Ascending Empires: Zenith Edition – Game Review

A bit of a masterstroke, Ascending Empires. Conceptually bulletproof. The sort of idea that dares you not to play. “It’s a 4x game, but you flick your ships.” One of the most beautiful sentences I’ve ever heard, right up there with, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” or “Dude, where’s my car?”

The trick with a design like this is to nail the fundamentals. It would be easy to get carried away, to allow the novelty of that one idea to compensate for an otherwise lacking execution, but I’m pleased as punch to say that Ascending Empires, without the flicking, would be a rock-solid 4x game. It wouldn’t necessarily be an exciting one, but it would work, and that’s what you need here.

Let’s consider Ascending Empires less the movement mechanics, just to make sure I’m doing my due diligence. Over an hour or two, you explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate, one action at a time. The rules are clean, comfortably familiar without being uninspired. There are no resources in…

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