So I've tested the Cathedral of Valor changes and, disappointingly, using a factor to a civ ability (Soldiering in this case) doesn't update the ability value.  It may work, it may not work, either way I can't be sure so I'll make it an additive bonus instead.

Of course this means it won't scale according to the soldiering ability that you have managed to gain so far.

Since it is a minor fix I've re-upped it as version 5F.

Sure, knock yourself out.  There's still races that I haven't worked with much so some fresh insights would always be helpful.

It took a bit longer than expected, so I'm going through the rest of the files tomorrow. For now, here is part one with my findings from the PlanetImprovements.xml. Most are pretty minor stuff (nothing of consequence, if it remains unchanged), but there are also a couple more serious issues.


The following improvements have a tag that isn't necessary and can be safely removed.

PlanetaryQualityBonus: Soil Enhancement, Habitat Improvement, Terraforming

AbilityType: Technological Capital, Political Capital, Omega Research Center

AbilityAmount: Mind Control Center

PlacementLimit: Galactic Trading Centre, Mitrosoft Labs, United Builders Inc. Factory, Technological Capital, Economic Capital, Spin Control Center, Black Market Sector, Massive Slave Pit, Experimentation Centre, Distributed Energy Matrix, LGM Inc Labs, Social Matrix, Infinity Tech Labs, Pear Shaped Labs, Nordstrom Technologies, Centre for Intellect Studies, Precursor Weapons Lab, Galactic Technology Centre, Nano Assemblers, Temple of Honour

Indestructable: Doomsday Generator


Weather Control Zenith: Description still says, that the PQ increases by 3.


The following improvements are not showing their Query Graphics in-game due to a typo:

Shrine of the Mithrilar: ShrineOfTheMithrilar.png should be ShrineOfTheMithralar.png.

Manufacturing Matrix L3: SymbiosisPlatform.png should be SymbiosisPlatforms.png.


The following improvements are missing the AI-tag:
Galactic Showcase, Re-education Center, Secret Police Center, Hyper Computers, Hyperion Re-Supply Center, Galactic Bazaar, Counter Espionage Center


The following improvements have an AI value of zero:
Galactic Resort, Cathedral of Valor, Charging Stalks, Basic Stalk, Merchant Trade Complex, Molecular Fabricator, Order Of Krynn, Biosphere Modulator, Zero-G Amusement, Recuperation Center


The following improvements are in danger of the 1pp-bug:
Anti-Matter Power Plant
Quantum Power Plant
Enhanced Xeno Farm
Slaveling Training Center
Artificial Slave Pods
Advanced Navigation Center
Precursor Repository
Precursor Matrix

In case you don't know what I mean with "1pp-bug": If you upgrade a 1pp improvement, and it gets later destroyed for some reason, you won't be able to rebuild it on that world, because the game thinks, that you still have it. That is happening because the game registers upgrading an improvement as constructing a new building. This is quite easy to verify: Build a Fusion Power Plant, upgrade it to an Anti-Matter Power Plant, then decommission it. Neither the Fusion nor the Anti-Matter Power Plant will be available in the buildlist of this planet anymore. The Quantum Power Plant won't either, once you research it.


The following improvements are also in danger of the 1pp-bug, but have other issues too:
Collective
Improved Collective
Enhanced Collective
Superior Collective
Technology Matrix L1
Technology Matrix L2
Technology Matrix L3
Manufacturing Matrix L1
Manufacturing Matrix L2
Manufacturing Matrix L3

Here is an example of the additional problems: The basic Collective has a limitation of 3pp and the Improved Collective one of 4pp. If you build all three Collectives, and later upgrade them to Improved ones, you won't be able to build a fourth one, because the game thinks, that you already have six. The only way to circumvent this, is to build an Improved Collective first, and then upgrade your existing Collectives. However, this only postpones the problem. You still won't be able to build more Collective until you've researched Ultimate Collectives. For the Thalan, this is even worse, because they can get permanently stuck at 2 Tech/Manu Matrices per planet. The possibility of not being able to rebuild those improvements also still exist, but is less severe for the Yor, because the Ultimate Collective has no limitation.


Regional Matrix: This is an upgrade for the (Altarian) Manufacturing Matrix, but is also a 1pp. The Manufacturing Matrix, however, has no placement limitation. I guess the RM is meant as a sort of Power Plant. In that case, I'd suggest to remove the S_UpgradeTartget-tag.


Gravity Accelerators: The ShipSpeedBonus is bugged. Only the race building the TG will get the bonus. Anyone who buys the TG won't. I'm not sure, if the race, that acquires the planet, where the TG is built on, will get the bonus. In any case, it is best to replace this bonus with one to the Speed ability.


The Temples of Alignment have incorrect values for Min/MaxAlignment:
The MaxAlignment for the Temple of Evil should be 39, because a value of 40 is Neutral. The MinAlignment for the Temple of Righteousness should be 61, because a value of 60 is still Neutral. The MinAlignment of the Temple of Neutrality should be 40. The ToN also needs a MaxAlignment with the value of 60. As currently implemented, the ToN is identical to the ToR and only counts the Good races, plus the few Neutrals who have a value of 60.


Neutrality Learning Center:
The Invention Matrix/Discovery Sphere will never upgrade to an NLC. So, if the AI researches the NLC after those labs, they will stay the same. Not only that, but the AI will also have two different labs in the buildlist, increasing it's chance to use the weaker one (IM/DS). The fix for this is actually pretty simple (yet it took me years to find it). Just turn the NLC into an upgrade for the Invention Matrix and the Discovery Sphere. It should look like this:

<S_UpgradeTarget>ResearchAcademy</S_UpgradeTarget>
<S_UpgradeTarget>Invention Matrix</S_UpgradeTarget>
<S_UpgradeTarget>Discovery Sphere</S_UpgradeTarget>

It works (I'm using this in my mod), but it isn't perfect. If the Invention Matrix gets researched after the NLC, it will also be available in the buildlist. However, once the Discovery Sphere gets researched, only the NLC will remain in the list, and all former IMs will be upgraded to it.


Aul Incinerator: It needs the Indestructable-tag, and the value for CanHaveAgents should be set to zero. PlanetQualityChange has a permanent effect. This means that, when the Aul Incinerator gets destroyed, the lost PQ will remain lost. If the Incinerator gets rebuild, yet another PQ will be lost. Changing the Incinerator to be indestructible prevents possible exploits. The change to the agents, however, is just to make the Incenerator identical to the other PQ changing improvements.


Gaia Vortex: The PlanetaryQualityBonus doesn't work in TotA (not sure, if it still works in DL and DA), and should be replaced with PlanetQualityChange. The value also needs to be changed then (10 more tiles would be a little much).


A couple thoughts:

The AI value for some improvements seems to be extremely low (Virtual Reality Center is at 1, for example).

Do you have any intentions of going over the Maintenance costs? It is pretty high for some of the improvements, and the increase for some is also pretty nonsensical (for example, the City of Learning: 4bc more maint. for 2rp more research). Reducing the base maintenance, and making the increase more constant (e.g., +1bc for +2rp/mp), could help the AI with it's economy.

The Charging Stalks now provide more food than the Advanced Charging Stalks did (4+ > 3), yet the morale-bonus remained the same (15%). I'd suggest to increase the morale-bonus to either the same level the ACS had (20%) or a higher one (25% maybe).

The Propaganda Center is pretty useless. It only provides a 10% bonus to planetary loyalty, yet costs 4bc maintenance. In other words, nobody would build it. The best solution, in my opinion, would be, to turn it into an SP, and change the bonus to affect the Loyalty ability. Granted, it's, more or less, the same Tolmekian and I did in our respective mods. However, I doubt anyone would complain, if you did it too.

The Xinathium Hull Plating can be disabled by spies. In my opinion, it doesn't make sense, that your build ships should loose HP, due to this. I'd suggest to change the value for CanHaveAgents to zero.

Have you considered to use the same food cap for both the Capital City and the Initial Colony? In my opinion, this would make balancing farms easier.

Speaking of food, I've found a way to make the AI use farms, without needing the 1pp limit. I detailed my findings here. Maybe it's helpful for you.

Apparently, I wasn't clear enough with me description. I meant, that the Invention Matrix and Discovery Sphere should upgrade to the NLC, not that the NLC should get another upgrade. It's already the most powerful lab, and I'm perfectly fine with that. My problem with it is, that it is possible to have a huge amount of Discovery Spheres on your worlds (all the old labs you built), and a couple NLCs too (all the NLCs you built recently). For the player, this isn't much of an issue, because you can simply build NLCs over all the old labs. The AI, however, doesn't have this option. It is entirely reliant on the upgrade-mechanic, which doesn't work in this case.


No problem, I'm glad I could help. In fact, I should have done this much sooner. After all, your mod was a big inspiration for my own.
I had been working on my mod since shortly before the end of the TotA-beta. Back then, it was primarily about fixing some bugs in the PlanetImprovements.xml, which soon escalated into an attempt to completely rebalance them and teach the AI how to use them. Over time, I added some more files (like the RaceConfig.xml and InvasionTactics.xml), and also some new techs. During my implementation of those techs, I noticed several bugs in the tech trees, but decided not to fix them. It just seemed like way too much work to me. About three years ago, however, I made a first attempt to do just that, because I realised, that my efforts to improve the AI's use of the buildings were pointless, if it couldn't research those buildings first. Still, my efforts proved to be in vain. I just didn't knew what I was doing or, in some cases, what I needed to do. Nor even where I should begin. My depression didn't help either.
Around Easter 2011 I found this thread. At first, I was surprised that several people had the same idea, at the same time. Then I realised, that I had found my answers. I now knew what was necessary, and I began work anew. The first thing I did, was to completely revamp my approach to the tech trees. Instead of trying to fix them how they were written, I completely rewrote the files. I gave them the order, they were lacking, and extended this approach to the other files too. Last year, I refined this even more, by moving all of the techs into the TechTree.xml. This made work much easier for me. Over time, I had several setbacks, and began work from scratch again. (By that time, I was already used to that. Every time Stardock released a new patch, I would scrap my mod and begin anew. Well, back when Stardock still released patches.) However, I also made a lot of progress: figured out new things (new approaches, "new" bugs), discarded old ideas, that didn't really work, and more. The end-result of all of that can be seen in Autumn Twilight.
So... yeah. You can consider this as a "Thank you!", if you will. I don't know how Autumn Twilight would now look like, if it weren't for this thread and your mod, but it definitely wouldn't be as good. I also pretty much doubt, that I would have released it. Heck, I never even intended to do that in the first place.

Anyway, here is part two of my findings.

RaceConfig.xml

Thalan Empire: The RaceMusic is set to Race09, which is the music for the Iconians. It should be changed to Race08.

Dread Lords: Disease Cure and Plague Cure should be added as starting techs. The DL start with their whole tech tree researched. Due to this, the AI will never start researching anything. So, if the Plague or Disease Mega Event happens, the DL are screwed, because they are unable to research the cures. Trading for the Cures isn't possible for the DL either, leaving only invasion as an option. However, even that doesn't really work, due to the effect of the events (especially the Disease). In short, if either event happens, then the DL will become even more of a pushover in the sandbox game.


StarbaseModules.xml

Xeno Influence Module: Has the Insurrection Coordinator as module requirement. However, that module no longer exists, so the game ignores the requirement. It is also a bug in the vanilla game. The Thalan don't have the necessary tech (Cultural Insurrection) in their tech tree.

The total number of available modules is 117 (unless I miscounted somewhere). This means, that the AI is unable to use 17 modules (beginning with Industrial Replication Center III), due to the 100-modules-limitation. There are some module-types the AI never uses (Terror Stars, Sensors, and SlowEnemies). If you move them to the bottom of the file, you would only need to get rid of 8 more modules. Well, or you could move the culture modules to the bottom too. The AI only rarely uses them.


TechTree.xml

Interstellar Governments: Has a bonus of +0% to Influence.

Terraforming: Has no AIValue.

Advanced Computing: The Category is set to Miniaturization. Pure Research would make more sense, in my opinion.

Counter Espionage: It can't be traded, but it can be stolen!? Doesn't make much sense.

Advanced Barren World Colonization: The Category is set to None. It should be Barren Terraforming.

Interstellar Construction: I'm not sure, if the game is case-sensitive, but the Category is set to HULL. It's probably best to set to Hull. Just in case.

PlanetaryFortification: There should be a space between Planetary and Fortification in the DisplayName.

Artificial Slavelings: The Category is set to MilManufacturingitary. It should be Manufacturing.

Ion Cannons II and Ion Cannons III: Those techs are missing both Description and Details.

Industrial Revolution: The last sentence of the Details has an extraneous "did": "so did did their productivity."

Ultimate Diabolical Research: The Display Name is currently Imaginative Research. It should be Ultimate Diabolical Research.

Industrial Starbase Construction and Advanced Industrial Starbases: The Category for those techs is set to Industry. It should be either Manufacturing or Starbase.

Healing Pools: The ID is set to Biology, and the Category is set to Medical. Either set the ID to Culture and the Category to Entertainment, or set the Category to Biology.


Altarian_TechTree.xml

Healing Pools: The Altarians already have the Temple. Giving them access to yet another, independent morale improvement doesn't make sense. It also adds problems for the AI. Healing Pools have a higher bonus than the Temples. Yet, with a choice between two different morale improvements, it is very likely, that the AI will use the Temples. It would probably be better to remove the Healing Pools, and to give the Temples a higher bonus. Still, it is already an improvement compared to how it originally was. Somebody at Stardock didn't think this through.

Inherent Magic: This tech is currently set to ID Industry and Category Pure Research. ID Weapons and Category Invasion would make more sense, in my opinion.

The following techs have no Details:
Military Improvements
Technology Progression I
Advanced Space Weapons
Technology Progression II
Technology Progression III
Ultimate Space Weapons


Arcean_TechTree.xml

Fleet Battle Tactics: Category is set to Military, overriding Category Communications from the TechTree.xml. Is that intentional?

Tulon Weapon Focus: Category is set to Military, overriding Category Communications from the TechTree.xml. Is that intentional?

Robust Hull Construction: Has no AIValue.

The following techs have no Details:
Ultimate Space Weapons
Technology Progression I
Technology Progression II
Technology Progression III
Space Weapons
Advanced Space Weapons
Military Improvements

Space Weapons: It has also no Description.

Temple of Honour: It has a Cost of zero, and no tech requirement. Intentional?


Dreadlords_TechTree.xml

Just a heads-up: The game treats the DL tech tree just like the one for the minor races. This means, that, if a tech is only available for one major race on the map, the minors/DL won't have it in their tech tree anymore. For example: If you are playing a one-on-one between the Arceans and the Drengin, then the minors/DL won't have access to any factory-techs (like the Industrial Sectors), any engines above Hyper Drive, and more. In other words, the DL are screwed again, because it will take them forever to build their ships.


Drengin_TechTree.xml

Fleet Battle Tactics: Category is set to Military, overriding Category Communications from the TechTree.xml. Is that intentional?

Tulon Weapon Focus: Category is set to Military, overriding Category Communications from the TechTree.xml. Is that intentional?

The following techs have no Details:
Technology Progression I
Space Weapons
Advanced Space Weapons
Technology Progression II
Technology Progression III
Ultimate Space Weapons
Ultimate Starship Defenses

The following techs also have no Description:
Space Weapons
Ultimate Starship Defenses


Iconian_TechTree.xml

Fleet Battle Tactics: Category is set to Military, overriding Category Communications from the TechTree.xml. Is that intentional?

Tulon Weapon Focus: Category is set to Military, overriding Category Communications from the TechTree.xml. Is that intentional?

Industrial Replication I and Industrial Replication II: Category is set to Missile. Should be Manufacturing.

The following techs have no Details:
Advanced Robotics
Ultimate Space Weapons
Technology Strategy I
Technology Strategy II
Technology Strategy III

The following techs also have no Description:
Technology Strategy I
Technology Strategy II
Technology Strategy III


Okay, that's enough for today. I'll go through the rest of the tech trees and the ship modules tomorrow. By now, I doubt I'll find anything more serious than I already have. The worst bugs have already been fixed.

Yeah the prices for the engines are intentionally altered.  You'll notice that Hyperwarp III has speed 5, not 4.  You're getting a fair price for the speed you get from it.

Sensors also get more efficient, but the earlier versions are not quite as ridiculous as they used to be.

I realised that some of the defences don't really give you a lot of noticeable improvement so in some cases their cost scales down as you keep researching the same line.

Thanks again for looking through all that.  I did wonder why the Krynn were stuck like that, now I know why.

Same old story with the test game.  I get just up to the point where I can research Space Weapons, and someone decides to intervene on the behalf of the other guy, who attacked me.

It's sort of ironic that I decided that I want a more challenging game and make a mod to do just that, and yet I'm complaining that the AI is militarising earlier than I am and making an incorrect decision about who started what war.

The thing is, I don't know if I'm just not playing as well as I could be, or whether I'm making a bad build at the race customisation screen, or whether I've done enough with the tech tree.  I feel like I've given them a decent start.  I don't want to go too far and make the Arceans even more powerful than the other races.

You know actually, because the Arceans are Super Warrior, it does make sense for them to have access to Space Weapons earlier.  At several points before finally getting to Technology Progression I and finally having access to the right tech, my factories and starports are sitting idle and my economy is in the green when I could be making fighters to deter attack or even get into a war.

I've been in a similar situation when I've played the other races, but frankly I think the early Arcean tech tree that I've come up with is too constrictive.  So I'll see what I can do to make it more fun.

Something interesting to know.  Had a bit of trouble getting the new weapons to work.  Not filling out the Explosion Image field is a Big Deal.   Fixed it and they're fine.  Should definitely add that check to the validation tool.

Won't have time to try them out for real tonight, tomorrow for sure.

The thing I'm going on about today is that in GC2Types.xml, weapons have a Type tag.

This has an effect on how weapons animate.  So for example, with a value of 1 enclosed, you get a visual which lasts fairly long, long enough to show a slow-moving bullet or missile to travel to its target.  Yes I know, it isn't exactly perfect, but it does something.

So if you want to have a beam weapon which snaps on and off fairly rapidly, you instead want to use a value of 3 (which is what Phasors are set to) because with a setting of 1 the beam stays on for a long while and looks like you're trying to make a Tholian web or something.

So in keeping with the theme of the mod I will take a look at some of the weapons and see if their animations are okay.  Consider for example Kinetic Streams, which has a value of 1 here, yet it is another beam-type weapon which looks funny with all the residual beams.  I know, it doesn't have any effect on the challenge provided by the AI, but it couldn't hurt to have a look at them and see if I can tune them a bit.

That's just it though, the Kinetic Streams animation is (by default) a single beam shot rather than multiple shots.  So it doesn't really jive with the time the animation remains on screen.  If it fired a slow-moving bolt of energy rather than a continuous beam, then it would be fine.

You have to remember, there was a lot of stuff added in Twilight of the Arnor, and as we've already discovered not all of it works as it should.

What I'm getting at is that (bearing in mind I'm using default designs for tiny hull fighters) the time the beam is on means that by the time the ship stops firing the origin point of the beam is far behind the ship.  It looks weird.

With a slow-moving bolt or other projectile, once they have been fired they don't need to be tethered to some imaginary line connecting the ship and its target.

I searched and turned up this, also:

https://forums.galciv2.com/119514/page/1/#3125334

From what I can gather (and I may be wrong about this) a weapon with Type of 1 animates for long enough for a projectile to reach the target and stays on until the target is destroyed or the end of the combat round.  There doesn't seem to be any computation of the actual flight time, the animation is simply run from origin point to target, even if the target moves.  The more ships that are firing in one round, the longer the combat round, and the more that projectiles seem to linger at point blank range near a ship they are targeting.

In contrast a weapon of type 3 snaps on and off a number of times that is defined in the XML.  The impact tag here is actually deciding how many times it should cycle before finally switching off.  I think.

The problem with fine-tuning these is that there are so many weapons and each time you change something in the XML you have to start a new game to see the effects.  Granted, with some cheat mode usage it doesn't have to be a long game, but I think at some point someone said, 'This is good enough,' and it was left as it was.

Truth be told, I've only glanced at Tolmekian's tech trees.  But I have been around long enough to have read about various stages of the development of the mod.

Tolmekian has brought all the weapon tech trees for all races into line and from what I can remember, rebalanced some of the weapons.

I've also rebalanced weapons, but I've allowed the different races to retain what they had on their weapon tech trees.  I've looked critically at the last tier of weapons before ultimate weapons and made them a significant step up from third tier weapons but also increased the cost to research.  Ultimate weapons themselves have been scaled up to be (for the most part) capital ship weapons, and the damage/space ratio is not quite as ridiculous as vanilla.  There's a new ultimate weapon for races that use Disruptors instead of Phasors.

I've also made defence modules less suited to fighters, scaling them up to provide a certain minimum amount of defence now that it is possible for defences to be reduced during a combat round (which makes a single point of defence virtually useless).  Some smaller defence modules are then introduce as more defence research is carried out.

I've put an emphasis on economic development with the early stages of the tech trees, meaning that armed ships will not show up as fast as in the vanilla game.  That being said, it's quite a brutal race to be the first to have weapons.  In many cases you now have to research to get any kind of buildings to place on colonies, including more labs.  The idea behind this has been to reduce the economic crashing from piling up lots of maintenance-sucking buildings and then funding their output.  At the same time, some of the early buildings have been replaced with Super Projects.  So for example, the Galactic Trading Centre (replacing basic Market building) provides +20% Economy on a planet.  This gives the AI a solid start and it is quite adept at the colony rush, so you will have to get good too.

Tolmekian has also made good strides in this area, even going so far as to consolidate farms and charging stalks under a single infrastructure technology and  building, from what I've read.

We both seem to agree that allowing the AI to build the existing farms or charging stalks on a bonus tile is pretty bad, as the AI reduces its taxation in order to deal with morale problems on high-population worlds, which reduces its economic capacity.  So instead, food/charging/infrastructure buildings increase the base population cap by a percentage rather than a fixed amount.  Percentage bonuses aren't multiplied on food bonus tiles.

Tolmekian and other modders have addressed some issues with 1pp buildings, namely that if you upgrade a 1pp building to something else and then the building is destroyed, that particular chain of buildings cannot be built on that planet ever again.

I could also address these problems but it would require some changes to various unique racial buildings and for the moment, I have focused on getting the AI to build and wage war effectively.

All modders have had to look at decreasing the number of starbase modules due to a limit (of about 100) in the AI's ability to 'see' starbase modules.  I've culled many of the military starbase modules, and you can only unlock the remaining ones through weapons research in most tech trees.  On the plus side, I found that it challenged me to do something with starbases other than fortify a position with overlapping starbase bonuses and use lots of 'drone' ships to tear the enemy to pieces.

Module dependency has also been addressed - some starbase modules depended on a chain that revolved around Battlestations I to V.  I've simplified this to just Battlestations for sanity.

Sadly there are still a few starbase modules that are over the limit.  So the AI will develop starbases during the game, but perhaps not as well as the human player can.

That's all I can think of at the moment, there's lots of things to see  in either mod so I can promise you that you won't be bored with them, although I find that if you're used to teching quickly you may want to raise the tech speed in game setup.  In particular, new colonies in my mod will give you only 2 research which both helps and hinders - you won't be bleeding money paying for (a funding percentage of) 12 research per initial colony any more, but you'll have to build up research infrastructure by building more of it.

Wow, that didn't take long.  Basically the beam weapon animations don't line up as I would expect, so I'm going to try something else and see what happens.

Edit: So far, not much.  I think the problem is that the ships are too small and are therefore moving too fast and too far from the origin point of the beam.  Or I have the wrong idea about the animation settings, starting to think they don't do very much.

Edit 2: Okay I think I'm going to just leave the animation thing for now and come back to it later.  That's the sensible thing to do.