This article is about Ascendancy the computer game. There is also an album called Ascendancy by metal band Trivium, and a 1982 movie Ascendancy .

Ascendancy is a science fiction turn-based strategy game for the PC. It was released in 1996 by The Logic Factory.

Play style is similar to the Master of Orion series and similar titles; the game won a series of awards at the time.

Unique features

Ascendancy featured an early 3D galactic map which allowed starships to travel in a more realistic galaxy than in games such as Master of Orion 1 & 2 (a very similar 3D map was adopted for MOO 3). The system map of Ascendancy where all combat and ship movement was done was also presented in a three dimensional manner. The game also averaged much fewer ships than the games of MOO and other popular series, rarely having more than 30 ships allocated to any specific race.

The graphical user interface was very innovative, and introduced a predecessor to mouse gestures: moving the mouse pointer into screen corners enabled an exit menu.

Early pitfalls

Ascendancy, by its very design, was not capable of multiplayer games and so the focus was on singleplay against AI opponents. Unfortunately, early versions of the game had poor AI which was no challenge to any player. The Logic Factory still supports the game from their website and has since released an AI upgrade which significantly improves playability.

Compatibility

Apart from sound quirks, the game is well supported by the DOSBox emulator.

External links

• The Logic Factory