A supposedly empty neighborhood that is full of sims

I started a new neighborhood using the Twikki Island map. I thought it was the map! But now, when I have not played in live mode or opened the sim bin, I looked into the sims descriptions in SimPe and found 399 Sims, including a full complement of NPCs -- which I thought were supposed to be generated for the first time when you entered the relevant type of lot for the first time? I mean, there are bellhops in this neighborhood, and there is no vacation neighborhood attached. And at least one Ottomas -- but aren't they associated with a subhood? I never recall seeing them in my neighborhood for the longest time. Should the Travellers be in a new (not premade) neighborhood? I don't remember seeing them in my sim bin before. edit: Also, Troy Fratster! Isn't that a University NPC? I have not attached either a vacation or a college subhood, just to be clear.

I'm going to package the lots and start over, I think, because 399 is too many sims to have before one even starts. But does anybody know what I might have done to bring this down on myself?

Just use clean or empty template ±some hood population mods. When you don't use it and make a new hood, the game creates copies of Pleasanview NPCs (like Kaylynn Langerak). You can read more about avoiding this process at Simgarooop's blog.

The Ottomai are associated with Seasons, not with a subhood, and the Travellers are associated with BV, not with a premade hood. You'll probably find the Ramaswamis too, if you have OFB.

I use all the no___regen mods from MATY and this method to reduce townies: http://esmeiolanthe.livejournal.com/131558.html (It will also eliminate them if you so desire)

Both ladies before me are exactly right. When you start a completely fresh custom hood - regardless of what map you use - you'll get the PleasantView townies to deal with. And some of the families indeed come with non-subhood EPs. Those will therefor also be available.

So if you want your custom hoods to be uninhabited, you may need a clean and empty PV template, and all of Pescado's no-regen mods.

I wasn't expecting a truly empty neighborhood. The point is that I wasn't expecting four hundred sims before I entered live mode, and I wasn't expecting bellhops and dormies in a main hood with no subhoods.

I have asked other people, and mostly people have fewer sims than thatin played hoods.

My current theory is that my downloaded apartments brought them in, because I made a new hood and it also has this number.

edit: I do have antiredundancy, nossrespawn and notownieregen as well as cj's only one professor.

edit again: I have read simgaroop's tutorial and it doesn't apply. I don't want no Maxis playables or no Maxis townies or strays: I just don't want four hundred before anything else happens.

last edit: I'm giving up. It's not the lots: it's every brand-new custom neighborhood I make. I've tried some other things, and I still get sixty-four cats and dogs and a full complement of service sims and twenty unknowns and who knows who some of these sims even are. I don't want totally empty neighborhoods, and there's no lag or anything, so I guess I'll just ignore the bloat behind the scenes.

In *my* played hoods, I always have at least 700 or 800 sims. So 400 in an unplayed hood is not too weird for me...

Hmmm... In the hood I currently play, which was created using the method I linked to, and which I added roughly 40 playable sims to (it was a rebuild), I have 248 character files. IIRC from my time in SimPE, some of them are Hot Dog Chefs and maids and Human Statues and so. I've only left in the templates from two EPs that would create population without adding a subhood, since I haven't added any vacation destinations yet. With all EPs and without using blank (or empty, if you prefer) templates, I think 400 is about right. EDIT: According to this thread on MTS, it is indeed about right: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=543822

If you use blank templates (or empty, if you prefer), you can always tell the game to make some townies. It'll make somewhere between 50-100, and you'll likely end up with fewer than 400 character files fresh out of the box.

I'm sorry you're so frustrated, and I hope you can have fun again soon!

These are my clean hood notes (that I got from MATY) which I use so that there are only the npcs created (about 4-5 sims). I make all of my townies and have a custom starter hood with my own premades. I dunno if it will help you, but it always works for me.

Attached File(s)

  clean_hood_instructions.txt (Size: 12.29 KB / Downloads: 1845)

Oohhhh, that's a nice, clear set of instructions! I might wanna get those empty templates and try this, some day.

(21-12-2014 11:11 AM)BoilingOil Wrote:  Oohhhh, that's a nice, clear set of instructions! I might wanna get those empty templates and try this, some day.

Cool! Building your own hood from scratch is time consuming but really rewarding if you're into full game immersion. You can grow your hood very slowly, and you are in full control of your population count--so you don't have to stress about early corruption due to excessive townie/stray pet spawning.

Here is where I got my empty templates from... I'm posting the link because to the best of my knowledge there are several templates to choose from; these work flawlessly in my game: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/in...pic=4306.0