@MoonlightGraham @Stormkeep - thank you both ?
Too bad the neighborhood stories don’t seem to have any effect on getting one’s unplayed sims to know each other better. I was really hoping that it would. I agree that it could very well be the relationship culling that causes it or they simply don’t gain enough friendship points from hanging out via the phone prompts for it to last for very long no matter how great a time they’ve had together. Have you actually ever had them tell you they had a bad time and then gain a (short time) negative relationship?
My sim has children now so she hasn’t been hosting as many events as previously, but even then I’m not sure if it had any lasting effects even though the group of her closest friends would see each other pretty regularly.
As for using clubs that’s a neat idea that I’ll definitely try out. I currently have a club for my sim, and her eldest daughter has a club for school. With regards to my sim’s club, the club members will say that they think the other members are really cool when asked during club meetings, but outside club gatherings they’ll claim not to be acquainted with each other. In terms of my sim’s daughter’s club, the members, who are siblings, will of course admit that they know each other, but as for the club members, who are not related to any of the others, more often than not even during club meetings they as well as the other club members will claim not to know each other despite them meeting up almost every single afternoon.
However, I’ll try to set up some clubs just for my sim’s friends in different areas and see if that might help them build a bit of friendship on their own. Like MoonlightGraham, I also prefer if it happens organically and would rather not have to cheat their relationships. I don’t have MCCC as I’m trying to keep my game free of mods until Sims 4 is completely done, though I have been eyeing the slow dance mod for quite some time so I might just end up joining the dark side sooner than planned ?