Both top and bottom are from PlatniumAspiration, top is 4t2 conv of clumsyalien sonia cardigan here and shorts are 4t2 conv of nolansims acorn shorts here

My town, started with one married couple, is growing quickly.
All 5 kids are married.
All 5 kids have two kids each, and the youngest has a third one on the way.
The original couple: Elders now, they have just had a roof raiser of a Golden Anniversary party and may move in with one of the kids (I am thinking the daughter from the second set of twins, they have a room and some space of the elders to put their career rewards and other rubbish they may want to take along).
The eldest one married his chess cheating wife and they still cheat at chess. So do both their kids. One has just grown up into a teen.
The first set of twins: she married a family sim, has two kids and is very fit. The kids are lazy as hell. He married a social sim from Uni (he is my favorite) and they sometimes get something done when they are not playing red hands or having a snowball fight or something.
The second set of twins: The youngest one married the guy who graduated with her - she asked him on a date. He turned up in his graduation clothes. They went to a casino and played cards at different tables, and the date ran out - and was somehow a dream date Her twin sister was struck by lightning. She cleaned up well in a bubble bath, is happily married to a fellow fortune sim and hopes to start her own business soon.
The grandkids are all looking different from each other, but every single one of them has the grandmother's mouth

I've been into my BACC in Dodge and a few things were added to the service center and to one of the families.It looks like my DIdge families might have gotten nighttime deliveries of a dresser and a fridge for each family.

Well I've finished creating all 62 sims for my custom hood, which I've decided to call Coldwater, and finished moving them into the 4 "dorms" I made. I say that in quotes because it's just a residental lot not actually a dorm but there's lots of bedrooms and whatnot as if it were one. And I just changed the colors for the other 3 because I couldn't be bothered to make 4 different ones. Two of them have 15 sims and two have 16.
Next thing I want to do is make everyone know each other so I can begin keeping track of chemistry. Not sure what the best way to do this yet is. Maybe this is a good time to use the mailbox's know everyone cheat as these 62 sims are the only 62 character files. I can always load a backup if something strange happens. But I don't know if that'll generate chemistry or if they need to actually interact. I also need to set gender preferences, which I should probably do first. I want to make sure that there's an equal number of gay & bi sims so everyone in theory could have someone. Then assign beds. And then I want to stagger the hours til exam so that not all 15/16 go at once - I'll stagger them by major. Then I wanna give males body hair. Log their predestined hobby. And then I *think* it'll be all set up and ready to play.

But also, look how cute the dorms are in their lil area on the map aww

They have to interact once, they have to have had one "romantic" interaction - "Check out" will do - and they have to be an active sim once, because that's when turn-ons and chemistry are activated. When Widespot, which was made and developed with only Base Game, is added to a game setup with Nightlife, if you load the Land house she has no chemistry with either of her lovers, but once the Land, Hart, and Mann households have all been played, the turn-ons take hold and boltage appears.

Not that it matters anyway... Part way through I thought how tedious it was to manually introduce everyone to everyone for the sole purpose of finding out their chemistry when I thought to myself: "should I even be doing this? It's not realistic to know everyone in existence. They can meet over time. Plus I have the find a mate crystal ball if they can't find a good match" and decided to revert to a backup because I either was gonna do all or none and decided none. Woo. I'll have to re-set gender preferences but I have them written down so it will be quick.
Think I've got just enough energy left to do so then it's bedtime but at least I'll get to actually for real play tomorrow.

I did some live mode testing on a modified version of the Power Fridge and also the Hobbs family ended up getting a nighttime delivery of their own and the corner shop got a few power fridges dropped off in the building.It looks like the town of Dodge is ready for winter.

Someone needs to come take this game away from me until I get better at decision making...

I played one semester of one house in Coldwater, before realizing I'm not as good at taking care of 15 sims in university as I thought I was, not to mention I'm pretty sure I broke it by trying to move a sim out at the exact same moment the autosave mod wanted to save thus causing the game to endlessly save for as long as I had the patience to wait for before force-quitting. Rather than play a whole 24 hours over plus the other 7 semesters plus 3 whole other houses I just decided to abandon the whole thing. It's too much.

The only reason I wanted to start them out in University was so I could decide who I don't really care for so I could make those sims townies and make the ones I do like playables but I feel like I already know anyways and that's not a good enough reason to torture myself with trying to play 62 sims through all of University.

Instead I turned the game off and I'm just going to recreate them as adults and skip this whole entire thing. Tomorrow. After having wasted basically an entire real life day I'm done for today.

You haven't wasted it. You made the sims and you're still feeling your way toward how you want to play this.

Oh dear, @CASnarl ! Commiserations!

IMHO you're overdoing the preparation. Possibly overthinking. I think you'd be better with something simpler, and add to it as you go along. And try to get some variety. Don't make all your Sims the same age. Real communities aren't like that. Starting off with 62 students really only makes sense if you love playing university, and it looks like you don't.

By the way, what happened to your stone age 'hood?

I need some sleep now but I'll post again when I get up tomorrow. We'll have to think of something that you'll actually enjoy playing. Hang in there!

P.S. Peni's right. Don't scrap the Sims you've created. From what I've seen they look good. But we'll have to find a way to play them that you enjoy.

That's true. I've never made my own custom hood where I made all the sims in it. I just meant waste in the sense of real life time that I can't get back. Not that I have any particular deadline to get this all sorted by. I just can't wait to actually properly play instead of all this figuring stuff out business.



I'm still playing it, I just haven't felt like it for a few days. It's a little bit repetitive given that there's so few things neanderthals can actually do. I won't forget about it though, I do intend to finish the challenge. And I do actually really enjoy university in sims 2, just apparently not with 15 sims under my control at once

Well, what I was/am attempting to do is some form of cross between a BACC and an integrated hood à la PleasantSims' rules. Both have too many rules individually which is why I wanted to combine them and only take the aspects of both that I want. The sims I make into playables are all going to own some type of lot. That's really the only thing I'm sure of. I have 18 lots planned so a minimum of 18 of the 62 need to be playables. I made them all the same age and planned out a mix of genetics because that's what PleasantSims does. I imagine they were chosen to found this land from wherever they came from.

In my Strangetown game right now poor Tank Grunt has been very unlucky in love. In college he never met anyone he had significant chemistry with. Now that he's an adult out of his father's house and doing well in the military career it would be nice for him to finally find a relationship. He's gay, and doesn't seem to get along well with any of the single gay/bi men in Strangetown -- I had hopes he might click with his downstairs apartment neighbor Ajay Loner, but they have negative chemistry. (Plus, Tank has also somehow made vicious enemies with Bella Goth, who lives in one of the other apartments, and Bella & Ajay are BFF -- I think that would cause issues.)

He saved up enough money to pay the matchmaker $2,700 which got him a townie guy that, even though they supposedly had 2 bolts, didn't respond well to any of his attempts at chatting & flirting. They ended up arguing their way to nearly enemies as well and Bella even walked into the common area to start fighting with him DURING the date, which went terribly. What a waste of money!! I think Tank is a likable guy underneath all that military repression but somehow he seems to get along badly with almost everyone except his roommate and best friend, Stella Terrano.

After the terrible date, he immediately rolled the want to buy a karaoke machine so I got that for him and now he can console himself by singing karaoke on the balcony and presumably annoying all the neighbors.

@CASnarl -I started my BACC out by just setting up my service center lot and a homestead lot for my first couple to be moved in as homesteaders in Dodge which is the Strangetown terrain template from the terrain menu.I would start with just setting up a functional community service center lot and a homestead for one couple and start playing them for the first year with a new couple moved in each year though I'd also use aaan aging controller to turn aging off unless I want them transitioning to the next lifestage.

Made some good progress in Coldwater today.

I recreated the 62 sims as adults as I said I would, and then based on various criteria such as asp, hobby, personality, tons/toffs and general favoritism decided who'd be best to own each of the businesses. I have 22 community lots, so that made for 22 playable sims. Things like the park probably don't need an owner but I wanted an even number of playable men and women, even though they're totally free to date/marry the 40 townies anyway. I decided that 22 community lots is already going to be a lot to build and when I had them as young adults Alfred and Jenson shared a room and I want them to be besties because they're my two favorites so I decided to randomize everyone else a roommate so that way I only need to build 11 houses. I imagine they can cut down trees if I need to put more lots in when I need them. I do enjoy building although I'm not spectacular at it or anything so after a while everything I do starts looking the same

I think the best way to go about building is to go house, com lot, com lot, that way it shouldn't get too boring. But it's after midnight now so I only got one house done tonight - the Flynn household consisting of Charles Flynn and Neve Hayden. It's Charles' house so it's pretty green, but Neve's bedroom is yellow for her. The inside is pretty empty because they ran out of simoleons and I want them to buy things from the businesses so I didn't want to deck the whole thing out right away.

Anyways here's my spreadsheet. I'm filling in LTW and Secondary Aspiration as I go, and since I'm skipping University I'm giving them degrees with the batbox. They don't really need them since they're not having real jobs but I like having the extra want slots. For clarification "supnat" is short for the Supernatural store which will sell buyable reagents, coffins and whatever else I can think to sell there. Everything else should be pretty explanatory I think. Degrees were given based on what jobs each asp has ltws for and were chosen for all 62 so these 22 just got what they got. Maybe for story purposes the University at whatever city these 22 migrated from had a program to be chosen for Coldwater and apparently a bunch of Psychology students applied. Apologies for it being on the tiny side - I had to set my browser to 67% to get it all in one image.



Here's Coldwater so far. As I said I've only gotten the Flynn house built but you can see where everything will be.



And here's the Flynn house so you can kind of see the style I'm going for. Cute, maxis matchy, homey I guess? The inside isn't worth showing, and Idunno maybe you'll think I'm good at building but I think I'm about average. I also really need to download more wall lights because the majority of them don't work for outside lights.



So next to do tomorrow is build the park and clothing store, then have Charles and Neve take out loans to purchase them. Wonder how much debt that's gonna put them each in Then I think the Olson household lives next to them. I'm quite a ways away from play but now I'm having fun so I'm on the right track.

Victor Vito is a sim I've been playing for awhile. He's a Knowledge sim with a Fortune secondary aspiration who reached the top of the Science Career and is now working on reaching the top of the Gamer Career. Due to how busy he's been, he's definitely had some trouble with romantic relationships. He recently met 'Brandi' at P.U.R.E. and they've been inseparable since, and after just a few dates they're already in love. They're planning to take a vacation together soon, and he might possibly ask her to move in with him afterwards.

Dina Caliente received a god's punishment for being an unfaithful wife.

I experience an unexplained glitch where, after a downtown phone call is over, the other person is sometimes placed on my lot. Don Lothario invited me on a date. I left the game and forgot about it. After I came back, I noticed Don had come over and decided to take advantage of him not being at work this time and ask him out. We arrived in Downtown and immediately stood each other up and became furious at each other in both directions.

This happened after Dina was fired by a chance card, got struck by lightning and soiled herself on a previous date. A most horrible date never happens by itself.

Gavigans - Did some makeovers. They put Isaiah in homeschool. They would've put Isaiah in private but can't afford it right now. They are struggling. They did woohoo but thankfully no babies yet, because no money. Isaiah is a good student, and rolled an A- because homeschool. Nathan got a job in politics. Too bad he started on level 2 but got a chance card the first day and got demoted! He was so upset. He just wants to provide for his family and get them to a point where they can afford more babies. They are a happy family at the moment though, just struggling. Made friends with Mortimer Goth, Darren Dreamer and Jennifer Burb. Brittany Upsnott came in the welcome wagon (along with Darren and Jennifer, Nathan had already met Mortimer before) and Brittany and Darren can NOT get along! They fought. Brittany won that I saw. They do go out sometimes so Isaiah can meet other kids and whatnot, also to use skill items they can't afford at home. Mary starts a novel, since she is limited in what she can do because of the church.

The Baxter Household - contains Aaron and Ashley Baxter, twins, pleasure aspirations for Widespot. They are poor to start off with so Ashley gets a job in the slacker career. Aaron finds other ways to make money. Freestyling for tips, painting, tending bars around town etc. They get out a lot and work on making friends. Candy Hart, Homer Land and Mary Mann (was Land) are the welcome wagon and Candy and Ashley have 3 bolts! Pretty quickly they share a first kiss! Ashley gets to level 3 in the slacker career. Aaron went to the beach and while there jumped up and down on the bench that Olive Specter was eating on! Everyone seemed to have a thought bubble of him then, probably thinking "Dude, stop that or she will kill you!". She appears to be watching him now. He met Malcolm Landgraab IV while there and had a want to ask him on a date. He later did but got rejected, but he won't give up, he decided to talk to him a bit first, get to know him. Try again later. Candy and Ashley went on a date. It was a dream date. They woohoo'd in a hot tub downtown. When Aaron was out he went to get himself a drink at a bar and right before he went to take a drink it cancelled or something (I was watching him) and Andy Bellum stole it!

I was only in my TOT challenge town to edit the service center and add a few lights to my homestead lot.I also installed a new hacked object and was testing to see if it installed.

@jonasn -I've found THIS to stop that kind of glitch from ever happening again.I used to get it a lot in a vamilla game on my old computer.

Thank you. I think my situation was different. There were somehow 2 dates at the same time: one created via the phone (inactive before travel), and one started face-to-face. We both dumped one another with 2 TNS from Don and Dina, not just him.

Unlocking objects via master definition works better overall: without the custom star. I like it. Is it possible to make aspiration objects to cost money when placed?

It's very rare to have two dates for the same sims at the same time and it looks like you need to watch for that and keep track of sim scedules to make sure that isn't going to happen again.I've had it happen once after playing overnight on my old computer when I should've quit hours earlier and I was overtired when it happened and quit wuthout saving that event.

Hecate Beaker has become Hecate Beaker the Atrociously Evil Witch, and is looking forward to hexing the world. Orion Curious, who is completely and madly in love with her, now wants to become a witch as well (and learn to fish, because Hecate's been fishing while befriending the evil witch leader).

Coldwater is coming along, slowly but surely it's Eurovision's national selection season so I've been quite busy ranking the plethora of songs and watching each country's selection shows - most of which are on in the middle of the afternoon for me (evening/night in Europe) so by the time they're over it'll be like 4-5pm and I'm tired from watching tv in the middle of the day and then don't feel like playing sims.

But anyway, I'm almost finished building everything for the founding 22 sims. I have 3 houses for Imogene Thompson/Owen Peters, Curtis Danielson/Xander Kaufman and Saskia Price/Saul Dillon. Then I have the flower shop (Imogene), grocery store (Owen), bar (Curtis), pet store (Xander), supernatural shop (Saskia) and robot shop (Saul). Then I'll be able to begin playing I can build 3 things before I need a break so I reckon if I find enough time to build amongst eurovision ongoings getting to actually play sometime during the week or weekend.

Toddler Tanya Lockwood spent a day chasing butterflies, between eating and sleeping, and singing nursery rhymes in the garden while Mom was pruning the fruit trees.
And promptly rolled the want to buy a fruit tree of her own.
She grew up into a pretty kid at 6 pm.
The nest morning she got up, made her bed and rolled a want to gain a cleaning skill point.
(Perfect. She has 8 neat points).

Ahh, did you get any photos? They are so cute when they chase the butterflies! (Can you tell I'm turning into a big old softie since I became a grandparent )