There's been a dearth of good strategy games lately, which is why I've been so eager to get my hands on a copy of Ascendancy. For a first release from the startup The Logic Factory, founded by a couple of ex-Origin people, it's an amazing game. It's quite fun and is the most attractive science fiction strategy game since Outpost. However much I may knock it in the paragraphs to come, keep in mind that Ascendancy is, at heart, a really good, really fun strategy game.
Most of the problems I have with Ascendancy are design choices, rather than poor implementation. Almost everything the designers have put into the game works very well. Unfortunately, this makes the few places the game doesn't measure up that much more annoying. Take the interface, for example. Ascendancy has simply the best interface of any strategy game of this complexity I've ever played. It's easy to navigate from screen to screen - if you've ever played a computer game of ANY genre before, you probably won't even need to read the manual. Even if you haven't played a computer game before, the game's excellent tutorials will walk you through the interface and basic gameplay, actually playing the game to demonstrate its points. The only way these tutorials could have been improved, in my not-so-humble opinion, would have been to use digitized speech instead of interrupting them with text boxes.
Ascendancy also makes ample use of pop-up help. Shift-clicking almost any feature in the game will give you a description of it. Unfortunately, this falls short of perfect in that not everything is clickable ... and the things you'll most want information on (the more obscure elements of the game) are probably the ones that were omitted. I STILL have no idea why a Red Link is different than a normal star lane. Oh, well, I guess I'll have to buy the strategy guide ...
Still, these gaps in the game's documentation and help features can be extremely frustrating. For instance, both the manual and the tutorial make it clear that you cannot enter orbit around a planet that has orbital shields. Unfortunately, nowhere do they tell you that you have to attack a planet with conventional ship-to-ship weapons until you destroy all of its shields. To some people, this will seem obvious, but to some people (me), it won't be clear at all.
Diplomacy has been touted as pretty revolutionary. Unfortunately, it's probably the most disappointing feature in the game. It isn't very far evolved beyond Civilization, with the alien races pushing you around and running the show. The game also assumes perfect intelligence. You know exactly how many ships, how many colonies, and how technologically advanced the other species are, and they know the same about you. I really dislike this particular design choice. It leads to a lot of frustrating encounters with other races, where they respond to your overtures to trade with "Sorry, but we're more technologically advanced than you." Worse, if they do agree to trade information (star lane knowledge, system knowledge, or technology), you have no say in what information gets swapped. Nor does the game even inform you what the results of a given trade are. In order to find out what technology you received in a trade, you have to go to the technology tree and look for one that you didn't have before. And there is NO WAY of determining what technology you gave the other race ... whatever one is going to cause you the most damage if you go to war with them, presumably. This is INCREDIBLY lame.
The technology tree, although far from my least favorite part of the game, is a bit ... wonky. Many of the technologies are downright goofy. This doesn't really bother me, but I suspect it will some hard-core strategy game purists. Where I feel the tech tree runs into trouble is that it's too linear, and the interdependencies of technologies doesn't always make sense to me. The 3D rotating tech tree is cool, but given that the designers had the freedom to build the tree however they wished, I would have much preferred a more 3-dimensional, more interconnected technology "bush" instead.
One cool thing about technology is that some planets have xenoarcheological ruin squares. By building a xenoarcheological dig, you gain an instant technology advance - usually one which is far beyond your most advanced current technology. You can then develop more advanced technologies based on this advanced discovery - unfortunately, it doesn't let you build back UP the tree, which is irritating.
Since I've picked on all the things I DIDN'T like about the game, I should finish by mentioning as many of its good features as possible. In a nutshell, this includes the graphics and the gameplay. If you're thinking that it isn't often one can make such a statement, I would have to agree.
First off, Ascendancy is gorgeous. It's obvious that painstaking attention was given to making the game look as good as it plays. The game runs in 256-color SVGA, and all of the game pieces are 3D renderings. Down to the texture on the bevels bordering the screen (methinks one of Kai's Power Tools, maybe?), Ascendancy shows an attention to graphic detail unprecedented in a strategy game. It also has a great deal of "ooh!" factor; the completely scaleable, rotateable 3D space map is by far the coolest one I've ever seen.
Best of all, it's not just flash. There's a good underlying strategic model underlying the gameplay. It's a bit abstract for my taste, but it's sound, and it works. Depending on how large they are, planets have X number of spaces, each of which can hold one structure. One population is required to build and (most of the time) run each structure. Structures generate three types of productivity: industry, which grows "projects;" prosperity, which grows population; and research, which grows technology. "Projects" range from surface or orbital structures to ships to special tasks (which you acquire several hundred research-days into the technology tree), such as "Scientist Takeover," which channels a planet's industry output into research.
Whatever it is your productivity is being channeled into requires a predetermined number of productivity "points" to achieve. For research and your planet's project, it varies based on what you're producing. With population, 50 accumulated prosperity grows a planet's population by one, so if you're producing 3 per day, it will take 17 days for your planet's population to grow, and so on.
There are a number of other cool features in the game which should not be overlooked: 21 different races, each with its own special ability, ship designs, and dialogue. You also have a lot of control over the universe you play in. A small galaxy with three races and a friendly atmosphere will take you about a day to play - a large one with a hostile atmosphere and seven races could occupy you for the rest of your life. The rendered intro animation is also very cool (although, like the tutorials, it's inexcusable that it doesn't use digitized speech). And the score, which is very "SF movie soundtrack"-sounding, is very good (although I generally get tired of it after 30 minutes or so and turn it off).
All in all, Ascendancy is a fun game, and that's the important bottom line. I strongly disagree with some of the choices they've made in designing it, but that's just my personal preference, and many people may not feel the same way. I still enjoy playing it, despite my gripes, and I'll probably keep playing it for quite awhile after this review is complete, which is about the highest compliment I can give any game.
Now if only we could get The Logic Factory to add multiplayer . . .
