Ascendancy (DOS)

[Ashurdan]

Has anyone else heard of/played this spectacular game from 1995? Also, can anyone recommend an easy dos emulator so I can play it on my window's xp computer? And if so would anyone mind running me through how the emulator would work? (How I would install the emulator, then the game and how I would run it) I'm not all that computer savvy and I believe last time I tried this I had trouble with the emulator not being able to read my cd/dvd rom as /c or something to that affect. I sure hope I'm not the only one who has played this wonderful game, I consider one of my all time favorites (PC); up there with Civ2, SMAC and Diablo2.

Ashurdan

 

[t0mme]

I only know of 1 Dos emulator and I use it every day: Dosbox. You should check their site and fora for help, but I can give you a quick start assuming you have an original cd.

1. Download Dosbox from their site.
2. Install it and start it.
3. You have to pick which directory on your pc Dosbox should use as its C-drive (I usually install Dosbox in C:\Games\Dosbox and I create another folder called C in it. So Dosbox should use C:\Games\Dosbox\C as its drive C). Everything in this directory is accessible by Dosbox.
4. Tell Dosbox which folder to use as C-drive by using mount. Using my example I type: mount c C:\Games\Dosbox\C
5. Tell Dosbox which directory to use a CD-Rom drive. If your CD-Rom drive is D, than type: mount d D:\ -t cdrom
6. Now you can access the C-drive by typing C:\ and your CD-Rom drive as D
7. Install the game as usual
8. Play the game as usual

Extra tip: Open the dosbox.conf file in your Dosbox-directory and add the following lines to the end of the file so you won't have to typ it everytime you start dosbox

mount c C:\Games\Dosbox\C
mount d D:\ -t cdrom
C:\

Offcourse, you can add more drives with the same command and you can assign any letter except the z. Again; Dosbox can only access those directories which you've mounted. To keep thing save, dont mount your entire C-drive by typing: mount c C:\

Hope this will get you started.

 

[warpstorm]

Spectacular? I beg to differ. This game might have been good if it had a shred of AI. I once gave it a 500 turn head start and still proceeded to easily beat it. I then uninstalled it.

 

[Tor Inge]

Spectacular? I beg to differ. This game might have been good if it had a shred of AI. I once gave it a 500 turn head start and still proceeded to easily beat it. I then uninstalled it.

I played this once. All I can remember was the massive micromanagement. But it was interesting. A friend of mine who is the king of micromanagement, loved it. I thought of trying to find it somewhere and try it again. Is it declared abandonware soon? I doubt I'll find it in any retail stores.

 

[warpstorm]

FWIW, games are never declared abandonware. Someone owns the rights for distribution (even if they choose not to distribute them). In fact, The Logic Factory is still a going concern and according to their website is working on Ascendancy II.

Doing some research, it looks like an AI patch was put out after I gave up on it. With a credible AI it would be a good game.

 

[kcwong]

That AI patch does not improve anything - it just makes the AIs more aggressive towards the player. That completely removes the tiny bits of diplomacy in the game, and it's not really that difficult to win either.

 

[damunzy]

I remember the game fondly. It had good graphics for the time and ran at a decent speed. I do remember it being a bit easy though...

 

[kcwong]

I don't like it... the playing experience is an endless amount mouse clicking, micromanaging your stars. If you let the computer micromanage for you, it will make stupid choices and you won't be producing anything fast. And it gets more and more tedious as you colonize more and more stars.

The diplomacy aspect is also extremely lacking...

 

[shmily_dana]

I remember when I bought it the guy said, "if you like this, come back in a few months and Master of Orion II will be out...". I did enjoy Ascendancy. Then I got MOO II and never when back. I think I picked up Civilization II as an impulse buy also.

 

[t0mme]

I remember when I bought it the guy said, "if you like this, come back in a few months and Master of Orion II will be out...". I did enjoy Ascendancy. Then I got MOO II and never when back. I think I picked up Civilization II as an impulse buy also.

And that's pretty much what every reviewer has said about Ascendancy. "Not quite good, play MoOII instead."