GAMES:Ascendancy

Running the Game

To run Ascendancy mount your CD or ISO file under DOSDOX with one of the following commands

mount d f:\ -t cdrom
IMGMOUNT d C:\OLDGAMES\ascend.iso -t iso

You should then be able to mount your Ascendancy folder and run the game normally

mount c c:\oldgames\
c:
cd Ascend
ASCEND.EXE

Running without the CD

To run Ascendancy without inserting or mounting the CD do this:

1. Copy the file ASCEND02.COB from your CD or ISO into the same folder as Ascendancy
2. Edit your COB.CFG file so the last line points to the new location of ASCEND02.COB. You can usually do this by replacing the normal line (e.g. "D:\ASCEND02.COB") with "ASCEND02.COB".
3. Launch DOSBOX and run the game as normal.

Troubleshooting

If you know you have your CD mounted but Ascendancy gives you the message "Please place the Ascendancy CD in your CDROM drive.", check your COB.CFG file. This file tells Ascendancy where it should expect to find the .COB resource files needed to run the game. e.g. it might contain something like

ASCEND00.COB
ASCEND01.COB
X:\DATA\ASCEND02.COB

If the line for ASCEND2.COB does not match what you have mounted for your CD simply edit it to match. For example, if you mount your CD as drive D: and your ISO has no DATA folder, simply change the last line to "D:\ASCEND02.COB". Ascendancy should then launch the game.

Other Modifications

These changes have nothing to do with DOSBox, but may make playing Ascendancy easier or more enjoyable.

Removing the 'Ping' Sound

Every time you click the mouse in Ascendancy you will hear a 'ping'. If you find this annoying and want to remove it you can follow these steps.

1. Make a backup of your Ascendancy folder and data
2. Download the COB extractor utility from the Trancendancy Project. Place it in the same folder as ascend.exe.
3. Run the extractor tool on ASCEND01.COB with

>COBExtract.exe ASCEND01.COB /raw

This dumps the data into the folder 'ASCEND01'. Note: if the extractor fails to create the folder (due to lack of permissions) you may need to create a folder called ASCEND01 first.

1. Delete or move the file ASCEND01\data\button.voc (this is the sound file for the ping)
2. Create a new file named "button.voc" that is 0kb in size (you can just create a blank text file and change the name)
3. Run the extractor to re-create ASCEND01.COB with

>COBExtract.exe ASCEND01.cobfilelist /create

You should now be able to launch the game and not hear the ping when you click.

External links

• Official homepage
• Ascendancy on Wikipedia
• Antagonizer AI Module - a free add-on module, The Antagonizer, for experienced Ascendancy players who want a greater level of hostility and difficulty.
• Trascendancy Project - a tiny fansite which offers an updated MOD guide, useful links, related resources and information about a clone project
• Ascendancy Races Information about all races from the game