I enjoyed your rotation and it was good reading about the family and the story line. Your challenge is quite interesting, and I am interested in following along with you about it. I won't be joining it as I really just want to concentrate on my main neighborhood and its sub-hoods, this is the 3rd or the 4th time I have started playing Strange Town and I just want to play my Aliens are Among Us game. I don't think I have been playing it that long, just since 2015-11-20. What do you think?

Only since 2015? Wow, that's almost yesterday
I bought the game in 2010 and I thought I was already quite late but I see there are even newer players!
I should not be surprised though, this is such a great game and I feel like I'll be playing it forever

If you are happy with your hood, you are enjoying it, why bother doing something different? I would keep playing it until I grow bored of it.
Unless you feel the urge to do something different, which sometimes happens, of course.

I restarted two times because I managed to destroy my game both times and then I restarted again because I wanted to start playing The Super Collection with a fresh install. If I knew about megahoods when I started this incarnation I would have created one when I did my last restart in 2015, that is the one thing I would change. However I am not going to start over right now, just so I can have one. I don't know when I will grow bored, I think it will be a long time.

And have you played the same hood in every ocassion or you change completely your hood every time you restart?

I usually like to do something completely different when I create a new hood, it's quite refreshing.
In fact I once played all the premade hoods, one after another, but now I won't touch them at all.

I have always stuck with Strange Town. I did try to do things a little different by having different Founding Families other than the pre-mades. Mostly I have just tried to not make the same mistakes and to play better than I did before. I like the pre-made families, but I do use plastic surgery on them and anyone else that I don't like the look of, I did some plastic surgery on all of the Far East Locals. I also have a default replacement Asian face that I like to use. I am still kind of new when it comes to the Sims 2 in comparison to others in terms of how long I have been playing I suppose.

Know what? I have never ever used surgery. Not once.
I don't mind supposedly-ugly premades and such. I think there is something rather unique about them. And I like variety.
I think I would use surgery if it was part of the story of the hood, just in that case. Otherwise I leave everyone alone.

In fact when I played premades I hardly ever gave them a makeover - they stayed with their hairdo and clothes, etc. unless something important happened in their life and they changed accordingly.

Mostly I just change the clothes to suit what I like and sometimes I change their hair, I usually don't do surgery on them. I don't want to have everyone looking too much the same. Except for the Far East ones, I wanted to have them all to have Asian Faces, because of story line.

Mostly I don't like the Maxis clothes and I love to change the clothes. Frustrated fashion designer in me I suppose. It is one of the reasons I like the Sims is that I am able to change their clothes and make up and or facial hair, and sometimes I give them accessories.

I try to integrate the pre-mades story line with my general Aliens are here among us story line that I have for Strange Town. Frequently I have them intermarry with my Founding Clans and I like having them as sort of normal people that live in Strange Town with all of the Alien stuff going on, like more abductions. I frequently have to change their clothes though. LOL.

But surgery is not inherited, is it? So you must do the same to their children to make sure they have Asian-looking features?

I don't have a lot of CC.
Some Maxis-match hairstyles (most of them default replacements) and very few clothes (for example some to replace maid uniform and maternity clothes). But in general rules I do not download unless I absolutely love it.
I also have few CC buy/build mode items. Most of them are Michelle's recolors of Maxis stuff :D

And btw I have finished another rotation so I'm gonna be posting an update!

Now we are in the stage 4 of the challenge, which means that an university is created. An small one in this case.
And there is already an student there!

Christian & Marjorie Walker, children of Sophie and the late James Walker, were about to grow up into adulthood. In fact she did. But he wanted to go to college (and also was afraid of not going, same situation which sent his brother Roger into aspiration failure) so I obligued and allowed him to go - after paying the required fee.
I installed him in the Curiosity Dorm and I'll be playing him soon enough.

Christian still keeps in touch with his high school sweetheart, Klaav, I still don't know if she'll be joining him at college and/or they will continue their relationship. I kinda like them together, but time will tell!

As I said before, Marjorie grew up instead of going to college. She still lives with her mother but she plans to move out very soon.
What will Sophie do after all her children leave the nest?

Talking about her other children.
Richard has an unlikely want - he wants to be a father. But his wife is too old to conceive! What do you think it means? Maybe he wants to be abducted and get pregnant, it's not so unusual in this hood. Or maybe he would not mind having some other lover... (I must watch him closely and decide what's that he actually wants.)
Eleanor remains jobless. Her bank about is §0 but she does not worry much. In the worst case scenario she could marry Ray Mayhew as everyone seems to expect. Although she would rather not - and to be honest Ray has not shown any interest ever since their engagement.
Last but not least, Roger. He is married to J'Kepp and lives with her and her twins - although she is the one who takes care of them, Roger pays little attention to her stepchildren. They are now toddler so J'Kepp invited her family and Roger's to a piece of cake.



Roger and J'Kepp had their little personal celebration afterwards... and now they are expecting their first child in common. With two toddlers and one baby (or more) they are gonna have a huge lot of work.

Theirs is not the only large family though. Chloe and Ricky Mace just had twins, a baby girl named Celeste and a baby boy named Brody, who are sibblings to their first child Herbie.


Vilkaa Gorge and Prod Entayta also had a baby boy named Vrodde. In their case it's the only baby in the house, since Trod is already a child and their half-brother Kliive has just become a teen.



Kliive is quite a good looking guy (and the only hybrid in the household btw) and his generation certainly lacks males so I suspect he's gonna be popular despite being a Knowledge Sim.

The White-Entayta family is another quite large one, also with three kids. But it seems that the the eldest (Prid) is not in very good terms with the youngest (Priss).

Prid is growing up, just became a teenager, and decided to go a little rebelious and get herself a funky hairdo. (Yep, I think pink looks great on her.)


And we'll have more babies in the next rotation. As I mentioned above J'Kepp is pregnant again and so is Cynthia Freeman (who already has two boys and is hoping for a girl). So more large families! This hood is gonna be huge :D

Other inhabitants are not so looking forward creating a family. Take for instance Rivia Zadra-Atkins who just moved out of her parents house and rented a (very cheap) apartment in the same building as her brother Arvian. But she really dislikes being poor! And she is not in a great mood, in fact she has already been involved in a fight with a neighbour.


Arvian is not so worried about the money, he is happy in his little apartment - as long as it has a double bed he won't complain. Lately he has been seen with one of te landladies, Dagmar Gilmore.


My other womanizer is Derrick Lowe, who lives in a much more comfortably and "invites" women home as often as not. Lately he's been in the company of Eleanor Walker and also of the other landlady, Gretchen.


And I think these were the most relevant events of this rotation. I'm so looking forward playing the university and I hope more young people joins there.

I think you might be able to make the surgery inheritable with SimPE, not sure and anyway I can't use it being that I use a Mac to play, so anyway since I usually have the Far East Sims have babies with Sims from some place else I have been ignoring the issue. I will likely do some surgery to their decendants though, because it fits with my story and because I care about the issue.

I have Mods, plus clothes and hair and vehicles, with some custom objects and building stuff. Also some default clothes, and default iPod and iPhones, etc. Not a lot compared to most people though. I have become quite selective about what I download lately

I am doing another update soon too, look tommorrow for it.

Stage 4 is good I gather. Sounds good that you will now have a University. I like playing Univesity, that is where I make most of my matches for my Sims.

I qute enjoyed your update. I think that your Sims look very nice and most of them are quite good looking even, eh I see why you don't do surgery on them. You don't need too. LOL

Same here. I'm quite selective with my CC. I mean I like to customize my game, but I don't want to feel overwhelmed by a huge amount of variety.
I have quite a bit of mods though. Which have improved my gameplay a lot. Because now I play the way I like to play.

For example I used to dislike the university EP. In fact I used to keep it unistalled for years.
Then I found a mod which allowed me to have shorter semesters and voilÃ*! it's great playing it again.

I'm looking forward playing it now because I have all those no-respawn mods which limit my hood population but I have no such a mod in my university subhoods - as I think there should be plenty of people from many other towns there. So it will probably add more variety to my hoods and that's great :D

If you don't have the one that prevents the Dormies from respawning or the one that does the same to the Secret Society you should have a good variety of Sims there.
My favourite MOD for University is twojeffs' College Adjuster it allows one to do what you want with time to Finals, grades, acedemic probation, and pretty much anything else to do with University. I recently discovered it and I like it a lot.

I love the idea of alien townie defaults with a few humans moving in! I'm going to have to give that a try in a new neighborhood.

I'm really bad -- I mean really, really bad -- about taking photos of my family events. In fact, I don't think I took a single photo since I reinstalled my game in December. Now, I have been good about getting a portrait of each generation of heir in my legacy family. I just wish my founding family member was able to get his portrait painted before he became an elder, since it does not show his red hair that was passed down for a couple generations.

I don't even remember whose university mod I'm using - and I'm too lazy to check it ou. CJ probably, he has a lot of mods I like.

When I created the university subhood I checked it in SimPE because I like to collect thumbnail pics in case I have to use them later. And yes, I had lots and lots of Sims there. I'm looking forward my Sims meeting them.

@SIMelissa:
If you want to give a try you would be more than welcome in the challenge :D
And you can even grab my alien townie pool in case you are too busy to create your own

I learned to take photos to upload some of my lots here at MTS. I think they are technically ok - definetely not as fancy as other creators - and I have practiced enough to be easy to take them.
But I still forget way too often, and only notice afterwards that I don't have any pic of this or that, haha.

Time for another update.

Let's begin with the Walkers, since they are the largest family and they have several news.
Sophie Walker is now living alone, all her children have already left the nest. After living in a such a crowded house (they were 7, the largest household so far) she is feeling a bit lonely. But her relation with her daughter-in-law Caryl has certainly improved (now they are friends) and she's considering seriously moving in with Charles and Caryl, and help them to run the retirement home. Seems appropiate.
On the other hand she has paid her rent and she won't be moving out until the week is over. So she might change her mind in the meantime, cause Charles is not the only child who needs her.
Charles and Caryl are not doing bad anyway. In fact they both got promoted, and they managed to get another inmate for the Heritage Manor - Zavra Zadra, an alien elder who brought some money with her!


Eleanor did not get in much trouble lately (which is a miracle considering that her fiancé and one of her lovers live in the same building as she does) but she's really short on money and I'm afraid she might be willing to marry Ray just for the sake of not getting a job.
Her twin Roger has a completely different lifestyle. Married to J'Kepp, now lives with her two little ones and their common child - a baby girl named Jess who does not seem to have any alien genes (oooooooooh!) and inherited the late Grandpa James beautiful green eyes.




Then we have Marjorie, who just left Sophie's house to rent an apartment of her own. She does not have a lot of money so she decided to get a roommate as soon as possible - Serdar Gregory is the name, he has a funny moustache and they get along very well. Might be a romantic interest?




And at last Christian, who is the very first university student from Sedona City.



He has spent his time studying and also socializing, but probably the most important event in his life is that he has renewed his relationship with Klaav now that she has aged. It was her move though, and he seems to be still interested in knowing more about the female population of his college...

Klaav btw looks gorgeous now that she's all grown. She's moved from fuchsia to red and decided to get the traditional Gorge nosering but still has a pinup look.


Love affairs have been quite calm, and the only other new relation formed in this rotation was Derrick Lowe's crush on Rivia Zadra-Atkins after a nice date.
Will she want something more or will she be happy with the un-commited love Derrick is willing to offer?


On an unrelated not, Rivia's parents had the unlucky visit of a burglar who got away with §10k treasury certificate which was meant to be the used to pay a college fee for one of their children. Ooooops.


Back to human relations, maybe teenagers have something to say about it. Prid White-Entayta wore her best dress to sneak out with Kliive Gorge (hey! he sent a limo, she could not go in her regular clothes!) and although they are only friends it's possible that such a good friendship eventually turns into something else. Or not.


On the other hand Kliive does not seem very interested in romance yet. He's quite a formal guy. And now he tries to help his family, because with two little children all the help you can get is welcome.
Btw the youngest sibling, Vrodde, is now a toddler.


So are Brody and Celeste Mace.




Aaaaaand there is another little inhabitant, Tristam Freeman.




The Freemans and the Maces will need soon to move out, because those large households can hardly fit in small houses or apartments.
But the Durant-Dukrarn family has already moved to a large house despite not needing the space - just because they can afford it. In fact Neil even decided to retire. It's time to enjoy life!!

Can you post a link to that?

You need to teach people how you do your pictures! Outstanding job. Your story is interesting, and innovating. Y'all are much better at this than I am!

TwoJeffs' College Adjuster is on this page http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?topic=7.0 it is the first item in the list and there is a link to the zip file.

Here is the list of Uni related mods by twojeffs there might be something else that you might like.
College Adjuster
College YA Aging Fix
Dormie Gender Controller
Evil Cow Mascot Trophy Head
No Finals at Night
No Meeting Professors
No Secret Society Abductions
Stinky Dormies and Assignments Fix
Students Move Away from the Portal
YA Visitors Outside Uni

Hmmm, I think I'll grab the YA visitors one. I think it will be a neat thing in an small hood like mine
Really helpful, lordtyger9!

@Kunder:
Thanks for the compliment on my pictures.
Probably not worth a tutorial thought - it's all about getting Fraps (a software to make in-game pictures, much better quality than the camera) and using the shortcuts to focus on whatever pic you want. I suppose there are tutorials here on MTS, and I learnt by using them.

The story is turning out nice indeed!
All because of my Sims, they are the ones making the choices after all

Glad I could be of help, I use the College Adjuster and the YA Visitors Outside Uni one myself, I don't use the others. I figured that I would list them because we were discussing playing University.

I think it is not just the software used to take pictures I think it is knowing when to take them. I use the Mac's Screen Capure tech and I just have to do a 3 key combination of cmd-shift-3 for entire screen or cmd-shift-4 for a selection of the screen, I think the quality is good, to me it is knowing when to do the command.

I do love how your story is progressing, sometimes Sims just do the best thing on their own.

I don't know, I don't think I'm good at choosing the right moment myself.
I usually pause the game when I think it would be nice to take a photo, zoom in and put the camera at eye-level. Then un-pause. Click, click, click, click. Usually one of them turns out good enough.

And stories, well, some people play according to an story. So a Sim is expected to do this and that.
I don't.
I play according to their wants. Even if they are not what I expected. So things happen - and only AFTER things have happened I figure out an story in which they fit.
I'm not an story-creator, I'm an story-teller

Playing according to wants does sound rather interesting, as convoluted as they can be at times. I usually incorporate a bit of both, but mainly stick to an overarching plot! I guess I'm a story-creator.

Well you have good luck in your picture taking. I try the same thing, and sometimes I just don't get a good set of shots and sometimes I am busy with something and next thing I know I miss something interesting. It can challenging trying to get good pictures.

I never really thought about it until recently, but I suppose that I play according to their wants too. Well except that I think most of the Sims should have at least one child and I figure that my various Alien Clans have reproducing as a Clan Mandate, so my Sims will usually have children or adopt them. I don't play according to any sort of detailed story. I just figure that my Sims want to be happy and I try to make them happy.

I do have a very general story arc where each Alien Clan tends to link with other Alien Clans, but that depends on chance encounters between the Sims and them having 3 bolts and usually being unattached. Rarely will I have them change their match up with a particular Sim etc., but sometimes I do change who they are matched with or I add someone to the mix. I figure that it was a case of irresistable attraction.

@Emperor Crat:
Your lineages must take a while to be created!
I don't think I can get such sort of story if I let my Sims do as they please... but it pleases me that way. TS2 is a way for me to "disconnect" and relax, having to figure it out would be too much hassle

@lordtyger9:
I admit that I also make some choices for them when it comes to marriage and children.
Because some very nice couples might never roll a want to commit, despite not being against commitment - some Knowledge Sims for example.
Same goes for children, maybe they don't roll the want or I did not lock it and was lost. But if their genetics are interesting (or the hood needs to grow) I might encourage a pregnancy.
That kind of choices take a little while for me to take though. I don't think those Sims would rush into marriage/parenthood. But if they have been in love for a number of rotations it might make sense to get married, specially when something as growing up happens - "Oh, I'm getting old and I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone!"
In this hood it happened to Lorna Mayhew for a completely different reason, she was broke and was having trouble to raise Ray on her own, so she married Vaklin. That was simply a convenience marriage.
Same goes for pregnancies, some couples might not care much about a large family, but when their fertile period of life is about to end they may reconsider having a child.