Ascension Victory behavior

I really, really, really dislike the way the Ascension Victory is handled. For one thing, what is the big deal about Ascending? _Why_ do all of the other races hate you for Ascending, and are willing to go to war just to stop you?

Stop and think about it: You have a substantial empire encompassing quite a few heavily developed worlds. Your race Ascends and ALL of your people turn into some kind of energy beings, able to roam the galaxy at will. The galaxy that remains behind no longer has anything to offer your citizens, so to those races still there it's like your race has poofed out of existence.

That means that all of those nicely developed planets are now vacant, waiting to be scooped up by the first race that sends a Colony ship to take over.

If anything, you'd think the other races would be rooting for you to finish the process ASAP.

Additionally, this method of Ascending is absolutely blase. It used to require that you research several extremely high-tech techs to learn everything that is required in order to Ascend. It took time and money and puzzling out the correct research path to get to that destination. Now all you have to do is find one or more crystals, send a Constructor to build the starbase. (Which can NOT be upgraded with defenses adequate to repel an attack.) And then just sit on it as the clock counts down.

The clock that _everybody_ sees so that they know EXACTLY how long before you win and they lose. How do they become aware of that information? What is the rationale behind their knowing where you Ascension clock is at?

I played with the Ascension Victory on my first game. After that I figured it was a waste of time.

I think you may have encountered a temporary glitch there, One-Eye. The basic concept is that every Ascension base gathers one point per turn. You need a thousand points to ascend.

So, if you get two bases, you only need half as much time.

As to the negative diplomacy modifiers; these work over time. Settling an Ascension starbase won't set of galactic wars the very next week but it will weigh on the relations. Whether war will break out at all depends on their positive modifiers as well.

When I've seen this happen, it's been as follows.

They're at 911 turns to win, have one ascension point, drop to 910 after a turn.

They pick up another ascension point, and since they're now essentially getting two points per turn, it lists them at 455 turns to win (910/2) and the next turn it'll be 454 turns, etc, unless they gain/lose an ascension point. If you think about it, it wouldn't make any sense for it to say 910, 908, 906, etc.

It's possible it had to drop to an even number before it went from 910 weeks to 455 weeks (or whatever). Still, the way you've described it behaving seems correct, I'd say. They aren't any closer to victory right when they pick up that 2nd ascension point... they've still only accumulatied 10% of the points they need. They're just gaining points at a faster rate, and thus I would expect to see their % towards victory increase at a faster rate.

When I myself tried to mine ascension crystals, I observed the opposite.
First it was som 900+ turns left to victory... then at the very moment I built a starbase on a second ascension crystal, the turn-indicator dropped to half... to about 450... but continued to drop at a rate of only 1/turn.

I suppose this is the way it should work actually, as the number seems to measure turns, not ascension-points.

That has been my experience also. Maybe they dont generate enough "hate"

I would think that it could turn the other way. Watch StarGate SG1 sometime. The Priors are a race of Ascended beings who hang around the galaxy and "Force" the rest of the inhabitants to worship them. Even the Ancients were around sticking their noses in, and just forget about trying to take over a planet that they lived on.

As for a Tech solution, my thought is that (and this is my own imagination filling in the gaps) it is happening as a kind of awakening. the more Ascention energy the race absorbes, the closer they get to the win.

About why the counter shows up, i would think that was included simply because there isn't another really visible way to see that victory. Think about it, a Domination victory is apparent in the Galactic map or on any of the "Council" votes. A diplomatic victory can be easily seen on the Foreign Interests tab (although I have never seen the Computer get a Diplomacy victory??). The Technology victory, i think you get notified of that via a pop-up?? Not sure I have ever seen the AI win that way either. In any case, they are all visible in some manner. The Game designers didn't want you to be going happily along and click "Turn" and have a pop-up say "The Thalians have assended (and won the game)" with no warning.

[Just as a note, the Ascended race is the Ori (the beginning of the word "origin" perhaps?) and the Priors are their human henchmen. I find it interesting that it seems like the Ori, in their Ascended plane of existence, can't seem to do much of anything in this plane unless they have someone here to act as their "conduit" -- hence the reason they need Faithful here to worship the Ori and do their bidding.]

I can sort of follow a line of logic that suggests that other races become paranoid of a race in the process of Ascending. After all, **no one knows** what an Ascended race will be capable of. And allowing oneself to Ascend is one helluva leap of faith. It's like choosing to commit suicide based on the unshakable belief that you WILL go to heaven.

Something I've been wondering about: Your race position is actually an _empire_ position. That is, as the Yor or Drengin or whatever, your overall empire includes not just citizens of your own species, but also 1) those alien citizens on planets that have rebelled against their government in order to join your empire, and 2) aliens on planets that joined your empire when their empire surrendered to yours. When you Ascend, is it just your race in your empire that Ascends, or would it be all of your citizens, aliens included? What about citizens that haven't been around that long? Like the new-borns and the the johnny-come-latelies that only recently joined your empire? What about members of your race that are currently citizens of other empires? Do they get to go along for the ride? And how does an Ascension Crystal waaaaaayyyyy over there simultaneously affect all of your citizens in your empire located on the other side of the galaxy? If it's just a matter of, "by studying the crystal, we learned how to Ascend," then wouldn't it require building something like an Ascensionsphere on every planet first before Ascension may proceed?

[Just got this image of setting up disintegration booths in every major city, posting a sign in front that reads: "Ascension Booth: Simply walk through archway in order to Ascend." Imagine how long the lines would be as people queue up in order to leave all their worldly concerns behind! And a month later, some competing race moves in to pick up the pieces.]

Thanks for the clarification on SG1. I didn't watch much of the last couple of seasons, but got the main gist (or thought I did).

As far as assension goes, we don't know what was actually intended. As speculation, I would think that it is basically "Something in the water". meaning it is some nebulous agent introduced into the atmospheres of the worlds your Civilization occupies. It would be something that didn't require construction of any kind and presumably, once a certain percentage of the population absorbes enough of it, they may be able to force evolve the rest (i.e. late comers). Or, maybe they simply "Scorched Earth" the rest? We don't know.

As far as how, I could again impose my own view of it and say that something is mined from the crystals and disceminated to the rest of (those I feel worthy). something like that. But who knows for sure except the DEVS. So make up your own reason/s.

well unlike SG1 we know the arnor can affect our world diresctly as even the promotional stuff states Dreadlords are a rouge form of Arnor.

as for diplomacy it could be more like

"hey Mr Wannabe God Dinoman I wanna be a god as well"

"What Mr Tin man No Way WE are getting the good stuff from the Arnor as WE did the work, try and get the crystals after we are gone".

"NO WAY Mr Dinoman I Wannabe a got this Century not have my great times 20 grandson a god"

"Tough tin man"

now what would that do to diplomatic relations

Oooo! Interesting line of questions:

Are the Ascension crystals reusable?

Considering how long ago the Arnor went bye-bye, leaving the Ascension crystals behind, is there a possibility that a whole bunch of previous races came and went, Ascending one after another, so long ago that no one remembers who they were?

What if the _Arnor_ were johnnies-come-lately, having inherited the galaxy from **their** Precursors?

Is there any advantage to being the first on your Ascension block to Ascend?

Is there some kind of Ascension fraternity? Wherein the most recent race to Ascend effectively act as the pledges of the races that Ascended before them? (LOTS of motivation for the last race through -- the Arnor -- to get another race to show up after them ASAP [in a cosmic sense].)

Just wondering, really.     

Of course another interpratation of the "Win Scenerio" might be that, once one race ascends, they force ascend everyone else. But the Ascended race simply leads the charge.

Or, conversely, the first one to Ascend, being competitive on the racial level, ("I'll do whatever it takes to make the Universe safe for _my_ race."), uses their awesome to powers to exterminate all of the other races that remain behind, just to be sure that they are not followed to the next plane of existence, thus making even that place more crowded.

Or it could simply be that the "Emperor" ascends and the rest is history. I am thinking of Emperor Cartasia and how he figured he would ascend from the ashes of Centauri Prime.

About the Ori, they are not Ascended like the Ancients. They are sort of half-Asended and needs physical followers to worship them since they can only maintain their existence by absorbing their worshippers' life force.

Anyway, I guess the Ascension here might mean that once Ascended, your race will be unstoppable if decided to wipe out everyone else. I can see why relations would suffer for possessing Ascension crystals. The Ascension victory s like a physical short cut to a tech victory (with the same consequence actually) but can be stopped by more precise space destructions instead of race-wide destructions that involves taking over planets.

The tech research victory is still in the game.  The ascension crystal victory did not replace it.  They are two different ways to win.

I've got Korath clan making the Altarian Resistance their "cell mates". Arceans & Drath appear neutral to Korath. Drath hate me (for no reason), and Arceans are neutral. Torians & Altarians like me. I'm sending Altarians aid because I hate the Korath.

Korath scoop up an Ascender Crystal and nobody lifts a finger (except the pathetic Altarians). They scoop up a second Crystal. Nobody lifts a finger. I take down a minor race... the whole universe (including the Altarian Resistance I had been aiding) declares war on me. Seems the Torians were leading that charge. Now everyone hates me while the Torians are scooping up Ascender Crystals with impunity.

The ascension does not generate enough hate, as someone said. It should either be a constant -3 (instead of -2), or it should work something like Master of Magic, where everyone will gang up on you and desperately try to stop you from winning. Right now, the Korath are at about 120 turns to victory, which is hardly anything. I think they've found three of the crystals. Only 2 out of 9 races are at war with them. Maybe each ascension base should carry a -2?