Challenging idea for fun

The game takes care of other sims' needs while they're not being simulated, so they won't starve while you're not watching. Besides, they can shop from the fridge unless you've blocked that, and quick meals don't require any ingredients.

The hospital isn't relevant unless you use a mod that introduces diseases that would need to be treated.

@graventhe - Okay, I can understand the confusion. I bet you're wondering how I jumped from removing the rabbit holes (which only the sims need) to outlining a few pitfalls of a rabbit hole-less world where the animals and other points of Sim life are concerned. My apologies for the confusion.

I should have started with -- when developing a rabbit hole-less game, it all depends on the type of world you begin with. If you start with a blank unpopulated world, then there are no spawning plants (usually) for the animals to feed on. The animals become dependent on you to provide for them, but only when in the game world.

Think of it this way, you know how townies, despite having access to various food sources readily available to them such as quick meals, picnic baskets and tables (even the kitchen at their houses) will be seen around town screaming of starvation? The same holds true for the animals when there are no food sources available. They can drink all the water they want to temporarily alleviate hunger (like sims do with the juice bar), but it doesn't sustain them for long.

And, contrary to common belief, the game does not provide for their needs while they are in the world; animals are handled just like any other Sim. They have to find food for themselves. If things become too bad, the game will generally pull them back and they will disappear for a while and return the next day. Otherwise, if not pulled back in time, they will die in-game and you'll find the tombstone of the deceased animal. Thankfully, that does not happen often, but it does happen. This is why I suggested making a plan when setting up the world.

However, things work a little bit differently when you are reducing an already developed world, such as Sunset Valley down to a rabbit hole-less one which is more under your control. A developed world comes with pre-built in 'back-up' plans. Such as renewable food sources on community lots and residential lots with unguarded plants for the animals (and sims) to take advantage of (and plenty of fish).

When using this kind of world, keep in mind, any essential thing which is removed has to be replaced with a sustainable equivalent. When you take away the grocery stores, you take away the food source only for your sims.

Townies don't really shop at the store; they are just directed there to give the impression and illusion of daily life when food shopping. While out in town when townies get hungry, unless called to another location, they will head to the nearest picnic basket, picnic table, fire pit, or community grill to get or make a meal. Otherwise, they cook at home or go into suspended animation while their needs are refreshed. This is why the town won't die of starvation.

However, for your Sim, with the grocery store gone, you now have two options available to you for food; start a garden or forge off of the land.

If you choose to forge off of the land, your Sim is now in direct competition with the animal population for food as plants only renew randomly once a day (with no death or decay just dormancy if Seasons is active). This means there is a limited amount of food resources to be shared at any given time. The more a community lot plant is harvested from or eaten, the slower its regenerative cycle becomes. When the world plants slow down, the strain is felt.

One of the ways to keep things a bit more balanced when the world's plants aren't producing as much as they normally would is to feed the animals. This can be done in a couple of ways, using the 'buyDebug' cheat place a few fully harvestable plants down for them to 'destroy' (eat). Or make animal food and leave it in accessible areas. I do this all the time with the horses. I make granola and leave it around town for them to find (and they always find and eat it).

Or, if modded, the whole thing can be avoided by simply turning off the animal population preventing them from spawning.

Hope this helps clear up any misunderstandings. The other points I made are suggestion on how to navigate without the rabbit holes which handles things like, jobs, schools, hospitals and social events. There are always two or three manual ways around everything in this game, it all depends on how deep or realistic the player is wanting and willing to go.

well we do know that the racoon comes around to eat and knocks over the trash can. sometimes I put a dog food dish out for him and fills it and he does not knock over the trash can. Also many people delete all homes and business lots to play in a world and it does not do anything to the game. I have done this a lot of times and have never had any problems. and the horses do come around your house and the deer.

I’ve done a bit of a rabbithole-less world - a rebuild society challenge. I did a “place a rabbithole at certain economic status points. The first rabbit-hole was set down at 1 million simoleons the second at 2M and so on. All they could do was collect rocks and seeds to earn that money and sell out of one’s inventory.

The first day was the hardest. They were near starving before they found the first tree to eat from and it was a full 24 hours before the first seeds spawned so they were hungry as all before they managed to sate their hunger and plant some “renewable resources” so they could eat.

I might take it a step further: no rabbitholes ever and essentially only put down a register (kind of a “wandering trader” - consignment) where they do all their transactions to make money.

I generally started those survival/rebuild society games on an “empty world”. You can find those relatively easily by looking for “builder’s worlds” (note: you need to install these worlds like you would a store world - generally) These are cut down worlds that will have nothing placed in them for ease of loading and building. Some will have trees and other things in them but a variety of different-sized empty lots (that’s why it’s called a “builder’s world”) You may have to go around placing plantables (yeah it sounds like cheating but your sim has to eat) And drop a few seed spawners - all those are in buy debug.

All in all, what you’re planning sounds like a fun start to your game.

It quite possibly will cause your game to bug.

This shouldn't cause any problems, but I'd still suggest keeping the usual NRaas mods in place to clean up any stray data. The way it should work is that all sims employed in rabbitholes will lose their jobs and not be given new ones if the game can't find anywhere for them to work. You'll also lose the other activities associated with the rabbitholes, including some opportunities you might want your sims to complete.

It's a good idea to at least leave City Hall intact for its other functions, for example registering as self-employed. But even that's not strictly necessary—you can assign the job with MasterController if you want. And if you'd like your sims to buy eggs and cheese, you'll need a grocery store at least at first. But you can place any rabbithole and delete it again as often as you like.

"puzzlezaddict;c-18101904" wrote:
This shouldn't cause any problems, but I'd still suggest keeping the usual NRaas mods in place to clean up any stray data. The way it should work is that all sims employed in rabbitholes will lose their jobs and not be given new ones if the game can't find anywhere for them to work. You'll also lose the other activities associated with the rabbitholes, including some opportunities you might want your sims to complete.

It's a good idea to at least leave City Hall intact for its other functions, for example registering as self-employed. But even that's not strictly necessary—you can assign the job with MasterController if you want. And if you'd like your sims to buy eggs and cheese, you'll need a grocery store at least at first. But you can place any rabbithole and delete it again as often as you like.

Yeah I'm thinking of keeping city hall al least for some functions but will other sims starve if I deleted the grocery store? What about the hospital?

Might keep city hall and hospital if they're extremely important but I'm not sure about the grocery store assuming I'm not going to buy anything from there..

My challenge is to keep or minimize rabbithole lots into 2 to (max) 3 only, the lots that are important in game..

Keeping city hall and hospital will do it or I need the grocery store too cuz townies buy food from there too?

Take it from someone who plays in mostly rabbit hole-less worlds, the game will not bug and your townie Sims will not die.

However, I wouldn't suggest leaping into this type of game-play blindly. Unless you want to test how well you can handle Sim emergencies. The game will throw curve balls at you left, right and sideways just to keep you on your toes. Rabbit hole-less worlds require you to put in the work otherwise it will become a huge headache before you even get started.

If I were you, I would do a little pre-planning. If you are going to have animals enabled in your game. Strays will also need to be looked out for, this includes deers. The first time I removed needed food sources from the animal population, they all came to my Sims front door with the starving image in their thought bubbles, so I had to fix that quick.

Also, things from the grocery store such as eggs (if you don't own the chicken coop), tofu and all meats can be grown via the Omni plant. So plop a few of them down, feed it and harvest them the next day.

You will also have to give your townie Sims a little time to adjust to the changes of the way things work. Socialization will be heightened so have community lots with things that will engage them while you work it out.

When it comes to sickness, some cures can be found in the herbs (University Life), for other things the moodlet manager (Base game lifetime wish reward) can help. Knowing which herbs to keep plentiful is a must. Also, if you have Supernatural installed, don't overlook the importance of the elixirs.

If your concern is having the townies work, you can always set up your own places of employment for them. And, you can always use the rabbit hole replacement rugs if you still want to keep the opportunities and special events happening.

However you choose to play, I hope you find your new game entertaining, rewarding and Sim enlightening. Enjoy!

Hope this helps :)!

I've played with completelly empty worlds several times, in build a city kind of challenges and the game doesn't bug and townies won't starve.
The only difference i note from a regular play is that there won't be jobs/school in town if you don't have the relevant builds for that.