Love the game ... haven't played in ages. Maybe I should again.
Birth Of The Federation
- Thread starter By-Product
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Very addictive indeed.
Just make sure you're fully patched, that the Auto-Save is on (or you remember to save every turn) b/c of the unpredictable crashes, and get enough coffee or Coke to keep you awake through the night!
Just to let people know: you can get the AI to build the big guns by using the "Ultimate Editor" to edit the ship list. The game favours ships listed towards the top of each class as they appear in the list, so you just need to move your Defiants and Raider II's and so on to the top of their respective ship classes and the AI will build them when they get the required tech. http://www.armadafleetcommand.com/ has the editor and other useful stuff.
Edit: also, does/did anyone else find the Feds much better at making money than the Ferengi? Perhaps it's just the way I play and I'm not using the Ferengi to best effect.
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^ I've always found them pretty much equal but i'v never played the Ferengi all that much
It's the way you play, I think.
I know because I played Feds for a long time, and then struggled to switch to Ferengi. They didn't seem to be richer, they had worse ships at the start and basically I didn't see the point of them.
What you need to do is be very aggressive with your explorer ships at the start of the game to find other races and then heavily prioritise your trading structures in your building. You're at your weakest at the start compared to all the other races and can be wiped out fairly easily but you have to be aggressive to build the foundations for the end game. Scour the area, find planets, set up trade links immediately and get your Tower of Commerce to get your extra 6 trade links or whatever it is. Money will pour in. Enough to even build a defensive fleet quickly, if you can't persuade a ship-building minor to join you. Titrate your expansion rate to the number of trade links you have available.
Once you have a defensive fleet you're OK, even if the Klinks or Cardies start close to you, you can hold them in check while you crank up the economic (and later, military) pressure with your very effective raiding fleets. It's worth wiping them out quickly if you can, though, because their military can pound you in the mid-game if they have a chance to build it up. Feds you're immune to, because they can't declare war on you without devastating morale effects, so you can keep your trade links with them even if they're close to you (and they can't trade with you if you don't agree to treaties, so you can economically restrict them that way). Rommies just aren't tough enough in the early game to trouble you (though you will need to take them out once they get all Intel on you or start getting good ships because they can mess with your raiding fleets and take out your own ships with the first strike).
Once your economy's booming nicely and the game looks like it will go the distance, research heavily. Your long game is all about getting Raiders and then Raider IIs without getting militarily dominated in the meantime. Money will never be a problem with all your trade links, and you in fact get a huge secondary gain as your enemies expand and grow because the financial value of your links also grows.
Oddly, though, I've had my quickest wins by far with the Ferengi, so it's not that I find them difficult to play per se.
It's been a while since I've played and I'm not sure how accurate my memory is, but I believe the biggest reason the Feds seemed superior to me in the financial department is that the Fergs lose most of their financial advantages quite early on. The extra trade links and the ability to trade without a treaty are useless once most of the minors have been assimilated and some or all of the majors are at war with you; whereas the Feds' trade centers are a guaranteed extra income that grows as your empire grows.
Still, reading your post has given me the itch to take the Fergs for another spin and see if I can do better with them financially. I haven't really played since I discovered the ship list trick so it's going to be interesting to see how it is with an AI that actually builds the good ships now. I'm not looking forward to seeing a fleet of K'vorts decloaking in front of me for the first time.
Edit: I wonder if the Fergs' financial stuff is more telling in multiplayer. I've only played the AI so perhaps that makes a difference.
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Maybe?
It's certainly easier to avoid all-out war with everyone in multi, for sure, esp. in a LAN game where you can negotiate with all the other human players "off-table" rather than through the very limited diplomacy system the game has.
Fergs also have trade centres, IIRC. I think they may have a slightly higher bonus on theirs too, compared to Feds, but again, I can't remember for sure.
I'm not looking forward to seeing a fleet of K'vorts decloaking in front of me for the first time.
Major ouch.
Well I won't be taking the Fergs for a spin after all. Rediscovered a problem that I'd forgotten about. Somewhere down the line my game started crashing during combat every time a Ferengi ship retreated. Not so bad when you're fighting against them but when you're playing them it makes scouting somewhat troublesome. As this is a fresh install of the game on a fresh install of XP not sure what the problem is - maybe graphics card upgrade disagreed with the game or something. Ah well, unless anyone knows about this problem and has a solution, evil Cardies here I come!
Agreed!I actually pulled my game out of storage and I'm surprised how much more enjoyable it is with the mod that was posted!
how do i install the birth of the federation battlefronts mod
T.R
Lieutenant
The original? You betcha! Just make sure that you download the patch. If turn based strategy is your thing, then this is a must buy.
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