by Mike Clarke This review was originally published to BoardGameGeek in June 2012.
A fellow gamer asked me to write up my thoughts on Ascending Empires as a two player spouse- friendly game after I spent a week researching a 4X (explore, exploit, expand, exterminate) game I could play with mine.
So here it is. Let’s start with: Is she clumsy? Ascending Empires has one fairly unique feature. It uses dexterity instead of dice to simulate randomness. You flick your ships over a smooth puzzle-piece board on, or within, a planet’s orbital “ring” allowing you to set up outposts and transfer troops as you expand your empire.
It’s light for a 4X game, but has a decent amount of strategy that includes a tech tree for customizing your ships.
It’s a 2-4 player game with each player represented by a coloured world. Each world has its own colour tech. You accumulate more tech by exploring worlds and unlocking the tech represented by that world’s colour.