Starting over, 'hood-wise

[Count Four]

N001-bak is the only one that got left in place (since Jordi's tutorial didn't direct otherwise and I didn't expect the game to be quite that stupid. Sheesh.)

No -baks anywhere else. I didn't .bak the templates; I zipped the default template files, moved the zipped files somewhere safe and installed the empty templates.

Here's what I've got in Program files...\Seasons:
Res\Neighborhood Template\G002 contains the empty template from MATY.
UserData\Neighborhoods\G001 contains the default files for the Seasons hood.

When I started the game, I let it generate Seasons hood, Strangetown and Veronaville. Deleted Seasons hood and Veronaville from the Main Menu.
Played Strangetown for a couple days to get everybody's lives going.
Tried to make a custom hood--Got weird Weather hood, placed first in Main Menu.
Tried to make custom hood again with Weather hood in place. Got MY custom hood, placed third.

Something is going on with Seasons and G001 but I'm way too newb to guess.
I'm getting frustrated with my own ignorance, but I'm still determined to fix this. If MATY's patience doesn't run out. I'm really grateful for all the help, thank you.

[SaraMK]

When you installed the empty templates, did you empty the Characters folders? I don't think that would cause a crash, but check anyway.

Also, are you absolutely sure that you didn't mix up G001 and G002 when installing the templates?

[Count Four]

Yes, I did.

And I clearly remember working with G002.

This evening, I experimented. (I backed up again and then--) I deleted N001 and N001-bak from Documents. Started the game. Strangetown was #1, Skygusty custom hood #2.  I created another custom hood; it worked fine, no crash. But the newest custom hood is now # 1, Strangetown is 2 and Skygusty is 3. And N001-bak didn't return to the Documents...\Neighborhoods folder, whew.

The crash may have just been a one-off, or caused by the presence of N001-bak (Pleasantview).
And perhaps with Seasons, the game is simply determined to have an N001-hood that isn't from the base game (i.e., Strangetown)...?

[Sleepycat]

neighborhoods don't change their number so when you deleted N001 it left that slot empty, it got filled when you made the new custom hood.

[SimsDiva]

If you use Dea's version, remember that some stuff won't be fixed that is fixed in mine, since hers can't edit any info that's stored in the character files themselves, and does not remove any townies/NPCs.

I just downloaded Dea's fixes.  I don't mind that it won't remove townies/NPCs, but I was curious about what, exactly, is left unfixed in her version as compared to yours?

As long as the fixes enable me to try out those hoods, I'll be happy.     I've read so much about how screwy Strangetown and Veronaville are that it's scared me away from playing them... it would be nice to be able to make use of them finally.

[SaraMK]

I'm not sure what exactly is different, since I haven't looked that closely at Dea's fixes, but there are basically two places that data is stored: in the nhood file and in the character files. Most of the data is in the nhood file. Anything that is in the character files would be unchanged from Maxis default since Dea didn't include the character files.

It will be minor details. Most info, like I said, is stored in the nhood file.

[SimsDiva]

Alrighty, I won't worry about it then.    Like I said, all I cared about was being able to play those hoods...as long as it enables me to do that, I'm a happy camper!