Ascendancy

The Good
The best thing Ascendancy has going for it is the "feel" of the game. This may sound silly, but after having played the two games put out by The Logic Factory ( Ascendancy and The Tone Rebellion), it's clear that the folks at The Logic Factory are trying to make games with a very "new age" feel to them. (Yes, "new age" is a trite and overused phrase. But that's really the best way to describe it.)

The music is new age. The descriptions of the alien races are kinda new agey. The manual is kinda new agey (it doesn't tell you how to win the game, for example).

The graphics were fantastic for the time the game was released, and the ship models were simply incredible. Made me want to play the game to the end for each individual race just so I could see all the ship models. And the galactic map was three-dimensional, which (for me) added an element of immersiveness that has never been present with the two-dimensional starmaps of MOO and MOO2.

The Bad
The AI, which is legendary in its awfulness.

The tedium of endgame micromanagement, especially if you have a large empire.

The utterly bizarre combat sequence, in which only one ship per side moves each turn. If it's a battle of one ship vs. eight ships, the single ship moves, then one of the eight ships moves, then the single ship moves again, then one of the eight ships moves, etc. This combat sequence makes it impossible for a swarm of smaller ships to gang up on a single larger ship, and dramatically tilts combat in favor of large ships and powerful tech.

The Bottom Line
If you can get past the tedium of the end-game micromanagement and the bizarre combat sequence, this is actually a great little space strategy game for the casual strategy gamer (i.e. the kind of person who, like me, has trouble playing MOO or MOO2 on medium difficulty).