I was srsly addicted to this game when I was a kid – it rocked (at least once you got the Non-Muffinheaded-AI, I mean Antagonizer, patch installed).
Would anyone be able to suggest a similar current game? The only games I ever hear about nowadays are RPGs, FFSs, and mixtures thereof, which I (personally) have so little interest in I’d rather just sit there and play Snood all day, if that’s the choice. Is there a good space empire-building/strategy game out there now? And what about a future new version of Ascendancy I heard about ages ago?
I never could believe reviewers passed it over. Sure, it wasn’t the single flashiest game around, but it had a pretty responsive AI, particularly in those days, fun graphics, a lot of interesting and sometimes surprising aliens each with cool powers, and a fair about of diplomatic subtlety. I don’t its diplomac/AI was exceeded until, say, GalCiv. Combat was pretty fun, but you did have to think and really to keep up in the arms/tech race. The unique races often had individual strengths and weaknesses, and managing your planets was both quick and fun.
IIUC, Sins is a lot like it and a lot like CalCiv, although a lot fewer options between races. One of Ascendancies coolest bits were that there’s no human option, no “generic” option, and there were enough races that you never knew what you might get.
Actually, with the star lanes and all, it reminded me a lot of a more primitive but vastly more fun version of Master of Orion 3.
Excellent game, the music was impressive and listenable on its own. The only downside was the AI, even with the antagagressomizator patch. Your production ability still scaled geometrically, so once you had an arms-race lead in the early game you would steamroll your opponents.
If they had also coded some additional dampers or limiters on expansion to give lesser civs a chance to make a comeback (a la Civ’s corruption and unrest) it would have been a perfect game.
I loved Ascendancy too. It was the game that hooked me on the 4X genre. I still have the disc. I wonder if it works in DOSBox.
You should check out the Space Empire series of games. IV was great; V was disappointing at release but it’s probably been patched since then. I’ve lost many weekends to these games.
Yes it does. You can make a copy of the CD in a working directory underneath the install directory and use DOSBox’s “MOUNT” command to convince the program that you have the CD in your D: or E: or whatever drive. I’ve had great luck speeding the (emulated) processor up, but sound is occasionally glitchy.
I really enjoyed Ascendancy for a while but then got bored of it - as everyone said the AI just wasn’t that much of a challenge. But I definitely agree that the difference of the alien races was very interesting and the fact that there was no “generic” race.
You can get it at Classic Gaming Presents.comhere - only costs £4.99.
I’m currently playing a lot of Master of Orion, the original game, bought from the same site. It’s great fun, every bit as much as it used to be, and it just goes to show that fun in a game doesn’t come from flashy graphics.
Exactly. I have a great fondness for it as well - easily the best atmosphere of any 4x game. But sadly it was so profoundly easy to win ( and I’m both pretty avergage in the gamer skillz department and comfortable with easier games ) that after awhile it was difficult even enjoying role-playing with it.
But I’d be thrilled if some reworked “Ascendancy 2” ever emerged.
I remember the game. Still have it. I found it real fun…for a night. Because then, I tested something and just hit “next turn” (or the equivalent in this game) while doing nothing… ET races, instead of destroying me declared war, then made peace, offered me gifts, etc… and I eventually won the game without having played at all. Another trial ended up the same way.
It’s not merely that the AI was weak… It was plainly impossible to lose, even if you didn’t play, even if you declared war on all the species living in the galaxy. As much as I liked the game overall, I just couldn’t play anymore after that. What would have been the point?
Also, I didn’t like the music because it was quite similar to that of a game my girlfriend’s little brother was playing intensively when said girlfriend dumped me (a process that lasted for several days while little bro’ was playing in the background) so I associated bad memories with this music.
I bough Galactic Civilization too, but couldn’t play it. My copy of the game doesn’t work, and I couldn’t have it replaced or reimbursed (because I tried to play the game long after I had bought it). Seems I’ve no luck with this category of games.
I’ll give a look at this “Sins of the solar empire”, though…
Hmmm… I’m reading the following on the page linked to in this thread :
"It is a real-time strategy game that is designed to combine the depth of a turn-based game. "
For those who have played it, what does this mean? I ask because I positively hate RTS (and unfortunaly, it’s nowadays hard to find a turn-based strategy game).If I can’t pause the game and think as much as I want about what I’m going to do next, if how quickly I click on something has any importance, I’m not going to play it. So, should I forget about it?
It’s definitely not a twitch game, it’s about strategy rather than how fast you can click on things (although of course speed helps). But the pause button is always there for your usage, and I hit it all the time when I’m playing.
I’m going to bump this thread to let you all know that I just discovered “Ascendancy” has been released for the iPhone/iPad! And they’re going to come out with “Ascendancy 2” as well!
Naturally, I pick three days before finals to find this out >.<
Or should I say… +1. I didn’t get Sins just because it used the words ‘RTS’. My son was into RTS games and I would jerk his chain by coming behind him and say things like…
