CC-free custom hood - Baiji - the Snowy Horizon
Ultimate Collection required, camera mod required
Bonus: list of sims (make your own copy to use the spreadsheet)
The neighbourhood includes 11 mostly unrelated households, each with a family album and bios (no scripted events).
consisting of the Emperor, his advisor, and his newly adopted son
Suggested scenario: Have the Emperor adopt one more child.
Note: this is meant to be done without any sort of adoption mod; there is a toddler waiting in the adoption pool.
consisting of 3 roommates and the child of one of them
This house can be played as a ticket machine home business, but it doesn't have to be. The idea is that it's a mahjong parlor/hostess business, where customers pay to spend time with the hostesses, playing mahjong.
consisting of an adult spy and his apprentice
Think John Mole, but with an apprentice who helps him gather intel at the local school.
consisting of a married couple and their sons
Think the Grunts, but Lyla is alive, and the to-be-general is still climbing the ranks of the Military career.
Suggested scenario: Have the husband try to repair his relationship with his wife. If you use ACR, you can easily mend it, but otherwise they should fall out of love.
consisting of a single mother and her rebellious daughter
An aspiring scientist is disappointed in her daughter, who is not as serious as she would like. While she has her daughter's best interest at heart, her good intentions don't always translate into the kindest actions.
consisting of a single father and his sons
The town's folk healer hopes one of his sons will agree to take over the clinic and continue the fight against plagues. He hopes they will not only work in the Medicine career, but also use traditional remedies, like herbs, grandma's comfort soup and acupressure.
consisting of a broke teenager
I suggest playing this household as a home business selling produce. If that's not for you, find any other way to pay the bills and keep the house safe from the Repo Man!
consisting of a father and his son
The Ning patriarch is preparing for his final journey. Perhaps he can witness his son's betrothal and wedding ceremony, before his departure?
The Gilberts and the Thorntons
two families consisting of newlyweds
These households were inspired by 'mistakes'? in Maxis lore, specifically the Bell family, where teenagers didn't end up with their childhood sweethearts. One couple seems happy and is considering starting a family, while the other couple 'settled' for each other and may not be fully content.
This household serves to explain why the 'mainland' is empty and why everyone else moved to the island.
The wizard was also the first sim created in this hood, so he will be the 'shoving' sim. Unfortunately, because he's a wizard, he will not shove your sims, but he will simply fly away.
Technical information and mod suggestions:
To play this neighbourhood, place the whole VERS folder in Documents > EA Games > The Sims™ 2 Ultimate Collection > Neighborhoods folder.
I have been working on this hood since late July (terrain), the buildings were built by October, and the version with service NPC-s was released at the very end of 2025.
Warning: NO GARDEN CLUB members, and NO HOBBY INSTRUCTORS were created by me, so if you want to avoid generating them, ban them with Visitor Controller, or use a mod to disable them, for example this one.
The mods suggested for the previous version of this hood are still recommended.
Additionally, I suggest you get epi's Committed Polyamorous Relationships Without Engagement Requires Steady, if you're interested in the emperor having multiple consorts.
I also strongly recommend getting these Want Trees.
When I created the hood, I used the Shiny Tyme Anywhere Patch. This might mean that the cafeteria worker will spawn at the Imperial Palace, unless you remove the stove and replace it with another one.
This is not required by any means, but I also recommend getting Genetics DIY, Improved Biotech Station, Mean Interactions to Any Age, hacked arch, Crafting Skills and Tweaks mod...
As in the previous versions of the hood, I suggest turning the 4 blue lots into apartments (if you wish to play with apartments). To do so, you need to load the lots and type in changeLotZoning apartmentbase. I still suggest getting a mod like Apartment Residents Mod or similar, if you do play with apartments. Other recommended mods preventing extra sims from spawning: anti-redundancy, No Stray Respawn with Adoptable Puppies/Kittens.
The playables reside in the lots marked orange. There is one more playable household, outside of the island, in the mainland. The pink lots are community lots.
I have an appreciation for Chinese culture, but I don't know much about it, or the Chinese language. I apologize if the names of characters are a bit random. They were found while I was doing my very simple google research. I didn't have anyone who would proofread the hood for me and suggest better names. If you are a speaker of Chinese and you would like to volunteer and help me improve this world, I encourage you to contact me.
I am open to any feedback from anyone who decides to download the hood. Let me know if you found routing or other issues. Let me know of any text mistakes too!
Thanks to @auntiebobo2025 for testing out an earlier version of the neighbourhood and providing feedback.
I was trying to set up a little mystery, but little came out of it. If you want to learn the mystery, I will spoil it below.
Don't scroll down if you don't want to see the mystery.
Don't look to the next line if you don't want to see the mystery.
OK, you've been warned, now to the mystery.
Just so you know, you can find small clues regarding the mystery if you use the simDNA cheat.
That cheat only works if you have boolprop testingCheatsEnabled true in your Documents > Config > userStartup.cheat file.
I meant the parentage of specific children to be the mystery.
Although the sims in this hood don't have family trees, I made almost all playables in CAS, with parents that never left Create a Sim. However, the process wasn't perfect, because I would merge grandparents' genes with the use of the pacifier to make the 'donor', and I did it 2-3 times, so his genetics were not always the same (multiple families were created separately with a similar donor). I had him create children with a couple of playable ladies.
Can you guess who these ladies were? You can probably guess the 'donor'.
Happy Lunar Year of the Horse!
