I abandoned my university-first town because I got the theme wrong (a gritty... university town? Not really. Didn't work for me!)

I started to play Desiderata, and I'm really pleased with how well (and how quickly) it's come together. I built a bunch of things in the dearly departed Maclandon that I can use (including 4 university dorms that incorporated Veranka's Standard issue set). I've since started to build a lot more that I can actually save and use more than once, which is VERY exciting. I have a bad habit of never saving good buildings and then I have to build things (often the same things) over and over again in every hood. It's dauting, and is probably the reason I don't build much. I saved some of my lot makeovers this time - Gustav's Grocery, and the spa that replaced the modern art museum because what Maxis? And now I can use them again in other hoods! Excite!

on to the good stuff!

The Bells are always a fun family to play - mainly because I love the idea of an at-home dance studio where Hannah can offer private tuition, plus they are going to own a dance studio in town (actually, they'll own the whole strip mall, but it will include a Dance studio and a Lounge where Sharon can perform.

The Ottomai have already snuck in - Sharla came home with Daniel one day before he aged up. Since this iteration of Desiderata (Greenbay Valley) is running concurrently with Loste, and Loste was the first hood I played with them in it, I'm saying that they are from Loste and have moved to Greenbay for a better life. Time works weirdly between neighbourhoods for me. The same Ottomas family is both in Loste and in Greenbay, and it's kind of like parallel universes, with some rewriting of the past. In Greenbay, David, Sharla, and Tommy were all born in Loste, but the twins will be born in Greenbay in the new house that's slightly too small.

At the Aspirs, Pauline has turned 4 and become a child, and Elizabeth is 6 months pregnant with their second child.

Daughnoth has become a very prolific Town with all births and everyone growing stronger. The residents, well...some of them must move. This piece of paradise land mostly offers small housing apartments and houses. You have 2 bedrooms at the most, and only one of them is big enough for a double bed.
Now I am wondering if I should complete the rotation I am in until all families have been played, or if I should start building bigger houses!

After reading about Orphalesion's aliens, I'm impatient for my refugees to start landing. I've spent the last few days thinking about their rather peculiar hermaphroditic culture (that's why they've been impregnating males - they have no concept of male and female), how it's been messed up by their flight from their dying planet, which ship should arrive first, and what the various classes are going to wear (since they're hermaphrodites, I wanted more or less unisex clothing that fit their different roles). But it's still too soon to start playing them in . . .

Meanwhile, following the birth of their first child, Cordelia, Connor and Kimberly Weir decided that their little cottage really was too small, and it turned out the best available property in their budget was actually Kimberly's old family home. They're just living on the ground floor at the moment, and waiting to get the upper floor remodeled. The dormer windows may look nice, but that low roof is a terrible waste of space and the whole layout hopelessly impractical. Kimberly's looking forward to seeing her daughter playing in the same yard she grew up in.

I know that feeling, I had to wait so soooo long (one and a half years altogether) to put my aliens into the game. I couldn't let adult males use the expensive telescope, I had that one Pollination Technician sit in my family bin long after all the other "Beginning" households had moved in, but it will all be worth once your storyline comes to fruition. It will be all the more satisfying.

And I love that you made them hermaphroditic! Do you still use the green maxis skintone and black eyes for your aliens or did you default them?

I'm playing with the idea of introducing another alien species, but the problem is that I couldn't do anything special with their hair (since Sims 2 doesn't really allow for the creation of additional hair colours) with the standard aliens I made them completely hairless but doing that with the second species would be kind of boring.

I've kept the green skin and black eyes, so the Sedona babies and any others born to abducted Sims will be recognizable to them. I'm thinking they will eventually turn out to have a common ancestor with the Plantsims - their cultures at first glance seem very different, but have a lot more in common than the Plantsim Matriarchs first realize.

I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the hood doesn't explode before I get that far; I haven't had much luck with my last three or four hoods.

Autumn Storm found herself pregnant with Ulrich Brooks' child during college. Their baby girl November was quickly shipped back to the main 'hood, where she was cared for by her mother as soon as Autumn graduated (before that, the household was frozen in time for a wee bit). November blazed up through her toddler years and into her child years without so much as a word from her father. Fortunately, her paternal grandfather Aurik and her uncle Nico both took interest in her, and she was able to learn all about her dad's side of the family through them. Unfortunately, Aurik passed away this rotation.

Not long after Autumn graduated, her younger sister Ruby found herself falling head over heels for Ulrich. They, too, wound up with a college baby: a little boy named Atlas! Atlas was cared for by Autumn while Ruby focused on school. Though she was pissed at Ruby for falling for Ulrich's nonsense, Autumn couldn't very well deny her nephew a place to live--she made sure she didn't let herself get too close to him, though, and only cared for him as much as she had to.

Ruby graduated college and, as Autumn expected (and wanted), took her son. Ulrich invited Ruby and Atlas to move in with him, proposed to Ruby, and knocked her up again. She scrambled to set up their wedding party. Autumn did not attend. I don't think she'd be terribly angry over Ulrich, as what they had was... detached. They were each other's "firsts" in most romantic interactions (if I remember correctly), but I never took their relationship to be one that was terribly serious; in fact, I figured that if they got married they'd likely have an open relationship. Therefore, if Autumn's at all upset about the situation, it's because Ruby used her and because Ulrich gave her and November the cold shoulder, and not because she actually has any interest him. Autumn was, however, temporarily interested in his father Aurik. A few hours before he passed away, he and Autumn got hot and heavy in the Brooks family hot-tub. Whether it was a case of strange revenge, boredom, or having a "type", I don't know!

Ruby didn't want to marry Ulrich, but he wanted to marry her (and he had the funds and social ranking to do so). I was really surprised when he was rolling wants to marry her, actually! I didn't think him the type. Anyway, she couldn't very well stay in the main Storm household forever, as Maple will eventually come to take her place as Queen. Marrying Ulrich was the best option for Ruby to live an easy life: she had no plans, and she was never terribly interested in dealing with life's challenges.

All in all, Ruby and Ulrich are happy enough together. They keep WooHooing, resulting in children they don't explicitly want, but what can you do? Ruby gave birth to twins Indigo (male) and Phoebe. Atlas became a child. Ruby is working her way up the political career, as is expected of her due to her heritage. Ulrich was fired from the political career and is instead following his dreams of becoming a top-level journalist.

ETA: Ruby's pregnant again.

im trying to expand my family tree, so im playing my third and fourth child right now. they're at college.

Thought I would have started playing my Fire Emblem world by now. But I'm still getting CC hairstyles to better match characters. Newsea's Holic is a pretty good match for Eldigan and Ares.

One of the characters rolled "see three kids graduate college", and I found out that Sims will be pretty distraught about not going to college even if there's no university world, so now I'm creating a university world.

Crown Prince David and Princess Sandra welcomed a baby boy, James, so the succession to the throne is assured.

Teenager Marcus Baldwin went to put his little sister in her crib and walked in on his parents trying for baby. He settled Marisela, then turned around and gagged. His thought bubble clearly suggested, "Eeuww, Dad! Mom's OLD!"

William Small and Jiang Li were in love in college; after Jiang graduated, however, he married a townie named Florence. William went off to live in an apartment. He started flirting with one of his neighbors, and the "Got caught cheating" memory popped up! Jiang came on to the lot to slap him and he cried.

Because he cheated on...

his lover from college...

who is now married to someone else.

Guess it's on me for not having them formally break it off!

Tons of hood decorating.

The ghosts of Lady Betty and her wife, the Hon. Catherine, finally spawned. They spent most of the night upstairs together, so the living stayed safely downstairs, with Sir Morty and Lady Stella taking turns to sleep in Jacob's old bed. When morning came, Cactus performed the Rites of Translation, moving the graves to the cemetery, where they were placed in the Aristocrats' Enclosure.

The Rites were disrupted, however, by Ellen Furley stealing yet another newspaper. Ellen has already been banned from lot after lot for stealing newspapers, but disturbing the Rites is another matter altogether. I fear individual Restraining Orders are not sufficient, and King Peter will now be obliged to take further action. Since Ellen is pregnant, this will initially be house arrest rather than banishment, but she'd better be very, very careful from now on.

His "Outside" task complete, Cactus has moved to his sister Daisy's Garden. Both of Daisy's offspring will be moving out at the end of their rotation, so she's going to need someone to help with the gardening and with her new Plantbaby.

Started a new empty uberhood last night, bulldozed the premade lots I won't play and started playing my college sims. It's been a while since I really got down to playing this game, so a lot of things I had in place beforehand I had forgot about (my lighting mod scorched my eyes for a second ). Academie Le Tour (the empty version by Jawusa) apparently had an extremely low acceptance rate this year since only the dormies in my current lot show up to every community lot, so I made new ones. Last night I found out that sims react positively to a sim with a high reputation, something I've never seen before, a lot of them fell in love, a lot of them passed out in random places, and 2 dormies died from starvation . It's this kind of chaos that makes me love this game

It's becoming obvious that I have to tweak some of the hairstyles to get what I need. Recolored the University bandana to white for Jamke. Found CoolSims 81 and then worked off the recolors on this site: http://modthesims.info/d/546265/coo...ral-colors.html. Lightened the purple for Deirdre and changed the aqua to green for Erinys (not pictured). Also darkened the blue for whoever else could use a hairstyle like this. NewSea's Angle Beats was the perfect style for Ishtar (who will be born in-game later) and her side ponytail , but I needed purple and the site only had naturals.

These are quick-and-dirty edits, I'm not a graphics guy.

I think I will use the university world (once I make it from scratch) to introduce Blazing Blade (the first one in the US) characters. (I've actually never played a university world...)

I've been enjoying playing more rather than checking modthesims and making updates. In my Megahood, most of the Sims who were Teens at the start of the hood are now adults. The older generation is beginning to age and pass away.

I found a file for FamilyEcho that has all the premade Maxis Sims so I've been updating that. I'm excited to see how that ends up looking. I'm also excited about how genetics will play out. I've stopped trying to get "perfect" looking Sims (besides phasing out Malcolm and Loki's genetics by cheating). It'll be interesting to see since I have many PlantSims and alien Sims.

In Farnham, Andrew Brocas has developed a very bad habit-of pick-pocketing absolute strangers who visit him. He's very sneaky, likeable and sly when he sidles up to his victim, flatters them to high heaven and lifts with ease $150 out of their pocket,with the victim never knowing what hit them.

So far he's not encountered anyone who wants to punch his lights out for it, but if he does the wrong person, he just might end up in the hoosegow.

And the deal is sealed....


Samantha stayed home with the babies while they just ran out for a gallon of milk.

I actually thought the houses in Veronaville was gonna be a nightmare to give makeovers and rebuilt but shows up thatbthey are quite easy to rebuilt-

That said I had most fun placing roseland in that part (I play a megahood not that it matters)
I like to imagine that he have been married before but either got divorced or his wife died and he despite the happy gogether he is on he outside is he absolutely feeling shit on the inside- hell in my game he still has moving boxes here and there like he never finished unpacking.
He even has an empty room...
And I’m going too much up in this

Still downloading hairstyles. NewSea's Rival was almost perfect for Eyvel's hairstyle.

In another household, I forgot to put the roof on. Lightning started a fire in the house. Good thing it wasn't a main character, and it was while he was at work. I forced an error on the fire and puddle, and all was well.

Screwing around with Pleasantview alone--mostly just checking out Meetme's new templates and getting the hood deco I downloaded to finally work right!

Moved everyone in Pleasantview into a three room apartment building. Urban renewal, don't you know? Well, they basically have beds and a few skilling items and cooking stuff in their own rooms, so they come out and interact uncontrolled all day long. The Oldies/Burbs/Pleasants are not getting along well. Daniel and John got jobs working as prison guards and are gone all night, Mary Sue (the one non-pregnant woman) and Jennifer got jobs during the day, I don't remember what but something from the NPC job pack. It's been good for Lilith, Angela, and Lucy to have grand-parental attention.

The Dreamers/Brokes share a room, and the adults do not work, relying entirely on Darren's painting income. Dustin got Dirk a job in crime. Beau gets tons of attention all the time, even if he is unclear exactly which family are his and which are not.

The Goth/Lothario/Caliente/Langarak family is all drama all the time. They make the Oldies/Burbs/Pleasants look peaceful! Let's see . . . Nina is pregnant by Don. Bella and Cassandra and Kaylynn hate Don. Cassandra is pregnant by Darren. Bella and Kaylynn are pregnant by Daniel Pleasant. Dina is pregnant by Mortimer. However, Bella is also woohooing Mortimer. Dina seems to not mind. Kaylynn and Nina want to be friends with Cassandra, who is indifferent. Alexander gets adult attention from Cassandra and Kaylynn only. Mortimer wants a bad reputation. Cassandra gets into fistfights with Angela Pleasant when Angela's not fighting Lilith. Bella got into a fistfight with Don. No one needs to work for money, and Kaylynn does all the chores (except Bella helps out autonomously), but I got so tired of them fighting constantly that I put them to work. The only one not expecting twins here is Cassandra . . . this is not a sustainable family situation for the player. However, I don't really want to make political changes just yet . . . but I'm probably not going to play them much longer anyway, I'll probably want an uberhood again.

The Nomade family got a bit of a surprise when they returned home.

It all started when I wanted Karine Nomade to make herself and Tina breakfast. She kept refusing, and only started it after about a Sim hour of argument with me. Tina decided to interrupt her mum by talking to her. Then the bus came. I sent Tina to get the cooking because I didn't trust Karine to do so and she, at least, was rather hungry. I also sent Karine to close their home business for the night because she didn't have anything better to do. They then got on the bus (Tina) and car (Karine).

Tina got back to find Eduardo Caliente, who'd bought a ticket for the venue and had been making himself at home with a plate of spaghetti... ...now running out of the house as fast as possible yelling, "It's too hot in there!" She thought it was a strange thing to say, until she stepped into the front room of the open-plan house, where every room except the bathroom is connected by arches, and smelt smoke.

Tina is a cool young lady and phoned the fire brigade instead of going near the fire. She then closed the shop for the day for safety's sake. Afterwards, she read a book on the sofa because she figured she ought to tell Karine personally, rather than let her discover by herself that the entire kitchen was in the process of burning down. Besides, SimHampton's firefighters are very professional. Half an hour after Tina arrived home, the fire brigade left. Karine just missed seeing them on the way home, where she got a promotion. The bonus was enough to get the Nomades a better kitchen than the one they lost.

Perhaps tomorrow they will think about clearing up the soot. But really, there's no hurry.because the business can be shut a while without anyone going hungry.

I've been creating my new townies in my new subhood all night. Following Mootilda's tutorial helped a lot, though I do hope their names randomize when I connect this subhood to a test hood, I don't know if it's safe for me to edit their names when this subhood isn't attached to a main hood so wish me luck

I was playing Antonio Monty and decided to answer that chance card and for some reason I got the right chance and got him 50000
Seriously, this bothered me because I had just built their goddamn house
For I now can move them out once more-

I've decided to retire my Uberhood, again. Yes, I know. I keep doing this a lot. I have different ideas to play my new Uberhood. This time, I'm hoping NOT to overpopulate so quickly. No Risky WooHoo this time. :P

I'm not sure if I'm going to move in Gordon King, Trina Dalton, Breanna Custer, Phoebe Adams the Infallibly Good Witch or Frances McCullough the Incredibly Evil Witch this time. The only thing I'm hesitating with that is the fact they have relationships with the premades. I don't like my Sims aging when their unplayable friends don't age.

You have Freetime, right? Just age the townie friends along with their playable friends.

I've built a shell Riverblossom Professional Building so there's a place for Trent Traveller to hang up his shingle in Depression-Era Riverblossom Hills. Tina was taken by the social worker because she got too cold at Isaiah Gavigan's birthday party, and this is motivation enough to dust off the law degree and go to work to get her back. (See Story Dilemma thread for details.)

Meanwhile, Ginger and Gavin Newson have grown up and moved out of McGreggor's Farm, renting a small farm from the Roths (all rental properties in town are owned by the Roths) and moving in their high school sweethearts in preparation for a big double wedding. The only problem is, that Ginger's girlfriend Priscilla Hastings and Gavin hate each other's guts. They got into a fistfight before the intro video stopped rolling. Oh, no, wait, there's two problems - only one of the rental's two bedrooms has room for a double bed! But neither couple can afford the rent on their own, so...life in the Depression is rough and they'll just have to work it out. Somehow.