Do your sims have their own culture?

I've always had a sort of head canon for The Sims universe based on the snippets we've gotten over the last 18 years or so, and have expanded upon it with the tools we've gotten recently. Founder's Day coincides with the calendar equivalent of the release of The Sims on February 4, 2000. San Myshuno is the capital of this particular province of SimNation. There's a Camarilla-style group of vampires that runs things behind the scenes and upholds the Masquerade, and the leaders of this group live in Forgotten Hollow. Oasis Springs is a backwater resort town in this province, located over the mountains on the eastern edge of the territory. Windenburg is like Mountain View in northern California, albeit with an old world aesthetic -- a wealthy area where the young professionals all want to live and the Brewer's Festival happens early each autumn.

Those sorts of things. It makes for a backdrop to tell your stories.

My head canon is that all my Sims neighborhoods are set in this fictional city I created using Sim City 4 back in 2005 or so, and the city itself was sort of based on Shanghai + Beijing. So I guess there's a lot of Asian elements in my game. They celebrate the Spring Festival (Chinese / Lunar New Year) and Mid-Autumn festival ever since the Seasons pack, lots of Asian elements in the homes, etc etc.

I never really thought about it that way.
I might try to develop some sort of story elements that will effect the culture of each world in the game.

It depends on the setting for individual saves. Some have specific cultures, especially if they are based on a favourite book or TV show.

I never thought about it but I like the idea. I guess the only thing that happens regularly is that my sims marry in a church. no reason why, I just really like building them and makes it feel more real for me.

All of my sims are always named after characters in A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.

"CommaSplice;c-16661884" wrote:
All of my sims are always named after characters in A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.

I often try to play in Westeros but I went a bit crazy creating too many large families so I might start again from scratch.

I would love to have a complete culture, but this far I've only created two religions that have their own community lots, supporters, dedicated items and also impact the holidays. I think it might be easier to create a coherent system if I started a new save.

I always had the community aspect in my Sims games, and how TS4 is organized is based on how I did this in previous series. But not so much is visual or causes actual game play, because I'm playing rotation and rarely stop more than a day in each house.

But I have a well developed set of genetics that determines the looks of sims, as well as part of their personal preferences. I also have a running political system, forming a regional council. And there are community lots with community purposes. Several sims are employed by the community, meaning they have jobs they can go to and perform certain duties, without having a career technically. Finally I have a economy system that don't really pay attention to their day-to-day cash, but rather what level they are on. When sims marry, the new household's status is recalculated.

When it comes to holidays and traditions I have only a few holidays, and the one concerning local politics might be the one that is best implemented. Oasis Springs celebrate Water one day in Winter. BB households celebrate cats and dogs. There's also a few clubs that I pretend were around since a long time, which brings tradition and make some residents actually fight for becoming a member once there is a free spot :)

I'll post lots about how I play both on my blog and youtube channel for the months to come.

I guess there are a few things I keep similar across my saves and families, but I wish I did have some more major cultural elements in mind when I play the game. Since Seasons I've been having Sims celebrate mainly religious holidays so at the very least I can say that they all have the same religion since they take part in the same traditions.