Micromanaging all the towns...

I have one word for you: spreadsheet :D

I actually use OneNote for mine, have every single family in every hood listed. It looks like this:
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/t8r440s19w2o9xg/OneNote.JPG?dl=0

Of course, not everyone wants to be quite that OCD :)

I love playing the game like this. Right now I am trying to build a whole cohesive base for everytime I would want to start a new save and I am doing exactly that. Except I am also jumping from households to build mode to make new community lots or what have you. Also integrating clubs, building relationships between neighbours, etc
I am having more fun than ever with this game at the moment because of this.


@elanorbreton that is amazing! I should do this too, although knowing me, it would be a lot less thorough :D

Oh dear. I just use a beat up notebook I found under the seat of my car.
Although, I could be more organised. I realised the other night that I haven't put down all the names of the in-born kids or their traits+aspiration or started to write down which kids I want to age up together along with finding out which of the townie kids (unhoused ones) will age up along with them :neutral: :lol: I have a quite a work cut out for me. Maybe I should move into the 21st century and at least use word :smirk:
But I find, that like in life, I am quite chaotic when it comes to my simming.

I'm trying this game style right now as well. It doesn't give me a chance to get bored with a family as much. I used to play in short life span (Because apparently I have a short attention span) but with this style I've been playing on long life and its great. I think I'll use @elanorbreton 's suggestion and make a spreadsheet too though because it DOES get very confusing very fast!

I have been playing this way ever since TS1 :)

And yes, you need a spreadsheet of some sort. I have just 1 line per resident, grouped by household, and by hood/world. You can add whatever info you like, who they are related to, what are their traits and goals and career/hobby plans. I also have lots of DNA related info because I run DNA that is not featured by the game, like need of glasses, freckles, social status etc. Also I have favorite color/pattern/fabric because I like the idea of having a challenge when two sims' tastes are to be merged in a new household. And I have a lot more, like finances and stuff, but no photos.

I suggest you test your set up for a while with just your main sims info registered, because it will save you lots of time in case you want to do stuff differently after seeing how it works.

That's a fantastic idea @elanorbreton

I think I will use the idea to put all my readymade families from "My Library" in as well as I like to use them again and again and it would get them in alphabetical order at last and no problems with using the same family twice. I'll use another column for Neighbourhood, rather than arranging them by that though as I tend to move them around!

@elanorbreton How did you create the subtabs within the main tabs to the right (i.e. the Dunn tab under the Willow Creek tab)?

That's how I play my older games, a memory system is a life safer, no extra work to do with making lists and graphs etc. Miss it in TS3 and TS4. While I think about it, story pictures for individual lots also helped jog my memory. Oops, see this thread is two years or older..

"floridameerkat;c-17423756" wrote:
@elanorbreton How did you create the subtabs within the main tabs to the right (i.e. the Dunn tab under the Willow Creek tab)?

When you click on the main tabs, at the bottom of the column it should show a '+ section' option (right down the bottom of the page), just click on that.

@Kniga_Sitara Not sure about costing for everywhere else, I am in the UK and subscribe to office 365 which is an annual cost. You would need to go to the Microsoft site to check, or you may be able to pick up an older version from somewhere else (like ebay) at a much reduced price.

Way too much work lol
I rarely get to play - just making sure my mods are updated takes up my precious game time - heck I don't even take ingame photos much either
Really need a mod to keep track from within the game