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Unfortunately you can't stop sims from having relationships with each other or having the game move them into an empty house.
Well, there ARE things you can do... like create your own townies and fill up the empty houses so the game has nowhere to move sims into.
Another thing you can do is install the MCCC mod. With that you can control things like having the game automatically move homeless sims into houses and turn that off completely.
But stopping sims from talking to each other? I've never heard of that and don't think that's possible.
If you just want to have your sims a "clean slate" as you put it, but only at the beginning of the game, one thing you can do is set up a "template" save. I've been doing that for years. It's my favorite way to play.
Basically what you do is start a new game but play it as little as possible. Set up EVERYTHING. Build houses, create townies, fill up all the lots in Newcrest, set up community lots in all towns, set up relationships, (or lack thereof) Design the entire world to be JUST how you like it. Then save it and NEVER play it. Name it like "Starter Game" or "Starter Template".
Whenever you want to start a new game, load up the Starter Template and immediately do a SaveAs and give it a new name. This way you have a brand-new world already set up exactly how you like it.
Mine is filled with all my favorite townies I've played in the past, famous actors and actresses, characters I love, houses I've built in the past, etc. It's a hoot to play a new game and see Miranda from Mass Effect try to romance Elsa from Frozen. Lol.
It never hurts to have a backup, but personally, I've never had my mods, tray, or saves folder get corrupted or messed up.
Remember, your Library is separate from your played game. Sims in Manage worlds, the placed houses and lots, everything in your played world is saved in your Save file. That has nothing to do with your "Tray" folder. You can backup, restore, and even completely delete your Tray folder and it'll have no bearing upon what's in your saved game. (I wouldn't recommend deleting your tray folder though) It's also NOT saved on-line either. Nothing is saved online. Nothing. Even things shared to the gallery from your Library will get removed if you remove them from your library.
I was actually able to go into gameplay settings and uncheck the box for the game to autofill empty houses. So I don't have to worry about that anymore.
So when I actually want to move them in, using copies of the Sims I had saved in CAS that are in My Library instead of the ones in Managed Households wouldn't work? Those library Sims don't have relationships with anyone.
See, what I don't want happening are some of those autonomous unmentionable things - I have the game set up where these interactions do affect relationships. It's not the talking that concerns me so much as that, as well as the romance bar, but is my understanding that if NPCs talk to other NPCs they may form friendships but not romantic relationships. And if they interact with a live Sim I am playing, I can control whether or not my Sim talks to them at all.
The method you are describing is a bit complicated and I'm not sure I completely understand it. I do have a Sim in Willow and another in Oasis and I don't want to get rid of them - I want them in the same save as the Sims I want to put into Newcrest. I know if I were to save the Willow and Oasis households to my library via CAS all their relationships would be preserved. I've played them extensively and saving them would basically put them in suspended animation. I'm not finished creating outfits for my new Sims and I know I can only do that through CAS with them in managed households, so if I were to keep saving them to my library after every change I make, whatever relationships they made as NPCs would save along with them.
When I did have the game refuse to open and freeze up (when I first started) I uninstalled and reinstalled and everything was there exactly as it was. I use the game through Steam. I mean, it wouldn't make sense for everything to be wiped clean if someone needed to do this or even if they were to get a new computer. And anyway, I've been copying my entire Sims 4 folder onto an external hard drive after every game so I could just copy those in and never lose anything.
- Psychotps5 years agoSeasoned Ace@Sapphir567
I use the "template" method because every time I started a new game, Newcrest is always empty and I have to place lots, create townies to put in them, place the community lots, it takes a lot of time to do all that EVERY time I start a new game. I got tired of that so I created the template method. Now, every time I start a new game (by loading my template and SaveAs), Newcrest is already all populated, all my favorite townies are already there, ready to go.
It takes time to set up, but once you take the time and get it perfect, you never have to do all that again.
Sure, you can use your library for that, that's what it's there for anyway. You create your favorite sims and upload them to your library. You can then place them whenever you want, in whatever save you want. They just won't know anyone outside that household.
It's just an extra step I don't care to do. I just load the template, do a SaveAs and everyone's already there. I don't have to place anyone or any lots because it's already done.
Let me see if I can explain the relationship thing. Let's say you have four sims. Two in household 1, and two in household 2. If you upload both households to your library, the two sims in household 1 will remember each other, but neither of them will remember the sims in household 2.
I just tested this. I created a married couple. Split them into separate households and uploaded both to my library. I then deleted them from Manage households and re-downloaded them from my library. They were no longer married and didn't even know each other.
Saving a household to your library will only keep their relationships with other sims in that same household. All other relationships with sims outside that household will be removed once you place them from your library again.
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