How to copy worlds - TUTORIAL (with pictures)

So, I came across this tutorial on MTS about copying worlds and did a test and, to my surprise… it worked! But, the tutorial had no pictures. Well, it had one, but it didn’t really tell me how to do anything lmao. I’m sure other visual learners can relate. So, I thought I’d add some v v helpful picaroonis to it. All the good stuff is under the cut!

I’m going to just copy-paste the tutorial with a few clarifications in [bold brackets]. Full credit goes to Tamlo31 on MTS, I’m just adding some pics :)

ETA: If the pictures are too small, you can right click > open image in new tab and they should be much clearer!!



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So what is the point of this?



On a very basic level it increases the number of lots you have a available in your saved game, but to give you some idea’s of what I’m currently using this for:-



I’ve duplicated Newcrest and turned the duplicate world into a retail shopping center.



I’ve duplicated Granite falls and turned the duplicate into a winter themed world.



There is perhaps many other idea’s you can use duplicate worlds for, perhaps a upside down world of strangerville. (stranger things lovers)



Or even a you can duplicate one world 10 times if you wish and have some form of legacy version of the game where each world gets more advanced and each new generation will move into the next world.



One last possibility you find a good world somebody uploaded to the Internet and you wish to include part of that world in your current save game.



Is this safe to do to my favorite saved game?



I’m going to be honest and say this is still in testing, but I’ve not found any problems so far, but I do recommended that you backup everything in your saved game folder.



Will this slow my game down?



The load times will increase if you add a silly amount of new worlds with hundreds of new Sims, to be honest I’ve added several new worlds and it loads about the same length of time.



Do I need any mods?



No, but I will post a few recommended mods that will help if you wish to make a unique world.

The Sims 4 Mods: World Type Changes (Destination to Residential or vice-versa

Just one point about this mod, it works on both the original worlds and the duplicate worlds



https://zerbu.tumblr.com/post/17339…ges-destination



Fan Made maps



https://www.dershayan.de/fanart-maps



Part 1



1 backup your saved game

2 Download the latest version of S4 Studio

http://sims4studio.com/board/31/dow…g-sims-4-studio



Part 2



1: Part 1 was the easy part just to get you into the mood

2 Drag and drop the saved game onto the S4Studio - Shortcut, it will load straight away.

3 You need to find the Save Game Data, click on this.



4 Scroll down until you see neighborhoods and click edit items



5 On the left side you will see [Neighborhood Data] on the right side you will see the name of the world, if this is the first time and your a virgin to world duplicating I recommended at this point you pick a world with very few lots [like] Glimmerbrook, granite falls, something with less than 8 lots and don’t pick any special worlds or anything with a blank name. [just to make it easy on myself for this tutorial I chose Magnolia Promenade since it only has 4 lots]

Just on a side note special worlds do duplicate but very few of them actual work in the game they don’t have world maps, the way around this, would be to make a mod that will replace them worlds with a map but that goes beyond this guide.

6 On the left field click copy to copy the world you did choose.



7 Scroll to the bottom of the left field to find your copy, on the right field you should see the neighborhood_id we need to change this, so we are going to change one number, it really does not matter what number you change but to make life easy we going to change the first number and add 1 to this.

So for example if you picked Granite Falls and the neighborhood_id was 09290A60407127C5 (this number is unique in every save) you would change the number to 19290A60407127C5. It’s also a good time to write this number down, if your fed up, you can just make a note of the last 3 digits.

8 Under description fill this in, example:- A verdant, sprawling region of lush bayous and rolling plantation land that is home to aristocratic farmers, southern gentry, and swamp-dwellers.

9 Next edit the name example:- Newcrest Shopping Centre

10 Click save



Part 3



1 I hate this part, we need to go into zones, it’s at the bottom right of the right field, click edit items.



2 Now for the fun part the left side shows the ZoneData and somewhere in them files we need to find the files that are needed for our neighborhood, I will say they will be all grouped together. So what need to do is scroll the right field down to the bottom and 7 lines up you should see neighborhood_id. If you remember I did say to [write] down your neighborhood_id number, so the granite falls number before the change was 09290A60407127C5. So what we need to do is find the number on the left field that are equal to that number in neighborhood_id. No easy way to do, other than searching until you find one, all the files that you need will be around the same location on the list.



3 Now that we have got rid of all people who can’t find the correct ZoneData file we can carry on. We need make a copy of all the ZoneData files with same original neighborhood_id number. So hold down shift on the last file and then click on the top file you need and click copy.



4 All the copied files will be at the bottom of the field, so move down to find the copies. On the right field we need to change neighborhood_id for all them files we are using for example granite falls neighborhood_id was 09290A60407127C5 we should change all the id’s to 19290A60407127C5 on all the ZoneData file that say 09290A60407127C5.



5 I did say this part was bad, but we are nearly done, scroll down to the last Zondata file and this time we need to change the zone_id. So what we are going to is add 1 to the first number on the right field that’s says zone_id (at the bottom of the field). For example if the unique code says 09290A6040712B18 we will change that code to 19290A6040712B18. We need to repeat this for each of the Zonedata files that we need change (all the copies)

6 Click Save



Part 4



1 At this point [you’re probably] thinking is this all worth the trouble, but you are on the last part and nearly done and two minutes away from a spanking new world. Anyway go back into neighborhoods and edit items

2 Move the left field down until we find the copied world we started with and we need to go into lots so click edit item under lots on the right field



3 In the Zonedata we changed the first number of each copied file, we replaced the first number with a one, so what we need to do is under zone_instance_id on the right field we need to add 1 to the first number of every file in this section.



4 click save, save again and click save one last time, this time you should get the message saying that Your package has been saved.



5 Exit and test out your new save game.



[editor’s note: this is where i ended the tutorial but there is much more you can do, which can be found in the original link.

I will say, this was very tedious, but kinda easy once you get the hang of it.

If you are like me and desperately want some kind of custom world functionality in sims 4, hopefully this will tide you over until EA listens (unlikely) or modders find out how to do it (much more likely) I hope this helps!]