Welp. Apparently my little adventure into the world of translated Sims 2 resulted in me messing up my neighbourhoods folder. A whole sim year's worth of Veronaville down the drain... along with all the lots I built for it... I need a moment...

I was working on finishing off the setting up of RM-26 in the Dakota Territory out west in 1825 for a homesteaders challenge style BACC.

That's so sad! I only lost a few weeks of playing yesterday (swapped out a mod and it caused some sims to vanish for days, screwing up the timeline.) I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a whole year!! Take a little break from neighborhood playing if you need to. I hope you get the spark back quickly!

Is turning aging off until they come back not an option? Or would that be too tedious?

Your updates were really fun to read, I actually enjoy this whole thread, actually I hope that you both get your spark back in the near future, as losing progress no matter how much is tough.

Tedious, Maybe others are patient, but I'm not at all. Also, for some its already been 2-3 days and I saved.... ooooooop

(Big Hugs) I hate losing gameplay! I did something similar recently and now I'm back to being obsessed with backing up after every single play session. It sucks majorly to lose that much work though. Again, (((big hugs)))

I prepared for my anatomy practical by watching a PleasantSims video, of course. As soon as my exam was over I got the clouds skyboxes she uses and put it in my game. I already had the mountains one.
I am obsessed with what adding clouds to my sky does. Attached are two photos of Piccolo Manor and Romana Farms at night. Believe it or not- that tiny farmhouse currently holds 2 adults and their nine children all aged baby-child.

I don't have anymore time to actually play today, but this was a great break

In Respite/Sedona, the Ottomas twins became teenagers and Samantha became pregnant (though tbh, I'm not sure Samantha Ottomas being pregnant is actually news!).

The construction crew finished work on a new two-bedroom cottage and are trying to get started on an apartment building to house new arrivals who can't afford to buy, though the snowstorm that almost caught Julien Cooke on the road may hinder their progress somewhat. They're also a man down, as Chester Gieke got abducted by aliens; luckily he's still living with his friend Florence, who is an elder, so once the baby arrives Chester will be able to go back to work and leave it with its 'auntie'.

This isn't as eventful as the previous update, but stuff did happen. I finished the Grunts and played the Singles through to Wednesday morning.

Friday:
Ripp and Buck woke up and went to school.

When they got home in the afternoon, Ripp got ready for work, while Buck took care of his needs. While Ripp was at work, Buck took a nap. Upon getting home at 6pm, Ripp had a nap and then woke at 9pm to invite his friends out. He went to meet them at the bowling alley, but no one showed. Checking his messages, he saw that he got a message from Ophelia telling him that he stood them up. Impatient much?

Meanwhile, Buck did his homework and then invited Jill over. They held hands, falling in love, and then cuddled under the stars until it was past midnight. She left just as Ripp returned. The brothers turned in for the evening.

Saturday:
The morning was chill.

Buck invited Jill over. When she arrived, they shared their first kiss, Jill having made the move. They continued to flirt all day, even having their first Woohoo on the sofa.

Ripp did his own thing and then got ready for work at 6pm. When he got home, he invited his friends over and hung out with them for a bit. They then left for the FM in Downtown at 10pm. They ordered food, which originally fell on Ripp, so they had to wait for another.
After their meal, both Johnny and Zidane left, so the remaining friends went back to Ripp's place.

Meanwhile, Buck continued to spend time with Jill before she went home. He then went to bed.

Sunday:
Ripp returned at 10am and went straight to bed, while Tiffany, Ophelia, and Skipp tried to figure out what to do with themselves. Buck invited Jill over, who asked if she could bring a friend; Buck said yes. While waiting for Jill, Buck noticed Zidane stood outside, and immediately recognising him as one of Ripp's friends, invited him in. Not long after this, Jill turned up and brought Dirk Dreamer despite not knowing him. After this, Skipp went home just as Ripp woke up to go to work.

Everyone else did their own thing until Ripp got home at 6pm. His friends just followed him around like lost puppies, despite the outing being over. Ripp got given his aspiration benefits (I keep forgetting to give these to sims) and that was it; anyone who liked men were drooling over him like he was the last cookie in a jar, but didn't bother to try anything, they just heartfarted. Ophelia was the exception. He had his first kiss with Ophelia despite her being in love with Skipp, too... The rest of the friendship group was invited over, and despite Ophelia smooching Ripp in front of him, he didn't care.

It got late, so everyone was sent home so they could go to bed.

Next up, the Singles.

Monday:
The girls tried to look for the jobs they wanted, but were unsuccessful. Erin threw a party and invited Loki, Circe, Pascal, and Ajay. Pascal talked to Circe's belly, Chloe tried to have her first kiss with Ajay, but was unsuccessful putting her in aspiration failure, and Kristen successfully had her first kiss with Ajay. The party was a success.

Lazlo invited Chloe out Downtown; her housemates tagged along too. They were out until 5am; the only highlight was Chloe having a sponge bath and then dancing with a mop.

Tuesday:
When They returned home, they went to bed. As soon as they got the newspaper, Norman pinched it, so they couldn't search for jobs. They just took care of their needs all day.

That was it. Not the most interesting, I'm probably forgetting something. Next time, I'll play the Singles from Wednesday to Monday, and if I have time, the Loners.

@sugosiama -I've had far worse than that happen and had to throw entire games away because of constant fights breaking out on community lots or in apartments and it ruined the whole game every time it happened.It meant not being able to progress beyond trying to just get a town started before that mess happened.I lost many years of gameplay to that issue and I'm now playing almost daily and enjoying my game with it hacked out and Modded out to get rid of that and other issues.

In Strangetown:
Johnny told Ophelia that he wanted them to be exclusive, i.e., married. Ophelia told Johnny in no uncertain terms that she was happy with her life the way it was and he was welcome to remain a part of it. Johnny didn't like that and is now pretty angry with her, but good for Ophelia for not caving to his pressure this time.

Buck and Stella had a new baby to celebrate their renewed relationship, and now Buck wants another one.

Fricorith and Amelie also just had a baby. Fricorith got fired, which he was pretty depressed about. Then the dishwasher broke and he tried to fix it and electrocuted himself. This was right after Amelie got pregnant again, so she is now a widowed young mother with an infant and one on the way. She wants to resurrect Fricorith, but I don't think she is willing or able to pay Olive's price.

Annnnnddddd I'm thinking of stopping my Strangetown play. I know I always do this once the premades start to die, but I have two reasons this time. One is that I have an idea for Pleasantview I want to try. And two is that I have way too many boys in my up-coming generation (and most of the boys who are teens are straight), so it's going to be very lopsided when it comes time for pairing off. I'll have to marry in townies or have singles, and I don't really want to play that many households. Looking at my spreadsheet, I have had 23 born in game, of which 17 are boys and 6 are girls (and one of the girls has already died, while another one is gay). The possibilities are even more limited when you consider how many of them are siblings or cousins. So I don't feel super excited to continue with that ratio. It kind of depressed me when I just got babies born to Amelie, Liam, and Buck/Stella, and all of them were boys!

Sturlington, I find that in any of the base game premade hoods it quickly becomes that all of the Sims are related. Especially Strangetown- the Smith, Curious, and Singles are all related to each other already. That's why I've made myself a general rule in my current town: none of my 4 founding families are able to mate with each other. It's not super strict. If ACR takes over then fine. I have 10 families, all unrelated to each other, so it leaves many prospects for all of my Sims. Also, my 4 founding families are the only ones I really care about "preserving" the last name. Each generation I send my Sims to college, I plan on adding a few CAS young adults to the mix. It might be helpful for you to add CAS Sims at some point so that you don't have to worry about everyone related and to give yourself some guidelines to prevent everyone from becoming related.
It's totally okay to switch though if you want to- as long as you enjoy the game. I used to restart all of the time but I'd get frustrated having to set everything up again or having the same stories with the premades again.

It's your game, and you want to have FUN, so you are absolutely entitled to stop one neighbourhood whenever you like. Especially if you are excited about Pleasantview.

However, 17 boys and 6 girls, while not great, isn't the worst thing that could happen.
Consider who is related to whom, and you'll end up with probably 3-4 guys per gal.
If you have 7, try the bachelorette challenge and see who she picks.
Some of these could be an open relationship where one woman has two permanent partners.
Others could be a love triangle where the two males fight over her.
Maybe one girl is a serial monogamist, and marries her 4 back to back to back.

If the idea of many single households isn't interesting, have the guys live together. 4 men in a house - oooh the mess and the drama that could be.
Or maybe one guy lives alone but with a bunch of pets.
Maybe 3 of them decide that they can live basically as hermits together - just the tree of them in tents, living off the land.

And all of that is without changing any sexual orientations (which you could do) or from having them fall in love with townies. Or from attaching a university which will add a number of additional playable options.

Again, go where your heart is taking you, but if you were really hoping to continue with Strangetown the best thing about being part of a community like this is people have awesome ideas that we hadn't considered before and can find excitement where we had been hitting a wall.

Good luck with all your 'hoods!

This is what I'm thinking of doing with Pleasantview. Play only the four main families: Goth, Pleasant/Burb, Dreamer, Broke, and from the start not pairing them up. My idea is to start each young person--Angela, Lilith, Dustin, and Dirk--off in life by himself or herself, taking a different path, and see who they end up with and where they end up, as well as starting Cassandra with Don for the Goths. I'm curious if they are each going through university alone, or not going in Dustin's case, and thus not thrown together during that pivotal time, will they make different choices? I have a few naming rules, and I want to see which last names get preserved and which families become dominant or more or less successful over time. There are lots of playables for them to choose from, with three universities attached plus Bluewater. I only intend to actually play members of the main families and those who they marry in, but periodically age up their friends and cohorts. I also have some other new play rules I want to try that I didn't use in Strangetown.

Thanks for the ideas about Strangetown. It's a good place to experiment. I've already used it to play with zombies, vampires, werewolves, resurrection, immortality, and apocalypses, as well as to test out mods and custom content, so I'm sure other ideas will come up that I want to try, and there it will be prepopulated and waiting for me. I certainly have no intention of restarting it at this point, since I've set it up now in a way that I really like and remodeled so many of the houses. But maybe taking a break for a bit, when I've got so many kids just about to start college, would be a good thing.

ETA: It's actually 17 boys to 4 girls, because one of my girls died and one is a lesbian. I don't change their sexual orientation once it is randomly assigned because I want it to be like life in that way. Some of the boys do have townie girlfriends that will go to college with them if they have the want for them to go. I guess I could always have a culling. Hmm, some sort of disease that only afflicts males?

I mean, males are more prone to cardiovascular problems, so simply making them have heart attacks could do the trick

I decided to play a semester or two of university in Strangetown while I ate dinner and thought about what I wanted to do next. And I think I might have jinxed myself. Because right off the bat, one of my favorites died in a microwave fire. The fire department took forever to get there. It was Aaron Curious, only son of Erin and Lazlo, total slob, adorable floppy hair, and girl crazy. He ran right into the fire like an idiot. I'm going to miss him. I also ended up sending another one, Jacob Vonderstein, home to his mother because he got food poisoning and was missing so much class that he was going to get expelled anyway. It will still be touch and go with him. I'm not actually trying to kill these poor fellas, I swear!

That's what I say to my sister everytime someone dies in my game. Plot twists just happen sometimes.

I played the Singles from Wednesday through to Monday morning. Nothing super eventful happened, so I'll just list what happened specific to character.

Lola just stayed in the background, to be honest. She got to logic level 8 in her free time, made best friends with Chloe, Erin, and Kristen, and kept herself alive.

Kristen got her job in the Athletic Career, reached body level 5 and charisma level 2, and made best friends with Erin (I think) and Lola.

Chloe got her job in the Slacker Career on the last day of the session and made best friends with everyone, too.

Erin reached cooking level 5 and charisma level 2, made friends with Lazlo, went shopping for groceries and then went for a bite to eat. She met Dustin before returning home. Lazlo was invited over, where Erin tried to have her first kiss with him through ACR, but I kept canceling it. Why? We won't rush this. She got a job in the culinary career as a hostess.

That was it. Next time, I'll be onto the Loners and if we have time, I'll make a start on the uni round.

EDIT: Forgot to mention something about Erin. She arrived home on Sunday evening with the flu, so that's a thing. Hope no one catches it from her.

Omg I just restarted Strangetown, but this time I also added an extended lifespan (hat plays sims that makes the lifespan fit with university. I also got mods to make things harder)

It’s amazing. Having more time gives time to do stuff I usually ignore because I’m grinding skills or doing “useful” stuff.

I didn’t notice a huge difference until I went to the Grunt family. Instead of just skimming like crazy whenever someone got a skill want, I’d just stop skilling and socialize every time General Buzz wanted to spend time with Tank and Buck. I also made a morning routine where the General forces Tank to use the obstacle course every morning.

Now that Johnny has 10 days to adult instead of 1, I could flesh out his friendship with Ripp. He, Ripp and Ophelia hang out at the playground I built. They stay up late at night talking, sitting on the swings and drinking espresso. I’m going to have them start a band. Sometimes Ripp tells Johnny to go out without Ophelia and they play basketball until I can find someone for Ripp to try to flirt with. So far, it’s been a dismal failure. No girls are into him. But it’s ok. The less satisfying it is for him, the more he fights eith Tank.

I let Ripp go low in aspiration so he’d autonomously annoy and torment Tank. I let Buck fulfil “stupid” wants... like watch the fish in the tank for hours ... Buck got to hang out with Jill Smith and next time I’ll have her bring Johnny over.

It feels more like a storytelling situation than a constant rushing to succeed.


Oh and this is way cool. All I did romantically with pascal and nervous subject — pascal asked “do you like what you see?” And Nervous said “wooo yes!” After that, nothing...

But when I was playing the Singles, they showed up in the Welcome Wagon. And they both ignored the girls and spend the whole time flirting with each other and snuggling on the couch.

At the Piccolo household, not much happened. I think that's my first time ever saying that! Catherine realized she's pregnant. She went and poked Henry, she can't believe he got her pregnant! He poked right back reminding her that it takes two. She was too hungry to keep fighting and he didn't want to fight at all- he actually wants to be best friends with her. She might be done with him after the Roller Rink Scandal, but Henry started Luna Canyon by her side and he doesn't want to lose her completely. He's also still obsessed with their housekeeper Diane King, but what else is new? You can't have it all, Henry. He also fears of becoming enemies with his sons Francis and Sebastian, but not with his daughter Clarissa. Clarissa is strong and really isn't affected by her parents relationship. Sebastian has cried a couple times knowing that Henry and his mom Diane aren't "normal" parents like what he's used to seeing other kids have at school.

At the Romana's, the oldest twins turned to teens! Corona rolled Knowledge and Regina rolled Family. I'm excited to have my first born in-game teenagers. I really sat back and watched for most of the day. It was filled with lots of sibling interactions and gardening. Aemilia is also pregnant with the 10th Romana child. Things are about to get a lot easier with the help of Corona and Regina, if they're willing!

I managed to play the Loners and Tiffany's first year at college.

So Ajay and Bella woohooed on the couch and got pregnant. She threw a party which was a disaster, because Chloe and Norman kept fighting. Three days later, a boy called Nichol Bachelor was born. Bella has thoughts about marriage, but is waiting for the right guy. She met Abjiheet Cho (spelling?), and hit it off with him; two bolts. Nichol aged to a toddler. Ajay got employed in the business career and became best friends with Lola Curious. Bella got a job in Law Enforcement and wants another baby.

So nothing truly dramatic here.

Weird thing is I installed the Weekly Arsonist mod to add some risk to my game, however so far it has only had an effect on the Grunt house. I play in week long rotations, so I should be having an arsonist burglar attack once every household. The Grunts got attacked the first day I played that lot after installing the mod (detailed in this thread), which spiced the gameplay up a bit. However, I played the Singles for a week, nothing, then yesterday I played the Loners for a week, still nothing. Is the mod glitching, or did I just not read what it did properly?

Tiffany went to Sim State University, where she enrolled in Fitness/Physical Economics. She finished Freshmen year with an A+ and made it on the Dean's List. She is now in Sophomore Year. Tank has now joined her, and that's where I left it for the session.

Next time, I'll wrap round 4 up by getting Tiffany and Tank through college. If I have time, I'll make a start on round 5 with the Lothario household.

I've been playing a bit of Pleasantview. My goal is not to intermarry the four main families, at least not at first. At this point, Angela, Lilith, and Dirk are attending different colleges and have just started junior year. I played each one for a couple of college years to get to know them and to let them attend parties and meet people. Dustin could not afford to go to college, so he is still working for Gordon King as a criminal while getting his GED and helping to take care of his little brothers. Cassandra and Don are married and moved into their own place, but I've only played them long enough for Cassandra to get pregnant on her wedding night.

Angela started out at Academie La Tour studying art, but then she took a drama class and that changed her mind about what she wanted to do. Junior year, she changed her major to drama and her aspiration to romance. She wanted to become a movie star and have lots of men adoring her. She called her mother to ask her to wire some money so she could move out of the boring dorm and rent her own place, which Mary-Sue did. Once she had moved into her house and gone to the gym to work out, Angela invited over her neighbor Jonah Powers, who she knew slightly from a couple of parties. He came over and was perfectly willing to help Angela get a couple of "firsts" out of the way--not that she'd ever get serious about a guy like him. Then she went downtown with a couple of friends hoping to meet some rich, powerful, and/or beautiful people, but that didn't work out. The club was a dud. She returned home, made friends with her grandmother over the phone, and studied up to pass her final, as she knew that she wouldn't get far in show business without a college degree.

At the Pleasant house, after Mary-Sue wired Angela the money and talked to both Angela and Lilith on the phone, she moved her parents in, which Daniel wasn't happy about since he and Herb don't get along. They converted Angela's old bedroom into a bedroom for the Oldies, and Mary-Sue turned Lilith's old room into a home office so she could focus on her political career. Daniel was taking Mary-Sue for granted since she was working so much. He called up Kaylynn for a date in the city, which went very well, and after that, he went to the clubs for some unsuccessful trolling. He got home at 3 in the morning and woke up Mary-Sue when he went to take a shower. She suspected something was going on, and that was confirmed when she went to get the paper in the morning and found a love note from Kaylynn on the porch. Daniel confessed to the affair and suddenly realized how much he had to lose. He spent the day groveling but didn't get far with Mary-Sue, and when caught him talking on the phone to Kaylynn, she slapped him. She hasn't decided what to do about the situation yet, as the scandal could hurt her career, so she put a sofa bed in her office and that's where Daniel is sleeping for now.

The 60s Curiousi had a very busy day, culminating in the toddleration of Vidcund's twins Rosalind and Franklin. Lazlo made a grocery run thinking about how nice it would be to get engaged to Crystal, when lo and behold, who should walk onto the lot but Crystal herself! He wasted no time turning impulse into action and she agreed with more enthusiasm than good sense. He invited her home with him and moved her in, so now there's one infant, three toddlers, five adults, a cat, a dog, and three impending weddings. This leaves Vidcund the only Curious adult without a committed romantic interest, and don't think he hasn't noticed!

Jill and Buck threw themselves at each other's heads so I figured I can always introduce doubts about Buck's sexual orientation when he's older if it's that important to me, and they're going steady. Jill had him and her townie friend Helen Military over on Saturday, just to hang out, and Helen decided to antagonize Buck. Erin moved in with her brother and his wife to help out with the imminent baby. Funny thing, she seems to have forgotten how to cook some of the things she thought she had down...

Kristen and Lola built an arch in the back yard of their duplex and invited Erin and Lola's family over to witness their non-legally-binding-but-emotionally-vital vows of commitment. The party raised the roof and PT9 is over the moon, the details of Simerican marriage law not being terribly important to him.

General Buzz's classified report on the Alien Menace (alas, the title field was too short for him to title it "Aliens: Threat or Menace?" like I wanted him to) went over like a lead balloon, which disappointed him.

I've gotten more work done with my townhouse construction project with adding lighting to the washrooms and adding fixtures to the common washrooms.

Jason Larson and his construction crew managed to get one studio apartment finished. Julien Cooke didn't think a major construction site was really the best place for his pack of dogs, so the Larsons have taken the apartment and Julien has moved into their half-finished home on Back Street (so technically he's still on a construction site, I suppose, but at least it's not busy). Jodie may be back again before long, though, as she and Julien hung out after work one day and are getting along very well. Nobody new arrived; the winter weather is slowing travel for everyone.

The Lari/Spurlock families finally made it to Lost Springs, where the four children grew up to teen. Tarek Lari now has a difficult decision to make. His two, Miriam and Timothy, have been at each others' throats for as long as anyone can remember, and Timothy just keeps attacking Miriam. Should Tarek strike out on his own with Timothy, leaving Miriam with the Spurlocks? But that would greatly increase everybody's expenses, and money is starting to get tight - plus he really doesn't want to abandon his daughter. He'll need to decide before they leave Lost Springs, because if he and Timothy do separate from the Spurlocks, he'll need to buy a few things from the store there.

In Pleasantview:

Lilith Pleasant went to Sim State University with the goal of becoming a world-renowned journalist. The large public-school campus opened up a bigger world for her as she started attending frat parties and going to clubs downtown. In Lilith's opinion, the main goal of life is to enjoy yourself and to go for what you want, even if that's at the expense of others. She changed to the Pleasure aspiration, joined the sorority, and ended up becoming president after she kicked out that Brittany Upsnott, who got on her last nerve. She recruited Jane Stacks in her place and is pressuring the girls to pledge more recruits so the sorority can become the most fun place on campus. She also started dating her professor, hoping that would make it easier to get passing grades without having to study too much.

Dirk Dreamer attended La Fiesta Tech where he could study something practical that would land him a job making lots of money. He's always looked down on his father for pursuing painting at the expense of financial security, but secretly Dirk loves to paint as well; because of his experience growing up scrounging for money, he may never pursue that dream. He was kind of a dork his first couple of years at college, mostly hanging around the dorm and studying, which is probably why he was recruited into the dorkiest club on campus, the LFT Secret Society. The girls would describe Dirk as "adorkable," though, and after getting noticed at a couple of parties, he didn't lack for female attention. Blossom Moonbeam pursued him pretty aggressively, but Dirk wasn't that attracted to her, and so they are strictly friends. He's very attracted to Jasmine Rai, and is trying to get to know her better; she seems to like him back (even though he accidentally stood her up for a date because he forgot he had to go to class), but Dirk is unaware of her FWB relationship with her roommate Gunnar. In his junior year, Dirk used his Secret Society connections to put together some quick cash in order to rent his own place, which will hopefully give him more opportunity to spend some quality time with Jasmine.