Ascendancy

Ascendancy is a turn-based 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) strategy game set in space by The Logic Factory and with strong influences from Master of Orion. Players select a species among the available 21, set the galaxy's conditions (size, number of rival species controlled by CPU, atmosphere - peaceful, neutral, hostile) and begin a race to make their species the dominant one... or let it be destroyed.

During the game, players must research and evolve their civilization, building factories, laboratories and spaceships in order to explore the galaxy and expand their empire. Every planet is divided in squares, each one providing a bonus for some kind of structure (red squares enhance industrial structures, blue ones enhance scientific ones...), but black squares don't let you build any usual structure.

Another matter players have to deal with is their relationship with the rival species, be it neutral, friendly or wary. Each species has a special ability to help them in their progress.

The variety of technologies, the turn-based combat and the different species made this game quite popular in its time. However, the poor AI was also well-known, even though The Logic Factory released a patch to make the rival species a bit more intelligent.

There are several ways to win this game: by conquering other species' home worlds, exploring 2/3 of the galaxy, being friends with all species or annihilating them. In any case, the game continues and even if you achieved one of the previous goals, you can still keep growing your empire.

In 2011, The Logic Factory released a version of the game for iPhone and iPad.

Tropes used in Ascendancy include:

2-D Space: Rather beautifully averted in the star cluster and solar system views (including the battle engine), except for the sprite-like ship and planet graphics: as you rotate the view, the planets and ships remain face-on to you. Ships also don't point in the direction they're moving. (Probably using 2-D sprites was the necessary trade-off for three-D operation under the RAM constraints of 1995.) Similarly, although there's beautiful high-resolution art for the planets, when you build on them, the buildings show up on an isometric 2-D grid superimposed on the sphere in a rather bizarre way.
Ambadassador: The Baliflids are the diplomats in this game. Their special ability allows them to make peace with other species. Automatically. No exceptions.
- Not really that badass -- they're just playing the cuteness card.
Auto Pilot Tutorial.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Marmosians.
Design-It-Yourself Equipment: For creating a ship, aside from choosing its size, you have to fill the empty vessel with gadgets on a "deck map".
Death Ray: One of the gadgets you can use in your spaceships.
Disc One Nuke: If you get lucky, you can access super-advanced technologies early on by way of Xenoarchiological Ruins, though they can also fall under Awesome but Impractical if they're so advanced that it would take forever to exploit them with your current technology (research centers, for example, when you still only have the basic factory, will take almost one hundred days to build each).
Eldritch Abomination: The Shevar definitely have traits of this. They are extradimensional inorganic beings that are hostile to all other life, and, to quote their starting description, "they aren't purposely hostile or evil, but their values are incomprehensible and they do not recognize the creatures of this universe as living beings". However, they are no more powerful than the other playable species.
Exclusively Evil: When controlled by the computer, the Frutmaka and Shevar are very aggressive with declarations of war. (The dubtaks, on the other hand, are very hard to stay at war with, as they will pester you and ask for peace).
Faceless Eye: The Oculons.
4X.
Gadgeteer Genius: The Chamachies' special ability allows them to end any technological investigation in one day.
Green Thumb: The Govorom, able to turn a desert into a paradise.
- This borders on Game Breaker: the vast majority of planets are uninhabitable, comprised of black squares on which few things can be built (unless you have terraforming, in which case it takes a couple of days to turn it into a generic white square). The Govorom can colonize any planet and, once every 150 days, turn a dead planet with only black squares into a garden world with many bonuses to construction. This is devastating in the mid-to-late game.
Hive Mind: The Minions and the Ungooma.
Humans Are Average: Distinctly averted; unlike most other space-based 4X games, there are no humans, but a broad choice of 21 Planet of Hats species.
Hyperspace Lanes: Starlines, blue (normal) and red (slow without an advanced hyperdrive).
Impossible Thief: The Dubtaks steal knowledge. Even from those species they've never met.
Invisibility Cloak: The Capelons' special ability allows them to 'hide' their colonies from other species for one day.
Loads and Loads of Races: 21 different species. But in terms of gameplay, there are no differences except for their special abilities.
Long-Lost Relative: The Frutmaka and the Swaparamans are the only species in this game with a common ascendancy. But Frutmaka's fanaticism forced the Swaparamans to leave their home planet.
Lost Technology: Some of the planets you explore contain Xenoarchaeological Ruins.
Magitek: Some gadgets are described as magictechnological.
Mechanical Lifeforms: The Minions.
- Due to their inorganic nature, the Shevar, warlocks from another Universe, would count towards this too.
Non-Entity General: The player character takes on a role as the supreme leader of their species in some form or another, but is never addressed in-game.
Planet of Hats: The various species all constitute this, what with having a single special ability each that goes along with their Hat, sometimes to a ludicrous extent (they can see all star lanes, because they're super astronomers, because they have just the sense of sight, because they're just a freaking eye on legs, and they're called the Oculons! Do you get it yet?!) In fact, many of the special abilities are stated to exist because all the members of the species can decide to concentrate all at once to make it happen.
Planetville.
Precursors: Implied with those Xenoarchaelogical Ruins. Also, the Minions seem to obey the orders of extra-galactic masters, but that's just the background story. Every species in the actual gameplay starts with 0 technological progress and minimum infrastructure on day 0 so no one gets a head start.
Prepare to Die: When you declare war on another species, you choose the option "We declare war on you. Prepare to die." Pretty explicit.
Psychic Powers:
- Mind Over Matter: The Frutmaka are sentient fungi who use telekinesis to compensate for their slow pace and can teleport enemy ships out back to their home systems.
- Telepathy: The toroidal Hanshaks' special ability allows them to speak with any of the other species.
- Slowing down time: The Chronomyst can change the rate at which time flows. They use this for extra fast space travel.
Puppeteer Parasite: The Ungooma.
Religion of Evil: The Frutmaka worship a black hole they call Graveesha. This has turned them into quite violent and intolerant fanatics, even forcing another sapient species from their planet into exile.
The Reptilians: The Chamachies. Kind of. They have six limbs, so they're not like any reptiles on Earth.
Shout-Out: The intro cinematic looks too much like the beginning of Carl Sagan's series Cosmos to be just a coincidence. Many of the technologies and discoveries also contain shout-outs to actual advanced mathematical terms, the real life versions of which have absolutely nothing to do with the technologies themselves. There are "Fourier Missiles", and "Fergnatz's Last Theorem" (Fermat's Last Theorem), and Megagraph Theory (Graph Theory - ok, that one pertains a little to what it allows - an "Internet" of all things) for instance.
- For that matter (what is this trope called), there's a low-level technology that comes early in the game called "Momentum Deconservation, and a high-level technology that comes late, called "Megagraph Theory", which allows the building of an internet. In the real world, of course, building an internet is much easier than deconserving momentum. In fact, a technology that would allow momentum deconservation would go hand in hand with perpetual motion and therefore be a sort of holy-grail omega technology.
Starfish Aliens: All of them. However, one of them (the Baliflids), do look like Earth rodents, and being tetrapods, aren't really that far from human, and another one, the Govorom, look like naked ladies, in a cartoony sort of way. Really! They do! With 3 boobs too!
Super Senses: The Kambuchka can see other species' home planets from the beginning of the game. It is implied in the game that this is due to vibrations the Kambuchka are able to feel.
- Also, the Oculons' sight is so incredible they're living telescopes.
Tech Tree: The one used in Ascedancy is a three-dimensional structure that is simply stunning in its scope and variety.
Terraforming: Black squares in planets don't allow you to build anything but communication rails or global projects. But when you've researched Terraforming, you can turn them into white squares.
- However, a species called the Orfa don't need Terraforming: they can build anything on black squares.
You Will Be Assimilated: The Minions appear to be the most Borglike of this game in that their dialog consists of very direct statements of the sort the Borg would issue, and their special ability is that they are masters of invasion: only one invasion module is necessary or used up when invading. However, ALL species actually meet this criterion, because when any of them invades a planet owned by another species, the planet's population does not change. Thus the entire population of the planet as owned by the previous species has in fact been assimilated - changed into members of the conquering species.
Wasted Song: Every single alien theme song. All of them are of high quality, but barely last 30 seconds and only when you speak with that species you'll get its melody. So much potential wasted.
Wise Tree: The Arbryls, being a species of calm sentient trees.