#Sims 2 University

[plumbogs]

Making Sims 2 University Fun: my personal guide

I've noticed that while it's probably one of the most utilized of the expansions, TS2's university is generally seen as a slog. Which makes sense. It has a completely different gameplay loop than the rest of the game. But it's very handy to send your sims to college, especially if you use any of the various mods that limit careers based on education. So here's my big guide to making university an actual fun experience to play through (to me, at least).

The university expansion is, uh, very tailored to the 2000s college party time animal-house tropes. the pack becomes more fun when you treat it that way and let your sims be stupid young adults who streak and fool around on campus and throw parties. which, by default, is tricky because of the gameplay that requires so much skill building and assignments. which the rest of this guide will also deal with.

Note: I make some pretty big changes to normal university gameplay, to the point that it does require a bit of modding and at least one instance of fooling with simpe. there's probably also easier ways to do it, and of course everything is optional. maybe you do like keeping sims in dorms for the entire time and just three-speeding trough it all.

*mods: there are a few absolute must-have mods to me.:

TwoJeff's College Adjuster. It's basically an all-in-one controller to adjust semester timing, change semesters, plus a bunch of other features. The semester timing is the most important to me.

Active Classes is still in testing, but it almost completely changes how I play college sims. Once again, I'll detail gameplay later, but actually sending your sims to class makes for a much more fun campus experience.

No College Time Progression On Community Lots: this goes hand-in-hand with the previous mod.

Community Time: IIRC you have to do a little editing in SimPE to make it work right with University - this post explains what to edit. I don't know if I'm allowed to share the exact edit I made as a download. This might seem redundant after the last mod, but there's a reason for the madness: while one group of sims are in their active classes, the other students can do things on the home lot.

Instant Pledge for Greek Houses: This one is important for greek house gameplay, which is later.

SimBlender: There's like, 500 different edits of the SimBlender, and I think all of them have the main function needed for my college gameplay, which is teleportation. You can use a comparable teleporter if you fancy.

Simlogical's University Break is another important one for me, but it's not really necessary if you don't want it. I usually give the sims one break day per season - more on that later.

Autonomous Casual Romance is not required, but it sure adds a lot of fun to your college experience. You can also do any number of professor-limiting, custom degrees, etc mods and fixes you want.

*mods i do not use: there are mods to change the number of/length of semesters, but I seem to run into issues with them so I use the college adjuster to do the same things. I also don't really use any major overhauls, or mods that make term papers faster. I did have the tuition mod for a bit but grew tired of using it.

*general timing changes: I do seven-day seasons with longer lifespans for all sims and play rotations each day. These are the things I do specifically for university:

Four semesters: I only do semesters 2, 4, 6, and 8. Every time a new semester starts, I just use the College Adjuster to set the correct semester for each sim. I use the default length of 72 hours.

Synchronized finals: I use the College adjuster to reset the timer so the finals are all around 6-8am, and synchronized for each sim on a lot. This makes it easier to keep track of timing and skills. Also, all sims in university run on the same 3-day semester. Finals are the same day for the entire college each round. Once again, that just makes it easier for me to keep track of college-wide events for gameplay reasons.

Because this means there's 3 days per school year, and two school years per season week, it syncs better if they get a day off every Sunday using the University break mod.

Teens are sent to college on the same schedule. I send teens to school when they have 14 days or so left, with maybe an extra day or two if the college is currently in the middle of the semester.

*Gameplay: living situations: Here's where the meat begins. Now all your sims are on the same college schedule, they're all being sent to school, and now they need to actually move into college. I follow a real rule a number of colleges use: Every student spends a year in the dorms. Just their freshman year, then they have to move somewhere else. I find that this gives them a chance to meet dormies, adapt to being on college, and sorta figure out what kind of young adults they are. Plus, this gives them time for joining greek houses, which will be talked about later.

I do this because I like seeing sims as their own little characters with arcs and whatever and it forces me to think about what exactly they would be doing in college. Some sims get so frustrated with the constant mess of a dorm, some sims thrive by making friends with every dormie. Sometimes they start new drama with the others they came from high school with. Nothing quite like losing your high school sweetheart to some stinky dormie, after all.

After freshmen year, the students are kicked out of the dorms. They can get an apartment, they can rent a house, they can move into a greek house if they join one. Either way, they need to live somewhere. You can let them stay in the dorms, but I prefer somewhat smaller college households and divide them accordingly. Which gets into that whole greek house situation:

*Gameplay: greek houses. I gamify the Greek houses. I play SSU in my megahood, which comes with a fraternity and sorority, and you can do whatever setup you like there if you dislike gendered houses. Or abandon them all together and ignore this section. There are a few important elements:

Freshmen cannot live in Greek houses. They can, however, pledge while living in the dorms and move in right after their finals end. This includes dormies. There are benefits to the dorm, such as free housing, more social opportunities, usually more money per household since I cheat to make the greek houses actually nice to live in with things like pools and comfortable furniture, etc.

The Greeks have to be recruiting consistently. To keep the house going, they need to constantly be bringing in new members, either playable OR dormies.

Any recruited dormies are required to move in. You can townify them after graduation if you don't really get attached to them, but every member of the house is moved in. I use the instant pledge mod to get rid of that annoying requirement where they have to hang out on the lot so long before moving in. That, and they also move in after finals. You can teleport or invite them on and just ask them to move in. Whatever you want. Then, you must set them to be sophomores. Beyond that you can do whatever. They're playable now. Have fun.

You gotta let the Greeks party. Throw toga parties all the time and use a teleporter to maximize guests. Generally, ALL members of ALL greek houses are teleported to a party by default. Add more dormies, any friends, anybody in the dorms - the kids need to recruit and the easiest way is by forcing everyone on one lot. If you have autonomy mods or realistic alcohol, sit back and watch the madness unfold.

I don't really play wants-based, so playables that join greek houses is more based on vibes or friendship with existing greek members than wants.

*Gameplay: what do you mean we have to study??? Yeah. I made it this far before even bringing up the whole point of college. This is also where it gets a little more complicated and changed up, so bear with me.

I don't do wants-based, again, so I generally just try to make sure sims are at least passing by default. Whether they go beyond a C is up to whatever. I usually try to get knowledge sims to their 4.0s or sims that just seem like they'd take it seriously to max GPA.

ACTIVE CLASSES ARE SUCH A LIFESAVER. You can use the pre-made lecture hall or make your own. Put some skill-building objects in there, and if you like flavor theme the lecture halls around majors. I have a business/gen ed building, a science lot, and an arts lot, each with two classrooms (plus the library contains a classroom). I do believe I made an edit to the mod to make the class performance go higher with active classes, as well, so attending class every day is the bare minimum to get a passing grade.

The active class lots also contain career reward skill-building objects. These are nice because your sims can request to be taught by other sims on the lot. If you have a mod that allows non-students to visit uni lots, this helps even more with faster skill-building.

Every day, I send groups of sims with similar majors to their class. If there's a mixed-major group, each sim group gets one day in active class per semester. (So if there's an economics major, a bio major, and an art major, each one attends class on a separate rotation and the others do the normal autonomous go-to-class where they leave the lot and disappear). They attend one or both of the lectures and otherwise exist on the college lot to skill-build, socialize, eat, etc.

Outside of class, sims will usually research if they're not doing great. I honestly barely bother with assignments or term papers unless the sim actually wants to do them or are aiming for a high GPA. Maybe they go hang out at the lounge or downtown to fool around. Maybe they just fester at home. Whatever they want.

*other gameplay/storytelling things: I usually will take advantage of the aspiration change after their sophomore year if I realize that their aspiration just doesn't really jive with how they act. It's realistic to me. They had many years since being like, 13 when they first had their aspiration selected. I'd like to implement more in the way of holidays/events, personally, but that's not really relevant either. I usually give them an outfit change as well, and I like to go hard with the idea that they're going through a bunch of weird fashion phases. You know you want to give them a mohawk, just for a few days, don't you? Dye their hair red? Shave it all off? Have fun with it.

All of these things combine for me, at least, to make the college years a lot more engaging/interesting and less of a slow "move to a dorm -> study -> read books -> meet needs -> graduate" loop. There's a lot more storyline development that comes from sims being able to enjoy their time as young adults, too, such as the regular polycule jealousy explosions and party fights. It serves to break up anything they had going on as teens and give them a little direction to enter adulthood with. This concludes my little mini-guide, feel free to steal all my gameplay style or just take inspiration if you please. Or ignore it all and shake your head and call me an idiot. do whatever you want forever.

[heathensimmer]

You guys NEED to know this about Sims 2!!!

When you are in a Greek house in Sims 2 University, you can "Ask Sims to Pledge" and then they will become a Pledge! I thought this wouldn't bring any cool features, but it did. More things about Greek Houses:

Your Greek House can increase in levels/ranks if you make more household friends and Sims can bring back cool stuff when they autonomously "visit Campus" at the higher ranks! Also I think there's a new "Horse Around" interaction!

Once you make these household friends become pledges, these pledges can be influenced to do things... FOR NO INFLUENCE POINTS. As in.... FOR FREE!

Paris Vanderbuilt here has just influenced Allyson Robins, a townie from my Sims 3t2 University recreation save, to garden because that lawn is a travesty!

I imagine Paris making something up about "Pledge Gardening Day!" to make it sound fun for Allyson lmao after all, Paris does have the Schmoozer 3t2 trait.

I literally learn new things about this game endlessly. It never stops. This game is a beautiful, endless chasm.

Oh, and the grass on the lawn is a mod that replaces weeds with grass :)

HAPPY SIMMING

[sims2junkie]

my favourite screenshot I've ever taken at the moment

[goatskickin]

📚 ✏️ 📚 ✏️ It's back to school time!✏️ 📚 ✏️ 📚

That means it is time for a Sims 2 CC clothing upload, for teens!

This is also informally my 2000 followers gift. 🎁

First up is this teen conversion of @t0fu-sims 4t2 conversion of @viiavi's VVItchy Dress.

I was working on fixing the meshes from t0fu-sims's 100 Followers gift, and I thought that this would make a darling dress option for teens!

In all of the original colors!

Categorized for Everyday.

Next, is @t0fu-sims's 4t2 conversion of @pinealexple's Logic Top.

Again, I was fixing this mesh for AF, and thought it would suit teens perfectly!

Categorized for Everyday, but it would be pretty cute for a Swimwear top, I think.

Third is the TF conversion of this AF mesh I made that has been done since like...February?

I was struggling with this until I found out that I was having a meshing issue for a very silly reason.

Categorized for Everyday.

And lastly, @t0fu-sims's 4t2 conversion of captainmrbored's (K)neat Sweater, but for TEENS!

I think that someone asked @deedee-sims to convert this and they did not want to, so I did it.

Categorized for Everyday.

These are all *new* meshes, with the appropriate morphs!

Let me know if there are any issues! Stay cool and stay in school!

Download - 2000k Followers Gift

[painfully-painful-pain]

I never understood why this cover never had a release outside the US (for some reason China had that one too) and was instead replaced by the second version

[mage-sims]

Welcome to Wolfsbane Academy !

Wolfsbane Academy is quite the spooky place, but it has a very good reputation for being accepting of any students, including the non-human ones... and mostly the non-human ones ! Here, normal Sims are a very rare sight. Rumors have it, ghosts are roaming some of the campus buildings. Do you feel like you will survive here ?

This is a small university, which I created with Greenwood in mind, but I think you could make it work in a Strangetown or Middle of Knowhere save. Or if you feel particularly daring, you could send teens from any 'hood there and see how they survive when surrounded by occults.

The playable families are : • Unhinged Undead : Undead Greek House. Two vampires, two zombies, three girls and a guy.

• Alpha Omega Beta : Werewolf Greek House. Two girls, two guys.

• Students of Space : Alien Greek House. Two girls, two guys. Three of them are half-alien; the new guy is an actual alien.

• Magic Motley Crew : Four witches living in a dorm with a zombie dormie. Two girls, two guys.

• Sandman : A witch living all by herself in a rental house.

The community lots include a swimming pool, a club, a coffee shop, a lounge, a small shopping center, a park, a library, a pub and a student union building.

DOWNLOAD LINKS

INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS • Place the UWBA folder into your C: / Program Files (x86) / EA GAMES / The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection / University Life / EP1 / TSData / Res / NeighborhoodTemplate folder.

Enjoy! This is the first release of the year; Pleasantown and Moonshade Town are coming soon :)

[ellysty]

Flirty sweet talk bf and Autistic military tank

[ottersimz]

Glasses or no glasses??🤍

Im making a university sim to see what that’s about! Im having so much fun making sims so far!

[brwnsimmer]

This is my best attempt at decorating a male college freshman's dorm room.

How did I do?

[sanie-sims]

i have to be honest… i don’t like to play university. i always get confused with my aging system in there 😭 i wish it was easy for me to keep track of that but i don’t know a easy way to do that.

[jesaea]

my two campuses in jesabrook, my uni subhood ⋆

i'm still missing the two students union and some skilling lots, but i'm pretty satisfied for now x

hoping i will actually play university 😅

headshots:

[polyacham]

gloria is going to college! maria helps her move in and start a new chapter of her life but absolutely can't believe that's she's all grown up :')

[sims2-build]

[sims2junkie]

Sorority Shenanigans pt. 1

Running a sorority is some of the most fun you can have in the sims 2

[parfumdefraise]

parker langerak in my ts2 game??

so i was sending teens to college and saw that parker langerak from ts3 was in my game (as a teen?) 😭 no i did not make him nor is he related to the kaylynn in the game but ???

[narcysims]

Just some pictures from my custom university hood 🏫💚