Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review and Download (if available)

Good one Kosta :ok:

Great one, Kosta and Data!
Haven't played this game for years now.... :ok:

Hmm, this looks interresting. It will probably take some time to download on my connection (128 Mb/s), but it looks like it's worth it. ;)

Damn, this is a good game! But one thing, how do you build shipyards? I have researched the technology to build them but they are not avaliblr to build in the display when you click on a tile on the planet.

If I remember well, you have special slots for your planetary construction.

It's alright, I figured it out in the end, you have to build them on the left hand side of the screen, in space.

OMG, I just played this game for 6 hours straight without realizing it. I only stopped because I was ordered to go to bed. This has to be one of the best games EVER :w00t: .

yeah its 2 here now. This game got me sucked in and im rubish at it.

In fact, this game is not that great. I played it again, and again I been disapointed.

If only I could build a bigger fleet than only 2 ships... But no! The computer just flood me until I can't do anything about it (even with several missiles at the same planet) and conquer my planets one by one...

And the AI patch is not good either... All it does is make the computer "biased" diplomatically VS you, so they'll all end up at war with you no matter what.

I voted for a 3 on 5 on the site. I would rather play MOO. :not_ok:

That is why they made an AI patch. You can download it here on this website. Maybe that would help you ;)

Actualy he seems to meant this patch... <_<

Maybe I should read the replies I quote a little more carefull, before I reply on them!!! <_<

You need control of more planets in several systems., then you can build more ships :)

can anyone tell me how to "Help-click", I've researched loads of stuff
but I don't know what it does. Or if someone had the manual, that would probably be helpful

You hold shift and click on something, it says that in the very first tutorial (The only one I took), you have to click on the item you want to know about in the "build" menu, not on the planet's surface.

OK, I have the manual, and by "have" I mean "stole off the Underdogs".

Ascendancy Manual (.pdf)

Hopefully that manual may help me get a better view on this game. I'll read it.

There's no need to read the manual really, the tutorials are so good and the interface is so well-designed that a manual is not necessary except for extremely complex things and troubleshooting.

Heeelp!
6 hours to download the game (brazilian free servers...) and now it simply says "can't find file DOS4GE to load"... <_<

Did you use DosBOX to run it?

GREAT GAME!

I like it without the patch. I like to develop my planets and reasearching before waging wars...

P.S Can we get stuff from hotu and then send them here. I could use some games ;) . But then again you would lose the sense of contribution :(

I'm trying to send my ship to a different star system but it won't let me. Help plz.

Your ship needs a star lane drive, then you need to double-click on the star lane.

You need a Warp Drive to go to another system. You need propultion drive to move around the "planet map".

:rifle:

this game is worth it... cept its VERY paradoxal :)

i find i think ive played the game a long time, but i really dident (thats awsomly marvolus by the way XD)

but i notice people are having problems... so let me help (mind you i am having my own problems)

play a friendly, and very sparce galixy one with only 3 computers :) this way you get a chance to navigate the system... and maby have at some warfare...

another thing, so far the bigest fleet ive goten is 14 enormus ships,

my fav tactic is loading the large type ships with heavy shields and fast engins, then toping them out with point singulatiry weapons (black hole guns. short range brings the pain), also a good size of genorators... you fly in and put your shields on, then let loose 5 blackholes at your target, let him try and bust your shiled (and fail) and repeat

another tactic is to equip a large ship with 5 of thoes handy plasma cannons, this games sniper rifle XD, it gives you a nice platform to lay down fire on ships, plus they can take out orbital instalations in at least 5 days... 25 plasma cannon shots tend to work ^.^

Planitary defense:

very important, nocking out a planet with the right tools is to easy :S, but there are some things you can do... orbital missile batteries are nice, but get the close range satilites, there much better... and as you progress through technology, you may get a Tractor beam instalation, equip this on all your planets and equip all your planets with 2-3 shields and 1-2 close range defense satilites, tractor in your targets and cook them :cheers:

The computer is so dumb you can beat it extremely easily without shields. In my first games, I kept installing shields on my ships but I never realised that I actually had to manually turn them on (!) for them to work... But still managed to kill whatever was in my way...

The key to this is the only long range weapon in the game (I don't remember the name). Just load your ships with faster engines than your opponent have access to, those weapons and a lot of energy to spare and voila, you're invincible!

For planetary defense, you don't need much as long as you have at least one ship with long range weapon defending the system. I recommend having two shields on every planet to prevent the computer from taking them over quickly, and one or two planetary defense just in case. The tractor beams are sure a must, but not absolutly needed.

i havent tried patch, not good nuff yet, im trying to get good with my species of choice :)

you know its a shame this game dosent have multiplayer, it smeams it would wok so wel, and besides. playing against a human is so much more fun :)

also i need tip for geting off the planet faster
what do i build first? i factory or a agricaulture building? how do you start?

I usually go for agriculture first. The real point tough is never build structure unless you run out of specialised squares. It is really worth to build tube links all over your planet only to get to the last square(s).

When it is done, then you must decide what the planet primary goal is. In the early game you should concentrate on having a lot of research planets so you can get the best tech ASAP, but don't forget to have a "building" planet or two to build ships.

When you got safe control of your first few planetary systems, then it's your call. Whatever floats your boat as they say... :)

Yah... i found that your WHOLE game ends up been based on how well you started... Seriously!, if you start even slightly poorly your empire goes STRAIT to the crapper, (unfortunetly computer dosent deal with this)... anycase ive observed some seriouse changes (if i could graph it i would XD) one run it was 1000 year mark and i only had 1 system

another run it was 1000 year mark and i had plasmatics and a fleet of enormous ships with full out massive tech and i was dominating the galixy (this was in a sparce galixy mind you... i like it better :P)

my recomendation is to practice starting... learn to dominate as soon as possible

another thing i noticed... the shipyard... you start it to early, you lose time (and your empire is burned)... start it to late and your empire is FRIED, anycase 9/10 i get this wrong... any recomendations for when to build the shipyard?


also fav race? (mines the camichiens, the lizard guys... there special is any current topic you are researching will be finished in one day... if you set your research up right you can nock a good 500 years of research off... Also theres the chance of Super Advancing... should you find a xeno archiological site... it may lead to more tech... example... i found momentum conservation... and it lead to hyperwave... the big sweet genorator i use on almose all my big ships... i had it at year 600 XD )

My personal favourite race is the lava people (as they can build on the black squares on planets) and I quite like the lizard people as well.

My favorite race is also the Charmathing you said. I beleive they have the only really usefull skill of all the bunch... :blink:

I've played this game for a long time, and the best strategy I found was to choose the chamanches, and to start with maybe one science facility, and then build as many factories as possible. Build Agriplots only when necessary to boost population. For research, don't worry too much about what order to go in, but try to get the three special techs: Alien Hospitatlity, Scientist Takeover, and Endless Party. With a massive industrial base you can enact each of these states when necessary (Endless Party, which boosts your population growth, and Scientist Takeover, which boosts research, are usually the most useful). As far as ships go, I usually find it's productive to put up at least one shield and at least one missle platform (/ orbital whooper) around the planet before building a ship. When building ships, I usually put two star lane drives (which doubles your speed through lanespace), about 20% engines, 20% generators, one or two colonization modules, and maybe 10-20% weapons. I have thus far found no use whatsoever for shields. My favorite weapons are the hypersphere driver and the nano-gun, especially when combined with an accutron (which doubles their range). The best colonization strategy I've found is to colonize ( a ) planets alone in a system, ( b ) planets particularly large and filled with red squares, and ( c ) any planet w/ archeological ruins. When colonizing, try to put your colony base on a green square that's pretty close to a red one. When attacking another planet, if you need to move close to it before you can fire, try to move into orbit around a nearby planet. That way they won't get a free shot off at you.

Overall, the heavy-industry based strategy allows you to tailor your overall economy to what you need. If you need more research, start some scientist takeovers. If you need some population growth, instigate endless parties. If you need a ship, a mostly industrialized large planet can churn an enormous-class ship out w/full armament in around 5-10 days, and refits ususally take about 1-2.

I have found in my later games that you can build a colony module on a Black square. Building there in the beginning of the game is advisable since the specialised squares is what makes your planet more productive than others, especially on small planets.

On later games it is less important as soon as you get access to the multi use buildings and double use buildings.

anyone knwos how to abandon ship that is in warp? i 've mistakinly sent ships with poor warp engines into red warp drive and they kept on bouncing back and fourth but never came out of it (weird).

also in later time a strange thjing happened - one of my ships coulnd't leave the system. hmm but i wish i could now check if it had those warp drives on (maybe i forgot to install them). ah now i already erased the save files.

one thing i am missing in this game is governors (like in Space empires). i really hated to keep on selecting what and where to build once i had a lot of planets.

also i've started off really bad but after playing a bit, knowing the game.... i realised i am much more advanced then any other computer player. it seem as if the game is setting the difficulty according to player.
:eeeeeh:

Not really. In fact the AI is extremely poor.

Wow... a fantastic game. LOL, on one of those multi-coloured, oh-so-useful planets I got 156 research, with 8 long range space whoopers. A handy planet indeed.

This was the first game I ever got, it was a Christman present fom my dad back in 1995, 3 days after my first computer - I LOVED IT and played it a lot for a year or so.....

However, I remember 2 things that made the game kind of sick due to being "imbalanced" if used vs the Computer:

1.) Brunswik Dissipator, an equipment for your ships that empties an enemy ship for 1 turn with a single shot - use it as first thing in your turn in a 1 vs 1 situation, afterwards kill it as slowly as you want

2.) Room-Bomb or Spacebomb (I played german version back then), another equipment that can only be used once but deals a lot of damage to each enemy ship in the system - 5 or 6 of these always kill the complete enemy fleet of 25+ ships if you let the game last that long, while you never even lose one yourself

Once I realized that, there was no motivation left :-(

This was THE BEST computergame EVER in potential.

Sorry for the AI. Imagine this game with a mp-mode and consider this 3d engine even works on a 386 DX 40!!! :kosta:

There are rumours for years that Ascendancy II would be made. But I think after their deserved failure with the Tone Rebellion it is over, sadly enough.

But what a game.. what a game

Altough I am often the first to bash down Ascendancy for it's numerous flaws, I just have to agree to the fact it has almost infinite potential. The problem here is that potential is not what makes a game good, it what makes sequels interesting...

Like you said, I don't think we are about to see a sequel quite soon... I am yet to see a successful sequel to Xcom! :(

it would be better if an active open source movement got a hold of this game - it was decent for its time but the sequel never happened i dont think.

I played the game quite a while when it first came out. While the sound breaks up a bit these days, it seems to play on my XP. I'm considering starting a new game, but I'm curious: has anybody tried the patch? Does it in fact make the AI smarter on the neutral setting?

The patch doesn't make the AI any smarter, only more agressive. I personally did not notice a change in either trait, especially since the computer always seems to declare war when it less benefit them (when you are winning).

I'd expect the other players (except your allies) to gang up on you when you're winning. The same kind of "no person allowed to get too far ahead" mentality has been part of the Civ series and Alpha Centauri for quite some time.

But I'm sorry to hear they don't build better, or research more productively. The game had a lot of nice ideas, and the project leader was the same guy who put so much energy and creativity into producing Betrayal at Krondor, one of my RPG faves.

Hi,

I played the game several years ago, but did not finish it.
The alien races, ships and tech were all nice and original.

But I noticed several annoying things:

* there is no production queue - each turn you have to go thru all your planets,
which gets more and more tedious as you gain more planets

* Auto-building does not work properly - I discovered that it even demolished buildings that I had placed on 'optimal' (red,green,blue) squares for their type.

Even the placement of buildings on conquered planets looked quite random,
so I decided not to trust construction on my planets to this feature...

* the 3d-map of the star-systems looks nice, but is actually harder to use
than a 'good old' 2d-map (e.g. as in MoO2), because you can only see
a small part of the map and need to scroll around like in a maze.

* It takes forever to bring your ships thru the warp-lanes to some target-system.
You also have to be careful to send your ship into the correct star-lane or it can be stranded (one-way warp-connections, limited fuel/engine-lifetime...).
There is no auto-pilot, and you cannot attach notes to the ships,
so you must keep notes for each ship (by hand) - which means even more micro-management :-(

I was doing quite well (about half the galaxy was mine), but I could guess
"to conquer the next planet, I need x big ships, they will take y turns to build +
z turns to travel there", but that means going thru a lot of management-cycles during those turns.

So, basically, the game got too tedious to be fun anymore.


-HaJo

Wow ive seen this game before...

I was over at a friends house, and his dad had this superfast computer, and he showwed me a game that hadnt even come out yet, accordning to him, his dad was a game designer and he was workin it, it was playable but not done yet..

:ot:

The day I saw it, I decided not to go home, because (things sucked) and I was kind of running away, I ended up getting almost dragged out of that house by a policeman about 3 hours later.

Funny, I can specificly remember the 3 screens of that game I saw, but I cant even recall what state that was in at the time(moved alot).

:ot:

And this game is allready abandonware.... I feel old now

Anyways, downloading now about to play it :)

LOL ive got the original CD and manual still here in a box somewhere - interesting game but youre right it has been replaced by much more advanced games - good for its time but suffered from the lack of smart AI etc.

And the tedious micromanagement might have been a big thing back then but nowdays it doesnt stack up

I don't think Ascendancy should be shunned just because of weak AI. I think the gameplay makes up for that. I mean, I never even heard of it before, and know I can't stop playing it. I'm hooked!

Well lucky, Ascendency been considered as the best game of it's genre for newbies. So it's great that you have found it first, have fun with it. :ok:

This sounds like "decade old game = lousy AI." But there are 10 year old games with great AI, and some very popular modern titles (like the Age of Wonders series) that have truly awful AI. The problem with Ascendency's AI was that it had too many options to consider, and not enough time spent on that aspect of development. According to Sid Meier, a good AI really should take most of the development time on any game, but because it's behind the scenes, game designers focus on graphics, audio, etc. And when you get into features crawl--adding new features as the game progresses in pre-alpha stage--then the AI has to be reconfigured to allow for all that.

I'd have to say that Ascendancy had about the most potential for greatness of any such games that I've played. The massive galaxy sphere and competition among alien races comes to mind here. It's brain-dead AI and the micromanagement nightmare later in the game really bring it down a LOT. If only it had multiplayer....... :evil:

This is a fantastic game and I heartily recommend it, just make sure you install the patch as the original AI is hopeless!

Ascendency has some really esoteric moments and some great ideas. The more you play the game the more you uncover its deep idiosyncracies and find yourself losing track of time. I personally believe this just pips the post when stood next to Master of Orion or its sequel, my only gripe with the version on offer here is it can start to chug a bit in DOSBOX although it rarely detracts from an altogether enjoyable game.

There is a sequel (of sorts) to Ascendency called The Tone Rebellion which like the older sibiling boasts some equally strange moments. its an RTS set in an ethereal alien setting and is an excellent title with some really well executed ideas. I've been trying to get another copy of it now for some time but to no avail! If any of you esteemed folk know where I could possibly find it please let me know, as I'm sure it must be Abandoware by now.

Nice one

Well... This *IS* a great game!

The only thing I find bad is that it is too easy (which partly can be solved by the antag-patch, but still...) and the incredible annoying 'ding'-sound when you click the left mouse button :)
Managing many planets is not the most fun, but when one have developed the Endless Party, Scientist Takeover etc. this becomes a minor problem...

Clicking 'shift' or 'alt' enables a help-function which should help beginners.

Well... You surely have to learn how to make colonizers, starlane drives etc. More plannets makes you able to support more ships.
If you want to keep the enemy from taking your planets, orbital shields (and eventyally upgraded versions) and surface shields should keep them away.
Missile-defence will have to be launched manually.


That is all for now! I can do nothing but recommend this game, though it is quite slow compared to other computergames.

Has anyone found a site that lists what certain benefits certain buildings give?

Does scientific retreat actually give any benefit other than dividing your resources a differnet way

For instance. If you build a factory complex on a red square and a research building on a blue square. Is it worth building a metroplex instead. I need a list of what buildings give what bonus's.

Also, what use is productivity? only for faster replenishing of your working person? Most of my big planets are industry. For super fast ship bulding and placement. If i want research I simply turn all industry over to the scientists (no need for alot of research buildings). So with me, building alot of research and "food" buldings doesn't seem to do much. Industry is where you want.

But I like the game a lot, its a pretty version of Masters of Orion, without the AI.

I've found that the mixed versions of building are not as good as having just plain ones. Mainly from the added confusion. If I remember right the advanced versions of the labs, factories, etc give 2 in their field +what color tile they are on. Build a factory on blue you get 2 industry/ 1 science. Build the Engineering thingy on red, same results. Generally best to specialize the colony towards industry until you fill all the red squares with factories (+3) then go for the science structures when you can build them in like 5 days. :P (With enough prosperity in the meantime to grow your pop of course).

In beginning heaven,in end hell.
I really enjoyed this game first 1000round but then it turned into nightmare.I had 15 planets had buitl buildings in 2 turns so i have aproximetly 7 messages pro turn...(I am not counting planets with scientist takeover/endless party or less industious planets.....)It ended up when i realizied that in hour I made just 30 rounds.And i couldnt play after that.Micromanagment in this game just kills it great potential.
And of course its poor AI...I have won the game and i have realized that you must activate shields just now in this forum.And dont agrue about my grammatic i am slovak and i have been learníng english just for three years....

Yea you definitely want the advanced AI patch, because the normal game is very pretty, but very sucky gameplay. The first time playing I played normal mode (without AI patch) and after controlling like 50-100 planets, I ran into the enemy and saw they had maybe 10. So of course I was like, ok, they kinda suck.

The advanced AI patch is a MUST HAVE for decent gameplay. And beginners should play it on normal, while better players play it on hostile.

Yea we already know the downsides of the game are Micromanagement and sucky AI. The AI patch helps to make up for the latter, but Micromanagement is really a downside. Also, some of the races are kinda weak compared to the powers of others. A few races are extremely good to play, their special abilities really work to help. Other races on the other hand have special abilities that you might use a couple times max, which sucks.

For instance. One race lets you instantly learn scientific areas. Thus you can save a good 100-2000 research days every 85ish days. You will use this every time to your advantage. but another race can make their colonies invulnerable for 1 day every 85ish days. ooooooooooookkk. This is good ONLY if your being attacked, and unless the entire enemy fleet is attacking at the same time, you wont have its benefit except maybe against a couple ships. Big deal. Like I said, some are worth playing, others are pretty much useless.

Lastly in the bad department, you cant move resources from planet to planet. Which SUCKS! How sad is it if you have a huge developed planet, and right next to it, a sucky little barren planet that you cant do much with. It would have been so great to be able to trade resources back and forth.

Playing in Hostile mode (advanced AI patch) really is a big difference than playing in peaceful mode. You cant just run around and capture things to your hearts content. The enemy has the annoying habbit of running around capturing your colonies right back. You really have to emply a totally differnet method, and a much more fun and challenging one than simply capturing planets.

I agree that the special colony housing are kinda worthless, they really dont give much of a benefit over the basic buildings. After testing them out, I find the Engineer retreats, logic trees, etc to be worthless. Especially considering you don't get them early, and have to research them for a long time.

I also see that different planet "types" seem to benefit one area over another. Like Gaea planets, Mineral planets, etc. Ive seen planets where my productivity buildings were reduced -1, so basic buildings didnt get much benefit. I'll have to test it out and see what gives what.

It sounds like most people have the game working with sound, but, I can't get the sound to work. I have a SB live 5.1 sound card and have tried just about every setting I can find to get the sound to work using dosbox. anyone have the same sound card with it working and can tell me what you're doing?

I have some basic FAQS made up for the great game, but I don't know if Abandonia takes FAQS, or if they do where they would put it. They are up on another gaming site, GAMEFAQS.com if anyone wants to take a look at some basic stuff in Ascendency.

If the staff at Abandonia does have someplace to put FAQs, they can take them off Gamefaqs and use them. If not, visitors can just download them for their own computer and use them.

Im a big masters of orion fan, and this game is very similiar to that one, better graphics but not as good gameplay. Even then, its still one of my current favorites to play.

:blink: WOW this game looks complex :blink:
hurts my brain LOL :guns:

If you have any questions just ask. :D
Like this game.Without that micromanagment and dumb AI it could be even superior to Master of Orion :whistle: :tomato:

I first played this game when I was ten years old. I loved it from the very beginning.

My favorite species are the Shevar (the evil many-armed power sappers) and the Marmosians (the insect people who can turn their enemies against one another). I have recently been playing as the Marmosians against a really tough opponent who has over 40 colonies and almost as many heavily armed battleships. (I only have two well-protected colonies, and I'm killin' as many of their gigantic starships as I can) :rifle:

Tip: put Orbital Shields around your planets as soon as possible...two or three will insure you against just about anything... and don't forget to build Long Range Orbital Whoppers once they are available...AI players hate that... :karate:

But what do a lot of the weird components you come across when you build ships do? I have some of them figured out, but if anyone knows how to use the special items, can you post instructions here?

This is definitely one of the greatest games ever made...since it didn't get the praise or popularity it should have (see, not all good games make it!), I consider it sort of a sleeper hit.

Hold shift button and click on special item.Short description should pop-out.This can be used also on building.
Ascendaci rulez! :Titan:
The best races are Chamachies becouse of their special ability and any race that starts on Gaia planet.

Yup, Chamachies are my favorite, I think they have the best looking ships too. Once I've got the enormous hulls I like to put about 8 of the shield that doesn't use any power, I forget the name, on battleships. That means the ship is effectively invincible:) No weapon in the game except for the destructotron? can damage it. Then just fill the rest up with guns, generators and the other required bits. Then you can just have another troop transport follow it around full of invaders, 1-2 generators and engines.:) Have that one stay out of the fight and let your invincible battleship clear away any defenses.

My favorites are Govoroms.They can transform one of your colonies into gaia planets and start with gaia planet too.This can provide HUGE boost on productivity becouse on late games nearly half all of your colonies are Gaia (no matter what they were before).And they have very pretty ships too.

Hmmm, I don't think I've tried the govorom...Ok, starting a new game next chance I get using the govorom.:) be nice if I could get my sound to work though.:(

Another thing I usually do is the first ships I make just put a hyperspace drive, an engine and a generator and fill the rest with colonizers and send them out searching for alien ruins. One game I hit the jackpot and the the first couple technologies I got from them were nanomanipulators, nanotwirlers and whatever the top level engine is. I shoulda bought a lotto ticket too.:)

I first played this game when I was ten years old. I loved it from the very beginning.

Ugh. I reviewed it for a now-defunct print magazine when I roughly 40. Let me put in my false teeth, and get my cane... ;)

My favorite species are the Shevar (the evil many-armed power sappers) and the Marmosians (the insect people who can turn their enemies against one another). I have recently been playing as the Marmosians against a really tough opponent who has over 40 colonies and almost as many heavily armed battleships. (I only have two well-protected colonies, and I'm killin' as many of their gigantic starships as I can) :rifle:

Out of curiosity, what level of gameplay are you using? Hostile universe? Are you using the patch? How do you find the AI? I've not found it too bad with the patch as others indicate.

This is definitely one of the greatest games ever made...since it didn't get the praise or popularity it should have (see, not all good games make it!), I consider it sort of a sleeper hit.

The helix universe was good in theory, but a lot of people found it a nuisance in reality. And the company never did have the bucks for PR. What they had instead was some very bright designers, including the man who was the brains behind Betrayal at Krondor, one of the all-time best RPGs.

I first played this game when I was ten years old. I loved it from the very beginning.

Ugh. I reviewed it for a now-defunct print magazine when I roughly 40. Let me put in my false teeth, and get my cane... ;)

My favorite species are the Shevar (the evil many-armed power sappers) and the Marmosians (the insect people who can turn their enemies against one another). I have recently been playing as the Marmosians against a really tough opponent who has over 40 colonies and almost as many heavily armed battleships. (I only have two well-protected colonies, and I'm killin' as many of their gigantic starships as I can) :rifle:

Out of curiosity, what level of gameplay are you using? Hostile universe? Are you using the patch? How do you find the AI? I've not found it too bad with the patch as others indicate.

This is definitely one of the greatest games ever made...since it didn't get the praise or popularity it should have (see, not all good games make it!), I consider it sort of a sleeper hit.

The helix universe was good in theory, but a lot of people found it a nuisance in reality. And the company never did have the bucks for PR. What they had instead was some very bright designers, including the man who was the brains behind Betrayal at Krondor, one of the all-time best RPGs. [/b][/quote]
Yes as I already said this game has many flaws.But I like this game.It had great potential.I respect your opinion but you should know that when gamer like his game NOTHING can force him to change his opinion.(like me :D )

Sure, I have a few nitpicky complaints. First, we need more species to play at a time (there are a lot of different colors that could have been chosen). Second, there's no humor. The game is dead serious. Third, a map editor would be nice.

This game is great. It is NOT a copy of any other game (even modern games like Far Cry and Half-Life 2 fail to interest me) and it can be played repeatedly without me ever getting sick of it. Each new game is different from the previous. :sniper:

I love smilies. :cheers:

Push Shift and then the Help-Arrow will occur!!

also like I said before, I made up some lists of items and buildings in the game you can look at and get a little description on what it does. On Gamefaqs.com type in the game name and look at my FAQS.

I have a ship building faq, planet building faq, and a little race description/playing faq. They give general ideas on what to expect when using items/races.

There is one major flaw I have found about the game I really hate, besides the micromanagement and AI. The fact that during a combat round, you can only perform 1 actoin. SUCKS!

Very bad programming there, if you have 10 ships, each with 3 weapons (30 weapons) each round you can only fire 1 weapon. Of course the enemy does it also, but it makes for a really stupid lopsided battle. Especially with someone who has a brain.

How sad? I have sat at the end of a long red stargate, with 1 big ship loaded up with area bombs and a few lane destabilizers. Once a bunch of enemy ships are in the lane, use a destabilizer. Next round, like 6 enemy ships appear, which I proceed to blow up with my 1 ship just because they can only shoot me once a turn. When my turn comes, I unload with a bomb that hits them all. 6 deat ships, I repair, and repeat as needed. 3 bombs usually destroys pretty much anything not supershielded.

Yeah, I had something similar once. The chronomysts? would keep sending fleets of 30-40 ships to one of my planets. 2-3 smart bombs, 40 kills.:) Wheeee! :rifle:

Yeah, Ascedancy was one of the best I have ever played. I still launch it from time to time. The logicfactory website even said that they are working on Ascedancy II but their web site was dead for years... untill recently. Check it out www.logicfactory.com
does anybody know whether it is the same team working there that created the original Ascedancy?

Ascendacy 2 :blink: :w00t: :w00t:
It look like that there is chance that most of my favorite oldie strategies will have a sequel in the end!There is chance for Master of Magic 2,now even Ascendacy...
Cool! :Brain:

LOL wow!cool game!just 26 more% LOL....i bet someone guna delete this reply :D ...and u can know this:i downloaded 44 games from this site

i always found that the AI became seriously limiting after a while, this new patch sounds good though, might have to try it later

It's worth a try - it doesn't make the AI any better, just more agressive. For instance, it still builds too few ships early on, colonises too few planets and lays out its structures in an amazingly stupid way, but it's a BIT more difficult for the player.

It didn't work under WinXP. I extracted it, set up the sound, and added the patch. As soon as I added the patch I was taken to a black screen that I had to restart the computer to get out of. Then I kept getting these graphics card errors
(integrated intel graphics).

But it seemed like a fun games!

um......use DOSBox?

No. I couldn't figure it out. And I didn't want to memorize the location and name of the installer, the game, and the patch.

I can run ascendancy in XP, but it's unplayable because my mouse isn't properly supported by it. In DOSBox though it runs fine.

does anybody know why sometimes your ships when they are nearly through a red star lane 80 days long when their nearly at the end they have to begin all over again? and why you can sometimes can see enemy ships in a starlane and halfway they just disappear?

especcialy the first thing really irritates me

has it something to do with simple starlane drives in red links?

anybody knows?

It is just an ugly bug...Happens often to me too...Especially when the traveling throught it a longer time (60+)...You must send a LOT faster ship there(Which make it in let, say 10 days...) and it help to fix it...Well sometimes...Sometimes just stuck second one too... :bleh:

The red starlanes are more complex than the normal ones, therefore your ships have problems going through them with simple stardrives.

It's not a bug, it's the Ungooma special ability which sends ships back to their destinations. They then automatically move back in the next turn if you don't notice and change their orders. It's worth avoiding red links if you can until you get starlane hyperdrives, although putting 2 standard starlane drives on a ship helps a lot. OTOH, it can be really useful to build a small planet on the other end into a weapons platform/advanced warning of invasion device.

See the Ascendancy FAQ.

I must now just figure out who make it when they are no Ungoona in game :ph34r:

I don't remember if the AI uses it or not, but there are also (apart from that cool special ability of that race) a weapon that makes the same thing. Yea, I am almost certain there is such a weapon. :crazy:

Lane Destabilizer? :whistle:

Go for a medium hull or larger with around 4-5 starlane drives. Should get you around rather quickly with your early colonization.

After you get the larger hulls, bring a few mega drives on your deep range scouts.

Is it a :ok: game or :not_ok: one?

:ok: :ok: :ok: :ok: :ok: for the game itself..... :not_ok: :not_ok: for it's AI

I don't understand :blink: . Is AI the famous patch? So how a patch could be :not_ok: when a game is :ok:? And why publisher should make a :not_ok: patch for a :ok: game? Why people should use a :not_ok: patch if the games is :ok:? :crazy: ....

the AI is :not_ok: ....not the patch to improve it :P

The AI is still the same (pretty awful) in the patch, it simply makes the computer players more aggressive to try and compensate. It's a good game, but the poor AI eventually gets on your nerves - before that point it's well worth playing.

Definately a :ok: . Unless you use the old roman way, in which case it is a :not_ok:
Meaning it is a good game.

This was one of the best games I've ever played. Period. Bought it when it first came out and spent countless sleepless nights on it. It's awsome! I think I'll break out the CD and play again :P

ps - when is ascendancy 2 coming out haha

Help! I can't see anything on screen but randomw colors! does windows xp run dos games???

Nope, use DOSBox

I don't actually like the patch. Yes, it does make the other races more aggressive. But in doing so it basically eliminates the whole diplomacy side of the game. It's not a huge part, but it's still nice to be able to at least make an alliance with the other races.

Only race I have played with they ever got me alliances was the Baflids (sps) and that was without the patch. :wall:

There is one race(that which have spy power) and look like strange mantas with eyes that will make alliance with you almost EVERY time...Hmmm...I dont remember their name... :blink:
They could be even Baflids :blink:

Baflids are the three tongued rats :bleh:

oculons? they're the giant eye guys.

Dalriths or something like that...there have like this hair under a manta body.

The Dubtaks.

Yeah Dubtaks...
I love this specie...From the time I saw their greeting:
what can we steal.....ermmm I mean do for you? LOL

My mouse is too slow in the game. It's hell to move it around. Any way to change the sensitivity?

Are you running a slowdown program or DOSBox that might slow the machine itself down or are you just used to an extremely sensitive mouse?

That happened to me in XP - just run it in DOSBox.

Hi; I DL'd the game but I cannot get it to run in Windows XP. Any advice? Thanks, Jim

:help: OMG i cant believe you have this game here! I bought it when it was first released and spent days playing it. I've played as almost every race! It is not difficult at all to play but i guess thats because i had the manual <grins>

Anyhow, my favoret two races are the ones that instantly complete a project every so and so days, and the ones that instantly complete the research or have faster research <shrugs>.

I was a technology Fiend and had planets and in every sector I could get to! So my fleet was quite large! My 3 Flagships <over kill> would attack one star system at a time, while those long range Orbital Cannons would defend my planets, a defense fleet outfitted completely with shields and engines solved any troubles the Orbital Cannons couldn't handle. You just drop one into orbit so the enemy cant land, and have another refit for weapons.

This game needed Enhanced AI and Multiplayer Support to have stood a chance against the other overly <hard> space empire simulations in existance at the time of it's release.. hmm that was master of orion 3 at the time i believe..

2, not 3.

My advice would be to read the post above yours and run it in DOSBox.

My advice would be to read the post above yours and run it in DOSBox. [/b][/quote]
Ok, i got a new one then for you, how can i make it faster in dosbox :bleh: ?

Ok, i got a new one then for you, how can i make it faster in dosbox :bleh: ? [/b][/quote]
Add cycles in dosbox.conf.

or press f12 to increase while it's running.

I have to step into defence of this game. Although i do agree that the routine for planetar development (e.G. autobuild) is suboptimal its not HORRYBLY off its goal. It leaves you with usable planets. If you prefer to do it all by yourself - hey ok, but issuing every build order manually get this game tendious very fast, if you want to do that i suggest a very small galaxy with lots of computer opponents. Due space limitations there won't be much colonies, in every other case i suggest you hit the 'M' key to activate auto management and concentrate on conquest and research, or automate research as well. As for the AI watching its planets just getting blowed to bits without responding... well, i downloaded the Antag AI patch, but found it somewhat choppy for odd reasons under dos box, so i dug out the Logic Factory site and dowloaded the maintenace patch. All i can say is after my experience, when running 1.6.5 response is swift, entire fleets are sent out to hit your ships and invasion ships are commited to take your colonies. If you really care that much about a preise planetary layout - keep the game small, do it yourself. If you don't skip it and focus on playing the game. Also, someone said it would be a great flaw that regardless how many ships are there turns each side gets one turn in each cycle and how unbalancing that is. Would be true if ships not only had movement but also energy restrictions as well as 'once a turn' weapon systems. Those bombs are one-shot weapons and have even to be refitted after use (if you got repair docks that is). All in all this game is a very good one, with its only flaw being a somwhat unclean auto-build routine. Not that it matters much. It may not be Master of Orion 2 but is damm close...

HOwdy, It runs great in XP, except I can't get it to find my sound card. Any advice? If you say Dosbox, How the heck do i get it running on that program? :whistle:

You run it by going to this site and reading through the tutorial there. That is how I did it :-)

You could also try to use VDMS to skip dosbox alltogether.

I had the same problem when running the game the first time in XP...

To enable sound you have to run a special file first. I think its name was setsound or so...its in the same folder as the main executive.
There u should select Sound Blaster or 100% Compatible and then run the autodetect and it should work. :D :D

Just give it a few tries. Its worth it.

NO COMMENT




:tnx:

try to click in the uppe left corner...

:wall: DOINK!

Whitout shipyards, u havent played it!!!

Hello, I have played Ascendancy on and off since it was released way back. Can anyone recommend a recent or older game that is similar? I have tried a few war type simulators here and there, but I have found none that I became addicted to like Ascendancy. Thanks in advance.

Command & Conquer
Red Alert
Command & Conquer: Tiberiun Sun
Red Alert 2
Warcraft: Orcs And Humans
Warcraft II: Tides Of Darkness
Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos*
World Of Warcraft*

Your welcome in advance! :ok:

*new

you have to create other colonies for more ships

i know a cheat if you create a new game and then want to build ships with real good engines or something all you have to do is after you have a shipyard and shipbuilding technology you can save game then load a beter gamae in the better game either refit or create a ship choose the item you want in the other game and then cancel construction go into the other game and then order construction of a ship and the item will be there at the top of screen PS if u click on another item if you still needed it you will need to start again, it only works with 1 item per construction but who can keep go back wards and forwards between the games after a refit, you can get really good ships like i did by adding a disarmer to one and in the early stages and neutralizing and weapons that entered my systems
b4 :sniper: :help: after :sniper: :tai:

You should try:

Pax Imperia
Imperium Galactica
Imperium Galactica II
and maybe Galactic Civilizations

Or Master of Orion off course. But I guess you'd already tried that one.
Stars! might suit you too, if you aren't too fond of graphical representations.

I can really recommend Imperium Galactica :w00t:
(IMHO the first is better then the second :max: )

You should try:

Pax Imperia
Imperium Galactica
Imperium Galactica II
and maybe Galactic Civilizations [/b][/quote]
You forgot Fragile Allegiance ;) it's one of the best games in that genre.

yes, i forgot Fragile... it is pretty cool, but the inexistence of "research" is one big fault. besides that, its great to kick some aliens butts. :Titan:

Hey there, you guys seem to know a bit.

I am encountering a problem in XP pro where my mouse moves extremely slow in game. Any idea on how to get rid of that so it goes fast.

It is a cordless microsoft intelimouse explorer

Sorry for repeat info. I posted this in the Technical help section also. But it's hidden under SimCity200 post, but this solution works 100% for ALL DOS games iwth mouse problems (okay, maybe not 100%, btu 100% with games I've tried and I've tried a ton.)

Here is the repeat post:


First, thanks for your site. I love it as an alternative for faster downloads. And your tech support is outstanding. So here's one to add to your files.

Many DOS games have serious problems with slowdown of mice in Windows XP, even you if you use an slowdown/DOS emulator program like DoSBoX or VDMS.

Here is the complete solution to making games run smooth with your mouse in DOS games that have trouble. I had trouble with SimCity2000 and Ascendancy and decided to findout how to solve it.

Steps to take:

1. Download mousectl.com from the net...use a search engine so that I'm not responsible for getting people to leech off of private sites. Put mousectl.com in your C:\ directory.
2. Find autoexec.nt in your c:\\windows\system32 directory. Open it up with Notepad.
3. Add these two lines to the very end:

REM Ramps up mouse acceleration in Windows XP "fake" DOS mode
loadhigh c:\local\dos\mousectl 5,6,10,15,15,15,15,15

Notes:
a. The values 5,6,10, etc. are speeds of the mouse. Multiply by 10 and you get the % of speed increase. You can change the numbers to your own taste. This setup has the aceleration ramp up to 150% very quickly and then stay there.
b. Works with DosBox and VDMS. Don't worry about this changing how your mouse behaves in your normal XP environment because autoexec.nt only loads when you run XP's fake DOS mode (yes, I call it fake...since it is).

Haderach

Edit:

Where it said:
"loadhigh c:\local\dos\mousectl 5,6,10,15,15,15,15,15"

Change that to:

"loadhigh c:\mousectl 5,6,10,15,15,15,15,15"

I apologize for that error.

Haderach

I moved the posts you made in the troubleshooting section here. Thanks for the new thread. :)

Thanks for the info. Right after this post i started doin some research and found that information to get it working. It seems you guys went to the same place as me :)

I thought it was pretty good, but like all expansion games like this and Space Empires and Civilisation, tends to get a bit dull as your empire expands and gets hard to run.

Interesting game..

But i am i the only one experiencing that shields make ships invulnerable ?
The thing is, that if you turn them on and on every turn, they are renewed, and unless the enemy has enough power to get throught your shields in one shot, he cant hurt you..

Im running the game with the ai patch

Dines

I would not know, I never used shield for my ships. Full power I say and you will easily be able to blast your ennemy first without a problem.

I never use shields either. I guess few people do.
Maybe you are the first to notice ;)

Well the problem with shields is not that they make you invulnerable, but that the computer AI isn't strong enough to have the brains to configure their ships to bypass your shields.

mmm i guess basically that makes you invulnerable <grin>

Having powerful shields is great, but if you were playing a computer opponent that had even a tenth of the brains you do, they would be able to do ok against you. Sadly the way the game works.

enemy ship enters area, you turn on shields, enemy ship fires a couple times, doing no damage. You turn off shields when they stop firing, and return fire yourself. Since the computer AI is basic, they always do the same thing. They don't try and "fake" you out, nor do they try and take advantage of weapon setups and stuff. They also never have good ship layouts themselves, so if they do have shields, they usually have weak ones, or not enough power to both defend and attack.

Its all about the computer AI in this game. It performs badly, so what ever YOU do seems very smart. There are weapons and techniques to get through your shields, but sadly the computer will NEVER have the brains to use them. Thats why I always play without shields, its more fun.

Eoulsunder, have you tried the game with the patch, to see if this affects the way the AI deals with shields? My suspicion is that the patch wouldn't actually help matters, but still...

The patch only make the AI more agressive, not brighter.

Somehow, I find this even worse.

You sure of this? I've heard and read conflicting opinions about this, stated with all the decisiveness of a great general facing a huge battle--from both sides. I know the patch increases aggression, but one of the game's developers told me once at E3 that it also made the AI better. I'm sure you can see where this would leave the matter somewhat up in the air. ;)

It's a matter of perception. Yes, the AI is better because it is more agressive, meaning that you will have a harder time winning because they always turn evil and declare war on your after a while for no good reason.

However, I always felt like it removed to the game because then diplomacy was going down the well big time. I never found a point in diplomacy in Ascendancy, except in the first few turns so you may build your empire. After that, you just build bigger and bigger ships, expand on your neighbors (very easily because the AI is so dumb), build some planet defense and do it again and again until you win.

I never entered a "big climatic battle" in Ascendancy ever. Perhaps it's only because the player, in that example, just waited way too long to attack. I usually can whipe out a system with only one ship, it only take a lot of time. I usually get very upset if I lose a single ship in mid game. It's always because of a stupid mistake of mine, never because of the AI intelligence.

Let me ask you this: have you tried installing the patch, and then chosen to play the game on its normal (non-aggressive) setting? Just to see if the AI is any better, without the boost to anger?

I never noticed a change. Either there is no change at all or the "upgrade" is so small it doesn't make a difference and doesn't really change a thing.

Bah: too bad. I really liked the races, the planetary building strategies, research, dialog--just about everything, except the AI. Unfortunately, that's often the way in "soft" strategy games.

I can but agree. A strategy game without a good AI it not really worth playing... :(

Well, try Stars! Not the best graphics or sound but heck of a game!

Try? I played it to no end a long time ago. And I would still do if I had a working copy of the game.

Well, I have the game.....(CD serial number and all, just not the box anymore)...

Is it abandoned?

No.

Dull as can be. I like building up worlds and engaging in diplomacy, as well as combat and trade.

Well, there is always Supremacy and the original Reach For The Stars and Emperor of the fading suns and well, a few more that are not abandonware.

Supremacy? Like I said, I like building worlds and diplomacy. There's nothing of either in that. Emperor of the Fading Suns isn't a 4x game, really, but more of an RPG: and I remember it being a very interesting and complex game with even less effective AI than Ascendency.

The original Reach for the Stars: now, there you're onto something. I remember how dreary the remake was, but I've just downloaded the older title, and it has possibilities. Thanks!

Space empires 4. Diplomacy, Building, combat (tactical, strategic), and trade (via trading alliances ...)

3rd part didnt' have too good diplomacy, but it was easier handling of units than in 4th part in my opinion.

5 is going to have 3d combat, beta testing version was already sent out.

Supremacy? Like I said, I like building worlds and diplomacy. There's nothing of either in that. Emperor of the Fading Suns isn't a 4x game, really, but more of an RPG: and I remember it being a very interesting and complex game with even less effective AI than Ascendency.

The original Reach for the Stars: now, there you're onto something. I remember how dreary the remake was, but I've just downloaded the older title, and it has possibilities. Thanks! [/b][/quote]
There is no real diplomacy in Supremacy but there is building of worlds. Plus the graphics are much better that other games of its type of the time.

EFS is very much a 4X game. I don't know why you (anyone) would not see it as such. You start with a planet you do not have under your control, you must fight for it then build fleets and expand to other planets, destroying and capturing enemy. At the same time you have to be careful with diplomacy or get your behind kicked. You already know this so I just can't figure out how it isn't a 4X game. :blink:
Have you tried it with the patches, including perhaps the unsupported ones? (Hyperion and Nova patches)

Anyway, I am glad I told you about RFTS . :-)



Gregor I didn't mention SEIV for other reasons, including that we focus more on abandoware games.

There is no real diplomacy in Supremacy but there is building of worlds. Plus the graphics are much better that other games of its type of the time.

EFS is very much a 4X game. I don't know why you (anyone) would not see it as such.


[/b][/quote]
Because one major part of the fun I find in such games is the making and breaking (or maintaining, if I can win that way) of alliances. It's a reason I enjoy Europa Universalis II so much. If anyone I find is going to automatically be my enemy, then it's a game of exploration, building and conquering, and even in turn-based mode, reminds me all-too-well of those annoying RTS clones I can't stand. :)

Because one major part of the fun I find in such games is the making and breaking (or maintaining, if I can win that way) of alliances. It's a reason I enjoy Europa Universalis II so much. If anyone I find is going to automatically be my enemy, then it's a game of exploration, building and conquering, and even in turn-based mode, reminds me all-too-well of those annoying RTS clones I can't stand. :) [/b][/quote]
Fair enough, it is just that I always considered EFS a game with heavy elements of diplomacy. I have no idea why someone would consider EFS not having diplomacy, but hey, it's a free world! :bleh:

Fair enough, it is just that I always considered EFS a game with heavy elements of diplomacy. I have no idea why someone would consider EFS not having diplomacy, but hey, it's a free world! :bleh: [/b][/quote]
Reread what I wrote. ;) EFS I think of as more of an RPG than a 4x space strategy game. That, plus the poor AI were my only problems when I'm looking specifically for 4x space strategy games. :D

Reread what I wrote. ;) EFS I think of as more of an RPG than a 4x space strategy game. That, plus the poor AI were my only problems when I'm looking specifically for 4x space strategy games. :D [/b][/quote]
I am not sure how re reading it changes anything? :blink:
EFS has strategy, is in space, has diplomacy, never mind, this is going nowhere. :D

Just noticed one thing, in the downloads section of the game you do not have the patch for the game. Not the english language or the french language patch. I don't know exactly what they fix (lingering bugs says the readme) and you can't run them at the same time as the antag patch but it might help?

That's what I was wondering. I've run the bug-fixing patch without running the aggression-increasing one, and it seemed to me to make the AI somewhat better at building and conquering.

That's what I was wondering. I've run the bug-fixing patch without running the aggression-increasing one, and it seemed to me to make the AI somewhat better at building and conquering. [/b][/quote]
I hereby proclaim I will start a new game and see how it goes. I haven't played it for a long time but will see. I will play under normal conditions (with the patch, not the Antag) and hopefuly not getting kicked very quickly.
Hmm, shall I start a AAR for it in the 3blah section?

Update. Something has happened and I am not in the mood to do this, or play anything else for that matter. When I have something new I will post it, hopefuly not too long.

Good luck, Efthimos. A shame that reallife requires so much constant attention, isn't it? ;)

You are always talking of a patch. There are two patches of Ascendancy: 1.8.5 and Antagonizer.

Both can be downloaded here.


EDIT: Looking closely at the post efthimios I guess that is already known.

Yes, it is. We already discussed the pair of patches and what they do in the first few pages of this lengthy thread. ;)

This game is a my top strategic game + warcraft 2
logic factory making Ascendancy 2 ...... i am impatient

They have been saying the are making ASC2 for a long time now. They havent released a update on the production of it in very long. The logic factory seemed to have banked alot in its new Hydra development engine which hasnt produced a game yet. Thats a big investment for a little company.

Though it appears they are taking beta testers for their new game Seeker, so there might be hope still

I am still amazed from time to time to see that some people consider this game one of the best... :blink:

I think its a really fun game in some ways more so then Master of Orion. The best though? I dont think so but it did easliy have the potential to be one of the best.

Some small tweaks to the A.I and late game planet micromangement and it could have been one of the all time best 4x strategy games

Nah, I don't think it's better than MOO.
It's not as polished.

I find Ascendancy's space combat , ship and planet building to be much more fun then MOO's. Though I addmit planet building becomes a pain later on. Plus ascendancy was a much prettier game :D

MOO has a much better A.I and things like its diplomacy feature trade,non-aggresion packs etc.. is just way cooler.

If I could combine the best of both those games :sneaky: throw in a dash of multi-player and I would have the ultimate 4x Strategy game :evil: mwhaaa!!!

wow, started playing this yesterday...very addicting...

i started out in a neutral very dense galaxy with 7 peoples....and now, after about 1200 days i'm regretting it a bit. i've only found a few colonies of theirs, they're likely on the other side of the galaxy...

though i'm currently playing without the patch (wanted to get a feel for the game first), noone should be a real threat. i did make the mistake of underequiping my ships with just one weapon (it was the black hole generator thing...i learned its not too good), after getting in a fight and loosing a ship (which i could have avoided easily if i knew what i was doing....it was 3 meduim ships vs my underequiped 2 large) , i backed off to my nearest dockyard and upgraded to a nano thingy that seems to be much better...

i'm loving the customization of ships, most of my ships are colonizers (i named them 'gaia', though with the advent of war (and the fun large type), i developed an invasion type and assult type. i've shot ahead of everyone in colonies, and easily have more tech (i'm the lizard people....and i've found lots of ruins)

the game's quite fun...i expect my next game will go much more smoothly...i think i'll make it just a dense universe with max people and hostile mode...

Wow!!! Great game. :ok:
But I have some trouble while playing - game crashes with message:
(blah-blah-blah) can not find ..\cosmos.cpp

nvm.....figured out soon after that you could attack the planet....heh, the damn people i'm fighting are nearly defeated....i've taken most of their colonies and obliterated their fleet (they made a last stand of 4 mediums vs. 2 of my lesser larges meant to guard their path to my worlds....) they did some damage, but nothing major. soon, i'll be getting my first wave of gigantic ships, then the galaxy will be mine!

As I remeber U have to hold Shift (or Ctrl or smthng) key and click on invention or building to get help. :ph34r:

ascendancy rule :D :ok: a must for a space/simulation fan like me yeah :D

Truly a great game but too bad the ai in wars their ships just blow off when get in my sight and no speak when u organize your fleet in battle packs...

Game won't detect my sound card, what do I do?

My aplogizies as I did not read this long thread, but I wanted to mention that there was an upgrade ot this game designed to make it more difficult. The original is pretty stupid. You can use the "disarming" guns (whatever they are called) to remove all the weapons form enemy ships and they don't declare war!

Anyway, just tossing that out. Great game otherwise!

The pacth is like the civ difficult level, just cheats for the AI, if this game got a better ai i t could THE GREAT ONE, anyway it ´s a great game :kosta:

There are two patches. One makes AI opponents more aggressive, but the other does improve the way the AI "thinks."

Are u sure? i was playing with a pacth that force the AI opponents to ally against you and that boost their production and science

I've tried both. I won't say that the one intended to improve the AI turned it into a rocket scientist, but it's certainly better.

I am in a war with the minions. I have the bafiflids helping me and my ally the dubtaks are sitting on thier lazy but not helping me anyways the minoins send me a message every turn asking me to call of the war and have peace. This gets so annyoing as I want to defeat the minoins but am tired of clicking out that box ever year. Any help would be nice. It is like a pop up on the net that just keeps coming back :( Peace.

I am the kumbachka by the way. (Like to see where everyone starts out at)

Night. :Titan: :Titan: :Titan: :Titan: :Titan: :Titan:

This game got multiplay option?

Nope, SP only.

ok trick for the noob take the lizard race(i don't remember the name LOL) with it you can have new technology very fast !!

I am in a war with the minions. I have the bafiflids helping me and my ally the dubtaks are sitting on thier lazy but not helping me anyways the minoins send me a message every turn asking me to call of the war and have peace. This gets so annyoing as I want to defeat the minoins but am tired of clicking out that box ever year. Any help would be nice. It is like a pop up on the net that just keeps coming back Peace.

^^^^^^Use the Ignore command? at the diplomacy screen?

How? And Thanks.

^^^^ Oops, i may have been thinking of master of orion 2, when i suggested the ignore command :blink:


I have just loaded ascendancy, and i see that the ignore command isnt there

The only game on this site I know which need to hit the ignore button is Settlers 2 Gold Edition.

so when you get a message every turn asking you to end the war and have peace what do you do? Do you keep closing out of it like pop ups? or can you fix this? I aint using any patches btw.

Ascenadancy! :Brain: :Brain: :Brain: :Brain:

I have absolutly no idea of what you are talking about.

Well, as i see you have to make a peace teatry, they found your weak point :D

I installed the game and it works fine, but Ihave no sound. How do I get it to detect my sound card?

I've already patched my game and i still can't build more than two missserable shipssssssssssssssssssssss???? :help: :help:

You need to settle more systems with them - the number of ships you can build is 2x the number of systems you control IIRC. Make sure they've got a starlane drive, engine, generator and colony modules or they won't be much use.

To get sound to work in Win XP with this game, use VDM Sound, get it here:
http://www.abandonia.com/main.php?nav=programs


install the program, when done do this:


Go to the directory where you have installed Ascendancy, then rightclick on the file Setsound.exe, you get a small popup and then chose: "Run With VDMS" > chose standart settings for VDMS.
With setsound.exe you are starting the soundcard setup program for ascendancy, choose this soundcard in the setup:
Creative Labs Sound Blaster or 100% compatible
When done exit.

Now you start the game, rightclick on the file Ascend.exe , and chose "Run with VDMS" > chose standart settings, and you should be ok, the sound should now work in Win XP.

:kosta: soooo much thanks?????????????????????????????????

Will the patch fix the diplomacy pop up problem?

Example: I declare war on the minions.

Next Turn: They ask me to accept peace and stop the war.

My Allys are getting beat up why should I? What would you do?

I said NO!

So Next turn: Do you want to end the war and have peace? I TOLD YOU THE FIRST TIME NO! THE AWNSER IS NO!

The Next Turn: THE SAME THING! IT HAPPENS EVERY SINGLE TURN.

Turn 500: Do you want to end the war and have peace?

Turn 1000: Do You want to end the war and have peace?

SEE MY POINT NOW? It takes like what 1 SECOND TO END A TURN! I HAVE TO GO THROUGH 5BILION POP UPS JUST TO PLAY THE GAME!

Sorry for S P E L L I N G it out for you but no one understood. I cannot get the AI patch to work. I am deleting ascendancy due to I cannot play it. Thanks for the help everyone and by this is my last post. :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall:

I don't think the problem is that people don't understand your problem. To solve the problem either accept peace or destroy them.

But the problem of part of the problem it´s that the problem...

Come on, there isn´t any solution or there isn´t any problem :tomato:

Did I see an Ascendancy II in the works according to the web site? Man, there's nothing better than an whole new galaxy to explore, with loads of solar systems and planet's to inhabit and some but to kick.

Maybe I like Ascendancy because I could win. Spaceward Ho! for Windows is another really fun game, but my copy crashes on Windows XP about the 10th turn in. :ranting:

:help: Going back to patches, the patch "antag" is only for make an more hostile AI?
Where i can get the other one?

Yes antagonizer is the hostile AI patch, Maintenance patch should be the bit more improved AI(but i havent tested this much yet)


Maintenance patch:

http://www.logicfactory.com/support_ascendancy.htm

Thanks petter, i will check it :ok:

Thank you

I have another good suggestion, this is about mouse speed in dosgames, if the mouse speed in ascendancy for example is slow you can use a program mousectl.com to speed it up.

you need to create a bat file in the ascendancy directory, called ex: ascend.bat

then you copy this following text into it:



Mousectl.com program needs 8 values seperated by a comma.
Some suggestions for speeds:
5,6,10,15,15,15,15,15
5,6,7,8,10,10,10,10


If you have the game without any of the 2 patches, you have ascend.exe after mousectl.com in the .bat file.
If you have the antagonizer patch, you replace ascend.exe
with antag.exe or if you have the maintenance patch, you replace ascend.exe with
patch.exe
If you are using VDMSound, you just rightclick on the .bat file you have created, and chose:
"Run with VDMS"


you can get the program mousectl.com from here: http://www.ufo-x.com/file/mousectl.zip
unzip the file into the ascendancy directory.

This is one of the great turn base game ever made (for the date it was made). :ok:

There are several problems in this game which very annoying. One of those is the micro-management that always draws my back from advancing in later years... :yawn: and makes me headache every turn.

I've to solve this by set all less important colonies to build only some orbit shields and use only large battle ship to protect the system then set all of them to Scientist take over or else. I usualy use only 1-2 ships to guard entire systems by post the ship at the lane that connect to enemy system (this would be easier if you can drive all of them out of your systems then manage them to enter your systems only throught red link only) :sniper:

And have only Gaia or any high industry planet to be your ship yard and others medium planet to be scientific planet. I'm sure that you can servive by your core industry planet and your mighty ship. :Titan:

This can reduce a little bit troble with annoying micro management.

U are very right Blank_box, very right.
Anyway best defense is a good ofense, ocuppy only enemy systems and don´t let nothing like shields, bases, yards, ships, etc. Anyway do this all turns is A REAL BIG problem of micro-management

Another one problem is the politic...

AI in this game act like a child... They plan every thing too straight. This make Ascedency too simple to me because I don't want to make war only. They don't have anything in there mind but to make war, however, not challenge enough too.

In my view, the best politic in turn base games I've played is Alpha Centuries, AI in that game was born for politic. :ok: I betray one another one betray me... I remember that I have been surprised by my ally's atomic bomb at my capital city then the. :blink:

I just think that if AI in this game are verry cunning in both combat and politic will make this game challenge enough to play all the time, not like now that if you can survive long enough to gain more powerful fleet you can end this game. :(

The thing that i hate of Alpha Centari was the graphic of the guy who carry a cart with a laser over it. I can´t explain why but i hate the guy with the cart. :angry:

Anyway Alpha Centauri, is a level more than Ascendancy. The last one lacks of decent AI so the game becomes boring when u are ruling the galaxy, even the alliance of all AIs with cheaper tecno and cheaper construction can´t set up some struggle to remind you that they are still a life. U can´t fail and lose only by getting the war against every opponents too early. :tomato:

The thing I disliked in Ascendancy, beside the poor AI, is the 2/3 of the galaxy rule, or whatever it is. You are kicking behind and taking names, and then because you colonize one too many planets, suddenly the game is over and you've won. I want to be able to make use of that new planet and go on to anhiliate the rest!

:Titan:

Well, if u manage it to rule 2/3 of galaxy, it is better to end the game, simply cuz they didn´t got any chance

Yes, I agree... Beside the harmful graphic of Alpha Cen (I usualy confused when looking at the terrain of the planet) is the music... both can kill all your nerve!! :sick: espacialy the sound in that game. I always turn it off when play it... (If not, I can only play it for 2-3 hours NO MORE)

Ascendary has good graphic and good sound that encourages me to play long time enough (though, just advance only 10-20 years)

Unlike SID's Mier's game that has configuration to modify the rule fo the game make this left no option fo victory to player. That why I can't play it agian again........ :yawn: (Imagine what you have to face with every time you play it)

How do I create a .bat file?

Create a text file with notepad, then rename it to bat.

Is this still available for download? The link doesn't appear to work. I bought this years ago, but can't find the software anymore. I'd love to play it again.

Aah..disregard. The site just apparently doesn't like the firefox browser. Worked fine with IE ;)

It works fine with Firefox, actually, but we were having server problems earlier today. Maybe that's why the download wasn't working for you.

Could be. I was able to download it without issue. Do I actually have to go and hunt for the Dos drivers for the audio setup, or is there a workaround for XP?

As I recall, DOSbox simulates old AdLib sound on its own. I'm using WinXP, and though its scratchy, the sound is still pretty good.

The game will run on XP, at least for me, but it doesn't like my USB mouse - running it in DOSBox works perfectly though.

Hm..Mine runs fine in XP, although I did set it for Windows 95 compatability. I don't get any sound though.

Man... all this talk of Ascendancy "forced" me to install it and start a new game. I guess I had cross some MOO in mind my as I thought you could customize your own civilization, but apparently not. From the minimal description of each race that appears before you chose them it is hard to tell what bonus to research, industry or prosperity they may have.

I'll have to search for some detailed information on the races and such.

I managed to have a nice secure location with about three single star lane systems between my home planet and the outside world. Plenty of opportunity for defense.

:Titan:

It's weird. I send a ship to another species's planet with some invasion modules. Then it takes forever for it to go into orbit, and then they declare war on me and my ship is said to have been destroyed. I didn,t even get a chance to fight what's up with that? I was never told that my ship was in orbit.

There are orbital cloakers that may prohibit you from seeing that they have shields up and/or orbital missle bases. You have to make sure you take those out. It has been a long time since I have played, and the new game I just started has not gotten me far enough down the tech tree to speak intelligently, but you need to use phase bombs, at the least, to soften up the planet!

I'm really looking forward to Ascendancy II!

:D

EDIT: Sorry Phase Bombs only cause damage to planet-based facilities and not orbital items.

Sure, so use any normal weapon to destroy orbital cloaking.



ASCENDANCY II,WOW :Brain:

It will be easier if you are "Minion". Their ability help your invasion 100% sucessful. :ok:

I've tried even they have any planet defence (except, you must destroy orbitng shield) just only enter the planet's orbit you can conquer that world. :w00t:

The only disadventage is that they don't have any other effect to help you boost up your game... so you have to wait looooooong :yawn: time enough to delcear war (or long enough to survive war then counter them).

Ascendancy II? For me the project is as good as dead. Logic Factory seems to be in grave financial problems, in fact I doubt they are even there any more. I know that their site is, but that is not what I am talking about.
Ascendancy II was going to be an online only multiplayer 4X game. Which was a dissapointment for me, but anyway it doesn't look that it is going to be done anytime.

At least the story behind it, is not as tragic as behind Stars! Supernova where the game is actually finished but they do not have a publisher for years now.

Great... now you tell me, and after I sent an e-mail asking to be a beta tester! :D


This is :ot:, sort of, but does anyone play Spaceward Ho! (for Windows) at all? I loved that game, but it GPFs (crashes) on Win XP about the 10th turn in. I don't know if I have a "bad" version of it or if it is just not compatable with XP. I'll have to do a search on it.


EDIT: Removed a misplaced comma

As far as I know, I can't actually target the orbital structures. SO shouls I assume that my ship auto targets shields first?

I'm too dumb to know I shouldn't post since I don't have a definitive answer. I think you have to select your weapon and target the planet. It is probably random as to what you will damage. Have enough weapons available to take the oribtal stuff out. Just my best recollection.

If I'm wrong... sorry in advance.

:Titan:

I guess I'll just have to use more than one ship though. I had a gigantic ship loaded with weapons and couldn't get rid of that measly normal orbital shield.

Maybe u cleaned the orbit and they still got surface cloaking shields. Try to get into orbit, only if u are sure of have used enough firepower. the big pain of cloaking for attacker it´s the didn´t know. Once i move four ships, the half of my fleet, to take over a cloaked planet :rifle: :Titan:, it was only a minimal colony mostly wasteland!!!! :wall: :ranting:

hey guys - is anyone cleverer than me able to tell me how I can extract the awesome music from this game from the game files? i know this is usually possible with games, but no idea how to do it...

cheers

strangedays

If you can't hear the music from this site version, it is most probably ripped already and you won't be able to extract it.

I'm not sure about the site version as I have the original on CD - and can certainly here the music. I'm sure the music is stored somewhere in the game files in some format, just no idea how to find it and extract it. Any clues anyone?

strangedays

Since the game can be played with out the CD by movoing the "COB" files, the music is obviously within the COB file. If it is extracted at play time it maybe dropped locally while the game is played, or more likely it is loaded into memory and played that way.

I have not looked in the COB file to see if it is "readable" in some fashion. If you look at the header for a MID, MOD, etc, so that you know the leading identifiers, you can search for that and possibly see where the music starts at in the COB. Then it is a matter of determining the length of the data and "ripping" it out. That's my weak understanding of it at least.

You have to Shift - Click on an item to get info about it.
EnjoY!

The only thing I dislike about this game are the medals. I never seem to get the highest medal (frustrating). Also When you visited almost all systems and/or many planets the game ends bah :/

It depends on how you design the game from the start and victory conditions.

It depends on how you design the game from the start and victory conditions. [/b][/quote]
:blink:
Are there settings that can alter that? The only settings I see is load, save, new game etc and the player selection screen. No other screens present.

By medal, do you mean research?

Nah when you finish the game you get some sort of medal. The medal can be very big and pretty.

I read here about Ascendancy II and i want facts!!!! :angry:

Great idea for a game....AI is completely braindead though. Just get a ship with loads of power and plasma cannons. You can outrun and outrange them on the battlefield. You will be invincible while you pummel the enemy fleet that just ran out of power following you around trying to get in range. They can't adapt to anything and just die en mass.

Another thing that was lacking was the combat system. You can have 1 ship, the enemy 6. You move your ship the enemy only can move one then it's your turn again. It would have been a lot better and more realistic if you moved all of your ships in your turn and would make that immortal tactic stated above a lot harder to pull off.

Please help me!

I am looking for general info's about Ascendancy game files, .FNT file format for example. Is somebody around with this information?

I'm making a clone project with some enhancements (the enhancements Ascendancy players ever wanted), the game will be fully MODifiable and will accept Ascendancy game files by default.

If you could supply me with useful links, contacts or files please send me!

All that I have found on the net is a wiki spec for the .COB format, an old links page (http://www.geocities.com/greyknight3/jmp_asc.htm), the GameFaqs page (http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos...me/575213.html) and nothing else! I also have a .SHP editor (by Chlanda) but all other links are broken.

This game is beautiful, even if a lot of better 4x games are around nowadays, I still want to re-create it as open-source (without using the copyrighted material btw).

Thank you

Hi I played this game years ago and was SO addicted to it !!
Great Game, but yes the AI sucked.

Id love to play it again but when i start i have no sound and the mouse is very very slow.

Did anyone figire out how to fix that ?


Oh i did find a flaw/cheat in the game:
When you can build enormous ships everyone seemd to be adding the strongest shield there is...., side effect is that these take loads of power.

Now, there is 1 type of shield that uses NO power, but is very weak. So you add like half your ships full of these !! --> result --> nobody can kill you ships anymore becuase yr shield is to strong !

Using the above my tactics were 3 of these ships with "super shields".
1 war ship with only weapons added.
2 colonize ships.

You are simply invincible


Hope to helped out here, so if someone could help me out that would be great

Thx !

Post

i did email the logic factory about a year ago, got a reply they were finishing some other game first.. but they promised me to advice me when they start testing it.

So far didnt heard anything.. to bad i love beta testing

ah ok, works nicely in the dos box

Yes this is a very good game!

:tomato:

PROBLEM: this cheap shield is too weak for use agaisnt some weapons. This shield consumes no energy to be active but to contain damage it use energy and by having to bad stats as shield it would deplet your power or fail to contain damage. So when building a ship, use better shields and more power units. :ok:

Or use big engines and loads of power to stay out of range. :D

not true, i used this tactic over and over again, i never run out of energy or power and the shields never fail even against the strongest weapons, ill just started playing again, as soon as i can build enomrous ships again ill send a screenshot of how the vessel layout should look like.
Trust me this works :)

:D Suppose it does work, the game AI is so lousy that even with a hostile environment the computers barely blinked at me. You crush them easily. The computer ignores the Xeno ruins so finding a few of those puts you miles in front of the computer. The computer doesn't retrofit it's ships either, so if you disarm them, but don't destroy them, you can run around killing all the colonies at will.

Great game, great graphics, but the lousy AI and the micromangement make it painful to play sometimes, in my opinion.

:Titan:

Will somebody answer???
:blink:
--> Previous Post

Thank you

Have you looked and seen if there are any already available tools to do so?

Well, in facts, even with the bettered AI, u don´t need shields or be out of range....

Very true.


Legolas: i can´t help u beacause i don´t know how do it.

:D .FNT would seem like a font file, but not sure.

At one point in the past I opened one of the files and grab data on the research tree, such as how long each took to research, but that was years ago.

Good luck.

oh, I tested it again on what I said about the cheat/flaw
It works

Just add the shield that uses no power upto 4 full blue rounds and your undefetable.

When someone else is firing on you it does not consume power so you never run
out


OH, CAPITAL LETTERS....I KNOW...DONT WANT TO TYPE THIS ALL AGAIN

GREETZ !

Edit by punch- Rewrote whole post without all the caps :)

There is a nice key on your keyboard called Caps Lock - don't fear it. Even though it scared you the first (and appearantly only) time you clicked it... please click it again.

Thank you.

actually it was my shift key being *meep*ed up by gaming that got stuck again, and since i was typing without looking at the screen i realized to late....

you care if i type in capitals or not ?

Look, I'm sorry for lashing out at you like that, but after a couple of thousand posts written in Caps by newbies with no grasp of grammar - you tend to get fed up by it ;)

So sorry, for letting you feel my build up of frustration. Hope you won't think bad of me. :tomato:

Its cool Tom. Just remember this picture (Kudos to Maddox once again)
http://maddox.xmission.com/keyboard4.jpg

LOL
and between the shift and the "a" no more than 3 cm

I don't understand. what do you mean? what blue rounds? what shield that uses no power? don't they all use power?

No, there is one shield that is weak, but uses no energy. I think it is a "passive" shield, although I believe you have to activate it before it takes effect, just like the other shields.

What I hate is the civilizations that put a recall device in every ship. As soon as I fire a single shot at them they "recall" back to mama. I just station a few ships in their home system then send out my fastest ships to met up with their roaming fleets and send them back to their home system one at a time for anihilation.

:Titan:

The blue rounds are the sum of capacity of all shields in a ship. Each blue round got 4 levels. There is also a shield that gives u the lowest level of shielding but consumes no power to be active. He its talking of equip a ship with 16 of this shield to be undefeteable. Anyway, these shields are only usefull to don´t caught with your guard down, remember that u have to active the shields to make them work but be with the shields up consumes energy, so its better to get next to your enemy with the shields down, set them up when the battle start and et them down again if the enemy ship consumes all his power. If a ship whit an activated shield get shotted, the shield will use power to absorve the damage, even this shield that takes no power to be active, I prefer to have a better shield and more units of power in my ships

exactly !, look at what you write: consumes no power to be active. which is correct


this is wrong, as you said yourself above it does not take energy/power !

not true, im not sure about other shields but these shields definitaly dont use power to absorbe the damage.

so do I :D because you cant take so much cools tuff with so many shields onboard. but its a fact that the ships fitted with these shield i said are undefeatable.

Greetz !

Edit by Tom:
Fixed your quotes :)

Too much defense will take more time to attack or invade some system since you can't more very fast in the system and between lenses both and can't take more weapons on board...

I love to use balance defense and offense then emphasis on moving. This is very importance in later game (If AI have enough wit to do so) that powerful long-length plasma(sorry, I've forgotten the name) with cloaking sphere and the planet missile can delay or even stop you there if you can not manage to get out of length or occupy their orbit quickly. Moving fast between the lenses also help you dispatch more your reinforcement(if you would like to avoid micro management by building ship yard in every far and less important planets).

Equip your ship more than one powerful weapon types can help you much solve the slowly recharge or out of length problem.

"Hit and Run" is my favorite tactic. :sniper:. An army of flying turtles can not conquer the fortress. :sneaky:

Remember that tactic depend on your way, style, and situation so... choose your best! :ok:

P.S. Sorry, I forgot its name since I have play and addicted nethack sooooooo much :Titan:

The shields consumes power by being active per each battle turn. But there is a shield that takes no power to be active. Unactive shield do nothing. All the others shields also consumes power to avoid damage when being active and shotted, the shield can fail to avoid it if left no more power or if the weapon its too powerfull. I will check if the "no power to be active" shield use power to absorb damage but i belive that yes.

Sorry to be a smart behind again, but i can resist :D

None of the shields in the game use power to absorb attacks.
Only most shields use power each turn to be active. except for the one im talking about.

Each turn when a shield is activated your power levels drop, wether or not it took an attack in that turn does not effect the amount of power used.

check it out ! youll see

greetz !

Damn i have to register, im always posting as a guest :D

No sound, can't exit the game without it crashing my computer...

Bummer. Seemed like a good game too.

Use DOSBox to run this great game! Works perfectly. (Yes, with sound)

WOW! ive had this game donwloaded for a while now but never attempted it coz i thought it would be too boring...i only started playing a few hours ago...its purely magnificent!! and the atmospheric music is a nice addition...

:D Just give it a few more hours!

ive been looking thru the pages to find a solution to my problem...but i gave up on page 6 and decided to just ask it...

ive got a ship with a colonizer, and i sent it to another planet to colonize...but now i dont know what to do with the ship...i returned it back to my original planet...but i can't seem to attach another colonizer on it...issit even possible to do this? and if i cant do this...what do i do with the ship? (its my first ship so its not really a heavy weapon or a scout kinda ship)

loox like i gotta refer to the manual :blink:

you might have to activate it when you come to the planet you wish to colonise. put the ship in orbit and colonise it.

If you wish to refit it can also be done, but you need free shipyard on the planet and then you can refit the ship.

how do u refit it? ive brought my ship back...but i dont know where to go to refit it...i click on the ship and there are three options "leave orbit", "abandon", "cancel"...and ive only got one shipyard, but im not building anyships at the moment...and when i click on the shipyard it doesnt say much either...im a bit lost...

:D Research! You will eventually get to Orbital Platform or some such... different that the Orbital Shipyard. One only builds ships and one only refits ships.

Of course, once you get the larger hulls, you can just scrap the small ships since you are limited to how many total ships you can build. Although colonizing more planets increases the limit.

sorry i am at work now and i really can't look into it, but i think you bring the ship to the planet with shipyard and then somehow refit it (maybe some icon or right click...) can't remember... wish they alowed games at work...

U have to click the ship and chose refit, if u dont got that oprion its cuz u didnt got orbitals docks(different of shipyard) at that planet. If u got the orbitals docks and cant make refit... u are doomed

thanks guys...i didnt have orbital docks, i thought you could refit with the shipyard...it makes sense now.

Hi, I like the site. Cool idea.

Simple question regarding Ascendancy.

It runs decent enough, however, the mouse moves very slow across the screen. You have to move it right off the desk about 5 times to get across a full screen. Is there some sort of way to adjust mouse sensitivity in this game? Is having an optical mouse an issue? Is have a P4 instead of a 486 an issue???

Anyone have this problem? Help a brother out.

Cheers

If this happens only in this game.... check options menu and if doesnt works hit the mouse until it works. If it also happens outside Ascendancy, the lifetime of the mouse is over, even in a third world country, mouses cost no more than 2 u$s. buy another

any tips or hints about what to research? i seem to be going all over the place...

I get that mouse speed problem running the game in XP - it's very neatly fixed by using DOSBox.

Research the things you need to get off the planet and onto another one first, then Xenoarchaeology, then things which allow more research and let you get to Shipyards, then I tend to beeline for the enormous ships (the tech also allows the Metropolis, which is great) since you need them to really get a war going, and I'm a big fan of long range orbital whoppers - missiles don't cut it for defense.
Oh, Automation is a priority too, since without it your population cap will be really low.

I heard someone asking for data extraction tools, i found some, can't remember from where though. (using these you can extract the wonderfull music from ascendancy, it's in pure .wav format from ascend01.cob or ascend02.cob).
www.vk0.dk/ascendutils.zip
(Remember to don't run .exe files from random people on random forums).

also, i have a "experienced" user game instruction thing: (from vidruand)
www.vk0.dk/vidscob.zip
This will change some research stuff around plus add some restrictions (nothing you actually have to do)

from the html instruction from vidscob.zip:
"
The following is the suggested play style to be used with the new cob for experienced players:
300 Turn start
Hostile Antag
3 species
Rules for setting:
1. Turn penalties, in addition to the 300 turn start penalty:
Dubtaks: +200 turns
Mebes, Govorom, Minions: +100 turns
2. Leave one space free for each colonization module placed on the ship. This means, one module needs 2 slots.
3. Only 1 planet allowed on micro management (MM), all others on self management (SM): Once you are allowed to switch this MM to another planet and place your home planet on SM. If the planet you are manually managing is invaded, you may switch to another planet. Ship building and repairing (re-designing) is allowed on the actual MM planet only.
4. Ship restrictions: No more than 4 attack ships in any system. No more than 10 ships at any one time.
5. (optional) Research Xenos last
"

playing with vidruand's rules and changed cob makes the game quite tough and therefore alot more fun to play, highly recommended.

vidscob.zip instalaltion:
backup your ascend00.cob, rename the "ascend00 changed.cob" from vidscob.zip to ascend00.cob and place it where the original ascend00.cob used to be, done.

note that vidscob.zip doesn't include any .exe files, just a cob datafile, which i don't think can execute maliciuosly code.
but ascendutils.exe can be filled with viruses and shouldn't be run unless you trust people calling themselves vk0 (which you shouldn't).

I have been playing the game a bit. Has anyone else noticed that some of the industrial structures don't work properly? The industrial megafacility, which is supposed to provide more industry than the factory, provides the same industry as the factory. The metroplex, which is supposed to provide industry, research and population, does not provide industry. Don't know about other advanced industry buildings.

Anyone know how to fix this? Is there a building stat editor or something?

Are u looking at graphic or are u reading the data? The graphic chnages every ten units. But in mine, Metro and I Complex works well.

Sound interesting :max: , perhaps, I should try it.

Are you sure that less important planet will become completely self-management? (I mean that no more pop-up every planet and every turn.) Also, if it were rule which AI have to take the effect too?

If this patch works fine, the game will be more fun.

all the patch itself does is change some research stuff around and make some buildings less good.
self managening plants is default in the game and can be toggled on or off by pressing the "M" key while in the planet display for the current planet. It says which setting the planet is set to if you press the main info panel of the planet (the box that display current populationg and maximum population).

The reason you have to put the planets on this setting is that the AI is so unbelieveable dump it will heavily weaken you and build a bunch of crappy planets.

Guys, quick question...

I am a self-confessed noob - not just to abandonware but pretty much to the computers scene. Ascendancy is my first attempted download, and boy did I not do it right.

I have set up the files, and got DOSBox up and running, but when I type 'install' as the DOSBox command I get the reply 'Illegal command: install'. What am I doing wrong? Any advice appreciated.

Apologies if these is a separate technical help thread for stuff like this, but I play my 'noob' card once again.

JH

Well, you can't run install.exe without first navigating to the directory where it resides. Assuming you've followed the DOSBox tutorial (or figured out what it odes for yourself) and extracted the game to C:\Ascend (where C: is whatever you've mounted as drive C is DOSBox - in my config it's actually C:\DOSProgs\) then the command sequence you need to run it the first time is

cd ascend
install
<set up the game - autodetect should spot whatever DOSBox is emulating, the default being a standard SoundBlaster I believe)>
ascend

Hope that helps :)

Thanks for getting back to me Beef.

Well I've made it as far as being able to mount C: onto DOSBox (ie when I open up DOSBox it goes to 'C:' by default) - the last lines of my DOSBox config are:

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
mount C C:\DOSBox\CDrive
mount D D:\ -t cdrom
C:
CLS

I have also extracted the game to the file marked 'CDrive', as instructed. In fact, when following the step-by-step tutorial, I was cruising until 'install' turned out to be an illegal command. Hope this explains my situation a little clearer.

Ascendancy was meant to be a dress rehearsal for my real Holy Grail - Mega Lo Mania! I'd be grateful as ever for your help.

JH

You should have a folder in C:\DOSBox\CDrive called ASCEND, containing (among other things) install.exe and ascend.exe (it's also worth running the patch included in the archive, too).

Actually, looking at my CD I think you need to run SETSOUND not INSTALL. Gah! Basically, DOS games used to have their own setup programs to tell them what hardware you had (DirectX and the OS tend to handle all this for you now, which is nice). DOSBox can emulate a number of hardware configurations, defaulting to a SoundBlaster IIRC, but the games still need to be told what it's emulating, in this case by running SETSOUND.EXE. They usually had SETSOUND, INSTALL, SETUP or something similar to do it.

OK, assuming you've got the folder in the right place, run DOSBox then type:

cd ascend
setsound
<you should get to set the sound options - autodetect should work fine>
ascend

That should do it. If you get problems, try typing

dir -w

That'll list the contents of whatever folder you're in (shown on the left of the DOSBox screen). If you're in your mounted C drive it should list [ASCEND] for the ascendancy folder - if not, you've not extracted the game to the right place. If you're in C:\ASCEND then it should list a few folders and some executables, hopefully including ASCEND.EXE and SETSOUND.EXE. If not, you've created the folder in the right place but not extracted the game data there.

Here is the dosboxhere.reg file to have always available a DOSbox shell from the folder context menu, copy & paste into a file called dosboxhere.reg and launch it.
Edit to have 'c:\program files\dosbox' as the folder path to Dosbox. I also advice you to edit the dosbox.conf file located in the DOSbox folder, this way (from the bottom):
And yes, if you asked, here it is another cmdhere.reg, a very handy tool for windows xp:
Enjoy the stuff and post any thanks if you have ... :cheers:

Well, the plot thickens. I do indeed have a folder in C:\DOSBox\CDrive called ASCEND, but the only thing in it is another folder called 'ASCENDANCY'. When I open that, then I find 23 icons - although none of them are install.exe or ascend.exe.

This inspired me, so I tried punching in 'setsound' as a command. No joy. Same with 'setup'. However, 'SETSOUND' is one of the 23 things in the 'ascendancy' file.

In a burst of genius, I thought that perhaps I needed to get to the ASCEND file in DOSBox, and then type in 'cd ascendancy'. Well well well...absolutely nothing happened. ('Unable to change to: ascendancy.')

Icon of the day is :help: .

JH

Hold the phone...now I'm just confusing myself. Contrary to what I typed (above), there is actually an icon called 'ASCEND' in the 'ASCENDANCY' folder - but nothing for 'install'. Sorry for the mix-up.

:help:

JH

My ideas:

2 guesses:
either ascendancy is ascendancy.zip meannig you have to unpack it first, although not sure if your os opens zip as normal dirs or opens a wizard to unpack.
if this is the case, unzip it ofc.

other thing is that dosbox is a dos emulator (;)), and ascendancy is too long a filename for dos, so:
after having started dosbox and having c mounted to your c:\dosbox\cdrive, type this in:
c:
cd ascend
cd ascend~1
setsound (follow program guides)
ascend


ascend~1 is abit of a hassle to write so i suggest copying the files from c:\dosbox\cdrive\ascend\ascendancy to c:\dosbox\cdrive\ascend.

Success!

Yup, we're officially in business. The problem was indeed the fact that the DOS emulator couldn't access the ASCENDANCY file, so with a bit of slick cut-and-pasting I did away with that folder and put the contents in ASCEND. Worked a treat! Many thanks to vk0 and BeefontheBone for your help. Cheers guys. Mega Lo Mania, here I come...

JH

Hello, this has been my favorite download site for a while now, well done folks totally cool, so I thought it was time to regester and say thanks. I've been playing Acendancy for a week on and off and agree with the coments in this forum. Seems to be a brilliant game with appaling AI and the most tedious micro management I've ever seen. Can't even tell visually if something has been automated or not. If you think the end of a big Masters of Magic or civ 2 game was bad you ain't seen nothing. Somewhere else in this forum someone suggested that this would be a good one for the open source crowd, I agree - it would be one of the all time classics if only it was finished. Something similar to the way point system ( eg blaster bombs in X-com ) only done as development orders for planets would help, with maybe an ignore, resume or change function if interupted or out of population. In fact most games with resource management sections could use something like this. puzzles me why they don't. That said this game is excellent and definately worth a play. I do have one thing to offer as a game play hint, try playing the rodents. They are popular and their special ability is to make peace with all. I know that doesn't sound like much but I think that it makes them the best race in the game. Here's how. Do all the usual stuff but emphasise planet defences and exploration. Find everone else as fast as you can so given the choise between sending an empty ship home for more colonisers or exploring then explore. When you have found the others cuddle up to them, trade everything, go into the hotel trade. If anyone gives you trouble call in your mates. Then cherry pick the best of their planets, get an invasion force, or forces. ready and make sure it can take the planet, or planets, in one go. Also make sure that your special ability is charged up. Then hit them, they will declair war on the next round, hense the advice about defenses, after this happens force peace and build up for the next time the ability is charged up. If you're really fortunate you'll be up against one of the technology masters or planet improving types. This wouldn't work against a human or decent AI but ....nuf said. One cheeky rodent grin and they forgive anything. The buildings on all your new planets will be badly placed but it'll be a start and most of all it wasn't you that had to do all that tedious building work.

Ok, I am at the last step where I actually launch the game (Everything else I did it and it worked. The game I downloaded was FlashBack, and the folder was called Flash. now I typed in cd flash and install and did the sound stuff. I then saved it, and it said to type FB in the command prompt. I did, and it launches the game, but it gives this blurry messed up image and just freezes it. Now is this because I have a router and need to enable some ports, or my firewall (which I have disabled), or I messed up in a part I don't know about in the tutorial. Here is an image. http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/519...ckerror5gl.jpg

I don't remember using DOSBox for Ascendancy, I used VDMSound with XP directly.

Erm, why ask about Flashback in the Ascendancy thread? No idea about your problem, but I don't see how it could possibly have anything to do with the router since it's a singleplayer game...

I havent played this game in about 7 years now, but i seem to remember a small "*" somwhere if the planet was automated.

However, automation tends to move planets towards metropolises instead of habitat/megafactory/the uber research thing and so i dont recommend it, for that reason.

Micromanage for fun and profit!


Nice guide :D .

If you are looking for the lost Ascendancy I MODguide you can now download it from the

Trascendancy Project website

It is in the Downloads section, where you can get the older versions and the latest (version 0.5b updated by me)

If you make some cool MODs, tell me!
:ot:

HELP no matter what i do i cant get the color to show up correctly. I have windows xp and i set the icon to run it in 256 colors but it still comes out with inverse colors so i cant read half of the writing. Please help me and tell me of any way you folks could think of how to fix this problem.

thanks

Use DOSbox instead

Legolas maybe make a new thread in the programming subforum about the Mod on ascendancy. Maybe ppl are interested in joining this project :)

how do you use dosbox

I opened such thread, 0 replies so far :(

Edit: The link

Starting Ascendancy

I love big games, very big, so I use Antagonizer and always set Ascendancy on: Very dense star cluster - Seven species - Neutral atmosphere. And now the female touch! You don't win with power or theft, try agility and speed for a change. My choice are always the Chronomyst and they have never disappointed me yet.

Every time you start a new game you play in a hole new universe. You get a home planet in a star system with between one and five planets. You need beside your home planet at least two huge planets and preferably one large planet none of them with only black squares, such a Husk planet is almost unusable for the Chronomyst. If the fourth or fifth planet is a Husk planet with an argeological dig that is great, an normal planet with such a dig is even better and Cornucopia planets are of course the best. An argeological dig early in the game gives an enormous advantage and on a Cornucopia planet you can build twice as fast as on a white planet.

If you start in a star system with only your medium home planet just start over again and again until you get a star system with at least your home planet and 2 huge and 1 medium or large planets.

Have fun.

Starships

You can't build as many starships as you want, the rules are:

For the star system with your home planet you are allowed 2 ships, even when you are not the absolute ruler, meaning one of the planets in your home system is occupied by an other race, you still have the right to build two ships.
For every star system where you are the absolute ruler, meaning only you occupy one ore more planets in that system, you are allowed to build an extra spaceship.
For star systems that are occupied by two or more races, nobody is allowed an extra ship. To know the number of ships you still can build, you count the star systems where you're the only ruler, or you klick on the word ship on the right of the main screen, on top of the new screen the game tells you how many ships you have and how many you still can to build.

So, if you have your home star system, 1 star system where you occupy three planets, 1 star systems where you occupy 1 planet, 1 star system where you occupy planet 4 and another race occupies planet 1, you are allowed to build 4 starships, as follows:

Home star system - 2 ships
star system with 3 occupied planets - 1 ship
1 star systems with 1 planet - 1 ships
1 shared star system - 0 ships
for a total of 4 ships


Strategic thinking !!!!

If in the above example you have four ships and another race invades one of your normal star systems and don't attack your planet but occupies another planet, you suddenly have one ship to many and if you can't take that planet in the same turn, Ascendancy shall remove your oldest ship from the game, and that can be very costly. You can use this strategy against the other races. And remember, if necessary build only in the beginning all the ships you are allowed and occupy some new star systems as soon as possible.

Have fun.

Hello,
I'd just like to submit some cheat codes I have on my site:
Ascendancy cheat codes

Enjoy.

Thank you!

I have added your page to Trascendancy Project Links page

I hope there's no problem for that

this game has been giving me trouble in one regard: The mouse is screwy. it moves really slowly and and sloppily (though not in the config screens so it's just the app). I'd appreciate it... do you think another mouse (I've only tried USB) would work, or do I have to rewrite some code? I'm still going to try a ps2 and a serial mouse, though. thanks!

try incrementing cycles using Ctrl+F12 (if you are using DOSbox)

I just started playing again this time with the Antag patch :blink: Man does it make the AI more agressive. I played the normal game quite a bit and owned with pretty much any race so I decided on a average galaxy in ANTAG with a Hostile atmosphere 7 species. In short order I had 5 species all at war with me and was losing colonies very early on. The AI also builds orbital defense very early on now, which makes invasion nearly impossible until you get some decent weapons tech that can outrange the orbital missile platforms.

Adds some new dimensions to a game I already had fun with

I havent bothered with the maintenance patch yet though. Anyone know exactly what that does and if you can run it with the antag patch? It says you have to type -ascend/patch to run the patch version, but to run anatg you must type ascend/antag?

Is the antag version already patched?

There is a way around the 2/3 rule in a sense. The rule only applies to 2/3 of the galaxy if it is a connected empire. If you allow the enemy to keep a few junk worlds in the middle of your empire it breaks up your 2/3 empire and you can go on to conquere many more planets then normal.

If you control 1/3 of the galaxy or less the fight is over and lucky when you got 2/3 it ends.

It all depends on what systems you let the AI control.

My current game for example. 7 species

I control 63 planets and 29 systems

The remaining 6 species control 3 planets each (18 planets) and actually control a total of 10 systems. There are I think 2 uncontroled systems left with tiny husk planets nobody has colonized.

I control far over the 1/3 limit of the galaxy

The AI only is a threat to small empires. When you get enought planets, they are walking deads.

Yeah too bad the AI wasnt better :yawn: If it was smarter and gameplay had a few little tweaks here and there "Ascendancy" could have been one of the best of the 4x space strategy games of its era, perhaps of all time.

The AI species are much tougher with the Antag patch but mainly because it allows the AI to cheat and gives it bonuses in Industry, Research ETC..

I have to give "Galactic Civilization II" a try, I heard its AI is hard to beat on higher levels and they claim it doesn't cheat at all.


BTW on the game I mentioned in the above post I got the Extinction ending :Titan: I managed to kill every species in a single turn (which wasnt that hard since they had only 3 colonies each). It gave me the Title "Interstellar Death-Dealer" at the ending screen.

Much more fun then the 1/3 ending

Interstellar Death-Dealer? wow, i never dreamed something like that, the problem with most of the space civilization games is that they were made to internet multyplay mode so they become very repetitive and the ai is just a lastminute add to the game.

Yeah making a hard to beat A.I in strategy games of this type is no easy task either (well unless you let them cheat). There are just so many variables to have the AI deal with. It takes Super computers to be able to make A.Is that can beat the best players in the world at Chess and Im pretty sure the variables in chess though massive pale when compared to every possible variable in a game like Ascendancy.

Thats one thing that has me interested in this new game GC II, Because they never created any multiplayer for the game and sank alot of time into the A.I.

All the more shame they gave up the contract to make Master of Magic II. But really, MoM2 would probably have had too many variables for them to handle--so perhaps they were wise to abandon it.

my mouse is *meep*in slow...

Are you running the game in DosBOX?

I never had any problems with mouse speed in Dosbox though I do have to speed the game up with Ctrl-F12 to make it run smooth.

:bye:

well, I love the game, found it yesterday and researched with my Orfas already the whole tree.. getting annoyed by the micromanagement and the fact that I can demolish all my researching planets.. but so what..
but, I still have one problem: in order to win, what do I have to accomplish? destroy all the other races :eeeeeh: or what?

:help:

Well theres a couple of ways to win.

The 1/3 win- The easiest and the one most people get is what is known as 1/3 win. When you control 1/3 of the galaxy (it has to be connected) you win the game you expanded so far no other race can stop you. If you leave choice worlds in alien hands that break up your empire you can control much more then 1/3

The Peace ending- you get this one when you have a alliance with all living races in the galaxy and usher in a era of peace.

The Extinction ending- this happens when you completly wipe out all alien races.

There is also a ending when you take over all the other races home systems, though I can't remember what that ending is called.

Thats all the ways to win I have found in the game.

thank you :D

I know about peacefull and 1/3 endings, few ago ya told me about the extiontion one.
Any other? :D

from looking at the data files there are only 5 endings, but each have 10 ranks so one could imaging there be 50 endings. here are all of them (first is lowest rank):

--Capture alien homeworlds:
Home Wrecker.
Megalomaniac.
Master Invader.
Hypercosmic Saboteur.
Lord of Subversion.
Interstellar Coup Master.
Insurrection Champion.
Galactic Infiltrator.
Supreme Invader.
Ascendant Invader.

--control 2/3 of galaxy:
Ambitious Beginner.
Imperialist.
Interstellar Warrior.
Interstellar Subjugator.
Galactic Powermonger.
Hyper-Conqueror.
Cosmic Dictator.
Imperial Overlord.
Galactic Emperor.
Ascendant Emperor.

--killed all:
Unrighteous Neighbor.
Xenophobe.
Galactic Villain.
Interstellar Death-Dealer.
Supreme Killing Machine.
Techno-Annihilator.
Cosmic Devastator.
Lord High Executioner.
Overlord of Cosmic Night.
Ascendant Destroyer.

--allied all:
Hyper-Explorer.
Mover and Shaker.
Master of Diplomacy.
Interstellar Victor.
Galactic Unifier.
Cosmic Harmonizer.
Lord of Tranquility.
High King of Serenity.
Ascendant Overlord.
Supreme Master of Ascendancy.

--defeat:
Interstellar Pushover.
Space History.
Galactic Exile.
Cosmic Martyr.
Cosmic Ultra-Martyr.
Lord of Self-Sacrifice.
Existential Transcender.
Master of the Void.
Ultimate Scoremaster.
Ascendant Hyper-Cheater.


If you lack something to do for a few years you could try getting all of these ranks.

Very good game, glad the AI patch was added which makes it more interesting.

For some reason I think Civilisations is so ripped from this game :titan:

What possibilities are there to destroy alien colonies? Can I only invade them or is there a chance to completely wipe them of the planet's surface?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(torg @ Jun 7 2006, 12:27 PM) [snapback]234968[/snapback]</div>There is a one-use ship module that destroys stuctures on a planet.
But it doesn't destroy (atleast) outpost and the "main" colony building.

so it isn't possible to completely destroy a colony

edit: but if you do destroy nearly anything on a planet near endgamg, it's likely that the planet will be stuck building a ship with >10k turns left.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Havell @ Sep 18 2004, 05:10 PM) [snapback]14131[/snapback]</div>You build them in space!

Absolut amazing, incredibly brilliant, it worth to play, and its graphic better than Master of Orion 2. :brain:

Better than MOO2? <_< I don't think so
Maybe I'm too MOO2-spoiled but ...

Even at the smallest galaxy size, micro gets in the way of fun, the 3d lane stuff is weird and makes u need a huge amount of micro to take one ship from point a to point b (travel speed is another game aspect i think could have been improved)

There is no way u can move population from near population cap planets to new colonies.
The partial benefits a colony puts in the empire fund are a bit obscure, and you can't make the inverse step (investing on a colony from common fund)
You can't spy :ph34r:
Fleets?

If u like ASCENDANCY don't forget to try MOO2, maybe u change to the latter

you can set colonies to auto-manage, reducing some of the micro. But the way the turn-system is made there's found to be a rather big varriation of micro management (which isn't nessesary a bad thing).
The amount of time it takes a ship to move around can be increased by adding more star- or hyperlane drives, (but it still requries some micromanagement to move the ship through a system (This again is not neccesary a bad thing, it allows you to infiltrate enemy systems with the right tactic / ship).

colony polulation is how the game is made, changing it would mean ruining the way colonies are build. (Adding one-hit=kill headshots to quake3 wouldn't be a good idea as it would make everyone onle used machine gun (thereby destroying much of the game))

The removal of a common treasury is part of the simple gameplay, each planet only tributes 1 thing (research) to the "common fund", rest is rather basic stuff, manufactoring determines how fast the planet can build stuff, max polulation, population growth (such simple), investing in a colony from a common fond would probably be overpowered.

You can actually spy, it's merely a build-in feature of the simplified more open gameplay. Building a fast ship with alot of shield can easily penetrate deep into enemy systems. This will gives you information on borders, which systems have what planets, the all-important information of how the systems are connected (other of these types of games have their systems connected in a rather boring way or maybe not atall, meaning it can be a risky affeir having lines of defense. And all this optained information is your main diplomatic weapon, (diplomacy in ascendancy is also simplified, so you only really talk to people if they have stuff you need or make war with them if they have systems you need, it's common in ascendancy to have a little war, instead of being forced into a game-long war because you needed 1 system taking out of a AI hands due to usually border-defense-issues.

fleets... Why would you want fleets when you have the extremly open battle-system? just having 2+ ships with similar hyperlane drives fly together is a fleet, actual formation of a fleet with weird modifyers and some such stuff is not needed with a open enough battle-system.

Maybe you should play abit more ascendancy and then you can switch. :)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mrdrofcrows @ Jun 13 2006, 03:02 PM) [snapback]236435[/snapback]</div>You build them in space!
[/b][/quote]

click on the spaces left of ur planet, that will allow u to have the 'build shipyard' option

one thing I really would wish for in this game is that you can send your ships to a certain galaxy without actually commanding the buggers each step of the way (it kinda gets old fast if u got more than 10 ships) I would like to click on a ship and say 'move to that galaxy because im a lazy Bas$%$^' and let the comp do the rest.

by the way - if you like this game check out Freelancer (on google.. its not an old game but well worth a look)

I've been playing this game since it came out, a few suggestions for stretching the fun out.

1.) The handicap

This is a great AI equalizer, give yourself a 2 - 6 hundred day waiting period before you build your first structure (aka no science) depending on your ability. Obviously if you play a race like the Dubtaks, Chanchamines etc, this does jack as a handicap really. Try a weak race like the Abryls.

2.) Alternate victories

Conquer all the home systems, and ONLY the homesystems

3.) DON'T CHEAT
We all know this is an easy one. Don't stall enemy planetary attacks.

4.) The Reboot.

After you've dominated the galaxy, Abandon all planets other than your homeworld. On your homeworld abandon all structures other than your colony base. If you need to abadon it and recolonize it.

Fun tricks:

THE INVULNERABLE SHIP:

Build an enormous class ship, fill it with wave scatterers to the point that you have more shield bubbles than even a nano-twirlers can damage, nothing short of a disintigrator can take it out no matter how long a battle rages for.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Jul 12 2006, 11:34 PM) [snapback]242997[/snapback]</div>LOL what a age battle, thnx for the advice.

sent in my invunerable ship, had 1 crappy weapon onboard - a black hole maker thingumijig.

planetery defence wastes all its shots on my invuneraable ship then I go in for the invasion :)

hi, this game is one of greatest, and i find that logic facktory works on ascendancy2 but for a year or two
their web pages are same.
Someone knows if ascendancy2 is definitely dead and even logicfacktory?

I cant find any other information about that.

my mouse works very very slow...anyone know the problem??? plzzzzzzzz my email ***FIZZZZZZZLE!!!***

Use Dosbox.

And don't post e-mail adresses in open.

How can I disable the *ping* that comes with left-clicking?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Aug 10 2006, 12:25 PM) [snapback]247735[/snapback]</div>ok sorry... what dos box? :sos:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(blkebonics @ Aug 19 2006, 01:18 AM) [snapback]249569[/snapback]</div>Are you talking about the ingame sound effects? Only way I know is to turn off sound completely...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dcash @ Aug 19 2006, 06:46 AM) [snapback]249592[/snapback]</div>ok sorry... what dos box? :sos:
[/b][/quote]

It's a DOS emulator that allows you to run DOS games on other platforms.

WOW! I must say that I've been playing this game for many years now. I remember having it on my 486. All I can say is that I can still sit down and start a small, quick game, and have it be over in a few short hours. Then again, I can start a huge, drawn-out game, and have it last for days, if not weeks. Every move and every building is carefully considered before a decision is made.
I love this game! I've loved this game since it came out. I can never seem to get better then 25% as far as the end is concerned though. I'm going to keep working on it though.
I hope that "The Logic Factory" comes out with another great game soon.

Love this game.... haven't played it since I owned it on CD back in the day.

I'm running it in DosBox and am having a problem... after a while, the colored squares on the planets vanish. I can still build things on the squares, but I can't see what color they are unless I click it first. No idea what caused this. Instead of a planet covered with buildable squares, I just see the planet, and structures that have already been built.

I am using the patch.exe. Anyone know know why this would happen?

Thanks!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Nibs @ Aug 22 2006, 01:38 AM) [snapback]250108[/snapback]</div>*sigh*

It never fails. I could spend hours trying to figure something out but it isn't until I break down and post a question that I figure it out on my own. Press "S" to toggle the squares. I have no idea why they included this "feature"!!!!

Check out the brand new Ascendancy fan-site.

http://theorbitaldocks.17.forumer.com/

Having played the game for years, I just learned about auto-management, but drastically prefer to do it personally.

-EE

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Elward @ Aug 30 2006, 09:55 PM) [snapback]251993[/snapback]</div>Yeah, the AI can't even manage it's own planets. Why let it manage your's? :P

AAAAHHHHH, this can be a huge leveler, AI managing all but your capitol planet from your empire. I should try it.

Oh well :) I do use Auto-Management only in late-game: Medium and Huge Sized planets are still Microed (it's still a pain when you have 40+, but it's worth). Everything else is on automode.

Wow the game seems so cool I have a quick question: does it work on windows 98 with 90 mb ram?

Also I really hope it works on my computer this is the only time im glad not to have a stat of the art computer.

According to at least one site it should work on a win 95 pc with 8 MB ram...

Just downloaded the game a while ago, its an awesome game! Pity its dead, it has such a great potential, i dont mind the micromanagement, and the AI is bad but i dont mind that too. Its very sad that this game is dead and is abandonware. Ins't there any chance of a sequel showing up? Even if somebody spread the word about this game around somebody might get interrested in making a sequel? Its such an awesome game with great potential, its sad to see great games die out like that :(

Wasn't there something posted in this thread about a fan-sequel a while ago?

nibs:

Disable/enable the view of planet squares is related to some obscure key.
I can't remember which exactly, but "m" is auto-mangement, so it must be one of the others :)

Hellz.

I've dl Ascendancy, but i've a problem.

When I click on Ascend.exe ; nothing happened.

I've dl the Patch, but i've the same problem.

I've dl DosBox but I don't understand what have I to do with it...

Thx for help :kosta:

Check this out; it's a DOSBox tutorial.

http://www.abandonia.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5684

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ReamusLQ @ Nov 4 2006, 06:45 PM) [snapback]265337[/snapback]</div>
Very Thx ! :kosta: :kosta:

When i start the game on windows xp, i see the screen "cuteed", i mean, i see the drawings cutted, so i cant understand nor do anything... help please!

It seems you are trying to run the game in plain Windows. I strongly suggest you use DosBox instead.
You can download it here.

You might want to check out the official DosBox FAQ, and particularly this part of it. It is quite helpful for users unfamiliar with DosBox.

Hallo,

there are 2 patches for Ascendancy. The 1.6 -> 1.6.5 maintenance Patch and the antagonizer. I think the maintenance Patch is the one, which makes the AI smarter (try "M", it works), and the antagonizer makes it more aggressiv (and cheating).

But how can i activate both patches together?

Greetings, Winwood

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gregor @ Dec 9 2004, 06:57 PM) [snapback]35367[/snapback]</div>I just ran into the same issue as above. I though I knew this game front and back but I guess not. My ships won't leave the red star warp and I can't figure out why or how to get them back. Once my ETA times reach zero the go back up again. Is this some kind of bug or what? :ranting:

Nope, i think that you can abandon the ship from fleet control room. The ship wont go out from the red star lane beacause it HASNT be equipped with the proper lane driver. Even when it is SF, most of times star lanes are like gravity holes with a spring at end of it, ships impulse himself deep in the hole to be launched with an amazing speed imposible to get with normal engines. The starlane´s drivers or navcoms or many other SF´s devices are used to get into the gravity holes and control the ship destination. Without the proper driver, your ship will be forever inside the hole coz it lacks of proper devices to use the spring and also lacks of power to get out of the hole.

Hello, IF your ships jumps back to the start of the starlane, bevor it enters ne new starsystem, then there could be two reasons for this problem. First reason could be, that another race has put a block-item on the one end of the starlane, thats an item with which you can equip your ship. Then the ship jumps back to the start, when it reached the blocked system.
And theres another force which can move your ship back to the start. One race has the skill to send all ships in starlanes in the galaxy to its start.

I hope I didnt fool myself, dunno if you already knew this things.
..and sorry for my bad english, i am from germany ;)

any one know were to get a crack for this game? dosbox wont acknowledge the cd rom.


Also if another race put a block on the starlane the block shows up at both ends. And the ships always came out of the starlane when another race forced the ships back through the starlane but not when the engines couldn't push it through the red links.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(weavis @ Dec 30 2006, 08:10 PM) [snapback]272836[/snapback]</div>
I got it to work on my laptop with xp but it won't work on my pc. The screen goes back and it freezes, ctrl alt del bring up a box that says the driver failed, I have installed directX 9.0 but still won't work any sugestions?

This is my all time favorite game, I'm glad to see there is so much discussion of it here, good to know people are still playing it. I know it can be a pain to get running under XP, my suggestion is to use Dosbox. As for the CD problem, I had that to. I can't recall the fix I did, but I know I did not use a crack and I do not use an ISO or CD to play the game. In other words, I dont mount an ISO or use a CD, so there is a solution to install and run the game without a CD. In fact, I don't remember ever having to put in the CD, but I could be mistaken. Anyway, I suggest you search for Ascendancy on The-underdogs.info or Dosgames.com at their tech support forums. That's where I found the solution to my problem with the CD.

Also, I found that the antagonizer AI patch just made the game annoying. Even with a peaceful setting, you will be attacked by every race, so I don't use it. I don't really mind if the enemy is boring, there are ways to handicap yourself to make it more challenging, like waiting 500 years before beginning to colonize, or waiting to research advanced weapons until later in the game to give the AI a head start.

You dont need a crack to play the game! I had once an introduction how to play without the cd, but i lost it.
I'll try to explain:
You only need the 3 COB files which are on the cd. When you download the game here, you get them with the game. Then you have to change a file where the information is stored where the ascend.exe can find this COB-files. You have to change this file (I think its the ascend.cfg) and say where the new COB-files are now. They arent anymore on a cd, now they are on your hdd.
DUnno if this can help you. But make sure you have this files in your ascendancy directory: Ascend00.COB, Ascend01.COB, Ascend02.COB . You need them if you havnt got a cd.

I don't have an ascend.cfg file but I do have a COB.cfg file. I couldn't download from this site, I spent 26 hours tring. It timed out regularly and finaly at 99% my system crashed and I lost it all.

I copied the cob files off the cd and put them into my ascend folder but it just replaced the existing files. How do I change them to be able to be read with out the cd?

How do you abandon planets?

I colonize small planets just to dig that archeology site for technologies, so i want to dump them after the digging. Someone might say to just leave it, but i use the race Chronos, that transforms planets with the least population to Gaias, and i don't want to spend my special ability on small planets.
I have read all 26 pages and haven't find an answer except that on page 24 someone suggested that abandoning can be done (Guest - post Jul 12 2006, 10:34 PM) and i wonder how.

Thank You!

I can't belive it. As soon as i posted my question i started to play Ascendancy again. In next couple of minutes i stumbled across an icon to abandon planet. I wanted to abandon my ship and noticed icon that was always there:)
For those that don't know it's an icon in bottom right corner in system display. Just select the planet and click on that icon.

I played this game many years ago and when a friend asked me for one I remembered it, my friend got it and he told me that since that moment he couldn´t stop playing it, I went to his house to play and is as good as I remember, it´s one of my favourites games ever. Enjoy it!
And one question.. there are two patchs? one that makes the game more difficult and one that makes the others species be in war with you? Because I only have one and I stop playing Ascendancy because it was too much easy.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest_Einer_* @ Jan 10 2007, 09:31 AM) [snapback]274124[/snapback]</div>Try The Patches Scrolls

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skipjack @ Jan 3 2007, 06:31 AM) [snapback]273096[/snapback]</div>
Any one know of a download site that works, I still can't get this game to work with dosbox or with out. I found a download on another site but it had no intall function once I unziped it. I have the cd but my computer crashes or rather the video driver crashes when I try to start the program. This is very frustrating trying to get this game to work!! Please help.

Without knowing what you have exactly done and what specifically is the problem, we cannot help you.
Until you post more detailed information about your problem, I can only refer you to this FAQ.

Please post a more detailed description of your problem including any and all error messages you encountered.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Jan 12 2007, 05:18 AM) [snapback]274516[/snapback]</div>
Thanks this should help, dosbox would not recognize my cdrom. I will try this later today to see if it works.

you are awsome thanks. It finally works.

this game is FCUKING easy, but nevertheless fun to play :)

just focus on research, as soon as u get the "akkutron?!" whatever, if turned on u increases the distance ur weapons can shoot...research the best energythingys and some nice engines
well and...i dont know the names of the weapons in english...but one is big n called hypersomething,(2ndbest)
the best one though nano something, useing that one 2gether with akkutron man...u r invincible (cuz the cpu player is just stupid building their plantes, equipping their ships etc...)

for planetary defenes u just nee dlong range whopper n big shielp and enemys dont stand a chance just cuz they act tooo stupid in fight...

hf :)

Well... I think it's always as easy as you make it.
Did you ever have six or seven com-players? Then you're really into politics. Especially when you have to deal with a agressive or stubborn race.

Give it a try... :sneaky: :ok:

Sorry to break it to you Icewolf, but if you are into politics then you are going to the loser side. The AIs are going to attack you eventually no matter what you do (especially with the patch), and whatever happen if you don't have a good defense then you're toast. If you have a good offense, you'll win. That's how the game is meant to be played... And since the computer AI is so incredibly weak in this game, as soon as you can take a big enough advance in tech and power you are sure to win the game. Just keep bashing until you win.

Ascendency is one of my favorite game for it's originality... But I class it sore loser at the last position for challenge and AI strenght.

If you want a real challenge, go play MOO, Civilization or way better yet, Stars!.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Jan 15 2007, 02:04 PM) [snapback]275006[/snapback]</div>I'm afraid Eagle is right about this. I've played literally hundreds of Ascendancy games ranging from small to huge galaxies with and without the antagonizer patch set to peaceful to hostile and you will always end up at war with the other aliens unless you are the Balifids which can force other species to make peace. If you use the antagonizer AI patch (which I don't recommend), you will be at war with each new alien species you meet only a few turns after you meet them, even when the galaxy is set to peaceful. Ascendancy is my favorite game of all time, and the last game I played of it was Wednesday of last week, but it is very weak in the diplomacy department. Here's what I do to have an enjoyable game of Ascendancy:

Let 500-1000 turns go by before you even begin to colonize other planets or research advanced technologies. Let the other species get a big head start, so they have more advanced weapons and ships than you when you begin expanding. This way, at least the first 3/4 of the game will be challenging and interesting.

Hey,
I have a big problem in the game, maybe one of you can help me. I´ve played ascendancy when I was a child and found it last week again. But here is the problem: I can´t build bigger ships than small ones (or I don´t know how to do it), even I have the technology to build gigantic ships. So the game is definitely more challenging if you have only small ships and the computer large ones, but I like it if I have enormous ships and overrun stupid computer :sneaky:

I solved the problem by myself. Something was wrong with the game, after restarting everything was fine.

Namaste all,

Like the site!

I've read the whole thread and thought i should share an observation i haven't read...

if you save your game the day before a xeno-archeological dig is completed, if you dont like what you get, or have your eye on some tasty morsel of research far far away, most times you reload the game a different technology awaits. Great 'bug'.

I'm about to install the 'smart' patch, wish me luck.

Farewell

Hey,
I still play this game time to time, and have done since back in about 1996. It's a great game, can play it for hours on end. I can still remember the cheat files too, :shameful:

Create a blank text document and then rename it (including extension) to...

You can then use keyboard shortcuts to finish construction quickly. I can only remember a couple off-hand as I was about 8/9 when I was playing this reguarly.

R - Claim Planet
T - Create Colony
I - Finish Construction

Then I think on the main systems view it's cycling thru 1-7 to choose the civilization you want to play as :D

EDIT: Also I still have the original disc :P

Hi Folks!

I've been playing Ascendancy since it came out, and came to the same conclusion most of you have: the AI sucks!

NEVER play in a peaceful environment because your enemies' ships won't be destroyed regularyly by each other!
Why is that bad?
- You will never notice any technological advancement in your enemies fleets, since they are unable to abandon their ships or to refit them!
So, if their ships don't get destroyed they will still have tiny frames even in the endgame

-> It's imperative to kill off all ships smaller than 'big' to slowly get a challenge

I abandoned this game 5 ago, but reading this thread, i realised that i never got a different ending than the 2/3 one.
I think I'll try it again.. with the patches of course.
(with knowlege of automated management ('m' key) and fractured empire this time)
Thanks for the tips to prolong gameplay!

2 handicaps to get a bit more of a 'fair' game:
- don't colonize large planets (conquering is allowed of course ^^)
- only build metroplexes instead of industrail megafacilities - by far the biggest handicap

otherwise its easy to build planets which can churn out a gigantic ship with nothing but nano-technologie in 1-2 days
(cover the whole planets surface with automated industrial megafacilities (now you will realise a big flaw in the games graphics: you can't visually discern automated plants from manual ones))

flaws: same goes for the lush growth bomb.. have you ever tried to build it on all planets in a game with 150+ planets under your control?

last thing:
since i didn't know about the alternative endings i tried to achieve other things, e.g. biggest fleet (while not colonising or attacking)
-> my biggest fleet so far: 80 gigantic ships (60 fighters, 10 colonizers, 10 invaders; never needed more classes)
gamefaqs suggest to build gateships and supporters, but if you have anything in that game it's time.
(once in the endgame i set all my planets to party and left the computer alone, i hadn't lost a single system when i came back 4 hours later (but i think it was peaceful env))

-> fastest victory was on day 932 (small universe, max enemies)

-> most planets: 350+ (don't remember exactly, but less than 500 (was the goal, but won to fast))

ok, back to setting up dosbox..

I LOVE IT >.<

hmmmmmm i think imperium galactica is a clone of this ive only played the second one but it deffinatly reminds me of this

No clone, it's simply in the same genre ;)
They're both 4X games :)

This game rocks!! that and MOO2 and non-spaced game Jagged Alliance..

ohh the good old gaming days.. i will have to try this dosbox emulator to see if i can play these old games..

i certainly miss them..

i would love to see ascendancy II but gosh there certainly is now news of it at all.............

ascendancy 2 is supposedly in development,go to the logic factory website and go to development,it shows it.but theve bin workin on it for like 10 years :omg2:
it better be an awsome game,hope logic factory makes tons for more games like ascendancy :D

I been playing this for a while and at this moment I'm not sure which should be my next step. The races that declared war are already dead, and I don't want to start one. Does the ends at some time, how do I win, or it continues until you get bored?

i know you guys will think im an idiot but how do you start the program

also could you write your response in the simplest terms possible because i am a complete computer noob :kosta:

weeel, use dosbox for the game. download it from the site, run the program and type 'intro', there is everything explained :)

after mounting the drive, run 'setsound.exe', select soundblaster pro or 100% compatible, save it, and run 'ascend.exe'

A Beginner's Guide to DOSBox should help you. That's about as simple as it can get.

a immortal classic this one! sat up all night with it.
and i bet it will get better if i can get the sound on XD

When I try to finish the install, the game tells me I don't have any sound drivers installed. I don't know what to do.. Doesn't DosBox use the sound drivers I already have installed? Can anyone help me?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest_LacyCat_* @ Jul 15 2007, 10:24 PM) [snapback]299549[/snapback]</div>DOSBox emulates the (fake) soundcard specified in the DOSBox config file. Default is a Soundblaster 16 card with settings addresse=220 irq=7 dma=1 hdma=5. When setting up sound in the game's setup, you need to match the selected options there with the ones in the DOSBox config file.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Jul 15 2007, 09:28 PM) [snapback]299550[/snapback]</div>DOSBox emulates the (fake) soundcard specified in the DOSBox config file. Default is a Soundblaster 16 card with settings addresse=220 irq=7 dma=1 hdma=5. When setting up sound in the game's setup, you need to match the selected options there with the ones in the DOSBox config file.
[/b][/quote]

Thank you for responding. Ascendancy doesn't let me get that far. I do understand that DOsBox usually emulates Soundblaster at the settings you mentioned , but when I type in "Setsound" at the prompt (I am in the Ascendancy directory) I get the Sound Configuration page with a message telling me there is an error.. no sound drivers were found. The game will not continue any further. I can't finish the install and I can't run the game , with or without sound. So why doesn't the game (or DosBox) know I really do have drivers and what can I do to convince the game (or DosBox) that they're there?

Sounds like a corrupted or incomplete copy of the game. Did you download it from Abandonia?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Jul 16 2007, 08:53 AM) [snapback]299610[/snapback]</div> Yes. I did. You think I should download it again?

Corrupted downloads happen sometimes, so yes: Try download it again.

Oh thank you guys for your help. I downloaded it again and this time the files all unzipped properly and i was able to complete the sound configuration and everything. I have no idea what happened the first time around but I'm glad you guys were here . :kosta:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest_LacyCat_* @ Jul 17 2007, 12:09 AM) [snapback]299740[/snapback]</div>Glad to see a happy member (feel free to log in :P :) ) and even happier to see the feedback. That is very valuable for others with similar problems. Happy gaming :)

I used to be sooooo addicted to this game, but I thought it could only run in the old DOS-based computers. When I upgraded my pc eons ago (and about 4x since then) I was unable to install and run the game. Am I missing something? :unsure: I really do miss playing it!! That's why I decided to google it to see if there was a newer version and I ended up here. :sos:

Even if someone is able to run this game on XP, I suggest you download and install DOSBox, which will allow you to play DOS games on modern computers. Please note that DOSBox needs quite a bit of resources, and that the games you run through it may be very slow to unlapyable on lower end computers.
Download DOSBox here
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/download.php...33e373fdbb09ac4

Then please read this tutorial for setting up DOSBox
http://www.abandonia.com/forum/index...howtopic=14913

Feel free to ask for additional help if needed :)

Actually, this game is one of the few which work way past fine on XP as long as you use VDMSound for the sound.

I just want to know if anyone has figured out the forumlas for the type of star and planets that affect your different levels of production/research/growth.

I know of course the type of planet you are on, and the type of sun in the system affect your 3 areas of growth, but not by how much. Just wondering if anyone has looked at the game code to figure out how much each type of star/planet either negates or boosts certain production.

One of the few things Ive always wondered about the game but never found out.