In the Firaxis livestreams about modding Pete Murray first created a new building and then a new wonder. Well, what about units? Fear not, for here's what you need to do to add some simple units into the game! It is, however, strongly recommended that you first watch at least the first livestream to get an overview of the tools.
Pre-requirements
But, let's begin. If you did not watch the first livestream or have not installed the Beyond Earth Software Development Kit (SDK) yet, do that now. Go to your Steam client, then click Library to open the menu and select Tools. Find the Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth SDK entry, right click it and install it.
After the installation has finished, run it and select "ModBuddy". If it asks you to install some Visual Studio stuff, you must first download and install that one too.
Creating the mod
When you open ModBuddy it looks something like this:

ModBuddy -- the modding tool for Beyond Earth
Initializing a new project
Choose File > New > Project. Give your mod a name. The unit that I'm creating is called Cardboard Destroyer. It's a decoy unit that looks like a LEV Destroyer but is cheap and very weak, i.e. supposedly made out of cardboard. I thought it'd be fun to play with "LEV Destroyers" right from the beginning, though, because normally you'd only get to play with them in Purity late game. :)
So, give your mod a name and click "OK". I named it Cardboard_Destroyer. A rather blank screen appears. You should see a "Solution Explorer" window. If you don't, enable it from the View menu. Right click on the mod name in the Solution Explorer and select Add > New Item... and then "Game Rules (XML)". Name it, say, cardboarddestroyer.xml and hit "Add".
Getting into the business
A new tab opens up, with some minimal XML markup. This is for adding or updating the rows in the database that basically runs the game. In the Firaxis streams Pete Murray added some Building and Wonder data here, I'm going to add Unit data.
The important thing to know is, which database tables contribute to the entity that you are creating. In my case the tables are called "Units" and "UnitClasses". The existing unit definitions can be found from the Beyond Earth installation directory, in the assets\Gameplay\XML\Units\CivBEUnits.xml and assets\Gameplay\XML\Units\CivBEUnitClasses.xml files. I just copied some <Row>s from them and pasted them into the ModBuddy cardboarddestroyer.xml tab. I then edited some values, like the Combat value (the unit's Strength,
Cost and text keys. Finally, I added some plain English description texts for my new unit, ending up with a result like this:

The Cardboard Destroyer XML definition in ModBuddy
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <GameData> <Units> <Row> <Type>UNIT_CARDBOARD</Type> <Class>UNITCLASS_CARDBOARD</Class> <Combat>3</Combat> <Cost>25</Cost> <PrereqTech>TECH_HABITATION</PrereqTech> <Description>TXT_KEY_UNIT_CARDBOARD_DESC</Description> <Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_UNIT_CARDBOARD_PEDIA</Civilopedia> <Help>TXT_KEY_UNIT_CARDBOARD_HELP</Help> <Moves>2</Moves> <CombatClass>UNITCOMBAT_MELEE</CombatClass> <Domain>DOMAIN_LAND</Domain> <DefaultUnitAI>UNITAI_ATTACK</DefaultUnitAI> <MilitarySupport>true</MilitarySupport> <MilitaryProduction>true</MilitaryProduction> <Pillage>true</Pillage> <AdvancedStartCost>25</AdvancedStartCost> <XPValueAttack>1</XPValueAttack> <XPValueDefense>1</XPValueDefense> <Conscription>1</Conscription> <UnitArtInfo>ART_DEF_UNIT_LEV_DESTROYER</UnitArtInfo> <MoveRate>WHEELED</MoveRate> </Row> </Units> <UnitClasses> <Row> <Type>UNITCLASS_CARDBOARD</Type> <Description>TXT_KEY_UNIT_CARDBOARD_DESC</Description> <DefaultUnit>UNIT_CARDBOARD</DefaultUnit> </Row> </UnitClasses> <LocalizedText> <Row Language="en_US" Tag="TXT_KEY_UNIT_CARDBOARD_DESC"> <Text>Cardboard Destroyer</Text> </Row> <Row Language="en_US" Tag="TXT_KEY_UNIT_CARDBOARD_PEDIA"> <Text>A decoy unit with limited fighting capabilities. Looks like a LEV Destroyer but is extremely weak and does not hover over the terrain.</Text> </Row> <Row Language="en_US" Tag="TXT_KEY_UNIT_CARDBOARD_HELP"> <Text>Weak decoy unit that looks like a LEV Destroyer.</Text> </Row> </LocalizedText> </GameData>
Now, we're close to having a playable mod at our hands, but we must do a couple of more things. Right click on the mod in the Solution Explorer again and choose Properties. Go to the Actions tab, click Add, select Event "OnModActivated", Action "UpdateDatabase" and File "cardboarddestroyer.xml". This tells the game that it should use your newly created XML file to update the database when the mod is loaded.
Next, click on the Build menu at the top menu bar and select Build Solution! This "builds" your mod, i.e. packages it as ready to play. If all goes well, you should see a text like this in the Output window:
------ Build started: Project: Cardboard_Destroyer, Configuration: Default x86 ------ ========== Build: 1 succeeded or up-to-date, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========
However, in my case it didn't all go that well: I got an error that said "CivBEPath must be defined. Use the Project Properties window to set it to the location where Civlization Beyond Earth is installed.". Fortunately that was easily remedied: go to Tools > Options... > Civilization Beyond Earth and fill in your Beyond Earth installation and user data paths. For me, the settings look like this:

Solution for a build error in ModBuddy
After I confirmed those settings and tried to build again, it succeeded!
Trying it out
Fire up the game. In the main menu select Mods and after a dialog screen a screen for selecting mods should appear, looking something like this:

The Mods screen of the game
Exciting! Check the checkbox next to the Cardboard Destroyer mod like in the picture and hit "Next":

The screen after you click "Next" in the Mods screen
Then proceed to setting up a game like you normally would. Once the game launches and you make a planetfall, you should see your new unit at the top left corner right away, because we made it available right from the beginning by setting TECH_HABITATION as its prerequirement technology:

Researching Habitation has unlocked the Cardboard Destroyer!
It works, awesome! Now let's build one:

Selecting the Cardboard Destroyer from the build menu
Wait for a few turns and voilá! You have your very own LEV Des.. I mean, Cardboard Destroyer! You can even try fighting some aliens with it:
![]() The odds are against you, | ![]() the show is spectacular... | ![]() ...and the end result is just what you'd expect. |
So, there you have it: a very basic mod that adds one simple unit! Be bold and experiment with other data and values and please report back with your results. :)