Dawn of War II: Retribution Windows game

Despite being a sub-version, the new Codex Edition 3.1 delivers a hefty dose of new content, changes, and fixes. The most notable addition is the new faction, Traitor Guard, but equally as exciting is the introduction of custom gamemodes, a natural consequence of our continuous dissection of the game's engine. One of the major issues present in the previous version, that being the logging overflow related to the Mechanicus Skorpius vehicles, has finally been resolved, alongside some other crucial problems plaguing the mod. Translations for Russian, German, and French are now present, installed automatically based on your language of choice if using the installer, with English being used for other languages in order to avoid the "No Range" problem with text. This version is also larger than usual, as we have consolidated all Codex Edition and Dawn of War II: Retribution content into the package, excluding the game itself; making Codex Edition fully independent of vanilla gameplay files, while also retaining consistency with the English voice lines for both modded and vanilla units.

Regarding the dissection of the game; unlocking the ability to create new and gamemodes was just one of the fancy expansions to our modding framework. We have also expanded the in-game UI elements, allowing for more selected units to appear in the UI, more global abilities, a more condensed UI that is closer to the first Dawn of War games, and custom UI artwork for each faction. Additionally, the injector has been replaced, and is now using one of the game's existing ".dll" files as a proxy, avoiding async issues that resulted in failed injections in the past. This is a harmless replacement that does not affect vanilla or other mods.

Due to the nature of these expansions, there are caveats. Modifying the engine is a long and tedious process that doesn't have a predictable timeline, and there are some things that just don't have an estimate for completion or finalization right now. For example, we have fixed the crash related to watching 8-player replays, but the player slots in the observer menu will not show the seventh and eighth player, and the FOW dropdown in the observer menu will have blank entries if there are seven or eight players in the game. We also wanted to add more squad tabs, but near the end of the process we found out that we would have to modify things that could easily result in really horrible consequences for how the game manages sorting the squad tabs on unit spawn or death, so we decided not to test fate. There is also a rare crash that may happen when attempting to join a lobby that is hosting a gamemode based on the Free For All framework, specifically Onslaught or any of the non-vanilla Free For All gamemodes. This kind of crash only appears to happen once from what we've seen, though maybe twice if you're unlucky; we have been unable to replicate it consistently after numerous attempts. Even if you do end up experiencing this, simply trying again should resolve the problem, though consider the new gamemodes as experimental for that reason.

With all that said, below is the rundown of the new Traitor Guard faction, as well as the new gamemodes:

TRAITOR GUARD

- Traitor Commander
- Blight Drone
- Bloodletters
- Cultists
- Shock Cultists
- Daemonhost
- Enforcer
- Fellgor Beastmen
- Flesh Hounds
- Traitor Grenadiers
- Traitor Guardsmen
- Traitor Heavy Weapons Team
- Horrors of Tzeentch
- Mutants of Nurgle
- Ogryn Berzerkers
- Ogryn Brutes
- Plague Ogryns
- Fallen Psyker
- Heretek
- Traitor Scions
- Traitor Veterans
- Baneblade
- Bane Wolf
- Chimera
- Devil Dog
- Hellhound
- Leman Russ Variants
- Melee Sentinel
- Ranged Sentinel

GAMEMODES

Each mode has a description for it once you enter a match, but here are some quick summaries:

- Annihilate (High Intensity): Like regular annihilate, but with more popcap and less upkeep.

- Annihilate FFA: Like regular annihilate, but free for all.

- Annihilate TFFA: Like regular annihilate, but team free for all.

- Hold the Line: Defenders hold the entire map and have some pre-spawned units; they have to hold the line against the attackers to start with a boost in resources; the attackers lose if their points are drained by three Victory Points held by the defenders. Each Victory point captured by the attackers destroys it, so the defenders cannot take it back and have to retreat. If the attackers capture all points, they instantly win. This is effectively the Rush gamemode from Battlefield.

- Siege: Similar to Hold the Line, but the defenders start with even more pre-spawned units, though they get no resource income as they start with a predetermined amount that they can't replenish. They also get more points that can actually be recaptured, while the attackers get even more starting resources and a steady income.

- Annihilate (Space Hulk): Like regular annihilate, but in a Space Hulk, where there is no space for vehicles, no abilities/visuals that wouldn't make sense within the confines of a Space Hulk, no base-building, reduced sight range, and a more claustrophobic zoom distance. Infantry-only.

- Annihilate FFA (Space Hulk): Like regular annihilate, but in a Space Hulk (see above) and free for all.

- Annihilate TFFA (Space Hulk): Like regular annihilate, but in a Space Hulk (see above) and team free for all.

- Space Hulk Extraction: In a Space Hulk (see above), you must capture all Cogitators on the map, which will open the gates that reveal the Warehouse. Once the Warehouse is captured, and only if all Cogitators are still owned by you, the Warehouse will summon a Servitor that must be extracted to the designated position pinged on the map upon its spawning.

- Warp Storm: Annihilate, but there is a gradually intensifying Warp Storm that changes the atmosphere, spawns environmental hazards that include lightning, fire, and other various dangers.

- Exterminatus: Victory Point, but there is an exterminatus fleet that will destroy the planet within fifteen minutes, causing a loss for both sides unless one of the teams wins through points. Environmental hazards include orbital bombardment, bombs, and atmospheric nuclear explosions.

- Onslaught: Wave-defence style mode where the defenders must survive until the attacker's points are exhausted, at which point the defenders will win, while the attacker wins if they annihilate the defenders. Waves gradually increase in intensity. There are no victory points to capture, only survival, as points are just used as a timer. The attacker is always the player in the first populated slot from top to bottom, while the other players end up as defenders, with up to six players in total.

To wrap it up, we are so very close to ironing out all of the small bugs and inconsistencies present since the Unofficial Continuation and original Codex Edition from around a decade ago. Out of all the original factions, Tyranids and Eldar are now the only ones that remain with a disproportionate amount of issues to them, albeit still to a much lesser extent than in their original iterations. Codex Edition 3.2 will most likely contain a full polish pass on those two factions, alongside eliminating remaining issues with the rest of the original factions. As always, the changelog is available on the download page for Codex Edition 3.1 - don't forget to join the Discord, and we hope you enjoy the mod!