CITIES SKYLINES 2 - AMAZING NEW MOD to create LAKES, RIVERS, STREAMS and SEAS

A NEW MOD, called WATER FEATURES by YenYang, has just dropped on Thunderstore. The mod provides water controls and tools to help us add or remove Lakes, Rivers, Streams and Seas to our maps both in game and in editor. There's also a whole bunch of cool features including Seasonal Streams, Waves and Tides and tools for removing flooding from our cities. Watch the video to find out more!
thunderstore.io/c/cities-skyl...
To download the mod:
1. Go to Thunderstore.io and download the mod manager.
2. In the mod manager, find "Cities Skylines 2".
3. In the Cities Skylines 2 section, you'll find a mod called "Water_Features"
4. Please download this, and it's dependencies and also please read the description!
Please show your appreciation down below to YenYang, the mods author, who again has given us another fantastic and must-have mod for CS2.
To get in touch with YenYang for questions and support, you can find him over on the the Cities: Skylines Modding discord. You can also stay up to date with the latest mod releases on this discord (link below).
/ discord
Let me know down in the comments if you're excited to use this mod?
If you enjoyed the video, please drop me a like and of course subscribe for more videos. Your engagement really helps with the algorithm and helps support me as a creator.
To stay up to date with future videos and assets, i post mostly over on twitter/X so give me a follow:
/ sully_skylines
Support me to continue creating CS2 content including more KZbin videos and development of future asset releases such as Water Park 2 for Cities: Skylines 2 over on Patreon. There's a bunch of additional perks including early access and input on future assets.
patreon.com/user?u=33407050
Join my discord - say hello, share your CS2 builds, chat and discuss ideas with fellow community members, and get support when using my assets!
/ discord
#gaming #citiesskylines2 #mods #modding

[@Zephyrbal]

CS2 is going to be incredible once the mod scene matures

[@gekkoonmac]

For sure! I think the basis of the game is solid. I'm very curious to see where CS2 will stand in 2-3 years from now.

[@snowyyoda]

This is incredible. Especially the waves. Now we only need beaches to go with them 👍

[@tigonologdring9189]

Use one of the surfaces to draw one out... you do get nice effects.

[@nomad_24152]

extra landscaping tools yo

[@BH-xe7nb]

I’ve been making beaches already so this should work well with that.

[@lytuingame5717]

Use oil surface 😉

[@snowyyoda]

@@lytuingame5717 yeah I’ve done that. Some palm trees would go a long way

[@PoplarPonderosa]

I was a little concerned about water sources from watching other people struggle with them but this mod looks awesome. Thanks for showcasing this!

[@holy8782]

Modders are literally the saving grace of this game.

[@NeasonH]

Yup it was the same with the first game. I think when the paradox mods is released we‘ll see a lot less people complaining about the game.

[@pixel-ink]

I'm wondering if CO purposely didn't add some features so the modder's would do their work for free.

[@krzysztofg7677]

​ @pixel-ink I think it might be just classic: devs, being ambitious, testing a lot of different things vs management, boring stuff like timelines, deadlines and priorities.

[@Distress.]

@@krzysztofg7677 Yeah the game seems poorly managed. Some things are super details and you can tell have a lot of passion while others are just broken and bare bones. Like a team of ADHD devs were let loose to hyperfocus on random parts of the game.

[@krzysztofg7677]

​@@Distress. don't forget we are talking about ~30 people team, where I guess only half or less are actual code developers which could fix/improve/develop the actual logic(can't find reliable source of how many of them, but I'm pretty sure that someone (maybe CO) mentioned that not all of them are game code/logic devs). They also said the game was already delayed 2 or 3 years because of technical issues they are facing to this day, so things might not be that simple, sadly :/ I also try to mod the game, but it's not easy, not that it's something wrong with the game or something, it's just quite complex to make it good and efficient, you can squeeze everything from PC, multithreading all the way etc. but the modding process (design and coding itself) is completely different and IMO much harder than it was in CS1(assuming you want to release something cool and not just allow players to change few internal (existing) game parameters) :)

[@Marcoyolo571]

Amazing! Its sad to see Paradox & CO fumble so badly with a community this talented.

[@japes7]

I think that's why they're really focused on getting code mods out into the public. I think they had wished to be able to release it last year but Paradox mods is holding them back. Not sure whether Colossal Order or Paradox is in charge of making PDX mods. But it really sucks for CO that it got so complicated. Good news is that CS2 seemed ro have been built with amazing capabilities. And that is important. No use in modding if the basis was crap. So I'm thinking very soon we'll have amazing mods like this be mainstream.

[@incubus_the_man]

It really is a shameful because the game has so much capability. The crazy part is that the developers don't seem to know how to release the full capability of the game. The devs should have let the mod makers help with the development of the game. I think pride might be the reason why they couldn't do that.

[@tobbakken2911]

@@japes7 No it's becasue the mod editor in CS2 isn't finished

[@Gigi-xr3qs]

@@tobbakken2911 Why not? They've had 10 years.

[@tobbakken2911]

@@Gigi-xr3qs They didn't have 10 years what are you on. They was making content for CS1 all the time, production for CS2 began late 2018, and map editor and mods is something that is often something that is not prioritized since it's not core gameplay, so it was getting pushed back all the time since they ran into unexpected issues.

[@pbilk]

Woah! 😮 This water tool is so much better than whatever CS1 could have imagined up or enabled! 😊 I always struggled making lakes (they would overflow) and streams (not enough flow).

[@sully_skylines]

so much better! and so much more we can do now!

[@pbilk]

@@sully_skylines Yes, totally!

[@pbilk]

@@sully_skylines Also, I believe I first saw a photo of your detailing session on Reddit or Discord. I didn't know it required this amazing mod.

[@sully_skylines]

@@pbilk I don’t think you actually need this mod to detail that scene in particular 👍 video will be out next week

[@LadyLucyna]

The sheer amount of features that are in the game but currently not available without modding is just astounding. I'm already so excited to see what the future of this game will look like with the modding community thriving. It's gonna be incredible.

[@garyklyce713]

This changed everything. Can’t wait to see how you created these shots next week

[@tomjewell2509]

Wow--your voice is like mod description ASMR! This mod is also a GAME changer. HUGE thanks to the creator! Let's get some love in his Patreon!

[@aricoseco]

CO should hire YenYang at this point... This dude make the game so much better. The game is still alive because of modders like him doing the job CO should have done. Sorry if I'm being toxic CO's CEO 🤷‍♂

[@yenyang19]

IRL I’m a civil engineer. Programming is just a hobby. Tampere, Finland was nice to visit, but I’m used to life without seasons in California!

[@userreview2806]

Right?? All these features SHOULD have been included in the game!

[@WeiderMystic]

Yes! Was playing with this mod yesterday. Absolutely love it

[@levithian_4785]

Subbed. I wanna see that detailing episode cause damn that looks good. So glad the community can finish this game for paradox.

[@stujd1539]

Cool! Was looking for one when I used the Allegehny Ridges map, as one of the tributaries of the main river, the one flowing past the wind turbines, actually flows backwards from the main river for half its length.

[@TeddyRadko]

I honsetly didnt expect this to be possible in CS2 yet! Great work Sully

[@sully_skylines]

😍 thanks Teddy

[@epwizzard]

Can't wait to see the detailing video! Good job :D

[@RipBea]

This is incredible! I'm super curious to know how a scenery like the rocky waterfall video you showed. There's so many different textures in there, looks so good!

[@sully_skylines]

Thank you! I will explain all next week 🙌

[@RaftermanNZ]

Holeee crap this is super freaking awesome. Also helps my maps and the water bugs they always seem to be plagued with.

[@spekenbonen72]

Wooooohooo!!! That is amazing. Now I will have to dive into making a map.

[@sully_skylines]

yaaaaassss! 🙌

[@Silverhare01]

Omg, its out. So fantastic 🎉🎉🎉 Thank you for the info.

[@petrl7964]

Those landscapes look absolutely beautiful 👏

[@ElDimitrius]

Thanks for the tutorial! This is an amazing feature to bring to the game!

[@sully_skylines]

thanks pal :)

[@jasper329]

Hey dude. Next video could you show us the list of mods you use and how to install them? maybe even a shorts video would be awesome! keep it up bro

[@TJKlimoski]

Yengyang single handily keeping this game alive. They need to hire them and get them to fix their broken game.

[@yenyang19]

IRL I’m a civil engineer. Programming is just a hobby. Tampere, Finland was fun to visit though, but I’m used to living without seasons in California!

[@mrmaison4924]

No more waiting for days to flow a river into a lake! This is awesome!! 👍

[@yenyang19]

Hope you enjoy it!

[@sully_skylines]

@mrmaison4924 I knowwww, such a needed addition to the game 🎉🎉🎉

[@LocutusH81]

Looks very good. Finally we can play around with water too. Now we just need the games base functions like traffic and economy fixed :D

[@Boonatix]

Woah this mod is massive, thanks for pointing that one out... exactly what I needed for my map :) Also looking foward to part 2 of detailing... how did you do all these new, incredible landscape textures? Is that another mod?

[@sully_skylines]

All vanilla assets. Mods are used but probably only anarchy needed to create them. I’ll explain all in the next video. It’s a bit chaotic though 😅

[@Boonatix]

looking forward to it then :) your grass looks so much more vivid and the rock textures are awesome!@@sully_skylines

[@EricCabana-cj6se]

This has to be THE mod of all time! :o

[@MrCow579]

This is gonna be a gamechanger for maps

[@isitanos]

Seems like the water simulation is better than in CS1. I really like the idea of seasonal floods. A realistic flood disaster would be an interesting addition. And those waves are just begging for animated surfers :) .

[@Lkease]

This is an absolute game changer, wow

[@TheActualRealChair]

Man I could have really uses this when making my map spring valley I was hoping someone would add a seasonal water sources and they have! Thank you for showing me Also I thought your post earlier was cs1 cause of the water lol

[@TheActualRealChair]

Plus does this work in the editor or just normal gameplay?

[@sully_skylines]

​@@TheActualRealChair i havent tested it myself, but im almost certain they work in editor :)

[@TheActualRealChair]

@@sully_skylines that would be great cause I was thinking how to do seasonal flooding for maps without mods lol

[@yenyang19]

I have never tested seasonal streams or waves and tides in the pre-mature editor. My water tool only works in-game since I didn't figure out how to make the prefabs appear in the 'Add Object' menu. @@TheActualRealChair

[@knockshinnoch1950]

WOW! A terrific mod!

[@aboxoftentacles1395]

Cities skylines 1 has that feature by default. It's not a terrific mod, it's a shit mod.

[@antonwulp]

Streams!!! Something I really miss and wanted, because in NL you see them also a lot in neighbourhoods. When more buildings will come via CS or mods, I think I'll buy the game.

[@scottsfowler]

This game will be truly fantastic in a year or two with all these killer mods coming out. We just need custom assets (especially schools with varying footprints) and a few fun things like bikes, and true custom parks (like ski resorts, golf courses, basketball/hockey arenas, etc). I'm excited to see what comes in the next few months/years

[@japes7]

Wow this is amazing! Great mod and Cities 2 shining a bit after all the negativity, lots more to do, but clearly there are some great things that we'll be capable of with this game and its modding and features.

[@BH-xe7nb]

I like this idea of mod release videos.

[@brandonsheffield9873]

This mod, causes my water to create thousands, really sharp spikes. It causes my ships to shake, roll over, and go hay wire. It alsi causes massive flooding. It is all set to default.

[@classact526]

Ayyy, finally a CS youtuber whos a welshie 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

[@sully_skylines]

Diolch yn fawr ❤

[@apexracingpr3350]

WOW! Amazing!

[@doctore03]

Wow. Good Videos and highly entertaining

[@TiagoSousa026]

The river has more water or less depending on if it is raining or the snow is melting. It is so easy for Paradox to do it natively because it "just" changes the value of the water output which is ridiculous as to why it wasn't done by them.

[@bigyundol3598]

Holy yeah, finally better water! =)

[@tigonologdring9189]

I've found that in some cases even 0.1 flow can be too much. I guess it depends upon the terrain and the channel the water is flowing in. Part of the testing I did ask yenyang if he could add in an "edit" functionality... maybe. Fingers-crossed!

[@sully_skylines]

@tigonologdring9189 yep i was the same, i found 0.1 flow and 5m radius to be my most used ones, i used this strength for the waterfalls. i did actually have a sentence about this in the video originally, but then removed it as the strength could be different for many scenarios

[@tigonologdring9189]

@@sully_skylinesI've been tending towards 0.05 and 3m radius for "springs" that feed mountain tarns... but those are during map build rather than in-game.

[@CriticalCentrist]

We have this mod and so many other mods, 157 as of today but the developers are still sluggishly dragging their feet on the damn Paradox Mod Creator. Like damn, just release it already.

[@kitch-guy]

Wow... It's amazing.

[@southpineshooligan]

This is huge!

[@The_Real_Kal-El]

Sully you have a nice narrator voice. You should make a demo of yourself narrating a show or nature documentary.

[@Synan.]

The only missing thing is foam effects, which lay in the hands of the developers. This is already a big addition to CS2

[@chaosfun87]

Just started a new city going heavy on canals. This mod comes just right. Especially for flooding issues 🙈

[@sully_skylines]

Let's go! :)

[@chazman4461]

This is stuff that should have been built in from the start.

[@macluk7531]

It is an amazing mod, especially the tides and stream flows... The author needs to give some more explanation on it though ... or someone who tested it well through. It takes ages sometimes to see the effects.

[@Hannodb1961]

I cant wait for Paradox mods to make all of these available. I'm a bit scared installing mods from unsupported platforms.

[@laurakruithof919]

Wow!

[@MarcPi]

😮😮😮😮 that would help a lot with map making. A great improvement compared to CS1.

[@pedromanuelpujolstejedal5766]

❤ love it!

[@f3rr1s79]

Hello Sully, thanks for your CS2 videos! How can you draw ship routes in the editor, since there is no road or path tool for this, except for outside connections, and they don't work on their own in the game?

[@Aeidotronics]

Now this is more like it.

[@Vulcano7965]

small creeks (1 - 2m) is really what was missing in SC1. Also partially limited by the limits of the terrain tool. Also that water sources for rivers struggled to flow really far if your gradient isn't steep enough. Is that fixed with these water tools? E.g. have a river source at one end of the map and let it flow to the other side on a let's say 100m gradient?

[@TheMrSkuzz]

Stuff like this should be just be part of the game. It just makes sense.

[@drworm73]

This would be so much easier to do in-game than what I've done in the map editor.

[@czerskip]

If only there was a nice and finished game to go with the mods… Oh well, one can dream…

[@malte0812]

You can also add water sources since a few weeks with the dev tool, thank me later

[@lucasbonessoni-domatoimove4144]

Imagine this game in 2 years

[@dylape4292]

Ho Mannnnnnnnnnnnn i’m Hyped

[@Evokyr]

What texture mod is that for the grass and cliffs? Looks amazing!

[@sully_skylines]

You can find out next week 👍

[@chrisrussellca]

Do you think Paradox is beta testing these mods on the backend through Thunderstore? I feel there either working with these modders or uploading under anonymity.

[@yenyang19]

Paradox isn’t connected to Thunderstore in anyway. I have been in the cities skylines beta since 2016, I think. Development of this mod began before the game came out. Seasonal streams was my first mod for CSL2, and water tool my second. Although it took a long time to produce a proper UI for the water tool.

[@chrisrussellca]

@@yenyang19 it’s just a conspiracy theory of mine. Like there testing out the beta features here so when the “official” beta comes out it looks really good and close to final product.

[@GiuseppeBey]

How did u change the texture of the ground ? looks so realistic

[@sully_skylines]

If you mean the ones in the detailed waterfall scenes, i will show you that in my next video, my friend :)

[@GiuseppeBey]

@@sully_skylines Yes, thank u so much.

[@NeasonH]

@@sully_skylinesim very much looking forward to it

[@Kilgorio]

wow

[@simonnylund]

This game and the community is really shaping up nicely. :)

[@ScalieBloke]

5:15 The streams will get higher during winter and lower during summer? I am not sure where you are from but that is the complete opposite where I am from (Queensland). I guess it's because during summer (right now) we get alot of the monsoon rain from Asia that comes from that sky river called la nina. Also the south gets a lot of the winds from the indian ocean and combines with the high pressure systems over the center of the country which creates a lot of rain during summer. I am a little bit triggered by this because it is completely wrong by what happens in my country. We get hardly any rain in winter. But I am not the kind of person who is gonna make it my life to get mad by this. (its a game and all these land masses are fake and the way the world would work in this new world we create is not like how it would be irl) I just wish that the mod creator will see this and make adjustments... But before they do that. I would like to know if the devs of this game are gonna make different seasonal changes by what latitude and longitude is set to. I am in the dev tools and the settings do not change where the sun is in the sky and the temperature and weather. I would love that to be a mod. Because well, where I come from its mostly green trees all year round (except for the dry months). It never goes below 20 degrees, never sight of snow, and a high chance of humidity. There is not a single map or mod (I believe that can do this.) The dev settings allow you to do this. But you have to reset them everytime you play the game and I don't always like the fact that the city is always green. There has to be some moments where the trees go brown. A man can dream though....

[@sully_skylines]

No changes are needed, the game has northern and southern hemisphere maps, so depending on which you choose either winter or summer will have more rain. im from the UK, and yes i forgot about how its different in southern hemisphere :)

[@yenyang19]

Don’t worry. Sully was just trying to give an example. The mod changes the streams based on the mean precipitation for that season based the map and climate settings. It’s not hardcoded to behave based on a specific climate region. Hopefully CO either makes custom climates in the editor or adds the climate that you’re interested in simulating.

[@prestongarvey7014]

Now all I need is this mod on console, also cs2 on console….

[@liquidificadoroficial3975]

I'm seeing what will save this game are the mods

[@guidoheuts]

This is a great mod, but I'm confused. When you want to make a lake, how do you set the desired water height? Cuz when you click the left mouse button, it will place the source right there and not at the desired place in the middle of that lake you want to build. There must be something I'm missing here.

[@sully_skylines]

Right click 👍

[@Gerador20]

for some reason i dont have the tool bar showing to be able to change flow rate

[@userreview2806]

Honestly, this should have been included in the base game along with hundreds of other missing features. Not good enough CO.

[@hl-lernbegleiter784]

We need external water sources in the worldmap !!!

[@hl-lernbegleiter784]

With the Mod Anarchy, we can drag the source out from the inner map ?

[@Snowwie88]

My sea level has dropped recently and I tried to figure out roughly around the 2:55 marker how to actually use the 'sea level' option to get my sea at proper height again. But this video does not tell it. The information in the circle tells only about the "elevation" and "radius", but ingame I cannot figure out (either) what is the height of the land. The terrain tool does not give me a value of xxx meters. So lets say the land is 100 meters in height, then I would like my sea to be around 95 meters, makes sense right, because I don't want my city be flooded. So to set my sea level proper?

[@yenyang19]

Pause, delete your old sea water sources. Then place new one(s). Right click to set the elevation. And then you can use the up and down arrows to fine tune. Sea water sources need to touch the border. This is assuming you aren’t using waves and tides.

[@toddsaint-pe9726]

Howndonyoubopen a saved game map in the map editor? You seem to have used both.

[@TowMater603]

Naut ? uhhh you mean ZERO !? lol

[@TeddyJoBen]

What map is it in the end? i see a beautiful rock and gras texture on the terrain O.O And tufts of grass?

[@sully_skylines]

Find out how next week mate 👍

[@TeddyJoBen]

Ok! 🤩@@sully_skylines

[@citymanlive]

Holy shut!

[@Dlan91]

Can you make a feature to get rid of sewage water

[@ozcaks8888]

I just installed the mod but when I load my saved games receivng error message just pasted top lone of the error message [CRITICAL] System update error during GameSimulation MissingMethodException: Method not found: Unity.Collections.NativeQueue`1 Game.Simulation.PathfindSetupSystem.GetQueue(object,int) Any idea why gettign such error message?

[@sully_skylines]

Maybe because Colossal Order just released a patch today so a lot of mods may be broken. I haven’t had chance to check today as in work. Also - did you download the mods dependencies. I’d advise potentially checking the CS modding discord for latest updates to what’s going on with mods since todays patch. It’s linked in my description 👍

[@ozcaks8888]

@@sully_skylines thanks, yes all dependencies activated. I was not aware of the CO recent update and agree may be because of that all the mods broken now

[@JohnnyWalkerKat]

0:08 this isn't CS2 yeah?

[@sully_skylines]

Yes it is 😍 find out how next week

[@kakashiar]

Currently, the ripples on the water surface are too turbulent. Could you please provide a water texture with flatter ripples? I've been eagerly awaiting a mod for that..😄

[@MisterMotel]

it's so dumb that the community once again saves this game from total dying, creating their own way to mod this game. Since the developer wont give us mods for another year probably.

[@el.rosenberg]

still no beach :(

[@sully_skylines]

@tahsanium trust me when I say I’ve solved beaches in CS2. You’ll get a first look in my next video and then a full explanation in the one after 👍

[@ArchitekturTV]

its a shame that the maps of the game are so empty

[@jayvardhansinghchoudhary9830]

Have you tried recreating gta maps

[@LackHapeLuis]

this should have been main game. im not re buying this game for another year.

[@dougbeard7624]

Yet another mod fixes the bull spit that CO released. I'm not sure why developers are giving CO their time. Absolutely unacceptable, they should shutter delivering games like this.

[@UncleFester84]

Are you kidding? A MOD?!? This was a vanilla CS1 feature! I'm so glad i didn't buy into the hype and never bought SC2

[@sully_skylines]

@UncleFester84 this wasn’t a vanilla feature in CS1 sorry mate, was always a mod 👍

[@UncleFester84]

@@sully_skylines I know i created several maps where i decised where to put the water, no mod required

[@sully_skylines]

@@UncleFester84 yes, water sources would be in the editor in vanilla. They’re needed for that. But ingame adding water sources was only available via a mod

[@aboxoftentacles1395]

I can't stand this game. No matter how Good you try to make it look, the game's default buildings and roads and terrain will always look hideous to me and the water as well. That's just a Money grab game to give us some BS filler so they can steal our income. And by the way, why are there no buildings or re-textured road mods? This leads me to one conclusion that the game doesn't allow for that. It's been 3 almost 4 months and the alternate modding has failed to produce a single re-textured mod.

[@destoc5661]

This shows that CO devs are garbage!

[@jplayscities]

I was trying to make some lakes the other day and was failing miserably 🥹 This is a game changer 🙌