I have questions about about populating neighbourhoods and public places in TS4... I am a new player

Question

I am definitely not new to The Sims series. I started playing TS1 when I was about 8, then moved onto TS2, and then TS3. I LOVED TS3 due to the enhanced graphics and open world concept. It seemed so realistic. I couldn't get enough of that game. Unfortunately, life got busy and I haven't played since around 2014.

Fortunately, my life is getting a bit easier to handle my free time now and I have been in a video game mood and I have been looking to play the sims again. I tried TS3 on my new computer (a 16GB ram Macbook pro... about 300GB of space left on the hard drive... really good laptop). But unfortunately, the game just doesn't run correctly. It's kind of pixelated and lags like crazy (which is a bit odd since my current macbook is better than my old one and it ran flawlessly on the old one). Either way, I decided it's time to give up TS3 and move on to TS4.

I turns out that I ended up getting the game from Origin some time last year for free. So I tested it out and loved the graphics and thought that, with some expansion packs, it could be a decent game. So I bought a bunch of expansion / stuff packs (parenthood, get to work, cats&dogs, seasons, laundry day stuff, and toddler stuff). So far I love it. I do miss the open world (and cars) as it felt so real, but I do really like the graphics, the many different things you can do with a sim and the different locations you can go to (and the fact that you can travel to many different towns).

I am just so use to TS3, since that's what I played for all of my teen years. So I am really quite confused when it comes to some things in TS4 and would like a bit of a run down on some things.

- where is everybody? There are so many houses in my town but my household is the only one living in it. Can my town be automatically populated like in the other sims games or do I need to manually create different households and move them in?

- does life go on when you play with another family? Is there still story progression in the other households?

- there aren't that many community lots. Am I able to build my own? Can I build my own night club and stuff? Or am I only able to use the ones provided by the game?

- I noticed that there are no restaurants apart from bars? Do I need the dine out expansion pack for that?

- In TS3, all the characters you meet on the street lived in the town (at least most of them). You could follow them back to their homes. There weren't any randomly generated sims that disappeared after you met them. In TS2, from what I remember, there were a lot of these sorts of sims. My question is, is this also the case in TS4? It seems like it

- I have Get to Work... where is the hospital?

alyssa12307 · Answer

1. the town will automatically be populated with randomly generated households when your sim starts interacting with it more. there should also be some premade townies there (the Goths, the Pancakes, etc) unless you've deleted them

2. there is a setting that allows you to chose whether ageing is on or off for played households. if you have multiple played households, there's an option to only have ageing on for the household you are currently playing with, or leave it on for all of them at all times

3. you can definitely build your own community lots! i do it all the time-- i have almost premade community lots in my worlds. (tip: if you want to use the same building twice, save it to your library while in build mode so you can place it again any time)

4. restaurants do come with dine out, you will indeed need the pack if you want them

5. there are some sims (the premades i mentioned before) that live in the houses that you can meet on the streets, and others that are randomly generated for those houses (which should start popping up once your sim interacts with the neighbourhood more). there are also "homeless" sims, which are the randomly generated sims that don't live in any residential lots but still show up around in the worlds. you can find all the sims in the save in the manage households tab. you can move them into houses if you like or leave them homeless

6. this one i can't answer, since i don't have get to work. sorry about that. i'll have to let someone else answer it

hope this helps!

elvndust · Answer

Hi there!- A lot of your gameplay issues can be selected in settings. Aside from what was said above, you can turn on fill empty homes and random Sims will move into empty homes. However, I've had Sims from Sulani (the Island Living pack) move into Willow Creek which really didn't flow with their storyline so it can get messy. You can also use the "freerealestate on" cheat and move Sims in wherever you'd like as an alternative.- You can build your own community lots and chose the type of lot it is in the upper left hand corner or you can check out the gallery for some user-generated builds.- Unfortunately you can only visit the hospital when you work in the medical field or your sim goes into labor. It's a not a place you can visit freely. If your Sim is sick, you can buy medicine from the computer. You can edit/rebuild the hospital if you enter build mode while your Sim is working there.

texxx78 · Answer

Almost everything has been answered yet. Just think it's important for you to know that while neighbours can age (if you select so in the option menu) they won't have children. So if you don't add children manually in the household manager, you'll get a town full of elders and with almost no toddlers, children and teens.
You can also install a mod (mcccomand) that can take care of all story progression and then you don't have to worry about it.

maxpayn1 · Answer

In addition to the answers already given to your questions, while you don't need to manually create different households and move them in, it is more fun and you have more control over what they look like and especially what they wear if you create your own Sims. Some randomly generated townies are still on the run from the fashion police ;) . Also, if you don't want or have time to create your own Sims to populate the worlds, you can visit the Gallery and download the Sim creations from other players that have uploaded them there. The same goes for lots.

There is no story progression other than a toggle in options to let non-played sims age or not. No marriages, no pregnancies, no divorces, completely random employment assignments, etc.

And I suppose you could build something on a lot that looks like a restaurant with the packs you have for role-play purposes or aesthetic reasons to fill up a neighborhood, but it won't come with actual restaurant game play and functionality until you install the Dine Out game pack,

https://i.imgur.com/WniCmbh.png

enchantedoatmeal · Answer

Hey OP, glad you finally decided to join us TS4 fanatics. I actually started with TS4 and I had all the same questions. Many great simmers have answered all your questions, I just wanted to add something that I think was glanced over.

So with TS4, there is the gallery, where simmers all over the world can post their lots and households. You can download and plop premade households and lots anywhere really easily from Manage Worlds (The maps). Plop the lots down first, then move in households with the cheat "freerealestate on" (If you are confused about cheats, check out Carl's Sims 4 Guides and Twisted Mexi's complete list of cheats). If you leave all these households as unplayed, they will continue their lives if you turn auto aging on as your sim continues theirs. (Personally I turn auto-aging on and off for unplayed sims and played sims based upon where my current sim family is in their life span). When you download things off the gallery, just make sure you have all the packs the creator used or you might have hairless sims or houses without furniture in your town.

I also reccomend downloading a complete redone save file from other simmers. Some are more popular than others, but they all take a massive amount of work to complete and put together. Some are even base game compatible. You can find save files on Sim File Share or on creators' patreons or tumblrs. Some people even leave links in the forum in the Creative Corner.

Happy Simming!

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I have questions about about populating neighbourhoods and public places in TS4... I am a new player

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