So I'm making my own thread that is possibly a combination of rabblings and ideas, I guess (it's kinda the way I speak/think). So post here any new ideas on how to use the current capabilities of the game to do new things here, I guess. An 'example' (previous post) is below:

See you made a thread.

Well I won't repeat what I said about the 1 by 1 lots. Just that's normal price for them.
Baskerville by Plastixbox has a row of market stalls. I use it as a sub hood: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=562124 if you click on the picture you will see how they look. very simple just uses the games awning, a table and a cash register. I just had the first plot bought yesterday. I will probably put down a porta-potty when he has the cash.

Can't help with the French, I'm Australian and my hoods are somewhat influenced by that. I would use PBK winery set though for sure. I have that as a B&B.

You can only stay up to seven days at a vacation home I don't think gardening would work too well.

Seeing you are doing organic, one thing I do for my hood is a government compost incentive. Not everyone wants to garden but to help the enviroment and the farmers everyone is encouraged to compost. When the bin is full the mayor pays them $200 which covers the cost of the bin and a little towards their work of filling it. The mayor then gives the full bins to the farmers.

If you don't mind adding NPC's to your game and leaving them there (causes corruption if you remove them) Becks at Affinity sims has cows and goats for milk. French cheese makers like goats cheese.

I've never done a festival, but it could work if you have a sim with plenty of money buy the lot and hire other sims. Sims don't care what the hairdresser puts on them. So long as the makeover is 'successful' (the windows opens and you choose the makeover) you could put 'town fool' across their forehead and a tin foil hat on their head and they will be very happy.

Just adding, after talking about ice-cream and other foods on another thread I thought of your festival. If you go to the Booty and look under Exnem you can get a pancake cart and a hot dog cart.

@ your question in Stupid Questions on going into creating and clothes vs food

I haven't done food so I can't help you there, but recoloring clothes is not that hard. It depends on what you want to do. If you want to make things from scratch, then it will take a while to master it all. It also depends on how much you've worked with editing programs in the past. But learning some basic recoloring is not hard.

There are lots of tutorials out there that go over how to do different things related to recoloring, so if you are motivated to learn then there's no reason you can't learn to

I think I'll look into food as I tried clothing for a bit and there may have been a bit of cursing (plus I'm more motivated by food). I honestly forgot about this thread so I'm not sure if I should continue this and the other or just pick one because they are similar. I need to find a food tutorial though, I've looked and couldn't find any and I need to add more 'foreign' foods (foreign to me since they are not generally eaten in my country/state) so that I can have food that suits my quarters/districts. Other than that, progress in my neighborhood is going ok (though the main city park is still not finished because I need to think about what to put in the other parts).

BTW has anybody put in a neighborhood landmark like Stonehenge, Eiffel Tower, Colosseum, etc.?
Also I recommend getting TS3 to TS2 conversions of rabbit holes, they can really fill up the place so that you don't really need to build much except for those buildings you want you sim to go to plus they add to atmosphere, if that's the right word.

The Main City Park: Parc de Saint-Catharine
Does it have somewhat of a downtown city feel around the park? What would you guys do to increase a city feel?
*Note: Park is not yet done


Also, does anyone know if religion is more popular in Italy, Spain or Mexico? I'm thinking of putting a quarter/district near the churches


Also, what sorts of unique community lots do you find yourself putting in your neighborhoods? Are they influenced by the buildings you see in your city or country?
For example, there is apparently a smoking bar near me so I think I'll just make a bar with the bubble blower form University being the main object/theme...I should probably have that owned by a Pleasure sim. Do you guys focus on your sim's aspiration to decide what business they would be likely to own?

*Note to self, get the food carts, thanks for the tip

EDIT: I think I'll just have what ever sim that is the mayor be responsible for holding at least 1 festival every sim year (they'll buy the lot and then sell it back to the city when they are no longer mayor, I'm planning on only having one mayor). The mayor will hold festivals based on who they are as a sim (creature type, aspiration, hobbies, etc.). I know a vampire mayor would most certainty hold a festival at night (and maybe during winter? I've been building instead of playing so I don't know if sims 2 winter has longer nights as I also prefer to use the community lot time mod). Though I don't know how a witch would...and for some reason the Playboy mansion comes to mind when I think of how a Romance aspiration sim would throw a festival (most likely in the spring too.) I'll probably have them hold it at the main city park. Do you think a robot mayor would steampunk the park during their 'term'? A plant sim mayor would probably ensure that the setting looks like a national park.

Of course, the popularity sims would probably be more likely to hold a state (er...neighborhood?) funded festival every season to celebrate any holidays that come along (I got the MTS calendar). In the winter, they'll probably invite as many people as possible for a xmas party and to schmooze to make sure they stay popular. I haven't really though about how I'll go about decided presidential terms though. I'm not sure about popularity because there is always somebody who dislikes the president.

My gosh, I really don't think I've ever seen a town as beautiful as yours in the Sims 2 - it's absolutely stunning. Wow, just Wow.

I spend most of my set up in sticking in my necessary mods, then I move in one farmer sim and then he builds the world from there. I usually have a caretaker sim who acts as temporary mayor (with a loan of $500,000 ) to get the town running. This has all to be paid back eventually in taxes as the town and it's subhood's grow. It would take them (sims) and me a lifetime to be able to afford such wonderful monuments.

I play different to you, so not sure how much help i'll be. My town starts with a farmer who moves into a blank bit of land and the only other thing he can see is trees and townies. Eventually he gains enough money from fishing and stuff, and then he'll need shops so that's where the temporary mayor comes in. As certain sims get skills or jobs I start opening up sub-neighbourhoods and allow them to go use community lots. Farmer provides the food, mayor will purchase or build government business to see to essential needs (marriage building, library, post office). I build according to what I think a town should have, but this is restricted by the skills, personalities and abilities of the sims that live there. Right now there is no religion, because no sim seems to have either the skills or the calling. Got no school either, because we got no kids, no police station because nobody has managed get a job in law enforcement. I will be handing out guns however and encouraging fighting because one sim has an army job, another is a criminal, and one sim is mechanical and has a workbench station. So weapons and crime is what my town seems to concentrate on.

In your town, I would think about what is needed in a beautiful town like that and probably be less concerned about the Sims personality and abilities. You got a lot of churches, so I'd be trying to get sims to go to church and meet there a lot, or I would build a downtown crime element and have them having lots of problems with each other and develop my sims world in reference to the buildings you already placed there.. The taking pictures and festival ideas are brilliant, and tourism could be a way to decide what business to develop. Years ago, back in the days of Sims 1 & 2, a website called Simmerville used to run a food festival which they made a really big thing in their sim world. (http://www.hinsides.no/simmerville/.../08/12035.html). They'd use the picture's their sims took to decorate the world, they even took video's of events and transfered to the Sims TV as new commercials. Sims 2 is versitile like that and such ideas could probably cover some of your ideas and get your food interest in.

Anyway, good luck, thanks for sharing your pictures and idea's, its inspiring

Thank you How would I go about the tourism though?

If your using townies, then they could be your tourist, since they don't actually live anywhere. Meet and greet them, then you can ask them to take photo's, which you can buy and stick up in your buildings, or you can take shots of them doing things. Set up a office and sell things that represent your different area's. Put a electron machine in the church and only charge townies not playable. Befriend the townies, invite them into groups, make your playable take them around town showing them different venues. It's your game, work with it. Once you decide on what goes where work out how to make it come alive for the Sims that live there.

Got to admit, I use a lot of mods so I can specify who can go where and I can charge any sim for lots of different services.

So I'm studying France and England to gain insight for a variety of things (history, building, family life, everyday life, weather, etc.) for my sim neighborhood and I saw a kid talking about groups similar to the U.S.'s Girl Scouts. So I want to ask, especially those who have sim kids with longer agespan and/or a 'kids get summer off mod': Do you guys make a community lot and/or have the parent(s) of one kids gather the kid's friends for a day of Girl Scout/Boys Scout activities? The parent would be that range leader that has enough skill points in certain areas to be able to train kids in skills. Those with rotational play would probably benefit from this as different sim parents would (depending on their gameplay) have different skill sets and could alternate the role of range leader. Although I do wonder if it just be easier/better to do a community school that you control. I wonder if TS2 version of this would rely on the sell of lemonade since I don't think kids can sell cookies. Also, there would be some days where instead of training the kids, the parent could just take them to say a camping community lot (no need to go on vacation) and just set them loose.

If this is already in TS2 (I know it is in TS3), what do you do in order to make this happen? Also, is it possible for a sim to be able to tell a group of sim's a story? I think it was possible using the bonfire/pit object but I could be thinking of TS2 PlayStation 2 (man, its been a long time).

EDIT: Perhaps, you could gather up sims and their fiends (of similar age or no) and depending on their hobbies call up a group of sims on the weekend to have something like a club meeting? Like a football (soccer for us in the USA) club. Depending on how long your sims live (and whether or not you are playing similar to which season a game season is) you could alternate between say football outings and holding sports parties. For the culinary sims, they could go out on an outing to compete in a food contest, just go out and try a restaurant (perhaps you made a new restaurant lot and you need a few 'testers') and invite their friends over to their house and watch some culinary tv and or over for dinner (perhaps to celebrate getting a new cooking skill?) Or if you have PBK's grapes, just invite friends over for wine I guess, or beer, or boba, or what have you.

I haven't tried doing boy scouts or gilr guides but I do run a school. I always use a residential zoned school lot, enroll the kids, start and end school each day. My school is on my career thread, it's mostly for skilling. I find with double age span and slower skilling that any kids who wants to study needs all the time they can get,even during the summer holidays. I may yet try removing my skilling mod as really I want the kids to have more free time.
Kids can make muffins and they can be set for sale as well at any home business. I have a kids can cook mod so they can make anything really although I don't allow young kids to use the oven.

I remember seeing it, your school is quite good and I'm thinking of incorporating that idea to the neighborhood. I just get confused especially with the kids because I don't know how many days in their age span I would want. The vanilla span is too short but other mods where the kid's span is like 100 days is much too long and I get impatient trying them all out to find that nice balance.

BTW, where can I find this kids can cook mod?

EDIT: Spelling

I use a double aging mod from here, so kids have 15/14 days. There are plenty of other age mods around they all have their own days, not just Hat's 100 day one.

This is the kids cooking mod I use http://modthesims.info/d/76587