Installing and launching mods on EAW (Moddb and Steam) tutorial - Ultimate Galactic Conquest Custom Edition - UGC CE mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption

1. Go to the mod page you want, for example, the UGC CE Moddb page.
2. In the "files" section, select the file you want to download. For UGC CE, all files and complete releases. You don't need any other files to get it to work. For other mods, special instructions may be given.
3. Click the "Download now!" button, and wait for the download to complete.

1. UGC CE files come in a compacted .rar file, that you can decompress easily with 7zip or Winrar. To decompress the archive, right click on the file and if you have either of the previously mentioned softwares installed, you should have an option to "unzip" or decompress the .rar file.
2. Once the file is unzipped, you should now have a "data" folder wherever you choose to extract the .rar archive. This file contains all the mod's data.
3. Now, you need to place this "data" folder in your Forces of Corruption install. Note that UGC CE only works with the Forces of Corruption Expansion, but some mods might be for the base EAW game.
4. To locate your game installation on Steam, right click on "STAR WARS Empire at War: Gold Pack" in your library, go to the "local files" tab and then select "Browse local files". An explorer window to "..\steamapps\common\Star Wars Empire at War" should open within seconds. From here, go to the "corruption" folder, and then open the "mods" folder. If the "mods" folder doesn't exist, create it. It should look like that :

   ..\steamapps\common\Star Wars Empire at War\corruption\Mods

5. Now, you need to create, within that "corruption\mods" folder, a folder for the UGC CE data folder to come in. You can name it whatever you want, but this will be the name displayed in the in-game mods browser, so be sure to call it something you will remember to be UGC CE.
6. Inside that newly created folder, simply place the data folder you downloaded and extract earlier. it should look like this:

   ..\steamapps\common\Star Wars Empire at War\corruption\Mods\UGCCE\Data

7. Now launch Forces of Corruption. Once you are on the main menu, click on "options" and then "mods". The name of the folder should be here. You can select it and launch it. The game should close and reopen a few seconds after, with the mod loaded. The loading screen is a different one from the base game, so you will immediately know if it is loading.

Sometimes, launching via the game menu doesn't work ; the game closes but the mod never loads afterwards. There's a way to directly launch a mod via Steam without launching the base game first.

1. Go to your Steam library, and right click on "STAR WARS Empire at War: Gold Pack". Go to properties.
2. In the "General" tab, click "Set launch options..."
3. The input box should be empty if you never touched it before. In that text field, you can put various codes that the game will execute at launch. Note that these options will always stay on until you manually delete them by open that box again and changing its content.
4. For UGC CE, you will need to input the line as follows :

   StarwarsG MODPATH=Mods\UGCCE

5. The last part of the code (in the example "UGCCE") has to be the name of the folder you want to load. Click Ok when you're done.
6. Upon launching Forces of Corruption, the game will immediately load the mod folder and its content, so the mod will be loaded directly when you arrive on the main menu, no reboot required!

Steam offers a user friendly Workshop system that allows you to quickly subscribe and download mods for all types of games. The "subscription" is free and will maintain your subscribed content to date as soon as there's an update available.

1. To subscribe to a mod, go to the Empire at War workshop, and select a mod, for example UGC CE.
2. Click the green "subscribe" button. Once you pressed the button, the workshop item should download as soon as possible relative to your Steam download settings. UGC CE download should be about 600 MB in size.

The Steam Workshop automatically installs mods in a dedicated folder that you don't need to touch or do anything with it. To play the mod, you simply need to boot Forces of Corruptions.

1. Launch Forces of Corruption. Make sure you don't have any command lines set in the launch options.
2. Go to "Options" and then "Mods". UGC CE should be displayed, named "Ultimate Galactic Conquest Custom Edition (UGC CE) - No Consortium and More !".
3. Select the mod you want to launch and click "launch". The game should close and restart with the mod enabled.

As mentioned before, sometimes, the game closes but the mods never loads. There is an alternative if you encounter that issue.

1. Go to your Steam library, and right click on "STAR WARS Empire at War: Gold Pack". Go to properties.
2. In the "General" tab, click "Set launch options..."
3. The input box should be empty if you never touched it before. In that text field, you can put various codes that the game will execute at launch. Note that these options will always stay on until you manually delete them by open that box again and changing its content.
4. For UGC CE, you will need to input the line as follows :

   STEAMMOD=1156943126

5. The last part of the code (in the example "1156943126") is the mod's ID. You can find the ID of a mod in the URL of the Steam page of the mod. Click Ok when you're done.
6. Upon launching Forces of Corruption, the game will immediately load the mod folder and its content, so the mod will be loaded directly when you arrive on the main menu, no reboot required!

Notes

This guide was made to help people download and launch mods from the Steam version of the game. Two other versions of Empire at War exists: The CD retail version, and the GoG version.

The Steam version is the only one to have the latest update and multiplayer support. The other versions are also compatible with most mods (UGC CE as well), but the installation process and some details might change a bit.

Hope this guide is helpful!
Cheers.

MiniGui98