My Sims were having difficulties finding suitable husbands/wives. I added a bunch of random male and female sims from my library, and made a couple to use as nursemaids in my toddler boarding school.
I've not checked on the new sims for most of the day and now I'm finding marriages are happening and they are making babies too. I haven't tracked them all down yet. I moved one couple into a new home as they were in a tiny place. A few minutes after the move I saw a notice that the baby is coming. I didn't even notice she was pregnant before that. Anyway the population of Dragon Valley is expanding right now. I'm wondering how far it can go before the whole thing grinds to a stop. I don't know how many Sims are in town.
I'm saving with different names so I can go back if it does crash.
My Sims were having difficulties finding suitable husbands/wives. I added a bunch of random male and female sims from my library, and made a couple to use as nursemaids in my toddler boarding school.
I've not checked on the new sims for most of the day and now I'm finding marriages are happening and they are making babies too. I haven't tracked them all down yet. I moved one couple into a new home as they were in a tiny place. A few minutes after the move I saw a notice that the baby is coming. I didn't even notice she was pregnant before that. Anyway the population of Dragon Valley is expanding right now. I'm wondering how far it can go before the whole thing grinds to a stop. I don't know how many Sims are in town.
I'm saving with different names so I can go back if it does crash.
I'm so paranoid about glitches that not only do I do the save as different names, I also move a copy of the saves to folders outside the EA folder. Like I'm thinking some massive glitch is going to come along and destroy the EA folder (LOL...more like I've accidentally deleted the EA folder before when trying to fix a glitch and lost one of my favorite .... ever ..... saves with no other copies).
I have my pregnancy timer set to going off every 4 Sim weeks using the mods. So, the game attempts a pregnancy every 4 weeks. I have the caste set so that only married and partnered Sims can get pregnant and they can only have 2 children. So....the game rushes and pairs everybody off so it can get them all pregnant and then break them up later *sighs*. There are three pregnancies right now, I am debating what to do with them. I ended the 2 before them because the Sims that were pregnant didn't even know each other! The game just randomly hooked up some Sims to make pregnancies. I don't like that. The ones pregnant now have been couples for a few weeks so I am thinking about allowing them.
I'm in Twinbrook and I like to keep my population low. There are currently around 55-60 Sims and the game plays perfectly with no lagging. I know once I start pushing 100 that the lagging starts. Thing is the game wants to explode the world to 150 or more if you don't control it.
ANYWAYS.....lol.....I understand (and empathize) with your current issue about DV and the expansion explosion. I love that world, it's one of my favorites and one of the smoothest running EA worlds. My favorite is Twinbrook but it always winds up glitching out on me and forcing a restart or a move.
The family that started this game I ported in from Sunset Valley. I have saves outside my Sims 3 folder too.
I am constantly wondering when will be a good time to port them all to another world. But this is running smooth enough so far. I do need to save regularly though or it gets a bit sluggish.
I haven't worked out what the mod is doing with them yet. I've noticed it can be difficult to get a sim interested in another one, but if the right Sim is around they pair up straight away. I have tried to give them a variety of traits and lifetime wishes and that seems to be affecting how they do it. Most of my old Sims have stuck together for the whole time I've been running the game. It is just the new ones that are pairing up now. I only put them into the game yesterday.
I've found it is pointless for me to force a pair of them to get together as they split up as soon as I leave them alone to play another household. But if they've found their partner themselves they usually seem to stick together.
EDIT: This is the apartment building I've been building. I think when I get it finished, and fully populated with Sims the game ought to totally implode. Crash totally. But I'm going to do it anyway.
It is a long way from finished. I have five families in there at the moment.
@Karritz Five families? WHOA......that's scary, lol. Good luck and I love the apartment building. I have a question for you about the school. You have a bunch of children in your world, right? I tried to play a world that had something like 40 children and the school kept glitching out. The thing that happens with University where all the Sims try to go in one door and then none of them get in. I wound up having to delete the school. Have you ran into this or is there a way to work around that bottle necking without having to delete the school?
OK.....Noelle put Bryson (toddler now) into his crib and went to sleep. I was watching the town while they all slept. Then I see that Bryson is playing in his toybox! How did he get there? I'm going to have to watch that little escape artist. They're fairies so did he fly out of his crib? He can walk but still....doesn't he need to be let out?
@LokiSimsies My newest baby just got an IF too. I'm debating what to do with it. With the other two IFs I've had, I changed them to real as soon as I could at the child stage. I hate how they pester my sims. About toddlers out of the crib: I've found the culprit is usually an adult who goes in when I'm not watching and changes a diaper or gives them a bottle, etc. and then just puts them down somewhere. If the child has a need that's getting low, sims will wake them up to take care of it.
@Karritz The first household I played was in Riverview. I didn't play with mods very much back then, nor did I understand how easily my choices could upset the balance of the town! I invited sims to move in with us temporarily so that I could match them up, get them married and then move them out on their own with babes. I also did several ghost resurrections and made two simbots who I also moved out. I resurrected a mummy too and paired him up with the butler and moved them out to their own place. I adopted a unicorn. I gave several households pets. So on and so on. I finally figured out that every time I added to the population, the game killed off another sim or moved a family away. I ended up moving that family to a new world, and I play more conservatively now. (That's the family who brought 20 of their dead friends' tombstones with them to Appaloosa Plains, by accident!) I help the townies, but I don't create new NPCs as much. Maybe the mods you have help with large populations like that though.
@Screensimmer Welcome to the forum. Sounds like Norma's a gold digger. The old guy gave her triplets? No wonder he keeled over in two days.
I've been working on my Sunset Valley vacation world with my two sims on honeymoon. I've had a couple of weird things happen. First, all the baked goods in my bakery disappeared! This is the first time I've used the venue since I only recently got it. Usually I just put an oven in my households and use it like that. So, either the town went crazy and bought all those cakes, or most likely, the game clears out the displays every night. Well, my sims can't spend their time running a community bakery, so I bulldozed that and placed down the Bistro venue.
I use Ani's mod for that. It's working great. At least the thing can run on its own. I redesigned it and put a pro bar and tea tables upstairs. Revamped the kitchen to add a wood fire oven and bakery oven, an Asian grill in the dining area, just for added touches. Maybe I'll add the cannery station too. These things would only be extra activities, not the main focus of the bistro.
The two guys I recruited as chef and waiter used to be "dancers." The waiter is so funny. He's always winking, doing hand-on-hip poses, cheering, flirting with the ladies.
The other unexpected thing was that I found a stray dog sleeping in the Base Camp. I had sent my sims home to bed and happened to see that someone else was sleeping in another room. I zoomed over and found a dog in the bunk bed! He had apparently gone through the door, up the spiral staircase to get in the bed. I've never had a stray do that before.
@lanlyn that makes sense, mom and dad both are family-oriented so I think that one of them could have gone to do something with the toddler. Then the action got cancelled (usually because dad can't stop flirting with mom and she goes all high school girl on me and drops everything while swooning and giggling madly at his flirting....sighs....lol) and the poor tot was just placed on the floor.
I don't know how I missed that though because I do tend to watch them carefully, I don't want them messing up their relationship so I make sure they don't do anything mean to each other.
I was a bit engrossed in the developing relationship between two of my townies, so I was watching them at the festival and not completely focused on my home lot. I had cued mom up to put toddler in the crib and then go to bed herself. Dad was already in bed but he could have gotten up (since I had mom active) and done something while I wasn't watching.
Ani's mod? Is that the cupcake mod at NRAAS? I use that one and don't have any problems with my bakery. I don't have one in my game right now though because the lot I built it on uses rabbit hole rugs for the grocery store/spa/book store and I didn't want to use rabbit hole rugs in this game. And....awww...you have to keep that stray! Poor thing is just looking for a home, lol. I have register mod set up in this game to not allow any strays or pets. Since I'm intending on playing this game for a few Sim years, I am taking every precaution to make sure it doesn't glitch out.
@LokiSimsies The mod I was referring to is for the Bistro. I've used it a few times and it really helps with staffing issues. I've heard of the cupcake mod, but haven't investigated it because the bakery is still pretty new for me. I would love to find a way to have the bakery run on its own. There may be a time when I want a family to own and run a bakery, but mostly, I'd just like it to be a community venue. Maybe I should check out the bakery mod, see if it could help me.
Here are a few memories for my honeymooners. (Warning: Photo blitz!)
At the community center:
At the bakery plaza before I bulldozed it:
Maxwell introduces himself to big Nick Alto, then tutors him in Social Networking.
At the hangout (converted consignment store):
Max wishes for happiness (his free will choice) and then is granted a euphoric moodlet.
He steals a lucky coin from the well and wins at the slot machine.
This is the link to the same thread in the old forum. The table of contents tells you the correct page number, and more importantly the pictures are in it. A lot of pictures didn't make it across to the new forum. http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/747068.page
These days I usually place a bakery in town and let it run itself. But if I have my Sims do it I make sure there is at least one genie in the household as they summon every type of food in the game and you can put everything in there. Including from the ice cream truck and children's recipes.
About my current game. I've got an eye on the current town as I'm thinking about the game culling them. I haven't taken a census but I'm thinking about it to be sure. I added the extra Sims as some of the Sims from my main family just were not happy with any available Sims in town. I was getting desperate and thought I'd just add random Sims from my library and see what happens.
While I'm building my apartment building I'm pretty much ignoring them. But if, when I'm finished I find the population has gone too pear shaped I'll save the build to my library and revert to an earlier save.
@lokisimsies I have noticed a bottleneck at the school. I've watched it a few times. I had about 30 children and teens going it but it will get worse with this current population explosion.
So far they register as being in school and working while they are filing in so I haven't worried about it but if it does get too bad I'll have to think of a work around. I could just age a few up. Or I might investigate if there is something I can do about it with a mod, or adding an extra rabbit hole school. I've seen people write about having more than one school in their games.
@Karritz Thank you so much for the info! I've just been reading about the Cupcake Mod at Nraas and have now downloaded it. Too bad I didn't check this out before I bulldozed the Bakery venue! Ah well, the Bistro is running fine and I'll stick with it, but I really want to put the bakery down in one or two of my other worlds. Something different for the sims. I'll read through the thread you mentioned. And thank you, @LokiSimsies for mentioning the mod too. It sounds perfect! And it's from a source I trust.
Oh! I just realized that if I have the mod installed, those bakery counters I placed in the Bistro will restock too, right? Best of both worlds!
Karritz, I agree that sometimes matchmaking can be tough. I've also added sims or done makeovers for existing sims in order to have them fit dating candidates! You must have Nraas Story Progression installed to help smooth things through. I've never committed to that; though I know people swear by it. I just rely on the basic Nraas mods to manage a few NPCs here and there. I think I scared myself from meddling too much with that first Riverview debacle of mine!
@lanlyn yes - NRAAS Story Progression is one of the mods I'm currently learning about. It certainly makes things interesting and a lot of fun.
I'm eagerly reading all of @igazor posts that I come across to try to learn more about their mods and if I read the same thing often enough it gradually starts to sink in enough for me to try something. Once I get that bit worked out I try something else.
Mostly I've left all the mod settings as they come from NRAAS though.
@Karritz - I tried the extra school and I could not for the life of me figure out how to make the children go to one school or the other. I remember once seeing an option where you could select what school the children attended but I can't ever find it again. It was when I was assigning townie children after school activities. I'd be curious if you ever do test this out and what your findings are because I plan on playing my current save for a long time and I see a potential issue with the school.
@lanlyn -the cupcake mod works great. I'm not sure how your Sim would reap the money from it unless they purchased the lot? All I know is that the bakery is always crowded and the shelves are always stocked. I place the bakery rugs under everything they can buy so they don't just go and make their own stuff and bypass paying. I think I read in that thread that Karritz linked that people also placed the savvy seller rugs under the tables and stuff to prevent the townies from just making their own things and not buying.
I forgot to comment on your screens! LOL....how do you like that gaming table? I had to take them out of my towns because my townies were so addicted to gambling that they would literally go broke. Seriously. They would gamble away every penny their household had on those tables. So, they are no longer allowed to have those tables. Stealing a lucky coin and then winning made me giggle a little, that's some good luck.
@Karritz I use NRAAS mods pretty extensively, I might be able to help if you have any questions.
@LokiSimsies Maxwell, the sim in the screenshots, is very wealthy. He's a level 10 Power Broker in the Business field and gets a raise almost every day. He's like Midas, everything he touches turns to gold! Back in Bridgeport, he is heavily invested in real estate. If he "works at home" for an hour, he makes over 2000 simoleons. His resort brings in around 3500 a day in profit. He has more ways of making money than any sim I've ever played! So in his case, I'm not worried about him making money from pies. But I guess I'll have to make sure any other sim I want to earn money running a bakery actually owns the lot. Thanks!
That's a good idea about using the rugs under tables, etc. I also heard that using the Barrier to Entry gate helps with sims getting into the fridge. Many things for me to learn about setting up a bakery, I guess. I'm still reading through @Karritz 's thread. Some nice builds shown there too.
EDIT: I haven't noticed townies going broke from gambling, but I better keep an eye out for that!
@Karritz - I tried the extra school and I could not for the life of me figure out how to make the children go to one school or the other. I remember once seeing an option where you could select what school the children attended but I can't ever find it again. It was when I was assigning townie children after school activities. I'd be curious if you ever do test this out and what your findings are because I plan on playing my current save for a long time and I see a potential issue with the school.
Sorry for barging in, but someone up there paged me!
With NRaas StoryProgression, if you have let's say two schools you can caste-restrict one so that it's No Children (this would become your High School) and the other so that it's No Teens (this would become your Elementary School). If you caste-enable them the other way round (Children Only and Teens Only), that will kill the Education career because no adults who work in the schools will be able to enter. Or you could use other combinations, such as gender-specific schools, or...I don't know, one for rich sims and one for poor or whatever else you like. http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryProgression+FAQ#Schools
You also need the NRaas GoHere mod in place for the school lot caste restrictions to be honored. If the students don't reassign themselves properly after a sim day or two, you can force that to happen by bulldozing both schools and re-placing copies of them.
If you just place two or more regular schools and don't employ any lot restrictions, sim children and teens should just enroll at whichever one is closest to where they live.
With the NRaas Careers mod and its Schools add-on module, you can have specialty schools taking place at various RabbitHole lots around town, such as the Theater, Military Complex, Restaurant, Science building. You can also arrange for home schooling. http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Careers+School+Phase+Eleven
I use a combination of all of the above for my most crowded worlds. The tipping point for a any school for me is around 25-30 students -- much beyond that and the crowds at the front door become overwhelming.
@Karritz - I tried the extra school and I could not for the life of me figure out how to make the children go to one school or the other. I remember once seeing an option where you could select what school the children attended but I can't ever find it again. It was when I was assigning townie children after school activities. I'd be curious if you ever do test this out and what your findings are because I plan on playing my current save for a long time and I see a potential issue with the school.
Sorry for barging in, but someone up there paged me!
With NRaas StoryProgression, if you have let's say two schools you can caste-restrict one so that it's No Children (this would become your High School) and the other so that it's No Teens (this would become your Elementary School). If you caste-enable them the other way round (Children Only and Teens Only), that will kill the Education career because no adults who work in the schools will be able to enter. Or you could use other combinations, such as gender-specific schools, or...I don't know, one for rich sims and one for poor or whatever else you like. http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryProgression+FAQ#Schools
You also need the NRaas GoHere mod in place for the school lot caste restrictions to be honored. If the students don't reassign themselves properly after a sim day or two, you can force that to happen by bulldozing both schools and re-placing copies of them.
If you just place two or more regular schools and don't employ any lot restrictions, sim children and teens should just enroll at whichever one is closest to where they live.
With the NRaas Careers mod and its Schools add-on module, you can have specialty schools taking place at various RabbitHole lots around town, such as the Theater, Military Complex, Restaurant, Science building. You can also arrange for home schooling. http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Careers+School+Phase+Eleven
I use a combination of all of the above for my most crowded worlds. The tipping point for a any school for me is around 25-30 students -- much beyond that and the crowds at the front door become overwhelming.
Thank you!
I'm going to have to print this out and read it through again when I'm not brain dead. I have all those mods, it's one of the few that I haven't really poked around in but will now to see what it does. I built a school that was all skill items, I wanted the town children to use it instead of the rabbit hole. Now I think I can do that with what you posted above (and using homeschooling). I like the idea of an elementary school and a high school.
I played a world that had somewhere between 30-40 students and the school flat out broke. It was a rabbit hole rug (I was playing a time specific world and had to make all the buildings) so, I thought it was the rug. Destroyed the building and put in a normal school. Same problem, the bottlenecking. Then I realized it was the same thing that happens at University and wound up just removing the schools completely and letting the children run around like little trouble makers during the day while their parents were working.
Karritz was paging you to answer some questions lanlyn had about mods, I think.
@Karritz Thank you so much for the info! I've just been reading about the Cupcake Mod at Nraas and have now downloaded it. Too bad I didn't check this out before I bulldozed the Bakery venue! Ah well, the Bistro is running fine and I'll stick with it, but I really want to put the bakery down in one or two of my other worlds. Something different for the sims. I'll read through the thread you mentioned. And thank you, @LokiSimsies for mentioning the mod too. It sounds perfect! And it's from a source I trust.
Oh! I just realized that if I have the mod installed, those bakery counters I placed in the Bistro will restock too, right? Best of both worlds!
Karritz, I agree that sometimes matchmaking can be tough. I've also added sims or done makeovers for existing sims in order to have them fit dating candidates! You must have Nraas Story Progression installed to help smooth things through. I've never committed to that; though I know people swear by it. I just rely on the basic Nraas mods to manage a few NPCs here and there. I think I scared myself from meddling too much with that first Riverview debacle of mine!
I swear by the NRAAS SP mod and all it's add-ons. They play so nicely into my control freak mentality. I don't like it when the game starts throwing random Sims together, gets them pregnant, splits them up and then the baby is tossed on the floor because the house didn't have a crib in it and the mother didn't want the child in the first place but SP decided she should have one. So, I use mods to control that by limiting who can get pregnant and how often the pregnancy timer thing can go off (forgot the actual term for it).
@Karritz - I tried the extra school and I could not for the life of me figure out how to make the children go to one school or the other. I remember once seeing an option where you could select what school the children attended but I can't ever find it again. It was when I was assigning townie children after school activities. I'd be curious if you ever do test this out and what your findings are because I plan on playing my current save for a long time and I see a potential issue with the school.
Sorry for barging in, but someone up there paged me!
With NRaas StoryProgression, if you have let's say two schools you can caste-restrict one so that it's No Children (this would become your High School) and the other so that it's No Teens (this would become your Elementary School). If you caste-enable them the other way round (Children Only and Teens Only), that will kill the Education career because no adults who work in the schools will be able to enter. Or you could use other combinations, such as gender-specific schools, or...I don't know, one for rich sims and one for poor or whatever else you like. http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryProgression+FAQ#Schools
You also need the NRaas GoHere mod in place for the school lot caste restrictions to be honored. If the students don't reassign themselves properly after a sim day or two, you can force that to happen by bulldozing both schools and re-placing copies of them.
If you just place two or more regular schools and don't employ any lot restrictions, sim children and teens should just enroll at whichever one is closest to where they live.
With the NRaas Careers mod and its Schools add-on module, you can have specialty schools taking place at various RabbitHole lots around town, such as the Theater, Military Complex, Restaurant, Science building. You can also arrange for home schooling. http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Careers+School+Phase+Eleven
I use a combination of all of the above for my most crowded worlds. The tipping point for a any school for me is around 25-30 students -- much beyond that and the crowds at the front door become overwhelming.
Thank you. So now I need some more mods. I don't have careers or school mods yet. I think I'll have to read this a few times too.
@lanlyn -Great pictures! @Karritz -I would add another school and send the kids closer to the new school to that one.You can easily add more than one of any rabbit hole except for city hall. @LokiSimsies -I've used the custom castes for each household and set permissions for pregnancies in the caste options for that household's caste.Couples break up if I tell them to break up and make babies if I tell them to start a baby. @igazor -I've decided to require kids to attend schools near their homes or be home -schooled if there is no school near their home.I've got it set to consider hone-schooling as public and all other schools are private so I can allow the poverty caste to attend only public schools.I don't want poor children and kids attending school rabbit holes at all and new arrivals shouldn't be in a rabbit hole school either.
Here's another update in Evermore Falls,Maine in the late fall of 1635.
Eli and Ami Jankowsky were up early that morning and had emptied out their household inventory to check the contents and find out what they had.
They also got themselves ready for the day and ate some of their leftover salad though it had gone bad.
They also were both studying athletic skill while Eli was playing chess and Ami was fixing his broken computer.
Ami ended up having to start playing chess on is computer after it was fixed.
They stopped to get food and have turns in the washroom though they were eating the leftover salad again.
They started cleaning up and getting ready for bed at 8PM.
You guys are confusing me a little with these schools and castes. I need to think about it when I'm not so tired. I just don't want the school to blow up again. Right now there are 10 children and 4 teens so we are still good but there are also 3 educators and that might be a problem as more townies are having children and as my actives start having children. I might age up some of those children to teen to even things out and just make a high school and an elementary school. I just don't want to give up the lot space, lol. I'm in Twinbrook and lots are at a premium there since I don't use the lots in the island (routing issues with Sims wanting to swim to the other side instead of taking the road).
@TadOlson - what is that evil looking thing in the second screen? Black, red eyes? Creepy! LOL
Ohh, Twinbrook is really challenging unless you like building over swampland. It's the only world in my rotation of its size/population that still has only one regular school for just that reason, so I shift students around to the Careers Mod specialty schools instead. Of course, you can't have 25 kids attending school at the science building or theater either since adults have to work there too or you've just shifted the problem to a different building, and not all kids are really logic/arts oriented, so at some point I'm really going to have to figure out how to shoehorn a new regular one in there someplace.
And sorry if I've actually jumped on and answered the "wrong" question back there. Was there something else left hanging or has it all been covered by now?
Ohh, Twinbrook is really challenging unless you like building over swampland. It's the only world in my rotation of its size/population that still has only one regular school for just that reason, so I shift students around to the Careers Mod specialty schools instead. Of course, you can't have 25 kids attending school at the science building or theater either since adults have to work there too or you've just shifted the problem to a different building, and not all kids are really logic/arts oriented, so at some point I'm really going to have to figure out how to shoehorn a new regular one in there someplace.
And sorry if I've actually jumped on and answered the "wrong" question back there. Was there something else left hanging or has it all been covered by now?
You know that Red Rendezvous? Nobody ever uses it in any of my games. I built a supernatural lounge and a vampire lounge and I also unlocked that hidden tomb and turned it into a dance club. I wonder if I could just put a school house rug in that and make it the high school with skill items? I think I'm going to try that this weekend when I play again and let you guys know how it works.
I love building over swamp land, lol. It's where all my vampires and werewolves live. I built them proper swamp mansions, too. I'm from Louisiana so the houses out there look like the ones you would find in the swamps. My Twinbrook doesn't look much like EA's Twinbrook, lol.
Oh that reminds me, if you aren't using the hidden tomb lot then maybe turn that into a school? It could be for the poor part of town and the children that live out in the swamp.
ETA: I think it was more of a "hey, here is this person who can really answer any questions for you and whose posts I have been reading to answer my own questions" sort of thing when she paged you. I could be wrong though, lol.
The Twinbrook City District School Board has met and argued until 2am the advantages vs. disadvantages of separating the area's poor vs. rich kids during their formative years many times. Then they take a break and argue for another hour as to whether to have coffee or tea. It's hopeless.
Ohh, Twinbrook is really challenging unless you like building over swampland. It's the only world in my rotation of its size/population that still has only one regular school for just that reason, so I shift students around to the Careers Mod specialty schools instead. Of course, you can't have 25 kids attending school at the science building or theater either since adults have to work there too or you've just shifted the problem to a different building, and not all kids are really logic/arts oriented, so at some point I'm really going to have to figure out how to shoehorn a new regular one in there someplace.
And sorry if I've actually jumped on and answered the "wrong" question back there. Was there something else left hanging or has it all been covered by now?
Than you @igazor. You've given me enough new info to keep me happy and confused for a while. I'll digest it and try to put it into practice.
@igazor Your info about the schools and the career/school addons is tempting to try. I guess the other mod that was being discussed before you were summoned was Story Progression. I worry it's too complex to use without my giving it some serious study. I just haven't taken the time to look it over yet. I overburdened one of games once trying to manipulate the NPCs too much, and I'm leery of getting that controlling again. I'm sort of a micro-manager when it comes to sims.
In case you haven't already seen it, here is an introduction to StoryProgression. If you aren't rushing to add the mod in, just consider it "light reading" for a sense of what it does. http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryProgression+FAQ
@igazor Thank you. I've bookmarked the Story Progression FAQ page and will read through it.
And I did have success with the cupcake mod. I was able to restock a couple of displays right away. Then they restocked perfectly at 5:00 am the next day. Yay!
I later rearranged the Bistro kitchen and added the canning station, so the kitchen can pretty much do it all now.
Here's a shot of the upstairs, with a pro bar and a couple of tea tables.
Another thing I like about Ani's Bistro mod is that children can order and eat too.
And with Traveler, I brought my couple back safely to Bridgeport. Although, I have to say, I really like Sunset Valley. My sims met a lot of people in the 6 days they were there. (Traveler let me pause their trip and they stayed an extra day to make sure the Cupcake mod was working ok.)
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I've not checked on the new sims for most of the day and now I'm finding marriages are happening and they are making babies too. I haven't tracked them all down yet. I moved one couple into a new home as they were in a tiny place. A few minutes after the move I saw a notice that the baby is coming. I didn't even notice she was pregnant before that. Anyway the population of Dragon Valley is expanding right now. I'm wondering how far it can go before the whole thing grinds to a stop. I don't know how many Sims are in town.
I'm saving with different names so I can go back if it does crash.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
I'm so paranoid about glitches that not only do I do the save as different names, I also move a copy of the saves to folders outside the EA folder. Like I'm thinking some massive glitch is going to come along and destroy the EA folder (LOL...more like I've accidentally deleted the EA folder before when trying to fix a glitch and lost one of my favorite .... ever ..... saves with no other copies).
I have my pregnancy timer set to going off every 4 Sim weeks using the mods. So, the game attempts a pregnancy every 4 weeks. I have the caste set so that only married and partnered Sims can get pregnant and they can only have 2 children. So....the game rushes and pairs everybody off so it can get them all pregnant and then break them up later *sighs*. There are three pregnancies right now, I am debating what to do with them. I ended the 2 before them because the Sims that were pregnant didn't even know each other! The game just randomly hooked up some Sims to make pregnancies. I don't like that. The ones pregnant now have been couples for a few weeks so I am thinking about allowing them.
I'm in Twinbrook and I like to keep my population low. There are currently around 55-60 Sims and the game plays perfectly with no lagging. I know once I start pushing 100 that the lagging starts. Thing is the game wants to explode the world to 150 or more if you don't control it.
ANYWAYS.....lol.....I understand (and empathize) with your current issue about DV and the expansion explosion. I love that world, it's one of my favorites and one of the smoothest running EA worlds. My favorite is Twinbrook but it always winds up glitching out on me and forcing a restart or a move.
I am constantly wondering when will be a good time to port them all to another world. But this is running smooth enough so far. I do need to save regularly though or it gets a bit sluggish.
I haven't worked out what the mod is doing with them yet. I've noticed it can be difficult to get a sim interested in another one, but if the right Sim is around they pair up straight away. I have tried to give them a variety of traits and lifetime wishes and that seems to be affecting how they do it. Most of my old Sims have stuck together for the whole time I've been running the game. It is just the new ones that are pairing up now. I only put them into the game yesterday.
I've found it is pointless for me to force a pair of them to get together as they split up as soon as I leave them alone to play another household. But if they've found their partner themselves they usually seem to stick together.
EDIT: This is the apartment building I've been building. I think when I get it finished, and fully populated with Sims the game ought to totally implode. Crash totally. But I'm going to do it anyway.
It is a long way from finished. I have five families in there at the moment.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
OK.....Noelle put Bryson (toddler now) into his crib and went to sleep. I was watching the town while they all slept. Then I see that Bryson is playing in his toybox! How did he get there? I'm going to have to watch that little escape artist. They're fairies so did he fly out of his crib? He can walk but still....doesn't he need to be let out?
@Karritz The first household I played was in Riverview. I didn't play with mods very much back then, nor did I understand how easily my choices could upset the balance of the town! I invited sims to move in with us temporarily so that I could match them up, get them married and then move them out on their own with babes. I also did several ghost resurrections and made two simbots who I also moved out. I resurrected a mummy too and paired him up with the butler and moved them out to their own place. I adopted a unicorn. I gave several households pets. So on and so on. I finally figured out that every time I added to the population, the game killed off another sim or moved a family away.
@Screensimmer Welcome to the forum. Sounds like Norma's a gold digger. The old guy gave her triplets? No wonder he keeled over in two days.
I've been working on my Sunset Valley vacation world with my two sims on honeymoon. I've had a couple of weird things happen. First, all the baked goods in my bakery disappeared! This is the first time I've used the venue since I only recently got it. Usually I just put an oven in my households and use it like that. So, either the town went crazy and bought all those cakes, or most likely, the game clears out the displays every night. Well, my sims can't spend their time running a community bakery, so I bulldozed that and placed down the Bistro venue.
I use Ani's mod for that. It's working great. At least the thing can run on its own. I redesigned it and put a pro bar and tea tables upstairs. Revamped the kitchen to add a wood fire oven and bakery oven, an Asian grill in the dining area, just for added touches. Maybe I'll add the cannery station too. These things would only be extra activities, not the main focus of the bistro.
The two guys I recruited as chef and waiter used to be "dancers." The waiter is so funny. He's always winking, doing hand-on-hip poses, cheering, flirting with the ladies.
The other unexpected thing was that I found a stray dog sleeping in the Base Camp. I had sent my sims home to bed and happened to see that someone else was sleeping in another room. I zoomed over and found a dog in the bunk bed! He had apparently gone through the door, up the spiral staircase to get in the bed. I've never had a stray do that before.
I don't know how I missed that though because I do tend to watch them carefully, I don't want them messing up their relationship so I make sure they don't do anything mean to each other.
I was a bit engrossed in the developing relationship between two of my townies, so I was watching them at the festival and not completely focused on my home lot. I had cued mom up to put toddler in the crib and then go to bed herself. Dad was already in bed but he could have gotten up (since I had mom active) and done something while I wasn't watching.
Ani's mod? Is that the cupcake mod at NRAAS? I use that one and don't have any problems with my bakery. I don't have one in my game right now though because the lot I built it on uses rabbit hole rugs for the grocery store/spa/book store and I didn't want to use rabbit hole rugs in this game. And....awww...you have to keep that stray! Poor thing is just looking for a home, lol. I have register mod set up in this game to not allow any strays or pets. Since I'm intending on playing this game for a few Sim years, I am taking every precaution to make sure it doesn't glitch out.
Here are a few memories for my honeymooners. (Warning: Photo blitz!)
At the community center:
At the bakery plaza before I bulldozed it:
Maxwell introduces himself to big Nick Alto, then tutors him in Social Networking.
At the hangout (converted consignment store):
Max wishes for happiness (his free will choice) and then is granted a euphoric moodlet.
He steals a lucky coin from the well and wins at the slot machine.
Kirby plays 3-D chess with Cornelia Goth.
She hypnotizes Max at the Mysterium.
At the renovated Varg's Dance Tavern:
At the Chinese Garden:
Snake charming.
Here is a link to the thread I started on the bakery. It is full of info and bakeries people have made and put onto the exchange.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/747068/bakery-old-mill-builds-please-post-your-pics-and-links/p1
This is the link to the same thread in the old forum. The table of contents tells you the correct page number, and more importantly the pictures are in it. A lot of pictures didn't make it across to the new forum.
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/747068.page
These days I usually place a bakery in town and let it run itself. But if I have my Sims do it I make sure there is at least one genie in the household as they summon every type of food in the game and you can put everything in there. Including from the ice cream truck and children's recipes.
About my current game. I've got an eye on the current town as I'm thinking about the game culling them. I haven't taken a census but I'm thinking about it to be sure. I added the extra Sims as some of the Sims from my main family just were not happy with any available Sims in town. I was getting desperate and thought I'd just add random Sims from my library and see what happens.
While I'm building my apartment building I'm pretty much ignoring them. But if, when I'm finished I find the population has gone too pear shaped I'll save the build to my library and revert to an earlier save.
@lokisimsies I have noticed a bottleneck at the school. I've watched it a few times. I had about 30 children and teens going it but it will get worse with this current population explosion.
So far they register as being in school and working while they are filing in so I haven't worried about it but if it does get too bad I'll have to think of a work around. I could just age a few up. Or I might investigate if there is something I can do about it with a mod, or adding an extra rabbit hole school. I've seen people write about having more than one school in their games.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
Oh! I just realized that if I have the mod installed, those bakery counters I placed in the Bistro will restock too, right? Best of both worlds!
Karritz, I agree that sometimes matchmaking can be tough. I've also added sims or done makeovers for existing sims in order to have them fit dating candidates!
I'm eagerly reading all of @igazor posts that I come across to try to learn more about their mods and if I read the same thing often enough it gradually starts to sink in enough for me to try something. Once I get that bit worked out I try something else.
Mostly I've left all the mod settings as they come from NRAAS though.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
@lanlyn -the cupcake mod works great. I'm not sure how your Sim would reap the money from it unless they purchased the lot? All I know is that the bakery is always crowded and the shelves are always stocked. I place the bakery rugs under everything they can buy so they don't just go and make their own stuff and bypass paying. I think I read in that thread that Karritz linked that people also placed the savvy seller rugs under the tables and stuff to prevent the townies from just making their own things and not buying.
I forgot to comment on your screens! LOL....how do you like that gaming table? I had to take them out of my towns because my townies were so addicted to gambling that they would literally go broke. Seriously. They would gamble away every penny their household had on those tables. So, they are no longer allowed to have those tables. Stealing a lucky coin and then winning made me giggle a little, that's some good luck.
@Karritz I use NRAAS mods pretty extensively, I might be able to help if you have any questions.
That's a good idea about using the rugs under tables, etc. I also heard that using the Barrier to Entry gate helps with sims getting into the fridge. Many things for me to learn about setting up a bakery, I guess. I'm still reading through @Karritz 's thread. Some nice builds shown there too.
EDIT: I haven't noticed townies going broke from gambling, but I better keep an eye out for that!
With NRaas StoryProgression, if you have let's say two schools you can caste-restrict one so that it's No Children (this would become your High School) and the other so that it's No Teens (this would become your Elementary School). If you caste-enable them the other way round (Children Only and Teens Only), that will kill the Education career because no adults who work in the schools will be able to enter. Or you could use other combinations, such as gender-specific schools, or...I don't know, one for rich sims and one for poor or whatever else you like.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryProgression+FAQ#Schools
You also need the NRaas GoHere mod in place for the school lot caste restrictions to be honored. If the students don't reassign themselves properly after a sim day or two, you can force that to happen by bulldozing both schools and re-placing copies of them.
If you just place two or more regular schools and don't employ any lot restrictions, sim children and teens should just enroll at whichever one is closest to where they live.
With the NRaas Careers mod and its Schools add-on module, you can have specialty schools taking place at various RabbitHole lots around town, such as the Theater, Military Complex, Restaurant, Science building. You can also arrange for home schooling.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Careers+School+Phase+Eleven
I use a combination of all of the above for my most crowded worlds. The tipping point for a any school for me is around 25-30 students -- much beyond that and the crowds at the front door become overwhelming.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Thank you!
I'm going to have to print this out and read it through again when I'm not brain dead. I have all those mods, it's one of the few that I haven't really poked around in but will now to see what it does. I built a school that was all skill items, I wanted the town children to use it instead of the rabbit hole. Now I think I can do that with what you posted above (and using homeschooling). I like the idea of an elementary school and a high school.
I played a world that had somewhere between 30-40 students and the school flat out broke. It was a rabbit hole rug (I was playing a time specific world and had to make all the buildings) so, I thought it was the rug. Destroyed the building and put in a normal school. Same problem, the bottlenecking. Then I realized it was the same thing that happens at University and wound up just removing the schools completely and letting the children run around like little trouble makers during the day while their parents were working.
Karritz was paging you to answer some questions lanlyn had about mods, I think.
I swear by the NRAAS SP mod and all it's add-ons. They play so nicely into my control freak mentality. I don't like it when the game starts throwing random Sims together, gets them pregnant, splits them up and then the baby is tossed on the floor because the house didn't have a crib in it and the mother didn't want the child in the first place but SP decided she should have one. So, I use mods to control that by limiting who can get pregnant and how often the pregnancy timer thing can go off (forgot the actual term for it).
Thank you. So now I need some more mods. I don't have careers or school mods yet. I think I'll have to read this a few times too.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
@Karritz -I would add another school and send the kids closer to the new school to that one.You can easily add more than one of any rabbit hole except for city hall.
@LokiSimsies -I've used the custom castes for each household and set permissions for pregnancies in the caste options for that household's caste.Couples break up if I tell them to break up and make babies if I tell them to start a baby.
@igazor -I've decided to require kids to attend schools near their homes or be home -schooled if there is no school near their home.I've got it set to consider hone-schooling as public and all other schools are private so I can allow the poverty caste to attend only public schools.I don't want poor children and kids attending school rabbit holes at all and new arrivals shouldn't be in a rabbit hole school either.
Here's another update in Evermore Falls,Maine in the late fall of 1635.
Eli and Ami Jankowsky were up early that morning and had emptied out their household inventory to check the contents and find out what they had.
They also got themselves ready for the day and ate some of their leftover salad though it had gone bad.
They also were both studying athletic skill while Eli was playing chess and Ami was fixing his broken computer.
Ami ended up having to start playing chess on is computer after it was fixed.
They stopped to get food and have turns in the washroom though they were eating the leftover salad again.
They started cleaning up and getting ready for bed at 8PM.
@TadOlson - what is that evil looking thing in the second screen? Black, red eyes? Creepy! LOL
And sorry if I've actually jumped on and answered the "wrong" question back there. Was there something else left hanging or has it all been covered by now?
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
You know that Red Rendezvous? Nobody ever uses it in any of my games. I built a supernatural lounge and a vampire lounge and I also unlocked that hidden tomb and turned it into a dance club. I wonder if I could just put a school house rug in that and make it the high school with skill items? I think I'm going to try that this weekend when I play again and let you guys know how it works.
I love building over swamp land, lol. It's where all my vampires and werewolves live. I built them proper swamp mansions, too. I'm from Louisiana so the houses out there look like the ones you would find in the swamps. My Twinbrook doesn't look much like EA's Twinbrook, lol.
Oh that reminds me, if you aren't using the hidden tomb lot then maybe turn that into a school? It could be for the poor part of town and the children that live out in the swamp.
ETA: I think it was more of a "hey, here is this person who can really answer any questions for you and whose posts I have been reading to answer my own questions" sort of thing when she paged you. I could be wrong though, lol.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Than you @igazor. You've given me enough new info to keep me happy and confused for a while. I'll digest it and try to put it into practice.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryProgression+FAQ
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
And I did have success with the cupcake mod. I was able to restock a couple of displays right away. Then they restocked perfectly at 5:00 am the next day. Yay!
I later rearranged the Bistro kitchen and added the canning station, so the kitchen can pretty much do it all now.
Here's a shot of the upstairs, with a pro bar and a couple of tea tables.
Another thing I like about Ani's Bistro mod is that children can order and eat too.
And with Traveler, I brought my couple back safely to Bridgeport. Although, I have to say, I really like Sunset Valley. My sims met a lot of people in the 6 days they were there. (Traveler let me pause their trip and they stayed an extra day to make sure the Cupcake mod was working ok.)
How would I ever play without mods? I'm spoiled!