Sep 05, 2024 08:00:00

A new mod called 'Colombo: Skylines' has been released for the city-building sim 'Cities: Skylines,' which recreates the Sri Lankan city of Colombo.

A new mod called Colombo: Skylines has been released for the city-building simulation game

Cities: Skylines , which recreates a real city. This mod recreates the Sri Lankan city of Colombo, and is based on official data released by various government ministries and agencies. It can be used to determine transportation routes and simulate greening.

GitHub - team-watchdog/colombo-skylines: A digital twin of the city of Colombo, Sri Lanka, implemented in Cities: Skylines, based on real data. Nearly 1:1 in terms of geography and population.
https://github.com/team-watchdog/colombo-skylines?tab=readme-ov-file

According to the MOD development team, the MOD was built using data released by the Colombo City Council, the Sri Lanka Road Development Authority, the Sri Lanka Urban Development Authority, etc. As a result, they have succeeded in reproducing Colombo's road network, including highways and trunk roads, as well as green spaces, water bodies, canals, etc. using satellite images as closely as possible to reality.

For example, the distance from the tip of Dehiwala to the measurement point near the Presidential Secretariat is 7,780m in real life, whereas in the game it is 7,728m. The maximum width of the map is 4,585.6m (4,611.2m in real life), and the road layout, parks, water areas, etc. are more than 99% consistent with reality.

The game features 1,044,500 virtual citizens (1,048,000 in reality), and replicates real-world population density and demographics: each citizen goes to school, works, and dies.

However, due to the constraints of the game system, the number of vehicles is less than in reality, and while in reality the ratio of cars is 1:5 (206 cars per 1,000 people), in the game the ratio is 1:10. Also, unlike in reality, public transportation is perfectly scheduled.

The development team lists the advantages of simulating reality with Cities: Skylines as follows: 'It's much cheaper than other simulation software at $19.99 (3,990 yen in Japan), it's easy for the general public to use, it has excellent visualization capabilities, and it has an active modding community.'

The developers explained that the mod could be used to help visualize and understand Colombo's urban design problems, to educate urban planning students, to simulate road and transport routes, and to evaluate the impact of adding more green spaces and parking spaces.