question.  That said, I don't know whether your sims were "initialized" or not.  You could check in SimPE and see what relationships/memories exist for the characters that remain.  That would give you some indication regarding whether what you did is a VBT or not.

[seelindarun]

In effort to reduce the population, I then went to the Characters folder and deleted all files for sims from 275 to 353, and the Downtown lots from #13 on, then changed the Downtown template using Mootilda's Hood Replacement Program (MTS2) to have a prettier Downtown.

I am guessing that all the new (now deleted) Downtownies were never initialized, thus had no memories or connection to other sims since none of them were added to my Sim Bin.

You're guessing wrong.  Congratulations, you have a BFBVFS without having played at all.
All those character files were linked in the Neighborhood.package which is now pointing to garbage.

Take jolrei's advice.  Start over.