I thought of posting this as I have been having so much fun building a full-blown Metro Vancouver in the great
Cities Skylines on PC.
After spending some 60 hours on the game, I have finally exhausted all the buildable landmass and hopefully captured the most remarkable landscape and cityscape features of the Metro area. As it is still a video game, there are compromises one has to make in terms of scale and exact placement of things, but I am pretty happy with my ongoing build-out.
Here is the fully built out map.
Houses in West Vancouver have the best views, like in real life. Traffic is also a constant problem on North Shore also like in real life. Unfortunately the game doesn't have a 3-lane suspension bridge asset, so my Lions Gate Bridge looks a bit more boring than in real life.
Burrard Inlet from above. One thing the game requires is there being enough industrial area but we don't actually have as much of it. I originally ended up building industrial land all the way up Lynn Canyon and at one time there was even a nuclear plant up there, but I have since gone 100% solar with a field of solar plants in Richmond.
Ironworkers Memorial Bridge is also a constant pain in the arse with so much traffic trying to cross the bridge in both directions. Even at 8 lanes it still struggles to move all the traffic during rush hour. Maybe I should consider building the famed third crossing from Clarke to North Shore?
I hope my Vancouver has all the defining features of the city. UBC is to the left (and I do have Millennium Line running all the way there!) and Downtown is up above. Hastings Street is seeing some incredible traffic volumes thanks to closeness to Second Narrows but rerouting all truck traffic on Powell Street has helped.
Downtown in all its glory! You don't realize how small the peninsula is before you trying building it in a game.
I was trying to capture all the main features but had to make some compomises. There is no Burrard Bridge and Burrard Street connects to Granville Bridge and then street. Cambie Bridge had to be built more to the center to have Olympic Village fit. Too bad that there is no proper asset for BC Place so I had to use an Expo Hall to either be BC Place or Rogers Place. Oh well.
Game's awesome asset library includes models for some of our buildings such as MNP Tower and Scotiabank Tower, but I had to use Turning Torso (Malmö/Sweden) for Trump Tower and Aura (Toronto) for Shangri-La. They may look slightly off but scale-wise they are actually pretty perfect.
I was also eager to consider building the Seawall and Stanley Park Drive, but the landscape doesn't make it easy, so it is still work in progress. Mods make it easier to build such features, but the scale on this map is tight.
Finally a fully built-out Oakridge Center from the future. I have to say, it is a pretty nice place for a small cluster.
I will post more going forward but curious to hear if people have attempted building Metro Vancouver on their side and to what effect?
Linear Mode
