Welcome to the Zenith of Fallen Empires 4.0. As the series approaches its 6th year on the Steam Workshop, it is time to look back on this crazy ride and look forward to the future. Since starting the ZoFE Discord[discord.gg] a couple of years ago where I get to interact with fans of 3.0, I have noticed four kinds of players:


1) Those looking for a power-trip, focusing on the technological ‘Zenith’ of a Fallen Empire, attained by all means necessary. They are Fanatic Materialists that couldn’t get enough of technologies, weapons, and generally play the mod for that function.

2) Those looking for a chill, sandbox experience, focusing on ‘Fallen Empire’ aspect of the mod, taking advantage of the possibilities that different country types offer. They are Fanatic Spiritualists who generally want to roleplay and want to be given the tools to do so.

3) Those who love to play with ZoFE no matter what, and only play with ZoFE because they like it the way it is. They are Fanatic Xenophobes who want to preserve existing mod features and I thank them for their loyal support.

4) Those who wanted ZoFE to have maximum xeno-compatibility with other mods. They are Fanatic Xenophiles and they are willing to give up some mod features in order to achieve compatibility at any cost.


While I am pleased with the time I spent developing 3.0, it is probably time again to go back to the drawing board and take a serious look at how to satisfy the four kinds of players above. It shall be no simple task, and certainly involves a lot of thinking, but I came to a solution. And so I have decided to embark upon a journey again to build a new iteration of ZoFE, with these new stated aims:

• Take advantage of the more recent Stellaris game developments to improve existing functionalities of the mod.
  
  
• Build on advances made in 3.0, giving greater focus to catering the identified playstyles.
  
  
• More flexibility, compatibility, and modularity with its own mod menu.
  
  
• Procurement of a capable, trustworthy team that will lend their expertise to the project, improving it both visually and functionally.
  
  
• Code-wise rebuilt from the ground-up, and ensure it is documented so if I go, the project can remain.

With those aims out of the way, let’s take a look at the new ascension mechanic, the heart of ZoFE.

• Dark Matter Acquisition – this could come about in a few ways, but the Discover Dark Matter Events and special projects can now be moved to a situation.
  
  
• Galactic Ascendancy Perk – this should still be go-to trigger point, as it clearly lays out all the requirements for ascension, and has been a series staple. The loss of an ascension perk slot can be compensated, and this time instead it will trigger a situation.
  
  
• New Ascension Situation

0) As the situation starts, the empire will be flagged as an ‘ascending_empire’. You’re not yet ascended. The situation will progress as you spend more energy/DM/science research on it.

1) Automated Industries. This will be similar to 3.0 where you unlock the technologies of automated buildings, if you decide to choose certain options at the end of stage 1. Other rewards may be possible, and acquiring both shall set your progress back.

2) Societal Ascendance. Again, this will be similar to 3.0 where you unlock the ethic based buildings. Other rewards may be possible, and acquiring both shall set your progress back.

3) A Question of Style. Same as 3.0.

4) Masters of Warfare. Similar to the old fallen_technologies_4, and focused on weapon components.

5) Ambitions of Power. Same as 3.0.

6) Engineering Perfection. Same as 3.0.

7) At the very end of the situation, the player will choose their national civics again like in 2.0, but will not be embracing a single fanatic ethic here, so this is where 3.0 and 4.0 differs.

Embracing the single fanatic ethic is perhaps a great RP choice, but never really had any value for a power-trippy Fanatical Materialist min-maxer for example. So now it will be a separate path that fires an event towards the end of your societal ascendance, before you can start a project to convert your pops. In addition to this, depending on the ‘mode’ you selected, this can either change your country type, or not.

To account for both the possibility of the ascended_empire country type and the default country type that has gone through the situation, an ‘is_ascended_empire’ scripted trigger will be created to account for both country type, and the default empire with a flag. All ZoFE ascension related content can then be gated behind the scripted trigger to allow for both gameplay styles. While changing your country type offers the same things as ZoFE did in 3.0, the other option now enables players to experience most of ZoFE’s content without changing the country type, and thus reducing the need for compatibility patches. This should therefore satisfy players who want to ascend, become powerful, and not necessarily experience hedonists or Lost Empire content – those would continue to be available for those seeking a more sandbox experience and had been willing to put up with various quirks of ZoFE in the past.

In effect, ZoFE will become a mod with two different pathways – one focused on pure technological advancement and compatibility with other mods, and another focused for RPers who want to tell stories of the rise and fall of empires.

• In Vanilla Mode, the player will continue to get ZoFE tech, ships, and events. They will ascend as Galactic Ascendancies, and they can see themselves in contact list, but when they hover over their empire they will not see the subtitle “ascended empire”. This is because they are on the council, but we do not grant them the rank of master.
  
  
• In Sandbox Mode, they will be able to change their country type and gain access to all mod features. They will be referred to as Ascended Empires with their own subtitle description, and, just like vanilla Awakened Empires, they will also be able to ignore borders again. Rude.

Now let’s talk a bit about the mod menu. With it, there are several features that are heavily requested by players in order to customize the sort of game they want.

• Disallow AI Ascension. And allowing only a certain number of AI to ascend during the course of a game. I am thinking 0-5-unlimited would be good.
  
  
• Toggle Difficulty. Vanilla Mode, Hard Mode, Veteran, Nightmare etc for Fallen Empires.
  
  
• Toggle Reinforcements for FE and their frequency.
  
  
• Toggle Marauders/Crisis/Leviathans buff.
  
  
• Toggle Return of the Custodians. Whether they will return or not.
  
  
• Toggle Difficulty for Custodians and their reinforcements.

Since much of the existing modular structure is now built in, there will no longer be a need for me to publish multiple submods. It is a nightmare to maintain at the cost of not providing a click-fest experience at the beginning of the game, but it also takes a toll on the creator. There is however still a need for defines, and other vanilla event overrides, and those will be in the Sandbox submod. But that shall be a story for another time. If you would like to find out more about this mod, you can head over to the Full List of Features and check out what’s on offer.