FreeOrion

Ok, let's say that when your race ascends the following are true:
-The ascension tech is somewhere at the end of the tech tree (or one branch of the tech tree)
-Your race is considered to be very old and extremely advanced in tech at this point
-Your race now exist on a higher plane of existance, have an infinite knowledge of the universe and are now as powerful as gods (yes, like the ori and the ancients in stargate)


What we could do, is allow new players (younger races) to come into a game. These players are either human or ai and gives that feel of races being of different ages. Ascended races cannot interfere with lower plane races, but can do limited things (maybe 'interferance points'). Ascended races can war amongst each other, cause they are on the same plane of existance. Maybe the ascended races can somehow influence lower plane races by acting as their gods (like the ori in stargate), so they can interfare and have that race send an army for them, etc.

The idea isn't bad, but how would we add new races to the game. they would need a homeplanet, but at that stage, all useable planets will have been taken and be known. We could of course add new planets randomly throughout the region, where the ascended race had their empires. They might be able to expand a little, before the other more advanced races reach them, but not much. And they would be at a huge technical disadvantage in case of a war with the older races.

Even if we give them big reseach bonuses for colonizing a planet left over by the ascended race, they would not be able to compete. They just wouldn't have the necessary resources and manpower.

Of course it would be great to have races at different ages, it would greatly enhance the epic feeling of the game, but I think most players would just whipe them out and take alle the tech and planets left by the ascended race for themselves.

One way to counter this would be to have the galactic senate punish every race which attacks a race which is too much beneath the own race, either in age or in technology. This might help young races to survive for some time, but they would probably never be able to expand very much or take on one of the older races. On the other hand it might be a lot of fun, to play such a young race, trying to get its own little piece of the galaxy.

Another way to help the young races could be to have the ascended races be able to choose a young race to patronize and help. This way the young race would be able to obtain a few advanced technologies, info on the galaxy, etc.

It might be fun to patronize such a younger race, either an AI, another player, or even yourself playing both races. It would give the ascended races something to do with their almost godlike powers and would make the endgame more interesting and diverse. With the help of a ascended patron race, the young races might even have a chance to compete against a very advanced old race.

Ascended races could also manipulate more than one of the younger races, play them off against each other and incite them to band together to attack one of the old races. (an old enemy of the ascended race ?).

That reminds me of Babylon 5, where multiple young races band together to fight the old enemy. At the same time they are manipulated by the old races, each one with different goals.

Well, as you can see, I like the idea a lot now that I thought it through

We could even create something like an endless game, with the old races ascending, making room for new ones, but still manipulating the galaxy and its inhabitants.

When an old race ascends, it would have the option to build a guardian for its homeworld, or even leave behind a whole fleet of AI ships to protect its secrets. They could build a huge forceshield generator to protect their sector of space for decades or even centuries from the greedy hands of the younger races. Another option might be an advanced cloaking device, to hide the home system from view, simply to destroy all trace of the ascended race, as the orions did.
We could think of a whole lot of techs, which will make the galaxy a mysterious and dangerous place for the younger races, a place with many secrets and strange phenomenons.

Well, as you can see I got carried away a little bit, I hope anyone has the endurance to read through all my woozy thoughts

Hello, I'm new to this forum. After seeing this topic I couldn't resist signing up so I could comment on this 'Ascension idea'.

I agree, this is a very cool idea! However, for the sake of avoiding 'project creep', maybe for version 1.0 of FreeOrion you just have the old race's guardians, techs, random incursions - similar to MOO2 but on a larger scale (Like your entire ancient fleet idea).

Then for version 2, you could add the ascension tech that would be at the end of the tech tree. When you got this tech and your race ascended, it would be like a whole new playing field for the human player. Completely new set of techs, 'planets' or 'other dimensional habitats' (whatever they're called in that dimension). The old Sega Genesis game Phantasy Star 3 comes to mind with this idea - where once you chose a wife and had a child, you then started from scratch in the 'next chapter' (aka dimension) playing as that grown up child, with his/her new abilities.

The interaction with your old dimension could be via Dimensional portals (you'd be like the Antarans) where you could maybe insight violence against an enemy older/ascended race - getting the young race to attack them - or maybe bring back young races in a kind of 'natives' way (MOO2) for forced cheap labor, etc, etc. But the interaction with the old dimension would be a side-show, just as it is with the Antarans in MOO2.

The main drive of being ascended would be that you have a whole new playing field/universe/dimension and contemporary opponents to battle as you discover new 'tech' abilities in this plane of existance. The possibilities are endless. Essentially what I'm talking about is like the second chapter of FreeOrion, a massive expansion, almost a second game in itself. Which is why it'd most likely have to be a version 2 opportunity (if the developers aren't worn out from version 1!).

Anyway, just my 2-cents!

exellent idea.

Far off into the future, but exellent nontheless.

the idea is the same as my idea of recursive tech tree, which was deemed unecessary because the game is suppose to end before ascension, but if ascension didn't, the ascension tech would end it.

you can add new races by forming new stars, or having one of hostile planets turn fertile for the new race.

I remember posting in a thread with a similar idea to this, essentially the game could be allowed to 'scale' at some point (e.g the ascension tech is actually inter-galactic travel) and suddenly instead fighting around sectors in a galaxy, you are fighting over galaxies in the universe. So basically in single-player (unsure quite how it would work in multi-player, perhaps randomly assigning players) you'd become the dominant player in your galaxy and fight it out with a load of new AI players of equal strength in other galaxies.

I think the idea of an ascended race, although interesting might be a little too much on its own. An ascended race obviously would have no need for planets etc if they do so by turning to energy, so that solves the problem of where new races fit in, but you no longer have much of a goal really.
I think perhaps ascension as an end-game goal is best, since it means that you'd have one for research as well as military (kill everyone), politics (become universal leader) and exploration (discover some secret or other).
The trick really is making sure they balance together reasonably well so you have a chance of achieving research one while someone else is attempting the political one (I found in MOO3 I lose only about 1/3rd into the tech tree unless I really struggle in the political/espionage side to make it drag-out).