Vanilla Cities: Skylines gives a building its households and jobs by zone and level, not by size — so a tower holds barely more people than a small block. Realistic Population Revisited calculates them from the building's floor area instead. Expect a much larger population, more demand for services and heavier traffic, and test it on a copy of your save first.
準備 · What you need
- Realistic Population Revisited ↗
- Lifecycle Rebalance Revisited ↗ — recommended by the mod's developer — removes the short eight-game-year citizen lifespan
Realistic population numbers are the most common thing players notice is “off” in Cities: Skylines 1: a 30-storey tower and a four-storey block can house a similar number of families. The Realistic Population Revisited mod fixes that by deriving households and jobs from building size.
Why vanilla numbers feel wrong
In the base game a building’s capacity depends mainly on its zone and level. The asset’s actual footprint and height play a small role. That keeps the simulation simple, but it means:
- Skylines look dense while the population counter stays low.
- Office towers employ surprisingly few people.
- Realistic real-world rebuilds never reach real-world population figures.
What the mod does
Realistic Population Revisited estimates each building’s usable floor area — footprint × floors — and assigns households or workplaces per area. It also adjusts consumption (water, electricity, sewage, garbage) so services scale with the new numbers.
| Vanilla | With Realistic Population | |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity based on | Zone and level | Floor area (size × floors) |
| High-density towers | Under-populated | Populated to scale |
| Service demand | Lower | Higher, proportional |
| Traffic | Lighter | Heavier — public transport matters more |
Adding it to a city safely
- Copy your save. Always test on a duplicate.
- Subscribe on the Steam Workshop and enable the mod in Content Manager → Mods.
- Load the copy and watch the population, service and traffic overlays for a few in-game weeks.
- Expand water, power and garbage capacity first — those fail fastest after the jump.
- Strengthen public transport before traffic does it for you.
In the Westfield series the mod went in at episode 25. The next episodes were mostly about catching up on services and restructuring traffic — a realistic picture of what to expect.
Pair it with Lifecycle Rebalance Revisited
The developer of Realistic Population Revisited recommends a second mod alongside it. In the vanilla game a citizen lives only about eight game years, so a city with realistic household numbers also sees a wave of deaths every few years — and death care that can’t keep up. Lifecycle Rebalance Revisited stretches the lifecycle and smooths out the death rate. The video explains how the death rate works (from 8:45) before adding it.
Using the settings from Westfield
The video shows the individual settings for every residential building used in Westfield from episode 25 onwards. The mod stores these in a settings file in the game’s local data folder (on Windows: AppData\Local\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines). If you copy someone else’s settings, install the mod first and back up the original files before overwriting them.
When it’s worth it
Use it for realistic and real-world builds, especially transit-heavy Japanese-style cities where density is the point. For a casual city where you like the vanilla balance, it adds work without adding fun.
Watch the original tutorial
The 2020 video walks through the mod’s options, the settings used in Westfield and what changes in the game afterwards.
Video chapters
- 0:00Intro
- 0:50Why to use the Realistic Population Revisited mod
- 1:45New citizen numbers explained
- 2:24Modified overall settings
- 3:00My individual settings for every residential building
- 4:26Where the mod stores your individual settings
- 6:25Implications and other changes to the game
- 8:03Reaching a new city level
- 8:45Death rate in Cities: Skylines explained
- 10:17Lifecycle Rebalance Revisited mod
- 11:56Difficulties with the mod
Clicking a chapter starts the video above at that point.
FAQ
What does Realistic Population Revisited change?
It replaces the game's fixed household and workplace numbers with values calculated from each building's size, and adjusts utility consumption to match.
Will my population jump after installing it?
Usually yes, especially in high-density districts. Plan for more water, power, garbage, schools and transit capacity.
Can I use it in an existing city?
Yes, but test on a copy. How quickly existing buildings switch to the new numbers depends on the mod's settings — some changes only apply as buildings level up or are rebuilt.
Does it work in Cities: Skylines II?
No — it is a Cities: Skylines 1 mod. CS2 already sizes households by building, though players still debate its balance.
