Ok, so I never liked (and found it annoying) to play lots, and more correctly on them, that have slope-y or uneven terrain. Mainly because of route tantrums, unroutable-ness, and inability to build on them without having to open the cheap prompt. I'm really curious how do players (if there is a secret hack, trick, terraforming technique skill) to play with these lots in live mode? Is there maybe a tutorial how build or manipulate existing uneven terrain (with terrain tools) on which direction and radius tiles must be evened out, so there's less route failure while playing on said terraformed lot?

I don't play them for the same reasons. I hate when the lot has a small slope that doesn't add a significant visual enrichment, but still prevents objects from being placed or creates a discontinuity around the if it is moved.

I flatten them with CFE (constraint elevation cheat) Or just don't download or build them. It's unfortunate that the camera was not designed to handle hills or many building stories without bouncing around. Then with rout failures, oi. I did learn that it depends on the sim too, how well or not they navigate areas.

People on the Peerless Park stand around stomping the foot most of the time when they try to route to one another. That is expected. I think that they added some tolerance in Castaways where all ground was uneven. I also noticed an error that is not expected in the park in Bluewater and in the Hot Springs Spa in the Three Lakes. People can't walk over small hills or the ground stairs even when their destination is on a flat segment, and they don't go around the obstacle either. They just stop.

Generally I avoid slopes, because of the camera and the sims getting stuck. On the off chance I add them, I prefer gradual slopes, so sims don't get too many issues walking the paths up and down.

Stairs can help a bit. For a nature path, there are some modular stairs that look like rocks and such (maybe even invisible or partially invisible ones), so sims don't get stuck.

One family in my game has one of these in their garden, with some modular stairs going up a path to it. At least it's one way to make flat grounds a bit more interesting (if I can't bother too much with terrain tools).

I wonder, how do maks height gradual so Sins can walk over the ground?

I generally avoid anything that's higher than one flight of modular stairs without some flatter ground around. They can manage a bit more, but that's usually where they start having some issues.

Cuz I have a lot that's like was place on a land where it has a download going onward to its ending edge. And I'm curious as to how I can even out rows of titles so sims can interacr, purchase and pick up litter from the gardening market. I might post an image here or in another thread, asking if there's any advice or technique to shape it to make it more routable.

I recently asked the same thing over on Crafters, because I was making a hill with slides on a playground lot, and I was told that an incline up to 5 clicks is okay, if it's over 6 then no. So that's what I built the slope after. I hadn't tested it as I've not had a reason to send anywhere there yet, but I did so now and my Sim can walk up both of the slope-paths without stomping or complaints. There's a picture of the slope below, it looks quite steep but no tile is over 5 clicks increase. I recorded a short video of my Sim navigating it so you can see. I can send pictures of how the slope looks in build mode, if anyone feels that would be helpful

A good place to look at successful sloping is beach lots in Twikki Islands. I go there a lot and my Sims have never had any issues navigating the original lots

I've had beach lots before and the house got build on a deck platform like it was built on stilts as some are built in some laces when they have to build on a steep slope.

The foundation is obviously a must on sloped lots. It doesn't flat out everything, and adds a bit of a realistic touch that the house "follows" the terrain.

I do flatten out the pathways using the smooth terain tool, and use the smallest brush to draw the pathways myself so that they're quite smooth. Uneven terrain IMO adds so much to the look of the lot, I can't imagine myself playing flat lots unless I'm playing a downtown or something.

The caveat is that the entirety of the lot should be planned ahead. As OP said, adding some new objects can be a PITA because they can't just be bought; they have to be planned out where they'll be placed, and there's probably some additional terraforming required.

Unrelated, but gummilutt, do those slides work for you? They have been broken for me since AL and I'm pretty sure that Phaenoh said they couldn't be fixed. They still work in pre-AL games but anything with AL breaks them.

I thought they worked for me, but when I took the video I teleported in a kid to try and they got stuck at the bottom of the slide, I had to force error to get them unstuck. I thought it was the terrain as I remember them working in the past so I just made a mental note to test them on a residential lot with kids, but maybe you are right? I don't use them very often, and I don't pay super close attention to what they do at the playground so it might be they just used the other things. But I doubt they are unfixable, I think Phaenoh just doesn't know how. After all she did not make them to begin with, she changed the meshes on Jasana Bugbreeders original upload. More of a mesher than a coder I went to look at Jasanas post (which is here) and there'a section on placement that makes me unsure if they are supposed to work on hills or not. I'll play around some more and let you know how I get on

It worked Yeah. Sims could walk on a slope, even if a side of a title is elevated by 5 times.

I had a read through of the comments on both Jasana's upload and Phaenoh's, and I talked to people on some discord servers (thank you JoandSarah and HugeLunatic for your input!). Those things combined lead me to believe the slides are functional, but only when used on flat ground using walls and foundations to create the height. So I went to a household with a kid, built a random structure to test and sent my kid to slide. All of it worked. I used the "slide" interaction where the kid is supposed to locate the next slide on their own, and they did, working their way through all three I had put down (1 wall up to the ground, 1 wall up to foundation, foundation to ground level). I forgot to include the curved one in the video I recorded, but I tested it after and the kid had no trouble navigating that one either. I also swapped to Phae's versions and they worked as well.

Video on youtube here

Tomorrow I will play around with terrains and see if there's some setup of terrain raising where the slides still work. I'll let you know, but for now, yes the slides do work in at least one setup. I have all games, so AL is not preventing them from working in my case. Based on the comments I really do think the varied reports are due to people testing with walls/foundations vs terrain.
EDIT: Or I'll do it today Yeah terrains are a no go. None of the slides worked when the terrain was raised, not even if I placed foundations at the top and the bottom. So something about how it's navigating slots and coming in and out does not work if the terrain underneath is raised at all.

omg. Those slides are so good Does ui use complete new animation? I wonder if Escalators could be done.

This is super helpful, thanks for figuring out the rules! I'll have a play in my game later on

I think you're right it's the original coding by Jasana which is finicky, just that Phae had been discussing it on her comment thread.

I wonder if they work on community lots - Phae said she only tested residential.

Another update. I posted on Crafters asking if any object modders had any thoughts on finding so far, and whoward looked at it and concluded that the slides work on terrain too, but they are finicky with placement. I tried to replicate his tests in my game and I got one of them to work, the 1st floor to foundation level slide, so the 12 click height, but the 16 click height slide still gets stuck for me regardless. Maybe we'll manage to figure it out, but for now we can conclude that the slides do work. If they aren't working, try clearing more space around the bottom and the top and see if that changes anything

EDIT: Forgot to comment @ community lot. My original test where the Sim got stuck was at a community lot, later tests were on residential. I may have edited mine to show up in catalog on community lots, I do not recall. But if you place one on community, it's working the same there as residential for me

I tend to just flatten enough ground to build a house, and/or whatever other structures may be required. Build them. Then (if it's a residential lot, move my Sims in and start playing! As a rule of thumb, if I look at a slope and think that I would struggle to get up or down it, I don't ask my Sims to use it either. I suppose it's part of my "Do as you would be done by" Simming philosophy.

"Planning ahead"? What's that?
(It's a pity I can't play Veronaville just now. If I could play it, I could ask Andrew to explain this "planning ahead" to me. As a Knowledge Sim, I'm sure he understands complicated things like that much better than I do.)

Anyway here are some sloping/uneven lots in my game. I've left the grid lines showing as they help to see how the land slopes.

(1) This is 27 Seaford Road, Elswyn, the newest lot in my game.
t's where the girls live who have been testing @Charity 's teen Ninja tops. I honestly didn't realise how uneven the ground here was until I looked at what I had built! As yet Kate Parry and her teenage housemates have done nothing at all with their back garden, but I don't foresee any problems. Sims in my game have walked on much more uneven ground than this. No doubt small bits of it will have to be levelled to place objects on it.

(2) Also in Elswyn, a good bit further out on the Seaford Road, this is The Encampment.
This dates back to Joandsarah77's "Community Spirit" contest, and, though it was never actually an official Contest Lot, it's probably my favourite. It belongs to the aging hippie couple Seumas Rhodes and Sharon Landsmann who have been together since they first had woohoo under the stars at the unforgettable Simstock Festival back in 1967. Of course they're not married and of course it's an open relationship! "Marriage is an outdated and irrelevant piece of misogynistic slavery!" Not my view, Sharon's! And this is where they live. The main dwelling is a trailer which is clearly never going to move again. It's original screw jacks have long since been replaced by brick piers, and a trellis fence helps disguise the space between the piers. The main bedroom, living area and cooking facilities are all in the trailer. The large shed in the left foreground was originally used as bedroom for their adult daughter Joanne, but she has now left home and is living nearby with her teenage toy-boy Kenan. Her old bedroom still contains a second double bed, allowing bot Seumas and Sharon to "entertain" visitors in the true hippie tradition of free love. The smaller hut with the large picture windows is used as their studio. You can see the remains of a recent bonfire in the foreground. The various buildings and other features are just linked together by muddy (or dusty) paths, but the uneven ground here has never caused any problems to either Seumas and Sharon or their guests.

(3) High up on the Bluffs on the southern bank of the wide Simourris River, this is 2 Ranch Road in Baldrair Bluffs, the home of Owen and Yvonne Orr, an elderly couple whose teenage son recently left home to start university.
As for planning ahead this was originally built as a 2x1 lot, but the Orrs eventually bought the land to the rear of their property so they could have a love tub in their back garden. The house is actually a mirror image of the Maxis "Ranch Retreat", made to fit on a 2x1 footprint. Some residents in similar houses in New Desconia have fitted a love tub into their front gardens, but the Orrs wanted a little more privacy. The love tub is at present the only bit of their extended property that they're using. They may evenually be able to do something with the bits of their back garden that are nearest to the road. But I think the top rear corner of their garden will always be unreachable. But why would anyone want to go up there anyway? I may add a railing at the back of the love tub to make sure that nobody ever falls into it or the trench behind it.

(4) This one dates back to early 2014, and it's a community lot. It's Desconia Park in New Desconia.
The park is built in the shallow valley between the High Road and the mountain in New Desconia, which is based on the Tiny Isle terrain by sedgez. Because of the steepness of the terrain near the road, I put in a paved path with steps for my Sims to use. But in practice many of my Sims just walk across the grass rather than use the steps. Clearly the gradients aren't too steep for them. In fact I don't recall any routing complaints from my Sims in any of these four lots. Well, not because of steep terrain anyway. I have one significant problem with Desconia Park, but it's nothing to do with steepness. I like to get up close and personal to my Sims; I like to bring the camera down to approximately their head-height, so t'shat I see them and their world as if I was another Sim on the lot with them. Indoors I play with walls up as much as possible. In Desconia Park, I can't get the camera down to their level. The valley floor is maybe 8-10 clicks below the road level. If it was 16 clicks, I could use the Page Down key as if they were in a basement. But as it is, I can't get down to their level.


Those slides! I don't have the Jasana Bugbreeder ones, but I do have the ones that come with Phaenoh's Playground Set. I don't have AL -- my highest EP is OFB. Nevertheless I've found those slides rather glitchy. I quite often find a child stuck at the top (or possibly bottom -- I can't remember) of a slide. Then I have use to use Force Error to free him/her. I have to say though, that I like the slides despite the glitches. I find that, although they often glitch, they also often work properly. And, when they do, the Sim children love them. Unlike the Maxis swings, it does seem to be mostly children who use them autonomously. I use them on both community and residential lots. They seem to work (with occasional glitches) on both. The first place I used them was in 2015 when I made the Venezia Park on the Italian side of Veronaville:
Venezia Park is where I get most glitches, but then it's where I have most slides. I then used the slides in two lots I made for joandsarah77's 2017 Community Spirit Contest. The first one was attached to the treehouse in the Lamberts' garden. The second one was (still is!) in the Community Park in Elswyn. I had to remove a bit of the Lamberts front garden fence, to give their kids a little more space to land after using the slide. (I hope they never overshoot and end up in the road!) When I get the chance I'll h\ave a look at the two parks with slides to see if there's any possibility of increasing space at the top and bottom of the slides there.

All my slides are attached to other bits of Phaenoh's Playground Set. I thought I'd seen one of those "tube" slides on a terrain slope somewhere. But then I remembered where I'd seen it. It was in the park near our old home where I used to take my dog for a walk. . . In other words it was a Real Life slide! Therefore unaffected by Sims routing problems!

I made the mistake of making my Test of Time Hood on one of the non-flat terrains. Literally constant stamping and shouting. I've been subtly flattening out some parts and building their huts on foundations when possible but it's been a nightmare. Really I should've started again after realising how difficult the terrain is but I thought towards the middle of the map it would be flat... nope lol. I can't remember what map I used but it came with the base game.

Sims wouldn't last a minute in Wales, my driveway in my last house (that I had to walk up to get into the house) was about a 60° angle... absolute nightmare to get a pram up, especially after a trip into town which included a steep hill followed by an even steeper hill and then the driveway from hell. I wish my old landlord all the best

Surely, not even the most free-willed Sims could navigate my lots if I hadn't planned them ahead!

This is Saltwater Pools from Felicity Island:


This is a spa I built for that neighborhood. Admittedly, it doesn't have slopes as extreme as SP, but it's pretty uneven still:


And perhaps the most fun I had, was building on a seemingly flat lot; the slopes were all hidden inside the building, in the catacombs underground:

Wow! Seriously beautiful lots.