I've been trying to start from scratch in a new neighborhood, but I've run into what seems to me to be an odd situation. To be completely clear, I have several population-limiting mods installed which are not supposed to con flict with each other: nossrepsawn, notownieregen, antiredundancy, and cj's there can noly be one professor. This is a neighborhood started from a map (or rather , it is now two completely separate neighborhoods started from maps), and the only things I have done are modifying the neighborhood terrain and installing or building lots: I built two apartment lots and a community lot and installed two apartment lots and one community lot in the first neighborhood and installed copies of those lots and two or three more comunity lots in the second neighborhood.

The situation? Four hundred sims, including some unexpected ones, in a hood where I have never entered live mode, never opened the sim bin, and never opened CAS. I expect some sims, but not four hundred! And with those mods installed I don't expect to see three of each NPC, which I do. And in a new standalone neighborhood which has never had a subhood attached, should I see bellhops and Troy Fratster (is he a dormie or a secretr society member?) I have all the expansion packs installed.

Shouldn't this number be lower in a brand new custom neighborhood? And what would make antiredundancy not work?

Seems to me you didn't disable the 'Stealth 'Hoods' (Is that what they're called? I'm talking about Weather, Exotic Destinations, etc...) If you have all EPs, then these hidden neighborhoods will generate sims that you would normally see appear in every neighborhood (such as tourists, stray animals, Family Bin sims, etc...) . If you disable these stealth neighborhoods, then you won't end up with so many sims in a bran new custom neighborhood.

But I thought that the Stealth Hoods generated with each of their respective subhoods? I seriously don't mind them showing up when their time comes, I just thought there was something wrong when they showed up before everything else.

I've been looking at my test neighborhoods and another neighborhood that doesn't even have lots, and they're at four hundred too, so I guess I'm really really wrong. and the people who say they have fewer sims are either mistaken or are using clean templates.

Also, antiredundancy doesn't work at all?

... and I can't have what I want, which is a handful of strays and townies, etc., just not so many of them.

There is a way to disable them, I'm not sure how, cause its so confusing (to me at least)! And I wish someone would create a simple but detailed guide for two things:

a) How to avoid getting the Stealth 'Hood sims at all?

and

b) How to create a new custom neighborhood with a different set of townies (and sims from all the stealth hoods)?

Anyone?

ETA: I believe the second is in existence, but, link please? Anyone?

I don't know a lot about this, but I do know that even if you have notownieregen installed, there'll still be some townies if you have AL, since the social groups (gearheads, socialites, etc.) will still generate their townies - and there's no mod yet that will stop that.

Those are interesting queestions which I can't answer, though there are tutorials for empty neighborhoods without stealth hoods.

I'm not concerned with the fact of townies and I don't mind Maxis (I don't mind Maxis faces: I don't min d Maxis clothes: I have mix-matched default eyes that I like and townified a pile of skins and hair and things so variety is not an issue either).

My issues are only two:

(1)why do all my neighborhoods have more sims in them to start with than other people's neighborhoods, given that I do have the sim-limiting mods? Can I get this number smaller (not zero)?

(2)Isn't antiredundancy supposed to keep the service NPCs to one each if it is in the game before the neighborhood is created? What can I do to make it work?

My custom hoods start out with less than a dozen non-playable sims. They arrive when creating playing the first family and then there are the default special npcs that you cant delete/remove because there is only one for all hoods (The grim ripper, Santa, politechnican, plantsim, dna objects etc). so I get about 20 townies and npcs when creating a custom hood after culled out all the townies with mods. I assume you didnt remove them where you installed the game.

If you really want to create a hood without all the special townies and the premade families, you need remove them from the installing folder. This can be time consuming and can easily get wrong if you are not familiar with it. Also you would need a safe place to back up these files because if you want re-add them later when adding the subhoods, you need the exact same files.
# Go to the folder where the EA Games are installed (your computer + D or C disc + program files usually).
# Go to each of the seperate folders for the EP's . For example if you want to remove all townies from these EPs, go to the corresponding ep there are from. For example, to remove the social class townies (about 30 townies), go to the Apartment life folder.
# Then look for TSData + Res + NeighborhoodTemplates. This is where all Maxi townies and pre made sim bin famileis are stored. Each ep has a different name, Apartment life has E002. Copy it to another place on your laptop/computer to back it up, like your deskop for now,
# In this folder, you should be able to see four folders: Characters, Lots and Storytelling and Thumbnails.
To remove the townies/maxi sims, delete the Character folder AFTER you have done the back up. This will be stop from re-appearing when you create a new hood.
And remember, never remove the lots and package files from these folders.

Launch the game and create a new hood and check the population. They will be forever gone from your new hoods, not your previous hood - until re-add the character folder back to where it belongs. Just copy the back up and past it in the neighbhood template folder (in this example, E002) and replace the contents. Next time you install a new hood, they will be back again. Repeat with every EP's you dont want to have the townies. You can remove the premade university students, downtownies and locals this way as well. They can added back by re-adding the character folder and installing a new subhood. Unlike weather, social class and pets EP, these can be addedback to the hood you removed them from.

This is how Ive cleaned out my hoods. Some people remove them by installing a downloaded clean template, but this options is safe as well AS LONG AS you have the back up for the files.

The noregen, anti-redunancy, only-one proffessor etc only remove the townies/npc from a newly installed hood. If you installed these mods after creating a hood, the townies/npcs will just stop spawning. It doesnt delete existing townies/npcs! (Im not native english speaker so I may not be able to explain properly sometimes, with delete, I refering to respawning them, not the "delete sims that cause corruption" deletion. )

Im not sure if this is what you were looking for. Its how I ended up with fewer sims plus having those mods + a few more in my download folders.

Edit: Oppss, this might be good to know. Which folder has which name:
N001 = Pleasantview townies/Npc's that appear in any custom hood
A001 + T001 = Asian + Far east travel resort subhood (cant remember which one is which.. .)
M001 = Three Lakes resort Subhood (Mountain)
U001,U002,U003 = University
B001 = Open for Business Distric Subhood
D001 = Downtown Subhood
E001 = Magic
G002 = Seasons
F001 = Freetime
V001 = The traveler family + townies from Bon vonyage
P001 = Pets

Edit 2:
This is the question i tryied to answer based on my own experiences with my own hoods: why do all my neighborhoods have more sims in them to start with than other people's neighborhoods, given that I do have the sim-limiting mods?

1) I don't want an empty neighborhood, just a smaller one.

2) all of those mods were installed long before the neighborhoods were made.

Each folder remove only a certain group of townies or sims, so it can be custom. So if you wanted to have all the same townies reappearing in every hood and have Ottomas, all pre made students etc in the Sim Bin, keep them. This is the only method I know that remove all or certain groups.

I dont any method that remove specific or reduce the size, other than creating a "simholder" who killls them off (by summoning them or befriending them) or give them a prison token from simbolical to keep them from wandering off the community lots.

Unless you have empty templates, sims will generate in various ways on loading a new hood. According to my tests, 383 sims will be generated in a new hood on initial load with ALL EPS and SPs installed. So 400 sounds about right. The tests were done with a completely custom neighbourhood with no pre-made sims. As you go on, more sims will generate such as downtownies when you add a downtown and students when you add a university. But sims like apartment dwellers and tourists get made when the hood loads for the first time and so are included in the 383. The final grand total with all possible sub-hoods attached and without playing a single second of game time is <drum roll>

571 sims.

Really. It's why some of us play with empty templates. This does not include, BTW, sims that get generated as you play such as the reporter and hairdresser (or masseuse and a few others). The mods you are using only control the generation of new NPC sims as you play, not the sims you get when you load the game which are either copied from the game files (hence the empty templates) or generated according to a formula which partially copies files from the game files (hence the empty templates).

You have to start with empty templates. It's all or nothing, I'm afraid. You can start with empty templates and add townies in manually, though, which is what I do (Yes, that 400 number seems both 1, entirely normal, and 2, utterly insane. Why, Maxis, whyyyyyyyyyyy?) - but you won't get the normal maxis townies without populated stealth hoods. However you can still create random townies if you want to.

Oh and never load a hood with normal templates in place if you don't want them to try and be added twice. I had that happen to several of my hoods. In one I left it meaning I have both a blank and an occupied Hobbies stealth hood and clones of all the AL townies. Guuuuh. Luckily one of them was a test hood, most I didn't care about and the other I was able to clean everything up before loading it, and I *think* it's okay, I suspect it will implode eventually though I really didn't want to lose that hood.

In the latest totally clean hood I started I have 33 playable sims (I created 33, one died, the extra is a moved-in witch NPC) and 50 non playable sims. There are no subhoods and no apartment lots placed. I have Cyjon's mod to allow normal townies to be apartment neighbours but I don't have townies in this hood either, it's for a challenge. So I'm a bit afraid to place apartments in case it spawns loads of sims! Especially as I find the AL social townies completely devoid of any personality. My playables have met the following:

2 maids (with antiredundancy you get one, but I had one on the phone when the maid turned up. The game won't let them be in two places at once so it creates another)
1 mailperson
1 papergirl
3 deliverypeople (pizza, chinese, groceries)
1 butler
10 hobby mavens
2 bartenders (you get as many as the largest number of bars on one lot, the one you hire through the phone is the same)
3 cashiers (again I have a lot with 3 cash registers)
1 (maybe 2) baristas
1 repoman
1 exterminator
1 obedience trainer
1 repairman
2 witches - one good, one bad (another bad one spawned after I moved the original bad witch in)

I don't know who the other 19 are - I would guess firefighter(s?), police officer, burglar, headmaster, nanny, social worker, taxi/bus driver, gardener, "boss" (person you call in sick to), gypsy, genie, ideal plantsim, pollination tech, possibly a human statue, and apparently the animal control officer is separate from the police officer too, which makes 16, so I'm guessing I've missed a few. But anyway they are definite NPCs, with roles, not townies.

Try http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Game_gui...an_neighborhood

Don't follow that guide. That's the one I followed and ended up with twice as many. You actually have to replace the stealth hoods with empty templates or it will try to recreate them.

Yes, I've come to realize that there's no such thing as "just like regular, but fewer." SInce the bloat's not causing me immediate issues and I really truly don't want empty hoods, I'm going to "accept that which cannot be changed." At least it can't without doing things I don't want to do. I'm just goin to ignore the numbers and play.

If I were you, I'd add clean copies of all the stealth hoods to avoid the (literal) hundreds of stealth townies, but leave out NoTownieRespawn, which will allow your game to create a modest number of townies, I believe it's about 30. Just normal, maxis townies. The pleasantview ones if you leave PV in and random ones if you rename it or take it out.

I use my own method, described here: http://esmeiolanthe.livejournal.com/131558.html Given what I left in and what I took out, I expect 200 or so, maybe a bit less, and that's what I got.

It will leave you with no townies or NPCs for each template you remove. I left in FT, AL, Uni, and all three vacation hoods. In the hood I'm currently playing, there are no vacation hood and no Uni attached, and I added about 40 of my own sims. (It was a rebuild.) Some NPCs have also spawned as my sims went to lots with cash registers and so on. I currently have 248 character files. To generate base game townies (not hobbyists or social group members) or downtownies, you can spawn them with the boolprop cheat and get about 30-50 each, or you can make your own. You could also do as simsfreq suggests and leave out the noregen while you're creating the hood and then put it in to stop... well, to stop regeneration.

I can vouch for Esme's method since I used it to make my new hood. It also spawned interesting looking NPC's mostly from my non default templates. I only got one ugly waiter and one ugly chef. My character folder reads at 175 now. Since only about 30 of those would be playables I think those are mostly the BV townies. I left that template in as I wanted the secret lots. Next time I may attempt to make those myself. Still that's a whole lot less sim files than I would have otherwise.

Perhaps someone could fix that guide up?

Anyone can click that Edit button and fix it!

LOL! I was hoping someone else would do it cause I'd probably mess things up!

Everyone has her own opinion who she want to see and who she do not want to see in her new neighborhood. I was thinking a lot and long time. Finally I decided and got three empty templates from Jawusa- pets, hobby and magic, Those I wanted get rid of completely. But I liked to see still some characters in my game. I had nothing against vacation destinations and tourists. So I left them as they are. This subhood has now the biggest population in my neighborhood. Also i left untouched seasons subhood. There is not so many characters and they are not annoying. I wanted to see downtownies and Bluewater villagers, not the original but fixed. Also my favorite campus La Fiesta Tech. So next step I downloaded Tarla's templates for Downtown, Bluewater village and La Fiesta Tech. Well, that's it.
I used instructions here . Not exactly, only replaced these 6 templates and got rid of townies. Started already first rotation. Played some households in Bluewater village. Placed Travellers to live in Downtown and all Tech bin students into one dorm. No other dormies. Game spawned already one cheerleader and one Llama. New faces. Only one professor for mayor. I am pretty happy.
Checked on SimPE. I have at this moment 300 characters including all dead (family tree) sims, 2 spawned wolves and newborn baby Tinker.

You're always welcome to make your changes in the sandbox before you copy and paste them in, so you won't ever have to fear about messing up. It's also actually a good thing to mess up, because if you're picture perfect all the time, you haven't learned a thing. Making mistakes is how we learn, and that's probably the most effective method of teaching.

ETA: Just to reassure you, I've already made the necessary changes to the page!