Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Birth of the Empires

The Dude

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
727
Location
An abandoned hurricane.
Ok, found this game when searching for a good 4x to play since my disappointment with SOASE and the unfinishedness of Lost Empires: Immortals. There should be a fully translated and playable beta somewhere, supposedly with pretty good AI. The problem is I CAN'T FIND A WAY TO BLOODY DOWNLOAD IT. It redirected me to this site, where you have to register to download, but apparently their database system seems utterly broken. Anyone tried this game? Anyone have a fucking clue on where to find the English version? It actually seems to be among the best amateur space 4x I ever seen, if looking at the features and screenies.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Somehow this looks like a mod for Star Trek: Birth of the Federation, which was a pretty good Star Trek 4x game.
 

The Dude

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
727
Location
An abandoned hurricane.
Yeah, it's a fan made sequel from what I could gather. Maybe you can find a way to download this thing? The project is in German originally I think, and only then translated to English.
 

The Dude

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
727
Location
An abandoned hurricane.
Thanks for the link Vival. Downloaded the game and played it for some time. Never played the game it's based on, but it seems pretty decent. For a free indie title, the production values are right up there. A few translation omissions found so far. I'll probably write some more when I've played it more.
 

Malvoisin

Novice
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
20
Thx for the appreciating words ;). The AI is indeed very challenging for she ain't even cheating that much (selectable in bote.ini file; BABY=no cheats, EASY= small resource and build-time boni, NORMAL= medium resource and build time boni, HARD=.., IMPOSSIBLE=..).
The english site you were on is unfinished yet. There are over 30000 posts that need to be transferred from the old botfii.armadafleetcommand.com site and server is making problems as far as I've heard. Nevertheless, by signing up there, you see the game downloads area and can download the game from there without any problems. Were you registered on that site?

@JarlFrank: It's no mod of botf, but one might come to think so when looking at screens. But then we would have done one hell of a job to get that mod-unfriendly game from 800x600 to 1280x1024 resolution :lol:..

The game has its complexity, no doubt, but in a good way I think. Problem is, no manual exists yet (in English, a German one is available), so a lot of people might not catch all the features the game actually is capable of :).

I think by the time the 3D battle is implemented the game will get a huge boost in graphical appeal since it's 2D only atm.
 

The Dude

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
727
Location
An abandoned hurricane.
Hello Malvosisin, really great effort with BOTE. I have played it a bit more now, and gotten my ass totally kicked by the AI, so the AI at least gives a newb like me a run for the money.

Some thoughts:

I don't know if I missed some menu or item somewhere, but you really, really need more feedback on combat besides the "you lost/you won" messages. You actually have no idea whatsoever what kind of opposition you're up against, which gets quite frustrating. For example, I had a smallish fleet (a few cruisers and destroyers) and a few weapon platforms stationed in a frontier system with 100% sensor coverage. One turn later I got a "You lost a battle in system X" and a "System X is being bombarded." message. While I guess the enemy might have been cloaked (can enemies actually be cloaked when in battle?) it was still pretty frustrating, and this has happened a bunch of times. If this is due to cloaking, can you research some sort of scanners or sensors to see through cloak?

Which brings me to research. I like the special research options which forces you to make decisions, research options are also pretty nice (even though there are only 6 areas). On the other hand you have too little ingame feedback on what researched items has led to, and at least some small hints on what the next level of research brings would be nice.

More in-game feedback and info would be nice in general too. What does, for example, the icons above the planets in system view mean? I've understood that the green tree-like one gives a bonus to food production and the purplish gem is the material needed for shipbuilding, but as for the other ones I'm lost. A quick way to compare the different races' buildings would be nice too, if there indeed is a difference between for example the factories between two races.

Anyway, there's a lot of fun to be had with the game in it's current state, though it could really use an ingame hyperlinked help system akin to the one found in Battle for Wesnoth, or Civilization's civilopedia. I guess that it doesn't help that there's no documentation for the English version either (should have paid more attention to German class in school;)).
 

Malvoisin

Novice
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
20
I think so too ;). And thx.

Those things you mentioned are on our to-do-list at upper positions (after minor race ships and the tactical screen where you can hail or retreat from battle and several other quick things that round the edges of BotE a bit).
Atm. combat is fought out to the death (btw. there is a combat simulator at the star-trek-games.com forum or at www.botf2.com/bote/shared%20documents/files/ page) always when non-allied or non-NAP fleets meet each other in a sector. As you noticed fleets are by far not always fully-shown on galaxy map. Mostly you don't even see a big fleet coming at you if you have no sensor strength in your systems. Camouflage abilities of ships have 6 levels in-game: Stealth(every ship has stealth) 1,2,3 and Cloak(only Rotharians and Khaoron have them) 4,5,6. Both result in ships being invisible on galaxy map if no scout or online-scanner is in the area. Stealth 1 is rather useless, 2 or 3 can be nasty. Cloak is really nasty. You need at least 1 or 2 scouts to see small cloaked fleets or small parts of larger cloaked fleets surrounding your sector (well it should be that way shouldn't it, that's why it's called cloaking ;)).

Later on you get isolinear scanners and lots of other things helping you to detect those fleets. But one likely forgets to actually build and man those buildings (me too). But it's really important to do so. 100% is also not the upper maximum which would be mathematically correct, but the figure goes even higher so with a 100% scan strength you probably only catch a large part of stealth fleets and a medium part of cloaked fleets, not so much the really full extent of the enemy fleet though there's some randomness in that too.

All in all, if your fleets are attacked out of nowhere, quickly build some scouts. Have 2 of them at least with your larger fleets, 3-4 in your main fleet(s).

Once battles are not always fought to death and the tactical screen is available, one gets to know which ships are in the attacking fleet (at least when fighting them) and can react by retreating and so on.

As for research, it's only possible right now to get down to the files via the editors provided on the pages linked above and get the "source" view of what they can do. An in-game database is still not coded yet. Those 3 editors (minor race, buildings and ships) are quite powerful and tools for modding and changing balance of the game. You might find them interesting to get a look at.

We made research similar to BotF, our spiritual predecessor. There it was the same way. Making it more complex or "Ascendancy-like" (which I actually found really cool in that old game) was once an option but since the game is already quite demanding in the other gameplay features it had, we sticked to the classic 6-area approach. Via the buildings and their tech requirements, enough complexity is generated (I know, the database ;)).

The icons above planets mean bonusses just like in good old birth of the federation. Tooltips are also on our to-do-list. Hyperlinks not. It's not that easy to code that within the old MFC architecture. We choose it because it was the most powerful and stable one back when we started 4 years ago. Today we would choose other programming platforms like .NET and WPF where such things would be coded in no-time.
Anyway, the other icons symbolize the other resources like Deuterium (always over class N or O planets), Crystals, Iridium (often over class H ones) and Duranium (class R).

glad you like it too so far. Due to lack of easily accessible in-game documentation the game right now requires to get a bit deeper into it and the modding tools available.
 

Malvoisin

Novice
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
20
Long time since there were any news but finally a hopefully more rounded version is available for free download here. The installer is multi-language, you can select between german and english which also sets up game language after installation accordingly.

A few in-game screenshots:

Coalition player: View of an early large Xibren fleet


Rotharian player: Diplomacy screen


Btw. we currently do not have a dedicated english website, the german one (with google autotranslation available) however is here: http://www.birth-of-the-empires.de

Some hints I think are useful for playing the game since there's no tutorial mode (yet):
  • The top menu bar opens up when moving mouse above the turn end button, there you can save your game and open in-game chat or see credits.
  • At first start, the exe creates a bote.ini file at installation folder (sometimes at documents and settings folder, you need to have write permissions in Windows on these folders) where you can set difficulty levels and sound volume and other things.
  • Difficulty levels are: BABY, EASY, NORMAL, HARD and IMPOSSIBLE (capital letters are important, file content is case-sensitive).
  • Scrolling on map works with pressed-down left mouse button.
  • Switching systems in buildmenu gets easier when you use your extra mouse buttons or left and right cursors.
  • Ships are selected by clicking on the race symbol at the upper right corner of a sector on galaxy map. After that a list of available fleets in that sector are shown in the view below where you can give them orders or double-click on them to open up fleet menu to rearrange fleets and which ships should belong to which fleet. Transporters got their own transport menu when clicking on the order buttons at the bottom right. Somewhere there is a "Transport" order which allows to store troops and/or resources on the transporter.
  • In order to simplify micromanagement with resources, there are resource routes available at System->Trade menu. You can lay a route for a specific resource to a destination system which can then access the storage of the source system for its buildings and structures to build.
  • Also there are trade routes layable to another race's system once you have a trade treaty with them. It's located in the same menu. Trade routes are all important to convince minor races to join you since they improve diplomatic relationships gradually over time (quite logically I think) without having to pay credits, quite the contrary even, you earn some meanwhile ;).
  • Later-on with advancing tech levels, there are so-called resource distributors and allocators which allow all systems to access storage of the one system where the distributor is located in. A very powerful yet not un-dangerous means to satisfy resource needs on all your planets.
  • Transporters can be used to build outposts or upgrade existing outposts to starbases. Just have a look at their possible orders after selecting them on map.

As far as tactical 3d combat is concerned, possibly we can take use of a OGRE C++ coded engine currently made by the folks over at Freeorion, another open-source project, who are doing a great job developing it as you can see in a mock-up art and a modified-version screenshot here:

mock-up art of some effects to be programmed

modified engine screenshot

If not, there's still the current un-skinned and un-animated 2d combat simulator that we already have:
gnats.gif



Hope all those downloading the game enjoy playing it (it has quite some depth to offer gameplay-wise).
 

kris

Arcane
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
8,836
Location
Lulea, Sweden
Malvoisin said:
Long time since there were any news but finally a hopefully more rounded version is available for free download

Thanks, I will be giving it a swirl when time allows.
 

GarfunkeL

Racism Expert
Joined
Nov 7, 2008
Messages
15,463
Location
Insert clever insult here
Okay, gave it a spin for 78 turns so far. Playing with Coalition of Planets, ie humans.

First of all, it's obviously alpha, as there are german text still remaining at some places (ground units!) and some missing text (COLON_MAJOR!.TXT MISSING when colonizing a planet) but there are some slick stuff - I like the female computer voice announcing major events, too bad there are two wholly different voices! One is cool and smooth "new research breakthrough" while the other sounds like my drunken grandmother "we coloooonized a new planeet". Kill her and make the sexy sounding woman record her lines as well.

The interface can be clunky and sometimes unresponsive. For example, in system view, you cannot go straight to another system but you have to jump to galaxy screen, select the new system and then click "system view". Give us a shortcut arrow/key or something please.

The game mechanics I like so far - you can build endless amounts of buildings on a planet but your population limits how many of them you can crowd. This is awesome for it means that your planets just became really, really versatile! Especially when compared to Space Empires or GalCiv planets.

I do NOT like that I cannot design my own ships but I DO like that at least I can modify them but it still leaves me with only one ship-design per design-slot which is really ancient crap from MoO1/2-era times. I want to have the ability to build both anti-fighter destroyers AND missile destroyers at the same time.

Thank you for following the traditional naval route - frigate/destroyer/cruiser/battleship.

I love the real astronomy, taught to players while exploring the planets and the need to first terraform planet before colonizing it is great. The automatic in-system colonizing of suitable planets is also a rational and logical way to eliminate needless micromanagement.

Haven't got into any fights yet so can't comment

All in all, quite a promising start for a 4xgame! I'll keep looking for this gem, that's for sure.
 

Malvoisin

Novice
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
20
I edited some gameplay hints in my previous post above:
Switching systems in buildmenu gets easier when you use your extra mouse buttons or left and right cursors.

This should help with going straight to your other systems.

I didn't know about some missing text, haven't experienced that problem yet, maybe because I'm using english dev version and have the necessary file ;). I'm going to check that.

yeah, the sexy one was recording voice overs for the Star Trek Supremacy fan game and we took the lines we could take for our game. The other female voice was just a fill-in for the rest. Well, maybe she'll be doing the rest sometime too ;).

Ship design can be improved you're right. In parts you can achieve that by using different classes of the same type, i.e. mostly you got 2 destroyer classes that you can assign accordingly, one for anti-fighter, one for anti-capital ship. Mostly they got corresponding special abilities right from the get-go visible in their ship description.
There is a way to circumvent that in a rather "crude" fashion and that is to duplicate ship classes with the given ship editor (you can find it in ..\bote\data\ships\ folder). But this is just if you really want it badly ;). But in the end this has to be done better code-wise. I can't say when we will tackle this issue though.

Fights are still without any tactical options yet which will be implemented in Alpha6 presumably, so all you see is your and your enemy's losses the turn after, basically. Sometimes fights seem unbalanced or unfair but keep in mind, ships have stealth (automatic) and cloak modes so they aren't always visible. That's why 2-3 scouts in your main fleets are always a good way to prevent being surprised.
We have a combat simulator as a stand-alone program as you can see in the screenshot gif file above in my previous post where you can test out fights and battles in all kind of ways and also repeat them several hundred times automatically to get statistical data about the outcome. But it's a dev tool right now and as I said will make it into the game (a little graphically enhanced) with Alpha6 probably.

Glad you like it so far :).
 

Malvoisin

Novice
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
20
GarfunkeL said:
missing text (COLON_MAJOR!.TXT MISSING when colonizing a planet)

found the bug. I had mixed up identifiers and wrote race instead of major into the stringtable.txt file. I link to the new one for those who want to fix this too in their version: http://botf2.star-trek-games.com/download/file.php?id=1631

you can also fix it with notepad, just open \bote\data\strings\stringtable.txt and scroll down to the bottom, there you'll find coloevent_text somewhere and just replace RACE with MAJOR in the 6 identifiers there to see the right text.
 

Malvoisin

Novice
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
20
here's a new update: Version 0.8 / Alpha6 Download (142mb): http://star-trek-games.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=92&func=fileinfo&id=434

Some screenshots showing the new (pre-)combat tactical menu implementation (preview jpg's have <100 kb size each, hope that is okay, if not, I can remove some of them; clicking on them leads to full resolution png's):






(The following one is from german version)





Tutorials on gameplay mechanics and game controls are planned for Alpha7, so in short, what you need to get started once you are in the game is:
  • Options menu bar is by default hidden. You need to move your mouse to the upper left edge of the screen to make it show up. There you can save and/or quit a game.
  • Fleets can be selected by clicking on the race icon on galaxy map in the respective sector. Then on the lower panel on screen the available fleets and ships are shown.
  • Left-click and drag will let you quickly move and scroll around galaxy map. Also, using mouse-wheel, you can zoom in and out of map. Cursors and extra mouse buttons can be used to quickly switch between systems in build menu view.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 14, 2009
Messages
10,266
Location
Poland
Played a little and it looks very good for now. Colonized some planets, researched some techs. Colonization and research are very generic but they serve their purpose. Building, production systems are generic too. Diplomacy is quite unclear.

Overall its a solid if generic title. Nothing really shines, at least from what I could notice. Planet descriptions are very nice but not really used ingame. This needs some ideas and advanced options IMO.
 

Malvoisin

Novice
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
20
I agree with some things being generic/typical for 4X games. They are - for now - not intended to be more complex, also since it is a multiplayer-capable game and not just focussing on singleplayer experience, i.e. getting gameplay quick enough for that is surely something we are after. Of course good ideas are always welcome in that and any respect. I mean what would you see there as non-generic?

Especially since some things are easily missed by beginners, for example that terraforming minor system planets helps gaining popularity with that minor (which is then shown in diplomacy section at the barometer). Also laying trade routes to a minor increases relationships. They can be laid by going to system->trade menu and there the trade route button once you got a trade treaty with another race.

I think the shining parts about this game are its rock-stable multiplayer capability and quite interesting intel and diplomacy options. Galciv II for example does not offer multiplayer games and I heard that title could be described as the modern Master of Orion 2 type of 4X setting (high) standards in the TBS gaming area.

Of course this is all not so well-explained in-game in BotE Alpha6, we plan to have some more tutorials, tooltips and explanations in-game with Alpha7 so we can be sure everyone playing catches all the things the game is capable of offering. It is also possible to play hot-seat when running multiple instances of bote.exe at the same time on one computer. Connecting to your loopback network address with one host instance and pressing Alt-tab in between finished turns does the trick in this case. There are over 140 races in-game (not all at the same time on each map, but in total) and each has its own special abilities and characterics. Also weapon types and battles are very complex, the turn-out of a fight can never be easily predicted and slight changes in fleet compositions can have a big effect. Another thing that shines to my eyes is that is free and won't ever cost a thing, not even for addons or anything ;). If a full interactive 3D battle is ever getting implemented, then a really shiny thing is definitely in-game.

Some things from the descriptions are indeed used, like for example if a planet is habitable (gas giants aren't) and it explains why planets have different maximum population numbers to offer. But you're right, the descriptions there are rather for "reading pleasure" than actually having a meaning outside the box ;).

Diplomacy works as follows: Once you get to know / meet another race, it is added to your diplomatic menu in the list at left hand side. You can click on it and see how this race is seeing you (hostile, friendly, optimistic, etc.). By giving gifts you can try to improve your relationships with them. Once they are neutral or higher towards you, you may want to consider offering them a trade treaty. Once accepted, you can lay a trade route towards that race's home system. This gains you money/credits and continuously but slowly improves relationship with them. You can also bribe them if they already belong to another major or have higher treaties with another major.

This holds for the "minors" in-game. A "major" is a race that can be played by humans or AI. These majors expand their territory just like you and they have slightly different diplomatic options, but in the end it should be self-explanatory what a "non-aggressiveness"-pact means and what effects an affiliation or a defence pact with another major race has. So far so generic you might think ;).
 

Gondolin

Arcane
Joined
Oct 6, 2007
Messages
5,827
Location
Purveyor of fine art
Another thing that shines to my eyes is that is free and won't ever cost a thing, not even for addons or anything

B...but don't you know that DLCs are the best way to rob your customers... I mean make money evar?????
 

Malvoisin

Novice
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
20
it's not our intention to make money with this game. It's a hobbyist spare-time project. Besides, it's especially the content that is just lent to us so there would be no way ever we could make money from downloadable content / DLC.

I assume though this was meant a bit kidding wasn't it? ;)
 

Malvoisin

Novice
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
20
thx, do that ;).

I'll post some gameplay hints here in the meantime. They are quite useful to get quick into the game since not everything is crystal-clear yet and/or described fully by tooltip how to manage/handle the game controls and stuff.

  • Options menu bar is by default hidden. You need to move your mouse to the upper left edge of the screen to make it show up. There you can save and/or quit a game.
  • Fleets can be selected by clicking on the race icon on galaxy map in the respective sector. Then on the lower panel on screen the available fleets and ships are shown. Three clicks are needed, first on galaxy map race symbol in the upper right corner of the sector in question, then one left-mouse-click on the ship/fleet in fleet panel below on screen, then on the sector you wish to fly into.
  • Left-click and drag will let you quickly move and scroll around galaxy map. Also, using mouse-wheel, you can zoom in and out of map. Cursors and extra mouse buttons can be used to quickly switch between systems in build menu view.
  • Outposts can be build by transport class ships, just go over the order buttons on bottom right after selecting such a ship, you'll find the correspondingly-named button there. After finishing an outpost, (an)other transporter(s) can even upgrade this outpost to a full starbase by essentially clicking on the same button again for this ship
  • Use resource routes right from the start after you colonized your first world. Most likely it will need titanium for its structures to build and your homeworld has more than enough at the beginning. Resource routes are laid similar to trade routes but work resource-wise, so just one resource per route is possible. Also I would not recommend laying more than one route per system since only one route is for free, more than one go at the cost of trade routes, i.e. for each further resource route you can lay one less trade route from that system.
  • After meeting another alien race (mostly a so-called minor, major homeworlds are not supposed to be close to each other at game start, but it can happen), you can set up diplomatic relationships with this minor. If he is in favor of you, i.e. neutral and above, try to convince him to sign a trade treaty with you. Once accepted, lay a trade route to his homeworld.
    In order to do that, go to system->trade menu and click on trade routes (use your homeworld as starting point first, could be you need to wait a few turns into the game before a trade route is allowed population-wise, you'll get a note however in-game about that), then lay it to the sector in question. After that you'll have the benefit of evergrowing relationship values with this minor. It is slow, but overtime you will see that he becomes more and more friendly towards you (depending on his race traits of course, not all minors act the same way) and eventually offers you better treaties and at last membership.
    Trade routes can be laid to other majors as well when you have a trade treaty or higher with this major (non-aggressive pact does not count here). Since majors mostly got more than one star system under their control, you can lay a full set of trade routes towards their systems (1:1 relationship there, so 1 sector to 1 other sector). Income from that route is calculated by both systems' population so it helps when you have some intel about their system pop. Cancelling a trade route works the same way as laying a trade route, you'll notice it becomes pink on galaxy map and ends in 5 turns.Then you can for example retry to lay a more profitable route if you choose a wrong one the last time (so to sum it up, try to lay evenly routes, i.e. a 30bn. star system should do trade with a 30bn. star system of another alien race and so on, having a 50bn. system doing trade with a 10bn. system is a bit of a waste of credits).
  • Diplomacy menu works as follows: Once you get to know / meet another race, it is added to your diplomatic menu in the list at left hand side. You can click on it and see how this race is seeing you (hostile, friendly, optimistic, etc.). By giving gifts you can try to improve your relationships with them. Once they are neutral or higher towards you, you may want to consider offering them a trade treaty. Once accepted, you can lay a trade route towards that race's home system. This gains you money/credits and continuously but slowly improves relationship with them. You can also bribe them if they already belong to another major or have higher treaties with another major.
    This holds for the "minors" in-game. A "major" is a race that can be played by humans or AI. These majors expand their territory just like you and they have slightly different diplomatic options, but in the end it should be self-explanatory what a "non-aggressiveness"-pact means and what effects an affiliation or a defence pact with another major race has.

Here some more advanced hints start, you may want to find out about them yourself (you can get behind it yourself certainly, they are pretty logical when you think about it ;)):

  • Helping minors terraform their planetary system helps increasing your popularity with them too. That way it can boost relationsships even from hostile towards neutral or above and then you can do as mentioned above to get that minor into your empire.
  • I'd only terraform planets that do not take more than 10 turns at the beginning as a general hint. Also, multiple colonization in one star system boosts population number - though it costs of course a lot to build that second colony ship and works only if there are more than 1 planet in that system and that other planet(s) need(s) to be unterraformed, otherwise it gets colonized too by the first ship colonizing this world - is a thing worth thinking about. When you have >7bn. population in a system, you can build a so-called star-dock. This orbital structure increases range of your fleet and is one of the most useful things at early-game alongside researching engine tech towards level 3 at 100% RP allocation, ignoring the rest a bit because engine tech also increases maximum range of your ships making it possible to colonize and explore worlds that could not be reached before (or only when building expensive outposts to get there).
  • I'd rather not invest too much credits into convincing minors at the beginning, buying colony and transport ships is IMO a bit more useful, but there are several ways to play the game (also depending on the race you choose to play with of course, each has its own special prowess), I just mention my way here.
  • Short explanation on internet connectivity of BotE: The game does not connect to the internet unless someone connects you or you connect to someone outside your LAN for a multiplayer game. Sometimes people misunderstand it and think the game's underlying server-client structure would mean it would connect to some host server on the internet. This isn't the case, it uses just the client applications that you run.

  • Auto-build (AI governor for colony management) can be activated system-wise by going to Empire->Systems menu, and there clicking on a system of your choice and pressing the 'a' key on your keyboard. It then tries to build meaningful things whenever build queue of that system is empty. It cannot be set to different goals however, so you can't tell the governor to focus on ship-building for example. It does what it seems best-fitting for this system.
    The governor is into effect as long as you press 'a' again in the Empire->Systems menu. you see the difference immediately, a system set to auto-build has a red-colored "auto-build" mark in that menu.
    Basically it is the AI that controls this particular system then. It looks up which structures can be built according to system resources storage and then decides for one of them to be built. Sometimes even buys buildings/ships when you have the credits. It also sets workers to places and puts structures that require energy up in energy menu.
    In Alpha7 it is planned to have a menu for the governor to allow/disallow him buying, scrapping, reallocating labor units, etc., also to tell him which direction the colony should be developed to.
    Right now, it's just a testing feature, that's why it's a bit hidden.You can always interrupt the governor by filling the build queue manually. Then all items in the queue will be built and after the last item was built and the queue is empty again, the auto-build automatically kicks in again. So you don't have to press 'a' in the menu to completely switch it off when you decide to take manual command again over that system for a short period of time.
    So basically, it kicks in only when the build queue is empty.
  • In late-game, you can try to build resource allocators (if you have more than 5 colonies in total). These allocators let all your colonies including your homeworld access that specific system's storage for the given resource type. It'a "master-resource-route" so to speak. Very powerful. Yet you should build it in a safe system deep within your own territory and of course with enough mines producing enough of the resource for all your colonies (have a look at planetary bonusses for that resource for example).
  • You can get information on enemy fortifications when hovering your mouse over the enemy system on galaxy map once you are in that sector with your fleet. Then a short tooltip pops up with short information on which orbital platforms are there and which ones are activated although activation status can and mostly will change once there is a battle fleet threatening that system on the AI-side.


Btw. it is "allowed" ;) to take screencaptures from in-game, maybe even create a trailer if you know how to do such stuff. Having a gameplay video surely helps people see quickly what the game is like, more so than screenshots. Also it can help explain game control issues like the ones mentioned above.

We also put up our german manual as an html manual here: http://translate.google.de/translat...r-trek-games.com/birth/handbuch/Handbuch.html

In order to understand battle outcomes better, we have a combat simulator that is used in-game in the background when you hit "Fight", where you can see a tactical view of the combat or statistical data for repeated combats: http://botf2.star-trek-games.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1731
 

Malvoisin

Novice
Joined
Apr 29, 2008
Messages
20
thanks. A few more screenshots are up now in the upper post of mine showing late-game development of major factions on galaxy map.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom