An easy way to duplicate a 'hood!
 

1) Back up your existing hood, just in case.
2) Open up your My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods folder.
3) Use the right mouse button to drag the desired hood to an empty spot in the folder. Choose "Copy" from the context menu that pops up when you remove your finger from the mouse button.
4) Rename the hood folder to N00#, where # is an unused hood number.
Note: If you use a number higher than 10, keep the number of digits the same! Neighborhood 99 would now be N099.
5) Double click the renamed folder.
6) Press control-F (for the Windows search function). Search for N00*, where * is the old 'hood number.
7) Patiently (and tediously) rename each file and folder to the new hood number.
8) Open SimPE and change to "plug in" mode (tabs at the bottom) if necessary.
9) Open the Neighborhood Browser under the Edit menu.
10) (I think, I'll have to check) The neighborhood ID should come up on the first page displayed in the bottom window.
11) Click the link for "Make Unique." This should change the GUID for the whole hood to an unused one.

Ooohhh.

So that's how to do it!

Is it possible to give a Hood (cloned or otherwise) a # like "99" or something, so that it would always be the last Hood listed, or do you need to keep Hood #s in sequence?

-ZW

I've had no problems with "skipped" numbers, but mine were skipped because I deleted a hood or three.

If you use a number higher than 10, make sure you keep the number of digits the same.

So, the trick is to:

1. Duplicate a neighborhood
2. Rename the new neighborhood folder and any files in the new folder with N00x references a new number
3. Use SimPE to make the give the new neghborhood a unique GUID.

Is that it?

Yepper!

There are applications to do steps 4 through 7 for you, but I've managed to misplace the links.

(I'm sure I've asked this or a similar question here before, but I can't find it so...)

I have a clean Base Hood- "Town X"- with a clean College Town & the default (non-"cleaned") Bluewater Village & Downtown attached.

For no reason other than my own strangeness, I would now like to separate Downtown & Bluewater Village "into" separate Base Hoods.

My plan right now is to duplicate "Town X", giving me a "Town X" & a "Town Y", create a new (clean) Nightlife hood in one & a new (also clean) OFB hood in the other, then delete the unneeded default sub-hoods in the relevant Base Hood.

Since nobody in "Town X" has yet traveled Downtown (so nobody from those two sub-hoods have ever met each other) this should be okay, right? Or will I end up with "homeless" Bluewater peeps still floating around in "Town Y's" character files, even though I have replaced Bluewater with a clean OFB sub-hood there?

-ZW

Yes, you'd have Bluewater people still in the 'hood with the Downtown, most likely homeless.

Okay, I'll go to my backup Plan 2!

Unzip the D001 folder just long enough to create a new Base Hood & add Downtown, close game & re-zip folder, go back & give "Town X" (where Bluewater Village lives) a clean nightlife hood & delete the Downtown from it.

If I understand everything the way I think I do, I should be okay.

-ZW