Birth Of The Federation

[By-Product]

Hi,

What are your memories of this games?

I have to say I still play to from time to time, and every time I do, I get just as addicted to it as I did the first time round.

I not a fan of turn based games, they always seem a bit slow but this game for some reason keeps me coming back for more.

In short ... I love it

 

[daedalus5]

I liked BOTF. I had never played a turn based strategy game before this one, and I enjoyed it. It gets a bit tedious when you have to micromanage economies when you get a big empire, but its really fun taking on the Borg (and indeed even being wiped off by them) and even fending off invasions when you're hopelessly outclassed by the other empires. The drawback is the AI - when you play as another race, the feds never get Defiants or Sovereigns. The other drawback, when I remember is that it takes LOADS of turns to get your tech levels high enough to even build those ships!

Good fun - should go back to playign it with my enhanced machine - no more waiting upto 20mins for turns to take place on my old 233MHz CPU in battle!

 

[Deks]

Still play it.
Found the Dominion Mod (v3) online, installed it along with a new patch which makes the game more than playable in Windows XP among other things and adds better 3d support (oh yes it also features completely new ship meshes for 3d combat, along with slightly revised user interface).
At the moment I'm waiting for Birth of the Empires to come out (the Trek addition) so I can play the sequel.
As fun as it is playing BOTF, I think this new game (it's sequel) will definitely make for far more enjoyable experience. :-)

 

[By-Product]

^^ Dont suppose you have those links?

 

[Deks]

As a matter of fact ... I do.
Here you go:

http://www.4shared.com/dir/2718319/cd23df1/sharing.html

You should find 2 files there.
One contains the UDM 3 mod exe file, and the second one is the update for the said file.

However, prior to installing those 2 files, you absolutely MUST go fetch and isntall the proper patch for the game that is located here:

http://www.4shared.com/dir/2889855/29a7ecfe/sharing.html (if you are asked for a password, it's 'BotF')

The file is called: Botf-102-W2K-XP-9x-English-German.exe

So ... first install the patch, then the UDM 3 and it's update.

Also ... the 3d combat IS much more stable, however, there are instances where the game will freeze (but they are not frequent).
There is also a combat fix that solves this issue (for the most part) but I cannot find the link to it sadly as the forums for BOTF on a site I located the links I posted are a mess.

In any case, I think you shouldn't have any issues with this.

 

[By-Product]

^ Thank you

 

[Deks]

it is also recommended that you make a clean install of BOTF and go from there.
The patch link I provided is the 1.02 patch that updates the game, solves issues with RAM like the original one, but the thing is that this one makes it playable under XP

So make sure to install that patch first, then UDM 3, and then it's update.

 

[AntonyF]

I still play this game, and was playing it last weekend. I find the AI gives up after a while, and wish it was better, but it's still easily my favorite Trek game. Or one of my favorite games period.

I enjoyed the Ultimate BOTF Mod, as it gave the game a fresh feel. Although I was unable to download it recently.

What races do you all like? I like Romulans... lots of sabotage, and cloaks! I can get on with them all except the Feds. The Feds are impossible as the citizens want you to be peaceful, and this is a game of domination!

 

[By-Product]

I've been playing the mod and I've gotta say who ever made it deserves a few quid.

I'm playing as the dominion at the moment but I prefer the Feds. I did once take out a Borg Cube and saved Quo'nos (which I promptly invaded) as the Romulans.

 

[Deks]

I still play this game, and was playing it last weekend. I find the AI gives up after a while, and wish it was better, but it's still easily my favorite Trek game. Or one of my favorite games period.

I enjoyed the Ultimate BOTF Mod, as it gave the game a fresh feel. Although I was unable to download it recently.

What races do you all like? I like Romulans... lots of sabotage, and cloaks! I can get on with them all except the Feds. The Feds are impossible as the citizens want you to be peaceful, and this is a game of domination!

It's quite simple to use the Feds for your purposes.
If you want to go to war with someone so you could bomb their planets (for the most part) just avoid giving in to other species demands and focus on yourself.
Be careful not to take on 3 empires at once though ... that can get messy.
It did happen to me, but I didn't suffer large casualties due to a well developed military.
In any case, I enjoy the game most when playing with the Feds.
I would have liked if some ships like the Constitution/Constellation/Galaxy classes were able to be upgraded into more powerful versions of themselves like the Excelsior and some other ships after reaching a certain tech level, but this is good as well.

Out of other races, I find the Dominion good to play with.
Romulans are rather weak in their outposts and they don't have star-bases for construction (although they do make up with their cloaking devices and sometimes more powerful ships).
The Klingons ... haven't had a chance to play with them.
Most of the time if you start playing the game on 'hard' and you don't meet any minor races (or just a few), the other empires will quickly expand and close up your ability to expand and develop.
It would be interesting to turn off minor races and develop like that .

 

[Kadratis]

I've been playing the mod and I've gotta say who ever made it deserves a few quid.

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!

 

[Red Shirt Ensign]

Still play it
Heck I was playing it last night!

I started getting worried that the few fan sites would start closing up so a few years ago i started printing and downloading all the sites so ic an have a permanent directory of all patches, mods etc... for the game

I hope the other major game edits make it out!
RSE

 

[donners22]

With the likes of Sins of a Solar Empire and Gal Civ around, I can't bring myself to return to the tiny, memory-leaking universe of BotF.

 

[daedalus5]

I must admit that I like playing as all the different races - the Ferengi are good fun as you gets loads of cash.

I like to set my Tech level to be 3 and all the other races 5 and then use the money cheat to give myself lots of credits as it kinda evens things out a bit and doesn't make the game so easy to win as setting out with everyone on the same tech levels to begin with.

I like ships that cloak as you always get the tactical advantage of being able to shoot first.

You also really need to play th egame with a random galaxy so systems can be anywhere on the outer edge and to make it a BIG galaxy.

Think I'll have to dig out this game myself as am remembering it fondly now!

 

[By-Product]

Ok, So heres the real question.

How long doe it take you before you get the itch to prove your fleets in battle? and do you do, do you make some unreasonable demands to provoke them?

 

[Deks]

Ok, So heres the real question.

How long doe it take you before you get the itch to prove your fleets in battle? and do you do, do you make some unreasonable demands to provoke them?

Oh I just never announce a war.
I merely swoop in with a big enough fleet and blast those with whom I'm not in a treaty and perceive as a threat.
They only announce a war when they think they are in a superior position.
At one time I was nearly boxed in, but was able to hold my own ground and fight them off.
The first time I installed the Ultimate Dominion mod V3 ... huh ... I played as the Feds and since I imagined the Dominion might have a head start ... I was expanding and building plenty of ships, combined the fleets, and wrecked them.

The Romulans presented an interesting threat at some time though.
I remember I fought against 180 of their ships (with them having a free first move) with my own 150 ships.
Lucky for me though I only lost 20 or 30 ships in the process.
My Sovvies (which I had about 15 in that huge fleet) helped a lot.
In the end I was victorious and the Romulans lost a huge fleet (the Dominion I took care before that).

And at one point I fought against the Klingons, Romulans and the Dominion in combinations.
Blew them to pieces.

I was playing on Hard btw (setting prior to Impossible) and a large irregular galaxy (everyone had an equal start)

 

[By-Product]

Ok, So heres the real question.

How long doe it take you before you get the itch to prove your fleets in battle? and do you do, do you make some unreasonable demands to provoke them?

... The Romulans presented an interesting threat at some time though.
I remember I fought against 180 of their ships (with them having a free first move) with my own 150 ships.
Lucky for me though I only lost 20 or 30 ships in the process.
My Sovvies (which I had about 15 in that huge fleet) helped a lot.
In the end I was victorious and the Romulans lost a huge fleet (the Dominion I took care before that).

And at one point I fought against the Klingons, Romulans and the Dominion in combinations.
Blew them to pieces.

I was playing on Hard btw (setting prior to Impossible) and a large irregular galaxy (everyone had an equal start)

... my defeat of the Borg suddenly pales in comparison ..... damn you

 

[Deks]

lol ... don't feel bad ...
At one timethe Borg attacked me early on.
I was able to fight off about 4 cubes.
Each being intercepted with several fleets mainly comprised of Excelsior (type 1) and Ambassador class ships.
Man ... I must admit I was proud being able to defeat 4 cubes so fast ... after that I think I was attacked by 3 more cubes and then they stopped coming altogether.

The Borg can be nasty indeed.
Just now I am playing again with the Feds and I destroyed my first cube with only 18 surveyors (type 2) and having only 1 outpost
Of course the reason I won was because I set the surveyors to ram the cube.
I only had 1 of them left and my outpost was gone.
This of course isn't the real trek universe, so who said ramming is a quality the Dominion can only employ?

 

[Holdfast]

Hi,

What are your memories of this games?

Me and my friends back in college used to regularly play it over LAN well into the early hours of the morning... and sometimes later. It was a common event for one of us to look behind the curtains and say "oh it's getting light outside" and for another to say "ok, just a few more turns then".

Very addictive game.

The Ferengi are easily the most powerful race if you play them right and can manage to keep out of wars in the first phase of the game. The free trading means you can rapidly build up a warchest sufficient to keep you in War Cruisers and Raiders. And at the same time research heavily to acquire Raider IIs. Once you have those, the game is yours because not only can they move 3 squares, you will have lots of automatic upgrades from your existing Raider fleet... and they're almost unbeatable in numbers on Evade orders.

The only way you'll lose in that scenario is if the only other dominant race left is a BRILLIANT Fed player who's managed to acquire Defiants about 10 turns or so before you got your Raider IIs. That's almost impossible to do.

I remember one game playing Feds when I acquired Defiant technology about 2 turns before my Ferengi opponent (the only other significant player left in the game) got his Raider IIs. The WHOLE game I played long, making off-the-table alliances with my other human opponents to stay out of conflicts and defend me at times so I could research as heavily as possible AND I got lucky by getting most of the major research bonus races like the Vulcans, Caldonians, etc.

As soon as I got the Defiant tech, I started churning them out, using as much money and industry as I could (and I had a LOT by that stage) to build up a Defiant fleet. I still couldn't win. I managed to get enough Defiants up and running to engage and damage his Raider II fleet twice, but I was losing heavy industry planets on the way. The third time I built up enough Defiants to attack I was down to a handful of planets and though I basically fought his Raider II fleet to a stalemate, he was still churning out lots of new ships to send my way. I conceded to him at the next game crash...

Great game.

 

[By-Product]

^ never thought have having a LAN game with it, I can only imagine its up there with the likes of Warcraft 2 and Starcraft