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[Mrylanxus]

Originally Posted by Dewion

btw, this really is an awesome game, although i hate micro-management..

If you really hate and despise micromanagement, then best advice is:

Do Not Play.

Otherwise, you have to micromanage.

There is an alternative.

When in the planet view screen, hit Ctrl+m and the planet will self manage itself. However, you may not like what this does with the planet. It may put a Research Campus on a red square, et al.

Unfortunately, if you wish to maximize each planet, you will have to micromanage.

Sorry.

rmfr

[Eagle of Fire]

If you allow the computer to manage your planets, then you can expect the same output than AI planets.

Which is very mediocre output, at best.

-EoF

[Glyphstone]

Originally Posted by Mrylanxus

To bypass the CD requirement, your COB.CFG file (in the C:\ascend folder)must read as follows:

ASCEND00.COB
ASCEND01.COB
ASCEND02.COB

with a CR/LF character at the end of each line (i.e. hit the <ENTER> key).

The file COB.CFG is a DOS ASCII text file. Altering this file within Windows Notepad may result in a file that won't work (since Notepad uses a Windows ANSI standard, unless you change it). I don't know. Because I do not use Windows Notepad for any reason. I use HTML-Kit 292 since its native format, regardless of added extension, is DOS ASCII text. And it will read UNIX/LINUX text correctly which Notepad will not. (I am a Linux and UNIX user and hate Windows...)

Each of the COB files listed above MUST be in the C:\ascend folder. If not, then simply move the files with your favorite file manipulator program.

Some further help is available on my website here:

Ascendency

I will be the first to admit that I need to do some more work on this site, but I think it is at least good. I will never admit it is the bestest and greatest. But I think it may help.

rmfr

Cool site - I loved how much fluff went into the manual, and you've copied a lot of it in.

unfortunately, your fix doesn't seem to work for me, so I'm doing something wrong. I edited the .CFG file with HTML-KIT 292 to read the following:

ASCEND00.COB
ASCEND01.COB
ASCEND02.COB
E:\DATA\ASCEND02.COB

and it still wants the CD to run it. I also tried

ASCEND00.COB
ASCEND01.COB
ASCEND02.COB

removing Line 4 entirely, but the problem persisted.

[Luchsen]

Originally Posted by Mrylanxus

Each of the COB files listed above MUST be in the C:\ascend folder. If not, then simply move the files with your favorite file manipulator program.

Perhaps?

[Luchsen]

In response to the config changes:

Originally Posted by dosraider

Once again I repeat: the game runs fine in dosbox as is downable from AB.
The only thing I changed was the folder name, from ascedancy to ascend.
No problem whatsoever.
To conclude:
Delete your old folder and start over from scratch, you screwed up the cfg file.

[Edit]
Also tested: you even can dragdrop ascend.exe on the dosbox shortcut.

[justkc]

I've had some time trying to figure out the mechanics of this game w/o using a manual, but I've about got it down. It's a very imaginative game, but the interface....sigh. The galaxy map was cool, but quickly became cumbersome later in the game trying to find certain planets.

And, as said in the review, the AI can be spanked. Definitely try the antagonizer patch.

[Eagle of Fire]

I wish the antagonizer patch did anything more than simply turn the AI into crazy opponents who simply turn on you based on a timer.

It is however not like it changed anything for me at all except that I don't have to declare war to the AIs... They do that themselves for me, and they don't even threaten my space more because of it. I blow their ships up just as well.

[Oskatat]

Originally Posted by Eagle of Fire

I strongly disagree. That's one of the major reason why I think the AI in this game really suck: they simply can't do anything right.

I always colonize all the planets which are available for me. I of course colonize the most useful planets first... But leaving uncolonized planets in your systems only lead to big and even bigger problems in the long run.

Here is the list of the bigger problems in order of importance:

• 1: Production, ressources and especially population in strategy games are exponential. Meaning that the better the start of your civilization, the higher the maximum end output will be. This can be reflected in mathematics as a linear graphic. The maximum possible is a straight line from the very start to the very end, while the real output would usually be lower with a lot of curves with human players.
  
  Leaving opportunities behind, those you can accomplish and which can't harm you in the short or long run, simply serve to lower your maximum output. There is no way around this fact, other that you of course don't need the maximum output to win most strategy games (especially not Ascendancy).
  
  Since you practically give out free resources and, more importantly, free research away by not colonizing all the planets that you have at your disposal... You are giving away part of your total production and speed of research.
  
• 2: Not colonizing all the planets in a system right away often lead in having them claimed by an opponent. They can then in turn create an outpost and, if not taken care of swiftly, can be a real pain in the behind. Sometimes you need to take care of a huge territory with a small amount of ships and it's simply impossible or really hard for you to react fast enough, and you get stuck with the problem.
  
  Colonizing all your planets right away nullifies this problem since the AIs in this game are too dumb to colonize the most nearby worlds by force. They prefer to design and send "colonizers" to the nearest uncolonized system to "expand" their territory. This of course lead to even bigger problems for AIs since it is way harder to defend further colonies efficiently, and I always end up grabbing those colonies by force. To return to the subject at hand, it also mean in the early game that colonized planets are virtually invincible up to the point when you can actually afford to build ships which are not purely designed for colonization or for attack/defense. This leave you a long time before you can worry about being invaded, peace of mind and a winning strategy.
• 3: If you look at the definition of strategy games in the dictionary, you will probably see micro management written right next to it. MM can't be removed from good strategy games because otherwise you would end up with an automated action game commonly referred as RTS games. If you really can't stand MM, strategy games are probably not for you...

-EoF

1: yes, but, as you mentioned it is important to get the bigger and better planets first. nothing i said gainsays that

2: read again. theword i used is devellop. I am very sure i mentioned the use of smaller planets as defence bases

3: this is not about not standing micro management. Have you played a game in which you had to mm60+ planets? that is what this is about, finding a balance between game enjoyment, and you cant tell me you enjoy 30 minutes of looking at "this planet completed this" screens, and strategy elements

as i mentioned, in the early game, the 1, 2 or maybe 4 science points from a small planet count, just like you say. Later on, they dont matter as much, and you can leave the micromanagement behind of updating those planets to your current tech and upgrading other small fry. They'll never be a big contribution, not compared to the other efforts.

The AI wont colonize small planets or moons, no fear for shared systems...

[Zaru]

I've not played this title for some time now until last week. The game is quite nice, I must say, but the micromanagement, while fun with less than 10 planets, gets really annoying and tedious when your empire reaches several dozens of them.
The planet auto-management is completely broken with the computer AI building structures on inappropriate squares and picking some crazy facility combinations. I just can't believe construction queue was not implemented here. I mean, the game just asks for it. And even hardcore strategy geeks will find it annoying to manually set construction orders for each planet every time a structure is build on them.

3: If you look at the definition of strategy games in the dictionary, you will probably see micro management written right next to it. MM can't be removed from good strategy games because otherwise you would end up with an automated action game commonly referred as RTS games. If you really can't stand MM, strategy games are probably not for you...

I will never agree with such a statement. The thing with the strategy games is they make you to think on your next moves. They force you to do a long time planning. But how can you do long time planning when you're constantly bothered by hundreds of tedious build reports coming from each of your hundreds of planets every single game day? And if you really want good colonies, you have to micromanage them because of said AI. But why micromanage when, from the very beginning of the game, you already have the idea from what structures each planet's surface should consist of? I just see no point in MM in such a wide-scale game.

PS.

1: yes, but, as you mentioned it is important to get the bigger and better planets first. nothing i said gainsays that

I think the planets you should get to with the highest priority are those with Xeno digs, even if such a planet is the smallest in the whole system. Xeno digs are uber-important, but I'm sure it's already been said here. With their help I've been able to reach the maximum technology level with my Govoroms by turn 1700 (and I'm sure that with aggressive expansion it can be achieved a lot, lot earlier). Right now I'm dismantling all my laboratories and building industrial mega facilities instead, to produce those hi-tech capital ships while other races are still using pulsers.

[The Fifth Horseman]

You could get faster on the tech tree with Chamachies.