Don't be too quick to assume that a wedding jealousy fight disaster will kill any relationships. Once sims are BFF they're nearly impossible to split up perpermantly. Some relationships need a little more work, that's all.

Agree with sugoisama (drama for the win! ) but if I didn't happen to want that and I absolutely wanted Don there, I'd make him selectable with mods and keep an eye on him. Maybe even turn free will off if things were getting out of hand.

Nowadays I also have Drop Old Loves, so that when sims get married, their other crush/love flags are removed, so that's another option. Can't remember if it's one-sided, though, and only removes flags on the side of the sim getting married.

I want to start a new custom integrated hood with a kind of extreme BACC twist. Sims will start with absolutely nothing but some of the Seasons garden plants and a bunch of things from Sun & Moon sets and build up a civilization literally from scratch.

Ideally I want to have a single founder sim that all future generations are descended from and marry in townies when my sims need spouses. But I’m running into an issue where I can’t come up with a good explanation for why townies would exist in such a remote, undeveloped location.

Some ideas I had are:

1. The sims were abducted by aliens and taken to another planet for observation. But why wouldn’t they all band together when they first met?
2. The sims are the first sims in existence and live a primitive lifestyle with no modern amenities. But again why wouldn’t they band together rather than go it alone?
3. The founder sim has inherited land from a long lost relative and has moved to start a new life there, eventually founding a whole new town. They can only interact with sims they meet on vacation at first to symbolize the long way they have to travel to meet other people. I’d use the Visitor Controller to stop townies from walking by. But then the founder will probably repeatedly end up meeting the Social Bunny. I could use a no Social Bunny mod though, assuming the low social need doesn’t prevent sims from doing other work. Eventually as the town grows it would be more realistic to meet others walking by.

I guess I’m curious if anyone out there had any thoughts or other ideas for a plausible backstory that could explain an empty town with townies.

Genetically engineered sims with no ancestry or free will released from The Factory/put there by The Witch

Not gonna lie, I think townies are things you can't really explain without resorting to "the game has to work" as the excuse

They are just sims living nearby (other village). Someone has seen your sim arriving, there were rumours and they were just curious to come and see your sim.

If your plan is to play this neighborhood as a historical hood, then you could say that your founder has left their tribe and decided to start a new settlement. The townies are nomads, merchants, or maybe the autochthonous people of the region that your sim is colonizing and they live right outside of the hood borders, on mountains or hills if your sim is building a settlement in a valley.
If your BACC is set in modern times, it is quite difficult to think of a scenario... If the hood is tropical, with isles, your founder is an explorer and the townies are indigenous people. This would require making your own townies, or just dressing them appropriately to fit the theme. If the hood is in the desert, I would probably imagine that your sim is starting a new settlement near an oasis and the townies would be inhabitants of a nearby town.
If you want to be more creative, you could think about alien abductions or a reality show like Hunger Games, where people are thrown in a wild environment to see if they manage to survive. This would actually be super cool because you could create "villains" later on, trying to stop the settlement to grow once it becomes indipendent from their creator.

Or maybe your founder is just grumpy.

@khagen -I've gotten a BACC started and am playing it as the old west in the 1840's located in Dodge.I started out with only one couple and other couples are slowly arriving to claim homesteads over the next few years with one new couple arriving each year in the spring or even every other year if nobody arrived that spring.I just don't have them taking regular jobs and have them farming or doing vocational work instead as they need a larger population to take jobs.I also limit to buying household objects at the service center to reflect on them having to pick a mail order purchase up at the post office.

More Luis and Sue drama!

I posted on the last page about Sue being pregnant and not being sure what to do about it. In the end, burnt-out Sue did nothing, and along came baby #5, Gaby. Luis is still gambling, and still carrying on his affair with Dot.

And then last rotation his best friend Leo saw him with Dot.

It's important to note here that, not only is Leo Luis' best friend; Leo's wife Lily is Sue's best friend. Which makes Lily and Leo great at teaming up and helping Luis and Sue from both sides (when Sue found out about Luis' son Freddy, Lily looked after Sue and Leo went round and gave Luis practical help with the four children), but also means anything Leo knows will inevitably get back to Lily.

So, when Leo sits down to confront his friend about it, does he say:

1. I'm telling Sue about your affair

OR

2. If you don't stop, I'm telling Sue about your affair

It's possible the difference is inconsequential given how I don't think Luis will take him seriously and stop (or at least, he might stop for a while and then start again). Another question is, if Leo says #2, what does Lily say to that (because of course he's going to tell her).

Two other factors at play here are that last time Sue found out Luis had had an affair (with Freddy's mother Anna), she told him "If you cheat on me again we're over". Lily definitely knows she said this; it's possible Leo does too. The other factor is: Freddy is just about to testify against his mother in court. Leo definitely knows about this, so it's possibly he might hold off on saying anything to Sue until after the trial, so Luis and Sue can both be around to support Freddy. Or at least Luis might try and convince Leo not to say anything until after the trial.

So... any thoughts/opinions? I thought I'd figure out what Luis and Leo where saying when I played the conversation, but I have and I'm still unsure...

Possibly "Stop the affair with Dot, and confess it to Sue yourslf, or I'll have to tell her."

From story telling perspective I am looking for ideas of how to handle when some sims just fight all the time and I am not sure how to deal with the slapping head animation. Not sure how I feel about constantly seeing two sims smacking one another all the time ????as far as storytelling. Do you make up silly things they fight over ?

NatteryakToad,

Lily will tell Sue, right? There is no way Lily would keep that secret, or is there? Would Leo think about that when he confronts Luis? Because I'm seeing another option for that conversation: the one where Leo says "Luis, you're a moron, we'll be helping Sue get on her feet, and don't you dare try anything. Call me when you realize what an idiot you are and we'll talk."

Is Sue's previous ultimatum iron-clad? Is she absolutely filing for divorce when she hears or is she likely to waffle? Would Lily feel any guilt about telling her?

CoffeenSimming,

I have a mod for single slap, which looks better to my mind, and in general one doesn't resort to assault and battery unless one really has no better option, so you might think about whether there are taboos and/or laws about violence in your neighborhood, and if so, what would constitute moral justification to fight anyway. Most of my sims don't get into slap fests, unless someone has been caught cheating, or the family is severely abusive. The base game Pleasants are the prime example of both, generally, for me.

@CoffeenSimming -I don't actually even see that with the Lot Visitor Controller Mod and even if it happened one day when my towns get bigger it would still lead to sims doing the fighting being banned from that community lot or evicted from their apartment if it was happeneing in an apartment lot.I also use a Mod to disable NPC neighbors in apartments so I'd only get playable households as neighbors and could move any out who do start fighting each other.

Small dilemma here. I have a male child sim named Bubba Scrubba on his last day of the child stage. His sister Barbie Dahl will become a Popularity sim but what aspiration would best suit a Bubba Scrubba?

I'm thinking the
aspiration but would appreciate any suggestions for why another aspiration would fit. No Freetime, so secondary would be irrelevant.

Bubba Scrubba? He certainly sounds like he'd be fun to be with! Pleasure sounds a good choice.

Somebody here had a teenboy called Soda Pop. Was that you? Bubba Scrubba and Soda Pop sound like a really fun pair of friends.

What's Bubba's personality and star sign? Have you got a pic?

(I don't have Freetime, so I don't have secondary aspirations either.)

@AndrewGloria Soda Pop is in Emerald Heights, which is one of the fan-made neighborhoods. It might have been my Soda Pop or someone else's. He's a family sim, with child sister Taffy and toddler brother Bubblegum, living with their mother, when you open their house. His father (his siblings' fathers are deceased) is also quite the character.

@SIMposiast Due to prior real life experiences, Bubba Scruba would be a knowledge sim and go into oceanography! (The Actual Bubba is a Game and Fish officer. Very smart man, had a Master of Science, I forget which field.)

As it turned out, he became a Pleasure sim wanting to top the Slacker career. I could have done Knowledge but don't have Freetime for the Oceanography career. Don't know anything about an actual Bubba Scrubba, figured the sim kid's name was a humorous joke.

I can see pleasure sims in my towns being the types that didn't want to grow up if they kept that aspiration into adulthood and those ones often have trouble sticking with a career and often change jobs and don't make it very far so they'll often end up struggleing financially.

I'm toying with some ideas, and I need to bounce them around.
So, I play a medieval uberhood, with Mortimer Goth being king as of right now. But storywise, I need a reason for him to marry Dina.
Issue is, she's a...let's say, courtesan, at my house of ill repute, the Silky Pearl. As is Nina. I need a reason for their paths to cross. Toying with the idea of Dina writing to Mortimer to accept a previously-declined offer of charity after his brother-in-law/her husband's death, and their relationship to go from there. I'm not 100% sold on that, though.

Witchcraft obviously. I saw Goodie Dina with the devil, she was using magic to seduce His Majesty King Mortimer. I saw her at the devil's sacrament.

Aside from that, if you're into love at first sight, King Mortimer went to investigate rumours of immoral activity at Silky Pearl, because he's a ruler of direct action. Then he saw Dina and felt a strong attraction ever since.

Perhaps bandits destroy the Silky Pearl, causing the ladies to flee. And King Mortimer just happens to come upon a fleeing and terrified Dina, whom he rescues and falls in love with?

I don't really have a plan to destroy the Silky Pearl because I love it so much, but I could absolutely see her maybe fleeing from a violent customer or the like. Might be a good plot.
The other option is for him to come across the brothel while travelling to the docks, and just...mistake it for a normal tavern XD it'd be a little out of the way, though...

Well, you could look at historical courtesans who managed to infiltrate royalty, like Madame DuBarry. She managed to get an inside contact to Versialles acquired a title for her and that got her close enough to King Louis XV to catch his eye.

Are there any knights or courtiers Dina or Nina could seduce that would allow them to visit court as their guests? Maybe the court could hold a masquerade and Dina could meet and bewitch Mortimer while still wearing her mask and only reveal her true identity when he's already in love with her? Then a fake title could be arranged for her under the pretence that she and Nina are princesses from a faraway land and that would make her appear good enough to marry royalty.
Or they could seduce someone who has the power to hire them as Cassandra's ladies in waiting so that Dina could meet King Mortimer.
If Don is around in some compacity, he could be their contact who gets them into the court.

Dina doesn't need an introduction. She was married to the now-missing royal consort's brother. She's at the Silky Pearl from necessity because he was a bit of a wastrel and didn't provide for her. The King graciously extends his protection over her and brings her into his household. She can act as hostess in place of the missing consort, her sister-in-law.

As someone who loves to read historical romances, I'd say the opera house, or your game's equivalent entertainment establishment, is a great place for them to meet. Though it'd be hard for Mortimer to get away with marrying someone so far out of class. It'd be Mortimer's second marriage though, so maybe the court would be okay with it if they were guaranteed that Alexander or Cassandra would be the heir. Otherwise he could just keep her as one of his paramours without getting married.

Peni and Orphalesion make good points about having good social connections, too. To me, Dina's widow status would probably be enough to get them invited to some fringe social events that Mortimer would also be invited to, even if the majority of the court was unwilling to accept them. Which brings me to my second suggestion: a country party. Idk if that's the right term for it, but basically it's when you get a third party (with good social standing) who's friends with the person trying to marry up, to invite the target(s) to a party. And country parties are great because the guest list is limited, as the host naturally only has but so much extra room, and the guests are usually staying several days for a series of activities/events, some of which might be open to a wider audience. But anyway such settings are prime for Compromising Situations, after which the compromised parties have to marry. You would think that, knowing that, no one would ever go to those things but in my romance novels they always do. And indeed, some bystanders even seem to go for the chance of scandal, so they can be the first ones to spread the gossip and get invited to later parties where they can share their first hand knowledge.

So I think a TS2 equivalent would be Don throwing a hunting party--you could even make it a vacation--and inviting the Goths, the Calientes, and some other people. From there, it's a simple matter of getting Dina to steal a word at dinner, do a few activities with Mortimer, etc. and then he falls for her. Or, if you want a more mercenary angle, Dina and Mortimer get caught in a Compromising Situation (Don can even be an accomplise who catches them, for a fee of course) and Mortimer, as a man of honor, goes through with marrying her.

yes, that's what i was thinking! i was thinking maybe he previously offered protection but she refused because she believed funds were better than they were, but quickly got proven wrong. I may combine that with the handmaiden idea, and have him hire her as Cassandra's handmaiden, and perhaps she wheedles her way to the top,