Cottage Living: Prep and Plans

"JemmaTheSimmer;c-17912201" wrote:

"AmeliaTodd;c-17912137" wrote:


The other thing I always wanted to do is to have 64x64 lot away from civilization with a relatively small house to have a huge orchard farm on it. Unfortunately it looks like the 64x64 lot will be occupied either as residential or community lot, so I guess that will have to wait.

Don't know if it helps, but DevonBumpkin confirmed he built the 64x64 lot, which is a 'HUGE farmhouse'. Doesn't say if it's occupied or not. But residential are much easier to demolish and put the family elsewhere I find compared to moving around community lots, at least that's what I find.

Thank you, yes I know about him building it, didn't know if it was residential :) . I tend to rebuild lots mainly because I have my own checkboxes that the building needs to meet and even if on a very rare occasion I use someone else's build, I will heavily modify it, so demolishing a lot isn't an issue, but I find it difficult to move premades from their lots, I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it does. Also depends where that lot is and what are the surroundings. For example Brindleton Bay has an unoccupied 64x64 lot, but the surrounding and especially the entrance point says "Hamptons" to me more than "orchard farm". I'm kinda curious what Devon built tho, he is one of the yt builders that I like to watch sometimes.

I have the perfect sim for this. He’s a legacy starter in another save but he loves knitting, gardening and fizzing. He also loves metal and doesn’t really fit into this rural world. I think a cottage living llama farm would be great for him.

I play 8 households in 8 worlds, and that’s a pretty strict rotation, so I have to decide which world to abandon so they can live in HOB. It will either be Mt. Komorebi or Sulani, since they are still obvious vacation destinations so I’ll still use the world somewhat. Leaning towards Mt K.... but in Sulani, the grim reaper has glitched out coming in over the water and I had to restart and have that sim die on shore instead so Grim had a different entry point. That could get very annoying as I proceed with my current game plan, which is...

Crown Roulette. I have 8 royal families and I play each family for 4 days. I roll a die each day for one of the adults.
If I roll...
1. They must die (n/a only if pregnant)
2. Produce an heir (n/a if elder)
3. Have an affair (if a sim rolls this twice in a row they must have an illegitimate child with that affair)
4. Have a social event
5. Produce an heir (n/a if elder. I have this twice to make sure heirs happen!)
6. Cause drama with another family member (roll to see who)

It’s really interesting to see how the hypothetical crown gets passed since you never know who is going to die next. I’m just trying to see how far I can take each line before they die out. And I’m playing on short lifespan for the first time.

Nobody works because they all have their fake royal duties and titles. So I have all day to make things happen according to what I roll. I should have enough time to explore and appreciate the new world without completely overdoing it.

I wonder if the butler will help out with the animals?

The second generation of my Disney play (basically made 8 Disney couples and play them rotationally) are teenagers right now. I was going to move a couple of the second gen over there after they go to college and settle down. My "beast" character became an avid gardener (based on a retelling book I recently read), so one of his daughters is going to carry on that love but expand it with the new gardening and farming in the new world. Snow White and Charming's daughter loves dogs, so I was going to have her become the village vet as well. Luckily, I still have a bit of time because they're only teenagers, but I think that will take me up to the release day!

"SweetieWright_84;c-17912150" wrote:
Until I see a picture of the world (with lot sizes), I can't plan anything. I always take a screenshot of the world and plan which areas will be residential and which will be commercial. Then, I make the families for each house. After all of that is planned, I then build thr houses based on the family that will live there.

I have been looking at inspiration pictures of cottages though, and also thinking of the households I want to add to my save file. I'm just so excited I couldn't contain myself. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself though.

I'm shifting around on my chair to see the new world with lots and houses already, too!

Also the premades. For the most part I don't care for premades, but there always have been one or two families that I fell in love with and worked into my web of sims long before I had the pack. (I even had a Julia Wright from the gallery before owning DU.)

My Lucas Munch would love it there, so after his oldest grows up and moves to Mt K he and his wife and younger daughter will move to Henford-on-Bagley. His wife already has an extensive flower garden and beehive, so we'll add vegetables and animals once they move. Probably also the bug farms from EL since Lucas has almost the whole OR bug collection already.

I've also been planning to make my first retail shop a grocer with baked goods and fizzy juice available, and some of the new things in this pack could definitely expand that. I look forward to learning more about preserves, the new harvestables, and if there will be any new pie recipes.

"SweetieWright_84;c-17912150" wrote:
Until I see a picture of the world (with lot sizes), I can't plan anything. I always take a screenshot of the world and plan which areas will be residential and which will be commercial. Then, I make the families for each house. After all of that is planned, I then build thr houses based on the family that will live there.

I have been looking at inspiration pictures of cottages though, and also thinking of the households I want to add to my save file. I'm just so excited I couldn't contain myself. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself though.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who does this! I used to just screenshot the worlds and overlay my ideas on them. Now I've actually made a spreadsheet for my save now as it's a bit easier to organise. Need to know all the lot sizes and get a feeling for each neighbourhood before I can decide each lot. Probably overkill, but now I can see the exact number of lots to build/sims to make for each world and get percentage done stats on all of them.

"EnkiSchmidt;c-17912423" wrote:

"SweetieWright_84;c-17912150" wrote:
Until I see a picture of the world (with lot sizes), I can't plan anything. I always take a screenshot of the world and plan which areas will be residential and which will be commercial. Then, I make the families for each house. After all of that is planned, I then build thr houses based on the family that will live there.

I have been looking at inspiration pictures of cottages though, and also thinking of the households I want to add to my save file. I'm just so excited I couldn't contain myself. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself though.

I'm shifting around on my chair to see the new world with lots and houses already, too!

Also the premades. For the most part I don't care for premades, but there always have been one or two families that I fell in love with and worked into my web of sims long before I had the pack. (I even had a Julia Wright from the gallery before owning DU.)

I don't really play a lot with premades in my general gameplay. They're usually just background sims. In my save file, I deleted them all. With that being said, I have recently started a save with 24 YA sims to dabble with rotational play. Of the 24 sims, only 9 are sims I've made. The rest are premades and Maxis gallery sims. I'm really enjoying it. My goal is have generations of sims that can trace their lineage back to the original 24. It may be a while before I get to HoB with that save though. I'm trying to make each generation "discover" the worlds as I go. As of right now, the 24 have only "discovered" the base game worlds.

Anyway, I am excited to read the backstories on all the new households though. I'm curious about the lore they've teased.

"MDianaSims;c-17911733" wrote:
Now, I don't normally really prep for new packs, but this one, especially the setting of a small village in the countryside, really inspires me.
I've got it down to two concepts, that I just posted to my blog, but I'll just post them here, see if anyone has any preference. Not that I'll share much of it, but it's for my own enjoyment, it's always more fun to play with somewhat of a story idea behind it.

Why not both? I see a potential love match!

I'm thinking I need to have a sim grow up as a responsible baking/cooking queen who will go on to buy a small cottage B&B in Henford on Bagley. Fresh meals from the garden and farm every morning and evening!

Also might start finding CC for a new UK based decades challenge, also might start farther back in the Regency era.