Hi all. As many of you know, I created two mods a few months ago, 'Researchable Titan Laser' and 'Titan Weapons'. Obviously I was a newb modder back then and I now understand a bit more about how things work. My latest project, The Zenith of Fallen Empires, is an ambitious venture because of its scope and when there are more things in a mod, the more potential problems and conflicts may arise especially with other mods.

Some of you may wonder why I have taken this step, especially when some of the mod features are already covered in other mods (Fallen Ship types, Ringworld starts etc). The reasoning is simple - having bits and bobs everywhere in piecemeal packages doesn't give me the full experience that I would like in my own game. For example, Fallen Ship types mod may not have the models I want, or the weapon locators not where I want them, or isn't compatible with another mod, etc. By bringing them all together, I can create a pretty, integrated, experience.

There are other benefits also. You cannot balance against other mods if your mod isn't big enough to balance itself since you never know what other mods people have. As such because I have created Titan Weapons without substantial defensive utilities being released, it makes the game unbalanced in a way. The benefit of creating an even bigger mod is that you can have everything balanced in one package, and the Fallen Empire Buff that was added will restore game difficulty too. The Titan Weapons and Lasers are now given a context and a setting in the game, rather than just some OP weapons. I also no longer have to update and upload multiple individual mods all the time.

So I hope you guys can understand the reasoning behind this mod with the intention to bring together my other mods as well as providing an overall, exciting endgame for all of you to look forward to. After all, I am the most fanatic of all Fallen Empire fans. This is my love-letter to Fallen Empires and all Fallen Empire fans out there.




Researchable Titan Laser

Retro icons are back! Because I love them. I have included coding for AI preference for certain colours. Xenophobe = Red, Xenophile = Blue, Materialist = Green, Spiritualist will prefer Arc Emitters, Militarist = Yellow, Pacifists will prefer not to use such horrible weapons. Currently available colours are Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Pink (Magenta), Sapphire (Deeper Blue) and Purple. ZoFE 2.0 added also the titan laser from the Fallen Machine Empire.

Titan Weapons

Improved a number of windup effects, icons, and muzzle effects. Someone else already used the name 'Tera Cannon' in their mod so I have changed mine to 'Terror Cannon' - not to avoid confusion during research but to spread terror across the galaxy, of course. Some Titan Weapons have been given a Prototype version which deals half the damage. Coding to allow different AI personalities and ethics to prefer to research and use different weapons.

Titan Utilities

I created a number of utilities to buff the shields, armor, hp, tracking, evasion in this ghastly world of endgame fleet battles. The costs of these are high so it should keep fleet numbers in check, reducing lag, while each ship becomes much more powerful.

Titan Weapons Tech Tree

The major change here is that all Titan XL weapons are gated behind 'Titan Weaponry', which is only researchable once you have researched all the vanilla weapons and utilities. This makes these highly devastating weapons to be available only in the endgame. Other mods that provide extra weapons are researchable after their vanilla counterpart but do not require you to get all of them, so I believe it is potentially an interesting trade-off. You will also get an event notification when an AI managed to research this tech.

Resized XL weapons

These are available for research after their vanilla counterparts. Why let all the great graphics already in the game go to waste? I will be reusing these by giving you an L version of these weapons which will lead you to some exciting new weapons. I took away the windup effects for these as only XL should have windups!

Advanced weapons

There are a new array of advanced weapons available to fill up your L, M, and S slots. These weapons are made based and balanced on vanilla numbers. Most weapon's S slot also functions as a less-effective PD should there be stuff for them to shoot (why wouldn't you be able to try to turn smaller turrets to shoot bombers? And since you're a Fallen Empire, you should be able to shoot down a primitive missile with an energy lance. It's part of the awesomness.

These are some of the Advanced weapons in this mod

• Advanced Energy Lances that lead you to the mighty Titan Lasers.
  
  
• Advanced Arc Emitters lead you to Titan Arc Emitters.
  
  
• Advanced Kinetic Cannons lead you to Terror Cannon.
  
  
• Hellfire Autocannons lead you to Massive Autocannon.
  
  
• Electromagnetic Beam leads you to Solar Disruptor.
  
  
• Integrated Missile System leads you to Titan Missile.
  
  
• Rapid Plasma Launcher leads you to Advanced Plasma Launcher.
  
  
• Mini Flak Battery leads you to Titan Strike Craft.
  
  
• Smart Torpedoes lead you to Titan Torpedo
  
  
• Mini Flak Battery and Energy Lance Point Defence.

Codes are embedded to enable different ethos to prefer using different weapons. Whether the game actually uses them is a different matter... The weapon and tech descriptions usually give a hint though as to which ethic prefers which weapon. I have now added in some extra colour for lances which is an optional tech. Plus a Matter Disintegrator lance for those lucky enough to take down the Unbidden.

Endgame Crises Buff with Advanced Crises Weapons

The Prethoryn Scourge and Unbidden ship designs are overridden to include new, powerful crises weapons to counter a much more technologically advanced galaxy. Unbidden now have matter disintegrators of their colours, and Prethoryn Scourge weapons have been buffed also. Contingency will use advanced weapons and utilities in this mod. Unless of course, another mod overwrites the global designs for these ships.

Fallen Empire Buff

Speaking of which, why would Fallen Empires not have Titan weapons? I am overwriting a game file to include Titan weapons and utilities in Fallen Empire ship designs. They will now be much stronger than before because they also utilise the Advanced weapons I created for L, M and S slots. Materialist will prefer Lances and Energy Torpedoes, Spiritualist will prefer Arc Emitters, Missiles and Plasma, Xenophiles will prefer a mix of kinetic weapons and lances, while Xenophobes will prefer using the Terror Cannon.

Fallen Empire Techs

If it makes you feel any happier, I also replaced the Titan Lasers on Fallen Empire Titans with my own Titan Lasers, meaning you can now reverse engineer Titan Lasers from battle debris… I also feel like you should be rewarded for killing bigger ships so the more juicier techs from this mod will be on the Titans and Battlecruisers. Killing those bigger ships will reap greater rewards than ever.

Delayed Fallen Empire Awakening

I have to overwrite a vanilla file, the reason being simple. Since now there is a much greater technological gap between Fallen Empires and normal empires, it makes sense to allow a bit more time for the player to close the gap. The minimum time to wake has been increased by 20 years.

Fallen Empire Awakening Events

Those of you not familiar with my previous mods, when the player researches the Titan Laser Prototype, they risk slowly waking up a Fallen Empire. Fallen Empires wake faster when you have the Titan Laser researched. Now this has been extended to the AI too, but AI will only wake Fallen Empires if they have the Titan Laser tech. This is a balancing change, since I anticipate people can only be getting Titan Lasers in mid/late or late game now.

Fallen Empire Ships and Stations

I am creating an option to start with Fallen Empire ship types as I would like the ships to look. Corvettes are tiny Escort models, Destroyers slightly bigger than Escort models, Cruisers are smaller Battlecruiser models, and Battleships use Titan models. They also have had their weapons locators improved to my liking, and I took the liberty to fix some death animations. There are 14 of these ships and city sets in total.

Fallen Technologies Tech Tree

The Fallen Technologies tech tree are rare techs that you acquire along your path to becoming an Ascended Empire. They have substantial costs, but since it's more about empire advancement rather than getting your hands on a new fancy weapon you have to decide when to really go for it. There are 4 Fallen Technologies levels:

• Fallen Technologies 1 "Energy Lance Spaceport" - Requires Advanced Energy Lance tech, enables you to mount energy lances on spaceports. Comes in Tachyon (Blue), Particle (Red/Orange), and Dark Energy (Green) versions. It comes with +25% naval capacity and -10% ship upkeep cost.
  
  
• Fallen Technologies 2 "Engineering Perfection" - Enables you to build Synthetic Strategic Resources and unlock further technologies for more resource buildings to support your fleet and the costly Titan weapons. Those of you with the Utopia expansion will get a handy +200% megastructure build speed and -20% construction cost with this technology.
  
  
• Fallen Technologies 3 - Requires Titan Arc Emitter, Terror Cannon, and Titan Laser (which if you remember, has its own trigger to wake up an FE). Allows you to build Fallen Empire Ships - Escorts, Battlecruisers, and Titans.
  
  
• At the completion of Fallen Technologies 3 you will get an event and a chance to change your ships to look like Fallen Empire ships (Depends on the ethics/authority you have), or you can also choose to keep your existing ship appearances. I have pre-assigned a culture to these new Fallen Empire ships so you will get Avian = Spiritualist, Fungoid = Materialist, Arthropoid = Xenophile, Mammalian = Xenophobe, Molluscoid = Xenophile, Plantoid = Materialist, Reptillian = Spiritualist. These are default textures for your new Fallen Empire ships should you wish to keep your ugly starter ships. Ugly starter ships are not wholly compatible with Fallen Empire ship culture, as you will see mini, cute turrets on the Fallen designs.
  
  
• Fallen Technologies 4 - Requires the Ultimate weapon. You have reached the end of technological progression, and thus you will turn your attention to commiting your empire to a cause.
  
  
• At the completion of Fallen Technologies 4 you will get a chance to change your country type to an 'Ascended Empire'. An Ascended Empire is basically the same as an Awakened Empire with all their diplomacy options. Not to be confused with a Fallen Empire since... you never fell. Yet. You will receive some perks of an Awakened Empire including a minimum 2000 fleet cap that isn't tied to your spaceport, and it will increase the more planets you have. You will also get to convert all your pops to a single ethic of your choice.

New Planetary Buildings

At various points after researching Empire Capital Complex, you will be able to research extra planetary buildings for your ascending empire. These buildings include adjacency bonuses to energy, research, or other empire unique buildings to produce synthetic strategic resources. I won't list them all here as there are more than 30. The idea is there should be non-spammable buildings that will give character to planets you own and take a bit more thought to place.

Ascended Empire Subjects

Once you become an Ascended Empire, it's time to grab yourself a position of influence in the galaxy. In addition to the four vanilla Awakened Empire subject types, Militarists, Pacifists, Authoritarian and Egalitarian will each have their own subjects and effects. Note that these new subject types are not achievable via diplomacy but only through war.

• Militarist gets Puppets - In addition to 25% Energy and 25% Minerals tax rate, Puppets receive the Military Weakling debuff for 50 years, which reduces their ship weapon damage, hp, and shield by 33%. They will not call their Overlord to war but will come to the Overlord's aid when the Overlord is attacked.
  
  
• Pacifist gets Demilitarized Country - Demilitarized Countries are taxed 25% Influence and Unity, and their naval capacity will be reduced by 50% for 50 years. Cannot conduct diplomacy, but when either is attacked they will come to each other's aid.
  
  
• Authoritarian gets Axis Member - Axis Members are taxed 25% Minerals, 25% Food, and 25% Influence. Their ethics will be changed to Fanatic Authoritarian and Xenophobe, and they will receive a -10% happiness debuff for 50 years. Does not call Overlord to war but will come to the Overlord's aid.
  
  
• Egalitarian creates Democratized Utopia - these subjects are taxed 25% Energy and a whooping 50% Influence. Their ethics will be changed to Fanatic Egalitarian and Xenophile, and they are prohibited from using slaves or resettle pops. Will not call Overlord to war but will come to the Overlord's aid.

Ascended Empire Events

It's not always about war or subjugation. Ascended Empires will occasionally get events between it and its subjects which adds flavour to its role on the galactic stage. You may choose to be cruel to nab their scientist or slow their technological progress by installing malwares at their science facilities. Will you hold a joint naval exercise with your subjects? Will you tip-off an imminent terror attack on their capital? These are some of the choices you will have to make as you govern your ascendancy. For your most loyal subjects, you may even decide to bestow them a few warships as a token of goodwill.


The Ultimate Weapon

Once you have researched all the Titan Weapons (not including event gated ones like Dragon Breath, Super Matter Disintegrator, and Scourge Artillery), as well as Fallen Technologies 3, you will be able to research the Ultimate Weapon and unlock a new ship – Goliath. It’s the only ship in this mod that can mount the Ultimate Weapon, which will pretty much one-shot every ship that's not Goliath. Goliath costs a lot and takes up 50 fleet cap. Don’t let the appearances fool you - he is probably a big softy. You will also get an event notification when the AI researched the Ultimate Weapon.

The Wrath of the Ancients

A new Ascended Empire will be noticed by the Fallen Empires, if there were still any left by this stage of the game. Most of them will resign to accept such a fact, but not if they hold the opposing ethos of the Ascended Empire in question. The Fallen will wake and attempt to stop the new Ascended Empire on its track and foil its attempt to become a galactic superpower. Triggered after 100 years, the newly awakened empire will possess the modifier 'Wrath of the Ancients', dealing 50% more damage against Ascended Empires and Ascended Hive Minds, with 50% reduction in ship build time. It will be a race against time for the new Ascended Empire to defeat the ancient civilization, setting the galactic stage for a final struggle that is The Last Crusade.

The Last Crusade

The Last Crusade is designed to be an unforgiving end-end-game event. This secretive event triggers after 150 years, with a MTTH of 25 years, when there are two Ascended Empires with opposing ethos. When it triggers, the two Ascended Empires will engage in a war of ideology. It will be powerbase against powerbase as all subject empires are forced to join in the war. The belligerents will also attempt to recruit other empires to their cause! By the war's end, the Ascended Empire that lost the war will become a 'Fallen' Empire with all of its subjects destroyed (cleansed of every planet), and its influence in the galactic stage diminished. As for why I didn't cleanse the whole Ascended Empire instead of the subjects, well, this kind of resets the galaxy to where it was just before the game started, and perhaps the victor Ascended Empire will finish what it started in a future War in Heaven event.

Lost Empire

As the loser of The Last Crusade, you will be able to continue your game as a Fallen Empire, with its fleet capped at 1000. You will no longer be able to acquire subjects, and lose all the benefits of an Ascended Empire.

Ascended Hive Mind and Hive Mind Invasion

Similarly, Hive Minds can now Ascend, but they do not Ascend like normal empires. While their civics grant them the same bonuses as Ascended Empires, their naval capacity is tied to the number of spaceports they have like a normal empire. An Ascended Hive Mind AI is aggressive, and will begin to expand its dominion by devouring its neighbours. Any planets bombarded by Ascended Hive Mind will become barren and have its populations consumed when planetary defenses drop to 0! As this is a new galactic threat, other empires will be given an event chain which keeps track of the number of vessels and planets consumed by the Hive. Against this barbaric threat, a new wargoal: Total Annihilation is introduced to cleanse the galaxy of another empire. This wargoal is only usable by Awakened Empires, Ascended Hive Minds and Ascended Empires against another Ascended Hive Mind, Fallen Empires, or Awakened Empires.


Ringworld Starts

I know there are plenty of mods out there, but I usually ended up making my own systems instead. I will be releasing these as a bonus because there aren’t any quite like them. They come in 3 ‘tiers’, and they offer various levels of boosts to a player’s start.

• Ringworld Start – Usually without added resources, but you will either have neighboring ringworld systems to colonise so you can live in a ringworld-only empire.
  
  
• Rich Ringworld Start – Most tiles will have 5 resource on them, which somewhat levels out against Insane AI at the start. However, your advantage will be whittled away in around 200 years or so.
  
  
• OP Ringworld Start – Usually just one ringworld but fully built up with Fallen Empire buildings with 25 resource in each tile. You will out-tech and out-produce all AI for much of the game.

As of 1.6, these ringworld starts will include a number of extra neighboring systems, some will include ruined megastructures introduced by Utopia. Including the famous 'Dyson Ring'. You don't need Utopia to repair these.

Compatiblity support in a separate patch

• ISB Balance
  
  
• NSC 7.0
  
  
• Sins of the Prophets is automatically compatible with this