Saves, Story Progression, and Aging

[snowbell]

Hi all! I'm hoping someone might give me a bit of a primer on some of these things since they still confuse me (I played TS1 extensively, skipped TS2 and have returned from a long hiatus to start playing TS3 again but hadn't played it very much even before I stopped).

Firstly, how do towns work? Like of course when you start a new family on a new town, it loads up the stock town for your use. If you make edits to that town, do they only apply to that family and that save (ie not a new save from that stock neighborhood, but with a different (new) family)? Also, in the first example, if you change the active household, do the edits you made to the town while you used the previous family still stick around?

Secondly, I assume that with Story Progression & Aging on, if Sim A is Sim B's dad, say,  and Sim B goes to University, Sim A will still age? Same thing with World Adventures?

Thirdly, I read here of some "rot" that happens with Story Progression - that the longer the save file goes on the fewer sims there are in the neighborhood. Is this true? I mean, by longer, like, for each successive generation.

[Danielle Haydis]

1.) Changes to the town will remain the same in the saved game even if you switch households. The previous family will stick around but you won't be able to control them. If you have Story Progression enabled there's a chance that your previous family will move out of town.

2.) No. The town pauses when your sim is away at University or a Vacation World. When your sim comes back, everything is the same way when they left.

3.) I'm not really sure about this, so someone else might give a better answer. I think that there has to be a constant population in each town so when a sim dies or a family moves away, the game will place a random family in town to balance it out.
It used to be that the original townies would breed and populate the town but EA's Story Progression broke some time ago. Now, townies don't do anything unless you intervene yourself or use a mod.

I hope this helps.

[snowbell]

Yes it does: thank you very much!