Right now my main plan is to get all the Eps and SPs installed on my new computer, make backups of the files, and then get all my old mods in place. This task has taken me over two weeks and I am not even halfway done simply because real life has been a mess lately.

After I get all of this done, I would like to be able to make a hood that I can get really involved in, instead of the hoods I have made before where I only play one or two families, then get tired of the hood and make another. I have been debating on if I want to make a hood starting with self sims of my family or a family I created for a story years ago. Or if I just want to throw a few families together and see where the hood leads me. I guess I will just have to wait and see what happens when I finally get everything reinstalled and set up to my liking.

I just finished making a desert hood to play (which is set to all summer and I use the no_summer_rain mod) and then decided I wanted a (lush) winter hood (will eventually switch it to all 4 seasons, unless I do my usual of setting it to all summer) to trade off with.

I like my hoods to have history but I'm not really a fan of making or naming sims. I wanted new sims for this hood (instead of the sets I have been using in other hood projects) so I 'force created' 3 batches of downtownies (I use the mod that kills the templates so they get created off my default face replacements) and moved most of them into 3 lots. Yesterday I let them pair off and get pregnant, which determined who they would marry (except in the cases of the same-sex couples, they were assisted via the blender).

So now I have 3 lots full of pregnant sims.
Lot one has 15 pregnant sims, 3 of which are natural twins.
Lot two has 16 pregnant sims, 3 of which are also natural twins.
Lot three has 16 pregnant sims, 2 of which are natural twins.

Before I even started I'd decided to allow 2 sims on each lot, to have second pregnancies and everyone contributes their genetics to at least 1 kid. Once all the babies are born, I'll age up them up to teens and then kill off the adults. In other hoods I'd move them out to their own homes (an age them to elder or almost elder), that future gens would join them in but since I always end up killing them off to trim down the playable population, I'll skip that step this time. I may change my mind though because I do like having some older family members around (and I like choices - like a kid raised by grandparent).

My computer won't like it if I go too much into 4 rows of sims so I'll do a bit of juggling (probably have the twins born first and age them up to teens, then kill off their parents or move them out). Keeping the kids to one lot ensures they know each other and for faster pairing up, I set everyone to best friends (let them take it from there). Once the kids have their kids, I'll repeat the process. With the grandkids, I'll start mixing up ages so some have teens/children and some have adult kids with toddlers/babies (and not everyone will be best friends so it's more realistic).

I'm thinking one lot will eventually hold the poorest families, another the rich, with the last one in the middle. I'll be dividing the households up between the basehood and a downtown.

I have generalized plans, right now it mostly involves figuring out what my new adults will be contributing to the hood. I have the new vet set up with her clinic, the pet store is open. Then I have my new mayoral candidate just starting her campaign against the long running mayor Jared Sparks. Another young couple are opening a home day care and running a private taxi. The new Dr is starting at the clinic and her partner is going to open the toy shop. Not sure what else. Sometimes I find out by opening a house and seeing what I jotted down in their bios.

Otherwise sims do what they want, I have had 2 babies born to risky whoohoo and a third now on the way. I saw Kathryn kiss Brett at her sisters wedding when he is already married to Sunny, and she is now married to Dexter, so I foresee bad things there. I don't plan these things. Seeing she is the mayoral candidate I don't know how such a scandal will effect things there. The spouses seem oblivious right now.

I don't plan stories I only plan career and education paths based on a sims motivation level, the rest just happens.

I actually have a Sims 'To Do' list, I've just started a new hood (Margaritaville) and I'm going to move in all the Stealth Hood Sims (from Tarlia's Viper Canyon). I have to finish building homes for the Ramaswamis and the Ottomai, then decide whether to move the Newson kids in with the Goodies - it makes life (mine) a little easier, but not as much of a challenge as letting them tough it out on their own. Hmm. Also, should Julien Cooke and Cyd Roseland be roomies? It means only having to build one house instead of two, but then who will move out if one/both of them get married? Decisions, decisions! I've already got houses finished for Tara Kat, the Kims, Gavigans, Travellers.... oh, the PIcasos, I need to remember to build their place, I'd forgotten about them.

Then I have to build/download some Community Lots, as well as decide which Uni I'll attach to my hood. After that, makeovers for EVERYONE because I can't have my nice new hood sullied by Eaxis Fug. Which leads to me thinking, I really need to sort out my Downloads, it'd be nice to start a brand new hood with some new stuff, and I REALLY need to make my mind up about using Default Replacements, I love them but they're a pain in the butt when they get glitchy...

So - lots to do! My husband always tells me if I put as much time, effort, thought and organisation into our Actual Life, we'd probably be millionaires by now. I just ignore him and carry on playing.

There has to be a farming area close to Kipling. Thinking of making a business subhood for that. And, also, thanks to @klapaucius, thinking of putting the bin Sims back to do the farming.

Never mind! I know I'll never be a millionaire, but it's consolation enough for me to know that some of my Sims might be. Two of my Sims made over §400,000 between them as a result of my participation in d_dgjdhh's Monopoly Game Town building contest!

Now that I'm done with proper adresses, it's time to finally set up the police station and the clinic. The burglar get arrested more than once and I have several sick sims.

With the free time I had (after AP exams and general school stuff), I was working on defaulting all hair, clothing, and makeup in my game until I began to lose interest in the game itself. Just recently I downloaded Four Corners and Bitville and attached them to my Maxis megahood. I'm gonna play in the two towns for a little while, partly because I never played Life Stories and partly because I need some down time throughout these last few weeks of school. It's kind of a side plan at the moment, with no specific ideas other than getting to know the Four Corners and Bitville sims.

My main plan is to develop my primary hood, Lilydale, and its subhoods Lake Ogden and Point Marlowe (which may or may not become its own separate hood), and its university hood(s). I already have ideas for families and whatnot, but I'd rather leave this hood aside and continue once I'm out of school.

This may or may not come to fruition, but I wanna play Widespot pretty soon. The sims' supposed unattractiveness doesn't really bother me, and after lurking through this forum for so long, I've come to really appreciate Peni's knack for storytelling. :lovestruc

I've got plans to make Fargo into a small farming community to start with and have a smaller population in the early years of the town and to add a new blank terrain for my first shopping district because I've got a Mod to let me do that for my new farming district when the town starts growing.I've got TS2 UC installed and have been forced to use Mods in this case unlike in the past.

You can add a new shopping hood at any time without any mods if it is a new terrain.

My current plan is to create a functioning school for each subhood in my player-made neighborhoods megahood (Meadow Creek/Mountainside Valley/Bayside Flats/Sedona/Shady Shores/Widespot). I've downloaded the school objects, now I just need to figure out how to set it up. I'm not too concerned about making the schools perfect though, since of course they'll be attending regular school when I play their household in my rotation and getting regular homework and all that. My main goal is for the kids and teens in each subhood to get to know each other so the subhoods actually feel like somewhat separate places. That way parents needing to move to another subhood is somewhat of a big deal in terms of going to school with strangers (mostly) or moving to a new subhood when becoming an adult feels like going somewhere new. I always struggle with this because walkbys are from all of the subhoods. I'll explain away kids bringing home kids from other subhoods as meeting at some kind of joint-school activity or something.

I am another butterfly brain, always moving on, always looking for the new. In the past I have created, and abandoned, neighborhoods based on novels: Tolkien's Middle Earth, Pratchett's Ankh Morpork, Falco's Rome. They were all huge projects, but where are they now? Gone, alas! There will come a morning when I wake up singing, and my present hood with all its platinum sims and flourishing generations ... will be toast. A new project will dominate my mind, and old loves grow cold. Sometimes I mourn my long lost sims, but that's life.

Well, now that my new computer (!!!!!) has been ordered, my gameplay plan is on hold in favor of getting my old computer ready for retirement and my new computer Sims compatible. Mods and CC to sort through, lots to be uploaded, that sort of stuff.

I was thinking of making a Castaway challenge with DJ's fabulous new Felicity Island hood. But I have the patience of a 2-year-old, so I doubt it's going to happen. A cross between a BaCC/medieval charter challenge and the Sims Castaway game.

I installed the hood with all necessary CC and made two families (was thinking 4 island families and 1 castaway). But now I am bored.

I had plans for one welfare Mod not work out though I found some custom careers that allow them to collect welfare allowances instead of working for long hours for newcomers to take time learning their skills before taking a real job and another for when sims are raising a family or for single parents with toddlers.
I planned on a shopping district when my main town center starts filling up and is running out of room for adding larger lots so my young couples looking to start their families can move out there and eventually a downtown for my retiring empty nesters to move to when their kids move out as well as for young singles looking for cheap rental housing as they are starting out.

I'm tired of the way I normally play so I'm going to start over my whole game, I have plans to default everything in CAS that I dislike/find ugly and so far, I have downloaded about half of the everyday outfits for adult females.. I have alot of things to download as you can tell (sorry computer!) When I'm done with that, I'm going to fire up my game and make a new hood, this may sound strange but I have never made a hood by myself before; I always play in the neighbourhoods that are already shipped in the game with the premade sims and my own sims.

That is the beauty of sims, @Miley - there is always something new and different to try.

Meanwhile, Sims are seriously buggering up my game plans

I have lose 'plans' for live play. I want to start a crime family, or a real neighborhood villain that has crooked cop friends and makes enemies. How? Not sure yet but my hood has been peaceful far too long since the syndicate was broken up. Since my one captain hero and his just and fierce judge wife have retired, the hood is open again for a power struggle.

Storytelling wise, I want to complete a battle of the bands arc, and stage a school play or gym class mini story.

I've got some ideas for a new 'hood, with an integrated economy, a couple of different sim religions, and rules that change as the town is built and as the government changes. I'm still brainstorming for ideas on how different governments will change the way sims in the town will live - different governments will have different ways of collecting money, different spending priorities (grants and building community lots), and different rules for how sims live. Coming up with the ideas is fun, but I'm also trying to figure out how to not make my own rules too unwieldy; I want to enjoy playing my new 'hood.

I'm also trying to figure out what mods and cc I want to have in this new 'hood; it will be in a new game folder. So far, I've only decided it will have less than I have in my current game, but I'm torn on everything else. First I thought I'd leave my build/buy cc out of the new game, and use most of the same mods that I am currently using, but now I'm not so sure. Reducing the number of mods to a minimum might be a nice change, but I added each of the mods I use for reasons that mostly still exist. I do have several cc items that I keep using, and I know that I'll want those, and I also want a few recolours of maxis items. Then there is CAS content; I like my current skintones and eyes, but it is tempting to try other sets, and choosing which hairs and clothes to keep and which to remove is also a challenge.

The other thing to decide with a new 'hood is which terrain to use (I've narrowed that to four) and what combination of clean or empty templates to use when creating the 'hood. I'm not sure how many townies I want and which templates will be empty. I'm leaning towards the Maxis stealth hood for apartment life (I used either a clean or empty template last time, but socioeconomic class will play a role in this new 'hood so I want the social group townies). For the rest, I'll probably use empty templates, except for Bon Voyage - I am completely undecided on the tourists and the vacation locals, and part of that is because I don't know if I want to take the time to create my own or not. I've created my own townies before, but not tourists or vacation locals and I'm not sure I want to bother with it, but I also don't know if I want to see the same ones as I have in my current game.

I've been fiddling with my rule set off and on for the last month, and I just started looking at my cc and mods last week. I'll probably continue thinking about it for a while, then make a new game folder with a test 'hood where I can tweak the cc and mods in use. Once I've got a final downloads folder set up, I'll swap out templates and create a new 'hood. I think that will likely take me until at least mid summer, but it depends on how my current 'hood is going. I still really like the sims in my current game, and there is a lot going on in it, but I know that if I start a new 'hood, I probably won't come back to this one very often, if at all. I am also starting to see more frequent glitches with my current 'hood - they aren't big and don't affect much, but the fact they seem to be more common is worrying.

If I do get the new 'hood set up, I might say goodbye to my current game by trying out Pescado's zombie apocalypse and fight mods in it. I've been wanting to play with those for a while, but not in a hood where I'm trying to build a community. Earlier this week (after several sims suddenly changed LTWs) I was considering having my town be bombed (using incendiaries from Paladin's on lots that lost a dice roll), but slept on the idea instead. When I woke up I decided that playing the sims when in a bad mood was likely to result in destruction I'd later regret. I'll save the destruction and zombie war until I've given up the 'hood for lost and am almost ready to move on to the new one.

That's always *such* a pain. I've switched many computers and installs at this point, and every single time, I never had the most up to date Downloads folder on a drive or I changed my mind about the way I want to play. Usually spending half a week redownloading everything, most of that time just default replacing or getting recolors. Spent one whole day just getting Michelle & Honeywell's stuff.

In my game right now? Getting a bit more CC. I noticed when I was screwing around with that farmer guy who's name I still can't remember and am too lazy to look up, I didn't have enough clothing CC to my liking. Downloaded Smallhouse Models sets yesterday, but I still also don't have enough Build/Buy mode crap. I'm slowly but surely becoming a CC addict. My days of a 500mb Downloads folder are long gone. Sigh. I only am using a MM default replacement skin set, and I really like it, but I kind of want more skins??? Skins are completely foreign land to me, to say the least. Never had any in TS3 or 4 either. I've always liked Maxis, but now I'm slowly warming up to player-created skins, specifically for TS2 because in all honesty, Maxis' looks a bit dirty or something, IDK.

I'll probably end up playing with Tarlia's templates. I'm way too lazy to make a town at this point, but knowing me, I'll get to it sooner or later. Something about having a whole town that I created and being the cat demon overlord just appeals to me too much to resist. :lovestruc Don't know which terrian I'll use. I don't have Sim City 4 or whatever it is you use to create terrains, but I'd rather download from MTS or an off-site anyways. Creating a terrain just adds even more work, and excuse my English, but ain't nobody got time for that.

One does not need to make a whole town. Just 1 family. And then another one, when you want to, and another one, and another one, and perhaps a park, when you want to - and a clothing shop- and so on - and before you know, you have a huge hood.

Well, I'm not a big Pleasantview player but I am procrastinating on making a completely customized city (now that I have a working laptop that runs TS2) because I'm not entirely clear on the whole how many SC4 squares are equal to the lot sizes on TS2. The explanation I was given before had a lot of math and I'm not a huge mathematician. So lately I've been messing with the Broke family lately, which brings to mind the fact that I'm going to have to play the Pleasants... Because of Angela's romance with Dustin Broke. Then again, I did pretty much ignore her except to have her meet Brandi... and I think I had them kiss, but anyway the next time I play them, Dustin will be headed off to college, because I had him clean up his act (though he did keep the Criminal career) where school and home life was concerned.

I'm working on a lot for the Build A resort Contest. https://www.modthesims.info/show...t=576040&page=1 If you haven't ever looked into the contests here you might like to have a look around and join one sometime.

The plan this week centres around the Big Book of Shadows. I created three student brothers: Adam, Brian and Clement. They all had the same face template, but with different colours of hair and clothes, so I could tell them apart. Adam was Knowledge, Brian was Popularity, and Clement was Romance. They all had straight fives for their personality points, with the intention that they would use the Big Book of Shadows to change their natures as their university careers progressed. Each of them managed to gain an extra Neatness point during the first semester, so they've all stopped belching and gobbling. Now Adam has gained an extra Playful point, Brian has an extra Outgoing, and Clement has an extra Niceness point. Of course, Adam is happier at college, because he always picks up three thousand aspiration points for doing his term paper; but his brothers use the time while he is working to go out and meet other sims. Already the brothers have opted for three different majors, and have three different LTWs. I will have to build a house big enough to keep them together after graduation, to follow their development. Do I have the stamina to carry through this plan? Um ...

I'm currently working on a neighborhood that is mostly focused on supernatural and when I finished it, I might upload it up here, probably in late September or early October. And it's been pain in the butt ever since I started this project a while ago.