Are both the primary neighborhood and the subhood occupied? Do you have multiple subhoods attached to your primary neighborhood? Do you have any stealth neighborhoods attached to your primary neighborhood? If the answer to any of these questions is "yes", then I would suggest the technique below. If the answer to all of these questions is "no", then I may have a much simpler technique.

Creating a new unoccupied subhood template which matches an existing attached subhood is probably relatively simple. Moving your sims is the difficult part. Here's what I'd try:

Backup your save game, just in case something goes wrong. Follow steps 1-3 above to set up your standalone subhood. Then:

1) Use HoodReplace to copy the terrain, roads, etc. from your attached subhood to your standalone subhood.

2) Use SimPE to extract all of the Lot Descriptions from your attached subhood package and Add them to your standalone subhood package. Copy the associated lot packages from your original Lots folder into the Lots folder for your standalone subhood. Run the game to ensure that the lots are there and working as expected. Note that I've been thinking about adding this functionality to HoodReplace; if you want to beta-test, let me know.

3) Use the Game_Help:Moving_Sims^wiki FAQ to copy all of the sims that you want into your new standalone subhood. Note that the "easy way" is much safer than the "hard way".

4) If you really want to delete those sims from your original neighborhood, try this. Personally, I doubt that it's worth the effort and risk to remove the existing occupied subhood from your neighborhood.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...hp?topic=6205.0

5) If you really want to delete the original subhood, now is the time to try removing it in-game.

If you have further questions about this, perhaps we should make a new thread to discuss this. It really is a separate issue from the one discussed in the tutorial, and I'd prefer to keep this thread relatively clear of distractions.

That "should" worries me. Does that mean "there's no theoretical reason for a problem" or "someone's tried it and there hasn't been a problem"?

There's no theoretical reason for a problem. Occupied apartments, on the other hand, have a very real reason why they fail.

Mootilda, I need your help…

I’m usually pretty good with following instructions, even when I need to work with SimPe, but now I feel like an idiot…

My task is to turn two complete neighborhoods (with lots, no Sims, loaded in game once just to check how it looks like, but never played) into Downtown and Shopping district. I take it the instructions in post # 15 apply to my situation.

1. I moved the first neighborhood to my Desktop
2. I copied the entire neighborhood folder into a NeighborhoodTemplate folder - does it go to EA GAMES\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate, right?
3. I didn’t rename it, because the files already have unique names.
4. And now I’m stuck – if I start SimPe, I can’t figure out how to load the neighbourhood package, how to load it from NeighborhoodTemplate folder? I know only how to load the ‘hoods that are installed into a game, but if I move the ‘hood folder back to EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods and load the ‘hood, then I will be changing it, not the copy in NeighborhoodTemplate folder…

Could you please help me out with this?

2) That's not a full path, so it's difficult to tell whether it's correct. Did you move the neighborhood to that subfolder under Program Files, in the Sims 2 installation directory for the latest EP required by the neighborhood? For example, if my neighborhood requires Bon Voyage, then I'd move it to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate

4) You can either navigate to your neighborhood in Windows Explorer and double click on the neighborhood package, or you can open SimPE and select Open from the File menu, then navigate to the neighborhood and select the neighborhood package.

Thank you for making an awesome tutorial. I am currently building a BV's island destination that I want to keep as future "premades", but I have a few questions.

1) I have already built some of the lots in game (since I work on this on and off) and I probably used objects from the varies EPs and SPs, and even some custom content. I then want to transfer the lots and copy the terrain using the same map. Will I be able to have these lots available while in AGS? Do I have to package out all the lots and place them in AGS's folder? When I first set up the initial empty neighborhood, should I select all the EPs because of the lots containing stuff from EPs? (I am only using this destination for personal use so I don't need to worry about sharing it)

2) When making sims for BV destination, do they replace the locals/tourists or does EA's locals still spawn once the subhood is created in the normal game and the sims I created are just extra? I'd like if my sims created were the replacement townies/locals for the destination. Do you know if there is a minimum number of locals needed for each BV destination or a requirement for them to classify as a local?

It's amazing how easy it becomes once you get sent in the right direction :D

I followed your instructions and successfuly turned two neighbourhoods into Shopping Districts, thank you so much!!

I met an unexpected problem however: I also changed three neighbourhoods into Downtowns and another 'hood into Shopping District.
Only one Downtown (Port White) shows in Create a Downtown panel in game, and surprisinly only under two other neighbourhoods, Baskerville and Orville (I particularly wanted to add that Downtown to West Weasels, and it doesn't show up there...can't figure out what made Weast Weasels that different.) The third Shopping District doesn't show up either.
What I noticed among all six changed neighbourhoods, is that those two that work perfectly have only Neighbourhood package file in Neighbourhood folder, when other four have five Suburb packages each (Suburb001, Suburb002 etc). I didn't made them. For testing purposes, I removed those Suburb packages for Port White, and it showed up in Create a Downtown panel, but only for two neighbourhoods... I suspect those Suburb packages are the reason it doesn't work as it should be. Do you know what can be done about it?

As long as your AnyGame has all of the required EPs, SPs, and custom content, then you should be able to access the lots in your AnyGame.

When you create your empty AnyGame, you should select all of the EPs and SPs that your existing lots require. You should also be aware that a lot can be dependent upon an EP, even if no objects from that EP were used when creating the lot. The mere existence of the EP during the creation of the lot can be enough to require the EP.

Packaging a lot and then installing it into your AnyGame is a reasonable way to transfer lots. Be aware that the Clean Installer requires you to change the ini file if you want the AnyGame to be your default installation location. I believe that you can also drag-and-drop a Sims2Pack into your AnyGame folder, although I've never tried that method.

There are a number of places where EA will generate locals and tourists, and generation of locals and tourists is also affected by your use of clean templates and no-regen mods. I don't have any additional knowledge in this area. Your best bet is to experiment with a throwaway neighborhood to see whether you get the results that you desire.

That's correct. As explained in post #15 and in the tutorial, neighborhoods which have subhoods cannot be used as subhood templates.

Are the subhoods included in the neighborhood downloads, or were they generated by your game when you initially tried loading them? If they aren't included in the download itself, then the obvious solution is to convert the downloaded versions.

If the subhoods are included with the downloaded versions, then you may have to create new neighborhoods which are clones of the downloaded neighborhoods, but which do not have the subhoods attached. I'll have to write up some instructions for this and I don't have the time right now (I'm expecting someone at the door any minute now).

A brief synopsis: Use HoodReplace to clone the neighborhood terrain, roads, trees, and deco. Then extract all of the Lot Descriptions from the original neighborhood package and add them to your new neighborhood package. Then copy all of the lots from the original neighborhood Lots subfolder into the new neighborhood Lots folder. If you need more info, let me know and I'll try to write something more detailed. Note that this will only work because there are no playables or townies in the neighborhoods.

Ah, now I understand. Indeed, I read about that in your comment, but somehow I assumed it didn't apply to my situation, as I thought there shouldn't be any subhoods in never played neighbourhoods. Silly me.

I redownloaded one of the neighbourhoods and there were no suburb templates there, so I guess subhoods got added when I loaded the 'hoods to check them out. I will try to fix it.
Thank you

I decided to do a bit more research into this. The Exotic Destinations stealth subhood that ships with Bon Voyage contains 12 families (7FE5-7FF0) each containing 4 sims. I'm guessing that these are the tourists. This stealth subhood also contains the Traveller Sim Bin family, along with some townies and service NPCs (for example, three ninjas and three charlatans).

As well, each of the vacation destinations has an appropriate vacation locals family (7FF1, 7FF2, or 7FF3) which contains about a dozen locals, plus a large number of townies with no user data.

So my expectation is that you will get the tourist families unless you use an empty BV stealth neighborhood, but that your vacation locals will override any EA vacation locals. Of course, EA is likely to continue to generate new ones unless you have a no-regen hack.

Mootilda, still no luck, I can't figure out what's wrong...

I redownloaded the neighbourhoods (Middleground and Elsewhere), un-zipped, copied the 'hoods folders to F:\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Apartment Life\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate, followed your instructions by turning the 'hoods into Downtowns, and still they don't show up in game.
I moved the folders to F:\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate, thinking maybe the Downtowns should be there, no luck. I checked through SimPe, both suburbs are classifies as Downtowns.

Also, after loading newly redownloaded Port White Water in SimPe, I noticed its value is shown as "0x03," instead of "1" or "0x01", while its type is Normal, not Downtown.

I'm thinking now could it be some cache thing involved, it stores my previous changes to these neighbourhoods (from the first attempt, when I didn't pay attention to attached suburb templates) and I should delete it before trying converting the 'hoods anew?

p.s. I have just started another game (I have currently two Sims 2 games with different themes, and switch between them). And both Downtowns show up perfectly there! The problem is I don't want these Downtowns in that other game...

I downloaded Port White Water and looked at the IDNO record in SimPE. You are incorrect that the value at location 0x10 is shown as 0x03. In fact, the IDNO record is truncated and doesn't have a value in position 0x10, because it is a base game neighborhood and the base game has no knowledge of subhoods. If you've been modifying the value in location 0x00 (which was 0x03), then you've corrupted the IDNO record. My suggestion is that you scrap everything that you've done so far and start again with the downloaded neighborhood.

Because the base game IDNO record doesn't have any knowledge of subhoods, you'll have to get a copy of an IDNO record which understands subhoods before you will be able to change the neighborhood type in the IDNO record. The instructions for replacing an IDNO record is in post # 17.

Hope that helps. Note that I've modified post #15 to reflect this information.

But I already did, that's the problem - I re-downloaded everything, even the lots, haven't done anything to the files, just opened the Neighbourhood package and that 0x03 value was already there. But it was not like that when I attempted to change Port White for the very first time, I'd notice it. Initially, it should have been 0x01 I can't claim it for 100%, but it definetely wasn't 0x03. Then I changed Port White to Downtown, changing the value to 0x03, saved it. Then later turned out it already had suburb templates generated, so I deleted that first folder with Port White Water, redownloaded the neighbourhood, opened it up and it already had the 0x03 value there...

Right now I redownloaded it again, for the 3rd time, deleted the previous 'hood's folder, copied new and untouched Port White to EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Apartment Life\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate and again it's 0x03!

I have little understanding how it all works, but it looks to me like the first changes to those neighbourhoodsI did, were somehow saved somewhere else, like cookies in web browsers behave, and now, even after removing the edited 'hoods folders and putting freshly downloaded folders in NeighbourhoodTemplates, the latest changes just don't reflect in the game. But both Downtowns I converted shows up perfectly in other game.... This is so weird, I don't know how to explain this.

You don't understand. You're looking in the wrong place. You're supposed to change the first byte in the second line, but you're changing the first byte in the first line. In the tutorial, I give several different ways to make sure that you're in the correct location. If you look again, I'm sure that you will see that none of these things are true. You are not looking at the second white row of numbers. The line is not prefixed with the number "00000010". And, the number that you selected is not "01".

There is no second line because this is a base-game neighborhood. Base game neighborhoods don't have a value for the neighborhood type, since there weren't any neighborhood types in the base game.

In order to change the neighborhood type, you need to have an IDNO record which contains a neighborhood type. This means that you need an IDNO record from a non-base-game neighborhood.

The reason that you didn't notice this problem the first time that you tried is that you had already converted the neighborhood to another EP (and attached several stealth subhoods in the process) by opening the neighborhood in the game. In the process, the game converted the IDNO record to a version which understands subhoods. Unfortunately, the game also attached subhoods, which meant that the neighborhood was no longer able to be converted into a subhood template.

You don't need to keep re-downloading the same file. Just keep the zip or rar file on your hard drive until you've got things working well.

Bless you for your patience, now I see what was wrong with Port White. Thank you for your time and kind support *bows*

I followed the instructions in post #17, updated the IDNO record and changed Port White to Downtown. I wish it was the end at least for this subhood, but no... I have three neighbourhoods in my game, and Port White shows up in two of them as Downtown, but not in the third one (the one I actually want to add it!).
The mystery of converted to Downtowns Elsewhere and Simville not showing up in one game (the one I used to edit them), but appearing just fine in another is not solved yet . I will think more about it tomorrow, it's almost midnight here >_<

Thank you sincerely again

Thank you Mootilda for the detailed explanations. I will try to do a test run on this soon hopefully

Amairani, I'm glad that you understand now; sorry that I wasn't clearer with my first explanation. I'm also sorry that this has been a more difficult conversion than I led you to believe. Since this tutorial is about creating subhoods from scratch, I hadn't really thought through the problems with converting base-game neighborhoods. When I write up a full tutorial on converting existing neighborhoods, I'll be sure to add detailed instructions on handling base-game hoods.

If I have a few minutes today, I'll try to reproduce what you're doing and see whether I can figure out what your newest problem is. I know that Talia has been able to get this technique to work for her mega-hood with all of the shipped neighborhoods, but she used Business Districts rather than Downtowns. There may be some special problem with Downtowns that I'm not aware of.

[Update:]

No obvious problems, except for Baskerville (which has a subhood, so I ignored it). Here's what I did:

1) Copy Port White Water, Middleground, and Elsewhere to C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate (since Seasons is the last required EP).

2) Open Elsewhere in SimPE and change the neighborhood type to Downtown in the hex view, commit and save. Extract the modified IDNO record.

3) Open Port White Water in SimPE. Since this is a base-game hood, replace the IDNO record with the extracted one from step 2. Change UID to 491 and (parent) name to N491. No need to convert to a Downtown, since the extracted IDNO has already been converted. Commit and save.

4) Open Middleground in SimPE. Since this is a base-game hood, replace the IDNO record with the extracted one from step 2. Change UID to 514 and (parent) name to N514. No need to convert to a Downtown, since the extracted IDNO has already been converted. Commit and save.

5) Exit SimPE, so that it doesn't conflict with the game.

6) Run my game and open Pleasantview. Attach each Downtown. Enter each Downtown in turn and note that it's nighttime, which implies that the game recognizes the neighborhood as a downtown.

Can you see anything that you did differently?

[Another Update:]

Just out of curiosity, I decided to remove the subhood from Baskerville using the technique that I outlined above and now Pleasantview has 4 downtowns.

I have followed your above instructions to the letter. The results:

West Weasels - none of the Downtowns show up in Add a Downtown panel
Baskerville - only Port White Water show up
Orville - only Port White Water shows up

I switched The Sims 2 folders and loaded the other game to see if either of Downtowns appear there, and all three were available for adding to Riverblossom!

For testing purposes, I will now switch back to the first game and change 'hoods to Shopping Districts this time, instead of Downtowns. Let's see what happens..

I'm torn between giving up and finding out what's wrong.. But If the first game persists on not seeing my edited subhoods, then I will just move the West Weasels, Baskerville and Orville to other game where subhoods show up, and complete my plans there, because I don't feel comfortable with bothering you any longer.

It's not clear what you're doing. I can read your words, but they don't seem to make any sense in this context. We know that the technique works. There must be something that you're not telling us. Let me try to point out the areas that are confusing:

What are West Weasels, Baskerville, and Orville? The base neighborhoods? The base neighborhood should have no effect on which Downtown areas are available.

What do you mean by "switched the Sims 2 folders"? What do you mean by "move the West Weasels, Baskerville and Orville to other game where subhoods show up"?

Are you trying to say that you're using the AnyGameStarter? If so, then you obviously need to have the correct EPs and SPs in the AnyGame to be able to attach a Downtown. In my example, all of the neighborhoods will require Seasons, since I copied a Seasons IDNO record. If you want a neighborhood to be available with just Nightlife, then you'll need to copy an IDNO record from a Nightlife-only game; otherwise, the game won't be able to recognize the format.

Also, each downloaded neighborhood has a list of required EPs. If you don't have one of those EPs in your AnyGame, then you can expect problems. For example, Elsewhere requires Nightlife, Open for Business, and Seasons. This is why I decided to use a Seasons IDNO record.

Port White Water only requires the base game, but changing it to a Downtown means that it will require Nightlife and the fact that I used a Seasons IDNO means that it will need Seasons; I could reduce those requirements to Nightlife by using a Nightlife IDNO record, but there's no way to remove the Nightlife requirement.

In addition, if you move your subhood to the Seasons NeighborhoodTemplate folder, then it will only be available in an AnyGame which includes Seasons. Downtowns should go into an installation directory from Nightlife up to Mansion and Garden. Business Districts should go into an installation directory from Open for Business up to Mansion and Garden. I usually suggest that you use the NeighborhoodTemplate folder for the most recent EP used to create the subhood, so that you will not accidentally attempt to add it to a game which can't handle it.

Does this explain the strange behavior that you're seeing?

I don't have AnyGameStarter, only the Sims 2, and I have all EPs and SPs.

West Weasels, Baskerville, and Orville are base neighbourhoods. I'm trying to add to each of them two subhoods. So far, by following your instructions, I succedeed with adding Pleasantiview v3.5 as Shopping District to West Weasels and Bonito as Shopping District to Baskerville.

I have several saved games, each with its own theme and I switch between them depending on what I wish to play - for example, currently In my EA Games folder I have two saved games - "The Sims 2" folder (with Strangetown, I will name it Game #1) and "The Sims 2 Riverblossom" folder (Game #2). When I wish to play Riverblossom, I rename the folder to The Sims 2 so that the game recognizes it and runs it, while the previously played The Sims 2 gets renamed to something else, so the game ignores it, as there can't be two The Sims 2 folders at the same time. To explain the reason for doing so, is to divide all my CC (like 15GBs of it), not to put it all in one Downloads folder, when I need only like 1/10 of it when playing a rural Riverblossom.

While trying to convert these neighbourhoods to subhoods, the Game #1 was active.

Somehow, the converted Downtowns don't show up in Game #1 when I load any of downloaded neighbourhood (except for Port White Waters that is listed as avaiable Downtown to add for Orville and Baskerville). All converted Downtowns can be added as subhoods to Riverblossom though...

To continue with my test, after converting the Port White Water, Middleground, Elsewhere and Simville to the Shopping Districts, neither showed up in Game #1. I copied West Weasels, Baskerville, and Orville to Game #2, loaded the game and only Port White Water was avaiable for adding as Shopping District, and only in Orville.

So I deleted the converted Shopping Districts from the NeighborhoodTemplate folder, put back the Downtowns, run Game #2, and this is what I have now:

-Maxis' Riverblossom have all converted subhoods available for adding to it
-West Weasels with previously added Pleasantview v3.5 as Shopping District - none of the rest subhoods are shown in Create a Downtown/Shopping District panel
-Baskerville with previously added Bonito as Shopping District - only Port White Water is listed under Downtowns (well, along with Maxis' Downtown)
-Orville (no subhoods attached) - also, only Port White Water is listed

Out of all this crazy mess I can conclude the following:

the downloaded neighbhourhoods were successfully converted to either Shopping Districts or Downtowns per your instructions, and can be added as subhoods to Maxis' Riverblossom and Strangetown, but per mysterious reasons they selectively show up as available subhoods with downloaded base neighbourhoods.
I also created a new neighbourhood in-game, using Create Custom Neighbourhood option, for testing purposes, and all six subhoods were available for adding.



I don't know how to explain it all that it will be more understandable, I'm sorry.

That answered my questions. However, I'm stumped about the behavior that you're seeing. If I have any other ideas, I'll let you know.

I appreciated your help. Through this I gained valuable experience with SimPE and learned more Thank you!

So this should be fine, since it works in Bluewater, but... I just wanted to make sure resident sims in a subhood owning community lots wouldn't cause problems. It's a shopping district, so anything Bluewater can do should be fine, right?

Also, is it okay to have sims in the bin as part of a template neighborhood, or should they all live in lots? (I have some planned that really ought to be apartment dwellers, so I'd rather just leave them in the bin in the template than make houses for them all, too.)

(Amairani, this may be a stupid question... but does Game #1 have the anti-big-button mod installed? (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=420924) (I doubt this is the problem, but it it *might* cause what you're seeing, esp. if West Weasels already has a downtown installed.))

That's right. If the game handles something properly with Bluewater, then the game should handle it properly with any suburb template.

Yes, it's fine to have sims in the sim bin as a part of a subhood template. That's how many of the EPs add new sims to your sim bin, such as the Traveller family.