Yeah too bad the AI wasnt better
If it was smarter and gameplay had a few little tweaks here and there "Ascendancy" could have been one of the best of the 4x space strategy games of its era, perhaps of all time.
The AI species are much tougher with the Antag patch but mainly because it allows the AI to cheat and gives it bonuses in Industry, Research ETC..
I have to give "Galactic Civilization II" a try, I heard its AI is hard to beat on higher levels and they claim it doesn't cheat at all.
BTW on the game I mentioned in the above post I got the Extinction ending :Titan: I managed to kill every species in a single turn (which wasnt that hard since they had only 3 colonies each). It gave me the Title "Interstellar Death-Dealer" at the ending screen.
Much more fun then the 1/3 ending