I'm a total noob to CAW, but I've been trying my hardest to create something that resembles Cape Town. Then I wondered whether it'd be possible to use Google Maps' 3D data to create either the map or at least the distant terrain...

So, here I am, wondering if anyone has attempted this, or if it's even in the realms of possibility (or simply lunacy).

https://youtu.be/F_XsmoZJmG8

There are resources to get it into Blender, but I'm just trying to see if anyone has attempted this yet?

Otherwise, I'll be posting my progress here. I'm a novice mesher, so creating my own distant terrain file from scratch seemed too daunting.

It's more-or-less possible, sometimes getting the right data is just tricky. Last time I tinkered with it, access to Google data was behind an application to be on the waiting list. Not sure if it's a bit more open now!
Unfortunately, the location I wanted to recreate is very remote and sits on a border where the country on one half doesn't provide such data... so I had to go back to eyeballing it.

But here is a tutorial on how to create height maps from certain data. You can apply quite a few concepts here to data from other sources.
Probably some more if you Google around for general height map methods, not necessarily TS3 related. Cities: Skylines map tools and tutorials will have useful info as well.
[Edit to add a distant terrain tutorial link also.]

Distant terrain is the easier part if you have something in Blender, as it is just a massive object.
It's good to have a project to advance your skills towards! May help you to extract one of the existing distant terrains and take a look in Blender, get an idea of an EA polycount, size, layout. Then learn the Blender topics you think will benefit such a project bit by bit and come back to the idea once in a while. Eventually, a good starting point will show itself when you've given yourself the time to learn the tools.

Thanks for your reply and for the advice (and links)! I'll definitely have a play around with it all and hopefully improve my skills in the process

Terrain.party has broken, you can use the cities skylines map generator to give you a heightmap now.
https://heightmap.skydark.pl/

Thank you!

You're welcome, glad to help!

Update:

So, with the help of simsample and CardinalSims I've managed to extract a map into blender that I'll use to create my distant terrain mesh. I've also managed to create a more realistic height map - which is awesome. Feeling pretty excited , but I had to download a different version of Blender to get everything to work, so I'm on the struggle bus trying to learn how to work it Pics included of the story so far. I'll update if/ when I make more progress!