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The New Beginning of Strangetown Plus (now with accurate ancestors and genetic infant faces!) - 2024 Edition

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Uploaded: 15th Mar 2024 at 10:07 PM
Updated: 7th Apr 2024 at 9:52 PM
Hello everyone! Remember our Beginning Hoods Series we made a few years ago? Well, we're glad to be back with new and refreshed versions of our beginning hoods, but now with accurate ancestors... as well as bonus ancestors from TS3... hence Strangetown Plus!
We're also glad to welcome the talented carrit into our group! :D

Today, we present you the new Beginning of Strangetown Plus! (The new beginning hoods with genetic infant faces of the other EA neighborhoods are still in the works, but will come soon, we promise!)


Ever wondered how Strangetown would have turned out if you were able to play the Strangetown ancestors from the start? Well, now is your chance, bring them up to current Strangetown or take them in a whole new direction!

What are Beginning Hoods?
In case you see these beginning hoods for the first time and are wondering what they are all about, basically these are past versions of EA's premade neighborhoods, right at the very beginning, which is why they start off without any lots, but have exactly the same original terrain (including trees, neighborhood decorations, etc.) of EA's premade neighborhoods! Furthermore, all of the ancestor sims of the premade sims start off as newly weds, sitting in the family bin and waiting for you to move them in somewhere!

The Challenge:
We made these for a challenge, where the goal is to play as the ancestors of the premade sims of EA's neighborhoods (i.e. as Pollination Tech#9 Smith's alien grandmother Birth Queen), let them have jobs, children, grandchildren, (possible affairs?), etc. until you reach the present state of EA's neighborhood as we all know and love, except for the part that everyone's genetically correct now and may end up looking completely different... or not? Well, that's up to you! (See the prompts for you to do in the household descriptions to guide you through the challenge)

Again, the beginning hoods start off with no lots! It's part of the challenge to re-build the whole neighborhood from scratch... kinda like in a BACC fashion. (Though, you may also download the empty neighborhood templates to get the original lots and/or download renovated versions of EA's lots, of course.)

About Development and Updates:
Back in the day when we first made these hoods, the only available ancestors sims were the ones from Sims Wiki, made by Celesta92059. While they did an amazing job at trying to recreate the ancestor sims as close as possible and their tutorial on how to restore a deleted sim's character data has definitely helped us a lot in the process, the ancestor sims weren't quite as accurate as carrit's improved recreations, using the thumbnail comparison method, further elaborated by them here. Furthermore, we've also fixed some oversights relating SimDNA (i.e. wrong natural hair colors and/or eye color of the ancestors etc.) compared to the original beginning hood series. All sims should have their original looks, as well as SimDNA now!

But hold on, that's not the only change we made. We've also added genetic infant faces to all sims in this neighborhood! Credit goes to the amazing Meowingcookie for kick-starting the concept of genetic infant faces and ivycopur for their Clean Pleasantview Plus, which inspired us to do the same for the beginning hoods, as well as for their helpful guide on how to update all the sims in a neighborhood to have genetic infant faces.

Now, you can finally quit to neighborhood without saving, reload the family and keep cycling this as you like, until you got THE perfect offspring, just so you can get the Strangetown descendants as close as possible to the originals... or just accept the first outcome and let the game decide on how far close the descendants should get to the originals. XD

Lastly, we've also expanded the storyline by also including the relatives of the ancestors based on their Sims 3 counterparts. In this case, we've added Notzo Curious's parents Marshall Curious and Cherish Curious, as well as Zo Curious's parents Rich Whelohff and Rosy Whelohff from Twinbrook. Steward Curious was interpreted as Marshall Curious's twin brother, since they look almost.. if not all identical to each other! We've also included Olive Specter's victims as townies/service NPCs, so it's all up to you if you want to follow the original storyline and have them all murdered... OR let them live a peaceful life in the alternative universe.

Alright, enough talk, let's get to the technical details

Install Instructions:
- Main Hood: Unzip the file and place NBST into your Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2 (Ultimate Collection)/Neighborhoods as usual.

- Subhood: Unzip the file and place BBST into your Program Files/EA Games/The Sims 2 Open For Business/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate
Note: If you have Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, it's Program Files/Origin Games/The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection/Best of Business/EP3/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate

Further Info:
- 54 sims in 27 households (read their bios for the challenges for you to do to get this neighborhood to the present Strangetown!)
- No lots! (you can decide whether you want the main hood version and build the lots from scratch or the subhood version to later add to a neighborhood of your choice, just to deliver the sims into your neighborhood and later delete the subhood.)
- 4 townies/ 6 NPCs included (but the game will generate more as you play, we therefore recommend getting Maxis Infant Face Templates if you haven't already, so that any newly generated sims in your neighborhood also have genetic infant face.)
- No CC/camera mod needed (we used the original Strangetown map with all the decorations, just without the lots for this neighborhood)

List of Households & Goals:
Click on the name to see how the sims look like. The generation the sims belong to is given in bracets, i.e. Canute Beaker (2) means Canute Beaker is from the second generation (Gen 2).
  • The Smith/Curious Family:
    • Queen: (maternal grandma of PT9 Smith)
      - Birth Queen (Adult/Female/Fortune)

      Challenges:

    • Drone 2121: (maternal grandpa of PT9 Smith)
      - Colony Drone 2121 (Adult/Male/Popularity)

      Challenges:

    • Queen: (paternal grandma of PT9 Smith)
      - Birth Queen (Adult/Female/Fortune)

      Challenges:

    • Drone 1000101: (paternal grandpa of PT9 Smith)
      - Colony Drone 1000101 (Adult/Male/Fortune)

      Challenges:

    • Curious: ( From Twinbrook - Sims 3)
      - Marshall Curious (Adult/Male/Knowledge)
      - Cherish Curious (Adult/Female/Family)
      - Steward Curious (Adult/Male/Fortune)

      Challenges:

    • Whelohff: ( From Twinbrook - Sims 3)
      - Rich Whelohff (Adult/Male/Fortune)
      - Rosy Whelohff (Adult/Female/Family)

      Challenges:

    • Curious: (continued)
      - Glabe Curious (Adult/Female/Popularity)

      Challenges:

    • Hogleg:
      - Hamm Hogleg (Adult/Male/Family)
      - Annie Hogleg (Adult/Female/Fortune)

      Challenges:

  • The Beaker Family:
    • Beaker:
      - Canute Beaker (Adult/Male/Family)
      - Gertrude Beaker (Adult/Female/Fortune)

      Challenges:

    • Halfdanarson:
      - Leif Halfdanarson (Adult/Male/Fortune)
      - Ingibjorg Halfdanarson (Adult/Female/Romance)

      Challenges:

    • Salamis:
      - Andros Salamis (Adult/Male/Romance)
      - Eurydice Salamis (Adult/Female/Fortune)

      Challenges:

    • McGork:
      - Gwrtheyrn McGork (Adult/Male/Fortune)
      - Moira McGork (Adult/Female/Romance)

      Challenges:

  • The Grunt Family:
    • Grunt:
      - General Rock Grunt (Adult/Male/Popularity)
      - Wanda Grunt (Adult/Female/Knowledge)

      Challenges:

    • Steel:
      - Mike Steel (Adult/Male/Family)

      Challenges:

    • Melons:
      - Mary Melons (Adult/Female/Popularity)

      Challenges:

    • Vandermorgan:
      - A.P. Vandermorgan (Adult/Male/Family)
      - Jacqueline Vandermorgan (Adult/Female/Family)

      Challenges:

  • The Loste Family:
    • Loste:
      - Goshem Loste (Adult/Male/Family)
      - Vera Loste (Adult/Female/Knowledge)

      Challenges:

    • Simnitch:
      - Leonard Simnitch (Adult/Male/Fortune)
      - Petunia Simnitch (Adult/Female/Romance)

      Challenges:

  • The Loner Family:
    • Loner:
      - Kavi Loner (Adult/Male/Popularity)
      - Jeevika Loner (Adult/Female/Knowledge)

      Challenges:

    • Frehndly:
      - Bhu Frehndly (Adult/Male/Fortune)
      - Milony Frehndly (Adult/Female/Knowledge)

      Challenges:

  • The Specter/Nigmos Family:
    • Muenda:
      - Peponi Muenda (Adult/Male/Family)
      - Lerato Muenda (Adult/Female/Family)

      Challenges:

    • Nigmos:
      - Zog Nigmos (Adult/Male/Fortune)
      - Hecate Nigmos (Adult/Female/Family)

      Challenges:

    • DeMise:
      - Earl E. DeMise (Adult/Male/Family)
      - Tim Lee DeMise (Adult/Male/Family)

      Challenges:

    • Mortis:
      - Rigger Mortis (Elder/Male/Knowledge)

      Challenges:

    • Thanasia:
      - Hugh Thanasia (Adult/Male/Romance)
      - Lou Thanasia (Adult/Male/Family)

      Challenges:

    • Specter:
      - Ichabod Specter (Elder/Male/Family)

      Challenges:

  • Townies and Service NPCs:

How to Play:
The family descriptions indicate in which generation the sims are, as well as what you're supposed to do with them. Of course, it's up to you if you want to take the challenge to bring the ancestors to the present OR if you want to completely drift into the alternative universe, especially with the new Sims 3 characters

Once you've finished a prompt, just delete that line in the family description and go on with the next prompts. The sims are fresh from CAS, i.e. have not been initialized yet, so don't worry about sims from future generations showing up as walk-bys on community lots, as they won't if you don't move them in and just leave them in the family bin.

Additional Credits:
- Numenor for his AnyGameStarter
- Mootilda for her tutorial How to Create a Custom Subhood Template, as well as for Hood Replace
- marka93 for his original Beginning of Strangetown
- carrit for the Improved Strangetown Ancestral Sims
- Meowingcookie for Maxis Infant Face Templates
- ivycopur for their helpful guide on how to add genetic infant faces
- MTS for being such a great website
- EA/Maxis for developing such a great game
- The makers of SimPE