Yeah, plot is definitely a major slowdown! I already had to (temporarily) downplay plot so I could actually make some progress, but I'm coming to realize that on its own, that's not enough.

That's a good suggestion, thanks! I wouldn't want to spend most of my simming time sidetracked with all those cousins (that aren't even relevant to the story), but maybe just throwing any and all cousins out the window might be a bit extreme too. Quite possibly some compromise solution will seem most desirable.

I suspect that I would miss playing the families, so at the very least I'm carefully packaging everyone before the rebuild, so I can have them for later. I've been itching for some side challenges, so maybe I'll end up taking (most of) my "just for fun" playing to another 'hood, or several.

Thanks, I'm very interested to see where all this contemplation takes me, too. :) Thanks for reading and offering suggestions!