Once again real life has inspired my simming - and once again I want to find out how other people play their games! I have spent part of today reading about RL "intentional communities". Here's a definition of "intentional communities", taken from the website I linked:

"”Intentional communities” include ecovillages, cohousing, residential land trusts, income-sharing communes, student co-ops, spiritual communities, and other projects where people live together on the basis of explicit common values."

I'd like to create an "intentional community" in my game - similar to the RL Twin Oaks, Acorn and East Wind communities, which I've been reading about today. I'm still not sure how best to go about it, so I was wondering if anyone of you have ever played a similar community in your game, and if so how you went about setting it up and playing it? I would like my sim-community to be fairly self-sufficient, at least with regards to growing produce, for all income to be shared and for child-rearing to be at least partially shared between all members of the community.

But how to set it up and play it?! Should it be on a single lot, several lots, an apartment lot? Will all of the residents be part of one household? How will I ensure that everyone does their fair share of the work, and how will they divide the fruits of their labours? And what about all the factors that I haven't even considered yet?! :-D

So, if you've ever played a commune, eco village, co-op or even a monastery/convent, I'd love to hear how you did it! And if you've never played an "intentional community" but have some suggestions on how it could be done please do share your ideas! :-)

It sounds to me like if you want child-care and income to be shared, your only bet is a single lot. From what I read, toddlers don't come out of apartments when playing other families, so sharing care would not work there. And if you play multiple lots, you'd have to be teleporting people in/out. Also the money would need to be divided by you at all times. Seems like a lot of work.

If I ever wanted to try a project like that, I'd make a list of what should be shared, and what duties need to be performed. Then figure out some kind of schedule, dividing the chores amongst the people and making sure they do it when it is their turn. Free willing clean Sims may mess it up, but I guess one could just see that as lucky the person who got away from doing it. My list would probably include tending garden (produce and aesthetic plants), cooking, cleaning, making beds, helping with home work, changing diapers, bathing babies/toddlers.

One of my favorite lots to play in my game is essentially a self-contained medieval kingdom, and the way I play it sounds kind of like what you're talking about... It's a single massive (5x6) apartment lot with technically only 4 apartments, but housing space for several dozen Sims. The division I have is the feudal lord's castle, the cathedral and monastery, the serf's village, and the gypsy camp on the outskirts of town. Each of these apartments I play as its own community in many regards, but the fact that it's on the same lot as the others means that there's opportunities for interesting interaction between them. For example, an orphaned peasant or gypsy child will be "adopted" by the church, and raised as a monk or nun, the serfs provide much of the food from their fields to the church and castle (no one gets to buy groceries, so people do occasionally starve during a winter famine), there's mistrust between the gypsies and the rest of the community, etc.

As far as the design of the lot goes, the castle is really the only part where "1 Apartment = 1 House." The church has separate buildings for the monks and nuns, as well as access to the catacombs and belltowers of the cathedral. The gypsy camp is a cluster of wagons and tents set up in the woods on the edge of the kingdom. The serfs have a massive community field in the middle of a cluster of tiny, one-room shacks, with the "apartment" entrance actually being in the ramshackle tavern off the town square! To encourage the community to mingle, some things that you'd expect to find in each "apartment" aren't actually inside the apartment- for example, one of the "community" buildings is a public bathhouse, since medieval homes wouldn't really have much in the way of hygiene-related resources! Other things are also provided for the use of the entire community, like the main floor of the cathedral, which has the expected marriage arch and preacher's podium, and the entire community is expected to make an appearance on Sundays.

A big lot like that, with so many Sims on it, certainly runs slowly, but in terms of gameplay, it's worked pretty well for me, and it sounds a lot like what you're trying for!

My main commune is on an island with 4 families. No electricity and everything is made by them to barter with each other. It's been quite awhile since I played them so I forgot everyone's name, but my back story was they came on a boat with suplies to get away from the rat race. I set up a base camp on a large beach lot and used Rebeck'a trees for wood. I set down that 100 bundles of logs chopped equaled one house with basic furniture. Last time I played each family had a house and base camp was turned into a community lot. At one house there is a tailor and she did nothing but sew after she arrived off the boat until she had a gold badge-which takes quite sometime in my game to gain. So now she makes all the clothing for the community. So if a baby grows up they stay in their grow up outfit until the parents can have an outfit made. They will give her something of what they have. Her husband's back story is he is a bit of a crook and he's growing a crop of hidden weed behind their house. He does fish though as he refuses to chop wood- he's rather lazy. The next house has the farmer and he mostly grows crops and his wife does a lot of fishing. At the third house is the main wood cutter and his wife is a DR and a witch, so she makes potions and comfort soup. At the last house is the carpenter and handy man, so he 'builds' the houses and furniture and puts in the solar panels which run the lights off batteries. His wife does some gardening and is making toys. The main currency is food as that is what people need the most. They pass around the baby cribs and items to whoever is needing it. I use the visitor controller to prevent bills and the newspaper and townies. They constantly walk to each others houses and take care of each others babies, use each others bath and even each others beds. The oldest child is now a child and I keep the bus away with the simlogical school sign and he's assigned to flexi school but does none. He spends his time fishing and gardening with his parents or cleaning-little 10 point cleaning freak or playing peek-a-boo with his little sister.

I also have a hippie commune in my integrated hood which is just one lot with 2 families. They live in a kind of tree house, grow plants, harvest honey, throw parties with happy candy (makes them go a bit loopy) a hot tub, bubble blower and now that I have it they will be growing weed.

Thanks for the ideas, guys :-) I think you're right, gummilutt - a single lot is probably going to be my best bet. Zarathustra, that sounds awesome - do you have any pictures that you could share/have shared? I'd love to see what your medieval lot looks like :-) Your commune sounds fun, Jo!

Not at the moment- the lot is actually kind of a mess right now, since I'm trying to get it to a point where uploading it would be practical. (The monastery, tavern, and most of the gypsy camp are being completely redesigned right now!) I'll try to remember to put screenshots here when it's back to where it looks good!

Zarathustra, keep in mind that lots uploaded to MTS should be new (meaning, never have been occupied by any Sims), so if you're planning to upload it, you should make a fresh copy

Trust me, that was the first thing I did! The original was more fun to play than to look at though- it was hard to see the distinctions between apartments, and the overall effect has never been one of my favorites... that's why I tossed the original and I'm remodeling so much of it! The families are homeless for the time being, and will probably stay that way until I deem it ready to upload...

Great I realized after I posted that you're kind of a lot expert, so you probably knew that, but I figured I'd leave it in case some else sees it and realizes they shouldn't upload previously occupied lots. It's a pet peeve of mine, since I'm personally convinced it leads to corruption.

Ah, well, eventually being able to download it is even better than getting to see pictures! :-) I look forward to your upload!

Incidentally, I created one in my own game a few days ago. It works very well. There's a large farm and several rooms given to the 3 different families. It works as one house, and nobody holds an outside job or goes to outside school. All the adults and teens help work on the farm and care for infants/toddlers. Children do homework and skill. Children and teens attend a homeschool run by an adult. It is very interesting.
Mine was more along the lines of Charles Fourier's phalansteries. If you're interested, you should look at New Lanark, which is located in Scotland.

I do communes quite a bit, although not lately because I wasn't playing on a machine that could handle the large lots required. But for me it gets overwhelming to play them on one lot. So, I set up mine as sub-hoods. Basically, it's a large central garden/fishing community lot that is owned by the founder (so that it can be saved, so that communal farming actually works on it), and that all residents have access to. That lot is surrounded by large-ish residential lots that will hold up to 20 Sims or so. (Usually, I move four or six adults into them and they spawn away with each other as they see fit, with childcare done communally, and the kids all homeschooled.) I add more of those lots as I need them because playing more than about 20 Sims at once just gets overwhelming and, to me, not-fun.

But the idea is that they don't spend their time on the residential lots. The residential lots are essentially dorms with a bathhouse. For everything else they need, they go to community lots, which they do en masse (except when there are infants, of course) and I'll teleport in the other commune members, too, so it's all one gang. In addition to the garden/fishing lot, there's a communal kitchen/dining hall and a crafting/recreational lot. To generate money, excess food and crafted items and such are sold at an owned "Farmer's Market" lot, where all of the community's teens are "employed" as restockers and cashiers and salespeople and what-not.

For the record, I run monasteries in pretty much the same way, except in that case there are no kids to worry about and there are lots and lots of lots of rules. The communes have few rules except that no one but the leader is allowed to leave the sub-hood (to go forth and recruit new members) and they aren't allowed to interact with non-members. So no one has a phone and they all have prisoner tokens to keep them from doing walkbys and visiting community lots in the main hood and other subhoods. Pretty much anything else goes, though.

Like I said, I haven't played one recently, but one of my spawns in the age-modded neighborhood I play just rolled to found a commune, so... This time, I'm going to build it as a template so that I don't have keep rebuilding the damn things!

Actually you are still allowed to upload lots that previously had sims living in them. Personally I would never do that. I'd like to see that rule changed or at least added to that people need to say so in bold letters, because I know sometimes people use a sim moved in to test and moved out to depreciate starter houses. Which is how they make such lovely looking ones. Any house that looks too good to be true (unless very cheap cc is used) generally is.

I can't use large lots anymore, maybe one day when I can get this computer upgraded, but right now small to medium lots with shadows turned off is how I play.

OK, you motivated me to put a few hours work into my medieval kingdom, so while the interiors of most of these buildings are still in shambles, the exterior is once again good enough that I'm willing to post a draft photo of where I am right now. The castle and church apartments should be obvious, the gypsy camp is the colorful grouping of wagons and tents in the hills outside town, and the three cottages and the outhouse in the center of town are the peasant's dwellings. The newer wood building is the bathhouse, and the two buildings on the far left are the tavern and a stable. It'll all still get a lot more fine-tuning before I want to upload it, but hopefully you can see the different aspects I was talking about above, and it'll give you some more ideas!

Lords and ladies, I give you the Westfall Kingdom!

I know jo, but as I recall it, you're not supposed to and that's what counts for me. But I agree with you, they really ought to make that clearer, and make it a set rule.

Very neat Zaustra. Impressive how much you manage to fit in the same space I build one house, haha.

Zarathustra, very clever and beautifully done as all your lots are. I've never downloaded any due to the size, but I like looking at them.

gummilutt, I'm not even sure if it says you shouldn't, but I hope so. You build one house on a 6 by 6 lot?!

Uh... maybe? :3 Only two families so far have gotten max size lots with houses that big, but I do love building big (as may have been apparent in my post in "Packaging lots without unused CC recolors ").

Lol, that would result in speed snail pace for me. Yes, I was getting that impression.

/offtopic

Luckily my computer runs huge lots fine, and my crash issues are the same regardless of lot size, so I might as well play big lots

That isn't a 6 by 6 lot. My legacy mafia house is on a similar lot and has the graveyard, shed, pond, pool and lots of rooms.

It might not look like it is in the screenshots, but it is, unless the Lot Adjustor is mistaken. I wanted to add picture from above, but it didn't want to zoom out that far :P

Gummilutt, it looks like you run into the same "problem" I do with building big- even when the building itself is small, the gardens and grounds surrounding it end up being huge! I've tried to make smaller lots a few times, and always end up rebuilding them on a big lot as my ideas expand more and more... I really hope I can eventually find an idea that works well on a small lot that isn't 15 stories tall! (none of my current projects fit that description, unfortunately...)

Well I know my Water park on here is a 6 by 6, and your lot doesn't look as large as that. https://www.modthesims.info/d/477943 If you scroll down where I tried to get the whole front in I couldn't.

Zara, small is boring! Where do you put all the stuff? I need my clutter </3 And hobby objects, and career rewards. STUFFS! I leave the small lots to all the people who like that. I like big rooms, lots of garden area, and space for all of the things. I do build smaller lots (and download when I want a change), but all of my favorite families will eventually live in huge lots.

Jo, maybe I just have a different camera mod than you do It took a few tries and angle-changes to fit it and still show the front properly.

Right? Bigger is better! I tend to play wealthy Sims in my own game, so they need lots of space! (What I've found is that one of the best ways to make a house seem expensive is to actually WASTE space- kind of saying "Yes, I have enough money to waste the most precious resource my home has!") Even smaller-scale households I find to be more fun when they're part of a bigger lot- that's why I play things like the medieval kingdom I'm working on as ONE lot instead of 4!

Still, I'm trying to give people things they want when I actually upload lots, so at some point I want to cater to the people who want smaller lots- I'll just have to figure out how to make it work!