Hello,

I have a question about the empty neighborhood templates and I couldn't google the answer. There are more user accounts on the PC I use. I would like to start a fresh game with the empty neighborhood templates but as you have to put them in the Program Files, I suppose it would affect all user accounts on that PC? So if my sister decided to create a new neighborhood after I put the empty templates in the Program Files, would it also be empty?

Anybody has any experience with this?

No personal experience, but it should work like that, yes. Unless your sister also wants to use empty templates, the only solution would be to put them in, create your neighborhood and then put the regular templates back. It's a bit more work, but that way both of you would get what you want.

I kind of thought so... thank you for the quick answer

If you're not using the UC, you could use AGS for this sort of thing. It gives you the option of creating empty neighbourhoods and regular filled ones.

What do you mean by "Empty neighbourhood templates"?
In my understanding you are mentioning the neighbourhoods itself (Pleasantview, Veronaville, strangetown ect. and user made neighbourhoods).

-If you still want to keep the original neighbourhood's.


On documents there is a map called EA games.

This is where your user made neighbourhoods are installed (and the pre-installed ones, when you edit pre-installed ones the edit ends up on that map, not in program files).

I switched from pc once, on my old pc there was a neighbourhood that I really wanted to keep.
So, I copied the whole EA games map on Documents and put it somewhere save (on a hard drive).
I pasted the EA games map (from my old pc) on the old EA games map (on my new pc) (REMEMBER TO MAKE A BACK UP THE OLD MAP).
And Sims2 was just what it was like before (except my graphic card can't handle sims2).

My suggestion is to make a back up of your EA games map (mine looks like this C:\Users\HeyHeyHHere\Documents\EA Games)
on a save place (like a hard drive). And install Sims2 and all the expansion packs on the other account all over again.

I do not have experience with multiple accounts, so you should first check if there is the same stuff on program files of your sisters account as there is on your own account.

There should also be an option when you're installing it, to install it somewhere else.

Also, It would be a real amount of memory usage, that sims2 game pasted all over again

My questions:
-Do you mean the neighbourhoods itself?
-Can you first check if there is the same stuff on program files of your sisters account as there is on your own account?
-How big in storage is your pc?

I explained it in detail, in case you won't understand something

The OP means the templates which are emptied if you want to create a game environment which prevents the game from making townies - or any extra sims - when you create a new neighbourhood. It's the original technique for creating empty hoods. There are a couple of other ways to do it but AGS, which I suggested above, allow you to create different game environments for different players on the fly as you create the neighbourhoods which doesn't involve altering game files anywhere.

Yes, what maxon said is exactly what I mean. I never used AGS and I'm not familiar with what it does so I'd have to look into that... what are the advantages and disadvantages of using AGS compared to the empty templates (besides of course the main one, that it wouldn't affect other accounts)? I only plan to play one neighborhood so I don't think I'm going to need different consequential sets of replacements, and I don't upload lots, do I wouldn't use the testing part, either. Sorry, these are the only things I was sort of able to get within this short time I was looking at what AGS actually is, so I'm still a bit confused...

You can have up to three AGS games, any configuration you want. For instance, I had a Base Game Only setup to make Widespot in, a BG+Uni only setup to build Land Grant University, and I have a BG+Uni+NL game to build Bigg City with. Not only are these games able to create neighborhoods that more people can play than if I built them in my full game, they have only the essential mods as CC, so they load quickly. I turned the BG only game into a game with all EPs and SPs in order to build CC-free for a contest; and I'm keeping that game with the idea of perhaps running a BACC in it. I don't normally want empty templates, because I like the family bin sims and don't mind the Pleasantview townies; but a proper BACC shouldn't have a bunch of townies running around. Also, I'll be able to give the BACC only what custom content I feel is truly necessary to it, so it will load faster than my usual game; and it won't be stuck with the NPC-generating CC I have in my full game and don't dare take out, ever.

The chief advantage to you of having AGS would be that you wouldn't have to mess around with taking things in and out of the program files every time you or your sister wants to make a new hood. You just create an empty neighborhood in your all-EPS/SPs/No Maxis content AGS, put whatever custom content you want into your downloads folder, and play away, while your sister plays without AGS, and you both get to make neighborhoods as your whims takes you, without having to get out of the game, change out the templates, and get back in.

AGS may behave erratically with newer machines and operating systems, but the same is true of the game itself. Myself, I have only ever been able to run my partial games with the M&G disk in one disk drive and the highest EP for the AGS configuration in the other; i.e. when I made Widespot, I had my Deluxe disk (from which AGS derived the Base Game Only setup) in Drive 2 and my M&G disk in Drive 1. If I didn't have them both in, the machine would keep asking for the one it couldn't find. Once in awhile the machine would get really confused and just throw up an icon with the name of the game and an X icon, in which case I just open both drives, close them again, restart the program and it works.

You shouldn't have that particular problem if you're only interested in running a full game configuration, but your setup may produce other weirdnesses, so you may have a learning curve getting AGS to work. Once you do, though, it's easy and you never have to worry about empty templates again. There's a lot of stealth hoods you'd have to replace to make a truly empty neighborhood, so that's potentially a lot of work AGS could save you.

As far as I can tell, AGS is an all-or-nothing deal: you either get all the stealth hoods for the chosen game configuration, or none of them. So if you want to do something like suppress the Pleasantview Townies and the Ottomas family, but keep Cyd Roseland and all the strays, selective replacement of stealth hoods with empty templates would be the way to go.

That actually sounds a whole lot easier than what I was originally going to do... As I want everything gone, I guess I'm going to try that instead. If it doesn't work, I can always go back to the empty templates. Thank you all

@Laurelinn.alice, you are correct about the empty templates going into the Program folder and about those affecting every PC user. But you do not need to install every empty hood in your game. These are the ones I have: http://modthesims.info/t/544800

She completed the empty neighborhoods for the base game: N001 Pleasantview, N002 Strangetown, N003 Veronaville
and for the Stealth Hoods: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=520751
But has not finished the others: E001 Belladonna Cove; F001 Desiderata Valley; G001 Riverblossom Hills

I am one of the greenest Simmers on this forum, and I could be wrong, but it would seem to me reasonable to me that you could install some Empty and leave some Maxis, giving both you and your sister plenty to choose from.

Or, you could even do what I'm doing now ... create your own neighborhood from scratch using one of the maps included in the game. No characters, no houses, just streets and landscape. (I also use the no regen mods with this to keep away the Maxis townies).

I am unsure how the game will be affected by separate user accounts. Will both accounts access the same The Sims 2 game file? If not, then you can each have your own on your separate accounts. If it does open the same The Sims 2 game file, then you can do what others have suggested and use AGS (AnyGameStarter), a download that be found on this site.

I was unable to use AGS with my game. So, I use a different approach: I rename my game files. Only the one named The Sims 2 will open. If none are named The Sims 2, the game will create one. It sounds confusing, but it is actually very easy. Here is a discussion on the topic: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=595985

If it is necessary to rename the files, the trick will be for you and your sister to be diligent about renaming your game after you are finished playing the game.

@laurelinn.alice - do you have the UC or the disk version of the game? Unfortunately, AGS only works with the disk version.

Another thing you can do, once you get the neighbourhoods set up, is simply have two separate The Sims folders in your My Documents EA Games folders - one with your neighboruhood in it and your Downloads and your mods preventing the game from making you new townies as you play and the other with your sister's neighbourhoods, downloads and whatever. You can then just swap them out to play. Jo does this, I think, she names her The Sims folders things like The Sims - Medieval, The Sims Elsewhere and so on, then renames the folders she wants to use before she opens the game to The Sims. The game only reads the files inside that folder.

Hello,

I don't have UC so I could try AGS. It might not work though because the PC is new and it just doesn't seem to like the game, but I'm gonna try anyway. I can run the game, but from time to time it does weird things - one of the weirdest is that sometimes when I play the keyboard "c" doesn't work (in or outside the game as long as the game runs). When I quit the game, the problem's gone. Never experienced anything like that before, I suppose the game is just too old to expect it to play problem-free on new devices. I only play in windowed mode and for that I need to use the integrated graphics, because whenever I tried forcing it to use NVIDIA, the window was just blank. The game was loading, the sounds were played, but you could just see white screen. I ran across this problem on multiple discussion forums when I was trying to fix it but the only thing that could have been done was switching back to the integrated Intel. I hate the idea of leaving my Sims 2 game though, I've played it since I was a kid and honestly it's the only game I ever play. My original neighborhoods got to the point of overpopulation they became unplayable and I need to start fresh. So I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this and have the neighborhood I'm going to create junk-free and to keep the population low. I've tried the empty neighborhood templates only once, on a laptop. It was a lot of work and in the end I couldn't play it because the laptop just couldn't handle the game and overheated rapidly (not that I was surprised, I would have actually been shocked if it worked). So I'm greatly inexperienced with starting from scratch, neighborhood free from all Maxis Sims. Anyway, I really appreciate the advice, I've never heard of AGS to be of any more use than modders and people who upload lots. If AGS doesn't work, I'll rename the files.

The My Documents folder is separate for each user though, that shouldn't be a problem. I guess you could rename the folders in Program Files.

I tried the AGS and somehow if I create a new EMPTY game it doesn't come out empty. When the game loads there are all the premade Maxis neighborhoods available - all of them. I suppose that just shouldn't happen as the AGS info clearly states an empty game won't contain any neighborhoods and anything I won't create myself. I'm confused. There was some post in the thread mentioning a problem with AGS editing 64-bit system registry files so I don't know if it could be that... in the last post there is a post about how to make it work for 64-bit games but it requires a complete reinstall of all the games. Now the empty templates plan seems suddenly faster...

Do you want to take us through what you are doing - step-by-step? AGS works just fine with my Win10 machine (though that's not to say other people don't have problems).

Sure. AGS Installer-Standard / Create an AnyGame incl. all EP and all SP / Create AnyGame 3 / Create Empty Game / resolution win 1024x768 / sounds on / language orig / check for updates / install. That's all. The game installs with all the premade neighborhoods in the Neighborhood chooser.

Update: Something is certainly wrong because if I create an AnyGame inncluding ONLY BG and MG, the game still loads all the premade neighborhoods from all the expansion packs I didn't tick...

Leave off check for updates

I did, nothing changed, still see all the neighborhoods, even after deleting this game and creating a new one instead of replacing it.

Hmmm - well, that's odd because when I do that what I get is this (picture). You are using the AGS desktop shortcut icon to run the game?

If you don't have AGS, I think this may work if you have the space for it - but I haven't tried when it comes to the empty neighborhood templates.

- Put the empty templates in the program files
- Rename the "The Sims 2" folder in Documents
- Run the game, so it regenerates a new "The Sims 2" folder (this will have the empty templates)
- You may have to make the neighnborhoods you want, and go into the original ones to be sure the game doesn't add the original templates.
- Quit the game. Now you can probably remove the templates
- Now you should have two folders in the EAgames folder. Rename the folder you want to play to "The Sims 2", and the other to something else. The game will run the one named "The Sims 2".
- You can do this several times over, since the game will only ever use the "The Sims 2" folder, so you can have several games with different styles.

If you mean entirely empty templates (no "n001-3, E, F or G hoods, then AGS is probably a better solution).

That's what she was thinking of doing originally Simmer22.

THAT PICTURE is exactly what I'd expect to see. No idea what else could I possibly do but reinstall the game and follow the AGS comment advice to install it in Program Files instead of Program Files x86. Not even sure if that would fix it. Reinstalling everything takes a long time.