I always get started with just the basics like my service center and a homestead and slowly add more homesteads and later a general store as the town grows over time with families getting bigger and with more new couples arriving to settle in and start building new lives.I add more types of community lots to the town as it grows and also add shopping districts and downtowns as it expands over time.Smaller towns have fewer types of community lots and larger towns get more.I also add different types of apartment lots for newcomers and for when teens move out on their own.

==
I don't like any of the Maxis sub-hoods. I put a wedding arch in my park; was happily surprised when everyone on the lot twirled into formal wear for the wedding. I also have a bunch of instruments; it's a hoot seeing who will "join", sometimes I wind up with a rocking band, other times the players are just awful. Oddly, non-playable tip everyone equally.
And it is just essential to have the mod to learn on community lots.

I don't think massage tables were in use back then (medieval) as the Church probably forbade women from doing that kind of job-but I might be wrong. I'm wondering if you can build a bigger sauna by combining two together? That could be interesting for the town meeting! "All those in favor of the motion, clap your rocks !"

I'm always experimenting with new types of lots and "concept houses". I made one house where the stories floors were separated next to to each other instead of stacked on top of each other. The house looks like a set of stairs that spiral upwards. You could say that it looks like a giant Jenga game. As for community lots, I made a giant "skate park" using the skate anywhere mod. It's set up like a skateboard park but sims can't do tricks on it except for the skating moves already in the game.

Open pit mining?

If you look at Plumbob Keep, they have a mining set, and you could put in the rock mining station in the open air pit..for authenticity.

Mining 3.0

Then you take those resources you mined and turn them into something useful:
Refine And Shine

I love your ideas, @Aspersim ! I would definitely add a stereo to that outdoor area in the apartment complex- smustle is very good for the mental health!

I mainly see smaller-sized towns on the Sims, I don't know if I've ever seen someone build whole cities. I'm sure they're out there, I just don't remember seeing any. I know a lot of people are cautious as to how many households they keep due to Sim-bloat. Isn't there a cap of how many Sims you can have in a hood?

If any of you have built some larger civilizations with lots of lots, I'd love to see some pics for inspiration, and possibly an attached population count??

These days it would be more to do with pink flashing. Larger hoods with more items are more likely to pink flashing.

As far as sim cap unless you are on base game or a few EP set up because you are playing on a netbook or some other kind of potato, don't worry about it.
If you have an all EP set up like most people you are not going to reach the sim cap. I guess you could if you tried really hard for years and were dedicated to trying to reach it by breeding and making and installing as many sims as you possibly could. I've never actually heard of anyone actually reaching that goal.

I think I'd asked @Charmful. IMO she's one of the simmer with the oldest hood among us.

With Arundel, I'm hoping to eventually grow it into a complete town, as opposed to a small village. It still doesn't have a ruler, although it does have a Lord Mayor, and 2 women who want to be queen,
It'll probably take a couple of generations to build it up to town.

It's certainly possible to make a 'hood that has the look and feel of a big city without having tens of thousands of Sims living in it. I recall seeing some spectacular urban views by @MOOKIEBLAYLOCK and some by @simsample. Even Maxis Downtown achieves this to some extent.

I have a Swimming hole and a campground in my rural island hood. The campground of course is party central, with tents, barbecue, walk on hot coals, bonfire etc. The swimming hole has a pet washing fountain, a lake with diving board and tents as well as a barbecue area. This is where people go to fish or meet someone.

Hey! I found your question through a tag from Essa. I have 2 major downtown/cities attached to main hood + a touristy desert town and a semi-tropical shipping subhood. You can read about it on this thread though It's grown a lot more in 5 years since I wrote all that down.

The last time I did a census was a few months ago and these were my (playable - as in sims I have made or born in game or actively play with) population stats (those have changed as well, since I play often but very slowly due to the amount of sims I have):
Elder: 59
Adult: 100
YA: 40
Teen: 26
Child: 12
Toddler: 3
Infant: 1

That's amazing though. Your town is lovely by the way!... but ten years?? Here I am all proud of myself for having the attention span for a few months!! That's just awesome. Amazing dedication!



That part I can understand... I experienced that for the first time ever yesterday. I think I have only 30 or so lots built yet, but I do have a LOT of high res/poly neighborhood deco. I love TS2 and its world building abilities, but it is quite sad to see the limitations due to the era the game was made in. Still, I'm going to continue to try to grow my town as large as possible, even if it were to kill my PC!

I play one form of BACC.
I assigned a workplace to each level of career.
Every four households open a new community lot (workplace).
I will need 128 households to open 32 community lots , then I will have a complete city.

plastic surgery is great

I'm surprised no one has mentioned having a town pharmacy or apothecary in their neighborhood yet! As someone who has the realistic sickness mod it's often one of the lots I prioritize building the fastest-- the only reason I haven't gotten there yet in my current hood is the only couple in town who I could see running one and who have access to the Biotech station are swamped under ten kids and have basically not left their house in 20 years. As a result there have been quite a few unnecessary deaths in the neighborhood that some medicine might have saved...