Codex - Gameplay Overhaul

[Ryika]

--[ Codex - Gameplay Overhaul ]--
[Steam Download]​

After having gathered a lot of experience in modding with the 'Awesome Collection' and now having spent almost a year of work on this mod I'm happy to finally release Codex, a one-person-project that reworks almost every aspect of the game and introduces some completely new features to add more depth and more interesting decisions.

While this mod changed a lot during development, the core ideas were always the same:

• Create more interesting bonuses, add more depth and a stronger sense of progression
• Make games longer (~300-450 turns on Standard Speed depending on the level of optimization)
• Make every match play out somewhat different
• Create more interesting gameplay and choices
• Add more depth to city and empire management
• Add more personality to the Affinities

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WARNING
This mod will not work properly if you do not activate mods twice!

So after starting the Client you need to do the following steps:
- Go to the Mod menu and activate a mod. It does not have to be this mod, just choose _a_ mod that loads quickly.
- Click 'Next', wait until the "Configuring game data... please wait."-dialog is gone.
- Click the X-Button of the dialog box (or hit escape), you will return to the mod menu.
- Now disable all Mods except Codex, then click the 'Next'-Button again.

Done.
You can now start the game and the Unit Action Icons will appear properly. You have to do this everytime you start the client, but it will then work for the rest of the session, until you close the game. I apologize for the inconvenience, it's a bug in the game itself, nothing I can do to prevent it.

I heavily suggest to not combine this mod with other mods unless you really know what you're doing. This mod replaces a lot of files, makes changes to many systems and is likely to run into compatibility issues with almost any type of mod, and not all of them may be obvious while playing.

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With that all out of the way, some of the main features of this mod.

The Empire Manager
The Empire Manager is a new tool that allows players to specialize their empire as a whole, decide what yields to focus on, and trade resources.

The Moonbase
During the game you gain Access to the Moonbase to excavate progenitor ruins found on the moon and gather some strong bonuses. A heavy investment is required though. "Solving" the Moonbase is also required for the new Contact Victory.

Events
Random events trigger during the game, making every game play out differently. Most events are positive in nature and provide opportunities for players to alter their playstyle and change their plans for maximum benefit.

Biomes
Every planet is slightly different from other planets (well, unless you roll the same biome twice. ), and some Resources will be stronger or more numerous than on other planets.

Affinity Overhaul
Affinities have been reworked heavily and all now have their own style. Affinity is also no longer only gained by researching technologies, but also by completing buildings, working certain improvements (late-game) and launching certain satellites (late-game). New Affinity Quests have been added and are an integral part to the overall affinity-gain in the mid- and late-game. Affinities also all have unique Improvements, with two entirely new Improvements with unique art - the Xenoscape and the Nanoscape - becoming available in the later stages in the game.

New Tech Tree Layout
The tech web has undergone a lot of changes, and is now more representative of a tree than a web. It is a bit more linear for a greater sense of progression but tries to keep a lot of the freedom of the tech web, thus has kept the concept of Branch- and Leaf-Technologies, and has differentiated their roles further.

New Worker System
Using a system that I have totally not at all copy-pasted from Civ VI workers now finish (almost all) improvements instantaniously, but only have a limited amount of charges before they need to be replaced with new workers. This makes placing improvements more of a "burst"ish ability, which, in my opinion, is a LOT more fun*.
(*Also check out the new Worker Keybinds, they should be a LOT more convenient)

...and lots of new buildings, abilities, perks, and overall tons of changes everywhere! Features in a bit more depth can be seen in the Mod Guide

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Credits

Art:

• This Mod uses artwork taken from two other games for some of its interface elements: Master of Orion (the new one) and the Mass Effect Series.
• The Moonbase Artwork is taken from an old wallpaper found on many wallpaper sites, couldn't find an artist to credit.

Modder Resources used:

• Vice Virtuoso's Modular Script Loading
• Machiavelli's Policies grant Perks and Buildings
• Also uses scripts and snippets based on code that other uses made public in these forums

Note: This mod uses EDITED versions of those Resources, the fact that they're listed here does NOT mean this mod is compatible with other Mods using the same resources, it means the exact opposite.

Creative Input:

• Gaga Extrem and Mark (real life buddy) both gave valuable feedback during very early development
• Big thanks also to the beta testers who provided feedback and suggestions, especially TheIllustriousYou.

...and just in case you missed the download link at the top of the thread, here's another one!

Have fun!*

*And provide feedback, I plan to support that mod with updates even after the release of Civ VI.

 

[Hajee]

Re DL BE now to check this out.

Reading the changes listed on steam, I must say wow to the tech web!

Look forward to trying this out

 

[Starrynite120]

I think I found a bug with an event. The event where alien opinion is affected by a building, when its only supposed to be small. Just made the aliens allied with me in like 5 turns from being angry. I'm guessing that's faster than it should be.

I'm also finding once allied with the aliens, I can't pillage nests anymore, but only sometimes. My melee boat was just able to pillage an ocean nest, but my ranged soldier is unable to pillage a land one. Unless there's some sort of rule I'm missing.

 

[Ryika]

Yes, only Units that are able to pillage in general (which is most Melee Units) can pillage Alien Nests. And for some reason explorers as well.

Not sure what's going on with Alien opinion, will have a look at it later.

 

[Starrynite120]

Ah ok good to know about melee units. I'm guessing the playerperk just has the number set too high for the building. Or its just supposed to happen fast. I'm just killing aliens left and right and staying allies.

 

[Setis]

One of the events gave me the quest to build a neurolab in a city...except that city has no Firaxite, and thus can't build the neurolab.

 

[Ryika]

Thanks, I'll look into that quest.

 

[Ryika]

(That quest mentioned in the last post has been fixed btw)
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A new version has been uploaded to the workshop a few hours ago (Just before Civ VI prevented me from creating this post. ), adding a new Feature to the game: Golden Ages!

Golden Ages work very differently than they did in Civ V and serve a very specific role: Making Sponsors feel more unique. For that reason every sponsor has a unique type of Golden Age that they can trigger, a Golden Age that resembles their biggest strength. Golden Ages are gained as you progress through the game, and Golden Age Point Gains have been added to some buildings.

Golden Ages don't trigger automatically, instead, once you have gathered enough points, and have leveled your Character Trait to 3, you can trigger your Golden Age whenever you want - even save up multiple Golden Ages for later in the game. This is to reward strategical use.

A few Examples:

ARC benefits greatly if they're able to line up a few - or many - high-level covert operations, and ideally players will want to put extra efforts in lining them up as much as possible.

Finding a good Timing where you can get a lot of Cities to work City Processes without delaying important Infrastructure in any of them is the key to using this Golden Age efficiently.

...I think it's not that hard to understand when you want to trigger THAT trait.

Not all Traits are "extremely tactical", but I've tried to make it so it's not just a "Trigger when available"-Feature.

 

[CelJaded]

Excellent mod, Ryika. Hugely impressed with the amount of work you've put into this. Here are a few notes from the 200 turns I played this evening:

• The Commonwealth Diplomacy virtue is acting strangely. The description says that it gives +4 DC per station tier and yet I only seemed to be getting +8 when Far Base One was at tier 3. Boosting the station via the Station Trade trait and Station Sentinel satellite didn't seem to affect the yield either (although perhaps this is intentional?)
• You're probably aware of this one, but Formers often lose the ability to interact with the map (the left-hand pane randomly disappears) and renders them a bit useless.
  
• Explorers have movement 3, but only seem to be able to move 2 when embarked.
• The lowercase city names are an interesting switch, but with cities that have small names such as Slav's city called "Mir"; the city name gets completely obscured by any icons from units garrisoned in that city.
• The Echoes of Earth trait (nice) that grants 2 free old earth relics didn't do anything when I chose it.
  
• Have the rules governing trade routes changed? I was unable to build any trade convoys after establishing my second. Is trade route capacity a global value unlinked from Trade Depots? I think I might have missed something...
• I'm trying to think if this is a foible with the base game or not, but AI players never seem to clear alien nests.
• The 1984 references are pure gold. That is all.

 

[Ryika]

Thanks!

Commonwealth Diplomacy: That's a problem I am yet to find a solution to. There's a hidden -50% modifier for Trade Routes with stations that I've added, because the Flat yields that are generated for Internal/External Trade Routes are just being added together to build the Station Trade Route Yields. That, combined with the Native Yields of the Station would then create insanely strong Trade Routes without that modifier.
Formers: There was a bug with the unit panel, it should have been fixed with the hotfix yesterday
Explorers: Yeah, that's intentional (well, technically it's created by an error in the game, but I could fix it with a promotion). Explorers are mainly for land exploration, on Sea that's what Melee Boats are for
Echoes of Earth: That should only happen when no Relics are left (Did you pick it up later in the game?); the total amount of relics that are available has been doubled in yesterday's hotfix
Trade Routes: Yes, there's a local and a Global Limit. The local limits are still the same, the global limits "Trade Capacity" governs the total number of trade routes that you can have. A bit on the... overly complex side, but it's mostly meant to make trade routes something that you don't just spam.
Alien nests: They sometimes do, but not always. It seems to be caused by the fact that Ranged Units can't pillage anymore, which is an integral part of the combat, so I can't really change it too much. On the bright side, it actually helps AIs that get bonuses from farming Aliens.

 

[stormtrooper412]

If this ends up being as good as the NQ mod for civ5, I'm looking at a lot more hours of this game, appears to be great work

 

[Solette]

Very impressive! Would you mind providing an alternate download?

 

[Azem.Ocram]

I love this mod so far! I'm currently playing a game as Franco-Iberia on a Fungal planet but I must be using the wrong playstyle because I'm dead last by score and low on Affinity. However, even failing at this modded game is more fun than winning vanilla BERT!

Edit: I restarted the game as PAC on a Primordial planet on Vostok (instead of the one after) and it was challenging but possible in the early game and a little more doable (as long as no one declares war) around turn 300. I decided to go Purity/Supremacy and I'm now at Purity 4, Supremacy 2 (almost 3) and Harmony 1 after building the Memetwork.

Edit 2: If no one else is helping you, I'd gladly proofread your mod. Your missions have a few gramatical errors but overall the wording is good (despite English not being your native language). I noticed one dialogue said "is are" instead of "are no" but my subconcious error correction was too strong for me to remember anything else. If I create art for more improvements (hybrid parks and affinity farms come to mind), how would I get them to work with your mod? How would I get affinity levels 19-21 added?

 

[kaya]

Hi,

I think I found a bug in this mod. When I hit Harmony Level 5 a quest question appears. It says 4+ pop for every city or thermal+diplomatic capital. When I choose 4+ pop all food in my city panels turn to 0. City growth gets 0. Think it is a bug. I can provide a save game if you ask.

Thanks,

 

[maniackiller]

Just installed this gonna give it a try and let you know how it is!

Thanks

 

[maniackiller]

Well I did my first play through and this mod rocks. There is so much new content, and the tech tree is amazing, its not hard to navigate anymore.

Did you ramp up the aliens though? I started a game where I had to found my first outpost in the water and they surrounded my city and wouldn't move. I hadn't attacked them so they weren't attacking me but I couldn't work any of the tiles around my city which ultimately let to me having to attack them.

Also, are the patrol boats supposed to be able to do expeditions?

 

[S.K. Ren]

Just DL this and I'm loving it so far. Edit: My mistake, I forgot I was on Marathon.

 

[durfal]

After months I tried a new game with this mod now activated and I'm really impressed with it so far. It most definitely improves the game on all fronts. Also like that the capital is always a different city and the new city names are just random. Since you updated the Sha-Yuri Clan I hope you update the Genesis Corp for this mod too.

 

[Ryika]

Yes, the Genesis Corporation will also be ported, in fact, it's already mostly done. Requires some minor adjustments of Codex though that can only be uploaded to the workshop when I'm done with the rest of the bigger upgrade that I'm currently working on, so I'll probably release the Genesis Corporation and the Update at the same time.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Never mind needs RT.

Will this mod work on basic BE?


Bought BE when released, played about 64 hrs and then put it away. This mod might get me to try it again if the answers to my 1st question is yes. Can live with the double load thing though.

Thanks