Cities: Skylines II – How to Build a Working Hydro Dam

Hydro Dam Guide

Saw some posts with people having issues building dam, played around with it and came to the conclusion that it is possible.

But there is some things that has to be done correctly to make it work.

1. Chose a map with water spawners on a high elevation (mountain maps)
2. The length of the dam will determine the maximum possible power output.
3. The height difference between the intake side and the output side will determine the actual output.
4. Water physics is REALLY slow and finicky. A tip when building is to use the devmode and in “Simulation” expand the “Water” section and increase the “Water Sim Speed” to something higher to speed up the water settling.

When large amounts of water are moving around on the map (after terraforming most of the time on the dam) the engine will bug out and jump between 0x and 1x and the water simulation grinds to a halt.

Just spam the Sim Speed until the water starts to settle or evaporate and the sim should revert back to normal eventually.

Will try to add some screens on a dam I built that works perfectly (also after reloading):

Dev Mode Settings: