Update!! (01/17/2025):

This is a very old tutorial and contains some outdated information. If you want to add multiple inhabited downtown subhoods (or vacation subhoods of the same type) to your neighborhood, then read the newer and simplified version here!

Original Post:

Note: The descriptions in the screenshots are not in English. My game is in German, that's why. I hope, you can still follow the tutorial. It shouldn't be a big difference at all...
If you have any problems or if a step is unclear for you, please let me know. You can either PM me or reply to this thread. I hope I'll be able to solve your problems.

As you might noticed, by default, only the first downtown added to a neighborhood will have the sims. All of the other downtown templates added to the neighborhood will simply have no sims at all. As you know, EA doesn't delete the sims properly. The junk references may be seen in SimPE.

But there's a way to bypass this issue/feature.
Here's the tutorial. If you're confused or need more help, I've attached some screenshots of how I did it. Just click on them if you want to see it bigger. If you have any further questions, you may post your questions in this thread.

1. backup your neighborhood in which you want to add the downtown subhoods. We'll need the backup later so you have to backup. Otherwise, you won't be able to complete the tutorial and end up with a corrupted neighborhood. You've been warned.
2. Load your neighborhood and add the downtowns you want to the neighborhood. The first downtown will have the sims but the others won't. Don't worry about that. We'll fix that.
I'm adding Mountainside Valley and Meadow Creek as downtown subhoods to my neighborhood for this tutorial.



3. Quit your game and go to C:\Users\Your Name\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods and open your neighborhood folder.


There, you'll see the downtown subhoods (Downtown001.package, etc.)
4a. Copy and paste them to desktop.
4b. Copy and paste the Storytelling folder to desktop as well. We'll need it later.
5. Delete your neighborhood folder and replace it with your backup you've hopefully and thankfully made in Step 1.
6. Open SimPE and extract the neighborhood ID of each downtown subhood you've copied to desktop.
To do this, click on the IDNO record on the left panel. Now, it should be on the right panel. Right-click on it and choose "Extract". I've created a folder for each ID number. (Just to recongize it better)



7. Now, you can delete the downtown subhood packages. We don't need them anymore.
8. Launch the game and load your neighborhood. Add 1 downtown subhood template and quit the game again. Don't add more downtown subhoods!



9. Go to C:\Users\Your Name\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods and open your neighborhood folder
There, you only should have one downtown. Cut and paste it with its picture to desktop.



10. Launch the game again load your neighborhood and add another downtown subhood template and quit the game again. Again, don't add more than 1 downtown subhoods! As you see, you can actually add Mountainside Valley again, but I wouldn't do so.



11. Go to C:\Users\Your Name\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods and open your neighborhood folder again.
There, you should see a new "Downtown001.package" with its picture. Rename "001" to "002" and cut and paste to desktop.



12. Repeat these steps with all your other downtown subhoods until you have added all of the downtown subhoods you want to add.
13. Now, you can move all of your downtown subhood packages from desktop into your neighborhood folder.



14. Open your downtown subhoods in SimPE and replace the existing ID numbers with the ones you've extracted in Step 6 of each downtown subhood and save.



15. Go to C:\Users\Your Name\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods and open your neighborhood folder, then the Storytelling folder.
There, you'll have to delete the neighborhood pictures and the .xml file of the downtown subhoods. Why? Because the game merged them all together and screwed it up.



16. Open up the Storytelling folder you've copied in Step 5.
There, you'll need to copy the neighborhood pictures and the .xml file of the downtowns. The family pictures don't need to be fixed.



17.Go back to C:\Users\Your Name\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods and open your neighborhood folder, then the Storytelling folder and paste the fixed pictures/xml files of the downtown subhoods.



18. Check your neighborhood with Mootilda's HoodChecker and click on the Remove button to fix the sims' instances.



19. Congratulations! You have multiple inhabited downtowns in your neighborhood now.



As you see, both of the downtowns are inhabited and all of the neighborhood/family pictures are there.



If you want to add more downtowns afterwards, you can simply repeat the steps.

- Make a backup of your neighborhood.
- Add the subhood (even if no sims will be added)
- Extract the ID number of the newly added subhood.
- Copy the Storytelling folder to desktop
- Then delete the subhood and restore from backup - Take out all of the current downtowns
- Add the new downtown template
- Rename the downtown template (e.g. Downtown001 becomes Downtown009)
- Move all of your downtowns templates back to their actual place.
- Replace the ID number of the newly added downtown template
- Delete the screwed up neighborhood pictures and .xml files of the downtown subhoods in the Storytelling folder
- Copy and paste the fixed neighborhood pictures and .xml files of the downtown subhoods into the Storytelling folder.
- Use Mootilda's HC to fix the sims' instances

Update: 2nd October 2015
Please note that vacation destination subhoods also suffer from this issue.
You can add multiple vacation destination of different types but if you add another vacation destination of the same theme (e.g. two mountain vacation destinations), then the second vacation destination (of the same type) won't have its sims. But you can bypass this issue just like you can do with multiple custom downtowns. You can use this tutorial - it's systematically the same for vacation destinations.

Universities and suburbs don't have such issues and are safe to add without doing this tutorial.

Update: 17th January 2025
While this method can be used to add multiple inhabited downtown subhoods to a neighborhood, I've found a way easier method on how to achieve this using SimPE's most recent version (0_77_69). Have a look here!

When I deleted a glitched downtown and created a custom second one, I started generating duplicates of the special downtownies - Tricou bastards with connections to a new batch of dead Tricous, a new Diva, etc. Every one of these I've checked (including the dead Tricous) has full character data and unique UserID, GUID, Instance Nos., etc.

You might want to test whether this method also generates such duplicates. If it does, it would be well to warn people. I have my anti-death-corruption hacks in place, so the fact that there's no gravestones for the dead Tricous doesn't worry me; but in a game that lacks these hacks it could easily be a problem, and I can see people panicking over it if not prepared.

I think it's like Pleasantview. Any custom neighborhoods will have the Pleasantview townies. Here, any custom downtown subhoods will have the downtownies. You deleted the downtown and added another one. Since there's no Downtown001.package anymore, the game will add more sims to the neighborhood.

I haven't had any duplicates but it's possible. As I mentioned above in Step 10.

I have notownieregen installed, perhaps it's because of that. I'll test it out without having notownieregen installed and look whether there are any duplicates or not.

ETA: I think, it's not a problem if you temporarily take out EA's downtown template and restore it after adding the custom downtowns. The game won't add the "missing" downtownies/Tricous.

I have a downtown in Strangetown already and I want to add the Tricou family to it. Am I in the right place, is this what I need to do? Follow the tutorial to add a second downtown to get the teens and the graves and the house? I imagine once they are included into my hood, I can send someone to move the graves to either Strangetown or my other downtown, bin the house, and then delete the new downtown?

Does this problem exist for multiple subhoods? I already have a shopping district, but since I'm after the sims and their house, I don't really care how I add them. I don't have all my vacation destinations added yet, could I add them that way, or will it generate a bunch of locals? What do you suggest?

Yes, that should be doable. Deleting downtowns shouldn't be a problem and never have been really.

And no, this problem is only for downtown and vacation destination subhoods!
So, you can add as many shopping district/university subhoods as you want in-game.

As for the vacation subhoods, this kind of subhood is special as in the game there are three types of vacation destinations and each type is a subhood on its own. So if you add Twikki Island, Takemizu Village and Three Lakes, you'll get all the locals.
It's just that the second/third/fourth... vacation of a certain type doesn't have its sims.

So if you add a second Mountain vacation subhood for instance, you won't have extra locals. However, if you didn't have any Tropical subhoods but added one after adding Three Lakes, you would get the locals from Twikki Island, even though you already had one vacation destination.

The problem is that if you add custom vacation subhoods first and then EA's ones, then you won't have any locals in the neighborhood due to this subhood issue.
But it shouldn't be a problem if you do it the other way round.

So, I could just add downtown as a OFB subhood and I'd get the sims that way?

Yes! Then you don't have to deal with this issue and a shopping district subhood is easily deleted.

Have a look at Mootilda's tutorial. This is how you could convert Downtown into a shopping district.
http://modthesims.info/t/502306

Hi. I used this method to add Emerald Heights to my neighbourhood and everything went okay except one thing: the storytelling folder. I accidentally messed up and now, while the neighbourhood story is in place, the pictures in the family album are missing. Is there a way to put them in without redoing everything?

@ihatemandatoryregister

I'm so sorry for not replying.. I've just seen your post.

Basically, you can copy the Storytelling pictures from actual neighborhood template (located in Program Files) into your neighborhood.
Family album IDs shouldn't change, so you can simply copy & paste.

Hi Jawusa, I have a problem with this tutorial and I really need your help

I downloaded a custom primary neighborhood called "Beacon Falls", and it has its own attached downtown called "Lustre Point". Lustre Point is already included in the neighborhood folder in the form of a package file and a picture, I don't have the downtown neighborhood folder for Lustre Point, and the storytelling pictures of Lustre Point is already included in the original storytelling folder. Is there anything that I need to do differently when I follow this tutorial?

@mimicat

It requires some more extra steps, but it's still doable!

1. Go to Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods and find your neighborhood folder, e.g. N00X (N00X can be anything... e.g. N001, N003, etc. )
2. Create a new folder in desktop and move your N00X_Downtown001.package + N00X_Downtown001.png + the WHOLE Storytelling folder to that new folder on your Desktop
3. Open up your neighborhood and add the desired Downtown subhood! Now, close the game again WITHOUT clicking the Storytelling button.
4. Go to your neighborhood folder N00X and you'll see two new files; change the 001 to 002, so it's N00X_Downtown002.package + N00X_Downtown002.png
5. Put the new Storytelling folder to desktop DON'T MERGE IT with the previous one. Now open up the folder you've created in Step 2 and place all of its contents (including the OLD Storytelling folder) into your neighborhood's folder N00X. If you did everything correctly, you'll have Downtown001 and Downtown002, along with their pictures.

Until now, it appears rather similar to the previous procedure. Now comes the additional tricky part:
(Feel free to ask me, if you need help here! I admit that this part is rather complicated...)

6a. Now, the tricky part! Open SimPE and have a look at the NeighborhoodID. If it's NOT the same number, then you're lucky! Then you can just close SimPE again without changing anything and merge the Storytelling folders! And you're done! Ignore the next steps.

6b. BUT if it's the SAME ID number, change the ID number of the second downtown to a different number. For example, let's say N00X_Downtown001 has the number 11... in this case, we'd have to change N00X_Downtown002's ID number from 11 to a 12!
7b. The game can read the Downtown subhood properly now, but we need to fix the Storytelling pictures. In order to do that, open the Storytelling folder from Desktop which you moved in Step 5 and rename all of the 0000000X to the new number. The game uses hexdecimal numbers here.
BTW, you can use this website to find out how to convert decimal numbers to hexdecimals. As an example, we previously had 11 as the ID number. Now, as a hexdecimal, that would mean that we'd get 0000000B.
We need to make the ID number 12 though, so we're going to convert it to a hexdecimal. That would give us a 0000000C. In other words, rename and replace all 0000000B instances to 0000000C (also inside the XML file which you can open with Notepad).
8b. Now you can merge the Storytelling folders and you're done!