TS2 Fresh install - tips and useful mods
Hi guys, how are you? I’m off to work but I had 10 spare minutes to check on the pc... I wrote this post on MTS a while ago and I meant to share it with you: I guess some people might still not be aware of the existance of these mods and how default neighborhoods work, so why not sharing it here too?
Just one little note: this is not a tutorial, nor original tips I wrote myself, but rather a collection of suggested hacks and mods that will make the game look/work better (imho). All credits to the original posters!
Premade Neighborhoods VS Custom Hoods
Hoods are quite easy to move around/be edited/created, you just need to keep track their ID numbers. Basically, each hood has assigned a 4 letter "name" and everytime you create one, it will continue the numeration. In a vanilla game, you will have a total of 6 hoods (Pleasantview, Strangetown, Veronaville, Riverblossom Hills, Desiderata Valley and Belladonna Cove) - the first 3 are respectively named "N001", "N002" and "N003" and any other player made hood will follow this system, meaning that a new hood in a fresh install will be named "N004". The following ones have completely new numbers/letters to avoid conflict with any custom hood you might have created before installing an EP that add one of the "extra" hoods. For this reason, if you ever decide to create a custom hood, I'd suggest you to rename it asap - you can either do it manually or using a software (I've always used "Bulk Rename Utiliy", which is great and free). You can rename the hood using any alphanumerical character, as long as it's 4 letters short - I usually use some letters from the name I gave.
More than one TS2 folder in Documents!
On a similar note, you might want to keep more than one "The Sims 2" folder in your documents. For me it's useful to keep one for when I want to create something BodyShop, which it would be quite slow to load in may main game folder, due to the huge amount of CC. You just need to rename the one you don't want to use in something else - the game won't read it unless it's called "The Sims™ 2 Ultimate Collection". Some simmers use this system to have themed CC hoods - you could have a medieval one, a futuristic one, a victorian one and switch from one to another according to what you'd like to play.
Clean Templates and where to find them My first tip is to download clean/fixed templates since, no matter what, the EAxis ones are corrupted in some aspetcs. You can find more info here or here Also, it might be a good idea to get rid of some "extra" families and Sim that are automatically added to the game: http://modthesims.info/d/520751/cle...-templates.html
Essential mods for your game There are a number of critical fixes and mods that improve the game stability and also the playability, you can read more here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=532696
Graphics & Memory Allocation Also, if the game runs on a newer machine, you might probabily double check also the Graphic Rules Maker and the 4GB Patch.
Lesyasun knows better!!
On the "appearance side" there are a lot of mods which make the game look so much better, including lighting mods , water overhaul and skylines: http://lesyasun.tumblr.com/post/175...to-make-my-game
Useful tools and organasing your Downloads Also, if you intend to use custom items, don't forget to download the CEP, the Clean Installer and the Download Organiser - the first two are essentials for managing/see CC, while the latter is a nice software that help reorganising your downloads. You can organise your Download folder in subfolders, some other simmers have shared an empty structure that you can use instead of creating it from scratch: http://allisas.tumblr.com/post/3241...mething-we-were.
I’m quite sure I’ve missed something huge/more important than the rest but at least is something.
Enjoy and please do let me know if there’s anything to be edited or not clear :)