What theme/atmosphere do you want for your world?
Modern/historic? Eastern/Western/Northern/Southern, rural/urban, future/vacation? Desert/lush/ice/water? Realistic/fantastic? This will also determine the type of world.
World types
There are 5 world types:
Base: The default type. Most worlds are of this type, no matter if they are small towns, a glacier or a rural world. Unless there is a very good reason to change it stick with the base type.
City (requires Late Night EP): Bridgeport is a City type world. This world type will create more fake traffic in game, also non-active sims are pushed more to all those Late Night bars and clubs. Less wild animals (if you have pets installed).
Vacation (requires World Adventures EP): Al Simhara, Champs Les Sims and Shang Simla are vacation worlds. The game can have only one of each. They don’t offer all options for full gameplay (your sims are supposed to stay for only a few sim days) and are accessible only via the in-game travel menu. You will need the NRAAS traveler mod for traveling to custom vacation worlds (or any custom world regardless of type).
Future (requires Into the Future EP), University (requires University EP): These remaining two types are highly specialized. As the game can have only one of each and they require a very specific setup in order to function properly it’s not recommended to use either for custom worlds at the beginning of your world building career.
Newly created worlds are always base worlds. You can change the world type to anything other than base the easiest in Super CAW.
Is your world idea based on a real area?
Collect inspirational pictures of how it’s supposed to look like. They will give you ideas and help with details.
What gameplay do you want to offer?
Should it offer all career options and lot types of all expansions or a more specialized gameplay? How many residential lots do you want to place? The number of lots required (and their sizes, rabbitholes are usually rather big and require bigger lots) will of course affect the size of the world you’ll need.
What size should it have?
Big worlds offer enough space for different areas, for large beaches, you can have Downtown and a farming area or whatever you imagine. Big worlds also tend to have more performance issue. Not only is the world itself bigger and needs to be rendered, all that wonderful space is also filled with lots and objects and plants which add to the load.
Small worlds usually run very smoothly, even if you use a lot of objects. But of course you won’t have space for everything.
Do you want to use CC?
If yes, is the cc still available for download for potential players? Or can you include it with your download? CC installed via launcher will be packed and exported with the world (except for store stuff). CC installed as packages will not be packed with your world.
What about a population?
Can be decided later, but it doesn’t hurt to start thinking about it early. You can add population by offering a savegame with your world or by using NRAAS mods to import sims in EIG.
Also, while thinking about who will live in your world you might have new ideas for buildings or general look.
Do you want to maximize compatibility or concentrate on your vision? Not all players have strong computers. So large worlds, fully populated and with lots of CC may be out of range for many players. Also not everyone has all EP/SP/store content installed. It’s good to decide before you start if and which restrictions you are willing to accept to improve compatibility, e.g. not using stuff from SPs even if you have those installed.
While players can install most worlds without meeting all requirements, it won’t look like you envisioned it. Exception to this is the Island Paradise expansion. Worlds with ports and diving lots don’t work well without that expansion installed. Bridges might be a problem too – there are no basegame bridges, they all come from certain EPs (e. g. World Adventures, Supernatural). If a player doesn’t have the respective EP installed the bridge will be simply missing. This may cause severe routing issues as sims cannot cross rivers or bays to get from one part of the map to another.
Do you want to create a world from scratch or use an existing world as base?
Creating a world from scratch is a lot of work. On the other hand, the map is yours and you don’t have to remove/adjust stuff or deal with mistakes others made (but can add them yourself :P).
Do you want to have your world as an island or do you want to use a Distant Terrain?
Distant Terrains (DT) are huge objects that cover the area beyond your map. The mountains that surround Sunset Valley or Bridgeport, the Hills in Riverview etc. are not part of the playable, sculpted world but a Distant Terrain object. Distant Terrains require a lot of sculpting work to make them fit perfectly along the edges of your map. So it might be easier to use the world with which the Distant Terrain came as a base and start from there or to at least import that world’s height map to have the terrain sculpting.
You can find these ressources at the Cawster website: https://cawster.wordpress.com/
If you are not using a DT your map will be surrounded by ocean. You can block that view in one or two directions by sculpting mountains for example.
Do you want to make use of the Island Paradise EP features like diving spots and ports?
Then make sure that the land mass doesn’t cover most of your map so that you have plenty of ocean left. Also the water depth needs to be considered to make dive lots work.
Now that you know where you are heading let’s start actually working in CAW.