Welcome to the full list of features, where I will briefly go over the mechanics and functionalities of the Zenith of Fallen Empires 4.0. Significant differences from 3.0 may be noted, but otherwise this is intended for new users. This document is about 15 pages long.

As described in the Introductions, the first thing you must decide for yourself is if you want to play the Zenith of Fallen Empires on Vanilla Mode or Sandbox Mode. Vanilla Mode has limited access to this mod’s features in favor of greater compatibility in the form of not changing country types after ascension, whereas Sandbox Mode has access to all of this mod’s features and will contain the necessary defines and overrides needed for the country type change. Playing in Sandbox Mode requires The Zenith of Fallen Empires: Sandbox submod, and Sandbox mode will be the full ZoFE experience that many long-time players know and love.

Some of the key differences between a Galactic Ascendancy with the default country type and the Ascended Empire country type is that an Ascended Empire will be able to ignore borders like Fallen Empires in the game, for example, use a different AI, and other AI will be more receptive to subjugation. You’ll also see a shiny title under your empire name called ‘Ascended Empire’.

Upon Game Start, the event ‘Echoes of History’ will provide a story introduction to the Zenith of Fallen Empires, giving it context and the opportunity for players to select whether they would like to open a mod configuration menu to customize their experience, or auto-generate settings based on submods or other mods they have installed. If the settings are overwhelming, why not take a look at the presets (sandbox only), where you will be introduced to members of the ZoFE team and find a playstyle that matches yours. With one click you can import all their settings.

The premise of the Zenith of Fallen Empires remains the same, through normal gameplay, you will be able to grow your empire to reach the pinnacle of civilization, of what the Fallen Empires were before their fall - a Galactic Ascendancy that pursues their vision for the galaxy with fanatical values, shaping galactic history for eons to come. The journey truly begins with the ‘Galactic Ascendancy’ Ascension Perk, which is no stranger to veterans of ZoFE, with a few caveats.

The technology requirement for the Galactic Ascendancy remains the same as in 3.0 in terms of technology, as you will need:

• Dark Matter Power
  
  
• Ascension Theory
  
  
• Mega-Engineering

The number of ascension perks required for Galactic Ascendancy is now customizable via the main menu at start, from 3-7. Or you can even switch it to OFF if you don’t want to use a Perk slot. This is not recommended for beginners however, as Ascension Perks remain to be the best way for players to track their progress in becoming a Galactic Ascendancy.

Whether you are required to be independent is also customizable via the main menu, as well as the minimum fleet power required to select this Ascension Perk, a new mechanic to the series. An Ascendancy will be at risk if they do not maintain their fleet power.

As for the technology requirements, Ascension Theory and Mega-engineering are vanilla late-game technologies which can already be researched normally, so let’s talk about Dark Matter Power. In vanilla, the Dark Matter Power technology is available only from defeating Fallen Empire fleets and scanning their debris. In ZoFE 4.0, there will be additional means of acquiring this elusive technology.

The event ‘Dark Matter - Possibilities’ will spawn once you have the following:

• Zero Point Power
  
  
• Dark Matter Drawing

This event is MTTH dependent, with higher Fallen Empire difficulties leading to a shorter MTTH (since you probably won’t be able to blow up their ships to acquire it normally). Once you learned that Dark Matter can be used by the Precursor Empires in the most amazing ways, another event called the ‘Precursor’s Power Source’ will follow (again, MTTH dependent on FE difficulty).

You will be offered 2 paths (and a third if you play with the Ringworld Empire or the Original People Origin in Sandbox – more on that later) to attain Dark Matter. You can perform a risky expedition on the border of a Fallen Empire to spy on them, or a safer but lengthier research project on your capital.

The riskier expedition lasts 2 years, and may produce 4 outcomes which are dependent on Fallen Empire difficulty that you set. The higher the difficulty, the more likely your expedition wouldn’t go unnoticed and Fallen Empires might respond negatively to your spying. The second option of researching at home has no risk of a potential Fallen Empire response, but since you will be going through second hand sources and artifacts, the project will take you 7 years to complete.

Either case, upon expedition or project completion, ‘The Quest for Dark Matter Power’ will trigger and you will once again be offered various paths to achieve this.


Start an indigenous research program (Starts The Quest for Dark Matter Situation)
If you have arcane deciphering, you can choose to unlock the Research Dark Matter Power artifact decision, and pay 500 minor artifacts to unlock the research option.
If you are hardcore, you can choose the normal method of blowing up Fallen Empire ships
If you are the Ringworld Empire, you can look into your ancestor’s archives for the research option.
If you are the Original People, you will also receive this research option, having had some hands-on experience with the technology, so to speak.


I should talk about The Quest for Dark Matter Power situation, which is an adaptation of the special projects chain from 3.0. This time you can decide how much resources you want to invest into this project, and boy you will pay dearly for progress. It would be impossible to complete this with the fastest approach without some foresight and planning. Upon project completion, you will be given the Dark Matter Power technology, and one step closer to becoming a Galactic Ascendancy.

Once you meet all the requirements of ascension, you may select the Galactic Ascendancy Perk to ascend, or if you have the ascension perk disabled, you can wait for an event with an MTTH of 20 years. Instead of starting an event chain with 6 special projects in 3.0, it will now begin ‘The Zenith of Fallen Empires’ Situation.

You will pay dearly for progress, especially if you are a big empire because the costs of maintaining your approaches are scaled to the number of colonies. The fastest approach would not normally be possible for an empire to sustain without heavy stockpiling of the required resources. If you are the Ringworld Empire or the Original People, the name of the situation will differ, and you will get +50% situation progress to whichever approach you pick. If you are at war during any point of your ascension, your situation progress will be paused as resources are directed towards your war effort. This mechanic can be used to stop your rivals from completing their ascension. When combined with the progress regression that occurs if your rival does not meet the minimum fleet power required in your menu settings, the situation can fail and their population will never be able to summon the will to undertake the gargantuan task of ascension ever again. As with 3.0, you’ll get notifications when an empire starts ascension, or in this case, failed to ascend.

The six projects from 3.0 are now different stages in your journey of ascension. They act as gates for branches of content for which you will have selected in the main menu.

• Automated Industries - pertains to the unlocking of Fallen Empire buildings. The automated buildings produces resources automatically, without requiring pop jobs just like vanilla Fallen Empire buildings. In time, you may unlock more advanced versions of these buildings.
  
• Societal Ascendance - unlocks ethic-unique buildings for your empire, which steers your population towards fanaticism and unlock the ethic based civics for Ascended Empires (Sandbox only).
  
• A Question of Style - unlocks Fallen Empire ship types, diplo rooms, city sets, and many color variants to customize your galactic ascendancy.
  
• Masters of Warfare - unlocks the weapons and ship components provided by this mod. These will equip your nation as you battle against endgame crises.
  
• Ambitions of Power - unlocks additional campaigns, ambitions, and the Ascendancy Affairs Office on Sandbox Mode.
  
• Engineering Perfection - usually acts as a gate for the second tier of ZoFE technologies, and together with other branches, unlock higher level content.

Fallen Empires will now take an interest if an empire they do not like is about to ascend. The chance of intervention is dependent on Fallen Empire difficulty settings, with higher difficulties making intervention more likely. Note that these responses and intervention can happen only once in a playthrough so it would be impossible to upset two Fallen Empires at once. This mechanic does not apply to the Ringworld Empire or the Original People origin.

• Spiritualist Fallen Empire doesn’t like machines ascending in general.
  
• Materialist Fallen Empire doesn’t like empires with equivalent technology level.
  
• Xenophile Fallen Empire doesn’t like Fanatical Purifiers, Devouring Swarm, or Machine Terminators.
  
• Xenophobe Fallen Empire doesn’t like empires with an equivalent fleet power level.

You will be notified by a Fallen Empire that they are displeased with you and will want to install overseers to ‘control’ your ascension progress. You can choose to accept this demand and take a penalty to your ascension situation progress, or reject their demand. Rejecting their demand will lead to various outcomes of severity for your empire, with the higher difficulty making the negative consequences more likely. The Fallen Empire whose demand is rejected may do one of the following:


Do Nothing. They are unable to gather the political will and mobilize their society to do anything about your rise.
They will wake up, becoming an Awakened Fallen Empire.
They will declare war on you.


Despite a treaty signed long ago which stipulated that Fallen Empires should not go into direct conflict with each other, ancient grudges and rivalries remain.

• If you are a Fanatic Spiritualist or possess the head of Zarqlan, the Spiritualist Fallen Empire may provide you aid if you are attacked by the Materialist or the Xenophobe Fallen Empire, just to spite their rivals.
  
  
• If you are attacked by the Spiritualist Fallen Empire and don’t have an equivalent technology level, the Materialist Fallen Empire may provide you aid just to spite the Spiritualists.
  
  
• If you are a Fanatic Xenophile, the Xenophile Fallen Empire may provide you aid if you are attacked by the Xenophobe or the Materialist Fallen Empire, just to spite their rivals.
  
  
• Xenophobes obviously won’t help anyone.

Once you have completed the situation you will become either a Galactic Ascendancy if you are on Vanilla Mode, or an Ascended Empire if you are on Sandbox Mode. The National Focus Civics from ZoFE 2.0 is brought back in favor of the 3.0 civics system. The following are your national civics for 4.0, they are added as a 4th civic similar to Galactic Emperor and do not replace existing civics. They are intended to be powerful but somewhat balanced against each other. Unlike 3.0, once these are chosen, the civics can only be removed but never swapped to a different focus.

• Galactic Superpower
  
• Beacon of Prosperity
  
• Industrial Juggernaut
  
• World Architect
  
• Spymaster
  
• All Seeing Eye (Hive Mind Only)
  
• All Seeing Machine (Machine Only)

The Ethic civics are now gated behind Societal Ascendance as to represent a natural progression of your society towards fanaticism. After the branch’s technologies are fully researched (The last one being Ascended Society), the ‘Path to Fanaticism’ event will trigger (MTTH 15 years) to prompt you that an Ascendancy should stand for something to make a mark in the galaxy, and you are given the opportunity to remove a minor ethic in order to pursue your fanatic ethic with total fanaticism. This is a Sandbox Mode event.

Should you decide to pursue fanaticism, you will gain a special project to mass convert your pops into your fanatical ethic, and once completed your minor ethic will be removed, as well as granting you access to ZoFE’s Ethic civics, which you can swap in and out of with other vanilla civics should you wish to.

• Scripture Scholars
  
• Fanatical Roboteers
  
• Fervid Xeno Collectors
  
• Xenophobic Fervor
  
• Inspiring Warlords
  
• Walled Garden
  
• Master Race
  
• Utopian Union

Aside from gaining access to new civics and technologies, being an Ascended Empire (Sandbox Mode) also gives you access to new subject types. Since the Overlord Update, Subjects have been reworked and thus the subject agreement presets provided by this mod will be for flavors only, and functionally not all that different to what you already have access to in the DLC. These new subject types are:

• Dominion – Fanatic Spiritualist Only
  
• Satellite – Fanatic Materialist Only
  
• Signatory – Fanatic Xenophile Only
  
• Thrall – Fanatic Xenophobe Only
  
• Clan Member – Fanatic Militarist Only
  
• Demilitarized State – Fanatic Pacifist Only
  
• Puppet State – Fanatic Authoritarian Only
  
• Union State – Fanatic Egalitarian Only
  
• Satrapy – Barbaric Despoilers Only
  
• Symbiote – Hive Mind Only
  
• Auxiliary – Machine Intelligence Only
  
• Coerced Investor (Megacorp submod required)

Certain subjects like Demilitarized State, Clan Member (requires Inspiring Warlords civic) have special buffs/debuffs while Auxiliary grants the overlord a bonus to robot assembly speed. Your subjects are an Ascended Empire’s sphere of influence, and from time to time, you may get events from them, and you can interact with them via the Ascendancy Affairs Office (Sandbox Only).

The Ascendancy Affairs Office is unlocked with the fifth technology in the Ambitions of Power branch, and is Sandbox only. It is accessed through an edict and represents your ruler’s office from which all your Ascendancy Affairs are conducted. Here, you can perform a multitude of friendly or mean actions to your neighbors, subjects and federation members alike. Be a bully? Sure. Be benevolent? Sure. From gifting them with your ships to stealing your subject’s outposts, if it is within your sphere of influence, you can do anything as long as your conscience allows you to. These are some of the actions currently available in the Ascendancy Affairs Office:

• Transfer Resources - Energy, Minerals, Consumer Goods, Alloys, Minor Artifacts
  
• Transfer Technology - Dark Matter Power, Lost Technologies
  
• Transfer Fleet
  
• Take - A Pop, A Scientist, A Fleet, An Outpost
  
• Launch - Asteroid Strike, Dimensional Horror, Psionic Avatar, Punitive Sanctions
  
• Plot - Ruler Assassination

Note that being friendly or being mean will produce new opinion modifiers for your subjects, and some options such as the Dimensional Horror Strike requires the Portal Generator Technology, so there might be various requirements and limits to these actions.

Several of the 3.0 functionalities are also ported to the Ascendancy Affairs Office as well. Starbase Redesign, Ringworld Redesign, Clear System debris, Renounce Ascendancy etc are also done from the Ascendancy Affairs Office. Another new internal affairs option is to manage decadence in your empire, should it become a problem.

When two Ascended Empires (sandbox) fight under certain war goals, it becomes a clash of spheres of influence and they can call all their subjects to an epic war, similar to War in Heaven.

There are numerous war goals available for Ascended Empires. Claim, Colossus, Humiliate, Ideology (vs default), Subjugation (vs default), and End Threat (vs Genocidal). Default empires may also use the End Threat war goal against an Ascended Empire similar to how they fight an Awakened Fallen Empire. In addition, two new war goals are available with this mod: Banish Ascendancy and Total Annihilation, both of which are not Total Wars.

Banish Ascendancy: Requires poor or worse opinion. On accept, the defeated Ascendancy will be ‘Banished’, becoming a Fallen Empire (a new country type) as well as being a subject of the victor. They don’t pay tax, but will have their civics removed and replaced with nasty debuff civics, and you will also acquire all their subjects. You may also use this against Awakened Fallen Empires.

Total Annihilation: Requires terrible opinion. Only available against Ascended Empires of the direct opposite fanatic ethic (E.g. Spiritualist vs Materialist), or against Hive Minds and Machines, or against something Genocidal. On accept, the defeated Ascendancy and its subjects will be wiped from the galaxy (mass Genocide, as if they have never existed…). On Status quo, all colonies within the opposing empire’s borders will be destroyed, bypassing Land Invasion. Other Empires will also remember you for being genocidal, so this war goal is best reserved for empires that deserve your utter hatred.

(continued)