determines how quickly a planet's population will grow, providing additional workers for future construction. Players begin with the ability to construct buildings for each of these areas and can discover more as the game progresses. Planet topography is expressed as various colored squares. White squares are general purpose, where any structure can be built. Green squares increase the output of Prosperity-producing buildings, while red squares improve Industry and blue squares improve Research. There are also black squares, which are initially uninhabitable but can be used later in the game as the player researches technology. Planets have ten orbital squares that can be used to build shipyards, planetary defenses, space ships, and other space structures. As the player explores other planets they may occasionally find ruins from an ancient civilization. These ruins can be harvested to gain undiscovered technologies, which can significantly alter the game. Diplomacy Ascendancy contains a Diplomacy screen where players can offer alliances to other species, declare war and exchange information on star lanes, planets or research. Players can request military assistance from their allies or attempt to end declarations of war with hostile factions. There is also an Intelligence display where the player can view information on the relative power of known species. Game parameters When starting a new game players select several parameters, including their species, a star density, a political atmosphere and the number of opponents. There are 21 species to choose from in Ascendancy, each of which has a unique special ability. Some abilities can be used at regular intervals, such as the Capelon's ability to make their colonies temporarily invulnerable. Other abilities, such as the Chronomyst traveling quickly through star lanes, are continually active. All opponent species (numbering from two to six) are controlled by a computer AI and are selected randomly. The star density in each game determines how many solar systems exist in the star cluster - the higher the density the more planets that are available to colonize. Star density affects both the length of the game, as large star clusters will take longer to conquer, as well as affecting how quickly species will encounter each other and how much room they have to grow. Once a density is selected the particular type of each star system is generated randomly at the start of the game. Selecting a political atmosphere of Peaceful, Neutral or Hostile determines the attitude of computer