Ascendancy

The Good
Sincerely, the music. Personal taste, I guess, but sometimes I found myself playing Ascendancy because of hearing the music meanwhile. Not only it’s pleasing to hear, but fits excellently in the futuristic background.

To the best of my knowledge, Ascendancy introduced innovative features to the 4X family, leaving the path set by Moo. Star systems had a tactical map for their own and included several planets, I really liked the 3D environment, and so the planet management system (planets divided in regions, each with its own characteristics, a facility for each region), instead of the Civ model. Also the races were very original and imaginative, each with its specific background, and even its own victory conditions; the tech tree featured also very creative technologies, and lots of toys were at your disposal to enrich ship designing.

The Bad
I felt somewhat disappointed by the lack of race customization: after playing Moo2, I missed it; the races, in fact, were and played the same except for a unique special ability: no other bonuses / penalties; the story and background was rich and interesting, and each race had a particular victory condition, but I found it lacking for the replay value. The Star Lanes / Red Links were another curious idea (points that connect star systems and are needed to travel between them), but restricted too much travel and exploration; a good idea could have been make the travel easier between them, but not forcing to use them.

Wars were not the strong point of Ascendancy (not only for the AI): although the 3D movement in ship combat was, again, another good idea, the rest botched it: small ships are virtually useless, since they cost the same to maintain as large ones. And for tactical combat, quickly becomes a matter of taking the weapon with the bigger range. Why? Because there are no attack/defense values: all weapons shot automatically. The bigger the ship, the better the range and power, and the battle is won; for sure. Worse even is ground combat: compare the number of Invasion Modules with the number of Ground Defense facilities: the side which has more wins; automatically.

Although graphics were decent, the game was full of black backgrounds and dark empty screens that gave the game a dry feeling. Visuals really contrast with the music (very, very good, indeed).

Another botch (and I don’t know why designing it that way) was the trade / exchange system. You, of course, can exchange techs and maps with other races… but you must give ALL your techs and maps for ALL the tech and maps of the other race: no negotiation, no deals. Even worse: you can’t know which techs or maps has the other.

And mix all the bad with the AI… one of the worst ever seen in a game. Enemies seemed not to know how Star Lanes work, since the often got stuck in a system, instead of attacking. In tactical combat, was not rare to see an enemy ship still, waiting, while you crushed it with your (more range) weaponry. A patch was released to correct AI problems, but since I didn’t played it, I don’t know if it really worked.

The Bottom Line
Designers tried to innovate, and that’s not only good but essential. Ascendancy shines in good ideas (and some bad ones, though), but are not well reflected in the game. This doesn’t mean the game is not enjoyable: it can provide a pleasant gaming experience, but not for too long mainly because for the AI. I liked the game very much when I played it… until I got bored of vanquishing fleet after fleet and planet after planet. Ascendancy left a good impression to me because of some of its originality… but an idea is not enough. This could have been a high-top game, but the chance was missed.