I've been playing a test save to see what the Neighborhood Stories feature will actually do in my latest save. I only have the base game active and placed several vacant homes in Newcrest. I disabled a few of the features like Move Out and Accidental Deaths.All of my married sims are thriving and having/adopting children - those households will be ok for a little while.What concerns me is the other single Young Adult houses. Aside from the Roomies adopting a child, nothing else is happening. Some of the houses have been moved into by a random single sim but no children born or adopted. I am just about to the point where all of those starting Young Adult sims will become elders.I guess the only way to get the feature to really work is for me to 'give' each one a spouse in CAS and then it will have them do something besides taking a part time job. I was really hoping that it would do more and not have to resort to a mod or manual input to keep the town thriving. My child sim was unable to complete his aspiration as there wasn't 3 children sims in the world. I had to add them in to get that to work.Does anyone know if the feature kicks in later and I should just keep playing the save or am I destined for a ghost town with empty unfurnished homes to deal with? Any tips on how you deal with this besides MCCC? Some players on console can't use mods and I was hoping that I could figure out the best way to make use of the feature.

Hi @Llandros2012 single sims will adopt children sometimes, but not as often as married sims.Neighborhood Stories does not create boyfriend/girlfriend relationships or marriages. It creates first-date situations (via phone call) and if sims are already boyfriends/girlfriends then it can create engagements (also via phone call). But, couples who have gone on first dates won't progress to being together, and couples who are engaged won't progress to being married.Visiting certain venues does affect the generation of new sims in the world. Like, if you visit parks, that will generate child and teen sims, and those sims will be generated in households with one or more parents. Visiting venues like that will help keep your town thriving. And then over time Neighborhood Stories may add more sims to those families. Also, I've noticed that early on in a save, before there have been many deaths, there also are not many births. After deaths start happening, whether through NS accidental deaths or through NPC aging, NS is more interested in replenishing the population.

@mightysprie I appreciate that info - I’ve been keeping my sims at home due to that horrible gardening bug - tired of having to fix that ever time I change lots but I’ll do some traveling to see what that does.Thank you!

Well, I continued testing and it does seem that the game will generate some children when traveling to a few community lots - it created 2 that I ran across. The families actually stayed out of the houses even though Move In was available to them and the houses had more than enough beds, etc. Then I tried MCCC and it filled up all the houses with any sims it could find but it was a bit disturbing that every home was occupied with a single sim only - that's fine for the starter homes but the big family homes it seems to be such a waste to put the elder teacher from High School Years in the big expensive home in Willow Creek.I guess the only way to have the worlds actually evolve and do so with any real sense is to turn off all stories and progression and just rotate in to each home and create the world that way. It's a lot more work than I really want to do but all the mod did was give me single sim families in every available home. Not really what I had hoped. I really didn't want to have to create families for every home either.Still looking for ways to make my neighborhoods come to life and not have to play every single family - any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated!

"Llandros2012;c-18298815" wrote:@mightysprie I appreciate that info - I’ve been keeping my sims at home due to that horrible gardening bug - tired of having to fix that ever time I change lots but I’ll do some traveling to see what that does.Thank you!I feel your pain here. This is off topic and I'll say I'm sorry for it but I wanted to share with you. I was watching my screen (sims all at home living their homebody lifestyle) and I watched my garden plants all reset. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. So, now after Horse Ranch launched, being home doesn't seem to matter. They'll reset with you actively watching the lot now.As promised, I'm sorry for derailing your thread. Please continue like I was never here!

"Llandros2012;c-18299480" wrote:Still looking for ways to make my neighborhoods come to life and not have to play every single family - any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated!I suggest you dig further into the MCCC population and pregnancy settings and really check out the options. For example, you can determine how many times per week the mod marries sims off. If it doesn't seem frequent enough for your game, you can increase it. Also, there have to be enough sims available to meet whatever marriage criteria are selected in MCCC. In my game, only same-age sims can marry each other (i.e., an adult has to marry an adult), so if I had only a handful of single sims in a certain age range, only a few of them might marry. Third, since you're just getting going with a new save and it would take a while for the game to fully populate the world on its own, I'd suggest downloading households of various sizes and compositions from the gallery and moving them into some of the homes (using the freerealestate cheat if necessary) to give MCCC more to work with. Then the game should feel more lively right away. Hope this helps!

Neighborhood Stories and Single Sims

mightyspritesims
Rising Hotshot
2 years ago
Hi @Llandros2012 single sims will adopt children sometimes, but not as often as married sims.

Neighborhood Stories does not create boyfriend/girlfriend relationships or marriages. It creates first-date situations (via phone call) and if sims are already boyfriends/girlfriends then it can create engagements (also via phone call). But, couples who have gone on first dates won't progress to being together, and couples who are engaged won't progress to being married.

Visiting certain venues does affect the generation of new sims in the world. Like, if you visit parks, that will generate child and teen sims, and those sims will be generated in households with one or more parents. Visiting venues like that will help keep your town thriving. And then over time Neighborhood Stories may add more sims to those families.

Also, I've noticed that early on in a save, before there have been many deaths, there also are not many births. After deaths start happening, whether through NS accidental deaths or through NPC aging, NS is more interested in replenishing the population.
Llandros2012
Seasoned Rookie
2 years ago
@mightysprie I appreciate that info - I’ve been keeping my sims at home due to that horrible gardening bug - tired of having to fix that ever time I change lots but I’ll do some traveling to see what that does.

Thank you!
Llandros2012
Seasoned Rookie
2 years ago
Well, I continued testing and it does seem that the game will generate some children when traveling to a few community lots - it created 2 that I ran across. The families actually stayed out of the houses even though Move In was available to them and the houses had more than enough beds, etc.

Then I tried MCCC and it filled up all the houses with any sims it could find but it was a bit disturbing that every home was occupied with a single sim only - that's fine for the starter homes but the big family homes it seems to be such a waste to put the elder teacher from High School Years in the big expensive home in Willow Creek.

I guess the only way to have the worlds actually evolve and do so with any real sense is to turn off all stories and progression and just rotate in to each home and create the world that way. It's a lot more work than I really want to do but all the mod did was give me single sim families in every available home. Not really what I had hoped. I really didn't want to have to create families for every home either.

Still looking for ways to make my neighborhoods come to life and not have to play every single family - any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated!
Duhgirl2u2
2 years ago
"Llandros2012;c-18298815" wrote:
@mightysprie I appreciate that info - I’ve been keeping my sims at home due to that horrible gardening bug - tired of having to fix that ever time I change lots but I’ll do some traveling to see what that does.

Thank you!

I feel your pain here. This is off topic and I'll say I'm sorry for it but I wanted to share with you. I was watching my screen (sims all at home living their homebody lifestyle) and I watched my garden plants all reset. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. So, now after Horse Ranch launched, being home doesn't seem to matter. They'll reset with you actively watching the lot now.

As promised, I'm sorry for derailing your thread. Please continue like I was never here!
PandoraTO
Seasoned Vanguard
2 years ago
"Llandros2012;c-18299480" wrote:

Still looking for ways to make my neighborhoods come to life and not have to play every single family - any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated!

I suggest you dig further into the MCCC population and pregnancy settings and really check out the options. For example, you can determine how many times per week the mod marries sims off. If it doesn't seem frequent enough for your game, you can increase it. Also, there have to be enough sims available to meet whatever marriage criteria are selected in MCCC. In my game, only same-age sims can marry each other (i.e., an adult has to marry an adult), so if I had only a handful of single sims in a certain age range, only a few of them might marry. Third, since you're just getting going with a new save and it would take a while for the game to fully populate the world on its own, I'd suggest downloading households of various sizes and compositions from the gallery and moving them into some of the homes (using the freerealestate cheat if necessary) to give MCCC more to work with. Then the game should feel more lively right away. Hope this helps!
Llandros2012
Seasoned Rookie
2 years ago
"PandoraTO;c-18299868" wrote:
"Llandros2012;c-18299480" wrote:

Still looking for ways to make my neighborhoods come to life and not have to play every single family - any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated!

I suggest you dig further into the MCCC population and pregnancy settings and really check out the options. For example, you can determine how many times per week the mod marries sims off. If it doesn't seem frequent enough for your game, you can increase it. Also, there have to be enough sims available to meet whatever marriage criteria are selected in MCCC. In my game, only same-age sims can marry each other (i.e., an adult has to marry an adult), so if I had only a handful of single sims in a certain age range, only a few of them might marry. Third, since you're just getting going with a new save and it would take a while for the game to fully populate the world on its own, I'd suggest downloading households of various sizes and compositions from the gallery and moving them into some of the homes (using the freerealestate cheat if necessary) to give MCCC more to work with. Then the game should feel more lively right away. Hope this helps!

I took your advice and got much better results with MCCC - I added several (30) families to the game and let MCCC move them into houses - I still find some of the choices funny but it doesn't seem to matter. I didn't change much of the default settings so my YA sims are mostly left alone or not getting pregnant/married/adopting. My Adult sims are a completely different story!

I'm on the 4th week in game so much of my YA population should be aging up by the end of the week or beginning of next week. That's when I expect to see quite a bit of activity.

Thanks again for the advice. Will post again when the neighborhoods really start progressing!
PandoraTO
Seasoned Vanguard
2 years ago
Great, I’m glad you’re happier with it now, @Llandros2012! Have fun!
Llandros2012
Seasoned Rookie
2 years ago
Well, I am really stubborn and I decided to really see what NS can do in a totally vanilla game with all DLC and these are my results and observations so far...

First of all, Neighborhood Stories is very active and that can be good or bad! For my test, I played with 7 day seasons, aging on normal for all sims, all NS active for everyone. I played a single sim and tried to be as hands off and only interfere if I needed him to do a certain task that he couldn't/wouldn't do autonomously.

Year 1
Lots of activity but mostly geared around my married sims. Many adoptions and births to those families. The single YA sims were mostly getting jobs or leaving jobs but fairly ignored otherwise. A few pet adoptions for cats and dogs. There were a few deaths but not as many as I had expected. Raj Rasoya was the first to go... of many eventually! Lots of move outs and move ins - some single sims moved in to big houses, some families moved out and moved into smaller homes/apartments. Overall, active but nothing too unexpected. A few horse adoptions that were pretty questionable but not that much. One VERY eventful stay over that led to 2 horses being whisked away and a couple of children that had to be at high risk.

Year 2
My sim aged up to Adult. Lots more activity and NS decided it was going to be ruthless - I mean a total bloodbath. So many sims that died this year - I was scared to check the stories but it was funny. Poor Alexander Goth (drowned) and Kyoshi Ito (fell of cliff) - they barely made it out of their teens before tragedy. The Price family had it the worst - first Kevin Puri drowns, then Savannah Price dies from anger, and finally Marcel Price (father) dies from being on the wrong end of a chicken. It was traumatizing but funny as well. Horses were getting adopted at an alarming rate and by houses that barely had enough room for a garbage can outside. Move outs were unsettling as I no longer could find people since they weren't in the house I am familiar with. My sim adopted a child towards the end of the year so that we would have someone to continue. Two more stay overs - I didn't arrange them, they actively happened with a phone call. One was Father Winter who was hitting on every male sim in my game and I am not even exaggerating here. The other was a workplace rival turned friend. I was happy to see the feature working!

Year 3
My sim adopted what we thought was his son by the look of the thumbnail. Twist - thumbnails lie and his daughter rocked a boy haircut and hat for about three days till we figured that one out. The name was Blakely so it wasn't that obvious. Deaths are now just vicious and the game has a wicked sense of humor - "Johnny Zest has had his last laugh". The Ito's made up for their lost son by having three children this year. They seem to be in competition with the Bjergsens and the Spencer-Kim-Lewis houses. Those homes are packed! A few more move outs and move in to new lots and some random single townies started adopting kids. Some houses are still childless (Pancakes) but many are making sure that the household continues. My sim became an elder and his daughter is a teen so we can continue to the next year.

Year 4
This is where I am now - all the original YA premades are now elders and the teens are mature adults. I'm interested in seeing what happens this year as I expect quite the reaping around town.

Here's a pic from the first Stay Over with my sims best friend (Juniper Grove), her husband (that flirted with my sim and got a romance bar started), their teenage son, toddler son, and infant daughter - and two horses that really loved being inside when they weren't leaving 'droppings' all over the yard of my ONE BEDROOM STARTER HOME! My sim got enraged during this visit and the whole experience almost ended in Year 1! And of course they came on Harvestfest Day just to make things even better!

Townie fashion at it's finest!

My poor sim trying to eat breakfast in peace but he's not alone!

Final impression
Still waiting to see what year 4 brings but I am having a lot of fun seeing the insanity of what can happen in just a regular vanilla game. I highly recommend giving it a try with a 'throw away' save just to see what happens if you are bored. I've had alot of fun with it!
Llandros2012
Seasoned Rookie
2 years ago
Well, Year 4 has been completed.

Year 4
This was kind of a sad, depressing year as pretty much all the original townies have passed on. The only remaining besides the vampires/immortals are the original children and they are all elders with very little time left. Lots of deaths occurred but they were not reported with NS - I assume it was just too many to list. The majority of the family lines were completely wiped away with just a few remaining and looking to continue. Those, not surprisingly, were the descendants of the married townies from the beginning of the game. More pet adoptions than anything else this year and some more shocking deaths - my first overnight guests only remaining descendent is now the toddler son - the infant daughter apparently died by anger at some point. Not as much move in as many of the homes are 'empty' or unfurnished and need me to drop in and refresh them - that's quite a lot to do. The townie fashion parade is quite the spectacle at this point!

Here's a few highlights of the year...

My founder, Rocco Thompson, still putting in the work for his athletic career - I wasn't allowed to intervene so he never got to shave and really started to grow into that beard! Still, he reached the top and is burning through his vacation days until he retires or passes on.

Here is his best and really only friend, Sho Aldo. I REALLY wanted to pop him into CAS and change his last name to 'Nuff!

Graduation had a few known townies - here is Sydney Price in his elder years. He and his brother Jayden are the last ones standing and they both make it to the end of this year.

Sophia Bjergsen was there, shortly before her death by old age.

This is the randomly generated teacher for Classroom 1 - I forgot his name already. He reminds me of someone in real life but I can't figure out who...

Graduation turned out to be a complete flop - the guests, the teachers, and the graduates all arrived but the game failed to generate a new principal (who died) so nobody actually walked across the stage.

Blakely unfortunately aged up with horrible acne but we were able to get rid of it shortly after this. I completely forgot to have her apply facial cleanser as I was almost 100% hands off for her teen years.

Proud papa Rocco with the Dad sweater! He flirts with everybody - including all of his daughter's friends that drop by the house. He has a romance bar with just about everyone he meets!

This is his usual relaxed self at home. The guitar was for Blakely but she really showed no interest - Rocco picks it up all the time.

There is a SERIOUS epidemic of elder streaking in Oasis Springs. Seriously, every single day at least 2-3 are doing this! It's unsettling and my sims all run after them to 'see what's happening'.

Blakely married her high school sweetheart - nice kid, but not much ambition career-wise. He is the son of Alika and Mele in Sulani and has 3 sisters and 1 brother. He looks good but he has terrible traits. Hopefully he makes a decent husband and father but we will see.

Sensing that time is running out with her father, Blakely and Beejey (why?!) decided to start the family early. The doctor in the background is Joe Landgraab - all the original Landgraabs are long gone but there are 4 still in the house. I think this one was adopted as he doesn't have their signature 'look'!

Little Melia was born on the very last day of this year - New Year's Eve. She cries constantly but it doesn't last forever.

My founder, Rocco is at 160 days and the bar is almost solid green. He will die early in Year 5 but the family will endure.

Final Thoughts
NS was fun but it really requires a bit of hands-on work to maintain and progress the town. I could use a mod like MCCC but it also made some pretty random and unwanted relationships and I really wanted to try this without mods for now. I would do this in my real save but with quite a bit of customization. I would also make sure that every sim has a partner at some point so that they can progress and not die off. Horse adoptions would be taken off as well as Move Out. Accidental Death and Move Ins would be only put for a few households.

Overall, the progression does work but I can tell that going in to the next year I would need to do extensive background work so that my towns don't become just a series of random adoptions by single sims or a ghost town. I enjoyed playing this because it really gave me a better idea of just what effort I need to put into my save to make it come alive.

Thank you to those who read through and joined me on this little experiment.
mightyspritesims
Rising Hotshot
2 years ago
Yup, creating marriages is the thing missing with Neighborhood Stories.
Cool experiment! It matches what I've seen in my games too.