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[Nicheal]

Hello!

The idea to make research longer to discover I actually implemented in my new version. I made the Ascendelyxe 1.6 in 2013 after a guy called "Franky" found out how the Special Weapons actually shoot. After that I tried to enhance that into a 2.0 - but Ascendancy is not THAT good to play it often, and you need mood to actually play/testplay kind of a lot. My last effort was May 2020 - before all became a bit nasty for me. Now, a week ago, a guy commented my CivFanatics thread and it might be that I got my Ascendelyxe 2.0 done.

Antag2.exe for Ascendancy Vanilla

COBExtractor Most Potent Modding Tool

Old Ascendelyxe 1.6 Mod

CivFanatics Ascendancy Mod Thread




To the Jambalaya Mod, and please forgive my Germanhood (being direct and rude):

1) The Antag.exe is done by an Ascendancy alien, lol. The guy "jordos" to exceed its boundaries might be a great guy - but the guy CREATING the Antag.exe in the first place was definitely no fanatic player of Ascendancy, or, totally alien to that game, lol - otherwise he would have known that to totally hardcode halt ANY wars between AI factions and just boost THE ONLY POSSIBLE war, perhaps: versus the human player, has a consequence: Since the AI is too stupid to colonize most planets and systems, it stays a kind of weak, and since it doesnt extinguish other races via AI WAR, it doesnt develop an empire, simple is that. That WEAKENS the AI! NOT strongens.

Perhaps the Antagonizer is capable of repairing ships, yes, I saw that sometimes. But the best possible way to make AI strong is the bad old war. The AI conquers vast territory and gets its ships destroyed on a regular basis, so that it builds up an empire with modern ships, simple is that. No war - no empire.

2) It wouldnt have been necessary for me to change my beloved race pics.

3) The Special Weapons still are useless and wont be used by AI.

4) The Tec Tree seems a mess, and perhaps worse than in vanilla.

5) What the AI builds up on planets is a mess, too.



The values of my Ascendelyxe 2.0 are:

1) I use the Ascend.exe from 1996, no Antag.exe or even Antag2.exe. Yes. It is still stupid and wont colonize a proper territory, and wont exchange older buildings for newer ones, yes. BUT. I tweaked it to TOTAL WAR. Peace and even Alliances are still possible, but perhaps not with Frutmaka and other badasses, perhaps with some nicer guys, but Ascendancy is full of badasses.

If you get a slow weak start you just get wiped out. It is common stuff that you hear "EXTINCT" some times before year 1000, and perhaps one strong opponent gets 30 ships in year 1500.

2) My Tec Tree also includes maximum costs in time now. That is a great thing to exceed the timeline. But my Tec Tree is a smooth runnin beauty.

3) My Planetary Buildings are balanced. Since Planetary Buildings are COSTLY, and support "Self Managed Planets" with near no micro management, and since my Orbital Structures support SOME industry and A BIT research -like the Jambalaya Mod does too-, you can see how AI creates good planets, actually, nasty good planets. If you delay in a good way and let grow in a natural way by balanced building values - and I can see the results, that will be fine.

4) My Tec Tree is smooth runnin. My planet squares are balanced. My Planetary Buildings are balanced. My weapons and ship stuff is expensive and balanced and ALL WEAPONS DO THEIR MAGIC. No excuses.



Testgame story, super interesting:

I had a testgame with Frutmaka, I got the Chamachies extinct fast, I usually suppress planets until my Invaders arrive. It was a Middle Map Five Opponents game. After that Marmosians and Minions got extinct fast by the Nimbuloids. The ONLY THING saving my game was some cheese (not so nice advantages a human player can use in games): My scout found out, in a sudden shock, that the Nimbuloids had gathered 14 Middle Class ships in a system a bit away (still rather early game and outnumbering us) - my plan had been to wipe out the Minions by myself in their home system, then colonize that area beyond, then face the last race, but the Nimbuloids were faster. (As always!) So, a slight retreat, we let colonize that territory by Nimbuloids, let enter their whole fleet into the Minion home system and they wiped the Minions out - at the end of a red star lane. So - we sent a SMALL SLOW bull ship, lol, and the whole Nimbuloid fleet came to an infinite halt.

That system was a typical cycle of some systems with two red star lanes, capable of circumventing some systems, plus that home world and that Nimbuloid fleet via the other red lane and some systems, so, first, we thought about conquering these fresh colonized systems for us, building up a STRONG FLEET, and then facing that Nimbuloids, until one of my brain cell generals had the intriguing argument, that even IF we would build up a strong fleet to face and perhaps kill them off, then travel the territory along, then enter that red lane some systems away were they gathered in the first place, then enter their deep territory - they would have another fleet ready, the moment we would arrive! Better: To halt them infinite by bull ships, lol, the year the SLOW tiny thing enters their system, yet ANOTHER has to enter the red bubble, and so on and so on - while we build up relaxed, and conquer their defenseless territories, while these fools STAY trapped, without any problems. That was perhaps my only option to actually win.

Next idea of my best brain cell general was to send them a bull ship bomb, since they liked to use Tractor Beam to pull my bull ships to their loving warmth, we equipped any new bull ship with a Self Destructotron, kahahaha, nice idea. That device has a 6 damage and small range, so, more for fun than to actually destroy them, but after all we had defeated them anyway by advanced cheese. If that Nimbuloid fleet would have taken the LEFT system instead of the RIGHT, we would have fought a desperate defensive until perhaps game end!

Yes, we would have used OTHER red lanes and our good defensive planets to wear them down, but after all, they would have conquered just a vast territory and perhaps just beaten us in a hopeless fight. Our home was perhaps 10 systems, then a long red lane, then that 2 red lane system cycle and the middle territory of about 20 systems, then the Nimbuloid deep territory after their long red lane with another 20 systems, and IF we would have lost the middle 20, you could imagine game over.




If a guy like @jordos could change the Ascend.exe to colonize most planets and systems wave after wave, and to rebuild planets better like in Antag2.exe, nice! But even without that, my 2.0 is a by far superior game compared to the vanilla.




ASCENDELYXE 2.0 is finally done. If a guy wants to play Ascendancy the best possible way, download it.

Link in my Signature, down below:

Originally Posted by Nicheal

Hello!
ASCENDELYXE 2.0 is finally done. If a guy wants to play Ascendancy the best possible way, download it.

Hey there. I like everything about your mod and finally we have a vision of someone who actually understands the game. First the combat is so much better now in terms of balance. You can't beat AI on Energy advantage by kiting and waiting until they run out and shoot them afterwards. Fixing weapons range helps as well, cause previously you was invulnerable if you had speed advantage. Now you actually have to think and shields are useful, altho not balanced at all in terms of energy consumption.

One thing I don't understand is the Economy balance and Production Points cost in particular. How exactly does it help AI? Not only it ruins any semblance of balance for the player, but also hampers AI. I think the original intent was to make them build more advanced structures or ships more, but keeping these values close to vanilla achieves this and better. Many advanced structures cost is so absurd that you have no option to build them anyway. 600 PP is huge investment for such a small gains and there are no better structure at 600 PP than Orbital Shipyard and 2nd tier Research structure. And the later you usually build only after the planet completely developed by replacing Agripots and Factories/Labs. Basically you don't build anything except 100 PP structures until very late in the game where you basically won already.

[Nicheal]

Oh, you like everything and then a huge list of complaints.

I was a desperate Ascendancy fanatic player in my childhood so I know EXACTLY whats crap and whats to change - as far as I can.

> In what way the shields are not balanced? Energy consumption?

> I LOVE these expensive planetary buildings. Spares a lot of micro management. I always found it sad, that after 1800 turns the research is over, and after 2 turns any planet is completely built up, and you dont even build all ship stuff or Huge Class Ships cause all is built so easy and cheap and fast.

I wanted to make it more realistic and slow and beneficial - the AI benefits, cause it builds up slow, so, in middle game it has enough empty planet slots to build the good stuff, and in late game it has much bad stuff. That just hampers the human, not the AI, cause the AI has AI War Center to boost its industry. If you want the AI faster, use Ascend00 Heavy.cob! Or even brutal.

Originally Posted by Nicheal

> In what way the shields are not balanced? Energy consumption?

Basically the way combat works now: AI have infinite energy effectively, so the Distance management doesn't matter vs enemy ships. You have two approaches:
- wait until AI comes at you in 30 sq distance to shoot first, enable shields and disable AI ships with powerful specials to pick them apart from Distance 40 or 60 depending on your weapons.
- load up with the most cost effective one range 40 and mostly range 30 weapons, and have enough energy to kill AI in the first turn.

That 1st part is possible in the midgame cause shields take unproportional amount of energy or you have to take the full hit. And as you can see you usually need shields only for a single turn.

Originally Posted by Nicheal

> I LOVE these expensive planetary buildings. Spares a lot of micro management. I always found it sad, that after 1800 turns the research is over, and after 2 turns any planet is completely built up, and you dont even build all ship stuff or Huge Class Ships cause all is built so easy and cheap and fast.

I wanted to make it more realistic and slow and beneficial - the AI benefits, cause it builds up slow, so, in middle game it has enough empty planet slots to build the good stuff, and in late game it has much bad stuff. That just hampers the human, not the AI, cause the AI has AI War Center to boost its industry. If you want the AI faster, use Ascend00 Heavy.cob! Or even brutal.

I don't get how this benefits AI exactly. Also AI builds those War Centers around turn 1000, so usually I have to cycle through them and build War Center on their Home World at the very least. I beat Brutal on Sparse map under 100 turns, but I think your mod is meant to be played at Very Dense setting, so you can't steamroll AI as easily.

The way eco progression works now on the new planets: depending on the planet you build up your planet to 11, 13, 15, 17 or 20 Industry ASAP. Usually you have about 12 PP on average with natural development of the first POP row. At this point you will also have 4 Prosperity and 1 free POP to start building mandatory Orbital Shipyard. It takes 40-50 turns usually and your POP grows during that time. After that point you build Research and Prosperity (to get to 3-4) until 1 free POP left and then do your Small Hull Colony Ship. Repeat that process until full.

Your next step is replacing Agropots with Research buildings. After that replace Factories with Shipyards gradually. OFC insert new ships when you have free slots. Then its time to upgrade Research buildings to 600 Production Points versions. You never have time to build anything above 600 PP buildings. Especially stuff that costs more than 1200. Its absurd how 600 PP Shipyard basically the same as 1200 PP Mega Factory.

I believe you wanted to balance building cost around Ships, but what ended up happening is AI taking too much time to develop new colonies due to Shipyard cost and their love to build it when they have 5 Production Points per turn. Then if they have free ship slots what will happen is queueing up ships on those new planets as well as on the proper colonies with AI War Centers. Basically for the first like 1000 turns and sometimes more AI is very vulnerable.

If you want my suggestions I will up to provide some. I'm playing Master of Orion 2 and 3 at the highest level for more than 2 decades, so I have the gist on how to balance 4X games.

[Nicheal]

Wow, MOO2 on highest, wufff. Since I found out how MOO2 cheats on highest there is no point for me anymore to suffer cheat magic and no fun at all. So I mostly play the second hardest. I won Colonization on highest once, thats enough!

The problem with shields is, that the AI uses them hardcoded, it has zero, one, or sometimes, I think, two onboard, and their AI usage is dubious. My target is that human player uses these wisely, just at some spearhead occasions. I dont want them to be invulnerable for the human player - but that happens if you give them more defense and less energy - the human player builds three of them and AI FK OFF. No no no! Less defense and more energy, they might rescue some of your ships sending them back to dockyard highly damaged. I use the most specials like shields - they shall be a slight edge, no magic to fool the AI.

I suggest, if you have an interest to work that out, to make an account CivFanatics and write a PM - or same here, but Abandonia is a bit slow often.

Yes. The first encounter might be a pushover. Right. But I just am not capable to rescue ALL the Ascendancies stupidities, that would be a thing for programmer Hercules, some kind of greek mythological hero.

Playing MOO2 on highest you usually get a solar system gap so that you miss one early tec to reach out early to delay the human player under a booming AI steamroller. Right, the first encounter is a pushover, BUT, I played testgames Middle Galaxy size, the next encounter could be a challenge, and the huger the galaxy the more.

To be honest I dont think like a Legend player to calculate all to the last point. I want, that if you get a great building, that it is well deserved, I dont want all buildings to be cheap and easy and so, just a micro management spam, puke.

IF you want to change stuff use Notepad++ to change the Ascend00.cob to your satisfaction. Around line 7500 the planetary buildings are - I made sure you have space to change values, just dont change the endpoint, that 255, do not include more stuff over the available space or it crashes!

Originally Posted by Nicheal

Wow, MOO2 on highest, wufff. Since I found out how MOO2 cheats on highest there is no point for me anymore to suffer cheat magic and no fun at all. So I mostly play the second hardest. I won Colonization on highest once, thats enough!

What I meant is Multiplayer and Optimal Runs. Single players is 0 challenge in any 4X game. You can win Huge Galaxy against 7 Impossible AI's with the best custom races in MOO 2 in under 100 turns consistently without wormholes.

Originally Posted by Nicheal

The problem with shields is, that the AI uses them hardcoded, it has zero, one, or sometimes, I think, two onboard, and their AI usage is dubious. My target is that human player uses these wisely, just at some spearhead occasions. I dont want them to be invulnerable for the human player - but that happens if you give them more defense and less energy - the human player builds three of them and AI FK OFF. No no no! Less defense and more energy, they might rescue some of your ships sending them back to dockyard highly damaged. I use the most specials like shields - they shall be a slight edge, no magic to fool the AI.

I see. The thing is that shields completely useless now due to one simple fact: when you have enough energy to activate shields you better use it to use for speed advantage. By that I mean constantly keeping the distance and having enough firepower to kill the enemy with 40 range weapons. AI always moves to the max extent, so you can always figure out how to outrange them and shoot without being answered if they don't have 40 range weapons as well. You shoot, they respond by moving closer, you move away using extra speed, they move closer, but not close enough to answer your second shot. Repeat cycle until they die. Only possible if you have enough energy, therefore Barrage Gun can be your best weapon for a long time.

You can always include rules on the fair Shield usage and balance them properly. You will lose a lot of time if you go back repairing ships. Usually I only use Docks to refit ships. By that I mean producing ship on specialized world with all non-essential slots filled with Star Drives to refit them later.

Originally Posted by Nicheal

Yes. The first encounter might be a pushover. Right. But I just am not capable to rescue ALL the Ascendancies stupidities, that would be a thing for programmer Hercules, some kind of greek mythological hero.

To be honest I dont think like a Legend player to calculate all to the last point. I want, that if you get a great building, that it is well deserved, I dont want all buildings to be cheap and easy and so, just a micro management spam, puke.

What I was trying to say that returns don't match investments at all. And think about it in terms of impact you get from a ship that costs the same or even less. I will write more specifics when I have free time on my hands.

Originally Posted by Nicheal

IF you want to change stuff use Notepad++ to change the Ascend00.cob to your satisfaction. Around line 7500 the planetary buildings are - I made sure you have space to change values, just dont change the endpoint, that 255, do not include more stuff over the available space or it crashes!

Yes, I know bout that. I even used CobExtractors to look up Research point cost values. But I think there should be some hidden modifier I wasn't able to locate, but my best guess is that my planetary development strategy is the optimal one.

Originally Posted by Nicheal

I suggest, if you have an interest to work that out, to make an account CivFanatics and write a PM - or same here, but Abandonia is a bit slow often.

The reason I write here is that its impossible for me to sign up on CivFanatics no matter the workaround I use. Admins there hate me. My account on the Abandonia still not confirmed, therefore I reduced to posting that way.

[Nicheal]

1) I prefer not to use "House Rules", that I NEED an AI Tec, AI Energy and AI Industry is clear, but that shall be all. AI Warfare Tec, AI War Engine, AI War Center, END. Even that is considered "cheating" already - that ALL AI in ALL games cheats, and that Ascendancy needs that most, who cares.

2) Yes, Research Points include a Multiplier somewhere, I think within the .exe, but anyhow my Tec Tree seems perfect to me, a beauty, and all well established.

3) HIGHLY appreciate that I can talk a little.

4) I did the best my brain could do enhance that as good as I can. Obviously, that result was my absolute best and maximum. I worked on advanced and by far superior diplomacy for my Ascendelyxe 2.1 version, perhaps next few weeks when another testplay I could finish that 2.1 up. But that is my personal best I was capable of, and I am satisfied within these boundaries.

5) IF you think to get that done better, feel free! If some guy out there would be capable of doing that even better, do it! Since you can use Notepad++, and since you used already COBExtractor, just change that into your prefered values and send it to me. I am expert enough to see what I will see then.

6) But as long no good Python programmer would open the accessible .exe to enhance stuff completely - my patience with Antag.exe wore zero, and my patience with all these lacks wore into a stage where I say: I did my best, not MY fault the lack of other kants. These Logic Factory guys were capable 2011 to do an IOS only version, so these sh**y guys had some years plus easy access to enhance that game and did NOTHING. We speak about Ascendancy, a highly frustrating and lacking game from 1995 its own creators didnt find worthy to change for 50 kb in its .exe, so, that I came that far is a nice touch for me! That the Disintegrator shoots finally, for example.

7) I currently fulfilled yet another dream of my childhood - a Star General SSI total conversion so that will be my fun now! Ascendancy is not a thing of my total focus, that cranc little kant.

8) Ooo, yes, what you forgot: The slots are not infinite. So, any planet shall build at least something, and the orbit has 10 slots, a planet far more. I actually dont care at all. A human player has to build up a basic colony, then shipyard, dockyard, weapons and shields, that limits the orbital structures, but it is INTENDED that the human player would build up shipyard dockyard super orbital facilities - if the human player wants to perfect that, he still has MORE slots on planet surface, but still not infinite, so, to increase quality he should increase quality, since he could do it.

To increase research is not necessary, but possible. To increase industry would be necessary and possible, the human player can build basic structures, and if possible or necessary, could build enhanced structures, and that is costly, simply. You increase the SLOT quality when all slots filled, if necessary, cause possible. But you dont need to. In huge til giant galaxies you should do it to match the huge AI enemies OR, on heavy or brutal, the huge advantage of AI industry boost.

I wanted the human player to be capable of enhancing quality, or to be capable of spare that micro management orgy completely. So! You can just build up basics, then orbit, then have fun, OR, you could enhance the slots by quality building specialized super planets. I just dont think that any human out there would mass spam micro managing all planets to the bitter death. So, you could do all you wish, but you could spare that either, to just game. But to enhance quality is costly and comes with a cost, both, time and micro management. It is an option to increase, sometimes necessary, often just the benefit of luxury. That is intended to work that way.

That are my thoughts about it. And Xeno Archeology, I even wanted to increase in time, NOT decrease! Or to delete it completely, cause that is in any case an OP thing giving OP stuff, at the moment.