So the past few days i've been playing a tons of Sims 2, but so I far I've just been deleting Sims (moving them into the family bin) who are the same as other shipped Sims or Sims that are basically the same as some before them. I mean I could always just normally play the game but what's the fun in that? I don't have any expansions (I did borrow freetime a while ago.) I want to make a family which is good for either Strangetown or Pleasantview.

The sticky thread on "Keeping the Game Interesting" at the top of this section has LOTS of ideas that people have put up for this kind of thing- even without any EPs (still get them if you can- secondhand stores a lot of times have them) there's lots of avenues you can pursue in the game!

We don't know what you normally do, so we can hardly advise you. The "Keeping the Game Interesting" thread has lots and lots and lots of concepts for breaking yourself out of your rut. Or you could download an inhabited neighborhood or subhood (Widespot, Riverside, the various "the Beginning of..." neighborhoods all hosted here) and play with other people's sims directly, so you can get thrown out of your own ruts

Or you can take what you usually do and reverse it. Randomize appearance, aspiration, and personality. Make a sim who would normally be Knowledge into a Romance or Fortune sim. Reverse standard gender roles. Fulfill fears instead of wants. Randomize actions, randomize goals.

Only you can shake yourself up.

I say go to the challenge board and try some of those - it has sure shaken the game up for me. The prosperity challenge especially

If you have moved them to the bin and used the bin to delete them then you have corrupted your hood.

As to what you can do, try an integrated hood where every sim has an important role to play in how the town runs. Your sim needs groceries? Better go to the store run by the sim down the road who gets their produce from the farmer over the hill. How extreme of an integrated hood it is will be player choice from no NPC's and no Maxis jobs to selected NPC's and jobs of choosing. The farm over the hill could literally be there or only in the players imagination. At first the grocery store could just be normal Maxis bin foods and gradually move over to real farm grown foods or be a combo of both. When you send your sim to such a store it isn't just a trip for groceries but a chance to chat to the other playables and the sim running the store. I have found playing sims to be much more interesting since I started playing like this as it feels more like a real community and not disconnected families.

Oh no, of course not! I've played long enough to know this. (3 years). I just keep them in the family bin.



I really like this idea, I will most likely try it.

Great that you know not to delete sims after only three years of playing, I don't think i knew that for quite a bit longer than that. probably not until I had to do my first hood rebuild and got into using simPE. People still come on here saying they deleted sims, moved sims between hoods or even made Grim selectable so I always say something.

Two of the best integrated hoods that you can see are Jessa and Serisims on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJx...sUZSStM16Ikl8Bh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjW...T5zcK3us_ZHpW3m

I suggest a legacy challenge!
In my neighbourhood Herning, I've got one where I have to try and get as many male descendants to keep the name going, but in my other neighbourhood I am doing an alphabetacy (Going from A-Z with each generation and back again if you're really that bored)

EDIT:
You can find a lot of legacy challenges here

You could try all my Base Game Beginning Hoods and use them like a "legacy challenge" for each one has the wright up on each family. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491

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For me, I grew bored of all my sims always getting loads of money, reaching tops of careers and achieving perma-plat status, so I created a new 'hood from scratch and started designing a metric ton of rules for it. The basics are:

Jobs a sim can get depends on their aspiration, ltw, and personality. Because certain personalities can speed up learning certain skills (e.g. a Neat sim will learn Cleaning a little faster, an Active sim will learn Body a little faster, a Serious sim will learn Logic a little faster), the skills needed for a job tie into a sim's personality. For instance, a Knowledge sim that is Active and Outgoing can get a job in Adventure (Knowledge because adventuring seems like a knowledge-type job to me, Active because to get to the top you need 10 Body, and Outgoing because to get to the top you need 9 Charisma).

Jobs also have education requirements -- no more can a high school graduate become a Chief of Staff. Again, this is based on my own thoughts -- something like Artist or Slacker doesn't need have any education requirements, but something like Science, Politics, or Natural Science requires a Doctorate to get to level 10.

Motivation levels -- calculated by Active minus Playful. High motivation sims can do practically anything and aren't limited in skilling or how high up the job ladder they can get on their own. Average motivation sims can only get to level 7 of a job or skill unless they roll the want to go further, low motivation sims only level 5 in jobs and skills.

Taxes and misc. items -- uni education is no longer free, and I added two more degree levels. Sims pay taxes based on their on-hand cash.

New education options -- public school, private school, prep school, boarding school. All varying costs (public = free; boarding = $3.5k/week for children, $5k/week for teens). Associate's degree, Master's Degree, Doctorate.

Risky pregnancy. Higher chances of accidentally winding up pregnant but also options for abortion or adoption. All depends on a sim's personality and aspiration with some random stat numbers thrown in. A Playful, Sloppy Pleasure sim is much less diligent about taking their birth control than a Serious, Neat Knowledge sim.

Randomised aspiration, personality, and turn-ons/turn-offs for starting sims. Random numbers of starting households and sims -- how about getting an elder sim with a toddler-aged child or grandchild? Or a teen who has to take care of her three younger siblings? Just changing up the family dynamics can change how things work.

This also has a ton of mods and such to accomplish what I've done, but if you're interested I can link you to a few (assuming they're still around).

My suggestion: stay active at MTS.
Seriously.

It works for me really well.
Because you get used to do everything on your own way. And then suddenly someone mentions how they tax their Sims, or that the use a mod to shorten university semesters, or how they decide aspirations, or how they build schools or prisons, or... well, actually almost anything you can imagine is posted here at MTS, but what's better is that also plenty of things you would have never imagined are discussed in here.
It gives you plenty of ideas to "upgrade" your own playstyle!

Some are good for you, others don't, but you learn a lot and get plenty of references to re-build your game in a way you will like it better!

There are heaps of challenges you could do/attempt, such as the Queen Bee challenge - making 60 kids by 10 different fathers. I failed, sadly. There are also reality TV type challenges such as Big Brother or Survivor.