My experiences with creating townies

[Gus Smedstad]

A while back there was a thread on making your own townies.  As we all know, the randomly-created townies are ugly and have no fashion sense.  Not that I'm a big fan of fashion myself, but even I am repelled by some of the outfits they choose.  Even some of the "standard" townies are truly hideous.  In particular I can't stand the ones with huge cheeks and lips that look like they recently inserted frisbees into their mouths.

To recap the earlier thread, you suppress townie generation with NoTownieRegen and NoDormieRegen, delete all existing characters, and create your own characters with Create A Sim, and turn them into townies with a hacked object.  It's also useful to replace the standard facial templates with more reasonable ones.  (No link for now, Mod the Sims 2 seems to be down).

I must say it's really tedious.  I suppose you could make just a few, but I wanted a reasonably number of dormies so I wouldn't always get the same ones, and I wanted a decent cross-section of gender / aspiration combinations.  I think I ended up generating something like 60+ sims, which gets old fast.  Unfortunately, automation isn't the solution, since the problem is that the default automated solution does a bad job.

What's worse, simply clicking "roll new sim" until you get something acceptable isn't enough.  CAS simply won't generate Sims with hats, glasses, or facial hair.  The "Alternate Heads" dialog does include faces with those attributes, but those head aren't random.  You don't always get the same 6 heads, but there only seem to be a couple of sets of faces for each gender.

I ended up assigning each trait an independent chance (30% each) and rolling a lot of dice.  If a Sim rolled the "Wears a Hat" trait, I'd then roll off between the hat types, and finally between the colors of the hats.  I felt like I was back in college rolling up D&D characters or something.  The things I do to get variety into my game are crazy.  I did get some Sims who were more interesting looking than my ordinary choices.

Even if you forgo hats, glasses, and facial hair entirely, you can't just roll, select an aspiration, and accept if you have Nightlife.  No, you must select those near pointless turn-on's and turn-offs.  I suppose I could have given them all the same preferences, but I figured that some of these sims would interact romantically with my characters, so more die rolling for variety's sake.  After a while I got sick of keeping it rational so I got some Sims who were turned on by cologne and stink and repelled by fitness.

Names fortunately were no problem, because there's a good name generator available.  It was nice to see some truly new names for once, instead of the endless processesion of Marsha Bruenigs of the standard game.

It's annoying that all Sims in a household must share the same last name unless they're students in University.  To maximize name variety I ended up creating groups of 3 Sims: an adult (required), a teenager, and a child.  Since teenagers and children must be children of an adult, and can't be unrelated, it will be interesting to see if they retain that relationship after becoming Townies.  I'll find that out when one of them becomes playable again.  To save time, I often included an Elder, though you can generate Elders individually.

It looks as if I did generate some surplus Sims.  I wasn't clear on what was required, so I created teenagers and children for downtown, and I haven't actually seen any of them.  Presumably they'd show up if I actually had Sims who lived downtown, but I'm not really interested in that.

In all, it was a ridiculous amount of preparation time for a new neighborhood.  However, I despite my misgivings, I think it has been worth it.  It was nice to move my first Sim into a dorm and have relatively attractive dormies join him.  And no doubt I'll really appreciate it when his children are looking for their First Kiss and don't have to choose between ugly alternatives.

 - Gus

[Renatus]

Since teenagers and children must be children of an adult, and can't be unrelated, it will be interesting to see if they retain that relationship after becoming Townies.  I'll find that out when one of them becomes playable again. 

They do, which is kind of cool. I have a downtownie that is the 'run away' mom of some of my playables, and all relationships are intact on both sides.

It is a pain in the ass to have to make them all oneself, but the results look so much better, and have the added bonus of ensuring the townies/downtownies/dormies have looks appropriate to any theme you have going. One thing I do to save myself a bit of headache and to keep my cat from chasing my dice all around the house is I run the game in a window and use a dice-rolling program to give me my random numbers. It's especially useful because I can roll a number of 'dice' at once with it, saving me from having to find a clear surface to roll dice on, and I can make the 'dice' have any number of sides. I use the one here: http://www.irony.com/igroll.html

[Gus Smedstad]

One thing I do to save myself a bit of headache and to keep my cat from chasing my dice all around the house is I run the game in a window and use a dice-rolling program to give me my random numbers. It's especially useful because I can roll a number of 'dice' at once with it, saving me from having to find a clear surface to roll dice on, and I can make the 'dice' have any number of sides. I use the one here: http://www.irony.com/igroll.html

Darn, I wish I'd thought of that.  Sure, it was kind of nostalgic to dig out my flashy 10, 12, and 20-sided dice, but I kept dropping them off my desk and on to the floor.  It also means less re-rolling since you need 19 / 18 / 17 sided dice for completely random turn-ons and turn-offs.

I did run the game in a window anyway because I had the name-creation page up on my second monitor.

 - Gus

[J. M. Pescado]

If you want to create non-adults/elders, the best way to do this is to generate them as adults and elders, then de-age them and age them back up to avoid the annoying must-be-related nonsense. I personally would avoid children or teens, though, as they just become useless creatures to be potentially dragged back with your sims from school, a nuisance you are better off without! And since there is no other normal way to reuse children, you're better off kicking them to the orphanage so you can adopt some non-hideous babies, rather than the townie pool, which is similar but more useless.

[angelyne]

I went through this process twice, so I know how your feel!

I made a little excel spreadsheet that generates random attributes for me.  It will generate random skin color, eyes, number of kids, level of fitness, zodiac sign, aspiration ect.  It's not slick in the slightest, but it did the job for me.

One thing I did however, which I am congratulating myself for.  Before launching my soon-to-be-townies into the wild, I saved all the families I made.  This way if I ever want to start a new neighbourdhood, I can just re-use my townies.

[angelyne]

If you want to create non-adults/elders, the best way to do this is to generate them as adults and elders, then de-age them and age them back up to avoid the annoying must-be-related nonsense.

The only disavantage to this method is that they end up with a Random Maxis house-of-horror outfit.  Of course changing their clothes might be better than having to edit out every relationship in SimPE.  Wish I had thought of it when I was building my townie pool.

[Syera]

I customized a Java generator to generate Sims awhile back...

http://www.springhole.net/bogsims/fun/simgen.htm

[cristalfiona]

I dont suppose you could make it so it randomises turn ons and turn offs as well? Pretty please?  That would make it just about perfect.

[greeneyedsims]

Syera, that is AWESOME!  Thanks!    And yes, if it could come with TO's and TOff's that would just be a cherry on top!   --green

edited to say:  I just did one and I love that it says "resembles Jerry Lewis"  LOL!   

[Gus Smedstad]

If you want to create non-adults/elders, the best way to do this is to generate them as adults and elders, then de-age them and age them back up to avoid the annoying must-be-related nonsense.

I'm a little unclear on this.  Clearly this won't work inside CAS.  I was under the impression that only the evil InSiminator allowed you to reduce a Sim's age during play.    I suppose SimPE can probably do this as well.

I personally would avoid children or teens, though, as they just become useless creatures to be potentially dragged back with your sims from school, a nuisance you are better off without!

Until you have a sizeable playable population, you need some targets for the romantic wants of teenagers.  No townie teenagers, no First Kisses, Going Steady, or whatnot.  Or for Romance teenagers, no targets for Make Out.

 - Gus

[cheriem]

There is a regular Maxis cheat to age/deage sims.  Forget what it is off the top of my head.  That's what Pescado is talking about.  Or you can create a sim in CAS and use Inge's bush to set them as a townie.

[angelyne]

I'm a little unclear on this.  Clearly this won't work inside CAS.  I was under the impression that only the evil InSiminator allowed you to reduce a Sim's age during play.   

No it's not necessary to use the Kitten Killer for this.  You can use the new cheat included with NL.  I think it's called AgeSimsCheat On , or something like that.  Do a help to get the exact syntax.

So you can create a family of unrelated adults, put them in a lot, age them to teens or whatever, and then turn them into townies with Inge's Magical Bush.

[cheriem]

Exactly

[Sagana]

I decided all that was waaaay too much trouble for me for my general neighborhood (although I'm working on it for my way special one For just playing purposes tho, I'm trying out this. I didn't delete all characters, but did add notownieregen and nodormieregen. I'm choosing the pregenerated ones that I actually like (there are actually quite a few - I'm not really picky) and setting them up, either with my own secondary sims or with each other. Then I turn them back into townies with the bush (or into in the first place for some of my extra babies and the like.) The ones I don't like I'm ignoring, figuring there can be some funny looking folk around as long as my sims don't breed with them. or if I really don't like them, killing them off, or using the AgeSimsCheat so they die at some point and they aren't regenerated. And every so often I make a CAS sim just for fun or to keep the gene pool from stagnating or that I think I'll want to play and get bored with and then drop them in the townie pool. If my sims get to like them, I age them up (occasionally I might play one a bit so they won't all grow up poorly, at least the children - teens if you date them have good aspiration scores) and send them to Uni and drop them in the dormie pool. That way my sims had plenty of people to play with without need to create a whole townful of people and I still get some randomness and not stuck with ones I really don't like.

[Issy]

I was thinking about doing this for my new installed game.  Not sure if I have the patience to do all of it tho.  I just managed to sort all downloads (went through them all again and placed them properly etc).

The only thing I can think of the top of my head, the last time I used the deleteallcharacters (which was like way back when only original TS2 was out) it did delete all of the characters but it also deleted all the characters of a newly made neighbourhood after that.

So I was wondering if that is the way it's supposed to work? Because I might not want to have all of the characters deleted in all the neighbourhoods I decide to create later.

[angelyne]

Yup, that's how it works.  deleteallcharacters means just that.  It nukes ALL characters.

However, with the expansion, you have a bit more control in the sense you can decide when to drop your nuke.  If you want only the townies gone, do a deleteall and then add the expansion.  If you don't want the ep chars, do a deleteall after you added the expansion.

[Issy]

That's a great idea Angelyne!  I already installed 2 weeks ago tho

Oh well, guess I'll wait till OFB comes out, most likely that will be my next install.

[Renatus]

You don't have to reinstall or anything - basically, what kind of uncontrollables you want determines when you deleteallcharacters. Want dormies but no townies or downtownies? Add your downtown, deleteallcharacters, then add your uni. Want downtownies but no dormies or townies? Add the uni, deleteallcharacters, then add the downtown. Add all of them before you deleteallcharacters if you don't want any premades.

Of course, this means you can't have any premade townies - no way around that - and it only works on new neighborhoods, otherwise you delete all of your playables as well. When we get OFB any shopping areas added to already going neighborhoods are stuck with whatever premades they bring.

[Regina]

If you want to create non-adults/elders, the best way to do this is to generate them as adults and elders, then de-age them and age them back up to avoid the annoying must-be-related nonsense. I personally would avoid children or teens, though, as they just become useless creatures to be potentially dragged back with your sims from school, a nuisance you are better off without! And since there is no other normal way to reuse children, you're better off kicking them to the orphanage so you can adopt some non-hideous babies, rather than the townie pool, which is similar but more useless.

My teen townies aren't useless.  Often they end up dating my playable sims and since I'm limited on playable characters in my neighborhoods, some end up going to college and marrying my sims.  Even before I had Uni I used the move-in all mod so I could have teens become playable and grow up.

In my not-so-humble opinion, though, I agree that Townie kids are basically worthless, unless you want to raise them.

[Gus Smedstad]

I was thinking about doing this for my new installed game.  Not sure if I have the patience to do all of it tho.

Part of the reason I brought this up is that I didn't realize much work this was going to be.  I figured it would be nice to inform people who were toying with the idea but didn't realize it was many hours of work.  I appreciate some of the suggestions here even if they are after-the-fact.  Clearly it could have been at least a little easier.

You can use the new cheat included with NL.  I think it's called AgeSimsCheat On , or something like that.

Thanks, I usually don't pay attention to cheat codes, so I didn't know this had been added.  Apparenty it's "AgeSimsCheat on" and "AgeSimsCheat off".  Good to know.

 - Gus

[Renatus]

The agesimscheat is highly useful, but be aware that aging an adult sim down to teen or child will result in that teen or child having an F grade in school. For children, that means a quick visit by the social worker, so make them townies quick or use Merola's multipainting to quickly raise their grade to an acceptable level (this all assuming that one doesn't have a no social worker hack in).

[angelyne]

Well I still have my townies families saved (clean with no memories).  I have 3 families : 8 males, 8 females and 7 teens one adult.  If anyone wants them they are welcome to have them.  I believe I kept them all to default eyes, hair and skin, so they would use whatever you have installed.  I might have some custom clothes and makeup in the package.

[Sleepycat]

Well I still have my townies families saved (clean with no memories).  I have 3 families : 8 males, 8 females and 7 teens one adult.  If anyone wants them they are welcome to have them.  I believe I kept them all to default eyes, hair and skin, so they would use whatever you have installed.  I might have some custom clothes and makeup in the package.

Me! Me! Pretty Please 

[Regina]

For some variety in my Townies I did start looking to other people's sims and even downloaded a few of them.  Overall I think it did save some time because I wasn't having to make new faces.  One thing I've done, too, is to make a copy of sims from an old neighborhood using SimPE and sort of reincarnate them into the new hood as Townies.  When I decided to play a wiped version of Strangetown, I backed up some of the sims from there and made Townies of them, too.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm a little unclear on this.  Clearly this won't work inside CAS.  I was under the impression that only the evil InSiminator allowed you to reduce a Sim's age during play.    I suppose SimPE can probably do this as well.

Right, create them as adults, de-age them after you move them onto a lot, and then use the Ingelogical shrub to boot them off into the townie/adoption pools.

Until you have a sizeable playable population, you need some targets for the romantic wants of teenagers.  No townie teenagers, no First Kisses, Going Steady, or whatnot.  Or for Romance teenagers, no targets for Make Out.

Indulging those with townies is pretty pointless since you probably won't be actually pursuing anything else with otherwise-immortal townies. Romance teens are particularly pointless since there is No Woohoo, and thus it impossible to accomplish anything. Since all relationships are thus severed upon age-up, you've accomplished basically nothing.

Besides, the teen stage is primarily consumed by college prep now anyway, since limping along on 3 want slots, as one will always be permanently hogged by "Go To College!", is ghastly.