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By Land and Sea - Ocean Colonies

"By Land and Sea" implements fully functional Ocean Colonies into the game. Players can embark with colonists onto the ocean to exploit bountiful resources, build new improvements, and wage savage naval war in an altered theater.


Currently, Ocean Colonies can be founded immediately upon researching Planetary Survey. There are no stipulations as to where Colonists can and can't settle. When Colonists settle, they go through a standard outpost phase before the city is founded. All ocean cities begin with a default building, the Pressure Dome, that will help the city grow. You may have to compete for spots with the AI who can be very prolific when settling the seas.


To make the mod well rounded, the mod also adds several new improvements and buildings tied to the ocean. Embarked workers can improve ocean tiles without resources with Artificial Reefs, Deep-Sea Vent Wells, and Marine Habitation Domes. A total of 4 new buildings can be constructed. The Hydronursery and Floating Yard can be built in Ocean and Coastal Cities, while the Deep-Sea Lab and Solarium are limited only to Ocean Colonies. All buildings come with Building Quest support using Modular Building Quests.


I will be pushing out one last set of changes before Rising Tide is released. After that, you may consider this mod final in its gameplay goals. I will not be attempting to port any features or assets from the upcoming expansion, and wish to ensure any similarities between the two be merely out of coincidence.


In an effort to provide a solid playing experience, this mod severly pushes the boundries on what the game expects. The mod behaves rock-solid with vanilla Beyond Earth, but certain assumptions about game states and data no longer hold true and may affect the behaviours of other mods or future updates. I can make few garuantees about compatibility, though issues are unlikely to occur.

Other things to note:
- The mod renames Coastal tiles to "Ocean" and adapts all bodies of water to this single tile. This was done for the sake of both resource balance as well as technical workarounds to make Ocean Colonies fully fleshed out. Reintroducing the distinction between Coastal and Deep-Ocean tiles is not in the cards at the moment. As such, all units that were once restricted to Deep-Ocean are now free to roam instead. Everywhere be Monsters.

- This mod is work in progress and is being released now to test for balance and playability. I am looking for opinions on things such as "How good is the AI at taking advantage of the new colonies?", "How powerful are ocean cities compared to land cities", or "Do ocean colonies make a meaningful difference in the way the game plays?". If you have any bugs, ideas, or suggestions to report that would help me make the mod better and funner to play, please voice your opinion in the comments or on the CivFanatics forum.

- New Art Assets are still in the works and will be added to the mod at a later date when gameplay elements are more finalized.

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initial upload (v1):
- Colonists and other settling units can now found their structures on the Ocean
- 3 new improvements: The Artificial Reef, Deep-Sea Vent Well, and Marine Dome
- 4 new buildings: The Hydronursery, Floating Yard, Deep-Sea Lab, and Solarium
- Ocean cities start with a default building, the Pressure Dome, that increases food generated from water tiles.
- There is no longer a distinction between Coastal and Ocean tiles. As such, resources like Oil, Algae, and Coral can be found through out the ocean and in greater quantities.
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update (v2):
- Artificial Reef has been moved to Alien Lifeforms tech.
- Deep-Sea Vent Well has been moved to Fabrication tech.
- Marine Dome has been giving +1 energy to match the change in Domes from tech Biospheres.
- The Pressure Dome no longer gives any bonus to Ocean Cities.
- Default City Strength lowered to 10. All land cities start with a free building "Solid Foundations" that add's the difference back.
- Fixed an issue where naval units were receiving a defense penalty on ocean tiles.
- Fixed an issue where the AI could walk on water.
- Fixed an issue where settler units could drive boats on land
- Fixed an issue that affected unit sight and range when looking out over ocean.
- Fixed an issue where the AI would not settle ocean cities after loading a save game.
- Fixed an issue where coral barely appeared on archipelego and tiny island maps.
- Fixed an issue where alien units might sometimes spawn in the middle of the ocean.
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update (v3):
- Added Building Quests to the 4 buildable buildings (will not appear in old save games).
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Planned future changes: .
- Custom Art Assets for the buildings and improvements added by the mod.
- Balance changes as feedback is received.


This mod suffers from a serious issue that affects all mods that add new unit promotions or build options (such as improvements) to the game. Upon first loading a game after initializing the mod, the Unit Panel in the games lower left-hand corner will appear buggy. There is an easy but annoying workaround. When after activating your mods for the first time, exit back to the mod selection window and reactivate your mods a second time. This will fix the issue for the remainder of your game session. You can do your part by notifying Firaxis of this widespread issue.


CivFanatics download page[forums.civfanatics.com]
CivFanatics forum thread[forums.civfanatics.com]
Steam Workshop link

Lua - FramedArchitect for a solid code base to work off of.