More Awesome Than You!

I moved some lots with Sims into the Lots bin; created a brand new neighborhood; did a DeleteAllCharacters, and then moved the lots containing Sims into the empty neighborhood? So there would be tagalong character files, but not all the usual townies/NPCs?

I'm thinking of doing this in order to offload excessive population. And there are too many redheads in my Pleasantview. I thought about genocide, but that feels morally wrong.  :P But would I be sending the Sims to a neighborhood on the brink of doom?

Yes. Do not move occupied lots, unless the lots have never been played, AND you intend to destroy your source neighborhood. Any lot that has been played should never be moved to another neighborhood unless you want to destroy both neighborhoods.

there is a way you can do it properly without alot of hassle

read Reply #4 (by me)

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=3054.0

and heres a link to the mentioned plugin that you will need (if you don't already have it)
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2590.0

Ahh, thanks. Glad I asked before my 'hoods went kaboom. I knew there was a recent discussion on this but couldn't find it, thanks for the instructions, Sleepycat.  Otherwise I would have to start instituting a one-child per family policy. Which I still may do for all but fambly Sims.

I've had to institute the one-child-only for all but family sims (and none for romance sims, except by 'accident') -- my playable population was starting to verge on just-too-many-to-keep-up-with.  THank the heavens for the Lot Sync timer!

Well, in my current hood, I deleted all characters, and started out with sims at Uni.  so far I've only graduated six, and they have 5 kids between them and three out of the six are romance sims - and make the best parents!  Just because they sometimes have a fear of having kids doesn't mean they don't want them!  (And I've had elder romance sims get the "Get a grandchild" want!)

I've never seen a romance sim roll a want for a baby yet, but then I tend not to have too many of them around at any one time -- maybe three or four out of an active population of 40 or so (just realized that I keep romance sims to 10%  of the population :)). They're handy for wrecking havoc when I get a couple that turns out to be really boring to play together, in spite of showing promise at the beginning.  ::)

I never said my romance sims WANT a baby - but they get one anyway!  (Or two, if it's twins, which they seem particularly prone to!)  But I did say that I've had an elder want a grandchild, which is unusual, but since she didn't have to have the child herself, understandable!  My Romance sims do their havoc-wreaking among each other, or while still at Uni!

I make judicious use of the kitten-killer's birth control to keep my population of pods manageable.  Especially since I have some sims who just can't seem to woohoo without getting pregnant, even when they're not trying for a baby. Brandi Burb (ne Broke) and Cassie Dreamer (ne Goth) kept poping out kids (twins, in Brandi's case) whenever I forgot to turn their birth control back on. And Dina Calliente is cursed -- two accidental kids with Morty Goth before he died, and then her oldest dauthter got accidentally pregnant on her very first woohoo -- in the hottub, no less.  So I make very sure that the k-k's birth control is active for all my non-family female sims, and a few of the male sims as well, until I decide the population needs some new blood. :)

Well, mine only have kids when I decide!  No accidents for my sims!  and no kitten-killers either!

Yep, I firmly believe in the China Rule for my neighbourhood, unless something awful happens and I get twins or something.  Although I do have TJ's hack to make sure that if I really don't want twins, I won't.

On the other hand, TJ's Pregnancy for All has spewed out two sets of twins!  I removed the original when a female family sim tried 6 times for a baby with no luck,  got her pregnant, then put the updated hack in - and twins again!  Not identical like the first, as they're brother and sister, but the DNA varies by one thing only!

I think I'll have to institute that as well.  This is my second generation (first born in game) and I limited myself to 2 kids per family, and had an extra kid for my family sim.  I have at the moment 3 families I play with.   I can see how that will quickly get out of control.

what are your tried and true stategies for keeping families manageable.  I mean, how many families do you play in rotation.  How many kids per generation, etc etc. 

Question here.

I downloaded and install houses from the Sims 2 exchange without Sims in it (I know not the best place but there was really nice starter house).  I notice that one of them added 2 character files.  I quit and deleted those characters before I moved Sim in that house.  After I moved in the members in it, it did not recreate the 2 extra character files.  My question, is that neighborhood safe to play or can it turn into a BFBVFS?

I don't understand when you say it added 2 character files. Where did these appear, and how did you delete them.

Well, I think right now I have about the limit of active families I can handle -- out of maybe 20 playable households, there are 4 in university, 5 singles, and two childless couples. The rest have at least one kid in them. So maybe 45 playable Sims total.  I generally try to 'check in' with at least 3 households a day (sometimes more, if there's nothing good on TV that night :)), so that all 20 get some activity at least once a week. I think at this point I'd start to lose track if the neighborhood got much bigger. The only thing that's 'saving' me right now is that just about all of my first generation Sims are elders or deceased, and if they have kids I try to move at least one kid back into the family house to keep it going. So my 'strategies' for keeping things manageable are still evolving, but so far, the rules I've started to implement are:

1) Romance Sims only have children by 'accident', which usually means I forgot to turn his/her birth control on, or decided it was time for them to 'accidentally' have a kid because I wanted to expand the gene pool.
2) Same-sex couples get one kid, usually adopted, though I did use a 'pregnancy for everybody' hack to have two females (one CAS, the other a townie) have a kid together out of curiosity. That kid just turned into a child, and he's kind-of middle-of-the-road in the looks department so far.
3) Married/living-together couples generally get one kid if neither is a family Sim, and I want to keep them in the gene pool. Otherwise they don't usually get one unless one of them rolls a want for a baby.
4) Family Sims get 1 or 2 kids depending on the status of their relationship with their significant other(s), and 3 if they roll a LTW that supports/requires that many.
5) In multi-kid families, at least one kid moves back into the family house when he/she graduates college. That way the household keeps going, and there isn't a need for too many new households to accommodate all the graduates.
6) Most important of all, I use the Lot Sync timer to keep track of which households have gotten recent activity, and which are lagging behind. It's a life-saver in a well-populated neighborhood.

What I think is that the maker of the house had Sims previously in the house, move them out and then uploaded the lot to the exchange.  Before I started to install the houses I downloaded into the game I took note of the # of character files I had.  After installing them 2 new character files appeared (well I think it was right after I install those houses but I could be wrong), this is in a freshly new made hood with only townie and NPC in it.  I deleted the 2 extra characters from the character folder manually (without the use of SimPe).

1- Did those houses really came with character files (is it even possible when the lot was shown as empty on the exchange)
2- If character files cannot come with empty exchange lots, could these 2 characters files created by the game when I edited my downtown and Univeristy lot?
3- Is it bad that I deleted them.

Did you use the installer that comes with the game (Custom Content Installer, I think its called), or Sim2Pack clean installer?  S2P should show you all of the contents of the package before you install it.  If you don't have it, you can get it here: http://sims2pack.modthesims2.com/ -- and do get it, because it's much better than the Maxis installer.

I have about 55 playable Sims. I play them in rotation and spend about a Sim week on each. It's been taking about a month real time to get through a rotation. 

See this is what initiated the thread - I have two family Sims who both have the same LTW - Marry off 6 children. I've never tried to satisfy that LTW before, but since *both* of them have it... I'm going to go for it.  But then? I don't want to play all 6 offspring / 12 Sims including their partners. What happens if I move them to the family bin and <shudder> delete them? I've never actually done that before.

BFBVFS!  Unless you are prepared to eradicate every memory of these sims, which would include the fact that they were ever born! 

Just marry them to scions of your other families and move them into their houses.

Marry all six of them to a "Black Widow(er)" Sim.

The want will be satisfied, you don't have to play twelve sims (just two once you're done), and you've made some fortune sim VERY happy.

At least until the haunting begins....... ;D

Sounds like a good time to see how many different ways a sim can die.  Satellite, cow plant, hunger, flies, etc.

And be prepared for ghosts, or move the tombstones to a cemetary.

I've never had a problem when doing that, the sims in the hood keep their memorys of them and stuff and it is like they just "moved away"

I think it is only a BFBVFS problem if you have way to many sims in your character folder and that amount has changed with NL and I believe no one knows at this point what that number is.


You can always make any unwanteds into townies  ;D 

Well, you pays your money and you takes your choice - me, I'd take the safer route.

If the house was empty, then it contains no character files.  If it had been a family, it would have been put in your occupied lot bin and you would have 2 extra sims running around.  The game frequently creates new character files, for NPC's and townies, so that's what you probably deleted.  You should never delete a character file without knowing what it is.  So in answer to your question, yes it's bad that you deleted them without knowing what they were. However depending on what character it was, you might be able to get away with it.

If it was an ordinary NPC and not the Grim Reaper or some such!

Ooh, I really like this idea. Especially since the Family Sims (forgot to mention these are a married couple) who have the LTW are heirs of the Goths, and have hundreds of thousands of simoleans lying around. I have the no20khandout hack, so each departure will drain their resources quite dramatically ;)