What is an Ascension Victory? Habitable Planets?

Ascension victory is achieved when you absorb 1000 ascension points. You recieve 1 AP/week for every starbase you've built on a Ascension crystal (A white crystal, much like other resources).

So if you got 2 crystals, then you get ascension victory in 500 weeks, if you just built them.

Please note however that other civilizartions will like you less once you start absorbing ascension crystals.

I don't know if there is less habitable planets now, I haven't really noticed any difference.

Also to note about Ascension crystals;

-You are only able to obtain points from 5 of them. Early in the beta there were more than 5 in the map, yet if you had 6 in your possession, you only got 5 points a week. I don't think I've seen more than 5 crystals on a map though since they first beta they implemented it, but that also may be because I mainly play on medium maps.

-I you have only 1 crystal in your possession, you'll get a - from all races in the game for attempting to ascend. If you have 2 or more, you'll get a -- from all races. The very moment you no longer fulfill those requirements for the - or -- I just mentioned, the negative relation goes away. That will allow you to get a temporary reprieve from everyone by destroying/selling those bases thus no longer attempting to ascend...even if you're only 10 points from winning lol.

Habitable Planets...are you on an immense map? I think the planetary count got either capped or somewhat scaled by map size and on immense there was a significant change in amount of planets vs size of map.

I admit to being surprised about the neg. diplomacy hit.

I happened, in my first game, to have two crystals close by. I put starbases on them, and my relatively peaceful Altarians started to be hated by everyone--even the usually placid Terrans.