Cool idea.

I think it will be good for others to see and discuss what kind of event they want to see in game, and clarify these changes too...

I got a few design questions though:

1) When will this happen? Assuming Crises appear around Year ~150 to 200, and Ascended Empires Ascend at Year 250, when will be the time frame for this event?

2) Is this event compulsory? War in Heaven for example, is basically a compulsory event - once triggered, the galaxy is plunged into it with no way out. The Last Crusade you can kind of stay out if you're not an Ascended Empire, or not the Belligerent Ascended Empire. How do you make this event appeal to different playstyles? Should AI be able to do this? Would your subjects participate in this war?

3) Not entirely sure about waking all Fallen Empires though... some players may have mods that enable 9+ FEs in a single game. Most people can handle a single FE, but against a coalition of 3 FEs or more? With Goliaths??

I do like the idea to have a final showdown with Fallen Empires if there are any still left around but there are some serious design choices to be made in order to make it appealing to people.

I welcome any input from other mod users on this :)

First of all, I want to say that Goliaths are pretty weak for their enormous price. Really, when you're fighting in that League you'll not get around building 500K fleets.

A1: I suppose the timeframe you threw into the rooms seems good. I just had in mind that it would happen before the Last Crusade to prepare the galaxy, so 150 - 200 years seems fine. Though the player would get a preparation event to notify him of the looming disaster 30 - 20 years before.

(I think another event detailing the buildup and arms race for the Last Crusade could also be useful. I often found myself without enough armies to conquer the ~150 world of the other Ascendancy)

A2: This event is only a showdown between you a Galactic Ascendancy and all Fallen Empires. For me, it was possible, quite easily to be exact, to annihilate Fallen Empires. I suppose giving the player an additional buff would be necessary to complete this event. I'd call it something like "Final Ascendancy to the Heavens." With it, the player would get a 50% ship building buff for the duration of the event, as the entire population of their Acendancy works together to rid the galaxy of these ancient behemoths (the AI would obviously also build more ships, i.e. Titans, Goliaths etc. ).
This event would have to be completed quickly, i.e. the player would have to prepare fleets and armies beforehand, as Awakened Empires may start off relatively weak, but they often find their way quickly back into the galactic playing field with two to three 500K fleets.

A3: As I said before it is a fight against the clock. Fallen Empires are relatively weak, but when they awaken they quickly build more ships, thought this still needs time. They also don't have any worlds at this point besides those in their home system and/or in some cases a neighbouring system.
Also, this event should be after all be optional and only get triggered if the player actively destroys a percentage of the Fallen Empires in the galaxy.

And if they should waken and rebuild too fast in test runs I think they should gain a series of debuffs that slow their ship building progress down.
In this awakening phase, the player would have to defeat a significant portion of fallen empires.

I think it would really be up to the player, as it currently is, to chose how many enemies he will have in this event series. Chose two and it'll be a cakewalk, choose 5 and you'll play the standard option, and chose 9+ and it'll be extra difficult.

I think the people should, in this case, be able to choose what kind of experience they want.

I also have another idea for the Last Crusade which is already implemented, but I found myself facing a few problems after completing it.

And that problem is mainly that the AI or Rival Ascendancy still retains all their planets after the war. Fallen Empires were also Galactic Ascendancies at some point, but they probably also lost their territory and planets in an apocalyptic war for the galaxy, or they just retired.

In any case, Lost Empires are still too powerful. I thought about it a little bit and came to the conclusion that you could use a few Shroud mechanics to solve this problem; I am mainly talking about the End of the Cyle. After accepting the contract and enjoying a 50-year mega buff they player or AI loses all of world except one. On it, the civilisation still continues its existence, but now as the Exiles, as you probably already know.

An edited version of this event would then trigger at the end of the last crusade and banish the defeated ascendancy into one system where they can't influence anything anymore. They would, obviously, like any other Fallen Empire still retain their technology and stuff's, so they can awaken in some distant future again.

(Maybe even reset the ascendance tree, so they can actually awaken again? ;)

Cool!

Let me address the last post first... you're the first person who I've heard from that has managed to complete the Last Crusade event! Up until this point I have no idea whether it was working for people or not.

There is already a functionality that allows me to destroy all but the capital, but I think I felt at the time that a one world Fallen Empire isn't very realistic. Then again, neither is a 150 world Fallen Empire. I can definitely address that.

How did you feel about the overall event? Did it appear too late in the game? Around which year? Is the warscore requirement of 100 too high? Did it take long? Were there any odd bugs? And was it an engaging event?

Many thanks again for your input and ideas!

A1: It was really fun and I actually waited quite some time for it to trigger. I personally play with mods, so the galaxy was already in the Last Crusade state in the year 2331, so I used the event to trigger it.

A2: It took me around 20 years to defeat the other empire.

A3: A war score of 100 is not too high if the empire would be reduced to its home system. If this feature would not be implemented I think a war score of 70 - 80 would be enough.

A4: No bugs for me.

A5: It was quite annoying to conquer 150* worlds, but I fought some fantastic space battles. I personally find conquering planets not that fun, but the space battles were really fun, though the other Ascendancy was a little bit too weak.

----------------------------------------

* Played in a 3000 system galaxy, so I guess that was rather my fault. I still think that this mod needs planet destroyer weapons. Goliaths and maybe even Titans should be able to wipe planets clean. I don't think turning them all into molten, glassed or tomb worlds wouldn't be the right solution.
If you would implement an exterminatus feature it should have a 60 - 80% chance of keeping the planet type and only killing all inhabitants and a 40 - 20% chance of turning it into a tomb or molten world.

-----------------------------------------

Additionally, as I said before I found Goliaths to be kind of weak. The ultimate weapon is strong enough and I understand that it only exists to kill Titans and other Goliaths, but it also targets Corvette, Escorts and other small ships which reduce its effectiveness by a not to underestimate margin.

Though, this all could be fixed by giving the Goliath a 200 - 400% increase in health, shields and an increase in regeneration to fend off smaller ships would also be good; more large, medium and a ♥♥♥♥ ton smaller or defense slots are necessary; and fighters, bombers and the large amounts of small ships are the greatest weakness of the Goliath.

In most of my space battles, the Goliaths were the first ships to go down, the Goliaths health and shields literally melted away.

Thank you for this valuable information.

I'm putting that in the next patch so defeated Ascended Empires will be reduced to 1 system.

I'm glad you found the space combat fun. Both Ascended Empires should have +50% production capacity and produce Escorts/Battlecruisers quite quickly. Or maybe even Goliaths?

Goliaths are not meant to be invincible. I imagine them to be a vanity construct in order to make a statement, rather like the Maus tank in WW2. I'm not sure why they die first? They draw a lot of aggro?? (Well they should really LOL). I don't have a simple fix for Goliath's overall effectiveness at the moment, because it ties into a lot of factors like balance, buildability, tech required, and so on. Perhaps surround Goliaths with lots of Escorts for protection?

What I can do probably next patch, is to give the ultimate weapon target weights like PDX did with XL weapons. Shoot other Goliaths first, then Titans, then Battlecruisers, then Escorts.

Still. They are too big and too expensive to be like a Maus tank. I think they should rather be some kind of powerful weapon which could also serve as the flag ship for a fleet.

In 1.2.7 which I'll drop tomorrow, Goliaths will get 1000% shield hp multiplier and their weapons now have target weights to increase its effectiveness. Hopefully that will address these concerns!