I just moved in some random premade students together in a dorm (as I prefer to play them all as one huge household rather than several small ones) and Blossom Moonbeam and Stella Terrano make a great couple. They had 2 or 3 bolts, and before the end of term, already got engaged (Blossom wanted it really badly). Since Blossom is a family Sim she'll naturally want many kids so I just might let them have biological children after they graduate, since I was really looking forward to use Stella's genes. (She's an alien, AND really pretty. A win-win situation.) Not sure how the kids will look but they surely are a cute couple.

Another thing I was thinking about (sorry for double posting!), but how do all of you decide who lives in each subhood? Do you have a special way of deciding (for example, based on careers, lifestyles, relatives...?) or do you just move your Sims into any subhood that currently has a suitable house available?

I often let these things influence the decision, for example, I consider Strangetown to be a military base so a lot of military families there, and due to "paranormal phenomena", the types of Sims interested in that. Riverblossom Hills is a more rural area so Sims who love to be in the nature, or familes who decide to move there to enjoy 'the simple life'. Downtown is more for young people without kids, etc. But I consider all the subhoods to be within driving distance of each other, so sometimes a family moves to a certain subhood just because there is currently a house for sale in the area that suits the family's requirements.

EDIT: Also attaching my current map of 'Sim State', which I am always changing anyways because I'm never totally happy with placements. But this is how I imagine my Megahood to be right now; also, these are all within driveable distance.

Oh wow, I love your map :D

I have a similar sort of selection procedure: Different subhoods have a different "feel" and I think about where my sim would fit in. I also have a list of which careers are available in different hoods and if a sim wants a job in another career, they have to move to somewhere that it is available.

I'm loving all this discussion! I know personally, I can play Bluewater Village two different ways - either it is a east coast Maine village on the shore, near Belladonna Cove and it's cold and wet and rural small town. Or, it's by Pleasantview: a California west coast town that's laid back and more touristy. Both interpretations work for me, but obviously I can't play both at the same time.

Veronaville, unusually, feels unique. Like I can't pair it with any other subhood or college - the Shakespeare theme is too strong! That's not to say that certain sims haven't found their way out to Veronaville...The Goth family set up a home there. Ophelia Nigmos and (Pease)Blossom Moonbeam also joined families there.

But then, what do you do when couples work in careers that aren't available in the subhood? Also, for example with more 'general' careers such as medicine or education, do you have rules about them being only in one certain subhood, or do you keep them balanced between subhoods (as even smaller towns need teachers and doctors, I think)?



Well, not being from USA myself, I don't really think of neighborhoods as west or east coast, or what state they should be in (granted, having only visited 3 states in my life, I hardly know the differences between most but the most 'famous' states). I just think of it as an alternative universe - usually calling it Sim State, not really because I think of it as American states but because of the Sim State University. Though I can see certain areas like Pleasantview being more 'American' while Veronaville is more 'European'.

I actually quite like spreading the Monty and Capp families around - they're so huge, so it's not an issue. I do like to keep these old important families (like Monty, Capp, Goth, etc.) in their old mansions for generations, but it's only one of the houses where the families live, perhaps for the main heir, while their siblings/cousins move elsewhere. I think it's more realistic, in these days, it's not very likely for a town to be just 3 old families, no new people, and none of these 'old families' moving away - hey, people move for jobs, love, whatever.

Ugh, I hope all of this made sense, obviously I'm not a native speaker and sometimes when I try to explain these things they make a lot of sense to me in my head but just come off as strange

I never thought of it that way myself until this past year - I found myself moving back and forth between the West and East coast (and then down south for a short trip!) and so I really, REALLY noticed the architectural and cultural differences between coasts and it carried over into my playing.

I know other people do - I read a lovely story that had the Capps living in Riverblossom Hills once. But I like to keep Veronaville separate and the Shakespeare theme intact. Besides, there's a good chance of inheriting that Capp fortune (and leading to a enormous tragedy) that I'm currently playing out now, so nobody wants to skip town right now!

- and the career question is a good one that I found myself thinking about last night. Jill Smith dreams of dolphins but I'm fairly certain that dolphins are not native to Strangetown. When she grows up, does she move somewhere more likely to draw in those in an Oceanography career? Or does she settle for something else, to stay closer to home? I guess commuting is also an option.

Maybe also influence it based on other things, like does she inherit her family's house? Does she marry someone from Strangetown or elsewhere? Just an idea, that's how I play my game, of course everyone has their own styles

In my most recent megahood i break up every family. I know, it's cruel!
I just wanted to see which pairings the great crystal ball would ship!
There are so many curious pairings right now... i guess i should go playing!

Well, the couples have to make a decision, just like in real life. Either they will choose one, with the other making a compromise on his/her career, or they will move to an area which suits them both, or in rare circumstances I'll decide they "commute". Currently, Stella Roth is renting an apartment Downtown to have one last shot at the showbiz career before she turns to elder! But she's still married to Morty and I consider her "home" to be the Roth family house.

This is my list, though.

Bold means that subhood is a good choice for that career, non-bold careers might come up less often (I have a Randomstuff file for the job noticeboard, and consider the newspaper/computer a wider search pool) or be limited as to how high a sim can go in them living in that area.

simsfreq I like how you deal with careers! Do you also impose any limits on number of Sims in a certain career? It's something I've taught about doing, but I focus my playing on LTWs too much so I decided it wouldn't really fit my play style. But for example, certain careers need a lot of employees, like Education, Medicine, Business, Culinary, Law Enforcement... Whereas you need a lot less people in Showbiz, Dancer, etc. careers. So maybe having limits or requirements for number of Sims in a certain career could be good for a realistic Megahood.

I see "Sim State" a little differently. SimNation is a state part of a larger United States of the Imagination, and the events of The Sims 2 occur in one county in SimNation (Simasota County), with the exception of Sim State University which might exist in the panhandle area of SimNation (I based my SimNation off of the real life state of Florida), and the other universities. Not much is known about the rest of SimNation. If Sim Nation = the Imaginary Florida (it can't be California because that would place it right in the middle of San Andreas State), Vice City from GTA probably exists on the east coast of SimNation.

Anyway, here's my Simasota County, or a rough draft of it anyway.

No I don't. Mainly because I'm not organised enough to keep track. But also because I don't tend to think of my playables as being the whole population. There are also townies and other sims that we never see. So if I have more professional athletes or dancers than office drones, it doesn't really matter. I just assume that a higher proportion of the non-playable characters are office drones.

I do have HarderJobs, so in some careers there can't be more than one sim at the top level. But since I don't play strategically, it's not that often that a sim happens to get to the top level anyway.

On the subject of non-fugly Geike children--in one of my Uberhoods, Chester hooked up with Chloe Curious-Smith, which resulted in accidental-unsaved-pregnancy. I was still setting up the hood and didn't want to start doing breeding and hook-ups yet, but I wanted to see what the end results would look like, so I didn't save before exiting. I did document the results however. As stated, it was triplets, girls, and I got 2 unarguably pretty ones (pretty through all the life stages, too), and one that was fug until adulthood, where she turned out (to me, anyway) unique-but-pretty-looking, or at least passable (in most everyone else's opinion).

To be honest, I don't really care if two Sims have ugly children. I'd rather have some ugly kids to throw in the mix than have everyone be super pretty and look the same; it would get boring, imho. Obviously if they come out as super ugly, I mean so ugly that their faces are all wrong and even glitchy, that's not good. But I don't want everyone to look like a supermodel at all.

Oh, I actually agree on you with that, I was just trying to help out those who were trying to avoid too much fug. Personally I like "unique"-looking sims as well, and a lot of the "pretty" ones end up looking too similar to me too. However, I think that Chester Geikie is one of those sims with such severe features that you have to be careful of who you breed him with, otherwise you can get the "Kill-it-with-fire" glitchy-looking sims. Although those can be fun very fun to breed to see what comes out--it's why Uglacies exist, after all!

I'm actually starting on a megahood now, so it'l be interesting to see what pairings I might put together. I've thought of putting Lilith Pleasant and Ripp Grunt together, due to their statuses as the unfavorite of their family.

Peter Ottomas came home with a want to fall in love with Priya Ramaswami - they are co-workers, so there is plenty of potential for drama there!

I thought that Patricia Wan and Julien Cooke would make a nice couple - but to my surprise, my current favorite pairing ended up being Julien Cooke and Monica Bratford! Patricia will have to keep looking, I guess.

I quite like Chester's face for some reason, it's pretty unique. I've never really bred him yet though so I have no idea what kind of kids he makes. But yeah, definitely, it's good to keep faces unique but not too glitchy.

Personally I think when you have Sims with really extreme features which you want to tone down a little for the next generation the best thing to do is find a really neutral-looking partner. Breeding together two Sims with extreme features is usually the worst - instead of neutralizing them, kids just take some of each

Yeah, Lilith and Ripp have been together in my game. They both ran away from home.

I have to say, I'm having fun creating some extreme mutants for townies in my upcoming Apocalypse hood If they can't find a playable partner, townies will have to do... But of course, people are socially suspicious of mutants. It should add a fun dimension.

In terms of non-romantic pairings: Daniel Pleasant, Peter Ottomas, and Carlos Contender must be the best bros ever - all are sports-loving Romance sims!

Ripp Grunt and Romeo Monty had a Romance Sim bromance going on during their Uni rotation. No, they won't ever get together but they're great friends. Ripp ain't ever moving back to the Grunt house, nope, no way, nohow, but he's penniless and without prospects so Romeo knew this well-off silver fox who'll be a good sugar momma for Ripp. And Ripp *really* likes her, almost 3 bolts' worth, once Romeo introduced them.

I found a very unlikely couple that works really well together: General Buzz Grunt and Brandi Broke. Seriously. They're currently engaged in my game and raising the kids together - though it went really fast and Brandi still hasn't given birth to her 3rd child. It's a bit hectic, having so many sons from both families around, but it works - Brandi focuses on the family a lot, cooks the meals, cleans up, spends time with kids, etc. while Buzz makes a good living. They might need a bigger house though, since Brandi will probably want more kids with Buzz after she gives birth to that one. Then again, the teens, especially Tank, are going to go to college soon so this will free some space up. Either way, they make a really good couple despite their differences.

For a period of time I was playing Veronaville attached to Pleasantview (just those two, not a full megahood), and found an interesting pairing in Antonio Monty and Nina Caliente, she was a great step mom to Beatrice and Benedick and good mom to the twins she gave birth to from Antonio.

Jill Smith is all grown-up and leaving Strangetown behind to follow her dreams of dolphins! I'm not sure where she will find dolphins though...Desiderata Valley perhaps? Maybe the Contrays will let her stay with them until she can find a place of her own.

I've wrote about this in another thread already but a cute new couple in my Megahood - Vidcund Curious and Natasha Una. Their chemistry is low but they made friends extremely fast, so I'd say they're definitely compatible platonically They just got married and Vidcund got abducted on his wedding night, so he's now pregnant (SimBlender tells me it's twins). That sounds like a fun wedding night