Mod Compatibility: NPC Household Variety Fix + Vicky Sims' NPC Generation Overhaul V1

About a week ago, a user asked if these two mods were compatible. I didn't have Vicky Sims' NPC Generation Overhaul V1 mod in my game at the time, so I threw it in, saw that everything looked alright, and let the user know they'd play nice together. And then...I kind of forgot about it.

Until last night, when I needed a fresh save to test a fix I was working on for burglars in games without Royalty & Legacy installed. I plopped my test Sim down in Mt. Komorebi, and while I was passing the time until the burglar situation could be scheduled, I sent her to the local bar to test ANOTHER mod I have in development, and noted that several townie couples were canoodling around the lot. That prompted me to check out the Household Manager and see what kind of households had been generated to fulfill the bar patron filters. And behold, not one household containing only a single sim to be seen! Instead there were 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 Sim households with a range of ages represented.

Now, I had used Vicky Sims' mod on its own long before I ever made NHVF, and honestly, it never seemed to overcome the basic issue of more single Sim households being generated over anything else. I had heard similar reports from other users of the mod as well. While developing NHVF, I discovered why.

The code around the templates themselves is commented in a way that basically says, "LOOK HERE, THIS IS WHAT AFFECTS HOUSEHOLD SPAWNING!" But it's NOT TRUE.

Nearly every template pool for role filters: service Sims, bar patrons, etc., contains ONE single Sim household template. So that's the ONLY kind of household these filters can generate when they can't find an existing Sim in the world to fulfill the role. The system that uses the multi-Sim household templates only kicks in if you have less than 5 homeless households in your game. So once your game generates 5 homeless households, it NEVER calls on the multi-Sim household template using system again. Mods that restrict Sims to particular worlds (like Kuttoe's Home Regions) can help offset the effect by generating townie households per world, but once the stupidly low homeless household threshold is reached in each world, the multi-Sim-template-using system cuts off again. No amount of tweaking the templates could touch the root of the problem.

The screenshots attached to this post show ALL the households the game generated on its own after the save was created. The makeup of the Sims in the 6-Sim household stands as proof that Vicky Sims' template overrides are being used, as the single EA 6-Sim template is age locked to 2 elders, 2 adults, and 2 children instead of the 1 elder, 2 adult, 3 child household that was generated. One thing to be aware of is that both mods override one broken EA household template (2 parent, 2 child). To ensure Vicky Sims' override is used for that, I recommend adding "zzz_" to the start of the folder where you have Vicky Sims' mod installed so it loads after NHVF. Another caveat is that Vicky Sims' mod has not been updated since early 2025, and while it does not appear to be causing any issues or errors in my game, your mileage may vary.

Get NPC Household Variety Fix for YOUR game on CurseForge or on my master download post! Happy Simming!