The Sims 3: Editing your Neighborhood

 

You can make several changes to your current neighborhood in Sims 3. By current neighborhood, I mean the one in your currently saved game, your changes will not affect the neighborhoods you have saved under different game names.

From the Options menu, you can start by choosing the "Edit Town" option. This will change your screen and the active menu will bring up new tools for you.

Select Tool: Use this tool to choose any lot in the neighborhood. After selecting a lot, you get a variety of options, depending on the lot type. 

• If occupied residential lot: 
• Evict: Move all Sims to the clipboard, with or without their home. 
• Merge with: Combine the members of the selected household with another one. 
• Split: Split the members of the selected household and send some of them to the clipboard. Switch to this household: 
• Save to Library: Place a copy of the household in the library. 
• Share: Save a copy to the launcher for upload. 
• Edit Details: Edit the name and description of the household and lot. 
• If empty residential lot or community one: 
• Change Lot Type: You can change a residential lot to a community lot, and vice versa. 
• To change an occupied residential lot to a community one, you have first to evict the family. 
• When changing to a community lot, you get a variety of choices to build, such as gym, pool, graveyard, fishing spot, fire station, bar, no visitors allowed, etc. 
• Save to Library: Place a copy of the lot in the library. 
• Share: Save a copy to the launcher for upload. 
• Build/Buy: Enter build mode for you to modify the lot. 
• Edit Details: Edit the name and description of the lot. 

Move Lot: Use the Move Lot tool to pick up any lot and move it to an empty lot somewhere else. If the lot has residents, it is required that they have enough Simoleons to purchase the new piece of land. Once you place the lot, the screen changes and gives you the following options: 

• Rotate the lot as you wish and suit you better. 
• Change where to position the lot. This is more obvious when the new lot is bigger than the previous one. The default position is in the center of the new lot, but you can move it to the right or left, south or north, or to any of the four corners of the land. Once you accept the changes, the lot is totally adjusted to the new boundaries. 

Build/Buy: This is for editing unoccupied residential lots or commercial ones, and for building entirely lots. 

Bulldoze: Use this tool to delete everything and leave an empty space in the neighborhood. You can only bulldoze an occupied residential lot after you evict the family. 

• When bulldozing a residential lot, the new empty lot is set to residential by default. 
• When bulldozing a community lot, the new empty lot is set to community - no visitors allowed by default. 
• When bulldozing an empty lot (residential or community), there is a completely empty space left. You can use this to place a new empty lot of the size of your choice. 
• When bulldozing work locations, beware that the relevant careers will no longer be available for your Sims to choose. 

World Editor: This will allow you to place new things in your neighborhood such as: 

• Empty lots of diverse sizes, from exceedingly small to huge ones. You can place new empty lots (almost) anywhere on the map. 
• A vast variety of trees. Cannot be placed in lots (even if empty), the space should be completely empty. 
• Rocks of many sizes and shapes. As with trees, rocks can only be placed in empty space. 
• A variety of landmarks such as waste bins or picnic tables, etc. Placement same as above.