Beta 5 is out and a lot more changed, than I expected.

Some of the changes have already been discussed, but here are the details:

Drengin: Xeno Propaganda has become a bit more powerful. It now provides +10% to both Influence and Loyalty, and unlocks a new Culture module (Propaganda Station: +25% culture-bonus). The Propaganda Machine has been renamed to Brain Washing Machine, and is now unlocked by Xeno Brain Washing. Its bonus to Culture modules has also been increased from +50% to +100%. The Aul Power Center is now Drengin-only. The tech no longer requires an Evil alignment, is now placed after Graft of Ages, and no longer provides an Economics-bonus. Slave Pits and the other advanced manufacturing-techs no longer provide any Mining or Production-Assist modules. Instead, the modules from the Industrial Starbase Construction-techs got more powerful.

Korath: The following techs are no longer availalbe: Xeno Propaganda, Xeno Brain Washing, Devil's Forge, Death Furnace, Enhanced Slavelings, Artificial Slavelings, and the aforementioned Aul Power Center. Dark Influence got a +10% bonus to Influence. Wretched Cloning and Aul Incineration have been moved back to their old place behind Xeno Medicine, and have been turned into Biology-techs again. The Korath also got two new techs: Advanced Cloning and Superior Cloning. They are pretty much identical with Enhanced/Artificial Slavelings and are meant as a thematically more fitting replacement. Like the Drengin, the Korath also saw some changes to their starbase modules. Advanced Production-Assist modules are unlocked by Wretched Cloning and Aul Incineration, while advanced Mining modules are unlocked by Advanced/Superior Cloning.

Arcean: The Navigation Center now has the statistics of the Advanced Navitgation Center, which got removed. Interstellar Navigation no longer provides a Speed-bonus, and costs now 400 instead 250. Sub-space Drive also saw a cost-increase (from 400 to 800). Advanced Navigation Centers saw a name-change (Advanced Interstellar Navigators), got a +10% Speed-bonus, and a cost-reduction from 3500 to 1800. Overall, this means that the Arceans have it a little harder early on to increase their speed, but the total cost is lower.

Maintenance: As mentioned earlier, I went back to a fixed maintenance-cost for labs and factories. This is done mostly to help the AI, which has a hard time coping with the increasing costs. For the moment, the values are:

Factories (3bc)
Slave Pits (1bc)
Replicators (2bc)
Collectives (2bc)
Labs (5bc)
Slaveling Labs (2bc)
Schools (3bc)
Research Collectives (4bc)

There are more changes, but those were the major ones.

Work on the AI continues slowly, but steady. The Drengin are doing better now, but still refuse to research certain techs (or only do so very late). The Korath win quite often currently. As long as they have a reasonably good start, they can put up a good fight. The Terrans and Yor are currently the best races, in my opinion. Both have a very high chance of winning. The Arceans and Korx saw some slight improvements. They managed to win a couple of times now. The other races are pretty much the same as before.

If no more changes to the tech trees come up, I will try to make the campaigns compatible with Autumn in my next version.

Right now I am going to split performance into tiers. Note that these are based on v4 and strictly my observations - limited sample size is a problem here.

Well performing

Human - well balanced tech tree; can rally others to cause too; they are average early game, but tend to get better and better as the game draws on

Yor Collective - seem to be able to capitalize on their industry; average start-up like humans, but as the game draws on them seem to get progressively better

Torian - strongest  early game of all the races; able to expand very quickly, and this inertia tends to lead to a strong performing end-game race

Average

Korath (provided that settings favor AI 7) - could use some work though as discussed

Drath - they do ok, but their key right now is their super-ability, which tends to lead to an evil-neutral-good struggle later in the game
Altarian - similar comments like that of the Drath; going to war with Altarians tends to lead towards an ENG sided war later on

Iconian - seem to be "fixed" compared to AI 10, but they have not distinguished themselves to me either

Thalan - interestingly enough, they do not do that well late game; seem to be quite aggressive too, which is not necessarily a bad thing - from my experiences, they are very potent mid-game

Krynn - the quintessential average performer if you will; not too aggressive, does ok during the initial phase, but at the same time, they usually don't tend to end up on top later on

Below Average

Korx - discussed earlier; trade reliant; seems to be inherent; perhaps could buff economy later on, but that's all I can think of

Drengin - not too sure why this is, perhaps a combination of AI 7 and other weakness; they are aggressive, but often cannot win? A radical solution may be to make the Drengin AI 11 with 100 aggression?

Arceans - they seem to have issues expanding early on, in some cases they can "catch up", in other cases, they seem to languish behind late game

Active playing is the best method of getting information, but also the most time consuming. I just don't have the time to always do that (primarily because I'm a slow player), so I use mostly AI vs AI plays, and occasionally take control of a minor race for the first game year.

However, both these methods have some serious drawbacks. In the first one, there is no human player. The players actions usually influences how the AI reacts. Plus, each turn is extremely short, which gives the AI not much time to think. Not to mention, that, when war brakes out, it can be quite hard to stop the auto-turn to take a look at the races. You usually have to wait until the war stops or one of the races got wiped out. This is extremely bad, if the race you want to look at gets wiped out, before you had a chance. In the second method, there is a human player, but I'm not doing anything. At least the turns are longer, because I'm constantly checking what the AIs are researching.

Despite their flaws, both methods can give an indication on how the AI would act in a regular game. They just don't work as a permanent replacement for active play-testing.

That is strange. Does the Steam-version use a different path for mods? My Stardock-version has the mods-folder directly under the main-folder. In any case, installing the mod under that path, instead of the one I mentioned in the OP, should do the trick.

However, if that still doesn't work for some reason, you could also change the mod-path manually. To do that, edit the line ModsDir in the pref.ini file, so it points to the correct location of the mod. You can find the file under User Name\My Docs\My Games\GC2TwilightArnor.

If that doesn't work either, just drop a line. I'll see what else I can do to help.

Glad to hear that.

Ok I'm going to split races into category again:

In Good Shape

Humans - Seem to build up, and mid to late game, have a tendency to end up in the Evil-Neutral-Good wars on either the neutral or sometimes the good side. Sometimes the neutral races don't "gang up" together. Good empire management is what I think distinguishes the humans above many of the average races.

Yor - Although they aren't the best at the start, they are "ok" in a sense. The longer the games go, the better they seem to do and in a few cases, can end up being the dominant AI race in many of my games. They and the humans are the best AI for late game. They tend to rule in production. Also, I think that the fact that they are not as aggressive may be helping them build up a potent empire for later in the game.

Torians - They are the strong starters. As the game goes by they do lose some of that advantage, but they're usually among the top races at times. Later in the game, Yor and Humans tend to have better managed empires, but the Torians still do relatively well, especially if they have established a solid lead.

Drath - Right now even though their empire isn't the most potent, their ability to manipulate wars can make them a very ... interesting addition to any game. Empire wise, they do ok. Usually not at the top in terms of income, production, research, but they have a tendency to do reasonable well. I'm going to leave this as "in good shape" with the Altarians because well, they're fine. They may not consistently be near the top, but they're not constantly getting destroyed either.

Altarians - Adding these guys tends to result in a ENG race more so than any others. Note that at times, the neutral races do not participate with each other, it can be an E-G competition solely. Their performance like that of the Drath is what you'd call generic. They seem to have a higher penchant for going to war than the Drath. Average though in terms of Empire management.

Perhaps the Drath and Altarians need a bit more to make each race distinct - although that may be asking for a balancing nightmare. It should not be a priority though over other issues and only at a later date.

Krynn - They are doing ok. I have not seen any times where, barring a bad starting location, they consistently underperform. Empire management looks decent. I would like to see them expand a bit more frequently, but otherwise I have no issues with them.

Korx - To be honest, I debated between putting them as "fine" or moderate attention needed. Average income, average empire management. We've already discussed the trade issues barring an unhealthy overemphasis early game on trade. Maybe a slight buff to their economy would be nice.

Could use moderate attention

Iconians - I do not know if there is anything to be done about this, but their unique PP improvements such as the 50% economy one are very potent, and favor not having specialized worlds, but the AI does not seem to build their PP improvements at every planet at times. Otherwise ok.

Thalan - Their late game could use some attention. Perhaps their top end improvements and abilities could use a slight buff? And a few atlas modules for their ships? They are very aggressive at times, but also decent at building an empire. Earlier on they do ok.

Korath - If they are on a non-AI-7 map, they're in trouble. Especially with a bad starting location. Otherwise they are ok. A few balancing issues could go on here and there. As expected they do tend to get themselves in war a lot . Empire management is decent, but could use some improvement - they do not take advantage of all of their PP improvements. Perhaps in some cases this is good as it may not be economical to do so. In other cases though, they're missing out.

Needs improvement

Drengin - Despite this tech tree's similarities to the Korath, they have issues. AI-7 as noted earlier can be an issue. I do not know why but their empire management seems to have issues. Production and income tend to be frequently less than that of the Korath. Their research at times can be sporadic as well. As you noted, an AI-11 or AI-8 with 100 aggression may be able to fix this. Another serious problem is that they have a tendency to go to war with empires a lot stronger than they are.

Arcean - They can do well, but their empire management is not great. They are below average during the colony rush. They also tend to be aggressive. Like the Drengin though, when they go to war, they often do not have an economic base that can support the kind of conquest that they so want. They seem to favor military too much. Often they can be out-teched as well.

I just finished a game with this mod and I love it. I like how you made every tech useful somehow and how weapons are scaled. The AIs seem to be doing well and they're building and upgrading starbases well. I've even seen some abandoned influence starbases. I was able to defeat the Dread Lords in this game, and the game didn't crash when the Dread Lords appeared, as some people reported. The only thing I want to point out is that everyone except the Drengin developed beam weapons. But this happens in other mods and in vanilla too, everyone developing the same weapons.

Overall great mod, this has become my main mod now and I've combined it with HRG mod to fully enhance my game experience. Congratulations and please keep it up! I'll try to provide actual useful feedback the next time I play.

Slight addendum: I tested the Terrans again, and it apparently was just bad luck on their part. My new changes had some effect on them, but they are still pretty good. In some areas, they are actually even better. For example, they are more willing to research their morale and, sometimes even, research techs.

Altarians - I really am not sure why they are going to war so often. It could be a sample size issue, but they do seem to have this tendency to go to war. Their empire is usually not particularly weak so they aren't the "weak race getting picked off" so to speak.

To be honest, at this point, making Drath and Altarian distinct should be a low priority - getting the other things right should be higher.

Korx - should be fine if the changes you said were made.

Iconians - I think it may just be a fundamental AI limitation - they aren't building their powerful PP abilities. Other than setting a higher AI value, I'm not sure what else to do. You could try moving these PP improvements further down the tech tree, but that has other balance implications.

Drengin - will need to see your changes in action more to comment, assuming you're referring to a newer version. I do agree though with lowering their aggressiveness - they need to go to war only when prepared. Otherwise, they'll be fine as AI 7.

Arcean - lately they're going ok in some of my games. I will need to see if they go on. Like the Drengin they do tend to go to war prematurely, so lowering aggression should help.

Thalan - should be ok then in terms of points. In terms of choosing the right technologies, I think you'll need to go through the tech tree again at some point and make changes.

Pretty much the only thing I can think of is the color issue, which can be helpful especially at higher resolutions (I play at 2560x1440).

I have a request. In some other mods then put in the description of a building what it's specific effects are. There's an information window for that but it's not always clear, specifically with projects that can give planet or empire wide bonuses. Some of them will list two of the same bonus and not say which is for the planet and which is for the empire. Usually you can tell going by how big the bonus is but I've still managed to be fooled and build something on the wrong planet.

One thing they made pretty confusing was with just the wording of things affecting moral and approval. They seem to use both terms interchangeably and for a while I wasn't sure if they were the same thing. They should have used moral for planet happy and approval for empire wide happy.

Well, the AI doesn't want to cooperate with me today, so I decided to tackle the colour issue.

After taking a closer look, the Yor and Thalan are not quite so difficult to tell apart as I thought. Not at all, actually. However, I noticed that some races use different colours for their interface than they use for their race and sector. To be specific, this is the case for the Terrans, Drengin, Thalan and Krynn. It will be fixed in the next version.

For the Iconians, I decided to use white as the main colour, because they were already going in that direction. However, the game doesn't show it as pure white. It comes more across as dirty white/light grey. Thankfully, I guess, because pure white could be quite blinding.

The Korath used a brown colour I had a hard time to adjust. Too dark, and you can't see it on the map. Too light, and you could confuse them with the Krynn or Korx. The Drengin, on the other hand, use red as their main colour. So I decided to use a darker tone of red for their cousins. The tone I use is called "Red devil" according to Wikipedia. More than appropriate for the Korath, I think.

Here is a picture of the Galaxy Map with all the races (except the Altarians and Arceans). The Korath are in the middle and the Iconians at the bottom.

What does everyone think?