Avoiding the storyline in Strangerville - Looking for advice and answers (No spoilers)

"kalaksed;c-16975937" wrote:
when the game starts, there are 3 infected sims (all three of them are premades) and if you continue along, the number slowly rises, but other the initial three, they're all spawned townies. spoiler about the townie jobs and infection below

Spoiler

and it seems by the end of the storyline, every single member of the strangerville military (a hidden trait) is infected. which makes sense. i've had strangerville scientists and even a strangerville 'mib' agent infected before finished the story the first time. but never any conspiracy theorists)

the strangerville military, strangerville scientists, strangerville conspiracy theorists, and strangerville agents (these are all both jobs and hidden traits) can and will wander through other towns, but shouldn't have any of the story-related interactions available (i've actually had my sims go to dinner with one who invited them out, then took her back to strangerville just to complete a step of the story since couldn't do it at the restaurant)

i haven't seen any of the infected sims outside strangerville, but it really was only the three premades at the time, so small chance out of the 600 or so sims in my game that they'd be picked to do a walkby somewhere...

as for the story itself, as long as you avoid any of the interactions in the 'strangerville' header for conversations (at first, this is just 'talk about strangerville') you'll never start the story. though the story also only goes into overdrive once you visit the secret lab and start poking around there. so that's another thing to avoid (unless you want to complete the story quickly just to turn the town totally normal)

the infected sims might be your welcome wagon if you move into the town and, if so, they might do some creepy things that get the 'mib' to show up, but that's it. spoiler about that below

Spoiler

if you have planters on your lot when you first move into strangerville, the infected welcome wagon will plant bizarre fruit there, and they'll put one in your fridge too. if either of these happen, the 'mib' show up, remove the plants from the planters and confiscate the fridge if it's got a fruit in it. they leave a note about the fridge. and if you have the 'private residence' lot trait, neither the welcome wagon nor the mib will show up on your lot, no matter what you do