Earlier today, I published my first real mod for Sid Meier's Civilization V. As you may recall, I had previously uploaded a mod as an April Fools joke. But this new one is for real!
The mod is titled "Code of Laws (Version A)(v. 1)".
As the title indicates, this mod's primary function is to add a new technology to the game, called "Code of Law", and to move the Courthouse building into that technology.
What the mod does
My primary purpose for doing this was to deepen the Classical Era of the tech tree. As it stands, the Classical Era of the game's tech tree is only one technology deep. This means that era goes by exceedingly fast! I've seen players and AI tech to the Medieval Era as early as 1000 B.C. in some games.
Since I only added one tech, I had to rearrange the remainder of the tech tree. So I moved Currency, Metal Casting, and Engineering from the first tier of the Medieval Era into my newly-created second tier of the Classical Era. This required me to alter the path through the Medieval Era techs so that Machinery is now a prerequisite for Physics.
There were also several other effects that I wanted to accomplish with this minor change:
- Prolong the amount of time that players (and AIs) spend in the Classical Era.
- Prevent the Great Library to Civil Service slingshot that can be exploited to give a player a huge early-game advantage towards city growth.
- Prevent players from being able to beeline to Mathematics and Iron Working and start capturing cities to use as unit factories. Since Courthouses have been moved into the Cultural track of the tech tree, aggressive players will have to wait a little bit longer before they can start annexing their conquered cities - or suffer massive unhappiness.
Areas for improvement
This mod is basically just a test mod, and is still a work in progress (hence the title Version A). There are some major issues with this mod.
The fact that the Courthouse is only able to be built in captured cities means that the building - and the tech that contains it - is completely useless unless you're going for a militarily aggressive strategy .My original plan was to give Courthouses the additional function of providing a cultural and/or economic bonus in non-captured cities. Unfortunately, the implementation of the variable that gives the Courthouse its unhappiness reduction in captured cities also prevents the building from being built in non-captured cities. So I wasn't able to go through with that plan. However, I am currently working on ideas for adding a new building that provides the same functionality as the current Courthouse so that I can change the Courthouse into a cultural and/or economic building.
There are also other areas for improvement.
Tech costs may need to be tweaked to make up for the addition of a whole new technology.
Also, the primary function of the mod (to prolong the Classical Era) is completely moot if the player is rushing through the naval path on the tech tree, since the line from Sailing to Optics to Compass isn't any longer than it used to be. I'm also working on ideas for expanding this path of the tree in order to better balance the Classical Era.
How to download
If you are interested in downloading and trying this mod, it is currently available in the Civilization V Mod Browser.
From the game's main menu, select "Mods", then "Browse Mods" and click the "Online" tab at the top of the window. In the Search box under "Categories", you can type in "Code of Laws" or my online handle "megabearsfan". Find the mod in the list, and then click the "Download" button.
I hope you enjoy my first attempt at a serious game mod! Feel free to leave comments on this blog post with any feedback or suggestions that you may have!
UPDATE (August 8, 2012): Mod no longer available
This mod is no longer available since Civilization V has switched to using the Steam Workshop for mods. I plan to eventually upload an updated version of this mod, and will update this post if/when that happens.
A new version of this mod designed for Gods & Kings was just released on the Steam Workshop. This version is only compatible with the Gods & Kings expansion, and does not work on the base Civilization V game. I apologize for the inconvenience.
UPDATE (October 18, 2012): Update to Vanilla version now on Steam Workshop
Due to a request by Steam user The Octopus Creating New Worlds, I went ahead and published an update to the original version of the mod (for the base game) onto the Steam Workshop.
The update to the vanilla Code of Law mod switches the order of Code of Law and Philosophy and moves the Open Borders treaty to Code of Law so that the technology is at least useful if you aren't capturing cities.
Any Civ V players who have not upgraded to Gods & Kings (or who are still playing the base game for whatever reason) can subscribe to the mod via the MegaBearsFan's Steam Workshop page (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=103461796).
I did not have the original source code (I had overwritten it when I did the Gods & Kings update), and so I had to create a new project with a new ID. Thus, if you still have the original version of this mod installed, it will not auto-update. You will need to subscribe to the new version and install it. You can then delete the old version if you wish.