One of the best strategy games made and certainly the best star trek game made
Anyway on with the review, birth of the federation (BoTF) is a strategy game which is turn based and has a turn based combat system.
You can play as one of the major star trek powers from the next generation, these being:
The United Federation
Cardassian Union
Ferengi Alliance
Romulan Star Empire
Klingon Empire
Each has its own unique looks , ships, buildings and ways of playing, this all helps to create a rich game with lots of replayability.
For example the federation are the more diplomatic of the major players and will probably end up getting more minor species in the game to join them, but this isnt to say theyre weak, they have the most ships to choose from in the game but they suffer from bad morale during war time depending on your actions, such as retreating, bombarding planets, conquering planets etc and not only this but they have a weak intel system.
The cardassian Union excel in covert operations and are pretty much average in all other aspects.
The ferengi's speciality lie in economic growth , easily becomming one of the richest if not the richest faction in the game, and wealth can be translated into power.
The Romulans have strong intel, strong ships and have the added bonus of being able to cloak their ships which makes them a enigmatic and capricious force.
The klingons are essentially warlike and have strong ships but are only average in other aspects although they also have cloaking technology.
The game is epic also, it takes a while to research new ships, you need to carefully plan your empire by terraforming worlds, building outposts making sure your military and intel are up to scratch, making sure your planet settlements are running smoothly (food, energy , morale) and never forgetting about the economoy.-not just credits but also dilithium which dictates how many ships you can build per turn.
Ontop of this you also have minor races in the game which feature from the next generation and original series, such as the pakleds, naussicans, andorians , selay etc, and depending on your empires diplomatic outlook they will either hate,dislike,remain neutral, like or worship you.
For example the naussicans are warlike and will be more likely to side with the klingons than the 'weak' federation, however like the other major powers you can engage in diplomacy with these minor races and they can join your empire bringing with them, a unique building such as the selay mustering base etc.
Also you can choose to have random events happen in the game which can bring about the likes of the borg or the cyrstalline entity both of which can screw you up big time.
The combat is done rather well, much better than any other turn based strategy game including the very recent Civlization IV.
It goes into a seperate mode were you see your fleet and the enemy and you dictate orders to ships, this can be done individually or as a group order and then you click turn and watch the torpedoes fly!
Very satisfying to see huge fleets clashing with each other and the resulting carnage.
The AI is decent enough to offer a challenge, although it can range from difficult to very difficult depending on the diplomacy situation, i often find that the major powers will ally with each other and go for an all out attack on me, and once ive dealth with one alliance the other attacks me and so forth.
This is quite an old game, but the graphics are sufficient in combat mode and i cant fault the empire screen either.
The sound is very good, the voice overs are good although some of the federation ones seemed outta place, and the music is fitting.
The gameplay as ive explained is exceptional, this is THE best star trek game thats been made, and its also one of the best strategy games ever.
The major fault i have with the game is that,, if your a beginner its very confusing, with every strategy game thats on such a huge scale it takes time to get use to everything, but also the way the interface is done can seem strange at first, but you get use to it after a while and you'll wander why it was so difficult to figure out in the first place.
And you'll probably also end up wandering why there hasnt been a sequel or another star trek game made in this vein.