I also read this article – IMHO, it reveals a lot of new information, but overall, it’s written rather incoherently. The history is somewhat… altered. Of course, I understand that this is an official (?) website, but nevertheless, some points are not very well written. I think that the Shantiir Empire consists of a pair of alien leaders + all the Ancient races. Otherwise, how did it happen that nothing is known about its founders, and after the empire’s collapse, the Alliance disintegrated for many millennia and, unfortunately, never reunited. Regarding the collapse, I agree; most likely, that’s what happened. The followers of the Shantiir simply passed the skull down for many years until something finally forced them to abandon it in the ruins of one of the ancient Temples. Regarding the 4th Eclipse, Kha-Belekh chose a very opportune time to attack. He is a great strategist, that’s for sure. Mages, in general, didn’t like helping humans, and there was also a recent war with the undead. The losses were enormous. The Elves have the slow-witted Alaron at their head, who will continue to be slow and destroy human leaders until his own death. Relations with the Dwarves are not good at all, as can be seen in Lords of the North. Perhaps the Dark Elves are involved in this, but I don’t think so. Maybe they just didn’t have time. There are almost no Dragon Knights left, and they cannot appear now because after the third Eclipse, their own existence is under threat. Something like that.

Added 2 minutes later
And in general, the Eclipses have started to happen too quickly – the races simply don’t have time to recover from them, as the history of the fifth game shows.