Xenology : Traits Expansion Unofficial - Biological Module (3.10.X)

If Devious asks me to take this mod down, I will do so.

Check out the original here: Xenology : Traits Expansion Neo.


Xenology aims to make every species truly unique, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Some are natural leaders, and others are born inept and dimwitted. No two alien species are alike. Many traits will even generate special leaders with more specialized bonuses (or maluses), incentivizing the violent conquest or peaceful assimilation of alien races and adding their unique characteristics to your own. Alternatively, you may choose to preserve the purity of your empire to best benefit from the traits of one or very few species. Each trait describes a unique aspect of a species' biology or psychology. There is no boring, linear tier system or confusion between societal tenets and biological attributes.

Leader traits are always guaranteed to spawn on all relevant leaders. This greatly improves both balance and AI performance. In addition, the player won't have to hire and fire a dozen leaders in hopes of generating the one they're looking for.

XTE alters very few vanilla objects for improved compatibility with other mods. There are no additional trait points or picks, and no increased cost of gene-modding (though traits worth more than 3 and less than -3 still require advanced gene-modding to add or remove after game start).


♦ 43 New species traits (biological and lithoid)
• 26 Positive traits
• 17 Negative traits
♦ 50 New leader traits
• Many new leader traits require certain species traits
• Leader generation is usually guaranteed for relevant traits
• New leader traits do not take up a slot
• Traits for Councilors are less efficient the more of them you have


The only thing XTE overwrites is five (5) modifier tooltips via scripted_modifiers:
These overwrites have ZERO gameplay changes,

If you somehow find a mod that also overwrites the same modifiers, the only thing that will change is that some tooltips may display +0 instead of +0.34. That's it.

If/When PDS changes the above modifiers to have at least two (2) decimals of precision, I'll remove the overwrites.

Slightly more technical stuff in the spoilers.
The only mod I'm aware of that does anything remotely similar is Gigastructures (which is where I got the idea from) but XTE and GIgas are perfectly compatible as we don't modify the same modifier tooltips

Anywhere. Load XTEU Submods after the main mod.

Where can I find the full list of traits and leaders?
Google Sheet[docs.google.com]

Does the AI use the new traits?
The only two (2) traits that the AI will not spawn with are Polyploid and Hedonist. Everything else is fair game.

Why are positive traits so expensive?
Most positive traits now generate special leaders, who grant additional bonuses. The trait creation menu doesn't give you the full picture.

Why are negative traits so punishing?

Originally posted by Devious:

This has always been one of Xenology's most controversial design aspects, but I stand by it for a couple of reasons:

♦ Negative traits are, by the very nature of this game, easy to deal with. Poor farmers? Don't use your pops as farmers, have robots plow the fields. Weak soldiers? Who cares, you plan on doing a pacifist run. The maluses are so insignificant in comparison to researchable bonuses, and the alternatives are so numerous, that it's excessively easy to circumvent the challenges imposed by most traits. Even the AI seems to be able to manage their pops to solve such issues.
♦ Traits are more valuable with Xenology. New positive traits mean new gameplay options, and trading easily circumventable maluses for easily exploitable bonuses would make for very poor balance. There is a reason why vanilla includes a few negative traits. Xenology takes a different approach but still aims to maintain balanced and challenging gameplay.
♦ This is the most important reason, and it involves math: negative traits will give you 1 to 4 trait points to invest in positive ones. However, they will always cost a single trait pick, and there is absolutely no way to increase the number of picks in-game. This means picks are invariably more valuable than points. This is a case of increasing returns: if the negative effects of traits were linearly correlated to their reward in points, it would almost always be more advantageous to take the larger debuff for 3 or 4 trait points, since all traits cost exactly one pick.

Why can't I add Xenology traits to Syncretic Proles or Nerve-Stapled species?
Enabling it for Proles/Nerve Stapled would lead to the situation described above: Easily circumventable maluses. In the future, I might enable some traits for proles, but no guarantees.

Is Xenology balanced?
I certainly try, but if you have any ideas for balance, feel free to post them at the Suggestion Board

Is Xenology bug-free?
I'd hope so!
But this mod is mostly complete, so the only bugs should come from Paradox overhauling the game every three months.

Is it achievement-compatible?
Nope! Any mod that modifies the checksum is not achievement compatible.

How long will this be updated?
I'll try to keep this updated until
A: Devious comes back
B: I get someone else to adopt this
C: I get bored of modding

Annex Module
Truncate Module
Scaling Module


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Devious for making an incredible mod.
All of you for reading this far.

Github Repo[github.com]


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