The duplicate stone rain randomly generated empire has been corrected to stone reaper.

Malyx the unyielding now has a smaller, more consistent portrait size.

The Charr leader has returned as a unique portrait. I spent time cleaning white pixels and resizing it.

Fixed a minor bug with Norn Diplomacy


Two new empires have been added at once!
- Both are megacorps, which in addition to the Hylek megachurch completes this side of the entire mod!
- These are feature complete empires which means right from the off they have:
- Custom art rooms
- Properly configured species traits / civics / government / authority / etc
- Unique diplomacy
- Full custom namelists

First is the consortium.
- In guild wars lore the consortium is a multi-racial group founded by the asura. The modpack already has an asuran species empire, so the question becomes - who should the consortium be?
- One of my favorite portraits in stellaris is of the cute frog reptiles, which match perfectly with Guild Wars 1 bluetongue heket! So this is the mascot species for the consortium of the future. A heket ran consortium! A weird combination that was fun to write, with a fun leader-name I'll let you all discover for yourselves.
- This empire fills the slot of the criminal heritage, mafia empire.

Second is the Black Lion trading company
- Similarly, this is a multi racial group and we already have Charr. This time I've opted for another race that I really want in the pack but have no great empire concept for, the Naga. This is a really crazy lore combo and a fun wacky concept. I can understand people not liking this, but it's basically the one big wacky thing out of the roughly 40 planned empires so I'm cutting myself some creative freedom on this one.

Diplomacy was lots of fun for these guys. On the one hand you have the monstrous looking naga who actually run an above-board trustworthy operation, and on the other hand the unbelievably cute heket who run a disgusting mafia empire.

I didn't really put much thought into their flags. Feedback wanted!

Species that modify themselves may now be known as "Jade-Tech".

The Galaxies nebulas are now guild wars themed! They are all based around mists locations inthe two games, which often means god stuff or PvP map references which weren't being used in the species namelists.

162 new species names have been added. These function as the randomly generated creatures you'll find as presapients and primitives around the galaxy. The new creatures are split across the Stellaris species categories, that is: Humanoid, Mammalian, Necroi, Aquatic, etc.

These species also have home-world names appropriate to them. Basically the place you'll find the creature in Guild Wars is the same place you'll find them in Stellaris. For example the Ntouka Birds might be found in a Kournan named homeworld. Or at least they should be, the home-world names (despite being assigned after several hours of wiking and typing) aren't showing up in-game right now and I'll look into it in the future if I can.

Basically every single creature that I can imagine being worthwhile across both games, all campaigns and expansions has been added. As before if you have ideas / feedback head to the spreasheet, they are all listed there. That said: since home-worlds aren't appearing in game this patch anyway, and documentation will be a bore to deal with, those aren't on the sheet.

I do want to be clear: These are just names that are trying to match a vague category of species. They are randomly generated. Sometimes you'll find the, say, Oakhearts, have been given a really fitting portrait, and other times it will not match so well. But they will always at least be Plantoids. That's the nature of the beast. The fact they are all now Guild Wars themed is a much better feeling situation than before at any rate!


A side effect of implementing this helped me to resolve a stupid bug from the previous versions of the mod, where ugly art and blank species names were randomly generating.

Lastly the fundamental nature of the mod has changed slightly and I hope this is OK.
Previous versions of this mod were made for 100% maximum compatibility that wouldn't tamper with or affect any vanilla stuff. However:
1. My assumption is that most people using the mod want to clean the galaxy of all the vanilla stellaris stuff, and just watch Tyrians duke it out. (Again, MOST, people)
2. Leaving all the Vanilla files intact means that all these new 162 will still be buried under an avalanch of randomly generating base-game stellaris names.

So with this in mind I have done two things:
1. Base Stellaris prescripted Empires (E.g Blorg and co) have been hidden and won't take slots in the galaxy.
2. Base Stellaris randomly generating species names have been hidden and won't appear instead of Tyrian ones.


Now I do appreciate you might like absolutely everything at once. That's not a problem at all, you just need to browse into the mod folder and remove two files. I'll find out how to use the workshop discussions section or something tomorrow and write instructions for people.

So that's it! Let me know how it goes in the comments.

The five ancient races (mursaat, seer, etc) now have higher advanced start chances, and other empires have lower. Obviously if you don't like advanced starts at all you can just use the slider at galaxy creation. It's just that, if you DO pick advanced starts with this mod, these ancient races have the highest chance to take those slots!

The grawl have recieved a personality (based on spiritual seekers) and diplomacy. I really relied a lot on pulling Guild Wars 2 dialogue for these guys. Ook! Oot!

The Jotun have recieved a personality and full diplomacy. Writing them was interesting, I leant more into the "wise philosopher kings" bit more than the magic bit. They allude to story telling, telescopes and magic mostly.

The quaggan AI will now act like fanatic befrienders, rather than spiritual seekers, since there are many spiritual seekers already in the mod.

Mursaat, Seers, Ghosts and margonites now prefer energy weapons (representing magical aptitude).
Dredge now prefer explosive weapons (their tanks, mines, etc we see in Guild Wars)
Skritt now prefer strike craft (representing their many numbers, swarms of skritt strike craft sound awesome to me!)
Grawl, Krait, Angchu and Sensali now prefer kinetic weapons (energy seemed ill fitting)
Glint's starholds now prefer point defense (representing defensive saviour nature)
Quaggan favour point defense too (representing desire to avoid conflict)
Awakened now favour strike craft (mostly diversities sake, maybe let's imagine a scarab swarm)
Ogres no longer favour strike craft, and are instead kinetic. (The idea of the pets in the strike craft is kind of funny, I admit)


The forgotten have been enrichened, they are now void dwellers! The idea for this race was always that they had been pushed back and back, eventually beyond the crystal desert and back into the mists (space). So here they are, since origins now exist in stellaris and they can have gameplay to match their name! (which was created long ago).
- The forgotten have received some lore touchups
- A personality and full diplomacy, too. I kind of cheated with these guys, just adding lots of extra S's. But I got a krait reference in there, the altar of glaust. Stuff that's vaguely fun. Another empire with so much lore it's hard to know which bits to focus on and reference.


The Deldrimor Dwarves have gained a personality and diplomacy. They are traders but a bit more aggressive. I found them quite difficult to write for, especially after feeling the creativity drain on the stome summit before! Like with the Tengu, though, I don't regret having two empires for this race. They are both very different in terms of Stellaris mechanics which is super cool.


The Charr now have a personality
- Based on hegemonic imperialists
- Their diplomacy was nice, fun and simple to write. Warmongers with references to Ascalon. Simple!

The Asura now have a personality
- Based on ruthless capitalists
- Diplomacy has been implemented. Some talk about asura technology, gates, and a bit on the destroyers. I wanted a lot more technobabble in it, but I'm honestly just not creative/talented enough to type it out quickly. Suggestions welcome!

The Sylvari now have a personality
- Based on erudite explorers
- Sylvari dialogue generally references the tablet, wyld hunts, and the risen.

The Norn now have a personality
- Based on democratic crusaders
- References to the spirits of the wild galore



And that is ALL the personalities done! Obviously I'll have to write new ones when whole new empires are added but completing the backlog of the previous 33 feels really, really good.

Ghosts of Ascalon diplomacy dialogue has been tweaked, since it in-fact does appear in game.

The latest newcomers to the galaxy have arrived! They are the first (and only) machine Rogue Defense system in the set, the GOLEMS of Mecha Sum. Their sedition inhibitors have been broken, and the golem uprising now intends to sweep across the galaxy.
- They have a unique room, description, and empire set-up.
- They have an origin, mechanists! Tyria for them has become a massive planet wide machine.

That's all for today. Feedback on anything is welcome!

More typo fixes.

The Chak have arrived!
- Chak are a non-genocidal hive-mind empire that stand against the other elder dragon hives
- The second (and final) non-genocidal hive-mind will come at a later date
- Chak have very little lore in Guild Wars, therefore they use standard hive-mind diplomacy and a standard arthropoid namelist.

The Ogre secondary colour has been changed to red
- This better reflects their status as barbaric despoilers.


The two tengu empires have undergone several changes to draw them apart from one another, as I felt this wasn't done well in earlier versions of the mod. Head to the spreadsheet for full details but big items include:
- The Sensali Alliance has become a Citizen Stratocracy.
- Sensali are spiritualist/militarist/xenophobe
- Angchu are materialist/militarist/xenophile
- Angchu gained free haven and lost warrior culture (warrior culture is represented elsewhere in the mod, free haven was not)
- Sensali lost both civics that were seen elsewhere, and gained citizen service and nationalistic zeal.
- Sensali are physicists, angchu are engineers, both are wasteful conformists.
- Both have new personality names
- Full diplomacy dialogue has been added to both empires. Honestly I found these guys REALLY hard to write for. Sorry if it comes across lame, feedback always wanted.


The Seers have received some changes
- Lost resilient (unfitting for a race on the edge of extinction) and gained enduring (which is fitting for a race surviving over 10,000 years). Other traits are all super badass and fitting to the lore (intelligent, solitary)
- now from a Tundra world, not arctic as there were an overabundance of arctic empires and not many tundra so this provides a better balance while keeping with the lore of finding seers first in a cold place.
- Now oligarchic, creating the unused government "Executive Committee".
- Authoritarian has swapped to fanatic materialist, to put them in more direct conflict with the mursaat and to represent their crafting of the bloodstones. They are no longer pacifist.
- Some lore text has been tweaked.
- A full set of diplomacy dialogue has been added. These guys were super fun and easy to write for. Lots of stuff about the bloodstones, infusion and the mursaat. It's funny - there so little real lore but easy to talk about. And a fun reference to the divinity coast lab if you catch it!

The ogres have received a unique personality based on honorbound warriors. This may not be perfectly suited to barbaric despoilers, if anyone has advice or feedback for this topic please contact me!
The ogres have also received full dialogue and diplomacy. They talk at length about abducting you to become one of their pets, not an easy character to write for!

The stone summit dwarves fanatical ethic has swapped. I feel they are better defined by their slaving than their xenophobia, especially when interpreting Stellaris' xenophobia as a fear or simple concern for the unknown.

The stone summit have had a personality implemented, based on slaving despots, as well as a full set of diplomacy dialogue. They talk about slaving, ale, and the deldrimor dwarves a little.

Some jotun changes
- Jotun have lost Byzantine (the seers already have this) and gained diplomatic corps, to emphasise their abilities of diplomacy and debate during the height of their empire.
- Jotun ethics have been altered. They are no longer fanatically spiritualist. They have materialism for academic privilege living standards, as well as some militarism and xenophilia. They remain an enlightened monarchy government type (the one and only).
- The Jotun empire has been renamed. I really didn't like the last one, much. In fact I'm open to feedback on any of the Empire names if you guys think you have cooler ones! I had planned to get the Jotun personality/diplomacy in this patch, but it'll have to be next time. There are eight more empires to write and implement personality / dialogues for for what it's worth and they are a real time sink/bitch to get in.


As always, please feel free to comment on anything you like or dislike. Suggest alternatives to me. I have little attachment to many of the decisions I've made so far, so your ideas over mine are likely to make it in! Best way to do this is to head to the spreadsheet from the main page, right click any cell and drop a comment on it.

Cheers.

The exalted are now a rogue servitor empire rather than the more boring (and near duplicated) Military Commiserat.
- The secondary species that created them and are now being pampered are the brotherhood of the dragon, dwarves.
- These dwarves are venerable, but slow breeders.
- The exalted now have a unique room, which they lacked before.
- Standard exalted pops now have robot visuals, but their leader - the luminate - still has custom art.
- The Exalted AI personalty has changed to act like vanilla rogue servitors to match the new empire build.


The norn portraits have returned! I've cleaned up the white pixels and both repositioned and resized them to better fit and give a sense of their size.


The Hylek have become a Megachurch! Previously they were a Theocractic Republic, fairly boring considering it's already represented by the Sensali. Lore and mechanics updated to fit. This is the first megacorp to arrive in the pack which should provide some fun diversity. Check the spreadsheet for the other planned corps.
- The Hylek now have a personalty and full diplomacy.

Kodan ships are now Fungoid, as the mod offers very few of these.

The Asura now have the galactic doorstep origin. This was too perfect to pass up, especially considering they are the "galactic hyperlane megakrewe". They did previously have mechanist, for the golem idea, but I am happy to make this trade because 1. It fits so well, 2. Mechanist is already covered by the Skritt empire and 3. Golems are a planned empire all on their own in a later version of the mod (determined exterminators).

Diplomacy has been added for the Ghosts of ascalon, though as they are currently a genocidal empire it won't show up in game. Their personality has also been renamed.

Dredge personality and diplomacy has been added. I spent far too long on this one, I find the dredge really hard to write for! I'm not good with Soviet style speech and I feel like they are very rich and I'm not talented enough to do them justice.

Quaggan are now anglers and aquatically species traited. They lost agrarian idyl, which was doubled up on the sylvari anyway.

Quaggan now have a full set of diplomatic communications implemented for their AI personality, which didn't exist before. Unlike the dredge, I found the quaggan super easy and fun to write for! Even I feel bad for these little guys when you declare war on them.

The grawl have lost "functional architecture" and gained "pleasure seekers". There were no pleasure seekers yet, and I love the idea of a rag-tag fuedal empire of monkeys chasing after base pleasures. Functional architecture never made much sense except as an explicitally weird quirk about them, but none of the story text in the mod was referring to it anyway.
- Additionally, the grawl empire as a "fuedal empire" has been correctly listed in the spreadhseet, which had the wrong detail before.

The forgotten have had their traits reworked. They are now natural sociologists, to represent their work with the altar of glaust. They have nonadaptive, to represent their loss of territory across Tyria and being pushed out by other races. Nomadic, to represent their voyages through the mists, and Intelligent as they were, ultimately, a wisened ancient race.

The Mursaat have had their government correctly fixed to be a "Celestial Empire", which is a unique type of inwards perfection society.
The mursaat room has been changed from the Utopia city of time concept to something more appropriate (Mursaat appearing before saul)

The Mursaat have had a custom AI personality added, with complete diplomacy attached. These guys were fun to write, powerful - yet so obssessed with their own fate they won't help the rest of the galaxy.

The Deldrimor dwarves have lost the "Free Haven" civic, which other empires already have anyway. They have now gained "Masterful crafters" - a civic paradox basically made 100% for dwarf empires. It's a perfect fit, and is a nice call back to the first max level gear of the Guild Wars franchise being crafted by the Dwarves of Droknars forge.
- The empire name has updated to reflect this.
- The stone summit dwarves continue to be about slaving and mining, not crafting.

The Choya have had several changes
- For species traits, they are no longer repugnant, but are unruly. They are no longer traditional, but are instead resilient - to represent their spiky/thorny cactii nature. They are also no longer natural sociologists, but are radiotropic, which is a fun plantoid trait that fits them well and didn't exist in previous versions of the game. prickly and unruly cactii living tightly packed on tomb worlds feels awesome to me.
- For government, they no longer have shadow council and police state, as these are represented elsewhere in the modpack better. They instead have the civics Pleasure seekers (in Tyria they spend much time dancing and playing) and Catalytic processing, a civic they share as plantoids with the sylvari. Their ethics and authority have changed to make them a Military Junta, a government type not previously included in the mod.

Norn emblem changed as it was matched with another empire

Fixed bugs with the Plantoids races (Choya, Sylvari, Mordrem)

The Jormag empire home system was renamed to "Eternal Ice". It was previously "The far North", which is Guild Wars lore accurate but felt a little odd on the galactic map. I think this new name is a fun replacement as it's still a Guild Wars and Jormag adjacent reference.

Asura are now Xenophobic, not xenophilic. This allows the Asura empire to dissect alien empires, just as they experimented on the Sylvari at first contact in Guild Wars lore.

The neutral Margonite greeting has been modified to be more appropriate.

A few other greetings have been tweaked, I have a lot to learn about how to write characters in a fun way.

Fixed typos in the Golem empire description.

The key for the Sensali alliance personality localisation has been fixed.

The "Mysterious Wizard Golems" personality has been added for Isgarrens elementals, who were missing it prior to this verison.
- This includes full diplomacy, hinting at the titans, Isgarren and Verata.


Awakened have been added! Complete with
- Special personality
- Room art (there is no good concept art of the bone palace, argh!)
- Full name-lists (Tar ships, abomination battleships!)
- Full Diplomacy
- Full details may be found on the spreadsheet

One concept with the awakened was to pair them with "necrophage" origin and an Elonan race of humans as presapients. While I like this idea, the "Mortal Empire" government is better, I feel, so they are a death cult instead.

Road-map for next time: More missing personalities and diplomacy and there are another 9-12 final empires to implement before I consider the full baseline set of empires to be added. You can see these planned empires on the spreadsheet.

I also need to clean up the portraits in the back-end.

I'll also continue implementing your feedback. Drop comments here on steam, in my discord or BEST on the spreadsheet linked on the main page!

Todays update does several things:

- First, coming back to the mod I found I was really dissatisfied with the portrait art I had implemented before. Inconsistent lighting, positioning, rough background cutting out (white pixels floating around), comments from people that it was bugging for them... The list goes on and on. Most of this art has now been removed. Instead, the new Tyrian empires will use Paradox portraits instead. The major factor here is this: The paradox aliens are obviously done to an incredibly high standard. They are animated, have unique voices, variations, and fit within the aesthetic of the game perfectly. Back when I originally conceived this mod and made the decision to use custom art there were no Aquatic portraits. There were no Necroids, Lithoids, and maybe even Plantoids. So as a result there really weren't many professional Paradox choices available to represent Tyrian creatures. Nowadays, things are much different. There are excellent representations for many Tyrian races - such as the Dwarves, the Destroyers, the Tengu and more.


I appreciate that having custom art is a huge part of the value of a mod like this and one day I'd totally like to see that side of it come back. I would absolutely love help from anyone who would like to work on creating consistent screenshots. I can teach you how to green-screen in Guild Wars 2, chroma key backgrounds properly, and even make the .dds files. But I simply don't have the time or energy to do this alongside my streaming/video making right now.

- Second, Several new races have been implemented since the last version. Check the google spreadhseet linked on the main page for an up-to-date list of all the empires so far.

- Third, several traits and civics have been tweaked to utilise new game patches. There are a couple of new origins, too.

- The new DLC shipsets have been filtered around the races. Krait now use aquatic ships, Risen are Necroids and so on!

- Fourth, general house-keeping and bug fixing for 3.2.

- Added Margonite greeting diplomacy options. There are some quotes from the Gw1 Apostate quest chain, as well as references to the scriptures of Abaddon.

- Added Choya greeting "diplomacy". It's mostly copy-pasted nonsense in theme with the way they talk. I want to adjust weights here to make their unique diplomacy completely replace traditional diplomacy instead of merely supplementing it, but I'm not sure how. Advice would be nice!

- Added the Seers as race #11. I wasn't particularly inspired for a great story with them as of yet, but I took the opportunity to give them the "Functional Architecture" civic at least for more variety. Their lore right now is mostly lifting aspects of them from Guild Wars rather than developing them in a fun way. Eventually when the Mursaat are also included I'd like to make sure the two species are diametrically opposed in all facets, so the AI will often go to war. The seers are a really cool alien species that I do think fit perfectly in a sci-fi setting, however, so if anyone has a cool idea for them please do talk about it.

Tweaked Angchu and Skritt species traits in accordance with new 2.2.2 game balance costs.

Tweaked Quaggan species traits which in accordance with the new 2.2.2 game balance costs.