Play Style / Rules, by request: Tuesday Island + Baskerville

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I was asked about how I play the game over here and thought instead of clogging other people's threads I should probably post a new one. Hope this is interesting for someone -- unlike it may seem, I *did* try to keep it short, but apparently I'm not very good at that


My neighbourhood (I have only one that I actually play) is divided into three subhoods, each with slightly different rules -- sort of a testbed for different ways to play. I started each one with a bunch of random sims, a set amount of §§§, and an empty terrain. The hoods are currently still disconnected from each other (with twojeffs visitor controller blocking all nonlocals), but I plan to connect them eventually.

My goal is to develop a sim society/economy from scratch, where each sim has an influence on how society develops at large, and society in turn affects the individual's possibilities and decisions, and everything is interconnected and not just a bunch of random sims that happen to be in the same game somehow. The interesting part is really to let it develop and not plan ahead too much -- I often ditched my plans because there wasn't enough money, or a sim didn't feel like falling in love with who I thought, or whatever .. that way, a lot of unforeseen things have happened in the game that would have been just boring if I had thought them up first and then just played out. And a lot of my sims do weird stuff that I couldn't have made up anyway.



1. Main Hood (Tuesday Island):

I started this in the Base+NL era with 4 random families and a few custom townies that acted as tourists. I wanted everything on the island to be as self-contained as possible, so ..

1.1 Local work only (no careers)
1.2 Local services and infrastructure only (no school, fire/burglar alarms, maids etc -- mailmen and papergirls were an exception (I guess they're unavoidable))
1.3 Local phone connections only (no inviting over tourists/npcs .. wait for them to drop by again)
1.4 No money from nowhere: no 20k handouts, inheritances etc
1.5 No sims from nowhere: if a resident makes friends or falls in love with one of the tourists, they can move them in, but I never added any CAS sims to the hood directly (I kept the gene pool going by making a few more "tourists" every week, plus some random townies happened when I thought I had noregen installed but hadn't).
1.6 No stuff from nowhere 1: only furniture and building materials (i.e. stuff that we can't make in the game) can be "mail ordered" (bought from the catalogue), everything else -- most importantly, food -- must be bought/traded locally. No selling to nowhere, either (paintings and such), with the exception of selling novels (there *is* mail, after all).
1.7 No stuff from nowhere 2: Everything that's built on the island must be financed by someone -- either a private household, or the government. No fancy nightclubs falling from the sky.

You get the drift, I think .. on the island itself, there is also a local government: one of the starter families I made the Mayor family, their family funds are the public funds of the island. I gave them 25.000§ to start with (the other 3 families had 25.000§ together), and the other sims pay taxes and rents to them; so far they've spent most of the money on new houses to rent out (lack of housing is still a major problem on the island), plus they financed the only community lots so far: a public beach and a cemetery. Eventually, in the distant future, the Mayors will hopefully get their act together and build a fire station and a retirement home and such, like proper Mayors should (and create a few more jobs that way) .. I thought I'd have at least a school by now, but it hasn't happened yet. My sims are mostly poor, so there isn't much income from taxes. There are no elections; I only had one mayor retire so far and let his son take over .. they are more like kings than actual mayors.

Buying/owning land is a bit fuzzy on the island: sims who want to own a piece of land must buy it from the Mayor family, but the Mayors don't really own it in the first place so it's kind of like the whole island belongs to them.

The whole thing is time synced with an iron fist; I also age up all tourists along with the rest of the hood.

Random other points:

* I always shorten the teen age of my sims by six days, because i find the default umpteen days just silly (using Merola's Multipainting .. it's a bit tedious but to me it's just routine meanwhile -- although, if someone would feel like making a hack for that, I wouldn't say no)
* I mainly do what my sims Want (no skilling "just because", for example)
* I don't use aspiration rewards; career rewards I treat as regular buyable objects ("paying" whatever I think is reasonable with familyfunds)
* I've always paid a lot of attention to sim interests -- I love Alexx' Harder Relationships (mts2) and the JMP's LTW hack (what's it called again?) because they actually take interests into account .. that and the sim's Wants have a big influence on how things develop in the hood.


Nitty Gritty:

1.1 Local work: Playing without careers is fun. The point of it is not only to make the game less ridiculously easy and boring, it also adds a lot more depth when Sim Joe works at a bar whose owner is married to the local firefighter who has a daughter from the owner of the local gym where Joe's girlfriend works. Sims have much more of an identity that way, I think .. "the local firefighter" is different from "that red haired sim, I think she's in the ummm .. business career?" (I still have no firefighter in this hood, but the principle is simple: put her in a uniform, and whenever there's a fire summon her, make her selectable, and have her extinguish it. Same thing for repairmen, gardeners, maids and such)

On Tuesday Island, I've had sims working as farmer, foster parent, hooker, bartender, maid, poker player, repairman, painter, gym trainer, yoga teacher, minigolf instructor, fisherman, writer, cook, singer, doorman, babysitter, waiter, gardener; one sim runs a boarding house, another one a bar, a hamburger stand, a gym, a daycare, a publishing house. And this was all before OfB, and I haven't yet had a policeman, firefighter, teacher, DJ, piano player, thief, or a restaurant or store of any description. I always try to find jobs for my sims that suit them: one of my first-gen sims happened to be very Active, and a Popularity, and had a high interest in Sports, so he started a gym in his kitchen. One of his brothers was Playful, so I had him work as a painter (commissioned portraits are fun! And custom signs for businesses too); the other brother rolled skill wants all the time (even though he wasn't Knowledge) and already had 6 or so Mechanical when he turned teen -- he beame the local repairman. And so on .. with different sims to start with, this hood would have developed entirely differently.

Mayor and Mayor's wife aren't really jobs but I've found things for them to do as well: they write, they hold speeches, and they try to befriend all the tourists and get them to move onto the island. If the need arises, they also use their Influence points to get sims to Talk To each other (kind of like a marriage counselor/mediator? I've had my hooker/barwoman act as a hobbyist matchmaker that way: she used her plentiful Influence to get people to flirt with each other and stuff). The mayor will start to hand out street lights as gifts Real Soon Now (once he gets the funds together), in an effort to make it look a bit more civilized. The Mayor's house doubles as a mini town hall -- he commissioned a few portraits of the Mayor dynasty to decorate the walls of the foyer (summon artist, make selectable, and let him paint a still life), sort of "cultural funding" on a very small scale (nevertheless it was important -- I don't sell off the easel, so commissioned paintings were the artist's only income before OfB).

Before OfB, I did most payments and trades between sims via the inventories: select the visiting sim, put stuff in and out their inventory, deselect, done. Very stone-age method, but it works .. I use Dolphin26's Control This Sim (mts2) to control the visiting sim, and for "currency" I picked some objects that I don't use otherwise: for example, if someone breaks their shower, I summon the repairman, select him + have him fix the shower, then buy a cheap red couch table (worth 60§), put it in his inventory, deselect him and goodbye. When I get back to playing the repairman's lot, I check his inventory for red couch tables and sell them -> that's what he earned last week.

I also used this method for distributing food: pre-seasons, my farm worked with Echo's harvestable crops; the farm had 3 or 4 fridges that they filled with food, and whenever I left the farm lot I put all full fridges in the farmer's inventory. Then when some other sim runs out of food, they buy a 500§ sculpture, summon the farmer, and swap a full fridge from his inventory for their own empty one plus the sculpture. With Seasons+OfB, the farm now has a home business for selling the crops -- this is nicer, but actually a bit risky because you never know if the other sims really do their shopping in time .. I'll probably set up an owned business instead, so that they can shop for food whenever they need to.

Important hacks: Dolphin26's ControlThisSim, Paladin's Produce Packing Station (for selling food the OfB way), Community Time Project (for dealing with owned businesses in a logical, commonsense fashion .. I can't imagine to play without this ever again)


Some businesses/jobs dealt only with tourists before OfB so they got "paid" with the familyfunds cheat (because as long as tourists don't have individual funds, there's nowhere to take the money from -- it comes from outside the system): the minigolf and yoga teachers, the gym, and the hooker worked this way. The hooker dated tourists until they spun up a WooHoo want, then it was off to bed and +500 for her, the other ones I paid by the hour which was VERY tedious .. I'm glad there's ticket machines now.

I used Cristianlov's All-In-One for a while (for a maid, a bartender, and two writers), then switched to OfB home businesses instead -- because that way, the employees will actually leave their home lot when they go to work .. this is a bit stupid for the maid, because she used to work 4 hours at the Mayor's and another 4 at the local B+B (on her own lot, I had her meditate for 8 hours a day and pretended she wasn't home) .. now she can only have one job at a time, so she works at the B+B 8 hours a day, which is more than they actually need. Can't have everything, I guess.

For the bartender and writers, OfB is perfect (or it would be, if maxis hadn't implemented it so idiotically) -- the bartender is a regular OfB bartender, the writers work at a publishing house (home business): Call In Employees in the morning -- you don't need to ever actually open the business --, select them each and tell them to Write Novel, send them home in the afternoon. Works perfectly, except for the §%&#* double payments (broken by design) .. right now I try to cancel out the double payments with the familyfunds cheat, but that's really NOT fun.

Important hacks: Something, anything, please, that fixes the fucked up OfB payments (I know I sound like a broken record). The All-In-One isn't exactly straightforward to use, but once it's set up it works nicely.


I had a doorman (bouncer) once as well: I didn't get the various jealousy hacks to work the way I wanted for my "brothel" (a tiny bar with a back room, where the hooker works), so I employed a guy who did nothing but tell her jealous clients to get lost before they made a scene.

Oh, and there's a Bed + Breakfast: one sim with kids moved to the island with a bit more cash than most (I always use half of what they randomly get -- "Sim has moved in with a funds of such and such"), and could afford a house with one spare room; I moved in a townie, got him a teen job, and declared the income from that as what he "paid for the room". When the ex-townie went to work, he was "out sightseeing", other than that I do not control the guests (the private area of the house is safely locked up). Meanwhile they "rent out" three rooms to "tourists", it's quite like the ISBI challenge on that lot.


Recurring financial transactions I do with Money Orders, oldskool inventory trading, or Monique's AutoPayments -- for example, the hooker pays the foster parents 100§ per day per kid for taking care of her oopsies. People pay rent to the Mayor family each week (if they live in city-owned houses shacks, or on city-owned land) -- I look at the lot value before they move in, the weekly rent is always 5% of that value. I think this is actually too little: a 20.000§ starter house would cost 1.000§ per week that way, so that after 20 sim weeks you could just as well have bought it; if 1 day is roughly 1 year of RL life, that's 140 years? Not sure how this compares to RL .. I plan to raise the rents, but right now my sims are poor so 5% it is.


1.2 Local services: Plenty covered above .. I prevent NPC fire brigades by simply not installing smoke alarms. I don't have burglar alarms either, but an NPC policewoman has already appeared to break up a party .. if the Mayor had the money, I'd have him build a police station (a residential lot where a local officer lives and summons the NPC every day to play chess with her). As soon as there's a police station, sims can have burglar alarms; a firefighter could also work out of his own home (you don't technically need NPCs to put out fires, so no need for a fire station to explain them away). I want to build a school as well, and right now I'm playing with "no contraception" (HideTryForBaby) and the real sickness mod -- my plan was to take those out if I ever build a hospital or doctor's office, but I actually quite like the no contraception part .. we'll see.


1.4 No money from nowhere: No20k is old hat I guess; now there's a shiny new NoInheritances too that will see a lot of use in this hood.


1.6 No stuff from nowhere 1:  Theoretically I'd like to have stores for everything that's in the catalogue, but that's going to be difficult since the objects never break .. I don't see how the could be enough demand for a furniture store to survive. Also, I want a second hand store or flea market, where sims sell their old stuff to the owner for the deprecated price, and he resells it to others -- I've already done that on a small scale (as a side business); it's a bit tedious because everything can only be sold once (no restocking) .. it might be easier on the long run if sims sell/trade with each other directly via the inventories.


1.7 No stuff from nowhere 2: When I started Tuesday Island, my sims had 50.000§ all in all -- 25.000§ were for the city (the Mayor family), the other families got 15.000§/5.000§/5.000§ or something along those lines (roughly by family size). The Mayor family built two tiny empty houses to rent out; the 2 poorer families moved in there (5.000§ is actually quite OK when all you need to buy is some furniture), the other family bought a piece of land and built a house themselves (that one is the farm now). I only build new houses if my sims can afford it .. either as a private investment, or as city-owned buildings financed from tax money.

For taxes, I use the regular in-game bills as a gauge: all sims pay them, and then send five times that amount to the mayor as income/property tax. I keep raising that factor -- high taxes seem to be a good thing: the publishing house, although an evil sweatshop, indirectly contributed a lot to the island's first community lot (a public beach that my sims totally love, especially the really poor ones (free showers, yay!)).

For city-owned buildings, I cancel out the land value since the land is supposed to be public anyway (I add the value of the empty lot to the Mayor familyfunds before he buys it). So it's relatively cheap for the city to build houses, but even so, the Mayor can't quite keep up with the demand -- a lot of sims are stuck with their parents or in an unhappy relationship because there's nowhere to go and they don't have the money to build something themselves. Luckily, it's Spring/Summer/Summer/Fall .. I hope I won't have anyone freeze to death.

I like how "good" and "bad" areas on the island are slowly developing: the first Mayor's wife was one of the first sims with enough financial backing to start a business on her own (the publishing house), and now her house is visibly that of a better-off family. I'm looking forward to see how this develops over the generations -- a sim who already grows up in a large house with lots of skill objects will have a better start, even more so when they can move out with enough cash to set up something of their own, while a poor sim may be doomed to sleep on their parent's couch for a lifetime.

There's sort of a poorhouse too, a city-owned trailer park with 3 really tiny trailers and a shed with a shared kitchen and bathroom. In two of the trailers are just single sims, but in the third one lives the local maid with her two sons .. they have to sleep in shifts for lack of space and I have no idea what will become of the boys when she dies. The maid is a tragic figure in my game.

There's another "public infrastructure" building, apart from the beach: a residential cemetary with a small house on it; the sims who live there do the gardening in exchange for free housing + a small salary (maybe another family will also hire one of them as gardener at some point). They are both knowledge sims, so they rather enjoy the ghosts. Not sure if it was a good idea -- I imagine the lot might get quite laggy the more dead sims accumulate (I move in the graves by putting the headstones into someone's inventory on their home lot, summoning that someone into the cemetary, and taking out the gravestone again .. hopefully that's not too much of a VBT? Hasn't caused any issues yet, it seems, and the ghosts seem to behave normal).



(continued in next post)

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2. Mountain Town:

I made this subhood because I got tired of making up new tourist-townies (and also because I wanted snow and crappy weather); the setup was similar to the main hood: take a bunch of random sims, very little money (2.000§ per sim this time), and explode the population. This is a self-subsistence farmer village in the mountains (hence the imaginative name), completely disconnected from the outside world: i try to breed as many sims as possible and at some point time-sync this hood with Downtown so folks can emigrate to the city (perhaps they'll also sell farm produce and fish there, not sure yet). Basically a very roundabout way to produce new townies .. but less boring than making them in CAS.

Rules:

* No contact with the outside world -- no townies, nonlocal walkbys, NPCs (bring-homes from work will be the only exception, once the hood is synced with Downtown .. but I don't know yet when I'll do the time-sync, and I don't want them to be friends with dead or unborn folks, so they're out for now. I use the VisitorController for this). Sims can only leave the hood to go to work.
* No electricity
* No mail, newspaper, telephone
* No school (maybe I'll change this though .. the kids are a bit boring when they're stuck at home all day, and there are so many of them!)
* No books (except if someone gets the Education career reward)
* Career rewards are allowed (to make up for the lack of books .. hands-on learning seemed appropriate for this hood)
* High unemployment: Every Monday, one sim in the hood can get a job (or change careers)
* No carpools -- sims must be able to get to work in their own car (they can only share one if A works in the morning and B at night))
* No mail ordering (catalogue): stuff can only be bought or built immediately after someone returns home from work (pretending they brought it with them from the city)
* Harsh climate: Fall/Spring/Winter/Winter
* No money, sims, stuff from nowhere: like on the island, except that there's no tourists here

This was quite fun so far, but not much to write home about: I think I got 8 sims to start with, 3 of them female .. it was a little difficult in the beginning, because the random setup was something like EM - AF - TM - CF - CM - PM - PM - PF and I also randomized the Days Left In Age .. the AF was pretty old already, only able to produce one or two more kids (luckily the first one was a girl). I'm only on day 30 or so, and still not sure if the population will survive or if they're too inbred. The starter sims are not related of course -- I made them as separate families in CAS, moved them in together, and aged them down as necessary.

Stupid me I had the *old guy* get a job at first .. an elder job, that paid absolute crap. I think my sort-of-reasoning was that I want to try and reach LTWs in this hood (normally I don't care), and the AF had a "reach top" want for a career that wasn't available, so I thought why let the job offer go to waste. They *just so* managed to save up enough for a second car in Week 2. Meanwhile, the hood has grown from one house to three, with one sim in each household holding a job; there is no government or anything, so whatever they build in this hood will be privately owned. Actual buildings I mean -- public land is free: there is a community lot with a lake and some forest, another one with more forest and a tiny wooden hut (I meant to use it for dates, but never did), and a comm lot cemetary (forest and one grave so far).

The no-electricity part is fun; no mailordering makes things surprisingly difficult. Growing enough food was not much of a problem so far -- sims can always give food to their neighbours as a gift, and when it's not too cold they can go fishing. Having enough friends for promotions is hard though, particularly since I make them cheat on their spouses all the time in order produce more different offspring .. and it will become really hard now that I've HarderRelationships installed.



3. Downtown (Baskerville):

This is where I plan to link it all together .. it became a bit tedious to keep track of the island tourists (aging them properly, for example), that's why I started another subhood for them, so that they can have real lives and relationships and jobs and kids. For now I moved them all into an empty lot (the "townie dump"), every couple of days I go in to age them up. There are a few other sims in this hood as well -- leftovers of a "population explosion" challenge similar to Mountain Town .. the principle was about the same, random bunch of sims and 2.000§ for each, only with additional townies to breed with.

Rules for this hood are basically the same as in Mountain Town, only a bit more relaxed .. there is mail and newspaper delivery, some NPCs (as few as possible), and I think someone has a bookcase. Oh, and there's electricity. No school but I do have social services, which means kids can't be left alone (not a problem on Tuesday Island, where nobody goes to work anyway, but here it's led to some sticky situations). I play either strictly with or strictly without chance cards (whichever way I feel like) -- needless to say, it's quite a disaster to get fired when there's only one job available per week.

Downtown is supposed to be more city-like than the other subhoods (the Baskerville @ mts2 is kind of the blueprint for it); developments so far are a few small houses, a cemetery, and three owned businesses: a market stand that sells cucumbers, a diner, and a clothing stand. Right now the businesses are easy to run: as long as the tourists live "elsewhere", no-one is losing any money when they buy tons of stuff .. that's why I want to take it slowly with moving them in, I've no idea if the hood is large enough to sustain a diner yet.

There is no government here -- everything that's built is financed privately. Parks and such will have to be donated by rich sims -- I'm curious how it will compare to the developments on Tuesday Island, where everyone contributes to the public funds via taxes.

Right now there's I think five or six households in Downtown: one of them a guy in a trailer who lives with his teenage daughter and works as a security guard in eaxisland; to get around the social worker while she was still small I moved in a homeless sim to live in their yard: locked the door and put some food outside every now and then (I only want to torture him, not kill him -- I picked one of the accidentially generated townies from the main hood for this ungrateful job). This is quite fun, because he's grouchy anyway and now when the other sims encounter him in town, he's always in a *very* bad mood and harassing everyone.

Another household is a sort of farm/gardener lot -- the oldest of my founder sims still lives here, together with another guy and their children; they sell cucumbers on the market and the old guy works as cook in the local diner. Which poses a problem: he will die soon, and I have no idea who's going to replace him .. maybe I'll have to resort to one of the townies (everyone else can't cook, or already has a job, or must stay home to watch the kids).

Then there's another small trailer where the waitress of the diner lives; she moved in a townie-tourist who got a maxis job and later on moved out to build his own house, together with another former townie who now owns the "clothing store" (the other market booth) -- my idea was to keep everyone in maxis defaults, and only when sims can afford to buy their own clothes they can dress up in CC instead. Not sure if this was a smart move .. my d/l folder almost doubled in preparation for the store.

The household of the diner owner is bursting at its seams: he lives with his best friend and her three children in a really tiny house (she recently dumped the security guard for another townie -- before that, there were seven sims living on a 2x1 lot), but they don't have the funds yet to move out anyone. I think the diner is more or less breaking even at the moment, but because of the fucked up employee payments I can't really tell .. I've experimented a bit too much trying to get the payments to work.


I think it's going to become really interesting once the hoods are time-synced and connected .. I have a few sims on the island that don't really fit in there, and I'd like to not have farms in the city but in the mountains and on the island instead -- it's going to be nice for the farmers to drive into town, sell their produce and do some shopping for stuff that they don't have at home. Or to gossip with the mailman about sims in the neighboring town. Or for the downtown sims to go swimming at the island beach .. together with the different climates, the whole thing is more like a small country than just one suburb.


Random question: I like having different subhoods instead of actual different hoods, because you can relatively easily change the terrain when you get tired of it -- are there any disadvantages to that? Like, when I go from the main screen directly to a subhood, does the game read all the character files and stuff for every other subhood too, or does it ignore them?

[reggikko]

Wow. This is fascinating. I need to set up something similar in order to sustain my interest in the game. The same old go to work, have babies, retire, die is not fun anymore. Plus, I've become so proficient at the basic game play that it's way too easy for everyone to be super rich. I'll definitely be checking back on this thread for ideas.

[pbox]

Forgot important pointer: this is the re-post of the Isle of Thyme rules/"tutorial" by JadeElliott at S2C -- lots of good ideas in there on what to build, how to get things to work etc:
http://forums.sims2community.com/showthread.php?t=46510&page=2&pp=25

[Zazazu]

I need to set up something similar in order to sustain my interest in the game.

That's part of why I started using my randomizer copiously. Not just for who permaplats and job levels like I mentioned before, but for every aspect of a CAS sim and for aspiration/turn-ons for new teens. Also using those random occurrences. Run the randomizer, it gives me the category and chosen feat, then I go by the listed age group/sex to choose who it happens to. But still. What I need is 'hood setup schemes, and a lot of what's done in Tuesday Island is appealing. I hate food coming from nowhere, so I've been doing bought (from a business) or grown food since Seasons.

My teen days are either 7 or 10 days, depending on whether they go to college or not. 7 days for college-bounds, as I play college as 4 'hood days and that keeps them close to the same age. Do you have Two Jeff's age duration hack? Shakes up the adult and elder stages length a bit.

[pbox]

(Not sure whether you were asking regikko or me, but fwiw: =)

Do you have Two Jeff's age duration hack? Shakes up the adult and elder stages length a bit.

I tried it but decided against it .. the change to elderhood is so drastic, i found it too odd to have two sims who are both 60 days old but one of them is old and crumply and the other one still looks like 24. But the idea is good!

[behold_the_muse]

I have been wanting to try something like this but failing miserably. In the spirit of "nothing comes from the ether", I didn't have any 'tourists' and so no money was coming in from the outside. Duh. I was thinking of having a carpenter open a furniture store with only the country stuff from Seasons and sell mostly to tourists. I guess I wouldn't mind the whole neighborhood decorated in the same theme... hmm...

Would it make a huge difference if the tourists were unplayed playables instead of proper townies? I would like more control over their aging. What if I have them live in a residential lot that looks like a hotel? And start a home business on it so it can employ locals?  I have to go play now.

[Zazazu]

Sounds good. Playstyle should be personal, anyways. Otherwise you won't like it.

My current 'hood (Queen's Island) just has one family, a woman on her second marriage and her twin teenage boys. No community lots. There is a downtown, but it's on the mainland. The lot is a public beach, with the premise that she's the first settler on the island and it's a burgeoning tourist trap. The only sims they can date or marry have to be ones who have come and spent a good amount of time at the beach. For now, anyways.

Once the family starts spreading (marrying tourists for a couple of generations), I'll be moving in townie couples that have emerged via ACR. I already have a lesbian couple that frequents the beach. Then I'll start intermarrying and building community lots. What I'm most intrigued by with Plasticbox's style (and I believe JadeElliott's precedent) is the idea of land being bought from one family or the community...all community lots being, at least at first, owned.

[LFox]

VERY VERY interesting post.  Your whole structure idea is brilliant, completely removing normal careers and replacing them by proper careers.  I've skimmed through alot and read the rest but i gotta say its very well thought out.  I might actually try doing this as i constantly find myself getting bored with the sims.  I don't think i'll rule my city with such a iron fist though, such as aging townies.

Edit:  Alright i REALLY want to do this and i'm trying to work out how to start it up.  My idea for the start is to have about 3 families plus the mayor that more or less pay each other keeping the community active and alive for the start.  I've read through more or less everything and can't find listed how you started it up as in what jobs they did.  Here's what i was considering

Major - Mayor, build community expand ect ect.
Family 1 - Farmers, grow food for community
Family 2 - Possibly Novelist??? (i figure someone needs to pull money out of their ass to increase the neighbourhoods net worth)
Family 3 - Possibly school teacher??? (makes sense to have straight away and also gets paid from mayors pocket)
(maybe) Family 4 - Campers, live off the grid not paying bills ect and fish to eat.

Also what's this double billing?  And another thing on billing i know businesses you set wages these wages are then morphed higher as i remember and turned into a carpool thing, what's the general wages you use?

One other thing how does the food sale work?  I've got a grocery store in my standard hood and thankfully if my sim goes to the store and shops it regenerates.  However if i play the store owner and sell stuff that way it doesn't regenerate.  Now the regenerative thing is good for my standard hood but in this kind of thing its not going to work.  Perhaps i need to use inventories and such to work sales on a farm?

[pbox]

My idea for the start is to have about 3 families plus the mayor that more or less pay each other keeping the community active and alive for the start.  I've read through more or less everything and can't find listed how you started it up as in what jobs they did.

Firstly, I started with a *random* number of sims/families, all of them with random personalities/aspirations -- I ended up with 4 families but with different sims I'd probably have done it differently. Also, I didn't have OfB or Seasons at the time, so I could only do what's possible with Base+NL:

Family 1 was the Mayors (grandfather, father, son): the old man was Knowledge and at some point wanted a creativity point, and then more+more of them, which is what led to his job as a novelist. He was not ideal for the job (low Playfulness); his son took over when he died and later on married a woman who started the publishing house. It's probably not necessary to have mayors from the start .. my other 2 subhoods don't and they're doing fine.

Family 2 was an EM romance sim, his niece (AF Pleasure), and her daughter, still a toddler. They did a "joint venture" business: he opened a beach bar, where she worked as the town whore -- she was the main breadwinner of the hood until the publishing house outperformed her (or would have, if she hadn't been retired by then). The little girl was given into daycare right away -> first local job on the island (the girl is meanwhile the one running the daycare, ironically). They later on also hired barkeepers, singers, and a doorman.

Family 3 was a teenage girl with 3 younger brothers, she took in the little girl mentioned above, plus all the follow-up oopsies .. when she turned adult she fell in love with one of the farmers and moved in there, taking the daycare/foster business with her (this was a great combination -- you can enslave the kids on the farm and be paid for it!). The daycare is what paid the rent at first (just barely); when the boys turned teens they started to work as well: as an artist (portraits for the mayor family), repairman, and gym trainer. I did not plan any of this, see OP .. it was decided purely by their personalities and interests.

Family 4 were the farmers: two AM brothers, one of them with 2 children (a boy child or toddler (don't recall); and a girl toddler). One moved in a tourist woman after 2 weeks or so, and moved out with her to start a hamburger stand; the other one moved in the girl from family 3 and lived happily until he died. He worked as doorman at the bar for a bit. His CAS son (pre-determined Romance) became a barkeeper, his CAS daughter now works at the cemetery; he had 2 more kids with his new wife, one of them will take over the farm.


I find it a lot more fun to start with random sims and figure it out from there, rather than mold your sims according to a masterplan .. but YMMV. It also depends on how you want to treat your townies: if you want to move them in over time, they will also need jobs.

For a start, you will always need someone to provide food (farming or fishing, or perhaps a grocery store in a more urban setup), and as many others as possible to pull money into the game .. I made tourism the main source of income, since I only had NL and it provides plenty of options for that, but you could also make it more industrial and produce stuff (robots, flowers, ..) for "export" (selling them off the bench) or treat your townies as "target market" -- never move them in, only sell stuff to them. Instead of having a mayor family, you could set up the hood around one industry: in an earlier version, I had a chocolate factory (with the career reward) for example. Lots of real cities have developed that way .. people work at the facory, until "secondary" businesses (say a bar for the factory workers, a maid for the owner..) start to emerge.

Or you could do the totally rural/medieval thing and make them all farmers for a start, perhaps with a "king" family they all pay taxes to, and have someone start an inn later on and people work as maids or servants at the "king" household or at the inn .. or make a hotel/bed+breakfast/boarding house right away with townies working in the city .. I'm sure there's other possibilities as well.

Also what's this double billing?

See this thread. My current workaround is to undo the bullshit payments with familyfunds when employees return from work.

And another thing on billing i know businesses you set wages these wages are then morphed higher as i remember and turned into a carpool thing, what's the general wages you use?

Firstly, I use Squinge's never quit hack so that I can use whatever wages I want. I don't know what you mean by "carpool thing".

Low wages mean, more sims will be able to afford employees -- with higher wages, there will be fewer but more lucrative jobs. You'll have to see what works for your hood.

Low-skill jobs (maid, barkeeper, cashier ..) are 15§ per hour in my hood. Not last because that's what the All-In-One pays. Come to think of it, I think most jobs are 15§/hour right now.
The repairman earns 60§ per repair (because he's "freelancing").
Daycare is 100§ per day per kid.
The cemetary caretakers get 100§ per day from the mayor, plus free housing.
The hooker gets 500§ per WooHoo; the farmers used to get 500§ per fridge refill (now they have an OfB store set to "Cheap" or "Average", don't remember).
Gym trainers and such (tourist businesses) got 40§ per hour before OfB, I'm not sure what it is now with the ticket machines.
The artist gets whatever the painting is worth when you attempt to sell it off the easel.

I have a diner in Baskerville that can *just so* afford to pay the cook and the waitress 15§ per hour .. I tried giving the cook more than that, but it would have ruined the owner. (The game thinks that the cook is totally underpaid, but I don't give a shit what the game thinks.)

One other thing how does the food sale work?  I've got a grocery store in my standard hood and thankfully if my sim goes to the store and shops it regenerates.  However if i play the store owner and sell stuff that way it doesn't regenerate.  Now the regenerative thing is good for my standard hood but in this kind of thing its not going to work.  Perhaps i need to use inventories and such to work sales on a farm?

If you use grocery stores, they'll pretty much have to be home businesses with this kind of hood (pretending the owner imports the food and resells it). Because otherwise, like you say, stuff "regenerates" from nowhere and everything's messed up. I haven't yet figured out how this works with other stores (say, a farm outlet) .. I'm afraid it might turn out to be the same mess. I currently circumvent the problem by simply not visiting those businesses with third-party sims .. if I know that a certain sim has no food at home, I can always summon him to the store when I play it and "Show Item" to him, to make sure he buys some food.

[pbox]

Would it make a huge difference if the tourists were unplayed playables instead of proper townies? I would like more control over their aging. What if I have them live in a residential lot that looks like a hotel? And start a home business on it so it can employ locals?  I have to go play now.

If it's just about the aging, I've found the easiest way (for me) is dump them all on an empty lot, go in there every couple of days, and age them up. That way, I can also dress them in somehting less silly when they transition into somehting completely ridiculous .. or in general, dress them in a way that's appropriate (in my game, since they're tourists, they wear a lot of hawaii shirts, shorts, sunglasses, and silly hats).

Hotel is nice as well, but once they're there, everything they spend will be paid for by the family running the hotel .. not sure if that's what you want?

[LFox]

Thanks for the reply it seems you mostly end up playing it by ear.  I like how you spoke of the chocolate factory cause your right thats exactly how dozens upon dozens of towns developed.  First a factory, then a place for the workers to eat, then drink, then shop and so on.

I ended up fixing up my hood with the families mentioned above minus the camper family.  I'm a bit of a control freak so the start has to be organized for me hehe.  Already i can see some job opportunities, the Major could use a maid but there's currently no one to fill it.  Then i'll have to do daycare somehow cause both parents will end up working.  btw how are you doing the bars and restaurants?  Who pays for the construction?  If it's the mayor do they pay rent at all for it?

I've barely played but currently i can already see my major getting insanely rich.  I dumped an empty lot down for a public school which will later get built out.  School is always around so i figured it was one of the first things i needed someone working.  I had the mayor go to the school lot and hire my teacher and set her wage to $31 an hour which works out to $248 a day (i ended up figuring out that its Wage x 8 hours = Carpool wage as in what they earn when they go to work from their lot.  Also since the lot isn't ever visited and open the double wage thing doesn't occur).  So everyday now when my teacher goes to work she earns $248 dollars.  But with rent, bills and what i decided to be $100 tax a week (since x5 was way too high she would have literally been in red with earnings) she barely and i mean barely makes anything.  I may up her earnings a bit since she should be earning a little extra to spend around.

Overall i gotta say this is going to be alot of fun.  Can't wait to get a cemetary lot built so i can have a grave digger hehehe, should be an interesting job with tons of ghosts hanging around.

[pbox]

btw how are you doing the bars and restaurants?  Who pays for the construction?

The owners. The bar and hamburger stand on Tuesday Island are home businesses (each in city-owned houses, so they pay rent to the mayor every week (home business or not)); the diner in Baskerville is an owned business (made note of what my sim can spend, bought a small empty lot from "the government", built a tiny shack that the prospective owner can afford, and had him buy it).

I had the mayor go to the school lot and hire my teacher and set her wage to $31 an hour which works out to $248 a day (i ended up figuring out that its Wage x 8 hours = Carpool wage as in what they earn when they go to work from their lot.  Also since the lot isn't ever visited and open the double wage thing doesn't occur). 

Yes, but then does the mayor actually ever pay her? I never had an owned business that I didn't play every day ..   I've only ever seen the wages getting deducted while I was on the business lot. What happens when you never visit it?

[LFox]

The owners. The bar and hamburger stand on Tuesday Island are home businesses (each in city-owned houses, so they pay rent to the mayor every week (home business or not)); the diner in Baskerville is an owned business (made note of what my sim can spend, bought a small empty lot from "the government", built a tiny shack that the prospective owner can afford, and had him buy it).

Yes, but then does the mayor actually ever pay her? I never had an owned business that I didn't play every day ..   I've only ever seen the wages getting deducted while I was on the business lot. What happens when you never visit it?

Ahh i thought they might be home businesses i didn't really see how else they could be done.

I've only played 3 days so far on each of my 4 lots.  But no the mayor hasn't been paying for it, i guess i'll setup a dummy lot where he pays government wages automatically such as teachers, police, fire fighters ect.  Man you know i always thought the government has way too much money but when you literally do this kind of thing and then see the result you can be pleasantly surprised by the huge amount they actually pay.  That teacher is gonna cost $1240 a week and that's if i don't increase her pay as i was thinking.  Man i hope i don't need cops or firefighters anytime soon.

[behold_the_muse]

If it's just about the aging, I've found the easiest way (for me) is dump them all on an empty lot, go in there every couple of days, and age them up. That way, I can also dress them in somehting less silly when they transition into somehting completely ridiculous .. or in general, dress them in a way that's appropriate (in my game, since they're tourists, they wear a lot of hawaii shirts, shorts, sunglasses, and silly hats).

Hotel is nice as well, but once they're there, everything they spend will be paid for by the family running the hotel .. not sure if that's what you want?

I basically wanted to do the empty lot thing using a hotel-like shell of a building just for appearances. The factory idea makes more sense for employing locals than the hotel does, though. And with the factory, you wouldn't really need townies to pump money into the economy. Once the town gets going, the factory owner's family is sure to be the richest and most powerful politically. I'm thinking of starting this up as a Downtown and eventually moving families to a shopping district (the suburbs), and the main hood (posh gated communities and mansions).  I think too big. This is why I never get past the second rotation before I'm starting a new hood.

How does uni work out? I'd like it to be 'payed for' by the richer families or the community.

[LFox]

Last night i was thinking about how you talked about factories getting cities started in alot of cases.  When i have time i'm going to move in a new sim to the neighbourhood that's gonna setup his own residence and a local electronics factory.  The factory will provide work for the locals and the money from the land sales will allow the mayor to build a proper school and a park as well as a cementary and maybe some housing.  It's not unusual for a large company to suddenly go hey lets build a factory over there and sell stuff so i think it fits well into the theme.

I was also thinking of making someone who steals for a living.  I need to test it out but the general idea would be to shoplift from businesses and pickpocket tourists.  The pickpocketing probably can't be done without giving the sim money or getting some kind of hack that works with bv assuming its pickpocketing is any good, haven't seen it in action.  But the shoplifting should be easy enough either grabbing the items and simply walking out without paying or tossing them in the inventory, either of which should work.  I just need to test if its possible to walk out without paying or to use the inventory to grab stuff.

[pbox]

I was wondering what type of method do you use for keeping track of everything.  Do you use the LotSyncTimer to keep things lined up?  Or do you do a paper/pencil method.  Just wondering how you keep track of everything one must "fix" because of the bad EAxis coding.

Yes, I use the LotSyncTimer (wouldn't know what to do without it!). And I try to always leave the game in a "clean" state so that I don't need to make notes .. for example, I play every household for as many days I feel like (not necessarily one week in a row), but I *always* sync them up on monday morning .. I leave the lot when everyone's at home and perferably in bed, like 4 or 5 in the morning, and I always pay the weekly rent before I leave. So that when the new week starts, the Mayor lot is first in rotation and I can immediately see what their budget is for the week, without having to worry about having forgotten someone.

Then again, I have notes on "paper" (file) what the rent for each lot is, what the prices for empty lots are, etc .. I suppose I could put some of that in the lot descriptions for example. (I'd be happy to know if there was an object that could be used for this .. storing text, i mean. A book or notebook object, for example. Would be great for lot uploads as well -- we could leave notes, credits etc directly in the upload)

I also use the ingame "biography" feature for notes about individual sims, like when a sim spins up a lot of skillpoint wants during their childhood I write "k" in their bio -- then when they turn teen, I don't have to think about what aspiration to give them.

What's also good to have is a list of your plans/ideas for the hood, things you want to build, and jobs you want to have -- that's surprisingly easy to forget. I meant to post mine here on the weekend .. will do that when i get around to it.

[Invisigoth]

Thank you so much for writing this all up. I really enjoyed reading it over, and I've started setting everything up. I am almost finished making the families and the first few lots. I'm really excited to give this a try. I can tell already that keeping track of everything is going to be a huge job, but I tend to be pretty organized so I think (perhaps the better word is hope) I'll be okay.

[pbox]

OK here's my list -- not complete by any means, this is only for NL/OfB/Seasons; also, it obviously depends on what kind of businesses and institutions you build and how you run them: a public bath can be run with no employees, or it can have a gym and spa and bar and garden and playground etc pp.


Jobs:

Babysitter
Bartender
Bouncer (Doorman)
Boxer/Wrestler (Fight!)
Caretaker (cemetary)
Cashier
Cook
Dishwasher
DJ
Farmer - any game (Echo's farm stuff); Seasons
Firefighter
Fisherman - any game (Monique? @ mts2); Seasons
Florist - any game (with Slacker career reward); OfB
Foster parent
Gardener
Gym trainer
Hairdresser (or what's it called? Salon chair thing)
Hooker
Maid
Matchmaker (Influence > Talk/Flirt/etc)
Mediator (Influence > Talk)
Minigolf instructor
Painter / Sign painter
Pianist
Potter (custom bench @ mts2)
Preacher/Speaker (Politics/Law career rewards (podium))
Professional party guest
Professional poker player
Repairman
Restaurant host
Robot manufacturer
Salesperson
Scientist/Pharma .. cist? ceut? (Science career reward)
Singer (karaoke machine)
Social worker
Teacher
Thief
Toy maker
Waiter
Writer
Yoga teacher


Businesses:

Art/deco/gift shop
B+B/hotel/boarding house (maid)
Bakery
Bar/club (bartender, DK, singer)
Bookstore
Bowling lane
Cinema
Chocolate factory (career reward)
Clothing store
Daycare
Electronics
Furniture store
Gallery
Gambling hall
Grocery store
Gym (trainers)
Minigolf lane
Newspaper stand
Pizzeria/Pizza delivery (there's buyable pizza somewhere)
Publishing corp (writers)
Restaurant/bistro/café/diner
Salon
Science lab (career reward)
Second hand store / flea market
Spa
Takeout/Take-away


Public institutions:

Cemetery
Fire station
Harbour
Hospital
Jail
Library
Market
Museum
Music hall
Orphanage
Park
Playground
Police station
Public bath
Retirement home
School
Science lab / observatory
Town hall

[LFox]

Here's a few more that i can think of that i didn't see on your list.

Acheologist (Select dig for stuff)
Bus Driver (kudos to Zazazu)
Delivery man/woman (photos, albums, mail orders)
Ice Skating Trainer (basically just skate with em)
Life Guard (don't forget we have beach lots now)
Fire Dance Trainer (not sure if this ones possible haven't checked to see if you can train others)
Funeral Services
Paper Boy/Girl
Personal Trainer (Select a sim on a workout machine)
Pest Control
Postal Worker (also Mailman)
Swimming Trainer (basically just swim with em)
Taxi Driver
Tai Chi Trainer
University Professor

btw school should really be Public School and Private School since they are essentially seperate.

[Zazazu]

btw school should really be Public School and Private School since they are essentially seperate.

& remember to charge them for private school. Right now, that's the only valid school I have in my 'hood because there's none on the island..all kids have to go to private school on the mainland (and pay through the nose due to the ferry fees).

You'd also need one to four school bus drivers (unless everyone's driving the kids in their car), depending on whether you have public and private, and if you want to split for an elementary school driver and high school driver.

[LFox]

Pbox with this neighbourhood i know no interitance should be gained or handed our but is it fine to send most of a sims CURRENT money to someone else before they die if their very good friends?  Doesn't make much sense for the money to be lost to the void when they have no relatives but they had a good friend.

Also in relation to dying, when a sim dies in a house and no one else is in it therefore it becomes empty how is the house dealth with?  Is all the furniture destroyed and the money goes to the void, does the furniture remain?  Or does the mayor since he owns the house sell off the furniture and keep the money?

btw school should really be Public School and Private School since they are essentially seperate.

& remember to charge them for private school. Right now, that's the only valid school I have in my 'hood because there's none on the island..all kids have to go to private school on the mainland (and pay through the nose due to the ferry fees).

You'd also need one to four school bus drivers (unless everyone's driving the kids in their car), depending on whether you have public and private, and if you want to split for an elementary school driver and high school driver.

Hmm i forgot about school bus drivers i think you'd only need 1 or 2 unless your neighbourhood is gigantic.  The charge for private school is deducted with one of JM's hacks, its $200 per kid per day.  However the mayor should recieve the money so you'd have to set that up.  I forgot about splitting the schools but that'd come much much later when your towns big enough.

[pbox]

..
Bus Driver (kudos to Zazazu)
Delivery man/woman (photos, albums, mail orders)
..
Funeral Services
Paper Boy/Girl
..
Postal Worker (also Mailman)
Taxi Driver
University Professor

OK, so Archeologist / Lifeguard / Fire Dancer / Tai Chi are BV things, right? Thanks for the addition. Personal trainer is what I meant with "gym trainer" (thought that was clearer .. or does "Personal" automatically imply sports? (Non-english person here)). Life guard / Swimming trainer is a good idea, that would also work in public baths and such (pre-BV/non-beach lots). Is pest control the same as exterminator?

About the others (listed above), how would you implement them? Those are more or less "pretend jobs", aren't they? Except paper boy, that could work .. zap the original one, put a stash of buyable newspapers in your teen's inventory, and summon him every morning onto every lot (Maybe there is something that can summon sims automatically?).

is it fine to send most of a sims CURRENT money to someone else before they die if their very good friends?  Doesn't make much sense for the money to be lost to the void when they have no relatives but they had a good friend.

Well don't ask me -- it's your hood =) but I would find it totally logical for sims to give money away to their friends before they die. If I had a sim living alone, I would do that too. Or move in someone to inherit all their stuff (that way, they can pass along the house and lot as well, if it's their own) .. most people don't feel very well before they die, maybe they need someone to take care of them? Maybe make a city-employed nurse or doctor for that job, or a whatsitcalled .. kind of lawyer (person who executes people's last will)? They move in, they get to keep everything, then they can sell it on behalf of the city.

Also in relation to dying, when a sim dies in a house and no one else is in it therefore it becomes empty how is the house dealth with?  Is all the furniture destroyed and the money goes to the void, does the furniture remain?  Or does the mayor since he owns the house sell off the furniture and keep the money?

I don't know .. I think the stuff stays in the house in that case, but I'm not sure. Back up and test?

Also, I think Zazazu meant drivers for off-world schools (that don't exist in game) -- if you're running your own school then I guess all kids go there? I think one driver per school is enough .. it's a boring pretend job anyway, if I'm not mistaken.

[LFox]

The lifeguard and so forth is all with BV, fun new little activities.  Most of those are pretend jobs like you said since your sim is never actually seen doing it.  But i think that wouldn't be too bad since there's usually more than 1 person working at them anyway.  They dress in the appopriate uniform and leave for work.  Maybe it's similar to the base careers in a way but the work building need to exist and they actually get paid by someone.  If you wanted you could use simpe to change the original npcs that do the jobs to look exactly like your sims that have the job, it's not them but it makes it look like their doing the job.

Unfortunately my hood isn't developed enough for lawyers or nurses and that so i think she'll settle for handing her money off to someone.  I was just curious what your take on it was.  As for the gym trainer i was thinking it implied someone who works at an actual gym business.  With what i meant for personal trainer was someone you have around at work or home that yells at you to work out on a exercise machine.  Although i suppose the title personal trainer could imply anything really unless it has a title like personal cooking trainer.  Generally with a personal trainer they work with you and you only but their very expensive.

[Zazazu]

Also, I think Zazazu meant drivers for off-world schools (that don't exist in game) -- if you're running your own school then I guess all kids go there? I think one driver per school is enough .. it's a boring pretend job anyway, if I'm not mistaken.

Eh. I'm doing things differently, so in my 'hood the only school is very much off-world. They are far, far from having a school on the island. They don't have the population to support it (no kids at the moment, and only five residents) and just barely enough to endow the land. I could do homeschooling, but I like having the spawn off the lot for a bit each day, so I just get them into private school and take $5,000 per child from the family.

EDIT: Hm. Ok. I'm almost to the point of adding a school in the 'hood ($5000/kid is going to kill my non-founder family with the guy running a cheap convenience store and the girl writing crap romance novels with almost no creative points). I'm bringing in a CAS sim and doing Legacy with her, but I'd like her to be the teacher and have the school on-lot. Any ideas for getting kids to come? I was thinking of having my all-knowing sim introduce her to all the child aged and teen kids, then her inviting them over every day before they would be at school according to the game, then shooing the teens at 1 and the kids at 3. She could spend her time encouraging traits and reading to the younger ones. Thoughts?