My Pleasantview neighborhood which I started up around 2005 is crashing. I noticed a couple sims starting to become unlinked and disappear from the neighborhood at random and I know it's time for it all to come to an end. I'm very sad about it because I have such a tight connection to every single sim in the neighborhood. But I know years and years of doing the wrong things attributed to this (deleting sims in sim bin, deleting tombstones, etc.). And a crash like this happened in 2008 as well, I managed to get around it by trying to think up back stories for why so many sims disappeared so suddenly.

But anyway, I believe it's finally time to start anew. Here's what I've done so far:
-I just entered a house building contest so I'm building new houses and families in a new neighborhood. So far the new neighborhood, Rivera Beach, does not have any sub neighborhoods attached yet, I'm going to be a little more picky when it comes to that now.
-I also went into SimPE and renamed most townie sims who I had a connection with in the old neighborhood. I've also started the process of making them over at a local hair salon and clothing store.

Any other tips?

And here's a couple questions:
-Is there any benefit of attaching a shopping district?
-Is it possible to make a college campus and a downtown district one sub-neighborhood together?
-Is it possible to clone some of my sims from my old neighborhood and put them in my new neighborhood? And how?

before having a fresh start, backup your glitchy neighborhood, you never know, you might want to play it again (stick with the mysteries of disappearing sims).

for Q1: Yes, if you attach a shopping district to your neighborhood, it gives you the benefit of having more space for your families, since shopping districts dont have special NPCs as Downtowns, only the Reporters, that is if you even have a business.
http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Non-play...er#Special_NPCs


So basically, shopping districts, to me, are the only sub-neighborhood type that is closest to normal base hoods in terms of NPCs. Also, community lots in Downtowns can bring Mrs.Crumplebottom and Vampires which can be annoying, unless you want vamps all over your N'Hood. (Just so tha t you know, im comparing downtowns with shopping districts.)

for Q2: Not sure, although im mostly certain that you cannot.

For Q3: Yes, you can, bu i think that that should be done with SimPE: http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...elp:Moving_Sims Read the Easy Way section, it should help you.

Last edited by M.M.A.A. : 25th Feb 2012 at 06:16 PM.

As for the downtown/uni combo, No, I don't think it's possible. However, you can have community lots in your uni, so that's better then nothing. Not 100% sure if nonstudents can go to those lots, but probably not.

As for cloning, I think you can with Sim PE, but I'm not entirely sure how. DON'T copy them in a lot and place them i a new neighborhood. That's bad.

And as for tips for starting a new neighborhood, why not build one around a challenge? For example my legacy hood started with just one family, and now in the 8th generation I have around 40 houses, including those not related to the legacy line. Story seems to develop around people you meet.

And of course there's the BACC, and the Medieval Charter Challenge, etc.

Only University students can go to community lots in a University neighborhood. Time runs differently on every lot in a University neighborhood, so your semester timer keeps going when you visit the community lots, and so you can continue to skill on them, will meet only University playables and NPCs, etc.

If you want a University/Downtown combination, you'll need the hack that allows students to live in the base neighborhood while attending.

Here is the link for the hack that allows YAs to live outside UNI.

Personally, when I'm rebuilding a 'hood, once I've finished with lots and hood deco I make sure I have a no-sims copy of it backed up somewhere safe -- this reduces the time I spent rebuilding it (largely in my 'hoods I expand around what's already there, so a rebuild or a rebuild would consist of saving various houses and community lots and placing them in the right place in the empty backup).

There's no real benefit to attaching a shopping district just because, but if you start running out of room in your main 'hood they can be easily used for extra space (and if you have local walkbys, each sub-hood could have its own distinct theme). Unless I'm making themed areas, am playing a Build A City challenge, or anticipate I'll need a lot of space, I only attach a blank lot for a business district when I need the space.

If you use the mod PolterGeist44 linked, you could theoretically have university students living downtown -- I've only used it to have sims living in the main 'hood: I know of one person who has their university in downtown but I'm not sure if they can also use it as a downtown area.