Ascendancy Game Guide

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Path of Exile is a free to play Diablo-style action-RPG with seven playable character classes and lots of deep gameplay mechanics. This guide will explain the basic systems and offer plenty of helpful tips to get you started on your quest to return from exile!

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Find the starting character that's right for you

  • Ascendancy is a 4X science fiction turn-based strategy computer game.It was originally released for MS-DOS in 1995 and was updated and re-released for iOS in 2011 by The Logic Factory.Ascendancy is a galactic struggle to become the dominant life form, hence the title. The game's introductory cinematic states: 'Wildly different cultures competed for the same worlds.
  • This guide is the second guide I have written for Ascendancy. This guide covers everything regarding technology including 'The Tree' itself, recommended paths to take, what each 'bubble' or branch of the tree gives you and the time it takes to complete each bubble and what to look for in Xeno digs. The game never openly states your total.
  • Path of Exile 3.5 - Betrayal is a free-to-play online action role playing game (ARPG) for PC and Xbox under continued development by Grinding Gear Games, with Chris Wilson in charge as lead developer.

(unofficial) Ascendancy Manual. Here you can find complete overviews of everything there is to build, do and win in the game. Select the sitemap for a complete index or navigate with the menu on the left.

Path of Exile has seven playable characters, although only six are initially unlockable. The seventh, the Scion, can be permanently unlocked by rescuing her from a cage in the Upper Scepter of God area of Act 3.

  • Duelist: He fights with melee attacks and can also summon an AI minion to fight alongside him.
  • Templar: Fires projectiles, including three balls of lightning at once and a chain lightning attack.
  • Witch: A female spellcaster with high intelligence.
  • Ranger: She uses a bow and is extremely dexterous, but can wield swords as well. Despite being a glass cannon, the ranger is my class of choice.
  • Marauder: A melee fighter with tremendous strength.
  • Shadow: A dexterous and intelligent fighter, he uses short-range weapons and traps during battle.
  • Scion: She can develop into any character build thanks to Path of Exile's skill system. This makes her an advanced character, and she must be unlocked later in the game.

Picking your first character is important, but not as big a deal as in other Diablo-style games. Path of Exile provides an unusually high number of character slots, so you can play and switch between all seven classes if you so choose. Also, the time-limited nature of leagues (which we'll describe below) and the likelihood that you might unwittingly create a flawed character build the first time you play all mean that you'll probably be creating new characters before too long anyway.

Follow a character build, but don't sweat it if you're making your own way

Many players prefer to create their own unique character build the first time they play, experimenting with different passive skills. But if you do that, keep in mind that full-character respecs are not an option in Path of Exile. You'll earn a limited number of respec points through natural progression and grinding, but not so many that quickly transforming one build to another is a viable option.

Thus, my advice is to follow a well-regarded build created by experienced players. This will focus your character growth and ensure that you have an endgame viable character when the time comes. Here are some quick beginner-friendly build recommendations (current as of launch):

  • Duelist:Sweep or Die by Chayman
  • Templar:Quad Glacial Cascade Totems by Weallgotissues
  • Witch:Whaitiri's Arc Witch
  • Ranger:NeverSink's In-depth Tornado and Archer Guide
  • Marauder:Double Strike Tank Guide by ShihanPiotr
  • Shadow:Say_Ten's Melee Shadow
  • Scion:Dark Pact Self-Cast Ascendant by Zarasi

If you're making up your own build, be sure you understand these features of the passive skill tree:

  • Starting Areas: Your character starts with points in a certain area, but you can also feel free to work towards other classes' nodes.
  • Paths: Much of the skill three consists of paths that offer a +10 bonus to one of the three core stats. Try to pick up the stat you need as you work towards other features on the tree.
  • Clusters: Groups of similarly themed nodes, often with an icon in the center of them. Clusters come in many sizes and often have a gold-colored skill that is especially powerful and desirable.
  • Keystones: Unique nodes that change the balance of game mechanics for your character. Each one has an amazing buff but also a significant penalty to consider.

Join the league that best meets your needs

Leagues are game world variations that affect how the game plays. There are several types of leagues, although not every type is available at all times. These include:

  • Standard: The basic game without any modifications. Despite the name, standard is not the most populated league.
  • Hardcore: Standard and other league variants can be played in Hardcore as well. This challenges players to complete the game without dying. Should you die, your character will be demoted to the standard league. Note that hardcore leagues are less populated than non-hardcore leagues, and thus make it harder to group up and trade with other players. There are currently no Xbox Achievements for completing the game on hardcore, so only play hardcore if you really want the challenge.
  • Challenge: These offer special prizes for completing league-specific challenges, with numerous challenges available to go after. These are generally available for three months, after which point any characters created for the challenge league will be moved to the standard league.
  • Solo Self Found: These league variants lock the game to single player, preventing all trading and grouping. Naturally, this increases the challenge. Solo Self Found leagues are not available on Xbox One at launch.

Even though standard sounds like the default mode, it isn't. Path of Exile players generally concentrate on the current challenge league. Thus, you'll want to consider how important difficulty, multiplayer features, and the economy (item trading, etc.) are to you when selecting a league.

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Learn the gem system and take advantage of support gems

To gain new skills in Path of Exile, you'll usually need to equip gems into sockets in your gear. Any class can use any skill, but gems do have stat and level requirements. Gems can only be equipped in slots of the same color.

There are two types of gems:

  • Skill gems: These add an attack, spell, projectile, or trap/mine.
  • Support gems: These gems modify supportable skills when equipped in a linked socket (one that has a line drawn to another socket). The support gem must be compatible with the gem in the linked socket in order to have an effect. For instance, a support gem that affects projectiles won't do anything to a linked melee attack gem. Make sure your linked gems are compatible!

Equipped gems also level up as you earn XP, receiving ten percent of the base XP awarded from monster kills. Your character experiences an XP penalty when revisiting lower level areas, but that penalty doesn't apply to gems. Thus you can quickly level gems by replaying areas that are a few levels lower than your current level.

Don't pick up every single piece of loot you find

Every piece of loot you acquire takes up varying amounts of space in your bag. To carry as many possible things at once, you have to move items around and squeeze things into the allotted spaces. Even then, your bag is bound to fill up quickly if you pick up every single item you encounter.

The trick, then, is to ignore items that your character can't use or are of low value. Item rarity is indicated by colors:

  • White: Normal
  • Blue: Magic
  • Yellow: Rare
  • Orange: Unique
Ascendancy Game Guide

You can pretty much ignore white items unless you're about to head back to town and have the room to spare for them. Rarer items are usually worth picking up and selling, even if you have to hold onto them for a while. And of course, any item that looks better than your current gear is worth grabbing – even if you have to drop something else temporarily while you equip it.

Don't neglect life and mana regeneration

By default, characters don't regenerate life but they do regenerate a tiny amount of mana every second. You can manually refill life and mana by using the appropriate type of flask. Flask charges automatically refill when visiting a town or hideout. They also gain charges from killing enemies. Equipping better flasks increases the amount of life or mana regained, and can have other effects as well.

Still, you'll have a hard time if you only rely on flasks for life and mana. Gear and passive skills can increase regeneration for either stat or even steal life and mana from hits and kills. Considering the life and mana restoring properties of gear is important to keeping your health and mana pool up. At bare minimum, you want to have some life regeneration so you can recover health between battles.

Begin your return from exile

These tips should start you on the path towards returning home and exacting revenge on those who exiled you. One more tip to consider: if you're struggling with the game solo, you can usually invite a friend or player from town to help. Don't take your exile sitting down!

As our review declares, Path of Exile is one of the best Diablo-style action-RPGs around. It won't break the bank either, as it's free to play on Xbox One and Steam. The microtransactions are unusually fair as well, so you don't have to buy anything to succeed. But if you want to support the developers, there are several optional microtransactions – including limited edition premium bundles.

The First Blood Bundle costs $19.99 and includes $20 worth of currency, an extra stash tab, and a weapon effect. The Oriath Supporter Pack costs $29.99 and packs $25 worth of currency, a weapon effect, and a special social frame.

We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.

Ascendancy
Developer(s)The Logic Factory
Publisher(s)Virgin Interactive Entertainment,[1]Broderbund,[1]Softgold[1]
Platform(s)MS-DOS, iOS
Release
  • EU: 1995[1]
iOS: Jan 05, 2011[2]
Genre(s)Turn-based strategy (4X)
Mode(s)Single player

Ascendancy is a 4Xscience fictionturn-based strategycomputer game. It was originally released for MS-DOS in 1995 and was updated and re-released for iOS in 2011 by The Logic Factory. Ascendancy is a galactic struggle to become the dominant life form, hence the title. The game's introductory cinematic states: 'Wildly different cultures competed for the same worlds. In the enormous upheaval that followed, one of these species would gain ascendancy.'[3]

The iOS version of Ascendancy was a Universal app, meaning it was designed for both the iPad and the iPhone / iPod touch platforms.

The original Ascendancy was released during a golden age of 4X space games in the mid-1990s.[4] Several reviewers praised the game for having great graphics[4][5] being entertaining,[6] and being fun to play.[7]

The original version of the game won the Software Publisher's Association Codie award for Best Strategy Software of 1996, as voted on by games industry members.

The music of the game was composed by Nenad Vugrinec.

  • 1Gameplay
  • 3Development
  • 5Notes

Gameplay[edit]

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In Ascendancy the player takes on the role of leader of an alien species, tasked with guiding their people into space to explore and colonize other worlds.[8] The player does this by building structures and space ships, researching technology and growing stronger through war or diplomacy.

The System Display gives the player control of planets, spaceships, and interstellar combat. Here a Capelon player targets an enemy ship with an Orbital Whopper.

Players begin with a single colony planet which must be developed. They can select several types of buildings to construct on the planet's surface and can eventually construct spaceships and leave the planet altogether. Ships travel to other solar systems along determined paths, called star lanes. Spaceships can peacefully colonize unoccupied planets or invade inhabited planets and usurp structures. They can also do battle with enemy planets or other ships.

Ascendancy's primary display is a three-dimensional rotatable model of the star cluster, which details the star cluster's solar systems, starlanes, and civilizations. The player can 'zoom in' to view rotatable models of solar systems (including planets and ships); view a planet's surface and use various screens to manage their fleet, planets and research. This play style is similar to the Master of Orion series.

Planets[edit]

Planets contain colored squares which can prevent construction or grant a bonus to certain types of buildings.

On each planet the player must manage three areas of development: Research, Industry and Prosperity. Research points are shared among all colonies and allow the player to learn new technology, such as advanced building structures or spaceship components. Industry, meanwhile, is local to each colony and determines how quickly that planet can complete projects. Prosperity determines how quickly a planet's population will grow, providing additional workers for future construction.[9] Players begin with the ability to construct buildings for each of these areas and can discover more as the game progresses.

Planet topography is expressed as various colored squares. White squares are general purpose, where any structure can be built. Green squares increase the output of Prosperity-producing buildings, while red squares improve Industry and blue squares improve Research.[10] There are also black squares, which are initially uninhabitable but can be used later in the game as the player researches technology. Planets have ten orbital squares that can be used to build shipyards, planetary defenses, space ships, and other space structures.

As the player explores other planets they may occasionally find ruins from an ancient civilization. These ruins can be harvested to gain undiscovered technologies, which can significantly alter the game.

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Diplomacy[edit]

The Diplomacy screen lets players forge alliances, declare war or exchange information with other species.

Ascendancy contains a Diplomacy screen where players can offer alliances to other species, declare war and exchange information on star lanes, planets or research. Players can request military assistance from their allies or attempt to end declarations of war with hostile factions.[11] There is also an Intelligence display where the player can view information on the relative power of known species.

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Game parameters[edit]

Players can select several parameters to change the style of game.

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When starting a new game players select several parameters, including their species, a star density, a political atmosphere and the number of opponents.

There are 21 species to choose from in Ascendancy, each of which has a unique special ability. Some abilities can be used at regular intervals, such as the Capelon's ability to make their colonies temporarily invulnerable. Other abilities, such as the Chronomyst traveling quickly through star lanes, are continually active. All opponent species (numbering from two to six) are controlled by a computer AI and are selected randomly.

The star density in each game determines how many solar systems exist in the star cluster - the higher the density the more planets that are available to colonize. Star density affects both the length of the game, as large star clusters will take longer to conquer, as well as affecting how quickly species will encounter each other and how much room they have to grow. Once a density is selected the particular type of each star system is generated randomly at the start of the game.

Selecting a political atmosphere of Peaceful, Neutral or Hostile determines the attitude of computer opponents when they have a colony in the same system as another species.[12]

Even though the player has control over several things, the combination of random opponent species, random planet topography and random star types leads to a large variety of games.

Plot[edit]

Several of the species in Ascendancy describe motivations for reaching to the stars. Some species are peaceful diplomats; some are curious explorers; and others want to kill or conquer other forms of life. However, plot in Ascendancy is thin. Players are free to imagine a detailed storyline but most plot is restricted to a single introductory screen for each species and a synopsis given at the end of each game.

Development[edit]

The Logic Factory said that inspiration for Ascendancy came from '[having] read the fantastic books or watched some of the great shows that have explored the possibility of human contact with intelligent alien life. We do believe that there is a high likelihood that among the many billions of stars and planets just in our own Milky Way, other life is out there. ..This [game] is our own way of being part of that inevitable adventure.'[13]

Re-release for iOS[edit]

In 2010 the Logic Factory updated their website and announced that a remake of Ascendancy would be released for the iPhone and iPad, intended as 'a fully upgraded remake tailored for modern wireless gaming.'[13] The Logic factory said the game would be similar to the original, but with 'a complete overhaul' to the interface 'in order to operate on mobile, wireless, touch screen devices', as well as having several 'upgrades and modifications to the original AI.'[14]

An iOS version of Ascendancy was released on the Apple app store on Jan 05, 2011.[2][15] It has since been removed.

Reception[edit]

Some reviewers sang high praises for Ascendancy upon release - the game won the Codie award for Best Strategy Software in 1996,[16] while Next Generation Magazine called Ascendancy 'one of the best space-strategy sims' and said 'the variety of species will give you hours of replay value.'[6] In his 1995 PC Gamer review William Trotter called Ascendancy 'simply the best game of its type yet published'[7] and gave it the PC Gamer Editor's Choice award.[7] Trotter was also one of the authors of the official Ascendancy strategy guide.[17] Bruce Geryk said 'the graphics were excellent, and the method of ship design was quite engaging,'[4] while Andy Bucher of PC Gamer UK said 'it looks great .. everything looks slick, clean and well designed .. Ascendancy mixes just about the right level of complexity and challenge with an intuitive interface, great graphics and the odd spark of humour.'[5] Bucher even noted that Ascendancy had 'one of the best tutorials [he'd] ever seen', and said the game's 'attention to detail and ease of use is much rarer than it should be.'[5]

Other critics decried Ascendancy, however, for its unchallenging Artificial Intelligence as well as the excessive micromanagement required to compensate, because the AI is not only unchallenging as an opponent, but utterly unproficient at managing the player's planet and ships. In his look back at the history of space games, Geryk said 'Ascendancy had the misfortune of being released with just about the worst AI ever in a computer game, to the extent that playing against the computer was almost pointless'[4]. Even Bucher said 'the key problem lies in the artificial intelligence.'[5] A patch was released under the name Antagonizer, which was specifically designed to make the AI more challenging. It did this by making the enemies far more hostile towards the player but not toward each other, giving them the significant industrial advantage of allowing them to build their first 3 structures on their new planetary colonies in one day each, having the NPC species build the right structures on the right colored squares and having attacking ships stop right outside of range of orbital missile bases the player has in orbit, if they have weapons with sufficient range to attack the planet from a safe distance.[18] The iOS version of Ascendancy released in 2011 included the AI from this patch, as well as other modifications.[citation needed]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ abcde'Ascendancy Release Information for PC'. GameFAQs.
  2. ^ abAscendancy for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad on the iTunes App Store. Retrieved 2011-01-06.
  3. ^Ascendancy 'Introduction' cinematic.
  4. ^ abcdBruce Geryk (8 August 2001). 'History of Space Empire Games - Introduction'. GameSpot. Archived from the original on 20 November 2001. Retrieved 8 December 2010.
  5. ^ abcdAndy Bucher. 'Archived Reviews - Ascendancy', PC Gamer UK Magazine (June 2002). Archived from the original on 2002-05-31. Accessed 2010-12-08
  6. ^ ab'Ascendancy Review'. Next Generation Magazine (December 1995), p. 188.
  7. ^ abcTrotter, William R. 'Archived Reviews - Ascendancy', PC Gamer Magazine (November 1995). Archived from the original on 1999-08-19. Accessed 2010-02-10.
  8. ^Ascendancy Manual, The Logic Factory, 1995, Prologue.
  9. ^Ascendancy Manual, The Logic Factory, 1995, p. 6.
  10. ^Ascendancy Manual, The Logic Factory, 1995, p. 18.
  11. ^Ascendancy Manual, The Logic Factory, 1995, p. 32.
  12. ^Ascendancy Manual, The Logic Factory, 1995, p. 12.
  13. ^ ab'Ascendancy FAQ'. Retrieved 2010-12-05.
  14. ^'Game/Q&A'. Retrieved 2013-08-23.
  15. ^Lata, Mike. 'Ascendancy Released for iPhone, iPad'Archived 13 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine. 2011-01-05. Retrieved 2011-01-06.
  16. ^'1996 CODIE Awards Winners'. Software & Information Industry Association. Archived from the original on 9 October 2009. Retrieved 22 June 2009.
  17. ^Trotter, William R.; Meredith, Gary; Bateman, Selby (September 1995). Ascendancy : The Official Strategy Guide. Prima Games. p. 224. ISBN978-0-7615-0358-3.
  18. ^The Logic Factory. 'The Antagonizer'. archive.org. Retrieved 3 May 2016.

Ascendancy Game Manual

Sources[edit]

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  • Ascendancy Game Manual, The Logic Factory, 1995.

Ascendancy Game Online

External links[edit]

  • Ascendancy at MobyGames
  • Ascendancy - the Manual - a complete manual for the game
  • Trascendancy Project - a tiny fansite which offers an updated MODguide, useful links, related resources and information about a clone project

Ascendancy Game Guide 2017

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