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mlek13 · 3 years

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Summer, Year 7: University Changes

My first order of business with the new year is to sort out my university situation.

At the end of year 6, I had 14 university students, plus 4 incoming freshman that I had already moved in, but not aged up. Looking ahead I have 9 more sims starting university in the summer and only 4 that will be graduating this season. (And that’s not counting my subhood sims that should be starting university like Cassidy Mellon and Vlad Bachman.) I’m not sure what the record size for my university lot has been so far or how many beds it actually has, but 18-23 students is way too many to pack into one lot and manage in a way that would still be enjoyable.

My initial solution was to move committed couples into another lot and treat it like married student housing, but I wasn’t really happy with that solution. My sims aren’t only in university to find spouses, but I also want them to build friendships with other members of the upper classes. Last season, I moved Ruby, Aloysius, Leila, and Colette to their own lot. I liked the little lot I built them, but I hated that they were so isolated from everyone. And it really wasn’t doing much to ease the size of my main university lot. Ruby has already graduated and moved back home (taking Aloysius with her) and the other three are due to graduate this season, leaving the lot empty.

I decided to see if there were any other couples I could move in with Leila and Colette and I decided on two; Sadie and Silas, who have mutual marriage wants for each other

and Aisha and Samira, who don’t have any commitments wants yet, but seem to be a fairly stable couple (and not romantically interested in anyone else at university.)

So that moved 6 sims to a second lot and 2 sims (Aloysius and Erik) are finishing university in the main kingdom, but it still seemed like my university lot was still going to be too crowded. (I would be back up to 17-18 sims on that lot before I know it.)

I went back and forth a bit on what to do. I’m attached to the lots I’m using, even though they are far from perfect and it is such a hassle to move university sims. I have to set up all of their semester testers to keep time moving. I have to consider the semester timing, the season timing, pregnancy timing (if anyone is pregnant), resetting motives, and the timing of classes and finals, but ultimately I decided I needed to make the move . . . to university apartments.

I decided to edit a copy of the middle class apartments that I moved Jonathan and Meredith into. The lot originally had three houses on it, but for my university students I removed the fenced in outdoor areas, built a fourth apartment/house in the back corner, changed the center building to a community area packed with skill building objects, and put in a pool. (Here’s a crummy picture of the first floor layout. All of the buildings have a second floor, but since I couldn’t decide what to do with the second floor of the common building, I left it empty.

I decided the easiest way to split up my sims between the apartments is by age/grade. Then as new freshman move in, I can add them wherever there’s room or with the upperclassmen who will be graduating soon.

The sims I had had moved into the married student housing, moved into the back corner lot. This is my couples group. This group includes: Leila (senior), Silas and Colette (juniors), Sadie, Samira, and Aisha (sophomores.)

My second group happened to be my purple polo crew (plus Leonardo) aka Elizabeth and the guys. These are my older students who are not coupled up. In this group we have Laurence, Leonardo, Elizabeth and Samson who are all juniors.

I ended up moving Vlad Bachman in with them as a freshman. I am really concerned with how a vampire is going to survive university, but at least with smaller groups I can keep an eye on him. There’s no way I could babysit him and keep him out of the sun with 20 other sims to manage at once. They occupy the apartment on the right, next to the pool.

My third group are the freshman, which are three sets of twins. (No wonder my university is packed! I didn’t realize how many twins I’d had born around the same time.) Miranda and Chastity Cade are second semester freshman. Lila, Calvin, Bianca, and Olivia are incoming freshmen. They are my last group to start university on the old lot. (All those hills on the old lot were a pain and factored into my debate about moving.)

Calvin was slow to transition to young adult, but he wasted no time getting into bed with Miranda. (I barely played this lot before I moved everyone, but still this managed to happen.)

I moved everyone in to the new lot and I was enjoying how the apartments were working and how active the common areas were, but I realized my apartments were too small. Unless I convert the living areas into bedrooms, there is only room for 6-8 beds in each apartment and there aren’t enough bathrooms. The number of beds is perfect for the number of sims I start the season with, but I have 9 more sims to move in during the season (and only 3 sims moving out.) Plus, I underestimated the amount of space I needed for all of the semester testers and I got rid of the outdoor space so I couldn’t place the teleporter shrub I need to move in incoming freshmen outside. I found the cheats to place things outside of the apartment and that helped me be able to do this at least . . .

I already started thinking up ways to rebuild and improve the university apartments (and spent way too much time and effort doing so) when I discovered my newly built, back apartment was broken. The upstairs bathroom wasn’t being read as part of the apartment and instead as a neighboring apartment. So I was down a bathroom and the constant noise coming from this empty 3x3 room was disturbing the sims trying to sleep in the bedroom where 4/6 of the sims on this lot sleep. I used cheats to add a wall to block out the noise, but that made the hallway dark like it was part of another apartment. So I decided I needed to move to my new lot sooner rather than later.

With one day left in summer, my couples were the first to move into the new apartments. I haven’t played it yet, so I’m crossing my fingers that everything will work out.

So here’s my lot that I spent the majority of my Sunday working on. The basic layout of the apartments is the same, but the buildings are a lot larger. There are three rentable buildings and one common building.

All three buildings have attics that are not accessible to sims, but provide storage space for tools like the semester testers, romance adjuster, and crystal ball, etc.

I thought about making almost everything, including cooking areas in the commons, but in the end I didn’t. I thought it might cause problems and I knew from experience my sims would roll wants for refrigerators, toilets, and bathtubs if they weren’t included in each apartment. I could even put bedrooms and bathrooms in the common areas and have almost nothing in the actual apartments themselves. That’s an idea I should play around with some time. What actually needs to be in the apartment and how much can they live in a shared area.

Here is the floor plan of the first apartment. I made sure to include an outdoor area this time, just in case they need it.

Most of the floor space is upstairs. There are six bedrooms that can sleep 12-16 sims. This is the lot that I moved my couples into because it’s the largest and my last group of freshman who are moving to university in the summer will be moving in with them. (I still need to play their households up to the last day of summer before they can move in.)

This is the back corner lot. No one has moved in yet since my other two university groups are still at the old apartment lot. I’m not sure if I want to move them right away, so they have more time to interact with their neighbors, or wait until one day left in summer so I don’t have to bother with the season controller to adjust the day.

This apartment (or dorm, really) also has six bedrooms, and sleeps 12 sims. One of the downstairs rooms could also be another bedroom.

Here is the third dormitory.

There are two common sleeping areas upstairs and one of the downstairs rooms could be used as another bedroom or a living area. I basically just started lining up beds and adding walls around them when I built this one. (It was the last part of this lot I built and I already felt like I was going way overboard and spending too much time on this.) There is easily room for 9-10 sims to sleep upstairs and another 4 or 5 downstairs.

I definitely wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be short on bed space on this lot, like I was on the last, so I know there is room for more beds than I will actually need. I also would rather have fewer larger groups of sims rather than more smaller groups, so it’s fewer households for me to play. So if my university population goes down in the futures, I can consolidate them into fewer households and let some of the apartments be empty or maybe I can occupy them with sims who have nowhere to go after university or who are still looking for partners. (I don’t expect to have and use the maximum number of beds on these lots all at once.)

I think of the common building on this lot as an academic building or set of classrooms. I tried to put as many skill building objects here as possible (especially those that sims will use autonomously.)

In my commons building, there is a music room. The music room seemed to be very popular when I played the first apartment dorms. (Also, I need less modern looking instruments.)

This is the general study area with bookshelves, computers, chess boards, and comfy seating areas.

This is the art and dance studio. (Public restrooms are behind the doors.) There are easels, ballet barres, and a stereo for social dancing.

There are areas for outside sports. I added a soccer goal and a basketball hoop (not pictured.) The soccer goal is something I never think to use, so it’s been fun seeing sims roll wants to play soccer. (That’s a totally new want to me!) There is a swimming pool. I remembered when I was editing the other lot that I could change the walls and floors on the pool, so I tried to go for something a little more natural. There’s also a telescope on the other side of the community building that I did not take a picture of. (You can see it and the basketball hoop on the first exterior picture of this lot.)

And I made an outdoor area just for fun and socialization for when my students need to unwind. I added a grill, some outdoor sitting/eating areas, and a default replaced karaoke machine.

I like the students living in apartment dorms, so far, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this lot works out well without any issues.

#ts2 #sims 2 #the sims 2 #royalkingdomchallenge #university household

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