Ascendancy

[Cyclotron]

If you remember this game, you are a special person.

For those of you who don't, Ascendancy was a turn-based space strategy game involving planetary management, interstellar exploration and combat, a mighty big research tree, and over 20 unique races. It came out around 1995 and takes the cake for my favorite non-Civ game ever. Only Civ2 could shake my undying devotion to the Logic Factory's great masterpiece.

Well, it's not exactly modern fare; the AI is laughably incompetant, for instance. Still, Ascendancy is still my benchmark of what a good space strategy game should be. The attention to detail and wonderfully original concepts really made it.

Why am I posting this? Well, firstly, to see if anyone does remember this dinosaur.

Secondly, the Logic Factory is known for... well, being totally nonexistant in material space. The company has made "check back in January" an ironic catchphrase for those few Ascendancy zealots left. It's been quite a few Januaries; they released only one more game after Ascendancy, Tone Rebellion, in '97.

Oh, but it seems there is an omnipotent and benevolent god; TLF has apparently risen from its decade-long coma to announce beta testing for Seeker, a game they've been promoting with a few blurbs on their web site from many years now. It's no Ascendancy II, but it might be interesting to check out. No promises, though; this is the most flaky game company in history we're talking about here.

And what of Ascendancy II? Well, nothing. Nothing... except that a rumor seems to be going 'round the German parts of the interweb that it'll be released in... whaaaa? Someone who speaks german needs to tell me what's up.

[Jamski]

Momentan gibt es allerdings weder Screenshots noch ein genaues Erscheinungsdatum.

At the moment there are neither screenshots nor a precise release date.

-Jam

[Cyclotron]

No precise release date meaning:

a) We don't know when in 2005, or
b) We pulled the numbers 2, 0, 0, and 5 out of a hat

...?

[Asmodean]

Hmmmm....this is either the biggest surprise in the history of the Internet, or someone with a very wicked sense of humour has hacked their web-site.

Seriously, though, I have been checking that site regularly over the past 6 years, in the hope that Ascendancy II would turn up, but I stopped about a year ago. Great news, if indeed the company is still alive. I really thought it wasn't.

Asmodean

[Spaced Cowboy]

cyclotron7 sighting.

Acendancy has some really good points. And some really bad ones too. It was very graphically apealing for its time.

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
cyclotron7 sighting.

Well, this today, one back in February, and then nothing since september....a rare one indeed

Asmodean

[Spaced Cowboy]

Speaking of which

Asmodean sighting!

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
Speaking of which

Asmodean sighting!

I have been posting regularly again sice mid-feb, though

[Spaced Cowboy]

I know, just giving you a hard time.

Plus you've not been in OG forum much.

[vmxa1]

I loved the sound effects when this game came out and it was the first one I knew of that let refit ships. The AI was totally brain dead, but the game was still worth it.

I still have it, but it won't work any more on my XP system, so I can only play it on my old Win98 box.

It did have a ton of tedious terraforming to be done.

They had a forum for a long time, but it went away a few years ago.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
cyclotron7 sighting.

Acendancy has some really good points. And some really bad ones too. It was very graphically apealing for its time.

Agreed. I have always thought that a sequel, if it corrected a few mistakes, updated the graphics, upgraded the AI (tremendously), and maybe kicked in a little multiplayer of some kind, would be the greatest game ever made ever ever. Ever.

They had a forum for a long time, but it went away a few years ago.

One I was a regular of in my more awkward, annoying internet days... oh, wait.

TLF no longer has a forum, of course, but if you would like to remain updated on Ascendancy and the various loons that still cling to it like I do, the best place to do so might be the only fan site that exists, as far as I'm aware. Of course, as Apolytoners, you'll just have to get used to the fact that it isn't populated enough to have threads updated with new replies every 5 seconds, which I'm sure you're all used to here.

Hmmmm....this is either the biggest surprise in the history of the Internet, or someone with a very wicked sense of humour has hacked their web-site.

You could send in a beta test e-mail and find out...

...assuming they check their e-mail now.

[Boris Godunov]

Ascendancy was one of my favorite games back in the early 90s. I recently reinstalled it on my much more state-of-the-art PC, and it WORKS! You can also download a patch (or mod, not sure which) which does improve the AI. Somewhat. It's still very weak, but better.

Ascendancy had beautiful graphics, a haunting musical score and (mostly) enjoyable game play. IMO, it is the best 4x game in terms of giving a sense of vastness to a galaxy. Really, the largest setting is HUGE, and exploring the whole galaxy is almost impossible. So until the end there remains a feeling of "mystery" about the galaxy you inhabit.

I'd love to see a sequel, but I highly doubt it will ever happen. I wish some of the newer 4x games would use it more as a model.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Ascendancy was one of my favorite games back in the early 90s. I recently reinstalled it on my much more state-of-the-art PC, and it WORKS! You can also download a patch (or mod, not sure which) which does improve the AI. Somewhat. It's still very weak, but better.

I too got the beast to work well on my present computer, and I was pretty surprised at it.

The patch for the AI is called the Antagonizer (or just Antag), and it's just an alternate .exe released by TLF. I find that it mostly makes the AI more agressive, gives them a bit of a cheat bonus on more hostile climates, and makes them really take planetary defense seriously. I think the AI would be much harder to beat in combat if it didn't critically underpower its ships.

So, here's the million dollar question: How did those german sites get wind of Ascendancy 2 coming out in 2005? Where is their info from?

The TLF site also talks about Ascendancy 2 being in a persistant online multiplayer universe (!!!). Extra bonus points if you have any idea how that's possible, given the structure of the game. Assuming it is possible, I'm still on the fence as to whether that's good or bad.

[Cyclotron]

The delving continues.

There's not much in the way of info on TLF or its projects out there in the ether, but I did hang onto this IGN interview about Seeker in 1999. Please enjoy.

What I don't understand is how a company could remain active, and actively spending money on development, 8 years after the release of their last product (which, truth be told, was not terribly successful). Still, bandwidth doesn't pay itself, and the fact that the TLF site still exists seems to indicate that someone continues to foot bills.

The mystery deepens. Check back in January!

[vmxa1]

Thanks for the link to the forum. I alway thought II was to be MMO game and I am not interested in them.

It is a shame they did not sell out to someone as this game was successful and should have gotten a real sequel.

It no longer plays on my XP system and even on my Win98SE if I leave it up very long idle, it hangs. So it has been a while since I last played, but I always have a warm spot for those combat sounds.

After March Madness I think I will fire up my old PC and play.