Just so you know... a neighborhood can only handle so many lot clones

[Persephone]

I just blew my neighborhood up...   (not mad, blame myself)  I was placing clones of a 5X5 lot on my map to straighten out the terrain, since they won't let you level the train in some logical way... and anyways somewhere after 9-10 clones are plopped, the neighborhood crashed so hard I had to unplug my computer because I couldn't even shut down with the restart button.  Just thought if anyone is as dumb as me, you might want to know.

[cyperangel]

Weird, cause i have like 25 + clones of the same lot placed all over the neighbourhood, and so far its running perfectly...

Perhaps the reason is your computers specs, and not so much the amount of lot clones?

Or something else..

[SaraMK]

It's more likely the fact that you warped the neighborhood terrain than the fact that you used the same lot many times.

I often place the same house many times in the same neighborhood, and have never had a problem with that.

I once totally blew up a neighborhood by plopping a large house next to a hill. Half the hill leveled down to street level. My computer froze and chugged for a few seconds. The game crashed. The neighborhood not only never loaded again, but it never even appeared in the neighborhood selection screen. Luckily that was a brand new neighborhood and I didn't have any sims there yet.

Your problem could also be the "too much stuff" limit being reached, I guess. I've been hearing about neighborhoods crashing because of too many houses and decorations.

Anyway, I'm sorry that happened to you. Have you tried entering the neighborhood again?

[Persephone]

That's certainly interesting!  Actually yes I was able to get back in the neighborhood... the cloned houses were all flashing black and red... I deleted them, everything is fine again.  I don't really know why it happened then if it wasn't some kind of limit on clones.  Maybe it was the total number of things I had because there are alot of little streets and squares. 

Don't be too sorry... 1. it seems to be ok again, and 2. I like making new neighborhoods and I don't get too attached and don't mind starting over.

On that note does anyone know how to get FLAT terrain, at least in the very center where the houses go without doing that?  It seems no matter how flat it looks in SC4, its still bumpy when you import it.

[skandelouslala]

Hmm that's interesting.  I have a lot of clones but haven't experienced any problems either.  Will be sure to keep an eye on it though.

[flowerchile]

Persephone;  my neighborhood started to do the read and black.....and blue and yellow flashing stuff too, (I never did work out the cause of this); then the screen would turn white and I could hear but not see, so I just played blindly and clicked where I thought the Neighborhood chooser menu was and was sent to whichever neighborhood I clicked on.  After all this I could return safely to the one which went psycho on me, and it was all as if nothing had happened. 
It was like a bad dream..........(Can you hear the Twilight Zone theme)?

[Zeljka]

I do the same thing as you... well, not exactly, I flatten one 5x5 lot then move it around to flatten the rest.
There are a few neighbourhoods that are relatively flat though...
my game just kicked me out so I'll have to edit when I figure out which ones (I use 3 or 4 'flat' neighbourhoods)

[Jorenne]

oh but think of the building possibilities you're missing out on .

Of course it's all personal choice, but I kinda like it when the foundation is a little higher to account for the hilly corner of a lot, or if you can get the basement half in the back of a hill or something.  Stops all the lots being "samey"

BTW, I have 92 built, furnished and occupied lots of various sizes in my neighbourhood and my game doesn't mind it at all.

[angelyne]

I added all sort of lots to my neighbourdhood, in order to recreate a sort of urban feel to my hood. I had a cluster of appartement dwellings on the main street with a rich neighbourhood of stately homes, and a poor area filled with delapidated homes, right across from the trailer park  Then I started getting random crashes.  They always seem to occur when I was scrolling through my lot.  Then I turned off neighbourdhood view and that didn't help.  So finally I moved to the lot bin most of what I had installed and the crashes stopped and I had must less lag in the 'hood view.

[tunaisafish]

I do the same as Zeljka to get flat land, but then leave that land bare as a place to start building new lots.

I spent ages building a set of template houses to put in the bin once, only to find that one of the side edges was not completely flat.
So I couldn't place these houses next to eachother in the hood.  Very annoying - had to redo them all.

[Persephone]

You know with the flat land issue, I think its total crap that you can't do a little bit of fine tuning with leveling land and moving roads in The Sims2 without using simcity 4.  It's just such a clunky thing to have to do just to move a road over.  I know they wanted to tie the products in to make you want to buy simcity4, not that I have a problem with that, but really you should only have to use it to edit the terrain: add water make big hills.  GRRRRRRR !