How do you handle your evil or criminal Sims? Is there an established criminal class in your game? Does the mob control entire blocks of the city? Or is all the criminal enterprise in your game under the auspices of a sinister mastermind? Is law enforcement strong enough that any illicit behavior has to be carefully hidden? What about lifestlyes? Do your crime-prone Sims try to lead normal lives, or do they opt for opulence while they can? How do YOU play SimCity's seedy underworld?

Downtown is sorta like the area I grew up in. With high crime rates and it's usually where those in the Criminal career track live or those with not a lot of money. Though downtown is only just starting out, so nothing really interesting has happened yet. I intend on making Gordon King playable (especially since he's had a child in my game and I hate the thought of that child growing up and his father staying the same age) and putting him in a house with a few other criminals and making a bit of a mob that run a few 'seedy' businesses (it's not a crappy neighbourhood without a brothel challenge!)

Crime falls into the category of things in real life that I prefer to not see in my game. I may let a Sim work in the maxis career, but that's it.

I'm rather like gummilutt on this one, except that I don't even let them work in the criminal career. And I change criminal LTWs. They made no sense anyway: the two gentlest and most helpful teens in my game (Julian Moltke and Ravi Bertino) wanted to be criminal masterminds! I haven't changed Consort Capp's LTW yet, but I think I'll change it to Business, and then he'll go permaplat when he gets that last promotion. (Do you think being happy all the time will make him any nicer?)

There is still occasional petty crime and vandalism (newspaper theft and dustbins kicked over) in Veronaville but neither are as bad as they used to be. I haven't modded burglary out, but I have a mod so that the police win 95% of the fights. All told, despite the bad reputation that the town had in the past, the Veronaville Police Service feel they're well on top of crime now. Which is part of the reason why so many Sims now consider it a desirable place to live.

I'm just experimenting with what I can do with crime. I've had the prison hacks in for ages and never used them before. Mr. Rich Mann has his little gang: Jessica Peterson, Andrew Martin, and Dustin Broke, that he's running. I'll see what happens from here. Mr. Mann wasn't sure about letting Jessica join, but then he thought about it and realized that if Lana weren't Mrs. Mann she'd be perfectly capable of running a gang, not that he'd ever let his wife do that as he wouldn't risk her getting hurt or jailed, and having a woman involved might well be beneficial for certain sorts of heists.

Crime in my Simnation is very slim; the most common crime is home invasion. There are criminal groups who pull off organized crime, but they're always local and mostly limited to black market stuff and they rarely, if ever, exert control outside of the criminal underworld. This is partly because Simnation has an extensive spy network which is quick to rid the nation of any criminal groups who become too large. However, if someone makes it big in the criminal underground, they won't hesitate to live opulently; they'll just claim to be businessman

ooo yes - there are criminals in Little Carping and surrounding area. Fergus Crims and his brother Mitch are a couple of local thugs though Fergus has enough brains to be relatively successful in the Criminal career track, while Bert Hick (deceased) was an inept thief (husband of Mama). Then there's Jessica Ebadi who has shacked up with Sandra Handy - Sandra's a warder from my prison. That caused more than a few raised eyebrows. There are five of them (warders) plus a Governor. I made what are effectively 6 townies to live in the prison permanently as long-term prisoners (surname Lags). They're actually playable but I don't play them as such just get Sandra, Danny, Bernie Johnson and the rest to keep them in order. Fergus has been to jail a few times, as has Mitch and Jessica. Albert spent most of his elderhood there. On the white-collar side, Franklin Rockefeller let his wife down badly when he was caught manufacturing simoleans and got banged up for that. He's now a car salesman having served his time. Despite still spending time laughing maniacally while cranking his counterfeit machine, Billy Jane has had to fund him in his own business because he couldn't get a respectable job once he got out of prison. Poor Billy Jane, she has a hard lot in life. She'd like another baby too though she's not sure she wants to have another child with Franklin. And who can blame her? When she met him, she thought with a name like that he must be rich and respectable.

The police chief in Golden Creek has a young beautiful wife. I think he must be in denial. He pretends not to understand why she puts on a balaclava everyday before going to work. He knows that he should not look between the fingers with crime. But at least she never works in the weekends.

The only Sim I've come across myself who really seems to have a touch of real evil about her is Olive Specter in Strangetown. Other Sims like Dustin Broke and even Consort Capp have gone off the rails a bit, but can helped back to the right path with a bit of friendship, guidance and encouragement, but I really wouldn't know where to start with Olive. Usually I empathise with my Sims, but I don't know how to empathise with Olive. It might be ok if I could believe her innocent, but all those graves in her garden!? It's just not credible that they were all accidents. And her motivation? Apparently to woohoo with the Grim Reaper. In the middle ages she'd have been burned as a witch! (In some of its attitudes I think Strangetown is a medieval 'hood in a modern setting.)

I don't really play any kind of actual criminal in my game. Too much effort for me. I do have a big soft spot for mean Sims, though, and enjoy watching them be evil to others, especially on community lots when I'm not controlling them and they see fit to annoy the heck out of others and make enemies all on their own.

I confess that I've also gotten tired of the whole burglar thing, so when they appear, I'll often pause the game and just delete them off the lot. (Thank you, buy mode enabler! ) Sometimes I'll let them do their thing, though. I have the mod where anyone can fight burglars, so when I'm feeling a little violent, it's nice to watch the burglars take a beating. It's their own fault; they seem to love targeting houses where Bigfeet and/or 10-Body-point grumpy werewolves and/or really grumpy zombies live. (I love my supernaturals. ) You'd think the burglars would learn, but....no. They get their asses kicked every time. I'm beginning to think that they're all masochists in search of someone to make them happy.

I don't have a problem with anyone being in the Criminal career. It's not like they actually do anything bad when you're playing them. It's also a career I've deemed "risky," with a chance of being killed every time the Sim goes to work. So, the career contributes a bit to population control, which I like.

I've only ever played a murderer once, and while it was interesting, sort of, it was also kinda depressing and sad.

After his divorce, Matthew Picaso bought a small house out in the woods, and began luring local Townies. Being a charming sort of guy, they fell for him quickly, whereby he would imprison them, impregnate them and once the baby was born, kill them and move onto the next victim. I thought it'd be a new challenge to play this way, but it wasn't even remotely fun - the kids grew up horribly neglected, there were green stink piles everywhere, fights broke out constantly between Matthew and his sad kids, it was all disturbing and depressing. Eventually when one of the kids hit Teen I decided I'd had enough, and the eldest son shot Matthew to death (with a modded gun). Even then their traumatic upbringing followed them, as adults those kids were all troubled and were constantly crying and picking fight with other Sims.

It was a depressing experiment, and not one I'd try again. I have Sims in the criminal career, but they aren't evil Sims, they're just making a wage the only way they can.

I'm a little surprised there's so much attention given to violent and organized crime and the like in most of your games, but so few people who seem to be playing Sims who are the Carey-Grant-inspired "gentleman thief," or an art forger (not all the criminal jobs are in the Criminal career track! ) who's getting rich without ever unlawfully seeing the inside of a bank vault, or the multimillion dollar heist crew a la Ocean's Eleven, or even some of the more eccentric and unconventional villains from comic book universes! I mean, have you seen the uniform for a criminal mastermind? You think you're supposed to take it seriously at that point? (Plus, if you don't have good villains like that, who are your superheroes supposed to fight?) I have Sims leading duplicitous lives in all of these manners, and they're a lot of fun!

I've given attention to both sides of the issue: criminals and police If only bad guys were our there, it would be boring, we need two sides for exciting conflict!

Of course, I have a serial killer, mine is a pyromaniac woman killer who works as a head of fire service (hoho). Three organized mafias, two of which are Veronaville mafias Capps and Montys and another is a SimNation mafia (Veronaville is a thing of its own, a la Vatican in Italy). Drug dealers exist, I use dice to choose which sims are their victims, whether their kids take on the habit, how much they have to pay and whether they're going to die.

On another side I have police units who fight with drugs in particular, and if they win (top their careers prior to assigned dates of death of victims), sims who used drugs don't have to pay for them anymore, i.e. they were freed from dealers and their debts, which are huge, they randomly range from 10.000 to 100.000 by dice rolling. There are also social workers who can prevent sims dying from drugs if they top their careers prior to dates of their deaths. I pretend that they cure them from additiction. Sometimes police and social services lose, though. Also there's a vigilante police assembled by Malcolm Landgraab (which is hilarious!) that targets the SimNation mafia that stole his real estate business from him... Hoho, not a landlord anymore! There are two detectives, too. One of them is helping to catch murderers mostly, another ended up working for SCIA and retrieving Bella Goth from aliens in Strangetown. And SCIA is mostly training spies to go into Strangetown and fight zombie plague and aliens. Btw, I mention Strangetown on purpose, because actually, there's a particular sim living in Strangetown who "created" zombie plague and infected Nervous Subject who in his turn infected a major percent of population. The police still doesn't know who is at fault, medical scientist Circe Beaker or cult leader Ava Cadavra.

Also it's not really a criminal organization, but since witches became outlawed in my version of SimNation and hid in Magic Town, their community can be called criminal At any rate, they're entangled in criminal activities, because they need financial help to survive and can provide magic in return. They're unwilling criminals, so to speak. However, some mafias are at oods with them, because, for example, the Capp mafia's legal business is creating cure for lethal (made lethal via mods) sickness (which they created, too), for which they charge like hell, and witches have a spell to cure sickness and they'd be interested in providing it maybe even for free to raise the public opinion on themselves, so of course the Capp mafia is at war with witches and is doing everything it can to make their situation worse. In this way, underground organizationsand societies have really complex relationships.

This is a run-down from spreadsheet (lol, I wrote spreadshit at first, well, English is my secondary language!):

Well, if anyone has played Life\Pet Stories, they will know I borrowed sims from there Strangetown is excluded from spreadsheet, though, which is a shame, with its two serial killers, undercover aliens, just plain psychos and a plague creator.

As for vaiety of crimes, I haven't played thieves per se, because unlike TS3 stealing is not performed in TS2, but to get money my sims have used blackmail, stole businesses and framed other sims for serious crimes like rape in elaborate ways (as a version of blackmail). Oh, they also abducted sims. There are double and triple agents cruising various organizations. And because I used to play another hood, with which SimNation is in a version of Cold War at the moment, there are double agents in SCIA. Also, Strangetown is in state of Apocalypse and separatism moods are strong, because that other hood has given it a lot of help, so there's tension in Strangetown, too. So some criminal organizations or just individuals end up in relationships with another hood's government and work against SimNation if it benefits them.

I guess I'm an odd bird, since I do play bad guys.

There's Gordon King, with his thieving ways and (unplanned) murder of Michael Bachelor...Dustin Broke is also getting into criminal ways. Malcolm Landgraab's business deals aren't always legit...Alexandra Teatheron is a pirate! Loki and Circe need humans to test their experiments on and Nervous can't do everything they need. Olive is a murderer. In my game, Tank Grunt lets his aggression and alien-phobia get out of hand and is responsible for the deaths of both Johnny Smith and Jessica Picaso.

A story needs conflict and bad guys are good at creating conflict. Although even good guys can do bad stuff: Mortimer Goth created the Elixir of Life! But is having the potential for ever-lasting life a good thing to have?

Great topic! I'm interested in getting ideas on how to handle crime in the Sims, especially how to fit it in my BaCC. I want to find a balance between ignoring the implications altogether and being too grim for how I want to play my game.

For now all I have is Gavin Newson as a petty criminal on a teenage rebellious streak due to low aspiration (LTW to top Business).

Another is Ringo, a townie I just moved in as a bagman in the Criminal career. He's Fortune/LTW Earn §100,000 so he's dabbling in all sorts of things to reach that goal: solar panels on his dilapidated shack's roof for the green energy rebates, playing the stock market, and prospecting for gold via the Miner's Rock Crafting Station from Plumb Bob Keep. Just got the idea from reading this to get him the Counterfeiting machine to use occasionally as well!

Finally, there is preacher's wife Faith Goodie whose LTW was to become a Criminal Mastermind. Herbert owns and runs the town's only church and constantly tells dirty jokes, which Faith hates with a passion! The only sense I could make of them was they were out of sorts after sitting in the Family Bin for several years and then being aged down after settling in Mesa Vista. The irony of the two was too fun to resist, but now that Faith has topped Criminal, she's gotten those wayward thoughts out of her system and come to her senses, and they've started adopting and plan to run an orphanage.

There are some Maxis townies like Joe Carr that constantly cause fights on community lots, but unfortunately I didn't generate the standard townies and downtownies for my BaCC hood and haven't had any the of those kind of problems yet, but I'll keep an eye out because I wouldn't mind ramping up the criminal element with those types of Sims.

Criminals in SimHampton are mostly independent operators (with some small criminal rings) and mostly pretty ineffective at petty crime. Often their "front" operations make more money than the actual crime. In the past 8 real-life years, there have been 3 examples of breaking-and-entering. A Sim in a criminal career is generally assumed to be such a criminal. Yes, they get enough to live on, but most of their law-abiding neighbours earn more. A criminal mastermind in SimHampton is probably dreaming of:

a) some ridiculous scheme that would be all show, no negative results for non-criminals, and the only reward for the criminals being a permanent slot on "SimWorld's Dumbest Criminals"
b) show the incompetent crooks of the world how to really organise something so sophisticated as stealing one's own car (yes, Sims have been jailed for messing this crime up. Twice)
c) daydreaming of a fantasy world where crime might, just might, be confused with glamour or respect, (they usually avoid the career because the reality is as described in the initial paragraph) or
d) planning on making their first act as a mastermind to get the crooks to see sense and turn their efforts to a legal endeavour which would be more likely to make them their fortune!

However, SimHampton's prison is often nearly full (and is currently completely full, albeit three people are guards/trainee guards and one prisoner is actually on probation). This is because I have a list of local laws that aren't necessarily enforced in the game. Some Sims are silly, some Sims make mistakes, but some Sims are persistent criminals and know exactly how many grains of mud are in the prison cell gardening plots (in SimHampton, growing food is considered an important part of rehabilitation).

The real bad Sims are the ones who are members of a group called the BaneForce who, allied with the Grim Reaper, are trying to destroy Sim civilisation. They try, as far as possible, to stick to the law - if only because people stuck in jail tend not to be much help in revolutions against the forces of civilisation. They have been known to use evil magic and powers of persuasion to legally get power, and on at least one occasion nearly succeeded in destroying the town. But the good guys always win in the end - even if it takes a minion's abysmal cooking skills to save the day.