OK, the title of this thread might not be the best but it was the best I could come up whit.

As I told you in an other thread I have begun a new game in Bridgeport the city hood if it's an OK term). But to be honest, I do find it deadly boring! I have been playing Sunset Valley a lot and find it quite entertaining. My sims there live a good life, get many things done and still have time over after work. (OK, they also have been earning the points needed to trade in for personal stuff to make their energy lasts longer and so on). But the point is that I see them living a better life though their day is 24 hours.

In Bridgeport I did create a single female and she lives in a (decent) apartment whit her cat. I did gave her a job in the Business career track and everything should be fine but I don't see things things working very well. It seems like everything in this town takes time. In Sunset Valley it's like this: "Sim X have left work" - and a few moments later she is home again. Whit the carpool. When I send my city woman to work she use to return home - By foot! What? Why did not the carpool bring my sim back?! And all of her energy in drained. Sorry Tigger (the cat), this human is half dead and won't be petting you or play whit you tonight.

So I did create a single man and moved him in whit her. OK, Saturday night, le's send them to a club. The man is a computer friend and have been hacking the gust list so why not. But it did take them a very long time to get to the place as the game can not send them there by cab (and there is no "call a taxi" in the phone options AND subway. Oh for cry out loud, it's just 3 blocks. As I wrote, the guest list was hacked. But he still had to pay the guard 100 sim dollars to get in (sigh). And as it took them so long to get there the energy levels was way down. And after that they have to walk back home. Yes, Walk! As I wrote before, no taxi available. And as I do not know if it is possible for city sims to own a car or even a bike they have to walk.

As you sure do understand from my text, I wish for some tips to play this hood because I can not understand it or how it should be played. OK, Late Night is an Expansion Pack but how can they make the shipped hood so hard to play? It's almost impossible and if there were a cheat (like Maxmotives) I would be using it a lot. (Yes, I have seen the cheatcodes but it does not seem to be so simple as in TS2).

No, I don't play in the town hood. I remember towns and hoods from the TS2 days, and they were cool at the time, but TS3 has Worlds and this one is a City and a World. It's like a tiny toy version of a city that I've probably spent thousands of hours in over the past 7-8 years. It's a cute little thing but even with the alleys, the dive bars and the clubs up and down each building it's got a very finite size. Impressive for what it is, but underwhelming by current standards.

Once upon a time I had a bold idea of diving head-first into CAW and building my own, large, entirely urbanized Bridgeport with loads of decoration and a detailed distant terrain but then I realized I probably don't have the skills and the patience to do it right. And eventually, Boroughsburg came out incorporating a few of the elements my Bridgeport would have. Boroughsburg is far from what I'd have done with it but it's too good to ignore and I do allow myself to use small parts of it on occasion.

The current idea, while not entirely successful yet, is to fake it. I'm pretty comfortable with Build/Buy, I've got a lot of CC and empty space for building, I can easily refer to my old designs for the city and build individual parts of it. The fun thing about late 20th century filmmaking is that they were happy to use stuff like miniatures and matte paintings. I now have a sidewalk somewhere in my world, with a subway station entrance on it, and it's surrounded by enormous lilac walls. I can chroma key the lilac out and use any combination of techniques to turn that lilac soundstage into a a busy city street overflowing with people. And if I do it well, you'll fall for it.

Here's a few quick mockups for one of these shots, with the expectation that I'll be able to create something that looks much more realistic than what the game could ever produce.....while still using assets and footage from the game itself. 5 or 6 vehicles and two dozen Sims would do it for this relatively calm urban street. Most of the vehicles would need to be shot separately against a greenscreen but for two dozen Sims, I'd probably only need 2 or 3 layers of footage.

My suggestion if you wish to get more enjoyment out of Bridgeport is to move your sims to a starter or other 1- or 2- bedroom home within the city limits and explore what the city has to offer from there, a more familiar home environment. Maybe they cannot afford the snazzy mansions meant for high level celebrities over the bridge, but there should be some affordable ones on the area of the map on the same side of downtown but further inland or you could add some through Edit Town. My sense is that adjusting to both highrise apartments and city life at the same time is a bit too much of a change from suburbia for some players all at once, and perhaps experiencing the apartment thing would be better if it was gotten around to later on.

Sims can have cars while living on any kind of lot, but they require a parking space to purchase one. Some of the highrises come with parking lots, some have parking garages with spaces available. For owned bicycles, a place to lock them up (bike rack) is required. Both parking spaces and bike racks are available from Build/Buy, but the testingcheatsenabled true (I think) and restrictbuildbuyinbuildings false cheat codes must be used to add things like this to areas of a highrise LN apartment lot that would be outside of the usable unit's living area unless you want a parking space in your living room.

Taxis are not called upon by demand in TS3. When sims need to go someplace in town, the game decides whether a car (if they own or have access to one), taxi, subway, or walking is the best option even though it doesn't always get that right. You can force subway and owned vehicle usage by clicking on subway stations or vehicles, but not taxis.

In city worlds even more so than elsewhere, NRaas Relativity to manage the passage of sim time so that it doesn't take all day to go someplace is valuable for many of us. But yes, it is more difficult to get around and in and out of buildings with elevators in Bridgeport than in other worlds even when taxis and subways are working as expected. Some advance planning so that your sims don't keep arriving at venues as they are about to close or when their energy levels are already depleting would be required.

Making the elevators go faster will help if you live in an apartment. You may want to tell your sims to go to work/school early if they have vehicles. As a note, if you have Seasons, the high rise lobbies count as outdoors so during the winter, sims will put on their coat any time they leave their apartment (which will slow them down further).

The other way to use Bridgeport is with NRaas Traveler. Your family can live in Sunset Valley then take exciting family trips (including the kids and pets) to the big city to enjoy the nightlife without having to worry about school or work. You may also want the part of the Children Can series that allows kids to use the food trucks and buy bar food if you take the kids though.

Only just noticed this thread is called "HOW do you play in Bridgeport" instead of "Do you play in Bridgeport?".......sorry guys.

AGuyCalledPi: No problem that you misrigazoread the title. Mistakes can be made and you did point out mine. After all this years playing, and writing about what I do, I have getting so use to the term "Hoods" that I use it by default. But as noted, TS3 (and TS4) got "Worlds". Sorry for being incorrect.

nitromon: True, we are all different. I don't mind bigger city's but maybe I'm not enjoy them enough to play them in this game.

igazor: A very interesting post. Thank you for explaining some things about how the game works because I'm not so use to it yet. I have to take a better look into the things you mention in the post. Right now my sims lives in a not so fancy part of the world. A part that was described as a place where the more important citizens once lived.

Tacitala: That elevator mod looks very interesting, I would keep it in mind. And thanks for the info, I do have seasons.