Chapter 172: Mod Template (bonus)

The entire gaming industry fell into a prolonged silence after Civilization was released. Whether they were players or people who wrote reviews for magazines, without exception, everyone remained silent. 

Even those magazines most fond of chasing the traffic of a game's initial release did not dare to rashly publish an article giving a shallow evaluation of this bizarre game. 

How long had the game even been out? With most games, a few days was more than enough for them to get a good idea of what they thought. But Civilization wasn't the kind of game you could judge that quickly. 

Anyone who claimed that they had already figured it out after playing for only these few days was definitely talking nonsense. 

Seriously, even players who had been playing nonstop since getting their copy on launch day did not dare claim that they already understood this game, but there was one thing all the media tacitly agreed upon. 

This was unquestionably a perfect-score masterpiece! 

Whether in terms of its significance to the era or the sheer quality of the game itself, it was in a league of its own. 

10/10! 1

With a 700MB capacity, GAMENOVA had brought out a game that was ahead of its time. A strategy game packed to the absolute limit with content. 

If there was anyone who regretted this situation the most, the answer was obviously those buyers who had still been worried that the 16-bit console was nothing more than a marketing gimmick and had hesitated to buy one. 

Although GAMENOVA's production lines were now running at full capacity, they could still only continuously produce tens of thousands of new consoles each day. And that figure did not even include the units lost due to insufficient yield rates and transportation damage. 

Wanna play NovaXeno? Sure. Take a number and get in line. Don't worry, you won't be waiting forever. Your copy should arrive sometime around March next year. 

Allen and Mike anxiously crowded around Frank, watching the new game of the Babylonian civilization he had just started. 

"I told you to preorder it ages ago. Now you know what it's like to be desperate, huh?" Frank chuckled, happily leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the desk, looking completely relaxed as he casually moved things around. 4

Civilization really was a treasure. The more you played it, the more addictive it became, and the more you wanted to play! 

Every game brought new discoveries, and every game had completely different ways of managing things. 

Frank had picked up a new trick by now. His eyes landed on the radio on the desk, quietly playing a local station. He reached over, switched to another frequency, and then settled back down. 

After playing for so many days, the three of them had each displayed their own philosophy of survival to the fullest. 

The warmonger Mike had become obsessed with the Aztecs after that first game and would occasionally start a game as Norway or Scythia, enjoying the thrill of mass-producing troops and crushing other civilizations. 

Allen, meanwhile, particularly liked playing Peter of Russia. For some reason, whenever Allen played Russia, he always started with Religion, yet his Production was never low. In fact, it was always far ahead of everyone else's. 

According to him, this was because he used a combo of "Dance of the Aurora" and "Work Ethic," which could provide massive adjacency bonuses to Holy Sites. 2

As for Frank himself, he looked at Hammurabi's portrait on the screen and gave a sly grin. 

Babylon was easily the most fun. Trigger an Eureka, and the entire technology was unlocked right away, with none of the usual prerequisites getting in the way. 

That made Babylon ridiculously powerful when it came to climbing the tech tree. 1

Chop down a few trees and build a rocket. Anyone? 

"Hehe, I've got it now. I should've built the Great Pyramids. One extra charge for every Builder means even more chopping. If I play it right, I can get those rockets up ridiculously early." 

"Dude, I've been meaning to make fun of you for that. What, are your rockets made out of wood? You don't need coal, oil, or uranium, just keep chopping down trees and somehow, you've got a space program?"  

"That's the alien technology of our Ancient Babylonian civilization. You'd better learn it while you can." 

Frank burst out laughing. Growing your empire was so satisfying, you just had to keep developing. 

Mike curled his lip. There was nothing a warmonger hated more than someone sitting safely at home and rushing toward a space victory. 

He'd learned that the hard way when he played the Aztecs once. More than half of his opponents had been on another continent, but he didn't realize it until he'd already taken control of his own. By then, he hadn't even researched Cartography. His army probably thought the ocean was the edge of the world. 

Leaving someone alone to develop in peace was annoying enough. The barbarians made it even worse. Their units scaled with the strongest military technology in the game. Mike had once watched a Barbarian Encampment spawn a tank. 

What kind of barbarian knows how to drive a tank? 1

Mike shook his head and stared at the screen for another moment before finally looking away. 

Damn it, I really wanted to play another game! Why hadn't I forced myself to preorder NovaXeno back then?! 

Now, his only option was to wait until Frank went to sleep or got distracted, then fight Allen for a turn.  1

Thinking of this, Mike looked toward the exquisite packaging box sitting in the corner of the room and got to his feet. He could not buy a new one, but there was nothing wrong with enjoying the sight of the packaging box, right? 1

He picked up the box and was about to carry it back to his own bed when he suddenly felt something rattling inside. 

Was there still something in this box that hadn't been taken out? Mike frowned slightly, placed the box on the bed, and carefully opened it. 

After searching around, he really did discover another layer of something inside the cardboard divider. 

Frank had been so excited when he unpacked the console earlier that he had apparently failed to inspect the entire box properly and had nearly missed something. 

Mike opened the movable partition and finally saw what was inside. 

It was an EPROM memory chip, something he had already seen countless times in the laboratory. But what was this thing doing in the NX's packaging box? 

Had it come loose because the box had been shaken too much on the way back? 

Mike picked it up and examined it carefully. Suddenly remembering something, he hurried over to Frank and looked at the NovaXeno. Sure enough, there really was a socket on the console that could accept an EPROM. 

It was soldered securely and integrated into the PCB, with only the slot exposed through the casing, allowing the pins of an EPROM like this to be inserted and removed easily. 

"What's going on? Did it really come loose? Is this some kind of enhancement chip?" 

Mike scratched his head in confusion and held the memory chip out in front of Frank. 

"??" 

"How about, we plug it in and see?" 

"Hmm, I'll save my game first." 

The three of them gathered around the machine and, after inserting the memory chip, restarted it. 

"Doesn't seem like anything has changed?" 

"No, wait, look here. There's an extra option!" 

Allen noticed it right away. There was a new option on the title screen, one that definitely hadn't been there before. 

[Additional Content] 

"?!" 

Excited and with trembling hands, Frank selected it without hesitation. The screen then immediately changed to something none of them had ever seen before. 

[Mod Template] 

[Author]: GAMENOVA — Ethan Hayes [This is a demonstration mod template] 1

[This mod provides a variety of demonstration content] 

[New Civilization and Leader: (Ethan and his GAMENOVA Empire)] 1

[New Unique Unit: Sam (replaces the Scout, has a smaller line of sight, but greater Movement)] 2

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Guys, don't forget to leave your comments and reviews. Also, more extra chapters if we reach 300 stones, and I think for 3 chapters it's good enough. 

And if you want some extra chapters, be sure to check out my Patron page, it's 30 chapters ahead of webnovel and the chapters are also long so you can check it out. 

p at reon . com / NovaScribe 

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