Empyreal Ascension

The Reclaimer fell with a grunt against the ground as the last volley of weapons fire abated. Growling they looked up at the upstart creatures before them.
"Inconcieveable! To be brought low by such inferior beings, mere children."
The enemy Luminary stepped forward, facing the fallen aggressor.
"All children grow up eventually."

Originally starting as a means of having genuinely Immortal leaders without relying on Leader Age extensions. It developed to include the idea that the empires with these Immortal leaders would benefit from their many years of experience.

The intent was to make these empires a tier above standard and advanced-start empires yet remain below the Fallen Empires. While they may have an easier time expanding and conquering they are still susceptible to coordinated retaliation, and while they have an easier time going toe to toe with Fallen Empires more directly it won’t necessarily be an assured victory tactic either.

Eleven civics tied the eight Fanatic Ethos as well as the Hive Mind, Machine Intelligence and Corporate authorities.

• Each civic is available at any time during the game as long as the qualifications are met.
• Each civic can be chosen by AI empires, but at much lower weight than most vanilla civics.
• Each civic grants significant empire-wide benefits with variations based on each civic’s theme.

There are 28 different government types that are applied based on civic and authority choice.

• Each government type has its own ruler titles, AI personality, fluff text and start screen text.
• Xenophile, Materialist, Spiritualist, Pacifics and Militarist civics each have two government types split between Egalitarian and Authoritarian Ethos.
• The Egalitarian civic has only one government type since Fanatic Egalitarians require Democratic authority.
• The Authoritarian civic has two government types split between Dictatorial and Authoritarian authorities.
• The Xenophobe civic has four government types split between Egalitarian and Authoritarian Ethos, as well as two Fanatic Purifier governments based on Spiritualist and Militarist secondary Ethos.
• The Corporate civic has five government types split between regular Corporate empires, Trade Leagues, MegaChurches, Criminal Syndicates and Corporate Cults.
• The Hive Mind civic has two government types split between regular Hive empires and Devouring Swarm Hive empires.
• The Machine Intelligence civic has four government types split between regular Machine empires, Driven Assimilators, Determined Exterminators and Rogue Servitors.

Leaders of empires with one of these civics have a random chance on each level up to receive a randomly selected trait.

• Each Empyreal trait is guaranteed to make the recieving leader Immortal. With the exception of Hive Mind rulers and Machine Intelligence leaders who are already immortal.
• Machine leaders should be immune to breaking down.
• A leader’s chance to recieve an Empyreal trait increases every level up to level 7 and then falls off sharply.
• A ruler’s chance to recieve an Empyreal trait is much higher and increases every level up to level 7 with no fall off.
• Once a leader recieves an Empyreal trait they cannot recieve another.
• Each leader class has two baseline Empyreal traits that can be selected on level up. Scientists will recieve one depending on if they are performing research or not.
• Each Empyreal leader trait has bonuses and fluff text tailored towards its leader class.

After unlocking three other Ascension Perks, Empyreal empires gain access to the Empyrean Ascendance perk.

• The ascension perk comes with its own considerable empire-wide bonuses.
• Any leader who has gained one of the two baseline Empyreal Traits will have their traits upgraded to a more powerful Empyrean leader trait specific to their class.
• Future leaders will automatically gain the upgraded leader traits in place of the baseline ones once the ascension perk is chosen.
• AI empires can choose this ascension perk as well, but have very low priority weighting for it.

Custom city scapes intended for Empyreal empires, but available to all empires.

• Empyreal Elysian, for standard empires.
• Empyreal Hive, for hive empires.
• Empyreal Machine, machine empires.

Cities are also now available standalone here.

• scripted_triggers.txt – This mod makes changes to the "has_X_government rules in order to allow faction government type approvals.
• synthetic_dawn_events.txt – This mod makes changes to the syndaw.10 event that handles machine leader breakdowns in order to make machine leaders truly immortal like their organic counterparts.
• sectors_other_resource_groups.txt and topbar_other_resource_groups.txt – This mod adds empy_exotic_matter to these files so that the custom resource icon appears in the UI. If you use another mod that adds custom resources either mine or the other will take priority and you won’t see all the resources if the tags aren’t copied between mods.

Any mod that also changes these files will likely have compatibility issues.

• Player Machine Empires can not initiate first contact dialogue for some reason. Diplomacy works fine otherwise.
• Corporate governments, personalities and start screen messages are currently missing fluff text (dumb writer’s block).

• Considering adding an army type, some unique buildings and maybe a few other things to empyreal empires.
• Adding opinion modifiers that affect Empyreal empire diplomacy.
• Possibility of making an add on with pre-made Empyreal empires.

For those that want Immortal rulers without the significant bonuses that come with this mod. My Timeless Lords mod keeps the leader immortality system, but with civic and leader modifier bonuses more in-line with Vanilla levels.

Thanks to Almech Alfarion who helped come up with fluff text when I hit writer’s blocks, and for helping me test the mod.