Garffin Hills
16 March 2020

In southeast Kentucky, there are the Garffin Hills. In this region are Garffin and Sylverson Counties, with a few towns, curvy roads, and forested hills. Live an exurban life or have redneck Appalachian shenanigans in the backwoods, the choice is yours. Live where the Bluegrass and the mountains blend.

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Garffin Hills is a custom world for The Sims 3. The world does NOT REQUIRE any expansion packs and is playable using only the base game.

Latest update:
27 May 2020

New houses, roads and terrain changes

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Background

Map of Garffin Hills
Here, there are two counties. They are Garffin County and Sylverson County.

Garffin County is in the southern part of the Garffin Hills, and is much more urbanized than its neighbors.
The county's seat is Garfington and is the place Sims in the region go for their careers, shopping, and other services. The city of Garfington is best suited for Sims that want to live a suburban lifestyle. The town has an extensive road network, having a bypass and the Dulmsley Highway connecting the town to neighboring Sylverson County. The town has 13 commercial and 21 residential lots.

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In the east of the county rises the mountains, which is where the town of Smolwaldster is. This town is small, with only a few homes. Smolwaldster has 2 commercial and 3 residential lots.

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Sylverson County is in the northern part of the Garffin Hills, and has a few towns. The county's seat is Monomew.

Monomew is the county seat of Sylverson County. The town has the county's police department, school and library, and is 40 minutes north of Garfington. In the town are a few townhouses and housing projects. The town has 6 commercial and 13 residential lots.

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Pinedale is a village in Sylverson County, and acts as an exurb for Garfington commuters. The town is centered around the church, with most Sims in Pinedale being devout Christians. The town is situated on the Dulmsley Highway, and relies on its neighbors for jobs and such. The town has 2 commercial and 9 residential lots.

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Dulmsley is a town on the river in northern Sylverson County, and is rather isolated. It is 60 minutes away from Garfington via the Dulmsley Highway. In town, there is a grocery and a bookstore, as well as a chapel. The town is very low-income, and is one of the poorest towns in the country. The town relies heavily on neighboring communities, and most Sims that live here have an agrarian lifestyle, usually gardening or fishing for a living. Anyone that lives here shouldn't mind the wilderness. The town has 2 commercial and 7 residential lots.

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Dewlap Gap is a village 20 minutes from Monomew in Sylverson County. The community is at a high altitude, and is notorious for its mountainous terrain, which is usually the reason Sylverson County Schools have snow days often. The community isn't incorporated as a town, so Sims wishing to have less taxes usually live here. The town has 2 commercial and 4 residential lots.

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In total, there are 27 commercial and 43 residential lots.

Cool facts

Weather settings
Because the world is designed to run using only the base game, the base weather .ini files are exaggerated versions of hazy, overcast and stormy weather. The probabilities for weather are 0.4 for Hazy, 0.3 for Overcast, 0.2 for Stormy, and 0.1 for Clear. These probabilities are based off the real-world weather patterns of Appalachia, where overcast weather is very common. If you are using the Seasons expansion pack, you may have some weird experiences due to this.

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World information
Size: 1024x1024
Type: Suburban
Requirements: The Sims 3 base game patch 1.69, no expansion packs required (you may still play with EPs though)
Unpopulated. Sims should move in as time goes on, or you can use a mod to manipulate the story progression to populate the world faster.

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Known Bugs
At the Sylverson County Library, routing from the front edge of the lot (towards Monomew Road) is buggy, where Sims will refuse to leave the library unless you go to the sidewalk, then go wherever they need to go. This bug has been greatly improved by rebuilding the routing data, but it is still present in the latest release.

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This map took my Spring Break to make, and many all-nighters. At least 40 hours has gone into making this map.
I made this map because I couldn't find a decent rural map that required ONLY the base game. Most rural maps require Pets or some other expansion pack. If you're on a budget and don't want to buy $200 of Sims 3 expansion packs, and also want a rural map, this is the map for you! You may wonder, why aren't there many great houses and such? In real life, there aren't many big houses in Appalachia, so what I built is actually pretty accurate. Also, convenient laziness. I figured it's a sandbox singleplayer game so any empty lots or undesired buildings can be changed to the player's liking.

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Installation
Run the .sims3pack file as if it were a ".exe". The Sims 3 Launcher should come up and install the world for you. The download link below is a mirror hosted on dulm.blue.

Download garffin_hills.zip (33mb)