Game guide:Creating a clean neighborhood

This tutorial is for The Sims 2 only.

Sick of the same townies and NPCs from Pleasantview for your custom neighborhood? Tired of the same Social Group Townies and Garden Club Members? This tutorial will help you create custom neighborhood without Goopy GilsCarbo and Glen Deppiesse in every one of them! Here's the steps. (The original tutorial can be found in MATY by jordi)

Required Mods
In case of new NPC or Townie spawn, you might need the following mods:

For custom townies, you might need relevant Ingelogical Teleporter Shrub or Cat in here.

The Sims 2 Original
Custom neighborhood always creates the same townies from Pleasantview. To prevent that, you need to go to your game dir. It's in C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2\ by default. Browse your Neighborhood folder in The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods. Rename N001 to N001-bak to disable it. Once you're done creating your neighborhood, you can re-enable it by removing the "-bak" part.

The Sims 2 Pets to Apartment Life
Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, FreeTime, and Apartment Life all create the same special townies and NPCs for custom neighborhood. You will need to disable those stealth neighborhoods by renaming the folder so the game can't read them. Browse your folder in C:\Program Files\EA Games\(EP)\'TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\:


 * For Pets, it will be folder P001. Rename it to "P001-bak".


 * For Seasons, it will be folder G002. Rename it to "G002-bak".


 * For Bon Voyage, it will be folder V001. Rename it to "V001-bak".


 * For FreeTime, it will be folder F002. Rename it to "F002-bak".


 * For Apartment Life, it will be folder E002. Rename it to "E002-bak".

Once you're done with your new neighborhood, re-enable the folders by removing the "-bak" part.

Creating the Neighborhood
Create your custom neighborhood the normal way. Quit right after the neighborhood shows up. Browse the folder in My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N004\Characters\ (If this is your first custom neighborhood, it will be N004). If the folder is not empty, then you did the steps wrong and will have to repeat it all over again.

Creating Sub-Neighborhood
If you want to create a default sub-neighborhood (C:\Program Files\EA Games\(EP)\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\), you need to follow the instructions here.

Populating the Neighborhood
You may create your own Townies for your neighborhood or just let the game create them by itself. If you've disabled the N001 folder in the second step, townies and NPCs will never be generated because the game can't access the folder that contains their data. To get the game to generate the NPCs but not the townies, remove the "-bak" part of the folder and get the "notownieregen" mod, listed on the top of the page. Having this mod will allow the game to generate NPCs, but doesn't allow it to generate townies.

Batch-Creating Custom Townies
Use boolprop testingcheatsenabled true cheat, and spawn an NPC and Townie Maker. Choose "Create townies" and "townies". For Downtownies, choose "downtownies" instead. Don't bother creating NPCs.

The second method is to shift+click mailbox and choose *DBG - FORCE Create Townies - and choose Townies and/or Downtownies.

When you're done, save the game.

Creating Custom Townies
If you have Ingelogical Teleporter Cat, you can create your CAS Townies, Dormies, Downtownies, Strays, and Social Group Townies. You will need SimPE to change their names or read the tutorial here. Next step, create your CAS Sims and Pets in any gender and ages. You are free to make how many Townies you want.

When you're done, move your Sims into a lot, use the teleporter to make them a townie by choosing Make me a... - Townie, Downtownie, etc. For Pets, you need to use a Sim and choose Make stray... - your pet's name. You might want to create unique name in case you're confused. When you're done, save and quit the game.

Now, open SimPE. Delete ALL relationship you see. Note that if you create Child or Teen townies, they MUST have a family relationship with someone older. In this case, delete their family tree, unless you want to make a special case, such as Townies in Downtown having a family relation to certain playable Sims. You may also set their careers, skills, gender preference, hobbies, and so on. Otherwise, the game will set them randomly.