I'm a bit confused. If you use a fresh clean copy, playable sims will already be there. Unless you use an empty template but why would you if you want the playables?

If there are sims you want to save you need to extract them then clone them in bodyshop.

To save lots with all furnishings place down a stay all shrub, click make stay (otherwise they won't) make sure any graves are sent to a cemetery, move the sims out. Package up the lots. Once you have the lots installed into to throw away hood clean each one of sim references and then they will be ready to use.

For example, I have a household that has Carson Beckett, Laura Cadman, Elizabeth Weir and her dog. Now I got Beckett and Cadman together and married then let them have some kids. Their kids would be what I would sim surgery and clone so when I would start over I would find the CAS sim bin. This way I can start the family over right from the CAS to family bin, etc with the kids. One other example would be a household where all six adults are random maxis made sims I liked either from the sim bin or by clicking the randomize button and by getting clones of them I can start them over right from the CAS and CAS' of other neighborhoods if I so choose. The Maxis made sims that came Riverblossom Hills would remain untouched with the exception of cloning Gabe.

I know this is more work and will take longer, but it will be easier in the long run as I have never cleaned out sim references before and there is a sim I made that really needs to be fixed. Once I have gotten to the point where I am ready to the let the game regenerate a new Riverblossom Hills, I will make sure all sims are right with the neighborhood after regeneration with the SimPE to make sure this isn't a problem again and I will also do that for any new main hoods I might create.

Make sure to clone all the Sims after you extract them to BodyShop to clean out any character file references. As for the pets, if I remember correctly, you can register pet breeds on a phone and the pet will show up as a CAS template, but I would advise you to test it out since I haven't done it in ages. Also make sure that you move out Sims from all the lots you plan to save, and if possible, clean out Sim references from them.
It's always sad to see someone lose their progress, but you can at least salvage most of it, as your current hood is probably difficult to fix now.

Yeah, at least it's not corrupt to the point where I can't salvage anything. Those sims will defiantly be getting cloned because the first time I used the sim surgery I ended up with two invisible toddlers in game so I learned from then on, clone. As for the Stay-Things Shrub, if I were to use it could I do this:

• place it on the lot and save.
• Move family out from neighborhood screen.
• Go back into house, remove shrub and save.

I just thought if I could use it that way it might save me some time and if I can would I need this http://modthesims.info/d/493039/fix...ings-shrub.html.

The shrub will work that way, but also make sure to clean the lots of Sim references before you move them to the new hood.

Has anyone mentioned that we can just rename the Bluewater template and attach a new one without writing over the old one? With Moo's Fix, we can have as many shopping districts attached as we want, so by using a bulk renamer and changing the IDNO, we could just attach a new template from here https://meetme2theriver.livejournal.com/63030.html
For example, here is the exact template from Meetme2theriver, but it's been renamed and IDNO changed, so it's now BNEW. http://www.simfileshare.net/download/1070870/
And an image of it attached along with the original one (marked with an X) to Riverblossom. I'd probably rename the old one to something like NoMansLand if I were playing. I don't know if you'd get sims from the old Bluewater visiting the other parts of the hood. If so, you might need to deal with keeping them in their own damaged BW, but, in any case, you don't have to write over your BW template or any other hood or subhood template, if you don't want to.


You can also get those families that come from stealth hoods by attaching and then deleting these. (If I do this and get extras I don't want, I just SimSurgery and name change them into different sims and make them townies or something.)
https://meetmetotheriver.tumblr.com...d-empty-stealth

NOTE: It is "safe" to delete subhoods, but if you do, then all the sims in that subhood end up in your main hood. That's why it's safe and why the trick above works, but, I think, we wouldn't want to do that with a bunch of borked sims running around in that subhood.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will keep that in mind should I ever need to use it. With this neighborhood, it's just better if I start over.