Looking For Best Way To Create Custom Uni Neighborhood....

I'm really interested in what people who might know, can share on this! You're so right about how chinchy the space is. Very little scope for doing and building.

You can create a world for your students, to live, study, and hangout in, but they would still have to go to either Foxbury, or Britchester Uni. Unless you have a mod that allows you to create a custom college. I am unaware of one.

In the game, you can put student housing, and a campus commons in any world, but by default they have to be tied to either Foxbury, or Britechester University. There is no generic Student Housing, or generic Commons lot type. Also there isn't a "University Campus" lot type, so sims still have to go to class at the rabbit hole universities in the Britechester World.

This sounds like a nice plan but requires a lot of work.

Without needing any mods you can build functional student dorms and commons in any world, so I expect that will be the same for a custom world that is added through a mod.

Students can enroll in britechester or foxbury no matter where they live. I don't know what mod you want to use for a custom uni but since we can already enroll for any available degree while living in any world, you already have a lot of possibilities in an unmodded game (If you don't mind that the uni name is either britechester or foxbury) . If I understand correctly what is said in the link you shared, that simmer built dorms and commons in another world but technically still attended one of the two universities in the game.

With the two regular universities they can enroll, attend classes, do homework, write term papers,... no matter where they live. Sims can even stay on a normal residential lot and not move to student housing.

If students live outside of the university neighbourhood they will commute to university. The difference of commuting is that your Sims will go to uni the same way the go to a rabbit hole job, this means they will vanish at the end of the lot instead of walking to a building in the neighbourhood and vanish there.

I had two students enroll and attended uni while living in an apartment in evergreen harbour. One was enrolled in britechester while the other one was in foxbury. They progressed through uni and graduated without any problems. Another sim went to uni while living in sulani. I don't know how in real life one can commute on a daily basis from a tropical island to a British uni, in this case britechester, but she managed just fine . ;) For story purposes I just pretend the uni has a local faculty somewhere on a nearby island in sulani.

There are two dorms in each university, you only need one, and the other one can be repurposed. Also, the small residential lot in the uni campus can be repurposed as sims could live anywhere. I was thinking of adding more community lots myself but I haven't decided what they will be.

"crocobaura;c-18109308" wrote:
There are two dorms in each university, you only need one, and the other one can be repurposed. Also, the small residential lot in the uni campus can be repurposed as sims could live anywhere. I was thinking of adding more community lots myself but I haven't decided what they will be.

I'm thinking of putting more community lots in there too, it's just a waste of a world having so many student dorms. I might change the house dorms to normal residential too, I could do with more houses to live in for my large rotation.

I might add an Internet cafe and a gym, not sure what else, maybe a restaurant of some kind.

As for making a uni campus in another world, I don't see the point when you can just change Britechester to your own needs. Unless you want, say, a desert or snowy campus. Then just plop a Dorm and a commons down in that world and you're good to go ?

I replaced the housing that’s next to the library, with a second bar. It a small change, but I really felt that made a difference. Along with having my sims go “off campus” to visit other worlds. My college students are in “ski club” and go to the ski lofts on weekends.

I turned one of the Britechester dorms into an arts building with a concert hall, practice rooms, painting area and dance studio. I tried Arts Center as the lot type but it attracted too many townies so I made it Generic with the University Student Hangout trait instead. I think if you like the idea of having playable campus buildings then turning one or two of the 3 student housings into other lot types is the way to go.

I think if you wanted to do a university in a different world, then you could just decide that's where your Britechester is, or your Foxbury, and create your own lots including a student housing and a student commons and make it look however you wanted. The only thing I'm not sure about is if a student is living in a student housing lot outside the normal university neighborhoods, do they go to class like a commuter in the same way that students living on a residential lot would do, or do you get a loading screen and get taken to the regular campus neighborhood, or does it glitch or something.

Oh you'd also either miss out on the campus events and student organizations that happen in neighborhood terrain (spirit day, bot savants) or else attend them but put up with the fact that they're on the original campuses. Tea & poetry and debate club might work since they happen on a lot. Haven't tested though.

"ignominiusrex;c-18109269" wrote:
I'm really interested in what people who might know, can share on this! You're so right about how chinchy the space is. Very little scope for doing and building.

Yes it is. If I were the lead designer, I'd taken this obvious into consideration. Instead of creating 2 schools, create a single University with 2 colleges. The college of liberal Arts (Brichester U) and the College of Engineering & Science (Foxbury). Allow sims to take classes freely between these colleges. This would give you more build/buy space to place lots, dorms/Greek houses, and off campus residences for your sims to have a superior Uni experience. Why did the design decision for Uni in TS4 have to become so ridiculously complex? Why not stick to a formula that actually WORKED for over a DECADE? If the devs were so set on creating 2 competing schools, then why not create TWO neighborhoods for each University? Allow simmers to decide whether they want to turn on progression in the non played Uni hood like you can in any other hood? And if that's the case, guarantee that all YA sims in the unplayed Uni hood graduate with a minimum of a B grade?

This traditional design would've worked far better for sim relationships. Just ask any simmer who plays large families like me. It's virtually impossible to progress your 4-6+ Brady Bunch household in the 2 Uni school setup. So if some of your big sim family are geeks v. social butterflies, you're screwed. Any sandbox goals to give your geek & social butterfly sims the best career starts is insanely challenging. Because it's practically impossible to keep your Tech & Liberal Arts major sims in superior academic standing when you're busy switching between the schools. So they'll end up flunking out of their distinguished degree programs. Because the game stagnates sim degree progression once you switch between Unis. Where's the bloody *headdesk* smiley when you need it??? >:)

And because of this stagnation, you can't enjoy the whole point of college. Which IMO, is the dorm life & larking around the campus hood. All fundamental QoL game mechanics which EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD LEGACY GEN TS2 continues to put TS4 to shame. Even if your sims are living together in the Gibbs Hill townie neutral zone, their socialization opportunities are still limited. My weak workaround for this gamebreaker was to form a social/adventuring club. Which would kill 2 birds with one stone: instead of studying electives, have my sims do social club oriented activities each weekend. Activities that would give my sims the same career/socialization skills they'd get from studying additional class electives. Traveling to hoods like Selvadorada and Mt Komorebi each weekend to improve my sims fitness/athletic, charisma, logic etc skills while socializing to keep their relationship status. Hell I got so desperate, that I used Zero's longer Uni terms to give my tech and social butterfly sims a gap year. Had them all travel to Evergreen Harbor regardless of their major. Where they would put their skills to use working on a green SimEarth humanitarian project. Helping their fellow Sim Citizens clean up polluted Evergreen Harbor and save the environment.

But NO. Thanks to academic/degree progression stagnation, I'm forced to waste this precious little R&R time on the weekends making my sims keep up their grades. >:) >:) >:) Nothing beats trying to reward your stressed sims for a tough week of classes with a well deserved vacation to Sulani. Where they can get a brief respite from relaxing on the beach. And working on that much needed tan. Only to cringe when you realize ALL of them have degree progression PTSD. So the instant you've switched off a sim after giving them a recreational activity, they're instantly driven to be responsible. They promptly ditch their Kava juice/sunbathing R&R/pool floatie/beach towel, head for the nearest table on the lot, whip out their homework from their butts, and then proceed to study. :s >:) Hell if it weren't for Arckange's show grades mod, every one of my sims would've flunked Uni with an F to date. And those were sims I was actually aggressively playing!

So even if they attend the same Uni school, socialization and trying to maintain good relationships is near impossible. Festive events like Spice Market, seasonal holidays etc. are pointless. All the free time they have is on the weekends. Where my poor sims end up with starring roles yet again in The Breakfast Club in detention. Just so they can catch up with their homework....

That remained the case even if you keep your adventure club sims local hanging out in Gibbs Hill. Even after I took that big waste of space library lot. Transformed it into the 5 story + basement Gaia sized obelisk sky scrapper of an architectural aberration aka the current Mall of Briechester. If I didn't know better, I'd swear the townes of Gibbs Hill have been secretly voting to fire me as The Builder since I constructed that thing. Because no it's not a generic lot type. But yet the leviathan thing has remained underutilized and mostly vacant by townies like the Pleasants to date...

This degree progression stagnation & poor QoL out of class issues were NEVER an issue in TS2 or TS3. Simply because your sims ALLL attended A SINGLE UNIVERSITY/COLLEGE in a SINGLE Uni college town. Smh. /end of rant>

Sounds like your biggest issue is in playing separate households through the uni experience without harming anyone’s grades. I got you. Some of us have techniques for rotational play at uni that we have found work for us.

1. Play each household entirely through one term, but save before 6pm on the last day (the time at which they receive their grades and are prompted to re-enroll). Change households before this time. The student(s) will be in limbo until you play their household again. Played sims do not re-enroll automatically. Unplayed sims do.

I like to see what grades my sims got, so I save before 6pm, find out their grades, don’t re-enroll and quit without saving so I’m back at the save point before 6pm when I switch households. You use a mods that show their grades so you probably don’t need to do this.

2. An alternative method would be to play through a term and simply not re-enroll the household until you return to them. They lose scholarships (not always all of them) but I used to play this way until I realized I could work with method 1.

As for balancing a social life and studies, I don’t enroll in 4 classes anymore, I’ll do 3 tops. It takes an extra term but at least it’s more enjoyable for me and I turn aging off anyway.

I don’t see how creating a custom hood will be the solution for your issues unless you put everyone in one household which you could do anywhere except the dorms, anyway. I understand where your frustration is coming from, though.