Welcome to The Zenith of Fallen Empires 2.0. This thread aims to provide in detail the workings of this mod. I will try to be as accurate as I can be about the features, but as you know, things may get changed in the future. For those of you who have played with The Zenith of Fallen Empires, most functionalities of the mod should be familiar to you. If you want to be informed about some of the design decision I have taken, please visit this thread. If you do not want spoilers, please stop reading now.

(Outdated as of 2.2 Update)



The core ascension mechanic has been reworked. This is a design decision based on the need to integrate the traditions system and the new features available in ‘Cherryh’. It is also fool-proof so you will always know what you need in order to become an Ascended Empire.

• Societal Evolution, a tier 4 technology. Formerly known as Fallen_Technologies_1, this represents some kind of evolution at a societal level. This technology gives +5% unity gain.
  
  
• Engineering Perfection, a tier 5 technology. Formerly known as Fallen_Technologies_2, this represents some kind of mastery of engineering, and requires Societal Ascendance, Matter Generation (vanilla tech), Impulse Thruster (vanilla tech), and mega-engineering (vanilla tech). This has various building related bonuses.
  
  
• Galactic Ascendancy, an Ascension Perk for non-Gestalt Consciousness Empires. Formerly split between Fallen_Technologies_3 and Fallen_Technologies_4, taking this AP will give you an event to become an Ascended Empire. This requires 3 technologies: Engineering Perfection, Ascension Theory, and Dark Matter Power (From FE ships). Mastering all three technologies represents the mastery of Dark Matter and the ability to use it as a reliable source of energy. It is always a deliberate and optional choice to be an Ascended Empire. You are of course, welcome to stay as a normal empire so you can fight against big bad AI Ascended Empires. AI Empires will always pick this if they meet the requirements.
  
  
• The Galactic Ascendancy Perk itself gives bonuses that will apply for all Ascended Empires. After some thought, I believe the current bonuses are the most amusing and most logical of choices. Have you ever wondered why Galactic Contender Ascension Perk allows you to deal 33% more damage to Fallen and Awakened Empires? Why exactly do you do more damage to them? Anyway, it seemed funny to me at the time to turn the tables, so Ascended Empires will now deal 33% more damage to normal empires, as you know all of their primitive designs, tactics, and weaknesses. Defense platform capacity increase is to match vanilla FE defense station capacity.
  
  
• On the event pop up after selecting The Galactic Ascendancy Perk, you will be given a bit of a story text which somewhat differs depending on the fanatical ethic that you have. At that point you will be given options to select your third civic, your national focus. These options are available depending on your non-fanatical civic, your other Ascension Perks, or some of your existing civics. Once selected, the civics are locked and cannot be changed.
  
  
• In general, you will have 3 ‘generic’ civics that are available for all ethics, and then 1 special civic for each ethic. Galactic Superpower gives a buff to your fleet, Beacon of Prosperity gives a buff to your energy and mineral production, and World Architect gives a buff to your megastructure build cost/speed, terraforming cost/speed and gene-modding costs. These options symbolises the diverging paths that each Ascended Empire can take.
  
  
• The special civics available will depend on other factors too, but in general it aims to enhance a specific type of gameplay. These will be fleshed out more in the future in terms of extra mechanics. The Fervid Xeno Collectors allow you to abduct Xenos for example, while Fanatic Purifiers keep their militarist civic and became just that tad bit more dangerous post-ascension.
  
  
• On selection of this option, you will become an Ascended Empire, your ship and city graphics will change, your government will have a single, fanatical ethic, and your pops also will have a single ethic. The exception is for Fanatical Purifiers, Inwards Perfection, and Barbaric Despoilers. They will keep their ethics, governments and original civic, but receive buffs in the form of the other two civics.
  
  
• Once you have become an Ascended Empire, you will be given the Dark Matter Thrusters, and you will continue your research journey to research Escorts, Battlecruisers, Titans, and advanced defense platforms.

UPDATE: Hive Minds and Machine Empires now have their own Ascension Perk. Their requirements and functions are the same.

Ascended Hive Minds are still called 'Ascended Empires', but ascension options are limited to what kind of Hive Mind you were. There are currently two paths: Eat people and don't eat people. The Devouring Swarm path is unlocked by existing devouring swarms, and will gain two other civics beside Devouring swarm. They will be stronger and can now purge (eat) as soon as they take over a planet similar to Contingency. Non-devouring swarms can sire their own subjects, but otherwise similar to a normal Ascended Empire.

Ascended Machine Empires are still called 'Ascended Empires', and the paths, like Hive Minds, intend to keep existing playstyles rather than add something drastically different. No subjects are available for Machine Empires but they will be stronger overall and can keep doing what they already do. Hint: Exterminators get sexy ships.

The Fallen Empire ship themselves are rather self-explanatory. They were one-section monsters in the vanilla game, and I have split that into multiple sections for ease of view. Weapon locators have to be redone as a result. The ship colour variants available will depend on the civic option you have picked, as each ethic will have a canon (vanilla) variant, and a non-canon variant. For example the canon variant of the Spiritualist ethic will look like vanilla Spiritualist FE colors, while the non-canon in general are for World Architects and special civics. Despite an increase in the number of ship sets available, I have managed to compress most of these textures and therefore most players should receive performance increases. I have named the FE defense stations as ‘Defense Outpost’ in line with the ‘Outpost’ stations of vanilla FE, and added a ‘Defense Tower’, an unused station design hidden in the base game. I changed and took 4 Large slots from that and replaced it with 2 XL slots, as this game sorely lacked stations that can use XL weapons. (Tachyon Lance station is back!). I have also taken the pains to add weapon locators for these. As each of these designs become available after research, AI Ascended Empire will phase out the production of vanilla ship classes gradually.

I also discovered that the Perdition Beam is restricted to Apocalypse Titan class only, meaning you can't actually mount those on a Fallen Titan, and there is no titanic slot weapon available for the ship class! I have to make a Titan Lance for this, which is stats-wise the same as a Perdition Beam, so at least you can mount a weapon on this ship.

One of the other complaints I have received about the mod is the lack of continuity pre-ascension to post-ascension, in this case, someone’s God-emperor has become a mere Emperor, since all Ascended Empires have the Galactic Ascendancy government with an Emperor. Now, this will depend a bit on the authority with which you ascend (so no emperor for democracies for example), but in general you will have a ruler title more closely resembling your previous government, although it is impossible to cover every case. This is done by adding a ton of governments like in vanilla, but name-wise they will all show up as Galactic Ascendancy so an Ascended Empire will almost always be recognizable. I imagine a new update in Stellaris will allow you to edit ruler titles anyway, but this will work as ‘sticking plaster’ in the meanwhile.

With regards to the Fallen Empire Buildings available in the base mod, they are Dark Matter Power Plant, Autonomous Fabricator, and Agri-Processing Plant. These are some very familiar buildings for old-timers and will have the same stats as vanilla FE buildings. I have overwritten game files so that now you can build level 5 energy/mineral/food buildings everywhere so you can have these buildings as an upgrade to that, if you have the technology. In addition, these FE buildings now require the Engineering Perfection technology, and Dark Matter Power (vanilla) technology. You can get Dark Matter Power from REing dead FE ships, or from the Galactic Ascendancy Perk. This allows normal empires to find a way to get these buildings (albeit more difficult) and Ascended Empires will always be able to research them.

In terms of Apocalypse support, I have applied all initial 16 ship color variants to Colossus as well as energy beam, but I haven’t tested that fully yet. I just know that I fixed all 500+ lines in the error log lol. Let me know if you find something. You will be able to build Fallen Titans post-ascension as well as Apocalypse Titans pre-ascension. Each of these will be subjected to limit of max 20 per empire, so you can have up to 40. Fallen Titans are stronger individually but do not offer auras, so that people without Apocalypse can still play. PDX has also not provided the starbase, starhold, or starfortress arts for Fallen/Awakened Empires, as they were told never to upgrade them. I have to replicate the model they used for Outpost for these as otherwise they will revert to primitive graphics. Also, using the new citadel art, I have now managed to also use that (albeit much smaller) as the FE habitats, so you can build FE-looking habitats.

An Ascended Empire can now sire their own subjects and expand their sphere of influence in the galaxy. They are described as follows:

• Dominion (Spiritualist): 25% energy and minerals tax. Must take Spiritualist ethics. Can expand and do independent diplomacy, but cannot be integrated, does not join Overlord wars or call Overlord to war.
  
  
• Satellite (Materialist): 33% research output tax. Can expand and do independent diplomacy, but cannot be integrated, does not join Overlord wars or call Overlord to war.
  
  
• Signatory (Xenophile): Does not pay tax. Can expand and is protected by Overlord. Cannot be integrated or conduct independent diplomacy, and will not join Overlord’s wars.
  
  
• Thrall (Xenophobe): 25% energy and minerals tax. Cannot expand, be integrated (lol), and will not join Overlord’s wars or call Overlord to war. They can do independent diplomacy.
  
  
• Clan Member (Militarist): 25% energy and minerals tax. Can expand, will call Overlord to war and join Overlord wars. Can do diplomacy but cannot be integrated.
  
  
• Demilitarized State (Pacifist): No tax, but suffers a -50% fleet capacity malus. Can expand, join Overlord’s wars and call Overlord to war if attacked. Cannot do independent diplomacy and cannot be integrated.
  
  
• Puppet State (Authoritarian): 25% minerals and Unity tax. Can expand, will join Overlord’s wars but does not call Overlord to war. Can do diplomacy and can be integrated.
  
  
• Union State (Egalitarian): 25% energy and Influence tax. Can expand, does not join Overlord’s wars but will call Overlord to war. Cannot do independent diplomacy but can be integrated.
  
  
• Satrapy (Barbaric Despoilers): 20% minerals, 10% energy tax with reduction of 30% naval capacity. Can expand and do independent diplomacy, but cannot be integrated, will not join Overlord’s wars or call Overlord to war.
  
  
• Symbiote (Hive Mind): 25% minerals ,25% energy tax. Can expand and do independent diplomacy, but can be integrated. Will join Overlord's wars but do not call Overlord to war.

These subjects can be acquired in the following 3 ways:

• Naturally. Vassals, Tributaries, and Protectorates will get an event to automatically become these subjects when you Ascend. The only exception is Inwards Perfection where Tributaries stay as they are.
  
  
• Diplomatically. Awakened Empire diplomatic buttons have been added so you can diplomatically (or in other words, ask them nicely) turn them into subjects. Note that I cannot override what the button itself says, so you will see ‘Offer Dominion Status’ even if you are Authoritarian for example, but you will still receive a Puppet State.
  
  
• Subjugation Casus Belli and Domination Wargoal. If they refuse your diplomatic demand, you will gain a subjugation CB lasting 1 year. You will declare war like normal and at the end of the war and you will get your subject.

There are also numerous improvements in the 6th March update, including vanilla Diplo phrases, AI personalities, all of which is intended to make your encounter with other Ascended Empires feel more unique. Default Empires can now also use the Casus Belli ‘Containment’ against Ascended Empires.

Xenophile Empires can now designate a Gaia world to be The Preserve much like the Spiritualists can declare a Holy World. The requirements are a bit different here however: You will need a size 20+ Gaia planet in your border that has 8+ species living on it, as well as an empty tile. Once the criteria are met, select the edict and the event will fire. On accept, a Xeno Preserve (like the ones from Xenophiles) will spawn on the planet and you will receive +10% Unity bonus like the Spiritualists. Furthermore, Fervid Xeno Collectors (a special civic for Xenophiles) can now use the Xeno Abduction bombardment stance to make this process of collecting 8 species a bit easier.

As a bonus, I have decided to bring back the Subject Events from The Zenith of Fallen Empires 1.0. These events depict the dynamics between an Ascended Empire and its subjects, and timed to fire at decade intervals. Events of each tier are exclusive to one another, meaning if you got one, you won’t get the others. These are some examples:

• Tier 1 (Around 10 years MTTH): “Poverty” event allows you to make a donation of several thousand credits to your subjects to help them tackle ‘poverty’. “Infrastructure Recovery” event donates minerals, and “Lack of Progress” can provide your subject a glimpse into your databanks, giving them +10% research speed for 10 years.
  
  
• Tier 2 (Around 20 years MTTH): “Too Brilliant for a Primitive” event describes how you identified a scientist in your subject as being far too brilliant for his own good, and decide to ‘acquire’ him. “Terror Attack Imminent” fires if you subject has spiritualist pops and you can inform them of an imminent attack in their capital, or withhold this information. “A Joint Naval Exercise” imagines that your subject is strong enough to fight by your side and you have the option to exercise with their fleets to make them temporarily stronger, or sabotage their equipment.
  
  
• Tier 3 (Around 30 years MTTH): The only event here is “A Gift from Heaven”. You will be the condescending Overlord which takes pity on the scrap metal boxes that your subjects call warships and decide whether they deserve something more…fancy. You have the option to give them 1, or 3 Escorts or Battlecruisers, or all 6. These don’t count towards naval capacity, cannot be reverse-engineered, or leave debris. They are also outfitted with less advanced technologies so your subjects are not overly confused by their operation.
  
  
• Tier 4 (Around 40 years MTTH): “Renegotiating the Deal” event imagines a ruler (more likely to trigger if ruler skill is below 2) demanding a renegotiation of the terrible deal between your nation. “War Victims” is an event with your subject claiming that war crimes have been committed and they deserve compensation. “Growing Concern” triggers when a subject becomes too powerful and you have a chance to, literally, take over their entire fleet.

Decadence is back, and will hit Ascended Empires, but much more slowly than vanilla. I have lowered the decadence increase per month from 2 to 0.2, which means that it will be ~10x as long before you reach full decadence, about 100 years from the point of Ascension. While PDX’s intention is to limit the power of Awakened Empires, this mechanic actually has some story potential here. No civilization should be invincible forever, and as your advantages provided by your civics are whittled away over many decades, it should be increasingly harder to stay in power. New Ascended Empires may rise, and old ones may fall. What will you do to maintain your galactic influence? Also, I have ensured that Awakened and Ascended Empires do not pay double the research cost as they do currently in vanilla, as it allows for a more expansive tech tree after Ascension. Of course, people who do not agree with these values can always create their own add-on which can specifically change the aforementioned features.





The Zenith of Fallen Empires: Ascended Society depicts a slow transformation of a society towards fanaticism and finally Ascension. This add-on mod imagines that a government with ulterior motives can build ethic-based buildings, subtly guiding (or brainwashing) the populace into a particular set of values in order to achieve those goals. The full features can be found here.




The Zenith of Fallen Empires: Ringworld Empires imagines a species that had always lived on a Ringworld, perhaps hinting at the species' great yet mysterious past. This add-on mod provides several beloved Ringworld Starting systems from ZoFE 1.0, which provide different flavours to the start of your journey as a Ringworld species. Full list of features can be found here.



The Zenith of Fallen Empires: Fallen Weaponry adds a number of exclusive weapons found on the homeworlds of Fallen Empires. These prototype weapons are discovered via event. Players with Ringworld Starts will also have these events trigger on their homeworld.




The Zenith of Fallen Empires: Goliath Awakened requires Fallen Weaponry and continues the event chain from there with a massive warship available for research, named Goliath. This is also discovered on FE homeworlds via event.




The Zenith of Fallen Empires: Paradise Lost is the final chapter of your journey as an Ascended Empire. For every rise there will be a fall. This add-on introduces the new 'Lost Empire' country type which functions as an intermediary stage between an Ascended Empire and a Fallen Empire. Through edicts and ambitions, a Lost Empire may eventually recover their status and become an Ascended Empire again.