I'm curious what determines the amount of points needed to claim Ascension victory - is it just map size or crystal abundance as well?
I was playing on an insane map with rare crystals, and apparently needed 100,000 points to win. I had uncovered probably half the map tiles (custom ships with really high moves and sensors and nothing else) and found about 5 crystals total. Even supposing I had only found a quarter of the crystals that would put about 20 on the map, which means that even if I was getting 5 points each from all 20 I'd still take about 1000 turns to get enough. Chances are there was less than 20 (my assumption would require some rotten luck to have 75% of the crystals in half the map I didn't explore yet) which means an even longer time frame.
I'm still a bit new to the game. Is 1000 - 2000 turns normal?
EDIT: Never mind. Realized I could check myself by tweaking map options at game start. Crystal frequency isn't a factor... but it is 10k not 100k. Also, apparently you can't delete posts.
Re what share of the total you found so far, I can testify via my current Insane map that the randomness code for map generation is, um, very random.
I have the weirdest distribution of Precursor worlds and relics that I've ever seen. A scant third of the (tight) star clusters have only one Precursor world in them and relics have 'clustered' in several spots, with one pair just a hex apart.
Maybe one of the truly obsessive note-takers and/or code-readers can chime in with some numbers on what the various Rare-to-Abundant sliders on the different map sizes generally yield.
I have played since Alpha and have yet to win a game via Ascension. I usually have conquered the galaxy and it becomes clicking to the next turn and I restart. Insane with occasional relics. the points per turn starts going up higher as you research better constructor modules.
I imagine that this type of victory will be very hard to pull off with the upcoming limitation of star bases we will be seeing in April.
At one point, very very early, the ascension crystals had increasing rates with each constructor module. It was one point per turn for the first module, two points per turn for the second, three for the third, etc. At level 5 that is 15 points per turn. I was unable to achieve an Ascension victory under those conditions after a couple of tries due to "hit enter" fatigue. Then they "corrected" the outputs but didn't change the win threshold. I haven't tried since.
Back in the alpha test period I made a deliberate attempt to win with each of the possible victory paths, trying to find bugs in each. I managed to accomplish it, but wow was the ascension victory a chore. I've never tried it again. In my current game on an insane map I have 9 crystals, but will win a research victory before I get even a quarter of the way to ascension.
I would like to see a 'sudden' death, or insta win by Ascension. Once you have 8/10ths or 9/10ths or all and you hold them for 10 turns you win (regardless of total). This assumes nobody attacks you and grabs your crystals.
I just managed to win an ascension game on excessive, but it did take a bit of planning (mostly so as not to win by another method, as I had everything turned on) and the last 100 moves or more weren't exactly spell binding.
I think the biggest thing to me is that if you have the power to get control of 50+% of the crystals and hold them you can switch and win by just about any other method more quickly. This brings up the problem of why anyone would play a game that way other than for the achievement.
And perhaps the larger question of whether there is any substantial difference in the various victory conditions in any case.
Well, I wanted to go for an Ascension win in the Milky Way scenario (Immense, I believe), but I think I just got talked out of it.
So why is Ascension in the game? Stardock?
Maybe ascension crystals shouldn't be their own win condition, but should instead propel your race towards...ascension. They could provide a permanent stat bonus to all stats for holding them. It could be something like .025% per turn to all stats (production, science, morale, ship HP, weapons, defenses, etc).
Maybe the bonus could start out really small, like 0.1% but you could upgrade it to 0.5% through starbase modules. Then if you held enough crystals you could see your stats rise by 1% or more per turn. Thus any race that was able to hold on to these crystals would eventually become impossible to stop.
I'm going for Ascension in my current game simply because I can. Alliance or Conquest would be much quicker, and Tech slow but inevitable. I currently have 20 cyrstals generating 100 points a week and have no idea how many I need to Ascend. Is there a signal? Do I just need to build a Gate and hope?
A 60-point Ascension Victory at 8000 points. 355 turns. No Gate.
So what's the point of the Gate? To ascend with fewer points?
Those are two different victories. The ascension gate allows you to win the "science" victory. You don't need any ascension crystals to do that, just the technology and the building. The "ascension" victory is one with the crystals - it does not require the ascension gate. You just need to control the majority of crystals and hit the winning point score (for example, 5000 points on a large map).
It's confusing because both victory types have the word 'ascension' in them.
Errr... I guess I should read the manual, such as it is...
Don't fret, man, there are SO MANY things in this game that are not properly explained, with wrong tooltips, etc. I wish the devs would pay me to fix them.
Well to old manual would at least explain that.
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