Setting up an Uberhood

Setting up an Uberhood

Watching playthroughs and Let's Plays on YouTube got me interested in making an Uberhood.

See Pleasantview as the Base Neighbourhood in my Uberhood

Online you will find many methods of setting up an Uberhood and when researching how to do it, I found it rather awkward and longwinded. So I decided to do a quick method that is mentioned online in a few places.

In Documents, EA Games you will find the Sims 2 folder for your game. If you rename that and start the game up, the game will think 'The Sims 2' folder is missing and generate a new one.

This means you can create a new folder for each game you want to play. I have one for my Uberhood and my Veronaville Playthrough.

It is important to remember that whichever game you want to play, you leave that 'The Sims 2' folder named just that. Below you can see I am playing my Uberhood currently and my Veronaville game is left 'incorrectly' named so the game will not open it.

How to merge all the neighbourhoods

You will need this subhood selector from ModtheSims from Mootilda firstly.

https://modthesims.info/download.php?t=420924

This mod will allow you to select the subhood for the shopping districts and downtowns etc.

The way the Uberhood is built is you choose a hood as your base hood (I use Pleasantview) hen add all other desired hoods as 'Sub-hoods' i.e. shopping districts which can be found here from Meetme2theriver.

https://meetme2theriver.livejournal.com/63030.html

Meetme has re-released their clean hoods separately which can be found on their tumblr with a quick google search or use the links below:
https://meetmetotheriver.tumblr.com/post/189832896668/happy-holidays-here-it-is-finally-the

https://meetmetotheriver.tumblr.com/post/179020464788/clean-pleasantview-templates-rerelease-fixed

https://meetmetotheriver.tumblr.com/post/188220538308/clean-desiderata-valley-templates-rerelease-its

https://meetmetotheriver.tumblr.com/post/188220303568/clean-riverblossom-hills-templates-rerelease

https://meetmetotheriver.tumblr.com/post/184808823213/clean-bluewater-village-templates-rerelease

https://meetmetotheriver.tumblr.com/post/182802340653/clean-veronaville-templates-rerelease-fixed

https://meetmetotheriver.tumblr.com/post/179357146508/clean-strangetown-templates-rerelease-fixed

I then play them until they are synced up to the start of a certain season such as spring or autumn. That means some families will be played for 1 day and others for 5 days.

My Uberhood

My personal Uberhood play is Pleasantview as the base hood and all other hoods except Veronaville and Strangetown as subhoods.

Veronaville I removed because my main hood play for the past few years has been a Veronaville, please check out my 100yrs + Veronaville if you like long-term stories and lore.

If you recently read my post on the Timeline of the Sims you will see that I believe that Strangetown is happening around 36 years later than Pleasantview and all other Sims 2 hoods, and thus should not be in line with the rest for an Uberhood.

I add n all bin families to my hood, playing most of them in the expansion pack they accompanied. Such as the Ramaswamis in Riverblossom Hills, the Goodies in Belladonna Cove and so on.

Some of the families I added in places I felt they fitted. The Travellers are in Pleasantview, near the Goths. Cyd Roseland is in Bluewater Village, whilst the Critturs were adopted by the Oldies in Pleasantview. Kim and Kat families were both added to Desiderata Valley.

Have you ever tried an Uberhood? Would you try it now you can see how easy it is to set up?

Insert this into your Game and Insert the Sims into your life!

If you would like to contact me, please comment down below, or alternatively send me an email at insertthesims@gmail.com.  I would love to hear from you

Overall Timeline of the Sims

 The overall timeline of the Sims

Playing the sims 2 and finding out it was set 25 years later had me hooked as a concept and probably birthed my love of how things can change, story telling and the rest.

When Sims 3 was coming out and I learnt that it was the prequel I could not wait to play it and do the steps needed to get the game to the 'Sims 1' correct timeline.

As Sims 3 continued to generate more towns, they increasingly hinted to and felt like they were not all set in tandem with each other. In Twinbrook we see the Curious family with Notzo as a toddler, not fitting the 50 years prior to Strangetown that Sunset Valley and Riverview had set (being 50 years prior to Pleasantview). This got me thinking, in the Sims 2 we assumed all hoods were happening at the same time in tandem and Sims 3 broke that idea with it's later packs and many varying points on the timeline.

Lets delve into why a Cassandra Goth and Vidcund Curious shipping cannot work unless she is a real cougar!

Initial Timeline

Let us start at the most basic of timelines the Pleasantview-Sunset Valley Timeline. The original Sims represents year zero with Pleasantview and Sunset Valley 25 years out respectively.

- 25 Years Sunset Valley

Year 0 Neighbourhood 1 / Old Town

+ 25 Years Pleasantview

It is safe to assume that all Sims 2 hoods took place at the same time as Pleasantview, lets see the towns that Sims 3 introduced and see how this no longer fits the trend.

Initially as a download came Riverview, having many ties to Sunset Valley and being a sister world to it, placing it in exactly the same timeline position as Sunset Valley with the Broke and Newbie family. I know Don Lothario appears here, but his story here clearly implies he was thrown through a time machine of some sorts and arrive here at this time in Riverview.

The first town to alter this trio of timelines is Twinbrook, showing the Curious family. If we imagine the Curious family with the brother's and Jenny, 25 years prior to Strangetown i.e Year 0 they would be children and Jenny a teen. In fact Early Strangetown found on Mod the Sims shows this really well. Their father Glarn would be an older adult at this point. Looking back 25 more years to line up with Sunset Valley, Glarn would be a late Teen or Young Adult. Instead Twinbrook introduces his father Notzo as a Toddler.

For Glarn to be a Teen or Adult and Notzo to be a Toddler is a different of around 50 years, this would mean Twinbrook is 100 years before Strangetown.

Twinbrook/Bridgeport Timeline

- 100 Years Twinbrook and Bridgeport

- 25 Years Sunset Valley and Riverview

Year 0 Neighbourhood 1 / Old Town

+ 25 Years Pleasantview (All other Sims 2 Neighbourhoods?)

Next came Bridgeport in Late Night. In this town the Big Bling Household mention they came from Twinbrook, implying it as a small town. Also in Twinbrook a City can be seen in the distance implying Twinbrook, to me I feel this is evidence they are both contemporary with each other.

Between Twinbrook and Bridgeport came Barnacle Bay, the town set after Pleasantview. The Caliente's are back still as Adults, so much time has not passed. But the GilsCarbo family implies Celeste (a young child) is the daughter of Goopy from Pleasantview, confirming a few years have passed.

Hidden Springs came after Bridgeport and introduced us to Bert Alto, clearly Nick Alto (from Sunset Valley)'s younger brother, confirming they are at the same point in time.

Pets came with Appaloosa Plains and this one is difficult to align right now due to having no connections to any families, yet! We will see it return.

Taking us to Lunar Lakes - Clearly the future at some point - Case closed!

Then with Showtime came Starlight Shores taking us to 9 worlds (and the half way point of the Sims 3). This town has the Worthington family with a teen called Girbits, which is not his real name, that is hidden from the player. Girbits is 5 days away from Adulthood, enjoys computers and could easily make a decent amount of money from it, the game already implies he is hacking for money from people. Francis J Worthington from Strangetown's university of La Fiesta Tech is called 'The Third' and the implication is his family were wealthy. Girbits and Francis have a similar look and I see Girbits as his Grandfather, Girbit's real name being Francis (the first!) This matches perfectly to being 50 years before Strangetown. Providing us the midway timeline below.

Midway Timeline

- 100 Years Twinbrook and Bridgeport

- 25 Years Sunset Valley, Riverview, Hidden Springs, and Starlight Shores

Year 0 Neighbourhood 1 / Old Town

+ 25 Years Pleasantview (All other Sims 2 Neighbourhoods?)

+ 30 Years  Barnacle Bay

"The Future" Lunar Lakes

The next two worlds are Lucky Palms and Sunlit Tides, which both introduced infamous Pleasantview families slightly earlier than in the timeline than Pleasantview's 25 years after Sims 1.

With Daniel and Mary-Sue newly weds in Sunlit Tides and Darren Dreamer chasing after Darlene sets these between 12 - 15 years before Pleasantview, giving time for them to have 'teenage' children in Pleasantview, creating the Semi-Prequel timeline.

Semi-Prequel Timeline

- 100 Years Twinbrook and Bridgeport

- 25 Years Sunset Valley, Riverview, Hidden Springs, and Starlight Shores

Year 0 Neighbourhood 1 / Old Town

+ 11 Years Lucky Palms and Sunlit Tides

+ 25 Years Pleasantview (All other Sims 2 Neighbourhoods?)

+ 30 Years  Barnacle Bay

"The Future" Lunar Lakes

With Sunlit Tides comes Griffin Alto, who states he was due to return to join the family business. This idea is a little more personal choice, but I feel like the Alto's of Sunset Valley leave for Riverview and Holly Alto and Dallas Shallow marry. Griffin here looks a lot like the children that can be born to Holly and Dallas so I feel he is their son. This also fits the Timeline with Sunlit Tides being 36 years after Sunset Valley and Riverview, so Holly and Dallas could be his parents.

Moonlight Falls comes with the Goth family, Samuel which is Victor's brother and Frida, the missing sister of Gunther both of whom are dead. They seem to have been dead for a few years at least and with no other connections it makes sense to have Moonlight falls in the same timeline position as Sunset Valley.

Monte Vista comes next and this is solidly in line with the Sims 1 games. Goopy GilsCarbo appears as a toddler and the Monty family from Veronaville also appear at 25 years earlier than they were.

'Calm before the storm' Timeline

- 100 Years Twinbrook and Bridgeport

- 25 Years Sunset Valley, Riverview, Hidden Springs, Starlight Shores, and Moonlight Falls

Year 0 Neighbourhood 1 / Old Town and Monte Vista

+ 11 Years Lucky Palms and Sunlit Tides

+ 25 Years Pleasantview and Veronaville (All other Sims 2 Neighbourhoods?)

+ 30 Years  Barnacle Bay

"The Future" Lunar Lakes

The next world to arrive was Aurora Skies, the timeline breaker!

Firstly the Beakers appear here around 25 years younger, with Loki a child and Erin a toddler, so right now it would be placed next to Monte Vista at Year 0, because we are assuming Strangetown and Pleasantview are happening at the same time.

Enter the Mango Cousins - Which ruin it all...

Magnus Mango is in the military and it mentions he is a cousin with Maru Mango who appeared in Sunlit Tides. The game strongly implies that Maru's and Magnus' storyline are happening at the same time, contemporary with each other.

But wait, that would mean Aurora Skies and Sunlit Tides would be at the same point in the timeline. This results in the below outcome.

'Broken' Timeline

- 64 Years Twinbrook and Bridgeport

- 25 Years Sunset Valley, Riverview, Hidden Springs, and Moonlight Falls

- 14 Years Starlight Shores

Year 0 Neighbourhood 1 / Old Town and Monte Vista

+ 11 Years Lucky Palms, Sunlit Tides, and Aurora Skies

+ 25 Years Pleasantview and Veronaville 

+ 30 Years  Barnacle Bay

+36 Years Strangetown

"The Future" Lunar Lakes

So Strangetown is now happening 11 Years later than Pleasantview?

Lets finish off the timeline with the town's from Sims 3 and see if they change the timeline back or confirm this new theory.

Dragon Valley is next which features John and Jennifer Burb (still a Pleasant) as they are about to wed. This could fit anywhere between the +11 and +25 years positions on the timeline, but makes sense roughly in between them as John and Jennifer need to marry and have Lucy before Pleasantview.

Midnight Hollow brings in the murderous Olive Spector and her toddler Nervous, but with no other links to anywhere but Strangetown this could work with Strangetown in its new proper place in the timeline or the more traditional place being in line with Pleasantview.

Roaring Heights the final world introduced has the Capps practically in the same age positions as the Montys we saw earlier so this one is simply in line with Monte Vista.

Oasis Landing was the Future world from the final expansion pack, though not an official world it is clearly set far far into the future.

Isla Paradiso came with the Island Paradise and contains a few families linked to other worlds.

Firstly is an Alto family return. Alonso the Adult looks somewhat like Nick and Vita and could be a son born to them after the start of Sunset Valley, implying this is set after that. 

The Mangos return with Matthew Mango, with similar traits to the other Mango men. Not implied to be any particular relative, he could be another cousin or child or parent, so he doesn't help us to pin point the position in the timeline.

Edward Dregg occurs here as a Ghost and his bio implies this is set before the Sims 2 Bon Voyage hood of Twikki Island. If we are assuming those hoods are in line with Pleasantview, then Isla Paradiso is set before Pleasantview.

Lastly we have Akoni Kahale. He states in his bio he is a cousin to the Kahale family from Sunlit Tides. As with before, if the sim is stating they have family in another world, those worlds must surely be happening at the same point in the timeline.

If Isla Paradiso and Sunlit Tides are happening at the same time, then Alonso being the son of Nick and Vita Alto would be around 36 years old, and having a teenage daughter this would fit the timeline. Below we can see the complete timeline, where all other Sims 2 hood have no evidence they do not happen in line with Pleasantview, but Strangetown cannot. Because the 25 years needed between Loki and Erin beaker to go from Aurora Skies to Strangetown is not the same amount of time needed for the Pleasants to go from newly weds on holiday to having teenage daughters. Remember we saw Daniel Pleasant 25 years before Pleasantview, he was in Old Town with his parent's and therefore Sunlit tides is less than 20 years before Pleasantview (allowing time for him to go from child to adult).

This brings me back to Appaloosa Plains which is somewhat of an outlier. The only connection is with the Parrott family. There are some Parrotts that are described as cousins in Sunlit Tides and Isla Paradiso again reaffirming their connection of happening together. What is interesting is that the Parrott twins from Appaloosa Plains actually look a lot like Gregory Parrott from Isla Paradiso. Perhaps they are his sons? In Sunlit Tides are the Parrott Sisters and then a random NPC firefighter named Carissa Parrott, but with no family relations. I theorise that she and Gregory Parrott were married and that the Parrotts of Appaloosa plains are their children, Kale and Kanoa Parrott of Appaloosa Plains. Them being adults would imply around 40 years later than Sunlit Tides setting at +11 Years

Complete Timeline

- 64 Years Twinbrook and Bridgeport

- 25 Years Sunset Valley, Riverview, Hidden Springs, and Moonlight Falls

- 14 Years Starlight Shores

Year 0 Neighbourhood 1 / Old Town, Monte Vista, and Roaring Heights

+ 11 Years Lucky Palms, Sunlit Tides, Aurora Skies, Isla Paradiso

+ 16 Years Midnight Hollow and Dragon Valley

+ 25 Years Pleasantview and Veronaville (Including Desiderata Valley, Belladonna Cove, Riverblosson Hills, and Vacation Hoods)

+ 30 Years  Barnacle Bay

+36 Years Strangetown

+ 51 Years Appaloosa Plains

"The Future" Lunar Lakes

"Far Far Future" Oasis Landing

How do you feel the timeline in the sims exists? Have I convinced you that Strangetown and Pleasantview are not in line with each other?

Insert this into your Game and Insert the Sims into your life!

If you would like to contact me, please comment down below, or alternatively send me an email at insertthesims@gmail.com.  I would love to hear from you

Does Sims 2 understand what a Rich and Poor Sim is?

Rich and Poor Sims - Does the game know the difference?

Do you find that the 'Marry a Rich Sim' memory can be a little hit or miss with no apparent quantitative link?

Morty Roth is very rich, or so he tells Rose Greenman he is!

In my gameplay I often use a social class system and economic system to know who is rich and who is poor by the games standard.

Whilst taking a break from my Veronaville playthrough I decided to try making my own Uberhood. I have been watching a lot of Lauraaloosims and Brianna Peppers playthroughs of their Uberhoods which inspired me to try my own out. Please check out their playthroughs on Youtube if you are interested in the idea of a Uberhood.

'How much money do you have?'

Making my Uberhood I decided to introduce a class system and decided to use the best option I had at my disposal - 'Ask' ... 'How much money do you have?'...

I decided marry a rich sim is too unreliable to be able to track everyone and would not tell me about the family until I worked up to a marriage which is too late to think "This breaks my class system"

Using this interaction generates a speech bubble over the sims head with a number of Dollar signs: $ or $$ or $$$. I thought great lower, middle, and upper classes.

Here Cleo Shikibu tells Sanjay Ramaswami that she is lowerclass i.e. not very rich 

Playing as the Jacquet's I begin seeing who was Rich and Poor based on this system of dollar signs.

Of course the Goth's and the Baldwins came up with $$$

But both Brandi Broke and Florence Delarosa had $. Brandi lives in her trailer with $25 to her name. Florence had a net value of $90,813 and of that a household fund (HHF) of $3,827. Brandi does not have that! 

Chester Gieke matched them with $ whilst having a net worth of $19,800 and HHF of $3,500.

Round 2 of searching for how the '$' Sim 'Richness' scale works:

- Geoff Rutherford Net $183,195 HHF $63,552 - $$$ (as expected...)

- Checo Ramirez Net $85,671 HHF $6,883 - $$ Wait What?!

Florence Delarosa is worth $90K and Checo is worth $85K yet she is lower class and him middle class?

It dawned upon me that the 'How much money do you have' means actual cash and cannot actually determine a rich sim.

For example:
- Pleasant Family were $ (the same as the Brokes) despite being the token 'Middle Class' family in Pleasantview

- The Patels and Vivian Cho from belladonna Cove were both $$$ and therefore upperclass despite not giving off those vibes in their housing or monetary situation.

To confirm how the $ system worked I checked a few families out:

- Gabe O'Mackey with $4,445 was $

- Cyd Roseland with $5,122 was $$ (Confirming the first threshold is $5,000)

- Ramir Patel at $24,763 and Kim Cordial with $25,816 both at $$$ confirmed, the 'Rich' threshold was low in the game.

- Jessica Picaso at $10,784 and Vivian Cho at $16,101 confirmed the threshold for upper class was set at $15,000

Lower class (not rich) '$' is any household fund up to $5,000

Middle class (moderately rich) '$$' is any household fund from $5,000 - $15,000

Upper class (very rich) '$$$' is any household fund $15,000 and above.

So it would seem that the game does not know to to track Sims based on wealth, only based on their HHF value.

Marry a Rich Sim

If you search for the numbers around this it seems to be mixed. Marry a sim with $100K net work, Marry a sim with $50K net worth and anywhere around those ideas.

I considered whether the value is perhaps 10x the mains sims but I feel this need more research before I post this into a blog (excuse my inner scientist coming out here...)

The important thing about the marry a rich sim memory is who initiates the marriage. Take a Rich man and Poor girl. If the poor girl marries the Rich man on her lot and he moves in, she won't get the memory. If the rich man marries the poor girl on his lot she will get the memory usually. But household fund quantity seems to change this hence why more research is needed.

In conclusion... for now!

The game does not make accurate use of Rich and Poor sims based on how much money they have, taking into account no net worth or property value. A bank rich sims with no property t their name is considered rich by the game. But a land rich sim with all their money invested into business and property and no cash in the bank is considered poor.

What do you think of this? I am intrigued to see how my fellow simmers use economics and rich vs poor sims in their game, have you ever restricted marriage based on wealth like it would have been for much of our history?

Insert this into your Game and Insert the Sims into your life!

If you would like to contact me, please comment down below, or alternatively send me an email at insertthesims@gmail.com.  I would love to hear from you

Veronaville 100 years later

 Veronaville 100 years +

Welcome to Veronaville 100 years +. A hood I have been working on in my normal gameplay for many years. This is the Veronaville you knew of old, but the Romeo and Juliette stories of old are a mere distant memory. See how the descendants of those well known faces live their lives whilst you insert yourself into their stories.

"A century has passed since the tales of Romeo and Juliette, but the passion of romance hasn't altered. With the council making all major decisions for the town, do these residents push the boundaries further than any generation before them?"

Base Game Neighbourhood Number 3, was focused on romance and storytelling of young love with a Shakespearean theme.

I began with a genetically correct Veronaville (I find it irritating that sims look nothing alike to their ancestors with premades) by LordCrumps, and played the game rotationally following a wants based gameplay. I like to create some form of governing idea, inheritance, class system within my hood usually and I feel the 'Veronaville Feud' has basically done that for me.

Hood Theme

Capps Vs Montys is the major theme in the background of this hood as is the Capp rule of Matrilineal inheritance vs the Monty rule of Patrilineal inheritance.

Following the memories of many of the Capp and Monty members you realise quite quickly that the inheritance that is used is not based on eldest child. For example, Juliette is not canonically the eldest granddaughter and neither was her mother the eldest daughter of Contessa (the last Capp Monarch/Leader). So I decided that both families must have some form of elective house system, and I considered that Juliette is the favourite female in the family and Romeo the favourite male in the family. Looking at Patrizio, who is still alive, Romeo is his highest relationship male within the family. 

Et Voila!

Both the Capps and Montys will pass the 'Head of Family' title based on the favourite sim (highest joint LTR and STR relationship), correctly gendered, sim in the family.

Let us see this in practice with a modified Capp family tree taken from the Sims Wiki found here:
https://www.thesimswiki.com/wiki/Capp_family

Being matrilineal means that at the beginning of the game Hal, Kent and Tybalt are unable to become family head after Juliette. Should Juliette have daughters they could inherit the title of family head, but her sons could not. In the last instance, the title may then move to Hermia, or her daughters, or Miranda or Ariel. The possibilities are endless (sort of)!

Each family in this future Veronaville hood has a storyline, bios and are set up (as best I can) for some fun. Below you will find my ideas for each family and where you could take them. Inspired by the old scripted events in the hoods, I have added some questions and ideas in quotations that could be imaginary pop-ups to get you playing in game.

Families

University Sims - Académie Le Tour

I would start by finishing the university round off so those sims can be available to add into the stories of the main town of Veronaville. Ceres is a Junior studying Political Sciences, Lavinia and Mutius are both Sophomores with Lavinia studying Biology and Mutius; Art.

Their bio implies there is a secret here, it is not that Ceres is pregnant, but she has had a fling with Mutius her fiancé's younger brother previously. 

"Ceres has had a secret fling with her fiance's brother, Will she do it again now he has left college?"

Summerdream Family

Reading either their bio or the Frost Family's bio you will see a major wedding is taking place imminently.

As you load the game and click play, the wedding will happen and Florizel should be taking Peaseblossom's name.

Afterwards you will notice Peaseblossom's father John is fighting with Dion Frost, the zombie, and the family often runs to see what is happening after the wedding. I use a Mod where zombies can "eat" other sims and this is the intention here for John to be killed by Dion. Peaseblossom has the ability to use inflammo, to start a fire (one of the few ways of killing a zombie in the game).

The killing zombie mod can be found here on Mod the Sims by Meduza.
https://modthesims.info/d/619376/deadly-zombies-without-zombie-apocalypse-now-with-klyntar-mod-support.html

To play this out as I intended, I would make Dion selectable using the simblender or other methods. Make sure her hunger is low, otherwise it will just be a normal fight!

Should she not kill John by eating him, you may need to select it a few times after the ceremony (and I even had to lower his body skill in one test run just fyi).

Peaseblossom can use inflammo on the ground near Dion, I recommend doing this when she is out in the garden because otherwise you could burn the house down.

"More mysteries exist in this family. What secret has Florizel brought with him to hide for his mother? "

"Does Peaseblossom have a secret of her own brewing inside her?"

"Why no electronics in this house, and what is hidden behind that wall upstairs?"

"How does Helena look so young for someone who could soon be a grandmother?"

Frost Family

Reading their bio talks about the wedding, and it is better to play that wedding scene out at the Summerdream house first. If you did, you will be left with only 3 sims here.

"Dionyza is desperate to try her genie lamp, head up to her room and make some wishes. Does she want granny Dion back as a zombie again? Will she right the wrong and bring John Summerdream back?"

Capps Family (Main Branch - Cressida's Family)

"Brutus is looking for a promotion, will he make it to work in time?"

"Cressida is a growing in fame pop star, and with that notoriety come adoring fans showering her with love, should she give them some loving back?"

Here you will need to send him to work, and as you do one of Cressida's lovers (Leonato Monty) rocks up *cough* invited over *cough*

After a few flirts they should have fallen in love and with ACR they will often woohoo if left alone.

Capps Family (Mirandian Branch - Paris' Family)

"Will Paris ever find love again? Will Dardanius find his calling in life?"

A lot of freedom with this family for you to experiment.

Lee Family

With whispers around town of a young woman pregnant. Is Ceres going to return from college with more than her degree in her arms? How would Lucius react to this news?

"Will Ceres and Lucius go through with the wedding?"

"Is Alice past it, or can she still be the life of the party?"

Alice wants to throw parties and never really has, Lucius is desperate to marry Ceres, and if you have completed her at College you could.

Phillipine Family

"Ophelia is tired of having to clean up around the house. Time to hire a maid?"

This is also useful because Gobbo wants to 'Befriend service sims'

"Audrey is early in her pregnancy, she is the secretly pregnant young woman in town, and she wants to marry Mutius, in what order will she do them both? Marriage before baby?"

This isn't the only pregnant sim in town, find out who else is!

Monty Family (Borachian Branch - Borachio's Family)

Come and meet the town Werewolf. Is he as scary as people say?

With the kittens ready for new homes, Borachio could make a small profit is he finds the right place for them.

Claudius Capp has the want for a kitten locked so would make a great customer, plus other family sims in town will likely roll the want for a kitten too.

Monty Family (Ferdinandian Branch - Eleanor's Family)

If you play these after the main Capps, Leonato will be in love with Cressida and may roll some family wants such as marriage and baby.

Looking at Eleanor's and Rousillon's wants will imply they care for Bertram (despite them not knowing him) this is due to Rousillon being his birth mother - Spoiler!

"Why does Rousllin care so much for Bertram Monty-Flexor? Will she form a relationship with him? Why not invite him over?"

"Virgilla wants to meet aliens, can you make it happen?" 

There is already a telescope in the garden ready for it.

Capp Family (Arielian Branch - Cassandra's Family)

"Violenta is getting friendly with some of the Monty boys in town. Will her mother allow her that freedom to be friends with who she wants?"

"Casca and Agamemnon both want more success, will they find it?"

"With age catching up to them both, is it now time for Cobweb and Casca to move to the retirement home?"

Violenta could get with her cousin Claudius if you removed their family tag, but she may also fall for Bertram Monty-Flexor or Bartholomew Monty when she ages up which could cause feud number 2!

Retirement Home

"This home currently has some space for a few more sims and the Carer at the Retirement Home is always happy to care for more elderly sims. Any sims in town that would make a perfect pair of residents?"

I would move Cassandra and Cobweb in here, into the double door spare room available

Flexor Family

"Thomas is desperate to get his old job back, but can he make better money with his little toys upstairs?"

"Is now the right time for Lucentio to get a job, he is used to living off of Thomas' money."

Lucentio often rolls a job want here but can make decent money if he paints. Thomas can make decent money too with his toymaking, plus he has quite a stash of toys in his inventory already.

Monty Family (Baptistan Branch - Baptista's Family)

"Baptista has been missing out on his hobby recently, will he get out and enjoy a jog before work?"

When Dorothy gets home from work, she can pay off the rest of her loan that she owes using Moniques Hacked Computer Loan system ($700)

"Dorothy finally has enough money to make the final loan payment for the house, head to the computer and pay it off."

Can Bartholomew and Cleon keep the lovers they have? Do they even want to?

Capp Family (Cinnan Branch - Cinna's Family)

"Menelaus realises he spends too much time at work and wants some alone time with his beautiful wife."

"Octavia wants to sneak out tonight with Dardanius, she better make sure she is on her best behaviour and attends school."

"Cinna's latest lover isn't too pleased with her, can she use her powers of persuasion to change his mind before he reveals her secret to the world."

Octavia should be fine at school as long as she attends. Cinna does not work and so could invite any of her lovers around but one lover in particular Hyun Ngai has a bad relationship with her and she could invite him round to change this.

Menelaus and Cinna are both about to wake up and could fulfil Menelaus' want to flirt with Cinna

Monty Family (Main Branch - Alonso's Family)

"Hortensia is hoping to make it big as a DJ, perhaps there is a small community lot she could buy and make a go at her dreams?"

The Rave Warehouse on Pentameter Parkway costs around $14,000 so she would need a further $15,000 loan on top of the $15,000 she already took to make a go at this business.

"Coriolanus wants a first kiss, maybe he should invite his crush Virgilla around after school?"

Want to play this yourself?

I am sharing the town itself on my google drive alongside my aspiration calculator for those of you who want to play it. Please make sure to copy and/ or download it before editing. I have run hoodchecker on this a couple of times, but make sure you check it and download at your own risk, you never know what corruption has crept it's way in over the years.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KU27R6JjXPpTXc1MgQGH9jkivScoG4U1/view?usp=drive_link

Do you play hoods for the long haul and over many generations? Do you ever give yourself an end point?

Which hood is your favourite? I would love to hear how you play with hoods in your game

Insert this into your Game and Insert the Sims into your life!

Meet Claudius Capp, he just loves his new kitty.

If you would like to contact me, please comment down below, or alternatively send me an email at insertthesims@gmail.com.  I would love to hear from you

Thanks to EddySims for their icons for Sims 2 which I have used to make the main picture of the hood. See these on their Tumblr here:
https://eddysims.tumblr.com/post/185733520054

Thanks to LordCrumps for the original Hood. A genetically correct hood of Veronaville which can be found on Mod The Sims. See it here:

https://modthesims.info/d/652632/genetically-correct-and-fixed-veronaville-for-uc.html

 Sims 2 Aspiration Calculator

The default game in it's originality uses zodiac signs to generate aspirations for townies, whilst premades seem chosen at random by the creators to suit storylines of the towns in my opinion, and as a child like many simmers my choice of aspiration was solely selfish.

Returning to the Sims 2 as an adult had made me need a more quantitative way of generating this.

A quick google search will show you multiple aspiration calculators for the Sims 2 having been lovingly produced by my fellow simmers. Whilst all are uniquely brilliant in their own right, often they feel too complex for my gameplay style, producing subcategories and other complexities I don't want for aspirations. Or alternatively, they have heavy emphasis on a sim's interests, which I find often fill in entertainment and sports far too quickly in my games.

Evaluating this idea, I generated my own aspiration calculator.

Just like Helena Summerdream, I was experimenting away with my calculator.

In my calculator I have (in my eyes) combined all the pros of most other calculators, developing this organically years ago (early in my Sims 2 return) and can now see upon research how much of an amalgamation of other calculators my own one is, hence me sharing it with the world.

My calculator works on a points system. In short the aspiration with the highest points score is that sims true aspiration.

My calculator uses varying subsections to generate their "true aspiration".

Zodiac

Zodiacs are a more recent addition into my calculator, I felt abandoning the Maxis intended method (sort of) for choosing all sims aspirations was wrong of me to do, so I decided to include it to some extent. Each sim gets 10 points added to their zodiac.

Credit goes to Pleasant Sims for her use of zodiac to select aspirations which inspired me to use them in the way they align to each aspiration within my calculator and in my gameplay, she additionally gave me a lot of inspiration via her secondary aspiration calculator to produce my own for aspirations overall.

Interests

Interests should have an above average amount of weighing on aspirations in my eyes and so they do here, but they shouldn't be the sole aspiration giver. A sim can have up to 10 points of interest per interest and thus they are inputted as below.

As you will see later on in the blog, the interests I have linked to aspiration based on how I feel they should link, this was a key aspect of my original calculator and formed the foundation for it. Fortunes care about money, Family for schools and Romance sims are buzzing about fashion and (sexual or otherwise) health.

I have tweaked some interests over time. All of my sims are often highest in Entertainment and Sport (Never below 5 in both), also I find many sims high in Culture and Animals often. 

SPOILERS for the end result but these 4 being high meant I was getting lots of pleasure sims and once I tweaked that my town was over a third popularity sims, so all 4 of these interests now only provide half points so I can get some variety and remove those two (most boring!) aspirations from my gameplay and for my newer generations.

Skills

What amazes me to think is that in some forms of gameplay throughout the Sims 2 community there could be a sim (picture it!) who is Grouchy, mid-level Shy/Outgoing with high skills in Logic and Mechanical and a high interest in both Sci-fi and Environment and that that sim would placed as a Pleasure sim simply because they are a Taurus, this sim is clearly a knowledge sim in all iterations of a knowledge sim!!

Therefore skills in my calculator are important and skills match up to certain aspirations.

1. Knowledge Sims link to Logic and Mechanical (the "smart skills" in my eyes)
2. Family Sims link to Cooking and Cleaning (Sounds cliché but I think of the perfect househusband)
3. Popularity Sims and Fortune Sims both link to Charisma (Good Salesmen and Extrovert energy)
4. Romance Sims also have Charisma with the addition of Body (Flirts like to flirt and only like you for your body is my thinking for the sims here)
5. Pleasure (lastly and least-ly) link to Creativity (Playing and fun items often give creativity and that suits the pleasure sims in my eyes)

You can see this sim has worked on Charisma, Logic and Creativity. A common combination I find due to the 3 toddler skills/toys.

Personality

Personality I felt should be reflected in what they want to 'aspire to' in life. A lazy and grouchy sim would not make sense as a Fortune or Popularity Sim, and so I matched these so each aspiration had 3 personality aspects linked to it.
E.g., Knowledge Sims are Serious, Grouchy, and Neat, whilst Pleasure Sims are Playful, Lazy, and Shy.

I add 5 points to each of the 10 personality aspects if they meet the threshold. 7 points and more will get points for the upper aspect (Neat, Outgoing etc.), whilst 4 and below points get points towards the lower aspect (Sloppy, Shy etc.)

In this example you can see this Sim has 7+ points in Sloppy/Neat and Shy/Outgoing. 4 or below in the Grouchy/Nice, and either 5 or 6 points (my middle range) in Lazy/Active and Serious/Playful and thus got no points in those categories.

Here is a second example:

Meet Bertram Monty-Flexor who recently grew into a teen, gaining the Popularity Aspiration.

Let us take a closer look at his personality:

With 4 points in Sloppy, 9 in Active, 7 in Playful, and 1 in Grouchy. Bertram gained 5 points in each of those personality aspects.

His Shy/Outgoing bar being at 6 points fell in the 'No Points' category for my calculator.

Meet Lucentio, one of Bertram's fathers:

With his personality, he received points in Sloppy, Active, and Nice.

Hobbies

If you read a previous post I did, you will know I have quite a sophisticated hobby system. Once I had that sorted in my gameplay, I added it to my aspiration calculator. I felt they were important because imagine a Cancer sim who had a sports hobby. Sports to me is a popularity things both in game and real life and therefore that sim should not automatically be family due to their zodiac, sims are more than the month they were born in (is my premise with this entire calculator basically...).

My original addition of hobbies had Pleasure Sims in it too, taking the aspiration count to 6. If each hobby was given 3 allocations (30 allocations in total) then each of the 6 aspirations could have 5 allocation, making the 30 in total.

So each aspiration got 5 allocations spread out between the hobbies. Romance Sims would be focussed on woohoo and their body would need to be 'good' so fitness gained two allocations for romance, they enjoy hooking up at night clubs and so music and dance would be one, they would enjoy romance films and novels (or for the 18+ amongst you, enjoy some more adult watching and reading). Last allocation was games, romancers enjoy 'playing games' and not the board or computer variety haha! 

In my eyes a romancer, flirter or 'local bike' would not want to cook every night, they would not enjoy science and being handy at home, they would have no interest in art, sport or nature.

Once I removed Pleasure from this (hoping to get less pleasure sims) it meant each of the now remaining 5 aspirations went to 6 allocations from the previous 5. A lot of aspirations gained a second allocation to a hobby they were already linked to and so Romance sims got a second allocation to games to make it up to 6 allocation across the hobbies.

Each allocation score 5 points to specific aspirations. So if a sim has a Music and Dance Hobby, they would get 5 points in Popularity, 5 in Family and 5 in Romance. The allocations add up if there are multiple aspirations per hobby, such as Sports only linking to popularity and thus 3 allocations and thus 15 points added to popularity.

I appreciate that some of these may feel very opinionated and stereotypically subjective, that is because they are, I had to go with the limitations of the gameplay and a need to meet the equal number allocations between aspirations and hobbies.

Extras (Friends, Family Funds, Aspiration Level)

Most calculators would leave it there because most of the quantitative features of a sims characteristics are included. However I felt some other aspects of their life would imply their aspirations and thus included Number of friends for Popularity, Household Funds relating to Fortune Sims and lastly Aspiration bar linked to Pleasure. Note this last one has been the feature I changed the most. Initially all 3 added 5 points maximum but with my inundation of pleasure sims, I scrapped most points for the aspiration bar to reduce their numbers down.

Adding these 3 extras to only 3 aspirations could have knocked all the equality out of the system, but Popularity, Pleasure and Fortune each only had 1 skill associated with them in my calculator so this actually evened it out.

Overall Results

Here you can see is a final tally of my calculator based on what has been discussed above. As you can see this sim is clearly a knowledge sim being well above all of the other aspiration options. Currently my calculator doesn't auto calculate the hobby points and so I add them on after, and so would be added onto this example calculation below. One because it is difficult to implement due to the allocation system within excel spreadsheets where this lives, but secondly because I want to see what impact the rest of the data generates first before adding in those points.

It may seem a done deal that this specific sim is a Knowledge Aspiration, but imagine they had a sports hobby and thus would take the Popularity points up by 15, to 43 points.

This nicely takes me to some of my rules I implement.

1. I start the aspiration calculator on a child's last day of childhood, often when they are at school and the game can run 'safely' on speed 2 or 3 without my support.
2. If they generate a second aspiration within 5 points (Sometimes 10 if I feel it adds to the story) of their first, I often put this as their secondary aspiration (Like the example above I described 44 points in Knowledge and 43 points in Popularity would be a Primary Knowledge Sim with a Secondary Popularity).
3. If they generate Pleasure I always pick their next one as the primary, giving them a secondary pleasure aspiration. 
4. If they generate Pleasure as the second aspiration, I sort of wing this. Sometimes I will give it them but often I leave it off unless it feels like they are a Pleasure sim.

How do you choose aspirations for your sims? Are you as meticulous as I am with your gameplay or are you more easy going?

Insert this into your Game and Insert the Sims into your life!

Meet Peaseblossom Summerdream a Primary Romance and Secondary Knowledge Sim. Will her marriage to the Popularity Sim Florizel Frost last for the decades ahead?

If you would like to contact me, please comment down below, or alternatively send me an email at insertthesims@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you.

If you want to use my aspiration calculator you can find it on Dropbox linked here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/4mh88qgjmj72g1z91lq4g/AIwkw7UI3ASmcxjreF-3Pe0?rlkey=zrmxkhucf3to8lm5pcoagn667&st=7xq0mtej&dl=0

Sims 2 Hobby System

Hobbies 

The Sims 2 Free Time introduced the Hobby system back in 2008 (Gosh I feel old!).

This system revolutionised the Sims 2  by providing the Sims even more depth of character than before (The Sims 4 could never...). As a kid I never used this feature, but as an adult it is my favourite feature.

10 Hobbies were introduced:

• Cuisine 

• Film and Literature 
  
  
• Tinkering 
  
  
• Sports 
• Music and Dance 

• Fitness
  
• Arts and Crafts

• Science 

• Games 
  
  
• Nature
  
  

With each hobby is associated personalities and interests which define each sim's "Predestined Hobby". Each hobby category comes with hobby specific objects or hobby associated objects that build that hobby's enthusiasm.

I built my Hobby System with a lot of inspiration from Pleasant Sims system for hobbies and so is linked here with my thanks for her inspiration.
https://pleasantsims.com/hobby-system-sims-2/

Hobby Subcategories

Each hobby in game, when you view the 'Hobby Enthusiasm' panel from 'Simology' has pre-determined symbols that (to me) imply the types of subcategory for that hobby.

Take the sim below. Meet Paris Capp (perhaps she will show up again if I ever tell her story?)
The panel shows her pre-destined hobby is Science but she doesn't have much enthusiasm in it. Instead she clearly tends to cook, play chess, paint and use the exercise bike (hence why the associated hobbies are filled up with more enthusiasm).

Her science hobby has 5 symbols which I now call subcategories. Consider your own hobby or hobbies, just because you enjoy listening to pop music does not mean playing the drums is just as enjoyable for you and thus it isn't to my sims.

In science you can see the sub-categories (or their symbols at least) are: Conical Flask, Telescope, Microscope, Atomic Structure, and Planet in the Night's Sky.

All 10 hobbies have 5 symbols associated to them in the hobby enthusiasm panel and this became the basis to my own subcategories system - Resulting in 50 possible hobbies for my sims. 

Some of the symbols lend themselves to be more obvious such as  clearly implying a piano playing hobby, but other symbols needed more (shall we say) creative ideology from me to make the hobby fit and sometimes separate it from another subcategory which has a clearer symbol in it.

Take these two symbols  &  from the Science hobby we saw earlier. Both imply stargazing; which one makes more sense to represent stargazing and what other subcategory could be represented by the other? Find out below!

I also wanted to try to get as many activities that are listed for each hobby into these 5 subcategories, so some symbols and activities matching are not ideal but we scrape the barrel when we must and all that.

I always seem to get Sport and Fitness sims, in fact my current main game of Veronaville 100 years later, has every household almost with a sport or fitness sim. Sport is so boring to play as well. Click sim, 'Play', Toss football ...Eugh... Maybe my dislike of sport as a human has bred a dislike of it within the sims? Hah!

Here is how I use my own hobby system in game within my own excel docs.

It may be small to see but you can see the symbols for the hobby per sim. So this household has Paris Capp who's hobby is "Theorist" subcategory of Science, and so the focus is reading books such as sci-fi, reading science magazines, newspaper sections, blogging science and watching science TV channels (I have some custom TV channels to expand the TV selection in my game).

Whilst her son Dardanius has the "Shoes Exercise" subcategory of Fitness and so he does a lot of jump rope and will do yoga when he unlocks it.

I personally choose one Subcategory of Hobby per Sim and try to make that a focus whilst sometimes doing other subcategories, however you could do this anyway you wanted!

I'd love to hear from you if you're reading, how do hobbies work for you? Could my system work for your gameplay? Do you also hate the Sports hobby?

Insert this into your Game and Insert the Sims into your life!

If you would like to contact me, please comment down below, or alternatively send me an email at insertthesims@gmail.com.  I would love to hear from you

All symbol images and some information was taken from Sims Wiki found here https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Hobby