I got some clean templates from here. meetme2theriver says that EAxis has coded the game, that when you add a second (occupied) Downtown, it'll be wiped out, unoccupied.



I just want to make sure that when I add BDC to my neighborhood, it won't get corrupted. It may sound stupid, but you/I never know.

Because do the character files get shredded, or something? Also, if I do it vice versa (add BDC first and then Downtown), will my neighborhood get corrupted because the graves will be gone (Tricous and Neengia)?

You cannot be stressed more about this game!

That doesn't seem to make any sense to me but without trying out the actual process I can't say for sure. Added on sub-hoods are independent of each other in my experience - they draw on different sets of files and don't overwrite.

It is true to say that adding a second type of one sub-hood sometimes (but not always) means that you don't add on any more extra sims but that depends on the hood type. I'll see if I have any information on it.

Edit - oh wait, that thread you link to is adding BDC as another Downtown. Well, downtowns don't add sims on a second downtown sub-hood so it looks as though that is correct. Sorry I can't be more help here - Maxis hoods bore me senseless and I have had very little to do with them.

It seems to me that Tarlia is quite clear on this point. If you add a second downtown, it will be empty. If the second downtown is a premade one with characters, it will be as if you deleted all those characters. So don't do it; get the subhood version of Belladonna Cove.

I've seen enough versions of the megahood that had both the BDC and the dead Tricous to think that this problem has been solved, so hunt around that site some more until you find the proper configurations for what you want. She should have everything linked. It makes little difference, in play, whether a subhood is counted as a downtown or as a shopping district. I believe her megahood-enabled downtown has converted the ghosts from the House of Fallen Trees into living sims, and omits the Tricou teen bastards.

If you add an actual custom downtown, built from scratch, it won't have any characters in it to shred, so you're fine. You won't get a second batch of downtownies, but you wouldn't want one, anyway.

There's no reason you can't experiment with different configurations, using a test neighborhood, in order to see how it all works. Once you understand how to get the configuration you want, you can delete the experiment and make it for real. And of course you should back up your existing main hood before doing anything as major as adding a new subhood, anyway.

Just to be clear, River was talking about adding a separate add-on downtown that is based on the original Belladonna Cove.

So, potentially, you could have your main hood of Belladonna Cove and you could add a BDC downtown to it. You could also add a BDC downtown to Strangetown, Pleasantville, or any neighborhood you choose.

I believe that she was describing what you would and would not find in the downtown version, not the original main neighborhood version. I doubt that what is in the added on downtown would affect what was in the original neighborhood.

The game will remove the sims from all Downtowns except the first, when the Downtown template is added to your neighborhood. I was not able to find any way around this restriction.

Other subhoods, such as Business Districts, do not have this restriction.

After adding the Downtowns, you can still populate each one as you desire.

If you really want all of the sims from all of your subhoods, attach only one Downtown and use Business Districts for everything else.

As far as corruption goes, I would have to do some additional research. The sims are not added, but I'm not sure what the game does with their associated memories, wants and fears, relationships, family ties, etc. If you're concerned, trying adding two Downtowns to a temporary test neighborhood and then running the HoodChecker on Check mode to see what it finds. That won't tell us everything, but it should give you some idea of whether the sims are removed cleanly.

Thanks Mootilda! I'll try it, and report back.