Necessery Things

Hello and welcome to Ashby Falls, Behind the Falls!

In this post we will run through some of the basic workings of Asbhy Falls, so, lets get started!

HISTORY
Ashby Falls is a new neighbourhood, set 5 years after a world wide disaster caused by a grilled cheese sandwich storm. Society was all but wiped out, and Ashby Falls has been declared a "safe area" for sims to start their lives again. Basically, I did the big no no and just hit DeleteAllCharacters and then started again. I recommend not doing this, everywhere says it will stuff up your game, but hey, I haven't never had a problem with it (except for blank thought bubbles every now and then, which I think is pretty funny anyway... and is probably just a bug with the actual game not coz I killed everyone).

CALENDAR
The Ashby Calendar consists of 4 seasons, Raine (spring) Sakai (summer) Auleem (autumn) and Shaya (winter). Each lasts 20 sim days, and every 5 sims days is known as a new year. So each season has 4 years. The 4 seasons combine create a "Rotation". The calendar is repeated once it reaches the end.

GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES?
Grilled cheese sandwiches are ILLEGAL!!!!! Any sim who makes one get a $1000 fine and a years imprisonment.

AGING
Aging is turned off. Sims all age one day on the first day of each year (4 times a season). So a sim will age 16 years in a rotation. Sims are not given a party to age up a day early, they must have a party and age on the last day of their life stage.

THE HOOD
The City of Greater Ashby, as it is known, consists of the main hood, Ashby Falls, 2 downtown districts (Kai Mountain, The Northern Plain), 2 shopping districts (Pine Lake, Xyphaleen), 2 universities (Tate University, Ashby Academy), and 3 holiday destinations, one of each kind.

HOW IT STARTED
I made one sim, a founder, who you may know.
I built Caden Tate a small house in Asbhy Falls and played her for a whole rotation before time began. In that time, she met her husband, Parker Tate, and they had a child, Isla. All this is considered before time though, so for the purposes of the story, they arrived as a family on the D01 Ra R1 (D01 Raine, the first rotation, or as it is written in the Ashby Time, D01 The First Raine).

There were no community lots to start with. I was going to use taxes and fines to pay for community lots to be built, but it took way too long, so I decided just to make community lots as I saw fit.

RESIDENTS
New residents are only permitted to move into Asbhy Falls on the 1st day of each rotation. Townies are known as refugees or immigrants (or even just townies) and are housed in the "Government Quarters", they are allowed to interact, marry and move in at any time, as they are sims who are already "approved" for residency.

HOW SIMS ARE MADE
Well, when a Mommy sim and a Daddy sim love each other very much... lol, not.
In CAS, a sim is made using the first sim that comes up (I have custom face templates that get rid of those fugly Maxis ones). I change the sex if I need to, change the hair color, eye color, adjust the face if I want to. But yeh, its pretty random. I pick their clothes too.... I mean come on, sims have NOOOOO fashion sense of their own.

Their star sign, starting letter of their name, aspiration, turnons/offs are all determined by Random Events. I cant remember where I got it but its AMAZING. I've adjusted mine to no end, but if anyone wants it, to use or change or whatever, you can find it at http://www.mediafire.com/?4yz5yizgmoi

RANDOM EVENTS
As above, I use random events in the making of simmies. Its also used when they age into teens to choose their aspiration, turn ons/offs, and when babies are born to determine the starting letter of their name (coz they would all have the same old names otherwise). It adds a lot of variety, except with the Tate Children. Isla obviosly roled an I, William a W... then the triplets rolled another I... which was REALLY annoying, having to come up with another 3 names starting with I!

I have plans in the future to use the "random event" section of random events, which includes a whole heap of things (I'm not going through them, download it and see for yourself). There arent enough people in Asbhy Falls at the moment to use it, if I rolled total destruction 3 times the town would be gone already. So, for the moment, that section is not used. The "build what" section is also not used, as that is for the "randon event" section when it rolls build a community lot.

The "How many sims" and "Age" sections were put in there to use in the future when families start moving to Ashby Falls. It determines how many sims are in the family and their ages (obviously). Relationships can be determined how I want.... to the extent that the game allows.

ACR
Oh, ACR, how I love you so... ACR is the basis for all romantic interactions in Ashby Falls. Sims chose their own partners, their own children, if they want an affair, etc. Its all up to them.

INTEEN
I have inteen. Thats pretty much all I'm going to say on it... I have it, it it gets used (by ACR) it get used, if not, then if not... whatever.

MAKING SIMS PAY
I use the money order, which I think was on MTS2... there is also a checkbook I used to have but I just use the money order now coz they were pretty much the same thing. Taxes, fines and etc are all sent to a sim (who isnt actually part of the neighbourhood) known as the Governors Account (Governor Fink, AKA ME!). No sims ever interact with this sim, and she is not played, just there to recieve cash. Taxes and everyday expenses (you can find a list under Laws and Declarations at Ashby Falls), are paid on the first day of each year. Fines are paid when they happen. If sims dont have moeny, they just have to sell something or dig for treasure to get it, payments can never be late. Currently only residential properties pay taxes and expenses, the orphanage and police station dont pay because they are services provided by the Government, which is what the taxes are going towards.

ASPIRATION REWARDS
These are used at they are recieved. Everything esle MUST be full before a secondary aspiration can be chosen. The secondary aspiration is chosen by random events. If the sim rolls the same aspiration as their first one, they must have Grilled Cheese for their second... which could be hard in a town where Grilled Cheese is a crime.

AS DAYS GO BY
Currently, each household is only played one day at a time, 12midnight to 12midnight. This works well at the moment, because there are only 3 households, but it could easily get more complicated as more households arrive. I use midnight to midnight because then it is easy to see (if I go into a lot) what day that lot is on, if they are all at 12midnight on tuesday, all is good. Households have a number in the discription on the neighbourhood screen which tells me what order they are played in.

SAVING THE EARTH
Yeh, even sims should do that. I try to have solar panels on every property, and most sims have gardens.

MORE
This will be updated constantly as I remember everything I've forgotten on how it works. Please excuse my awful spelling, I'll try and fix it as I notice it.

Thanks for reading, thanks for being a part of my world,

Fink