I made sure that I played every house in Sunset Valley so people wouldn't move away through story progression (which was improved by a previous patch). It sort of worked, since the entire household would never disappear but individuals did sometimes (usually the single kids who have grown to be adults, but I could easily get them back by inviting them over and using testingCheatsenabled true). I also married most Sims and made them have kids. I guess that's how I overpopulated my town.

The reason I think the game thinks it's overpopulated is that suddenly, Sim kids start dying. In one household, a teen disappeared and came up as dead (black and white picture) in the family tree. Worse, when I made a Sim read the newspaper, it said a Sim had drowned in the pool. When I switched to that household, it turned out the Sim who had died had been a baby! I thought EA said babies can't die!

Oh well. I'm just going to console that family by making them have another kid. A lot of the original Sims are elders by now, so they should be going too (like the Wainwrights and Mortimer's parents).

One of my teens randomly disappeared when she was being brought home by the police for breaking curfew but I think that was just a glitch. I don't know why the game would start killing off sims if it was overpopulated, I would think it would just stop sims from having any more kids... maybe if you delete some of the families that you don't really care for that will solve things?

Well the original generation of elders are dying off pretty quickly now. Has anyone else had their kids die off due to story progression? Seems cruel...just wondering if that dead baby was supposed to happen or just a glitch.

I have had a few kids die off due t story progression. Most were teenagers.
But not as many as you
Try moving out a few families so the population ain't so overun

OK now it's gotten worse! Kids just disappear and don't even bother showing up black and white on the family trees! They usually drown in the neighborhood pool according to the newspaper. I noticed, though, that the families I played a lot didn't end up losing kids.

Anyway, I went on a killing rampage and eliminated some useless/aging Sims. That did the trick, so I think it was overpopulation after all. Still, there are many, many empty lots remaining in Sunset Valley! Did anyone else experience this?

I wish that in order to control over population, the game would start making the elders drop like flies. And then move on to adults, young adults, etc if they need to.

Damn thats a flaw!
I wonder if the baby will have a ghost?? Would it just sit on the floor??
I wish that ts3 didn't do this - i thought the whole idea of having an open nh was to let the population grow, expande and spread itself... but then if you have to many there is deaths? Weird. In any nh you play, over population is going to be invevitable isn't it? I mean if all the familys have kids... and they have kids etc.