Cities: Skylines II

Description

In-Game Water Tool - Place, remove, and edit water sources, and other optional modifications to the water simulation.

Sully has made an outstanding demo video covering the new features related to water. Available on Youtube. The video uses the Legacy Water Simulation.

Dependencies

Unified Icon Library

Donations

If you want to say thank you with a donation you can do so on Paypal or Buy me a Coffee.

Translations

I am looking for volunteers to help translate the mod into the official languages. For those interested please find the project in the discord link. CSL2:CODEMODS -> mods-wip -> Water Features: Translations. Fully or Partially Supported Languages: German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Korean, French, Russian, Italian, Chinese Traditional and European Portuguese. See credits for list of translators.

Support for European Portuguese translations requires: European Portuguese Localization and I18N Everywhere mods.

Detailed Description

Water Sources

Maps can either have the Modern Water Simulation or the Legacy Water Simulation.

The modern Water Simulation has one vanilla water source that is constant level. I call it: Generic Constant Level Water Source. That water source fills quickly until it gets to the desired level and then maintains that level. If it has a target elevation below the ground level, it can drain water faster than evaporation. Behavior and color will change depending on whether it's placed inside the map boundary, at the map boundary, or outside the playable area. Right click to designate the target elevation. Left click to place anywhere. Hover over and right click to remove.

Legacy Water Sources:

• Stream - Constant or Variable Rate Water Source: Emits water depending on the settings for this mod. With Seasonal Streams disabled, the flow rate will be constant. With Seasonal Streams enabled the flow rate will vary with season, precipitation, and snowmelt depending on your settings. Left click to place within playable area. Hover over and right click to remove.

• River - Border River Water Source: Has a constant level and controls water flowing into or out of the border. While near the border, the source will snap to the border. Right click to designate the target elevation. Left click to place. Hover over and right click to remove.

• Lake - Constant Level Water Source: Fills quickly until it gets to the desired level and then maintains that level. If it has a target elevation below the ground level, it can drain water faster than evaporation. Right click to designate the target elevation. Left click to place within playable area. Hover over and right click to remove.

• Sea - Border Sea Water Source: Controls water flowing into or out of the border and the lowest sea controls sea level. With Waves and Tides disabled, it will maintain constant level. With Waves and Tides enabled the sea level rises and falls below the original sea level. Right click to designate the elevation. Left click to place if the radius touches a border. Hover over and right click to remove.

• Automated - Custom modded water source that dynamically changes water source type to automatically fill and stabilize to the desired water surface elevation. Not affected by Seasonal Streams or Waves and Tides settings. Right click to designate the maximum elevation. Left click to place within playable area. Hover over and right click to remove.

Optional Opt-In Custom Legacy Water Sources:

• Detention Basin: Custom modded water source that rises with precipitation and snowmelt and slowly drains when the weather is dry. They have a maximum water surface elevation but no minimum water surface elevation. Right click to designate the maximum elevation. Left click to place within playable area. Hover over and right click to remove.

• Retention Basin: Custom modded water source that rises with precipitation and snowmelt and slowly drains when the weather is dry. They have a maximum water surface elevation and a minimum water surface elevation. Right click to designate the maximum elevation. Left click to place within playable area. Hover over and right click to remove.

Water Tool

The tool is accessed in the landscaping menu with a tab with a water drop and icons for the different water sources. Small radius water sources will have some extra clickable space for interacting with them. Large radius water sources will have a small filled circle for interacting with them. If you are placing a source with an assigned depth you should place them at the intended bottom of the water feature. For now you cannot remove water sources from utility structures.

The tool has 4 tool modes: Place Water Source will place water sources with left click, and remove water sources with right click. Elevation Change will change target elevations of existing water sources by hovering over existing water source, left clicking, holding, dragging and releasing at new elevation. Usually dragging out raises, and dragging in lowers, but it's really just releasing at the desired elevation. Keep the cursor within playable area for reliability. Right click to cancel. Move Water Source will move existing water sources. Target elevations of existing water sources will not change. Right click to cancel. Radius Change will change radius of water sources. Right click to cancel.

Seasonal Streams - Optional

• For Legacy Water Simulation: Seasonal Streams takes Streams (Modified Constant Rate Water Source): and ties them to the climate and weather for the map. For example, if your map features a dry summer, then these water sources will decrease during the summer. Seasonal streams by it-self should not cause flooding since it treats the map's default water source amount as a maximum unless you change it. All aspects are optional and adjustable in the mod's settings while in game or the editor. These settings are enabled or disabled per save file.

• For Modern Water Simulation: Adds a new custom modded Water Source: Seasonal Water Source. That water source is a Generic Water Source where the level varies according to Seasonal Streams settings, the map's seasonal properties, and current weather. Behavior and outer ring color will change depending on whether it's placed inside the map boundary, at the map boundary, or outside the playable area. Right click to designate the target elevation. Left click to place anywhere. Hover over and right click to remove.

Waves and Tides - Optional - Legacy Water Simulation Only.

This feature is dependent on map design. Maps with a sea water source and a single shoreline work best. All aspects are optional and adjustable in the mod's settings while in game or the editor. These settings are enabled or disabled per save file. The point of the waves feature is to make the shore move in and out and make sand along the shoreline. A better way to make beaches is to just paint them with surface painter instead. Waves are generated at the map boundary where there is a Sea water source. Once generated they head towards shore. Maps were not necessarily designed for these waves, but the waves will always be lower than the sea level from the original map. Tides are the biggest waves and they cause the sea to rise and fall along the shore. Tides can add sandy graphics along shorelines but the sand may not persist the entire time between low tide and high tide. Option to change the global damping value. The setting is inverted though so higher numbers mean less damping and stronger waves. Maps such as San Francisco with shallow seas will need waves and tides with smaller heights to avoid large swathes of non-playable area becoming dry sand.

Saving

Before saving, the mod always resets all water sources including the custom ones in a manner that can be loaded safely without the mod, so that the mod can be removed at any time. Automated water sources with the mod removed will revert to some fixed vanilla configuration.

Additional Features in the Settings

Adjust the global evaporation rate which can be helpful with Detention and Retention basins. Water Clean Up Cycle is an emergency solution for removing water in developed areas by increasing the global evaporation rate for a short time. Better option: Lakes with an elevation below the ground surface drain water faster than evaporation. Experimental: Adjust fluidness.

In the Editor

Yenyang's custom water tool is available in the editor, and can be used alongside the vanilla water tool. Evaporation, water cleanup cycle, and fluidness will not affect the editor simulation unless you opt-in with the settings. Seasonal streams and waves and tides must be individually enabled per save file in the editor. In theory, they should be appropriately enabled/disabled when users of the mod start to use the map.

Credits

• yenyang - Mod Author

• Sully - Testing, Feedback, and Promotional Material

• Chameleon TBN - Testing, Feedback, Icons, and Logo

• Klyte45, Algernon, Triton Supreme - Help with UI, Cooperative Development and Code Sharing

• T.D.W., krzychu124, and Quboid - Cooperative Development and Code Sharing

• Localization: Hendrix and Fuchs23 (German), Nyoko and Citadino (Spanish), Luiz Fernando de Paula (Portuguese), Karmel68 (Polish), Morgan Toverux, CEO of Tabarnak, edouardtherrien24, and Karg (French), TwotoolusFLY_LSh.st and Hinanchovo (Korean), _hayrynenart and OWSEEX(Russian), Furios (Italian), ystartgo (Chinese Traditional), T14goc and Obelix (European Portuguese), Nullpinter, RilkeXS and GuaGua_Ua (Chinese Simplified)

• ST-Apps - Help with UI and Code Sharing

• Tigon Ologdring, Chair, Dante - Testing, Feedback

Screenshots

Changelog

1.4.3 - Released 2026-01-10

• Compatibility fixes for using with Topo Toggle.