Ascendancy (game)

At the beginning of the game, the player selects his race and the total number of races in the game. Each race has its own evolutionary traits and characteristics. The goal of the game is the struggle for a "dominant role". The player's task is to improve the industrial, technological, and social growth of the chosen civilization by exploring and colonizing other systems and planets. For this, it is necessary to build buildings on the planets and their orbits and explore new technologies. At the forefront of the game is scientific and technological superiority, and the numerical advantage is in the background.

The main type of technology in the game is based on spaceships, but there are also technologies for planetary defense and development. To build ships, you need to collect on the so-called. The “orbital shipyard” together engines, generators, weapons, a body of sufficient size and a special “star trail engine” that allows you to travel between star systems. Star systems are connected by a connected graph of the so-called. “Star trails” ( English starlanes ), which are some unique routes along which (and only along which) you can travel at interstellar distances for a finite time. Some star trails are of low efficiency, and hyper-stripping along them is very slow (marked in red on the map). It should be noted that the ship may not have a “star trail engine” (a guard, deprived of the opportunity to leave the system) or may not have an engine at all (a stationary station designed for all- round defense ). Such a station may also not have a generator (some types of weapons and force fields are completely passive), i.e. space fleet is flexible and non-standard solutions.

Ascendancy is partly reminiscent of the Master of Orion series of games. The main view is similar to a three-dimensional star map, which can be rotated and increased / decreased. If we switch to the planetary view, then the surface of the selected planet and its orbit are presented to each eye, on each of which there are square zones for the construction of buildings and orbital structures. All orbital squares are the same, but the squares on the planet can be one of five types: white - standard (no bonuses), green - a bonus for agricultural buildings, red - a bonus for factories, blue - a bonus for laboratories, and black - you can build on them only roads (or convert them into habitable when the corresponding industry is opened). All bonuses are additive and equal to one. There are also ruins of ancient civilizations that can be unearthed to discover new randomly selected technology. Due to the tremendous superiority that such excavations often give, hunting for ruins is the pivotal part of the debut.

The game has 21 races, each of which is fighting for dominance in the galaxy. Each has a racial ability, most of which are active (the player “turns them on” himself when they are “charged”), but there are races with passive abilities (constantly working). Due to the fact that superpowers greatly distort the gameplay, the game gains colossal replayability, each time requiring a completely new action from the player. For example, Chamach requires the correct fitting of complex research to the “day of insight”, and Dubtek does not conduct research at all in his debut, and only after significant development, continuing other people's achievements with his own massive contribution to science, he becomes a technological leader, while the Nimbuloid is deprived of a “bottleneck” »At the beginning of the development of the planet and therefore is not obliged to conduct all primary expansion strictly in the opening, but may continue it according to circumstances. In order to "comprehend the Tao" of each race, the fans of the game took many years.

• Arbril. Reasonable trees, on the planet of which there is no fauna. They are peaceful, slow and very smart. They prefer not to mess with other races. Ability: Arbrils can block all star trails leading to their systems for a short time. (Active)
• Baliflid. Rodents have an innate ability that allows them to "disarm" predators and force them to protect the Baliflids. They love to have fun and take nothing to heart. This fun hides an intelligent and insightful race. Ability: Baliflids can cause all enemies to make peace with them. (Active)
• Capelon. Shapeless fibers that can turn into anything that makes them almost invisible to predators. Ability: Capons can make their colonies invulnerable for one-day invasion. (Active)
• Chamach. Six-legged reptiles, in some way the "main characters" of the game (it is their race that appears in all screensavers). Ability: Chamachi are able to instantly discover the technology being researched. (Active, 90 days for "recharge").
• Chronologist A very religious and spiritual race, spending a lot of time in meditation. They can use these meditations to change the course of time. Feature: The Ship of Chronomists moves through star trails faster - which gives a huge advantage in the opening - and can even move through them without any corresponding engine. (Passive)
• Dubtek. Almost all of their technology was stolen from other races. They do not like to explore anything themselves. Ability: Dubtecs can steal any scientific achievement known to at least two other races (and not necessarily already “acquainted” with them). (Active)
• Fluentry. The fluid race of their depths of the oceans. Their bodies allow them to heal any wounds instantly. The only way to kill Fledentry is to completely destroy the body. Ability: can repair any damage on their ships without docking. (Active)
• Frutmaka. Appeared on the same planet as the Swaparamans. They worship a black hole, calling it by the name "Gravish", claim that it is a god who gave them the ability to bend space. Ability: Frutmak can "throw" all ships from their systems. (Active)
• By speaking. The spirits of nature. They turned their desert world into a green paradise. Ability: By speaking, they can turn the least populated of their colonies into a planet consisting of bonus squares alone. (Active)
• Henshack. This race can telepathically communicate with any other. They are known as sages with a very developed intuition. Ability: Hansheks can communicate with all races from the very beginning of the game. (Passive)
• Kembachka. Due to the thick fog of their home planet, this race has no visual organs. Instead, they feel the atomic vibrations of their environment on their bodies. Especially well they “notice” living beings. Ability: Kambachka initially know where the native planets of all races are. (Passive)
• Marmosian. Territorial insects. They emit special pheromones to force other creatures to guard the Marmosian possessions. Ability: Marmosians can worsen the relations of all races to the race that is at war with them. (Active)
• Meb. Large unicellular creatures that can be divided at will. Ability: Mebes can increase the marginal population of all their planets. (Active)
• Minion. The race of intelligent machines, controlled by an unknown extragalactic force (when the player himself plays for this race, the description takes on an unexpected second meaning). Ability: Minions can freely capture any enemy colony, regardless of ground defense strength. (Passive)
• Nimbuloid. Creatures consisting of gases capable of solidifying in the form of the desired tool. Ability: Nimbuloids from time to time can get one hundred "workdays" in one day to all construction sites in all their colonies, which is valuable for the initial laying of construction on the planet. (Active)
• Oculo. A race with very good eyesight. They are living telescopes and are very superstitious. Ability: Oculons initially see all star lines, which gives a strategic advantage in the debut. (Passive)
• Orffa. Animals that appeared on a very uncomfortable planet. Their bodies are dense and strong, and they are happy in a pool of red-hot lava just like pigs in the mud. They can eat bare stones. Radiation, heat, cold, chemicals, physical impacts of planetary bodies, and vacuum in no way harm them. Ability: Orff can be built on black squares. (Passive)
• Chevar. Little is known about this race. They are sorcerers, lords of dark forces from another universe. Unlike many other races, Chevar is not made up of organics. They can take energy from other creatures. Ability: Chevar can reset the energy of all foreign ships in their systems. (Active)
• Against the house. Predators from the world of increased severity. They are the size of a bear and very strong physically. Ability: Snovdemdom ships have double armor. (Passive)
• Swaparaman. Appeared on the same planet with Frutmak, but were expelled. Swaparaman's brain is a powerful energy accumulator (the origin of this anatomical feature is vaguely associated with the features of the development of life on the planets of binary star systems). Ability: Swaparamans can double the energy of all their ships. (Active)
• Anguma. Flies, brain parasites capable of capturing the bodies and minds of other creatures. Their ability to do this atrophied, but they can still control enemies from a distance. Ability: Anguma can drop all ships in the star trails back to the beginning of the route. Artificial intelligence does this with and without reason, so the proximity to them can paralyze some long paths, including to the detriment of Anguma itself. (Active)

The game does not have a game mode with other people, so the game focuses on fights with computer players. During the release of the game, the AI ​​in the game was designed very poorly, easily allowing the player to win. A patch was later released to increase the “rationality” and aggression of computer players.

It should be noted that “pacifism” is one of the ideological cornerstones of the game. With many possible endings, victory through the conclusion of an alliance with all races is attributed by the authors to particularly beautiful victories. It should be noted that you can win just by sitting on your planet, without touching anyone and occupying the ecological niche of a peaceful and backward civilization, waiting for someone’s humanitarian assistance, or even an alliance (however, such a victory is rated zero in the final rating).

The game received several awards, including "Best Strategy Software" ( Russian. The best strategic software ) in November 1995 from the PC Gamer magazine . CODiE awards in 1996.

• The Tone Rebellion

• Official site
• Free patch to complicate the game
• Description of all game technologies in Russian in pictures
• Description of all civilizations games in pictures
• Free patch to complicate the game (from the official site is not available now) and Russification