Hi there!

I've mentioned before in previous threads that I use Strangetown and only Strangetown when it comes to playing my own sims. I never play as playables in their own stories, so I guess it works for me. However, I've now realised that I really do want to have a custom hood without playables. I'd like to have lots that I've made and a town filled with families of my own. I know I can do this just by adding or changing lots in Strangetown, but I've also realised that one of the only reasons I like Strangetown is because it's a flat (mostly) and desert neighbourhood. So, I've decided to make my own neighbourhood, as everyone has probably done at one point.

I've tried making my own neighbourhood before, but I've had a few issues. Firstly, the neighbourhood I used was based off a moon crater, which posed issues as most lots were on a slant and had to be flattened (which made even more issues when I packaged them and wanted to use them in another hood). Secondly, I made houses way too spaced out when I wanted them to be crowded. I also furnished them when I didn't need to. I had absolutely no idea how to tackle putting lots in between grid-like, closed-in roads (look below at Q.2*) and I had no idea how to approach neighbourhood decorations. Also, my neighbourhood camera was acting up and didn't allow me to reach all areas of the neighbourhood.

So, I know there are so many talented neighbourhood builders and developers on MTS and I have a few questions as to how you built your neighbourhoods and what you recommend, if that's okay. I highly appreciate the feedback and I'm looking forward to the responses!

1) Do you prefer a flat or mountainous/hill-filled/not-flat neighbourhood terrain? Why?
2)* How do you approach and fill parts of the neighbourhood like this? How do you fit in lots in these spaces and what kind of lots? (eg. shops, parks, houses)

(This is Voleste's Silent Hill Terrain :lovestruc )
3) Are your lots crowded or spaced-out?
- If your lots are crowded, how do you plan out crowded neighbourhoods?
4) What do you classify your neighbourhood as? (eg. urban/city, suburbian, urban-suburbian mix, rural, etc)
5) How do you decorate your neighbourhood? Does this occur before or after all lots have been placed?
- If you have water in your neighbourhood, do you decorate around the water or use water decorations (eg. boats)? If yes, how?
6) Where are community lots placed in your hood? Do they have their own sections or are they among residential lots?
7) What system do you use to name streets and houses?
8) Is there any advice you would like to give people building/developing their own hoods?

Thank you so much in advance! This will be a real help to me and I appreciate the time taken for anyone to contribute to these questions/answers!

I like a lot of detail and variation in terrain for visual interest, but buildable areas should all be perfectly flat for practical reasons. A change in road elevation ("wrinkly road") can block portals, and lots that don't have flat edges create issues with neighbors. I like to place lots snugged up next to each other, and I like to package or save lots to the bin - especially if I'm building to share, when I may need to revert to a backup at any time, and would prefer not to have to rebuild any more than necessary. When building to share it's wise to back up at least every work session; but it's simpler to back up lots than to stop to back up the entire hood after each building if you're building more than one in a session. If a lot does not have flat edges, you may not be able to place it again. This is also important if you are, for example, building a subdivision with tract houses and want to have a row of houses all alike in general floorplan and varied in detail. The simplest way to do that is to build the basic floorplan, and place copies of it all up and down the street.

Note that most of the shipped terrain maps that look flat, aren't really. Understanding how to use the ModifyNeighborhoodTerrain cheat is important for neighborhood builders.

In an urban or suburban setting, like the ones you've circled, it helps the visual appeal of the neighborhood a great deal not to have gaps between the buildings, except for spaces that can be interpreted as alleys or utility easements. In a rural one, it makes more sense for houses to be set down with a lot of space, decorated up to look like cropland, woodlots, rangeland (we need hood deco livestock, by the way), wind farms, and other types of agricultural, industrial, and public uses that support the families living in the houses. A farmhouse with a barn ought to be decorated to have open fields, haybales, windbreaks, stock ponds, and so on around it which the family can be assumed to own.

When deciding how to fill a space, the first thing to do is to define the space - to assign different uses to different parts of the map. Is this all city, or does it show the agricultural areas supporting it? What's the history of the city - why is it here, how long has it been here, how has the economy changed over time? Which places are currently industrial and were they always? In most cities, areas change their uses over time, manor houses decaying and turning into tenements, tenements torn down to make way for office buildings (and where do the poor go then?), seats of government turning into ritual historical spaces while the practical business of running the place move elsewhere. Have outlying villages been absorbed into the urban sprawl? Where's the Good Part of Town, the Bad Part of Town, the Business District, the Industrial District? What are public facilities like?

Once you've blocked out these areas (some of which will overlap) and know roughly how development happened, you'll have a pretty good idea of what each area needs and where they belong. The urban poor, the urban rich, and the urban middle class will each have their own entertainment and shopping venues. Public facilities will be different in layout, upkeep, and even purpose in different neighborhoods - you're unlikely to find hot tubs in the Municipal Swimming Pool serving the industrial workforce, or a soup kitchen next door to elite shopping boutiques. A restaurant in the central business district is far more likely to be a lunch counter intended for the use of office workers on their lunch hours than a luxurious date venue with a bar and dance floor - though you might find one of those next to the City Auditorium, which has a stage for live performances.

What you want will depend a lot on what you like to do with your sims. If building to share, you'll need to provide for a variety of playstyles; when building for yourself, there's no reason to ever build a music venue if you never have your sims go out to play music for tips. Date venues like restaurants and bars, clothes and grocery shopping, parks for kids and for getting out of the office to breathe, wedding venues, public monuments, swimming pools, gyms, bars, dance halls, gaming clubs, dens of iniquity, youth centers, senior centers, cultural resources like museums and libraries, buildings suitable for the sims to run owned businesses if you enjoy that sort of thing - every big city will have at least one of those, and many of them will repeat certain venues in different parts of the city. A small town will have more limited facilities and may well use the same building for more than one purpose. One building can be a museum, a meeting hall, a theater, and a senior or youth center, and also be available for weddings.

What kind of community lots you build and where exactly they go will be interdependent on the kind of residential lots you use. If one district has chiefly apartments and another chiefly single-family residences, obviously, the apartment district will need certain kinds of community lots more urgently, and placed in a different way, than the single-family district. But even two apartment or two single-family residential districts may be very different. A former single-family district can even have all its houses repurposed for multi-family use. I like to provide residences that can feasibly be subdivided in that way. There's a technique of "stacking" community and residential lots that will even let you build businesses on the ground floor and residences above, highly suitable for Main Street in a small town. I've never done it, but it'd be cool.

Planning this sort of thing has two parts to it - the mental mapping of general areas, and the laying down and naming of lots. Placing a few key lots to set the tone for the area is very helpful, even before you build - you can see how many of what size lots you can fit together on a block, and envision uses accordingly. Then you'll begin to see the different districts with the physical as well as the mental eye, and places where this or that use are clearly called for will leap out at you. This block will contain four or five large residential lots, so this road leading into that area is where the commercial lots serving those wealthy residents will spring up and - oh, yes, that's where the park goes. And over in this other block we've got a cluster of working class houses, so we'll need to have a buffer of some kind so the rich people aren't troubled by a view of the hoi polloi. It's all a matter of laying down the broad strokes first and then filling in the details.

I tend to put neighborhood decorations after I've built the majority of the houses. When building to share it makes sense to save the most finicky work for last, so you never have to redo it. When building for myself, I'm not doing a lot of building ahead of time (my needs will change unpredictably during play, so why tie myself down too soon?), so I build what I need, plop down some neighborhood deco where I think it will look good for the lots I have so far, and start playing.

Water, now - I love water on a map. I define it - ocean, lake, bay, river, creek? - and lay down the deco suitable to that. When I decorated Land Grant University, which is on bluffs at the fork of a river, I placed deco in reference to its access to live water, with far more trees clustered along the bluffs than anywhere else, birds flying over the waterways, a boat or two, and hang gliders off the bluffs. The waters of Bigg City are full of waves and have lots of gulls. And my husband needs the machine, so that's where we'll leave this for now.

For tiny spaces left over after placing houses or shops I have a variety of tiny lots in custom sizes like 1 by 2. I have a bus stop, newspaper stand, parks, a tree lined 'walkway' a tiny diner, a statue, a fountain and a dump.

Right now I'm developing my own entirely custom neighborhood complete with custom made maps that I've slaved on in SC4 to make it so that they match up correctly so this is both an interesting thread to read and partake in.

1) Do you prefer a flat or mountainous/hill-filled/not-flat neighbourhood terrain? Why? I like lots of space for my neighborhood to grow, therefore, a flat area is best. In real life, you can have really nice hilly terrain with houses and businesses lining it, but not so much in TS2 or SC4.

2)* How do you approach and fill parts of the neighbourhood like this? How do you fit in lots in these spaces and what kind of lots? (eg. shops, parks, houses) Often times those central areas tend to have parks or businesses.

3) Are your lots crowded or spaced-out? This depends on the area. Some areas of the maps I've made are meant to be more urban, whilst others are meant to be suburban.

- If your lots are crowded, how do you plan out crowded neighbourhoods? I'm not sure what you mean by crowded, however, I've been looking at various mods so I can have ultra small lots, and adjust things. I did see some fantastic rowhouses that are individual lots rather than apartments and a tutorial to make them using Mootilda's LotAdjuster.

4) What do you classify your neighbourhood as? (eg. urban/city, suburbian, urban-suburbian mix, rural, etc) Urban/City-Suburban and maybe a few rural spots on the edges of the map.

5) How do you decorate your neighbourhood? Does this occur before or after all lots have been placed? Some of it gets done before lots are placed. Some of it is done after. I've been trying to hide a glitch area on one part of the city where the water comes right up to the road but not all of the decorative rocks can be placed in water... And the game seems to think that in that spot there is more road then there actually is.

- If you have water in your neighbourhood, do you decorate around the water or use water decorations (eg. boats)? If yes, how? In the city I'm working on right now, there will be decorations, including boats as there will be access.

6) Where are community lots placed in your hood? Do they have their own sections or are they among residential lots? Just as in real life, there will be small shops here and there in certain areas and some areas that are mostly meant for shopping.

7) What system do you use to name streets and houses? That is something I'm still working on, however I've only added one Lot to the entire "City" and it is only the campus quad so naming isn't much of an issue. I'm thinking that only residential lots are going to follow an address system which will be similar to real life, but less complicated and mostly in the sub 100's

8) Is there any advice you would like to give people building/developing their own hoods? If you're custom building your map in SC4, don't give up, and definitely keep checking to see if certain bits work (for example, if you have Bon Voyage, check to make sure you can place Beach Lots on your coastal areas.)

For me, the answers to most of your questions is "It depends." Not very helpful, I know. Also, more often than not, I build/decorate as I go and don't always feel like planning things from the get-go, so often I'll just pick a terrain and build or pull some lots out of my lot catalog (which is huge, since I'm a builder-person ) and then just start playing. I'm not above moving already-built lots around if I decide that I want to be more organized and change the layout of everything later.

But in any case, my general neighborhood-building process if I'm being organized about it, which I think will also mostly answer the OP's questions that they put forth:

1) Figure out what the neighborhood is going to be (i.e. urban, contemporary suburb, a military base, a convent, rural/agricultural, a college campus, a hippie commune, a remote tropical island for people to be marooned on, a mountainous resort town, etc. etc. etc.)

2) Find/use a terrain that would be suitable for whatever kind of neighborhood I decide to build. (i.e. an urban downtown benefits from having more roads close together, to facilitate smaller, closer-built lots surrounded by roads while a rural setting does better with fewer roads and lots of space between them so that you have room for bigger lots and lots of rural neighborhood deco.) I do have SimCity4, but so far I've never attempted to make my own terrain. (Someday....) Generally, I prefer smaller terrains, since I tend to add subhoods to add more space, if needed, rather than deal with a big terrain with lots of lots.

3) Turn on the modifyneighborhoodterrain cheat and expand/flatten the buildable areas if needed (especially beach areas)...or build mountainous areas, if needed. Whatever I want. I do like buildable areas to be flat because it's more flexible that way (You can raise terrain on them if you want to build on/in a hill, for instance, but flattening a lot that isn't flat to begin with often looks weird.), but I like more variable terrain in the non-buildable areas so that I can build mountain ranges and stuff, if appropriate. Like the attached screen shot.

4) Do a little "city planning." Decide where the community lots will be and where the residential ones will be. Usually, I'll cluster all the community lots in a more or less central location and surround it with residential areas. In general, I don't do neighborhoods that have a "downtown" area and a "rural" area and a "residential" area all on one map; I prefer separate subhoods for that. But that's just a "me" thing. If I DID have such sections on one map, I'd plan where those are going to go, too.

5) Set down some temporary "placeholder" lots in the various areas, to "mark" the spaces, as it were.

6) Place neighborhood deco around the placeholder lots as well as in the non-buildable areas (Like, I'll sometimes stick a neighborhood-deco airport in the non-buildable area and use neighborhood-deco road piceces to lead to it), suitable for whatever type of neighborhood it is. Occasionally go into one of the placeholder lots to see how things look from lot view.

7) Remove the placeholder lots and start placing or building the "real" lots, if I'm going to pre-build the whole thing. Otherwise, build/place lots for my founders only.

8) Fill in any little empty spots with either neighborhood deco (trees, cultivated fields, barns, statues, windmills, billboards; whatever is appropriate for the type of neighborhood that it is) or with a "decorative" lot, which is a lot that's technically visitable/playable but that really only exists to be neighborhood decoration. Often these involve water, say to continue a stream/pond that might be on an actually-playable lot. I'll also do decorative plazas. For those purposes, it's nice to have those already-sized-down lots that are available here on MTS. They come in non-standard sizes like 1x1, 2x1, 5x1, etc. That way you can place little lots where you need them then go in and build/decorate them as needed.

For street names: I used to name them and when I did they'd have a simple theme, like tree names or bird names or flower names or something. Or, if it was urban, I'd number them in a logical way, with the north/south roads being odd-numbered and the east/west ones being even numbered or something like that. Nowadays, though....Meh. Usually, I just name the lots something descriptive like "The Smith Residence" rather than give them an address. (Or, when I have more than one Smith residence, I'll name it with the heads of the household's initials like "J. and R. Smith Residence.") When the neighborhood is big and I start to forget who lives where, this is more helpful to me than standard addresses. I'll change the name if one household moves out and another moves in.

I think no two players will give the same answers!

1) Do you prefer a flat or mountainous/hill-filled/not-flat neighbourhood terrain? Why?

As long as the areas where the lots are to be built are flat, mountains and oceans are pretty. However, personally I like to be able to use as much of the map as possible.

2)* How do you approach and fill parts of the neighbourhood like this? How do you fit in lots in these spaces and what kind of lots? (eg. shops, parks, houses)

I will have a farming area, a town area, a shop area, a park and other leisure things area, and when I use really big hoods, also a retirement area. Then there will be a poor, middle class and eventually rich area. My current hood is a military area, and should expand over time to include all of these, plus probably some more - I actually prefer a big hood to skipping from main to shopping a to shopping b myself.

3) Are your lots crowded or spaced-out?

A bit of both. The poor has small houses and live right next to each other. The military houses are right next to each other. The farming area and the middle class and rich areas are more spaced out.

- If your lots are crowded, how do you plan out crowded neighbourhoods?

By placing small lots next to each other, empty ones, where those areas are supposed to be.

4) What do you classify your neighbourhood as? (eg. urban/city, suburbian, urban-suburbian mix, rural, etc)

In 1984 I moved to a large, rural town and lived there for 10 years before moving to this small town. The large rural town is a big city now. So I always start out rural.
My current military hood is based in a vast area with a tiny population (because, as the military grows, the others will come).

5) How do you decorate your neighbourhood? Does this occur before or after all lots have been placed?
I don't really. I will add a bridge if there seems that there should be one, like in Silent Hill above. Mostly, as areas develop, I will add some decor along with the development, eg. where there are parks and sports grounds, I may put down extra hood decor trees. I am far more concerned with playing than with decorating the hood.

- If you have water in your neighbourhood, do you decorate around the water or use water decorations (eg. boats)? If yes, how?
I have done it in the past, but it is not really important to me. I will think of developing the area close to the water source first - it seems to make sense somehow, but not always.

6) Where are community lots placed in your hood? Do they have their own sections or are they among residential lots?

Sections - municipal buildings will be close to each other (including parks, sport grounds, libraries, public swimming pools and welfare offices); shops will have their own area, and clubs and pubs will not be close enough to residences because they stay open all night and will keep the Sims awake.

7) What system do you use to name streets and houses?

I like street names for houses. The military recruits in Kipling live in Marching Road.
Big farming estates and community lots get their own names. Families who eventually become rich will get their surnames recognized and live in a street named after them.

8) Is there any advice you would like to give people building/developing their own hoods?
Do you own thing and enjoy it. Planning is not everything when it comes to making your own hood, fun is. There is no reason why a hood should be planned out in detail, one can make a family, start playing, and add families, houses and community lots while playing - and it is actually surprising how quickly such a hood grows. For instance there are still no grocers in my military hood - in my mind the army simply flies in the food by helicopter - but there are a number of bars, because bars are far more important to my soldiers than grocers

1) Do you prefer a flat or mountainous/hill-filled/not-flat neighbourhood terrain? Why?
I prefer hill-filled, non-100%-flat neighborhood maps. It really adds to the realism, which is often the key element I'm going for.

2) How do you approach and fill parts of the neighbourhood like this? How do you fit in lots in these spaces and what kind of lots? (eg. shops, parks, houses)
I usually play very big hoods, with its subhoods being (over)crowded as well. But yes, I often do find myself making those small "districts" as pictured in first post; those areas would have a bit more community lots planted in the center, with the amount of community lots gradually decreasing and being replaced with residential lots as the distance from the center of that area increases. The further we get, the residential lots get more sparse as well.

3) Are your lots crowded or spaced-out? If your lots are crowded, how do you plan out crowded neighbourhoods?
My lots are almost always crowded. There are a few exceptions here and there, with for example an abandoned research base hidden somewhere, or a remote hideout or a random creepy shack where serial killer lives, that are just randomly placed in the neighborhood and are not bound to a specific area. The way I plan those areas is that I first place a community lot around which I build some residencies. Then, later on, the area gets a park. Then a mall. Bla bla. Then I start doing the same to another area. I kind of always seem to follow that concept from a tutorial in SimCity 4 on how to build a city.

4) What do you classify your neighbourhood as? (eg. urban/city, suburbian, urban-suburbian mix, rural, etc)
My current neighborhood is an island with a not-so-advanced civilization. But other than such neighborhoods, I really like playing urban areas, big cities.

5) How do you decorate your neighbourhood? Does this occur before or after all lots have been placed?
It randomy occurs as the lots are being built. Sometimes, I'll just get fed up with building, so I'll resort to placing trees in a jungle, airport in a city, etc. Or, I'll just notice a random blank spot while viewing the neighborhood from lot view, and I'll say to myself, something needs to be here. Then I'll either build a lot over it or add a bunch of trees.

- If you have water in your neighbourhood, do you decorate around the water or use water decorations (eg. boats)? If yes, how?
I like adding the beach waves near beach lots, or an area I'd regard as a beach, but that has no beach lots there. I also tend to put many palm trees near the water's edge. I don't usually put anything else in/over/on water.

6) Where are community lots placed in your hood? Do they have their own sections or are they among residential lots?
In big cities, they'll be in a special zone rather than being mixed with residential lots. But, if I were building on a map that's pictured in the first post, I'd most definitely build residential lots that surround community lots.

7) What system do you use to name streets and houses?
On Felicity Island, community lots are named mostly after a monument on them or after a function they offer, such as "Village Market," or "The Temple of Tuzu." Some lots also have specific names, such as "Hullaba Luau" and "Swaying Palms Luau." Residential lots are just named [random word] hut - as in, "Village Hut," "Salty Hut," "Green Hut," etc. The reason to this is because that neighborhood has no roads.

In my urban areas, long roads that have lots of smaller roads attached to them are avenues, if those lead to nowhere then they're roads; and streets are those short little tracks that are either, well, very short or a dead end.

In urban areas, community lots are either named after a "cool" name I thought for the place, or after its address. "Riverblossom Park," "Double Strikethrough Coffee House," "Avenue Mall," "Mirabello St & Landgraab Av," "11 Ng Rd" etc. Residencies and apartment complexes are always labeled by their address. Another reason I like building more dense areas is because the house number goes beyond just number 10, so addresses make more sense.

I also like laying out a public transport plan, either a subway or a bus system etc. This is just imaginary and in my own head, but with this, I do sometimes set restrictions on which lots a Sim is allowed to visit, or how much I fast-forward time when travelling, etc.

8) Is there any advice you would like to give people building/developing their own hoods?
First off, think: do you want to create a hood and tell a story that's just three generations long or a story that will virtually never stop? Do you plan on evolving your hood in terms of architecture style? That way, find the appropriate amount of CC. For example, if I were to play a regular, small town that will eventually grow into a futuristic metropolis, I'll first build a few dozen buildings (whilst playing) in maxis-match style, and later on, I'll grab the futuristic CC as I go. If, for example, I'm planning on making a tropical island themed hood, with a civilization completely different from 2004 era (maxis-match), I'll definitely add all the CC in at once, and use only that CC while building.

Next, before moving families in, unless your story follows a different pattern, definitely create a batch of townies. I find it eerily creepy to play a hood with only, like, 12 playables, and visiting community lots with absolutely no one showing up other than those Sims. If you're too lazy to create those townies yourself, try moving out the anti-redundancy mods for a bit.

If you are the type of person who just plans, plans, plans, maybe you could resort to building rather than telling the story. To each their own, but I did find it very boring once I pre-planned everything in Sim mode before I started actually playing Sims (as opposed to planning out the layout of the hood, which is often a good thing).

From this point on, I can just say that you should be patient. Only Rome has been built in a day; Simopolis, Pleasantview and other towns just need time before they evolve into a big eye-candy (that is also very complex in depth). So just enjoy playing. And if you feel that common feeling you get when you're turning on a vacuum cleaner, you know, the "ugh, this again," stop playing for a bit. Choose a different hood, step away from live mode and try build mode or vice versa, or just try creating random Sims in CAS which you don't even have to create. Just goof around with different styles. You shouldn't start feeling that playing a hood is just another chore of yours, because then the game will lose its charm, and that is to make you dive into a completely different realm for a few minutes/hours a day.

As others have already noted, there are no right or wrong answers to these questions, so I presume you're just fishing for inspiration. Which is a very sensible thing to do if you need inspiration

1) I prefer flat or mostly flat, but with some high ground. There is hood template called Viper Valley or Viper Canyon or somesuch, and that's one of my favourites, because the valley floor is flat but there are all these cliffs around it to fill in the background for outdoor snapshots.

2) I just tend to build lots as and when I need them. For Saffronia, the backstory was that the valley had been rendered desolate by a volcanic eruption and was slowly being restored, so I started in one corner and drifted out from there. For the subhood of Adricburg, this is meant to be an impoverished residential area adjacent to Rassillon (ie Downtown), so I put in more houses than I needed, and all close together. Some of the 'housing' is actually deco.

Since I'm not overly bothered with how my hood looks, I tend to have a lot of unplugged gaps. Sometimes I'll fill them with deco, or I might build a small community lot that's not intended to be visited. Marshwood Frog Sanctuary, for instance, is just ponds and trees. There's nothing for sims to do there, so they don't visit. It just fills a gap between two houses.

3) Saffronia is widely spaced out, and a lot of it still unoccupied (ie just bare ground). The centre of the valley consists of large houses, dating from the time when my sims started earning serious money and could afford to flaunt their wealth. More recent builds have tended to be much smaller and closer together, so there are clusters of smaller housing with widely scattered mansions between them. Many of these mansions are now empty as I've moved the families out to smaller and more manageable houses.

Riversong Pond (another subhood) is very widely spaced. It was originally meant to be an out-of-town site for community lots, though there is now some residential.

4) Although Saffronia is my main hood, it is only part of the Confederacy of Zentralia ("somewhere near Switzerland"). I guess it would be suburban or urban fringe. Riversong Pond is more rural. Rassillon and Adricburg are urban. But as I said above, I'm not too bothered with hood appearance. I just plonk down what I need when I need it or feel like it, so hood appearance develops of its own accord. Thankfully I don't have to worry about planning permission.

5) I tend to fit hood deco around the lots, especially those large areas behind lots where you can't put anything usable. Where roads are tightly clustered (as in the examples you highlighted in your snapshot) I would use little or no deco.

I prefer not to have any water in my hoods at all because in lot view it shows up as flashing red/black. Can't seem to be able to fix that. I think my computer's lowly graphics specs are to blame. (I can have ponds and swimming pools, but water as part of the terrain is a problem.)

6) I just put community lots where there's a space for them. It's the subhood that matters more rather than the specific location within the subhood. Canopy Walk, for example, is a picnic site but built on stilts at treetop level - that goes in Riversong Pond, which is a suitably rustic locale. Marchenklutz Kleinvolk GmbH, on the other hand, is an abandoned factory that's been turned into a local hang-out (probably illegally), so that goes in Adricburg. There are some specific types of community lots, mainly teen hang-outs and singles bars for adults, which I put in most or all subhoods, simply because it's quicker to visit them from within that subhood.

Most of my community lots are rarely if ever visited, especially clothes shops since I found and downloaded a home shopping computer. They're there if I need them, but most of the time they're little more than deco.

7) I just make up street names as I go along and don't care how silly they are. In Saffronia, there is Crocus Street and Stamen Street, referencing the saffron that used to be farmed in the valley before that pesky volcano blew up. There is also Brock Lane and Calvert Close, honouring two members of Hawkwind. The main road through the valley is simply called Valley Road. A short cul-de-sac was lined with identical little houses and got called Skatolo Close. Skatolo is Esperanto for 'box'. Little boxes made of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same...

Since Adricburg is a squalid little hole it has Grottstrasse and Giftsackgasse, which as I recall was meant to mean Septic Tank Close or something like that. But Tosha Go seems happy enough living there.

8) The only two things I would advise are:
a) Don't worry too much about it. A hood is ultimately something you need to play the game. It's a means to an end, not an end in itself, unless you want to make it an end in itself. Concentrate on what you need in order to play, and don't worry about getting everything perfectly placed beforehand. You can always change things later. Lots will come and go, and in the process become part of the hood's history.
b) Ignore all advice, including mine, unless it sounds useful to you.

With my Custom hood I plan it very carefully I knew in my head months before I started what I wanted, being that it is an Asian hood first I did some "research" to see if it was possible to find items, Clothes etc.

1. Landscape that is "important" one' need to think about the size you want depending on how many lots or community lots you want, and what kind of landscape for me it was lush green.
2. Do some research if needed for me it was "real" Asian street names and Businesses and fun places ( depending on what Asian ethnics I would be using ) which in my case I use then all Korean Japanese, Chinese.
Many years ago I went with a group of friends to China the location was "Shanghai" at the time it was being developed into a very modern and upcoming city and still is today, my neighborhood was base off the Suburbs part of that city.

3. Next building for me this was a challenge, because I did not have BV in my game so learning how to build home lots and give it an Asian touch was a learning experience for me
But please don't let building get you down there will be some mistakes here and there, the good thing you can always start over.
4. Do decided where you want the home lots from your community lot to be, look carefully at the area of your landscape, for me I did not want to add NL as the downtown location,
I wanted to build Community lots all in a range of a certain area of the landscape away from the home lots, but having all the things in the community lots for whatever your Sims may need.
All decorating in both home lots and community lots I did after building one at a time.

5. Shopping areas, ( clothes etc )
6.. Business area thanks goes to some of the ideas of member joandsarah77 that included Banks, Bakery, Book stores, Pets shops, Grocery store, Coffee shop, Restaurants, Ice Cream shop.
And thanks to member gummilutt Laundromat idea for Sims 2 to wash their clothes that to is a business.

7. Fun Places like all Sims want to have fun like fishing, clubs, bowling Member Jo's great download name Magic Island. ( if you have all EPs )
8. I think adding Sims to your new neighborhood is the "last" thing to do, creating your own, or download a Sims you like.

NOTE: It take "Patience and Time" being patience with yourself is most important remember that old saying "Rome Was Not Build In A Day."
Following your very own heart and what you want, your dream for a wonderful Sims neighborhood will be yours and make you happy.

1) Do you prefer a flat or mountainous/hill-filled/not-flat neighbourhood terrain? Why?
I use whatever fits the town I'm setting up and the story of the town.I've used Aridia's terrain for Fargo's main town center.
2)* How do you approach and fill parts of the neighbourhood like this? How do you fit in lots in these spaces and what kind of lots? (eg. shops, parks, houses)
I've started with the community service center and a few lots for houses along with a subsidized boarding house for newcomers.Some decor is added right away and some is added over time.Houses get added as the town grows and the population increases.
3) Are your lots crowded or spaced-out?
- If your lots are crowded, how do you plan out crowded neighbourhoods?
4) What do you classify your neighbourhood as? (eg. urban/city, suburbian, urban-suburbian mix, rural, etc)
Fargo is mostly rural right now because it's a new town and was just started recently.
5) How do you decorate your neighbourhood? Does this occur before or after all lots have been placed?
- If you have water in your neighbourhood, do you decorate around the water or use water decorations (eg. boats)? If yes, how?
That is mostly done as the town is growing over the time it's being played.
6) Where are community lots placed in your hood? Do they have their own sections or are they among residential lots?
They get placed close to residential areas so the residents don't have far to go to get to a store to buy groceries.
7) What system do you use to name streets and houses?
I'll have to start naming them properly as the town grows into a small town from a rural township.
8) Is there any advice you would like to give people building/developing their own hoods?
I get the basics like a service center built and housing for my first family before starting to play that family.I would play the town as it got populated and sometimes build houses instead of playing a family.I did have to use a Mod to fix the UI when starting subhoods like shopping districts and the downtown to make it possible to start shopping districts and downtowns using my own terrains instead of the default ones.It makes it possible to start a shopping district when the town center is getting too full and has no room for new housing.I also use a lot visitor controller to keep small corner stors from getting too crowded and becoming scenes of brawls and fights.

Naming streets, now - that goes along with knowing the history. Think about how street names were given. If a road's first incarnation is as the most convenient path for people to follow, which becomes a trodden track, which becomes a cart road, which becomes a state-maintained gravel road, which becomes a city street, then it will be named for either the most prominent geographical feature, or the place it was laid down to get to, or to some prominent local story connected with it. If it parallels the river, it will probably be River Road; if the only reason it's there is because Old Man Johnson's farm was at the end of it, it's likely to be Johnson's Road; if it's the main artery from Bigg City to Widespot, then the part in Bigg City is likely to be called Widespot Road and the part in Widespot is likely to be called Bigg City Road; but if the stagecoach used to travel that way it might be Stagecoach Road, or if it was originally followed by travelling Comanches, who later used it to raid into Bigg City, then it'll be Comanche Road. Main Street may not be the main street in town nowadays; but it was once, probably the first street laid down and graded, with businesses all along either side; and then the railroad came along and attracted business away from it, so Depot Street is now the prime commercial area and Main is a bit rundown, or is the historic district and offices have been replaced by cutesy tourist boutiques.

If it's a subdivision or planned development, though, the streets will be named according to some system. East-west streets may be numbered and north-south streets may be alphabetical; or you may have tree names intersecting the names of prominent historical figures whose memory the city planners wish to evoke to promote civic pride and to imply that the historic figure would approve of the planned development. Subdivisions built on spec by builders tend to have thematic names based on the name of the subdivision. This can be crude and repetitive (the Mountain Home subdivision may have streets called Mountain View, Mountain Vista, Mountain Ridge, Mountain Meadow, etc. ad infinitum) or playful (Camelot Subdivision being full of streets named after knights, ladies, villains, and monsters, and accessed by Round Table Road) or personal (there's an area in San Antonio, near the Haunted Railroad Tracks, where the streets are all first names - the planner used his family's names, but in folklore they have become the names of the children who died when the schoolbus was hit by the train at the Haunted Tracks). American towns are notorious for naming streets after the trees that were cut down in order to lay the streets, and we also like to name streets after historical figures.

Drama Acres consists of three parts. Upslope, where the survivors of the mining disaster congregated and their descendants continue to cluster, is strung along Poore Street, named in commemoration of the wiped-out Poore family, and crossed by Easy Street - commemorating the extinct Easy family. Access from lower elevations is by steep Hill Street. Newsons' Corners is the area where Farm Road mounts the hill to cross Poore Street, and is so-called because the Newson family has colonized that stretch of propery. Downslope, where the Simulated Housing Company built a subdivision, consists of a single road leading in - Entry Way - and a large ring road, roughly bisected by Entry Way at one end and the intersection of Farm Road at the other. To the left of Entry Way, this ring road is called Square Circle; to the right, it's called Circle Square.

Widespot has utilitarian geographical names, except for Land Road, which is a recent platting named for the Land family because they've lived in the area longest. Though it's not officially named, I think of the main street leading off the highway as Beech Lane, as Daytona Beech clearly needs to be commemorated. Bigg City has mostly historical use names, with patterns of development visible to those who study the layout - Industry Street, Commercial Avenue, Domestic Drive, The Enclave.

1) Do you prefer a flat or mountainous/hill-filled/not-flat neighbourhood terrain? Why?

I prefer that a good part of the terrain is flat, as it's easier to build lots, but, depending on the hood geographical background, sometimes I prefer the surroundings to have mountains or hills. My current hood, called Circadian Springs, is supposed to be a small town in the USA's Idaho state. I never has been in the USA, but after some research (e. g. Wikipedia), I found out that Idaho has vast lakes and canyons, so I used the lush version of the Sedona terrain.

2)* How do you approach and fill parts of the neighbourhood like this? How do you fit in lots in these spaces and what kind of lots? (eg. shops, parks, houses)

I think in a "area theme" for each neighbourhood area and I only make lots of certain types in the area. Circadian Springs has a area with middle-upper class houses, a commercial area, an apartments/townhouses area, a farm houses area, etc. There are also some cheaper houses in more isolated areas, near the pine forests.

3) Are your lots crowded or spaced-out?

Crowded as possible.

- If your lots are crowded, how do you plan out crowded neighbourhoods?

I try to put the lots in the areas near each other as possible, if a space end up empty, I use neighborhood deco to fill it (and I love to use 3t2 rabbitholes for this purpose). I hate when, in game, the characters seems to be living in the Courage The Cowardly Dog main scenery.

4) What do you classify your neighbourhood as? (eg. urban/city, suburbian, urban-suburbian mix, rural, etc)

Circadian Spring is a small town with a rural area.

5) How do you decorate your neighbourhood? Does this occur before or after all lots have been placed?

Circadian Springs has vast pine forests, huge rocks and a lake (which are Eaxis conten), but I also used lots of CC hood decorations as a bus terminal, a "fake" highway, 3t2 rabbitholes and visible farm grounds. I use the decorations to fill spaces where I can't put lots (or when a lot in some space doesn't looks good) and I usually use them after I have placed the lots in the area I was working on.

6) Where are community lots placed in your hood? Do they have their own sections or are they among residential lots?

They have their own section. I intend to have little as possible lots in the main hood, actually it was just a diner (will be a bussiness of one family), some stores, a pub, a church with a cemitery and a community pool. Most of the other kinds of community lots will be placed in a downtown (which currently doesn't exist).

7) What system do you use to name streets and houses?

Maybe it's not too realistic, but I named all the street after fruits names (but not too obvious fruits like apples or oranges). There are Quincy Court, Blueberry Road, Damask Road, Peach Court, etc. The only exception, as far as I remember, is the Hemlock Court (named after the plant).

8) Is there any advice you would like to give people building/developing their own hoods?

Only work on something that you think will be enjoyable (both to create and to play).

1) Do you prefer a flat or mountainous/hill-filled/not-flat neighbourhood terrain? Why?
Depends on what sort of neighborhood I want to build. Flat's easy if I'm making a large urban area, but not really super-realistic to me, because all the cities I know well sprawl up into the hills. (Then the hills burn, etc.)

2)* How do you approach and fill parts of the neighbourhood like this? How do you fit in lots in these spaces and what kind of lots? (eg. shops, parks, houses)
Mixed use. Because those are obviously the old part of town, and should have apartments over shops, old hotels converted to condos, etc.


3) Are your lots crowded or spaced-out?
Crowded. If I want space between houses, I use bigger lots.


- If your lots are crowded, how do you plan out crowded neighbourhoods?
What is this plan you speak of? Cities grow organically. Often this means they aren't thought out the way a modern urban planner would like them to be, and there's that one pesky old lady who won't come to terms and you end up with eminent domain and . . . things get all in a jumble.


4) What do you classify your neighbourhood as? (eg. urban/city, suburbian, urban-suburbian mix, rural, etc)
Depends on what kind of neighborhood I want.


5) How do you decorate your neighbourhood? Does this occur before or after all lots have been placed?
After. At least, until I add lots later, that is!


- If you have water in your neighbourhood, do you decorate around the water or use water decorations (eg. boats)? If yes, how?
I like water. Lake, reservoir, river . . . something to give me a few beach lots.


6) Where are community lots placed in your hood? Do they have their own sections or are they among residential lots?
Intermingled.


7) What system do you use to name streets and houses?
Either names of prominent historical characters (Landgraab, Goth, etc), names according to numbers/alphabet (1st Street, A street, etc.) or the Salt Lake City grid system if it's an urban neighborhood. Best street naming system ever for navigation. So addresses would be 304 North 500 West or 983 West 1200 South. You can find anyplace by its address without a map.


8) Is there any advice you would like to give people building/developing their own hoods?
Look at real neighborhoods. Real cities. Real rural areas. See what people have actually done. (It varies a lot. Those weirdos in Europe and NYC don't, like, own cars. EVERYBODY and their dog owns at least a beater or three--parts, you know--out here where I live.) See which pictures make you smile. Which ones make you cringe. Which leave you meh. Then use the first set for ideas, and leave the others to them that like them.
Almost every little town and ghost-town has a history of the town book. If you find a town you love the looks of, and you can get that history book, you can find out why the town is like that. (My nearest town is not-so-little, and every single Church, hobby, and ethnic group has had someone document their history in the town. There's an entire unit of shelving in the public library just on local history.)

1) In my opinion, I love variety. But keep in mind building on flat lots will ALWAYS be easier. Personally I really like exotic terrain formations that are unique to houses. For instance a house being on the side of a cliff having a basement that has beautiful windows. A house on a hill can have a walk out basement. The building possibilities open up extraordinarily more when you have an "exotic" terrain formation.
2)So, What I like to do is come up with a style of the hood i'm making. Will it look country? Modern? Old? Run down? These are all very important things to ask yourself when building a hood because making most of the lots look cohesive and similar will help tie the hood together and make it look more realistic.
3) I like building on smaller lots. My hood that i'm building (Check sig) has pretty much only small lots. This way not only will I be able to focus on detail but for those who download it with lower spec computers it will be easier to run.
4) I classify my hood as a coastal Connecticut town thats sleepy and has a strong story.
5) Like I said. It's all about making sure everything goes together in a cohesive manner. Meaning make sure the flora matches the type of climate youre making (There wouldnt be pine trees in a desert) I find that I place all my lots down, decorate the hood with trees, effects, etc...And then build on the lots. As I go I build on the lots and if I want to add more trees or rocks in an area, Then I do. Take a look at my hood. Like I said link is in my sig. You'll see what I did with the coast of the water. Feel free to use that technique. The rocks make it look more natural. I do indeed use water effects. I love them. You just have to experiment with them.
6) My community lots are in a specific area. I have a main street and some other streets dedicated to commercial and maybe some apartments.
7) Umm, Thats kind of a difficult one. I usually look at the surrounding area. If theres water maybe name it something like "Riverside Run" If theres cliffs maybe "Stony Drive" feel free to use those as well.
8) TAKE YOUR TIME!!! Be VERY cautious of EVERYTHING you do! Be sure to avoid corruption and if you want to populate it make sure you avoid ALL NPC spawning. This one I cannot stress enough! Back up!

I dont want to sound like i'm plugging my own thread, But check mine out. Look through the first 3-4 pages. Youll see how I go about figuring out making sure the hood is safe to build in and making sure NPC's dont spawn etc...Even if you dont like my hood or dont care about it, Seriously read some of the things in there, Youll learn a lot of valuable tips from amazing people like maxon and peni griffin. Heres the link: http://modthesims.info/showthread.p...d=1#post5028129

1) Do you prefer a flat or mountainous/hill-filled/not-flat neighbourhood terrain? Why?
I prefer the main building area to be very flat, as it's easier to build on. However I like there to be hills on the terrain, and perhaps even some of the roads leading up to the hills. My current 'hood has its cemetery on top of the highest hill, and there may be some more secluded lots away from the main town area in the future.
2)* How do you approach and fill parts of the neighbourhood like this? How do you fit in lots in these spaces and what kind of lots? (eg. shops, parks, houses)
When I'm filling a 'hood, I usually just make lots as I need them. Little spaces like that would most likely go to residential areas or small shops, such as convenience stores, grocery stores, candy shops, the kind of things you'd see mixed in with houses. A school, definitely. A small park, sure. My sims may not use their community lots very often, but it really does help with the look of it.
3) Are your lots crowded or spaced-out?
My lots tend to be fairly crowded. I like my towns to look realistic, and the only town I've ever known in real life has houses side-by-side-by-side.
- If your lots are crowded, how do you plan out crowded neighbourhoods?
There is no plan, really. I pick a place to start and then just grow from there. See what looks right placed where.
4) What do you classify your neighbourhood as? (eg. urban/city, suburbian, urban-suburbian mix, rural, etc)
My current 'hood, Agnar Sound, is sort of rural. The story goes that the first young couple, Allison and Benedikt Agnarsson, bought the plot of land the town sits on, hoping to let it grow and expand. So for now it has only one house and two community lots, one of them being a shipyard market run on the beach, so I guess you could call that rural. Eventually it will grow into a small town.
5) How do you decorate your neighbourhood? Does this occur before or after all lots have been placed?
I love neighborhood decorations. Since the town is going to grow as things are needed, I've started simple with decorations. Some buoys on the shore, sailboats, a lighthouse. Planes and hot air balloons and such flying overhead, and clouds. I haven't used the bus terminals and such you can get at MTS because they take up too much space on my tiny little map. I have, however, replaced all four-way intersections with roundabouts, because if I were to run a town in real life, that is how I would do it. They're much more efficient and cause fewer accidents.
- If you have water in your neighbourhood, do you decorate around the water or use water decorations (eg. boats)? If yes, how?
My town is right off of a fjord, so the water is a big part of it. Like I said, I've added sailboats and the buoys that come with them, and a lighthouse. I've also got some cc ferries and a port for them, because in my mind, the ferries are what take the children to school and transport anyone who wants to come and go from the town. I also have a ship in the water, because it was in the pictures of the template I downloaded and I thought it looked nice. I can never figure out where on earth the wave effect is supposed to go or what on earth it's supposed to look like, so I don't use it.
6) Where are community lots placed in your hood? Do they have their own sections or are they among residential lots?
I feel like it depends on the community lot. Grocery stores, convenience stores, and things like that would be intermingled with the residential lots, since you don't want them too far away from your houses. But I think in the future there may be a small cluster of larger community lots somewhere.
7) What system do you use to name streets and houses?
I usually don't. Back in Stonebridge, I measured the streets and drew the 'hood out on graph paper, then wrote the names of the streets on my "map". I'll probably end up doing the same in Agnar Sound eventually, but for now, the streets are nameless. The sole house has kept its game name--The Grand Estate--because it's the primary house for the primary family, and I liked the name.
8) Is there any advice you would like to give people building/developing their own hoods?
More than anything, just have fun with it. Do it your own way. Know what you like and use that.

Also, @TadOlson, what inspired you to name your town "Fargo"? And @joandsarah77, would you mind sharing those little filler lots? They sound fantastic.

One last thing I forgot to add that I think is "important", after building a lot be it a home lot or community lot I do not sent it to the house bin instead I always right away sent a copy of it to my Sims "Package Lot File."
I find that by doing that if for any reason my game need to be uninstalled for some reason ( like corruption or otherwise ) I do not have to rebuild every lot all over again.

I did that in 2014 uninstalled my whole game started fresh did not use my backup I just took my downloads folder out of the game first ( save it ) then when I enter the game I started the custom neighborhood over.
And I did not have to build anything at all because I save all my lots to my package file then from there I move and transfer them all into it's own folder. All I had to do was use the Clean Installer to re- enter the lots back into the hood that I started over once again.