Hi All,

Not sure if this is where I should be posting I just hope its the right place.

As a fairly new Sims 2 player I am looking to understand how to save and use the same neighborhoods at different stages.

For example with 3 I am able to use the save as 1, 2, 3 and so on to save different numbered games as I play so if I want to go back and play a family in an earlier time frame I can, however I am finding this a little more difficult with 2.

Do I save whichever neighborhood I am playing in say once a week for example and then if I want to go back to the same neighborhood at an earlier time remove and save the current neighborhood file and replace it with the older one?

I am at the point in my game now that I am wanting to make changes but dare not in case I cannot reverse any changes.

Also if I want to play in a fresh neighborhood do I have to uninstall the whole of my sims 2 UC folder and reinstall everything just to be able to do that?

apologies for what may appear to be a simple question to some but for me I am finding it confusing lol

"Do I save whichever neighborhood I am playing in say once a week for example and then if I want to go back to the same neighborhood at an earlier time remove and save the current neighborhood file and replace it with the older one?"

Yep. Just make copies of your individual neighborhood folder (probably named N00-something, or E00-something etc.). as you go then put whichever version you want to play into your Neighborhoods folder.

To get brand new versions of the premade hoods, remove your EA Games folder from Documents, then run the game. The game will generate new copies.

Thank you omglo

so just to be certain if I want any clean neighborhood I will have to delete and then regenerate the full Sims 2 EA folder and there is no other way? If I remove 1 neighborhood alone or all the neighborhoods will the game regenerate a fresh version of that/those neighborhood/s next time I fire the game up without having to do a complete full new install folder?

You can always take a backup of a neighborhood and play it at a later date by replacing it (make sure you first remove the old folder, and then move in the one you want to play - letting them overwrite can cause troubles).

If you want to play a new version of the neighborhood (only the EA ones), just remove the folder and let the game generate a new one. This will of course not work for custom hoods.

Personally I prefer to backup the entire "The Sims 2" folder, as it contains various files I don't want to lose. If you have downloads and know you've used them in the neighborhood (particularly things like multi-PTs, NPC objects, and other 'do not remove' mods), I also suggest backing up these, as removing them or trying to play without them can cause corruption to the neighborhood.

If you want a clean nighborhood, deleting and letting the folder regenerate is the best method (and much quicker than reinstalling). However, some of the EA neighborhoods are faulty by default. Some simmers have created squeaky clean EA neighborhoods with fixed relationships and all that, and someone can probably give you a link if you're interested. It can involve a little bit of tinkering with install files, though.

When you say 'clean neighbourhood' do you mean the pre made hoods like Pleasantview? The game also has a button on the menu screen for making a hood with nothing in it, that you design yourself. Also no there is another way to get pre-made hoods back without regenerating the whole folder, you will find every premade hood in your Installation files they can be copy pasted back in. You just can't have hoods with the same number. You can also download cleaned up versions of the pre-made hoods.

You don't have to delete the EA Games Folder. Just make sure the game can't access it, temporarily. Let's say you want a new Pleasantview, but you don't want a new Strangetown. You can drag your EA Games Folder to the desktop then remove the copy of Pleasantview that's already inside. Then run the game to generate a new Pleasantview. Then take that new copy of Pleasantview and put it in the original EA Games folder. Delete the newly generated EA Games folder in Documents, then replace it with the original EA Games folder. Or, instead of moving the EA Games folder, you could rename it temporarily, to something like Old EA Games. Then change it back after you've gone through the process of running the game, generating the fresh copy of the hood and removing the new EA Games folder. Hope that makes sense.

simmer22

Thank you so when I go to my EA Games/thesims2ultimatecollection/ neighborhoods folder where I see all the neighborhoods as a different letter and numbers, N001 for example I would copy and save that neighborhood file then if I wanted to use it again remove the current ( same numbered file) replacing it with my saved copy enabling me to play an earlier save of the same neighborhood? Is that correct and what you mean?
when you say for a clean neighborhood (EA) I must remove the complete EA folder to generate new neighborhoods?

I do have a complete copy of the whole EA folder but cannot do this every time I want to save a neighborhood at a certain points as I would require several hard drives to do that as many times as I might want to save-) After years playing 3 my mods and CC folders are organized and backed up so I am not so worried about that its just a matter of having a choice to go back to an earlier version of a neighborhood should I want to later.

I would love some more info on squeaky clean EA neighborhoods with fixed relationships as I know that's where I will eventually be headed anyway as I learn more as I go along.

joandsarah77

yes I am talking about pre made hoods like Pleasantview as I have not tried to make another neighborhood from the menu screen yet as I am still unsure if I would be able to still send my sims to downtown and bluewater village so if I make another neighborhood this way I am still unsure how the sub hoods work if that's the right way to describe them-)

If i generated a whole new folder and saved every neighborhood as a clean new one before playing in any of them would I be able to save those and use them later instead of having to regenerate a whole folder again in future?

omglo yes what you have said makes some sense to me I used to rename my sims 3 folders old when generating new ones I am just finding 2 a little more difficult to get my head around in some ways-)

Also can anyone tell me if its safe to check all the houses for urns and if I find them send them to a graveyard, then place the pre-made and my cas made families in the bin, plonk down new houses and put all the sim families back in the new houses without creating any corruption as I keep reading online that its not safe to put pre made families in the bin and wondered if that's true? I would like to demolish everything in pleasantview and replace it all with newer residential and community buildings. I would like to do the same with Bluewater and downtown but am not sure if there is anything I am not supposed to delete?

Thank you everyone for your quick replies it is much appreciated.

You can attach every sub hood (downtown, Uni, blue water, vacation) to any main hood. If you say click on add Blue Water, that will give you the exact same Blue Water that you added before with all the same sims. Or you can make your own shoppping sub hood.

Just be aware that every pre-made hood that ships with the game already comes somewhat corrupted and so has a shorter life. This is why we say make backups and use hood checker.

If you make sure all sims, graves and urns are off the lot it is safe to bulldoze them. If you have downloaded any NPC creating mods such as animals, make sure to delete those off the lot first as well. Then use the bat box to check for 'off world loiters'. since a sim may be coming through to the lot as a walk by. Also make sure no sim is on the phone as that also makes an off world loiterer.

What you need to do is completely remove the folder which will be called N001, N002 etc. The folder will contain all necessary files including all subhoods attached to that hood. If you can't remember which is which you can look inside the folder and peek at the "Storytelling" folder. This will have all the in-game photos. Even if you don't use the in-game camera, a photo is created when you make a new family so you can see who is who this way.

I can see an issue with this method, though, and there's a way to fix it. When you create a custom neighbourhood, the game will "look" into the Neighbourhoods folder and then create NX. That means that if you currently have Pleasantview (N001), Strangetown (N002), and Veronaville (N003) when you create your custom hood the folder will be called N004. The next one will be N005, etc.

If you were to delete or temporarily remove N001 (Pleasantview) and then create a new custom hood, this hood would be numbered N001 because the game can't see an N001. That also means if you have a Pleasantview 2016 and a Pleasantview 2018, both will be called N001. It is a VERY bad idea to have two N001 folders in the same place at the same time. Your computer system will usually merge them, making them impossible to separate and basically scrambling both hoods irreparably. If you try to run the game with a merged N001 folder, I don't know exactly what would happen but it would be very bad.

So - I would recommend this approach instead.

Keep all your hoods in your game unless you definitely don't want to play them any more. But every 6 months (or however often you like) open up your neighbourhoods folder and copy and paste all the neighbourhoods you want to back up into a separate folder somewhere else on your computer inside a subfolder called "Summer 2016" or whatever the date of the backup is.

If at some point you decide you want to play the older version of a hood, you can leave the current version in situ. Go to your back ups folder (or if you want a completely brand new version of the premade hoods, download these ones - no sense in forcing folders to recreate when you can download the bits you need!), find the correct version of the correct hood and then if you want to have current Pleasantview and Old Pleasantview in at the same time, you can just change the Neighbourhood ID number.

There is a tutorial for doing this using a free program called Oscar's Renamer but you need an account at Crazy Town to view it (it's free) http://simsasylum.com/tfm/index.php...a-neighborhood/

If you can't/don't want to register: (The tutorial explains better and has pictures) Basically pick a number which is way out from anything you're currently using like N123, rename the folder to this, look inside and any time you find "N001" in a file or folder name, change that to "N123". That is all lots, characters, etc. It's hard to do it manually, the tool helps, but manually is possible too.

Once you've renumbered the 'hood you can place it back into your game, rename it "Pleasantview - Summer 16" or whatever and then you can load either version of the hood at any time.

If you really don't want to do the renaming, you'll have to remember to switch each version of the hood out before you add the one you want to play. Renumbering just ensures no accidents happen.

In answer to your other question it's always safe to move families to the bin, premades or not. The unsafe things are DELETING families from the bin or moving occupied LOTS to the bin. If there are no sims living on a lot and no graves it's safe to move it. And you can move any lot any time around the neighbourhood using the hand tool.

Thanks @joandsarah77,

Okay I don't have the bat box to check for any invisible sims that may be on the lot prior to demolishing is there any other way I can check? I have the sim blender and Cyjon's lot checker which I think just checks for urns. Do I have to check for invisible sims on community lots prior to demolishing as well?

I was not aware I could attach my own downtown and bluewater to a newly made neighborhood this is why I was I was concentrating on safely demolishing pre made ea ones so I could remake them to my liking.

Could you also tell me if its safe to put the pre made families in pleasantview into the bin ( not with their houses) so I can relocate them into newer homes I place in the neighborhood?

One of the reasons I have not gone on to try making anything from scratch is because I love the pleasantview families and enjoy playing them and in a new neighborhood I would not be able to import them unless I learn to use SimPE but this program is over my head at the moment...

Bat box http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...topic,72.0.html Go grab it, every sims 2 player should have it.

Community lot: make sure if they are owned to sell them first, same with any home businesses. If owned I would check for loiters but you will probably find none.

Moving them to new homes is fine.

You can also download many of the pre-made sims if you want some in another hood but don't want to extract and clone them yourself.

Thanks @joandsarah77
I have bitten the bullet and downloaded the Batbox lol
I know when we were messaging before I got 2 I may have asked similar questions but I had no experience of actual game play then and have forgotten some info and how it actually related to the game however I feel confident enough now to go and remake the whole of Pleasantview which is favorite EA world but I had no idea I could download the pre made sims anywhere would you be kind enough to point me in the right direction as my next project after this remake is to start my own new neighborhood adding my own downtown and bluewater style neighborhoods and I would love to be able to add some of the pre made sims I like..

I know I am enjoying 2 because I keep getting side tracked with great game play rather than sticking to all my reorganization plans :D

Here you go http://maxis-taste.livejournal.com/12428.html

OMG joandsarah77 thank you so much you have made my day I had no idea these downloads even existed :lovestruc

sorry quick question again if I download these sims will they be available in the bin for all neighborhoods even if I start a new one?

You're welcome.

You will find them in the sims in CAS, so you can make them for each hood. They are just like any other downloaded sim, a blank slate. If you want them to be set up like the ones in Pleasantview you will have to do that in SimPE or with some in game items.

@joandsarah77

As I have never downloaded a Sim before I had no idea how/where they turn up in game after installing them and although I realize they will not have memories and be exactly the same characters in their respective EA made neighborhoods I am going to give them all the same traits and aspirations and hope for the best however whatever happens at least they will look the same in my neighborhoods...I tried so hard to grasp SimPE but I just cannot get my head around it at the moment so that is going to be something I try in the future.. I am still working out what the bat box does after downloading it today-)

Well for now you might want to use some in-game items like the sim manipulator, sim blender and bat box. For example say you download the Pleasant Twins and want them to start off with the same relationship status as the real ones do when you open Pleasantview, you can click on the simblender, go to relationship and set the twins as enemies. On the sim manipulator you can give them the same skills and hobbies. CAS will allow you to set them as family and aspiration and personality, that is all.

Downloaded sims show up in CAS under some button. I can't remember what it looks like since I hardly ever download sims.

@joandsarah77

You did it again you reminded me of something I already use in game in this case the blender to set relationships but it had honestly not occurred to me probably because I have never used it for that purpose before but yes it would work with the clones in a new neighborhood which is what I want them for. On another note I have downloaded your multi lots where there are several homes on one lot and I love playing them and having neighbors around but I cannot figure out how to be able to give my sims cars? Do you have any idea how I could do that? sorry for going off topic :P

The larger or small lot? The larger one has a garage at each house. The smaller one has no driveways I don't think. I have a terrible memory. To change anything on an apartment lot you need to move everybody out, rezone it to residential make changes, change zoning back and save. When I built that I wasn't sure if sims could buy and place cars in those garages or not. Are you saying they can't? Might be better if you commented directly on my download thread.

Okay thanks I will try the rezoning thing and if it does not work I will find your creation page and ask you on there...