I'm aware that modding SimCity 4 reqires at least the same amount of files and downloading. To me, vanilla CSL is an eyesore with questionable design decisions galore, bad sound design and unstable simulation, all in all inferior to SC4.

I'm frustrated with the tons of fixes and additions whithout which I feel it really shows that this game was developed by a tiny team. At the end it felt like I was spending 1/3 of the time playing while being busy with mod management the rest of the time. On the way there, over the course of 1 1/2 years, the looks of the game definitely improved a lot but the experience deteriorated at a rate faster than that. However, it didn't turn out as great as I had hoped. I thought CSL had a bright future in front of itself and it would be the city builder I've been waiting for the past decade.

Cool mods came up and of course I downloaded them, since I was used to the refined look andfeel of SC4 and wanted to try everything to get as close to that as possible. I was very excited to see it being released five years ago, which I assume most of us were, and it was great in the beginning. In comparison modding SC4 extensively was fun while modding CSL to be on par with SC4's visual beauty still having it feel like playing a game rather than a map editor is a pain in the *** if not impossible. I really want to play and enjoy this game, but each time I've come back to it in the past years it manages to frustrate me in a matter of hours. I've got a bit of a problem with motivating myself to play CSL which mainly has to do with modding, so hold your horses:

Water source cities skylines mod