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Who shall we play as? This poll is closed. |
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| The Good Guys! (Federation) |
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14 | 14.58% |
| Space Fascists (Cardassians) |
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39 | 40.63% |
| Space Bankers (Ferengi) |
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17 | 17.71% |
| Space Mongol Horde (Klingons) |
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17 | 17.71% |
| Easy Mode (Romulans) |
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9 | 9.38% |
| Total: | 96 votes | ||
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In 1999 a little company called Microprose released a 4X turn-based strategy game called "Star Trek: The Next Generation: Birth of the Federation", or BOTF. Alongside the playable Major races, the Federation (Humans), Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and Ferengi there are 30 Minor races. These include the Vulcans, Andorians, Bolians, Bajorans and scores of more obscure races that showed up throughout the Next Generation TV series. While you can befriend and even ally the Major races the Minor races can be befriended, affliated and eventually become full fledged members of your empire. This can be a huge benefit as each Minor race has a unique structure that can only be built on their home system. I'll talk about systems a lot, because in this game you don't really deal with individual planets so much as the entire solar system as a single entity. The Borg also appear as a "Random Event", there are many different events but the Borg represent the most significant of them. These aren't Voyager, or even First Contact, Borg. If you see a Borg Cube show up in this game, run like hell, you'll need a fleet of dozens of ships to beat them. So, let's begin.  I went ahead and decided on a starting configuration for our galaxy, but you guys get to decide who we play as.  First up, the Cardassians. Beyond the description given above, they're quite adept at conquering Minor Races. Diplomatic absorption of a Minor is still an option, but the only race that's worse at it than them are the Klingons.  The Federation, they're fairly strong at Science, Diplomacy, Economy and have a respectable fleet of ships. They're really only bad at two things. Intel and waging war. They don't like it when you declare war, and they hate it when you bomb a star system. Subjugating Minor races elicits a similar reaction. However, that said, they're likely the second strongest race in this game.  The Ferengi, it's best not to underestimate this race. If you play as the Federation they will likely be your key rival while you attempt to peacefully absorb Minor Races. The strongest race economically, they can bribe their way to success and will probably dot their empire with Starbases to defend themselves.  The Klingons, possibly the most unique playstyle in this game. They hate it when you make peace, with anyone. Aggressiveness and dickishness is the name of the game here.  Last, but certainly not least, the Romulans. If ever a 4X game had a race of Mary Sues this is it. They're pretty much not bad at anything, and they have the utterly game-breaking cloaking device. Some Klingon ships get cloaks, but the Romulans put them on pretty much everything eventually. The Cloak gives you a free turn at the start of combat (and also makes your ships harder to track on the map), allowing you to destroy enemy fleets without them ever getting to fire a shot in return if you bring enough ships. So, make your choice goons, I'm going to post this initial question as poll to make it easier on me. Q_res fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 22:37
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| # ? May 7, 2024 14:33 |
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If my time playing space 4Xes has taught me anything, it's that the AI is both a cheating bastard and has little sense of "peaceful victory", so go forth and conquer Bajor!  Are the intelligence agencies usable in this? Like, can we ask the Obsidian Order to replace the chancellor's raktajino (or Sisko's, for that matter) with a Romulan grenade and take care of two (or more) problems at once?
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Apr 11, 2017 01:35
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Kazinsal posted:so go forth and Dukat did nothing wrong.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:43
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Even the Federation are aggressive, hateful assholes when they're AI in this game. The Order (and the Tal Shiar) exist as structures you can build on Cardassia or Romulus respectively. Research and Intel are both represented by points generated by buildings in your various systems. The Obsidian Order gives you a 30% bonus to your total Intel and +1 Morale. The higher your morale the more productive your buildings, with morale tracked individually for each system.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:45
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aw gently caress yes this game again. May you play this to finish with or without goons
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Apr 11, 2017 01:49
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Is it bad I want to loot and pillage the Federation? I also want to make all women from Betazoid my fleets sex slaves. Just saying.....
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Apr 11, 2017 02:11
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There is only one choice.
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Apr 11, 2017 02:40
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Okay for peeps not totally familiar with Star Trek, here's a summary of the factions: FEDERATION PROS: stable government system based on rule of law and common good CONS: tend to give preachy speeches at the end of the episode CARDASSIANS PROS: #1 source of morally gray characters CONS: tend to be a major force only in backstory FERENGI PROS: numerous humorous rules to deploy when needed, sexy quark CONS: sexism on par with mine, sexy quark KLINGON PROS: neat swords, functioning language CONS: society is functionally a perpetual bar fight ROMULANS PROS: basically dark elves in space CONS: so ethically dubious and underhanded I'm not sure how they can even function as a society
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Apr 11, 2017 02:41
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Pakled posted:There is only one choice. Yes Loco179 posted:Is it bad I want to loot and pillage the Federation? I also want to make all women from Betazoid my fleets sex slaves. Just saying..... YES
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Apr 11, 2017 02:42
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Phone posting, voting Klingon
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Apr 11, 2017 02:50
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If ever a 4X game needed a sequel to just clean things up and make it a little more awesome, it was this one. Make Cardassia Great Again !
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Apr 11, 2017 03:05
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I stand with Space Genghis Khan.
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Apr 11, 2017 03:08
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Been a long while since I've seen this game, I seem to recall generally playing the Federation (they were the only race I could reliably beat the Borg Cube with) so it'll be interesting to see another side of the game.
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Apr 11, 2017 03:14
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Skoll posted:I stand with Space Genghis Khan. You make a compelling argument but: organized space battle lines
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Apr 11, 2017 03:20
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Alright, well I'd planned on letting the voting go at least a whole day, but the Cardassians have three times as many votes as the next closest options. So I don't see the point in delaying it, we're going Spoonhead for this playthrough.
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Apr 11, 2017 06:01
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Q_res posted:Alright, well I'd planned on letting the voting go at least a whole day, but the Cardassians have three times as many votes as the next closest options. So I don't see the point in delaying it, we're going Spoonhead for this playthrough. Hab SoSlI' Quch !
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Apr 11, 2017 06:08
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Leave my mother out of this.
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Apr 11, 2017 06:17
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Skoll posted:Hab SoSlI' Quch ! You have no honour
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Apr 11, 2017 06:19
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Whoo! I love this game. Wish it would get rereleased and tweaked to work on a modern OS
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Apr 11, 2017 06:32
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 As you can see, we'll be starting in the northernmost (I'll be using N/S/E/W to refer to the map) center of the map. Depending on where the other 4 races start this could be advantageous. You can also see that we've go 2 unidentified star systems right next door. The green, yellow and red lines are range indicators. Green for Short, yellow for Medium and red for Long. This is based on our powered shipyards, Outposts, Starbases and if we enter into an Affliation treaty with any race we gain access to their shipyards for the purpose of extending these ranges. What direction shall we explore in?  This is our home system. As you can see, we have an excess of Energy production and slight excess of Food production. We'll only be able to reassign 1 of the Food pops without going into the red, which will conveniently fill that empty Yard. So I've taken the liberty of doing that for us already (as you'll see in the next screenshot). We have a total of 4 excess pops in Energy production right now. I suggest assigning 3 of those to Research and building another Assembly Yard for the fourth.  Here's what we can build right now. The Forced Labor Farm is the only unique structure (Inquisition is a Martial Law type situation, it's not a structure and it requires your morale to be very low to even queue it) we can build. While the extra Food production is nice, I strongly advise against building it on Cardassia due to the -1 Morale penalty.  Here is our shipyard and all of the ships we can currently build. All of our ships are Medium range with a Speed of 1 (1 square per turn) except for our Scouts which are Long/1. The purpose of Colony Ships should be fairly obvious, they allow us to terraform and colonize uninhabited star systems within their reach. Cruisers are our strongest ships at this point, but also represent a significant investment of Industry. They're also the best suited ships in our arsenal for planetary bombardment. Destroyers are fast attack ships, they are well suited to Intercepting ships that intrude on our territory and raiding (stealing credits) star systems outside of our territory. The Scout has the best sensors of any ship at our disposal and is also classed as a Fast Attack vessel like the Destroyer, just weaker in terms of Defenses (Shields/Hull) and weaponry. It also, as I mentioned has the longest legs. Troop Transports allow us to assault and seize star systems, in sufficient numbers. They also can build Outposts and Starbases (once we research the technology needed for Starbases), which extend the range of our starships. I suggest setting our existing Scout on "Avoid" instead of Engage, as this lowers the likelihood of entering combat unintentionally (but doesn't eliminate that chance) and explore the nearby star systems. What say you, fellow members of the Goontapa Council? What should our first course of action be?
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Apr 11, 2017 06:52
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Herr Tog posted:You have no honour I would challenge you to a duel, but I'm too lazy to look up how in Klingon.
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Apr 11, 2017 06:54
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Vote for send our scout to the south and then the turn after to the east to scout both planets. I'm guessing likely neither has ships at it as we'd be getting them on scanners so both are hopefully early colonization targets for us. Vote on first turn we build another scout and then the turn after an assembly yard so we can start pumping out more ships. Scout should be set 'avoid'. Also down th eline we should make a transport ship so we can build an outpost in Cardassia. This will give us defense against early game raiders or random ships going on through. Scouts should be always set to 'avoid'.
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Apr 11, 2017 07:11
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My vote is for science research and building scout ships to start exploring ASAP. The sooner we know what we're up against and what we can exploit, the better, and the more we research, the better we can exploit and defend our colonies with. e: I should note I haven't played this game. I'm going based on years of playing Civilization and watching Deep Space Nine.
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Apr 11, 2017 07:12
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There is a mod out there that adds playable races, including the Dominion, adds a ton of minors and has a load of new ships. also increases map size
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Apr 11, 2017 07:57
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Cardassian ships also have the highest hull values in the game, which opens up a few interesting options if you ever get desperate enough. South and East seem to be where the stars are at. Sad King Billy posted:There is a mod out there that adds playable races, including the Dominion, adds a ton of minors and has a load of new ships. Too much to hope that it gets rid of the memory leak?
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Apr 11, 2017 08:12
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Sad King Billy posted:There is a mod out there that adds playable races, including the Dominion, adds a ton of minors and has a load of new ships. I kind of like the mods that replace the Ferengi with the Dominion, but I'm running Vanilla BotF with the 1.2 patch. I kind of hate the larger maps, with only the 2 default zoom levels it kind of makes laying trade routes and other things over long distances a real bitch. edit: Alright, so the plan right now is, scout those 2 star systems. Fill up our construction queue with Scout->Assembly Yard->4x Colony Ship->??, then dump our excess Energy production into Research. Unless someone wants to suggest an alternative, I'm going to go ahead with that. Q_res fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 09:11
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The agreed upon plan was undertaken, only now in the fourth week did anything of note happen. Let us begin with the three uninhabited systems nearest our homeworld. Our surveyors have analysed the sensor data collected by our Scouts and have prepared the following reports: Persephone : This systems planets are valuable in that they have resources that would allow the production of our colony to exceed that of our normal expectations. To the tune of an 10% increase in Food production and a 50% increase in Energy production. However, this system can only support 105 million loyal Cardassian citizens. Compare this to the 400 million support by our home system and you can see why that number is a bit disappointing, though it hardly renders Persephone worthless. Nelvana : This is an unremarkable system, with no notable resources to increase its value to us. However, Nelvana can support a population of 255 million. This makes Nelvana a potentially strong addition to the Union. Denius : Denius seems to roughly split the difference in terms of value compared to the other 2 systems we've so far discovered. Like Persephone, Denius possesses a Volcanic planet that will boost our Energy production by 50%. However that is its only bonus, and it can support a population of 180 million. We must now decide what our colonization priorities are. Which systems we colonize and in what order. But this is hardly the biggest news, we've had a historic landmark moment for Cardassian civilization. Our First Contact with an alien species.  These Mintakans are not a terribly advanced civilization. They do not possess starships, they haven't terraformed any of the additional planets in their solar system. They pose no conceivable threat to the Cardassian Union. On the other hand, their home system is potentially quite valuable. Our surveyors have determined that with terraforming their system could support a population of 270 million and most importantly it is the first system outside of Cardassia itself that we have found that has Dilithium. As you all know, Dilithium is a necessary element in the construction of starships. (You can only build as many ships simultaneously as you have dilithium. So if you have 2 shipyards, but only produce 1 dilithium you can only build ships at one shipyard at a time) The good news is, the Mintakans seem to be quite friendly. It may be possible to bring them into the Union without risking the lives of our loyal soldiers. Peacefully bringing them into the protecting arms of the Union could have benefits to us in other ways as well. We may be able to get the Mintakans to develop the system themselves. Sparing us the expense and possibly even time of having to terraform and build up the system ourselves. Of course, we could choose not to leave such important matters to such a backwards, primitive people. Conquer them, terraform the system and make them valuable members of the Union. So, what is the ruling of the Goontapa Council? What inhabited systems should we prioritize for colonization and how do we deal with these Mintakans?
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Apr 11, 2017 13:22
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Resources are at a premium. And as my dear old grandmother used to say, a freely given confession is just as good as a forced one. Let's entreat the Mintakans diplomatically. For now. Denius should be the first target for colonization. It's not a great system-Nelvana is objectively better--but its position would extend our reach that much further. Edit: Kaboom Dragoon posted:I forget, did this come out before or after Section 31 appeared in DS9? BOTF came out in 1999, the same year DS9 ended, so well after. S31's whole schtick is that it runs so counter to the Federation's usual tactics that it's not supported in force--more of an insurgency level "Security" apparatus. Contrast with the Obsidian Order or the Tal Shiar that can apparently run entire shipbuilding projects on the side with no one really noticing. So that would make it an odd "unique" building to have--let alone the game balance issues it would introduce. OAquinas fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 15:49
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Q_res posted:Even the Federation are aggressive, hateful assholes when they're AI in this game. The Order (and the Tal Shiar) exist as structures you can build on Cardassia or Romulus respectively. Research and Intel are both represented by points generated by buildings in your various systems. The Obsidian Order gives you a 30% bonus to your total Intel and +1 Morale. The higher your morale the more productive your buildings, with morale tracked individually for each system. I forget, did this come out before or after Section 31 appeared in DS9?
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Apr 11, 2017 16:29
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The first episode featuring Section 31 aired just over a year before this game released. Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges aired couple months prior.
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Apr 11, 2017 16:43
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I would suggest colonizing Persephone, and forcefully subjugating the Mintakans and terraforming their planet for loyal sons of Cardassia. A little spent spent now is more saved later when those primitives start to suffer from delusions of grandeur.
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Apr 11, 2017 17:57
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We will embrace the backwards Mintakins, rise their dirt huts to sky scrapers and educate them on how to finally be civilized. They aren't Bajorans after all, these primitives deserve a guiding hand.
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Apr 11, 2017 18:19
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Burning_Monk posted:We will embrace the backwards Mintakins, rise their dirt huts to sky scrapers and educate them on how to finally be civilized. They aren't Bajorans after all, these primitives deserve a guiding hand. And in return, I'm sure they'll gratefully provide as many volunteers as we require for our new dilithium refinery. If the supply of volunteers is inadequate, there are many other methods of persuasion that we can bring to bear.
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Apr 11, 2017 18:39
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I still play this now and then but I usually never finish or stop when other races are no longer a threat. The key early on is to make sure your fleet is big enough to take out whatever other fleet tries to take your planets without enough defenses which inevitably happens early on. You want to make sure you have 9 destroyers to spare so you can raid the best attacking enemy planet in your range and generally it is best to keep your ships together. Cardassians are the hardest to play with and their specialty of tough hulls isnt that great, and I never noticed them being able to fire in every direction with phasers as an advantage. Also dont be afraid to pump out a bunch of scouts to add to your main fleet because the enemy will often target them.
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Apr 11, 2017 21:12
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Burning_Monk posted:We will embrace the backwards Mintakins, rise their dirt huts to sky scrapers and educate them on how to finally be civilized. They aren't Bajorans after all, these primitives deserve a guiding hand. Powered Descent posted:And in return, I'm sure they'll gratefully provide as many volunteers as we require for our new dilithium refinery. If the supply of volunteers is inadequate, there are many other methods of persuasion that we can bring to bear. When I read these posts, I can only hear Dukat's voice in my head.
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Apr 11, 2017 21:45
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yes, yes "convince" the Mintakans that it is a good idea to be with us but I'm more interested in Nelvana. It seems like a good place to allow for shipping off dissidents and other undesirables (though I'm sure we can't really do that in this game) I'm also curious about the entertainment programs that may come from there 
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Apr 12, 2017 03:20
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I loved this game even though it was bad and broken. The Star Trek mod for Stellaris is already shaping up to be the best Trek strategy game, worth checking out if you can.
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Apr 12, 2017 05:40
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The General posted:When I read these posts, I can only hear Dukat's voice in my head. In these early days I'm still hearing Gul Darheel/Maritza https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVHR0UPHERQ&t=231s
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Apr 12, 2017 06:06
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Mintaka should be bribed to bring them into the Empire. At the point enough credits can be gien to make a Friendship treaty, it should be done ASAP to build up our own credit resources. ALso, if an inactive colony ship is available it can terraform any planets in thier system which aren't inhabitable to help boost thier population more quickly. Otherwise, for settlement I tend o prioritize planets with more population unless they have a special thing on them. Bigger systems produce more, most system speical resources aren't that big. Invading an inhabited system early on is a pain - it takes 3-4 troop transports, the system will be highl resistant and unstable and in turn will not produce much for a long time until you stabilize morale and is at risk of revolt. Using diplomacy is far better. On Cardassia, building up of manufacturing and research should be our early priorities and I'd like to get a transport to establish an outpost in Cardassia for defense - that will deal wtih early in-game raiders.
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Apr 12, 2017 06:30
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| # ? May 7, 2024 14:33 |
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Bring in the Mintakans by any means necessary. Then the entertainment company
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Apr 12, 2017 09:03
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