So I'm doing the international challenge, where you're supposed to make different subhoods to represent different countries. But when you make a shopping district or downtown in the Sims 2, sims from the main hood, sims from other subhoods, or townies. I'm going to change the townies' names and appearances to make them fit in, but what will I do with the other sims? These countries are supposed to be, you know, countries, where random people don't just walk in, and from a place that is supposed to be thousands of miles away. I've thought about using vacation destinations, but I'm not sure. I don't want the countries to feel like touristy type places. Can you even play families in vacation destinations?
Are there any mods that can help me do this? And can it keep townies in their own subhoods as well? I would be very appreciative of an answer, if anyone can help me.
(Bonus question: is it safe to customize NPC's? Also, can you have seperate NPC's for separate subhoods?)

Time doesn't pass in vacation destinations, so you couldn't have families live out their lives there.

When you ask about customizing NPCs, do you mean just giving them a makeover? As long as they have a name (so not "Break Dancer" or "Human Statue"), I think that should be just fine.

I don't think you can restrict NPCs to subhoods, but there are hacks that will allow you to choose which NPC you hire for maids and such. EDIT: Found it! http://www.insimenator.org/index.ph...c,102035.0.html You could always choose one in the main hood, one in a different subhood, and so on.

I have a feeling that I've seen something about restricting sims to their "correct" hood, but I can't for the life of me remember where. Cyjon or TwoJeffs, maybe?

You might be thinking of localwalkby , one of Pescado's mods at moreawesomethanyou .

And for any single Sim, to keep them at home (not visiting any com lot) a combo of Inge's Prison Tag and TwoJeffs Visitor Controller.

You can't live in a vacation destination, there is no CAS in those subhoods, sims don't age, and only existing families already living on a residential/apartment lot can visit them. The game will force them to go home when the vacation is over. And many options are not available there (go to work, school, ...).
[Edit.: didn't see Esmeiolanthe already said that, sorry, a bit hard with the loading issues]

Would something like visitor controller and Inge's keys work. Give only certain sims keys and ban the rest from the area.

Yes, that's it exactly! Thank you! (Link: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...pic,4670.0.html )

Thank you all! I've decided to go for localwalkby, Visitor Controller, and NPC Selector. Are these all compatible, as far as you know?
BTW, is it possible to have more than three maids?

Yes - Umm, now you ask I can't remember how. There are going to be two options, either force-create them or convert an NPC. I'll have to look it up. Or maybe fiddle the code NPC code in SimPE.

This would be nice for my military bases, to keep civilians from the mainhood from dropping by at random, or from going to the NEX/AAFES, the officers' club, the galley/mess hall, etc.

It should work if a Sim invites all three maids round, and then, when they're all in the house, phones up to hire a maid. The game should then generate a new maid, since none of the existing ones are available.

I don't think it has been said, so I'll add: it's not possible to restrict NPCs and townies to a particular subhood. You will have to suspend disbelief a bit there, although with several of each NPC it's possible you'll get variety anyway.

If you create a downtown, downtownies will only visit and walkby downtown lots, and you can ban normal townies using the VC. But it's not possible to do this with other subhoods. You could, I suppose, make townies manually by placing them all in one dummy lot and never playing them directly, then they'd count as being "locals", and use notownieregen to prevent normal townies from spawning.

Community lots will still attract playables from all subhoods, but you can use the visitor controller to ban "non-locals". If you have problems with owned businesses, use Pescado's Customer Selector for those lots. But try the visitor controller first.