I've finished updating the campaigns with my new changes. While I was at it, I also fixed some bugs. Both my own, and a few vanilla ones, that I overlooked the last time. The biggest one is probably the enabling of the outro cinematic of the TotA campaign. I was always wondering why it never worked. Now I know. The scenario file was pointing to the wrong directory.

After that, I updated the regular scenarios to work with Autumn, and fixed their bugs, because... well, why not? I went through most of the accessible files of the game to fix the bugs, so I might as well add those files too.

The tech trees also saw some more minor changes. I moved the Sensors-techs back to their old place behind Interstellar Construction, the Thalan have once again access to Space Weapons and Starship Defenses, and for the Krynn, Advanced Hulls is unlocked by Robust Hull Design again. The biggest, though only cosmetic, change is that I removed the groupings from several techs. This means, that they will show up as individual techs again. It's a minor change all by itself, but the visual effect it has is pretty big. The tech trees look much better now, at least in my opinion, and resemble the vanilla ones much more closely.

As for my idea regarding the ship modules, it didn't work out as well as I hoped. Generalised ships are weaker now, but not quite as much as I intended. For some reason, I didn't take miniaturisation into account. Still, it should be good enough, now, that I had another look at the ultimate weapons. Just to give you an example, here are the values of the ultimate weapons and defenses for a huge hull:

Doom Ray
Cost 115
Size 14
Damage 28

Nightmare Torpedo
Cost 130
Size 21
Damage 40

Black Hole Generator
Cost 100
Size 18
Damage 35

Invulnerability Field
Cost 55
Size 9
Defense 20

Aero Missile Defense
Cost 55
Size 7
Defense 20

Zero-Point Armor
Cost 55
Size 8
Defense 20

As you can see, the ultimate defenses are much stronger now, even though their actual defense value is unchanged. Along with my other changes to the ship modules, this should lead to much more interesting choices during ship design.

I still need to test it a little more, and adjust some of the AI values, but, if everything goes right, I'll release v1.1 in the next couple of days (16th Dec. at the latest).

I guess, today is as good a day as any to announce it*: I'm officially putting Autumn Twilight into maintenance mode. Unless someone reports a serious issue, don't expect any more updates.

To clarify this, I'm not completely ruling out any further updates. They're just going to be unlikely. Especially with the GalCiv 3 alpha coming out in a few months.

I've pretty much achieved what I set out to do. Well, more in fact. When I began working on Autumn Twilight at the end of April 2008, I only wanted to fix a few bugs that were annoying me. Over time, I added more and more stuff to the mod. Now, I've fixed almost all bugs in the XML-files (as far as I'm able to), the campaigns, and the scenarios. I completely rebalanced the game, and made some of the races either more unique, more powerful, or both.
The AI is also playing much better. While it is still making some mistakes, it is now as good as I can make it. Even though I occasionally cursed at the AI, because its stupidity frustrated me to no end, it really is great overall. If Frogboy hadn't done such a good job at programming the AI, I probably wouldn't have been able to improve it as much. At least not with the limited way of influencing the AIs decision-making we modders have.

Lastly, I want to give thanks to MarvinKosh, Tolmekian, MabusAltarn, UnleashedElf, and all the others who provided feedback, either positive or negative, over the last two years since I first began posting about my mod. I really appreciate it! Without the feedback, Autumn Twilight wouldn't be what it is today.

There is only one thing left for me to say: The mod is done. Time to start playing again.


*Today is the anniversary of the release of the first beta of Autumn Twilight, in case you're wondering.

Hi everybody! Version 1.11 (or, as I like to call it, the "final" final patch) is out.

The ship designs are now all fully updated. The only downside to this is, that the Ship Designer takes a bit longer to load.

The Yor are faster at building the Maintenance Grid, and are also better at researching the Efficiency Studies-techs. Not great, mind you, but noticeable better.

As for the Iconians, I had to adopt a more radical approach in fixing their morale-issues. The problem was, strangely enough, that the Dream Conclaves are too good. A planet with two Dream Conclaves is hardly affected by a high tax rate, while the approval of a planet without one will drop under 20%. The empire-wide approval-rating will also stay relatively high, making the AI think, that everything's okay.
The Dream Conclave now provides only a 40% morale-bonus (same as the VRC), while being cheaper to build (50), and much cheaper to maintain (1bc). Tests have been very positive, but, once again, far from perfect. However, it's as good as I can make it.

I've had another look at the Altarians, Drath, and Arceans. They're now much better at going after Divergent Evolution\Weather Control.

The maintenance cost of the standard Labs and the Research Collectives is now 3bc, while the one of the Technology Matrix is now 5bc. The previous value was a little too high when compared to Schools and Slaveling Labs. Speaking of Slaveling Labs, I increased the base-research value from 4rp to 6rp. They still total out at 12rp, but the early versions are now much more productive. The Research Matrix also saw a slight boost. It now provides a research-bonus of 20%, instead of 10%. To compensate for this, the maintenance cost is back at 3bc now.

The biggest change, overall, is to the minor races. I provided them with unique versions of several techs (primarily morale and economy), in order to prevent them from loosing access to those. The Dark Yor are now using Factories and Labs, instead of Manufacturing and Research Collectives, while the Snathi are now using Factories, instead of Slave Pits. The Snathi also no longer have access to the Industrial Starbase-techs, and are now using Black Markets, instead of regular Markets.

Lastly, I moved the tech tree variants into their own folder, called "Variants", because they seemed to have an effect on the game while being in the main folder.


Well, this is it. No more "there is still something I need to fix" or "I'm not quite happy with something, after all". Like I said before, if you find something strange, or potentially game-breaking, I will take a look at it. Other than that though, there won't be any more updates. For real, this time.

In any case, I hope you have fun with the new version!

While going through the tech tree to fix the typos and grammar issues, I came across the government-techs. I wasn't truly satisfied with how the Imperium and Hive government-techs turned out (primarily their names and details), and always wanted to change them. However, I completely forgot about that over the last year. Now, I finally did it.

The biggest change is, that Imperium and Hive are no longer individual techs. Instead, they work like the Korx Corporation techs now, in that they are the standard government-techs just with different names and bonuses. I just didn't like it, that a major game mechanic wasn't available to half of the races. Sure, it may seem a little strange, that the tech calls the government by one name, while the rest of the game calls it something different, but there is nothing I can do about that.

I also removed the Diplomacy bonus from the standard government-techs, which should make them a little bit more even with the other governments, and increased the Influence bonus from Star Federation from +5% to +10%.

Overall, the total bonuses of the governments look like this:

Standard: +20% Influence

Corporation: +20% Influence

Imperium: +20% Loyalty

Hive: +20% Social and Military Production

Social Studies: +20% Morale

Of the five, Hive is probably the most powerful, but that seems only fitting for the Thalan. I would have liked to give the Corporation a Trade bonus, but, due to their Super Ability, that would have meant, that the Korx start out with those techs already researched. An Economics bonus would have also fit, but it seemed kinda redundant. In the end, Influence seemed like the best choice. The Korx could use it too, due to their Loyalty penalty.
Social Studies is the name for the Yor "government". Yes, the Yor have access to the government-techs again. No, I didn't reduce the Economics bonus from the Efficiency Studies techs in exchange. Considering that the Yor don't have any spammable economy structures , and a higher population is not enough to compensate for the lack of those, it seemed only fair to give them another boost.

Speaking of the Yor, it is weird seeing some of their techs mention, that their population growth is slower than that of the biological races, because it isn't reflected anywhere. To fix this discrepancy, I decided to give the Yor a small Pop-growth penalty (-10%). This isn't too high of a penalty, and the bonuses granted by the Charging Stalk improvements more than compensate for it.

I also had another look at the true low-population growth races. The Thalan are supposed to grow the slowest. However, due to their starting techs, they actually grow faster than the second slowest race, the Drath. The problem is, that I can't just remove Xeno Biology and Xeno Medicine, because that would make it impossible for the Thalan to research the cure for the Plague and the Disease. I also can't make the Thalan not start out with those techs due to lore reason. So, I decided to simply increase their Pop-growth penalty from -30% to -40%. This means, that the Thalan start out with the same penalty as the Drath, and eventually end up with a Pop-growth value of 0%.

The Drath will also end up with a Pop-growth value of 0%, because I removed Fertility Acceleration from their tech tree again. However, they still have the pop-growth bonus from the Biosphere Modulator, which should more than compensate.

Sadly, I had to remove the WarCrime UP proposals again. For some reason, Neutral races are sometimes also affected by this tax, even if they have already researched Xeno Ethics. It didn't make any sense, and, because the proposals are all hardcoded, there is nothing I can do to fix it. 

Well, there are a couple more changes (including a new GA: Omega Shipyard), but I'll keep those for a future post.

TL;DR Increased the overall Trade ability of the Korx; gave the Arceans a second Warp Field Disruptor module, in exchange of the Interstellar Navigators module; made some more changes to the UP proposals and added two new ones. 

One of the biggest remaining problems is the performance of the Korx during the colony rush. They occasionally do fine enough, but they loose too much time building freighters instead of colony ships, even if there are no races to trade with close by. The reason for this is the high Trade bonus the Korx start out with. It makes them value trade a lot.

There are two ways to fix this: 1. reduce the Trade bonus of the Trade techs, and 2. give the Korx another Super Ability, because Super Trader makes them automatically start out with any tech that provides a Trade bonus. Neither is something I'd like to do. I originally increased the bonuses of the Trade techs in order to make trade more worthwhile. Reducing the bonuses again would defeat the point. Super Trader is the only SA that really fits the Korx. Also, giving them another SA would diminish the uniqueness of one of the other races.

Instead, I decided to further increase the Trade bonuses of the Korx. If the are forgoing colonies in order to make trade routes, then I at least should make it worth their while. The Korx racial bonus to Trade is back at +50% (from +25%), Xeno Mercantilism provides +50% instead of +25%, and the Mercantile party also provides now +50% (up from +20%). Overall, the Korx start now with a Trade ability of +250% (instead of 170%). In my tests, the Korx didn't perform any worse than before, so the new value should be okay.

The Arceans also saw another small change. I replaced the Interstellar Navigator starbase module with a second Warp Field Disruptor module. This brings their speed reduction to a maximum of -3 per military starbase. It also makes more sense, because the Arceans are the turtle among the races. Trying to make them catch up to the speed of the other races, goes against what they are about.

Last but not least, I had another look at the UP proposals. I changed the text of some of the proposals, undid a few my changes (mostly how the AI would vote), made some more changes to the values, and added two more proposals. The new ones are just copies of the TechRevolution proposal and the Terror Star ban proposal. They are identical to the originals, with the only exception, that the second Terror Star ban now has a time limit (5 years). Of my changes to the other proposals, the ones for the starbase module restrictions is the most noteworthy. I changed the amount of modules for each option (3, 6, 9 instead of 2, 4, 8), and made the second proposal have a permanent duration again.

All in all, the new version is shaping up nicely. So far, I haven't noticed any more bugs or issues. I still want to test a little more, before I release it though.

Made an account to say that I love your mod and can't wait for v.1.12!

Have you ever pondered about doing an Extras addon?


For example, add more powerful weapons for those of us that play Immense games?



Doom Ray   
Doom Ray X
Chaos Beam  
Entropy Beam 
Pandemonium Spectrum (ultimate)


Nightmare Torpedo  
Nightmare Torpedo X
Oblivion Devastator  
Mayhem Devastator  
Apocalypse Ballistic (ultimate)



Black Hole Gun
Black Hole Gun X
Supernova Cannon  
Quasar Cannon    
Genesis Artillery (ultimate)


(after Hyperwarp III):
Transcendence Engine I
Transcendence Engine II
Transcendence Engine III
Almighty Engine (ultimate)

Hi everybody! The ultimate version (1.12) is finally out.

Unlike usually, I'm not going to write up what changed, because I've already mentioned all the big changes in my previous posts.

The only noteworthy additions are the Readme-file and the Full Changelog-file. The latter replaces the previous changelogs, and incorporates all the changes to the games files (only exceptions are the scenarios and the campaigns). This should make it easier for newcomers to learn what is different, without having to go through several files. As always, there is still a changelog for what is new in this version compared to the previous one.

Well, I hope you like the changes and have fun playing!

I made a personal copy of  zoomable  4427 x 5290 .PNG Tech Tree Posters for 1.12 Ultimate using the Tech Viewer Tool. Its really easy to do if you wanted to see the Tech Trees. I have Windows 7 64bit and it worked for me. even in a .zip its still 183 MBs for all the Races and Minor Race Tech Trees.








The link to the Tech Viewer Tool
http://www.i-mod-productions.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=121


Also Autumn Twilight works great with LogicSequence's High Definition mod if you copy everything in the mod to Autumn Twilight except the Data Folder.



 Thank you so much for this mod, your Changelog is 99 pages which I am reading out of curiosity. 

Hi everybody! I've uploaded a small update for v1.12.

As it turns out, I've overlooked a few things after all. It's nothing major, and only really affects the 'Battle of the gods' scenario, and some of the campaign-missions. In other words, you don't need to download it, if you don't play the scenarios or the campaigns.

Here is what changed:

For one, I forgot to add the word "Minor" to the DisplayName of the Dark Yor-version of the Cybernetic Support techs. This means, that the Yor don't start out with those techs fully researched in some of the campaign-missions and the 'Battle of the gods' scenario, due to the way the Scenario-editor works.

While I was at it, I gave the Dark Yor a minor race-version of the Efficiency Studies techs, because I didn't found it fair, that they are unable to improve their economy, if the Yor are in the game.

Then, there is a small chance of loosing the Starport, if you start out with Soil Enhancement (though you can simply rebuild it). This too is only a problem in the 'Battle of the gods' scenario and a few of the campaign-missions. I fixed this by removing the Terraforming techs as starting techs in those cases.

I also made some changes to the 'Battle of the gods' scenario in general. Range is no longer unlimited, and the minor races have been enabled.

Lastly, I forgot to change the DisplayName of the Psyonic weapons techs to "Psionic" in the main tech tree and the FullTrade variant. I originally made that change only in the LightTrade variant, for some reason.


I'm sorry, should this inconvenience any of you.

What are your map settings and difficulty? I've tested the mod on several different map settings and Tough difficulty, but I mostly play on Immense maps, with Abundant All, Tight Clusters, and Occasional Extreme Worlds, and Crippling difficulty. The Iconians are usually among the strongest races in my games, but not by as long a margin as in yours. Often enough, they are outcolonised by the Altarians and Thalan.

Overall, I'm rather satisfied with the Iconians. They've gone from one of the weakest races, to one of the strongest. However, I'm going to take another look at them, to see, if they've gone too far in the other direction.

As for splitting up the Extreme Colonization techs, I'm not going to do that, because it has a bad effect on AI-performance. The AI usually takes either too long to go for those techs, or goes too soon for them. That's just for the first tech, mind you. All subsequent ones will take even longer. During that time, the AI will not even really benefit from those worlds.

I'm currently playing a game as the Korx, and have received war-declarations by the Altarians and the Drath. Both declarations were empty. I'm not entirely surprised by this. The GC2_Conversations.xml is the hardest file to test after all. However, I was still hoping, that I had fixed all of those empty messages by now.

I have no idea what the reason for the war declaration is. It is likely, that the Altarians and Drath have been paid-off, all of the current wars are due to bribes, but I'm not sure. If it is, then they've been ripped off. I have the fourth best military in the game, while they have barely any war-ships.

Anyhow, I've went through the GC2_Conversations.xml again, and added entries for all races in all the war-specific topics. Even in cases where it, theoretically, shouldn't be necessary. That there is no documentations about this file, however, makes it difficult to tell where those changes are necessary and where not. I don't even know, if the file contains all possible topics, or if there are some missing. Not to mention, if the existing ones contain any errors in their InternalNames.

However, one good thing about the GC2_Conversations.xml is, that it isn't added to the savegame, like most of the xml-files. This means, that all changes will show up, even if you load a save instead of starting a new game.

Well, I continued playing, and got a war declaration by the Iconians. It was empty.

I have no idea what else I could do.

Edit: I've run a couple more tests (i.e., I began a couple new games), and I think, that it is fixed now. It's strange though. I didn't make any other changes, which means, that my previous fix did require a new game after all. Which makes no sense, because changes to the GC2_Conversations.xml never required a new game to work before.
I'm still not 100% certain that it is fixed. It could just be, that the reason for war is a different one this time.

Totally off topic, but do you see something like this ever happening for GC3? I know it's way too soon to ask?

Other thoughts:

- Right now Torian seems to be a very consistently powerful force. More powerful than I'd like, but not at the boundary of "OP".

I'd recommend at some point submitting this to Stardock for them to look at and maybe making this officially patched.