Combined Terrain, Part 3, Townies

I'm very picky about my game and what goes into it. I used to play on a laptop and I wanted to ensure that I didn't spend hours waiting for the game to boot up. With AV, I create custom townies and use hacks to keep the numbers low.

I plan on having six sims in each of the five social group for a total of 30 adult social townies. They would be equally spilt bewteen male and female as well as skin tones and genetic diversity. I plan on randomly generating thier names, family ties, personality, aspirations and zodiac. Thier career level would be chosen based on thier social group.

•Gearheads
--Low social class
--Careers (level 4 and below

•Bohemians
--Low or middle social class
--Careers (levels 2-5)

•Jocks
--Middle social class
--Careers (level 4-6)

•Techs
--Middle or high social class
--Careers (level 5-7)

•Socialities
-High social class
-Careers (level 7 and above)

This pool of social townies would be the main pool that my sims find thier mates once the family ties become too intermingled.

In addition to the 30 townies, I plan on having eight teen townies and eight children townies, again equally spilt and diverse, and a countessa or count.

When creating each townie I plan on giving them a bit of a backstory as well as relationships bewteen the townies (ie sibling groups, single parents, family groups, etc). I will also create six vacation townies for each vacation subhood (a total of four subhoods, one for each season which means 24 vacation sims) and six young adult townies to populate the college campus.

In all there will be 76 nonplayables for my sims to interact with and possibly find mates. In terms of the FSBS sims that frequently visit Apple Valley, they will be made into tourists. Accessable when needed, otherwise out of sight.

Combined Terrain, Part 2, Hood Decor

Once the buildings are created, I then start adding hood decor. This is what makes the hood come alive. In this view you can see the lighthouse, old pond and rocky cliffs. You can also see the farm fields and vast amounts of green space.

You can start to see Apple County come to life with it's urban center and rural area. The aerial view allows you to see to the far edges of the hood, such as Lady Starr, the waterfall and the trail along the coast. Let's have a closer look.

The Apple Dumpling Children's Park. The addition of the carasoul near the trail emphasized that this it the kid zone.

Here is the Simonian statue flanked by the visitors center and Alisa Crawston Park. The statue and courtyard are hood deco, so no up close and personal visits just yet. The information sign and entrance to the wooded area are also deco...I wish my sims could go back there.

We're now entering Apple Plains. The community garden is completed and ready for volunteers to come and plant the new seeds. Rural farm deco emphasize the small town feel.

A quick trip to Apple Valley Metro, or "The Metro" as residents call it. Some parts of the metro are not a sight for sore eyes, instead some residents wish that these areas could simply disappear. Maybe in the future they will, but right now Fiona has her hands full with other projects.

Here's a nicer area of the city, at least the recycling bins are clean and there's even a bus stop for those late night taxi cab rides for when the walk is too long. There are no cars allowed in Apple County, except for taxis, social services vans and emergency vehicles. Residents walk to their destination which allows for some creative city planning.

A view of Pierce University. The campus is pretty much self contained on one lot, but the students enjoy a view of the coast and Lady Starr.

On the other side of the island sits Li Yoo's baby. She hasn't revealed much about her plans for the bay, but residents are excited to see what she has in store.

---

How do you make your hood? Do you try to have the hood complete before moving sims in or do you allow the hood to grwo over time with your sims?

Rough Calendar 2005

Spring
Hapar- Wilsonoff
Hapar - Herendez
Hapar - Kent
Lovar - PCU
Lovar - Graduation (S'Ahmisa & Verde) & School update
Lovar - mini-update
Lovar - Hood Council Meeting

Summer
Patar-McMillan Baby Due
Patar -Shazad
Patar-mini-update
Remar-Wilsonoff & Sweeny Baby Due
Remar- McMillian
Remar- Warwick

Fall
Havar - Grey
Havar - PCU (S'Ahmisa and Verde enter PCU)
Resar - McMillian
Resar - Humphrey (Faith)

Winter
Givar - Humphrey
Givar - Yoo
Peacar - Sweeny
Peacar - Christmas Party (Wilsonoff)

ROS:
-Pick silly fight with sim of highest LT

-Host a sports party @ house

-Pick a fight with sim of lowest LT

-Go on Spring Break

-Sickness strikes community, one sim will die. YIKES

Combined Terrain, Part 1, Building

Here's a peek at the progress so far for Apple County-the combined terrain for Apple Valley, Apple Plains, Apple Valley Metro and Pierce University. I want to show you a step-by-step overview of the progress of building the new combined terrain.

Recall the plan for combined terrain, above. I always start with a plan, no matter how loose, there is a plan. I tend to build using the principles of new urbanism so taller buildings are restricted to a certain area of the hood, the hood is laid out in a pedestrain friendly manner.

To help me create the necessary lots I keep a list, taken from the Isle of Thyme tutorial linked on my main website, and check off as I create that lot (current according to snapshot in time #1):

• Bookstore/Coffeehouse/Bakery = CupaJava, done
  


• Baby/Toy Store = Toy Shoppe



• City Hall/Newspaper Office = S.Grey Administration Bldg, done



• Clothes Store/Salon/Jewelry=39th Ave, done



• Clothes, Bridal=TBD



• Farmer's Market = Grey Farms, done



• Gentlemen's Club = not sure if I will put this in the hood again.



• Gym = 39th Ave, done



• Nightclub = 39th Ave, done



• Park/Playground = I have several of these in my hood, 39th Ave/School/Jonagold Lane/TBD



• Performance Hall/Music Venue = TBD



• Pool Hall/Bowling Alley = TBD



• Pub/Restaurant = Several, 39th Ave; Apple Square;



• Art Gallery/Photo Studio = Herendez Art Gallery



• Church and Cemetary= Memorial Church



• Medical Center=39th Ave, done



• Firehouse = TBD



• Jail/Police Station = TBD



• School = done



• Hotel = 39th Ave, done



• The Brothel/House of Ill Repute = TBD



• University Campus=Pierce University Campus, done



• Beach lot = TBD

Residential Lots

• Dawson home = done



• Humphrey home=done



• Humphrey, Faith home=Metropolis Apts, done



• Grey home = done



• Wilsonoff home=Jondgold Lane, done



• Herendez home=Jonagold Lane, done



• Kent home=Jonagold Lane, done



• Warwick Home=Jonagold Lane, done



• McMillian home=Metro Townhomes



• Sweeny home=Metro Townhomes



• Yoo home=Metro Lofts, done



• Shazad home=Daniels Townhomes

Snapshot in Time #1

Behold, the work in progress, snapshot in time #1. Pierce University has been moved to be closer to the Metro (the beige buildings near the rocks) otherwise the plans have stayed the same as the original plan. A few pieces of essential hood decor have been added such as the train tracks, Lady Bella and some rocks blocking the view of the train tracks from the Metro-they intefer with the whole urban vibe.

I tend to custom build most of my lots so that I have have the crowded city like vibe needed. Most pre-built lots don't give me the same ambience when placed around in my hood, unless I use the same builder, which I don't.

For example the Apple Valley section above is actually only five lots. The school (dark brown building) is a 3x2 lot, next to a pre-built, but highly altered 2x2 shopping lot (which I'm not happy with the height towering over the rest of the buildings, so it may face the chopping block soon), in the middle is a 3x5 lot with a "street" going through it and four homes and private spa/playground/pool in my 'apartment style, but not apartments' gated community style. On the other side is a 3x2 custom lot for formal events, outdoor dining and basic shopping, next to another pre-built, but highly altered 2x2 lot which contains the admistration offices.

Snapshot in Time #2

I borrowed quite a few of the lots from the other Apple Valley neighborhood. Why reinvent the wheel when I have handcrafted some lots that I truly love, playtested and am happy with. As a result, I deleted some of the prebuilt metro lots and rearranged the Metro. The way it looks now, Pierce University has the land reserved near the rocks for future expansions while the Metro then spills over the to the rest of the upper island. The lofts are towering over other buildings in the Metro and it looks so lonely without any buildings around it, so I plan on adding some taller (4+ levels) buildings near it or simply adding some neighborhood urban building decor.

Apple Valley has expanded a bit beyond it's quadrant with the addition of some parks, sim-owned businesses, church and additional housing. I added more neighborhood decor in the form of lighthouses, waterfalls and rural decor in Apple Plains.

You might notice that there are some empty lots. They are reserved for certain functions, but until I can come up with a plan, they will sit empty.

Combined Terrain Found

Finally found a combined terrain that's larger than my current terrains, but not huge. Aptly named "The Island" it's from ClicknPyscho at MTS.

I plan on have the quadrant become Apple Valley Metro, bordered by Apple Valley, Apple Plains, Pierce University (which could be moved to border AVM instead of AV) and then I made some beach frontage areas so there can be some beaches for the hood.
I've started building some of the core buildings and progress is going slowly. After building all the buildings and adding neighborhood decor, I will do a clean sweep on the character files and start creating townies and dormies.

Combined Terrain Sooner?

One of my favorite couples has experienced the jump bug. Yikes! I created clones and moved them into the hood and successfully killed off one sim, but the other one is walking around as an elder townie. The sims in the hood still have lots of memories with the original couple and I can detect that things will start getting glitchy as evidenced by the static thought bubbles and occasional strange occurances.

As a result, I fear that I may need to move to a combined terrain sooner. Why not just deal with the affected family? I can, it would be tedious in terms of memories, but it should even out after a generation. However, since I've been playing around with combined terrains, perhaps this is the push I need. I'm not ready to pull the plug on AV and move all the residents. I still haven't found a terrain that I'm happy about, most of them are too large, even the smaller ones. I guess when you're used to using tiny terrains, everything seems large if you have to move the camera around to see any part of the terrain :P

Randomizing Zodiacs

I've been running reports in excel for my sims and noticed that the zodiacs were in no case random-more like I continuously clicked either Gemini, Aquarius or Libra for my simmies. I've decided to reassign zodiacs-mostly for children, but a few single adults as well, to make the numbers more random and inject a bit more genetic diversity. I'm curious to see if this bumps up my low ACR scores in the hood.

Thus far ACR scores have increased, however, they have not increased like I thought they would. For example, before changing zodiacs S'Ahmisa and Verde had a solid 1 bolt. I didn't alter thier zodiac, yet when I viewed thier ACR, they were a solid 3 bolts. Perhaps this is because they were set to independent teens.

I have also noticed that the scores change a bit more, perhaps this is because of the dynamic token status. Nothing major, but my couples seem to alter scores by +/- 4 points depending on the time of day :P

I'm happy to finally have a little more variety, it won't really take place until I alter personality traits as well. I think I'll alter the genetic personality traits of children and younger so that the personality can pass on via DNA.