Birth of the federation, is it worth the bucks?

bump left in three two one....

AFAIK you can't register a serial number that has been used before, so you would only be able to play version 1.0x.

Don't be silly, this game is one of the greatest games ever and if you liked Bitrth of the Federation, you will love GalCiv, especially GalCiv2 and you definitely want to play the newest improvements (pathes aren't just bugfixes here).

Forget about ebay, get a new one or purchase it online directly from Stardock ...


Edit: Ok, I'm stupid! Think you're asking if you should buy Birth of the Federation. I won't. it is outdated ...

Yup its birth of the federation i'm interested in. Don't care if its dated, i just wanna try my hand at some Tak.

Birth of the federation is a great game especially if you like the star trek flavour.
You might need a seperate win 98 hard drive to run it tho, I know I did, Just could not get a fully formatted XP PC to run it.
In some ways it is similar to gal civ 2, each race has its own skin even voices when you give orders. VERY flavoursome if you get my meaning. Also you get the Borg who turn up half way through the game and try to ruin your day, Each race has different ways of dealing with that.
Worth the money? oh yes. worth the time? oh yes.
I do not think you will have any issues with buying a 2nd hand game as you would with gal civ 2, just the xp problems,

Nice one cebuggy! Damn you windows XP! Looks like I might need to take one of the work computers home with me - (I will ask!) Hows the tactical combat element in it?

There is a program or mode under XP that allows you to tell it what OS a program prefers and it will attempt to mimic that OS. I just can't remember its name or how to do it. I have used it on previous games that only ran well on Win95 and it worked.

Really? Can't get it to work on XP? I don't have that problem. As a matter of fact, I've got it installed on all three of my network machines, 2 XP and one Win98. When I have CD's in the drives for each, I can play 2 of my friends.

Tactical combat in BOTF was simplistic at best. You can choose one of (I think) four different attack styles, each one 'aimed' at defeating one of the other four. Basicaly it's who's got the bigger, and (almost more importantly) more experienced guns. That being said, they took pains to make sure that each of the five races had it's very own feel and flavour.

I still enjoy a good game of Birth of the Federation every now and then. The hardest part is talking my friends into the same.

Alfb, it's called 'compatability mode' Right click on the executable, choose properties, then the compatability tab and tell it that it's running in windows 98. However, it should definitely NOT be necessary. Like I said, I've gotten mine working on two different installs of XP home and it' works great, no 'spoofing' or tricking necessary.

Nice one bondkitty - cool nick BTW

I think the actual probelm with BOTF and MOO2 on XP is the formating of the drives ro XP mode. Some people can get it to run, other cant, I think this is the issue.
Most problems with the PC... well I just shout a lot, get drunk and moan to the wife a lot. Next morning it all works great. What a great wife I have


And if that fails we call in my internet cafe techie ( oh fuc*) , that is now my son. The PC is doomed.

birth of the federation was not worth the time for me, I do not even know why anymore, its too long ago

I looked forward for the game, I purchased it, I installed it, I played it a coumple of hours and I sold it on ebay because I didnt like it.

i liked it a lot, have had some problems not getting it to run on my xp machine, but up until i got that i played it all the time, in my opinion its not that dated, still looks good, the combat worked nicely, it was like galciv but in the trek universe, i guess the question would be, how much is it on ebay? more then $20 i dont know if id waste the money, but its a good game to have around when you have nothing else you feel like playing, id still play it once a week if i could. id say get it unless it is really a lot of money.

Not only isn't it worth the money - it's not even worth the time you'd spend loading it onto your PC. Too much effort went into making it Star Trek and not enough into making it playable.

I think Starfleet Command 3 is underrated. I really enjoyed it from the story and the pace....

I am looking forward to Star Trek Legacy as well.....but I am a ST SW fan.


Gal Civ 2 is damn good.

I enjoyed playing BotF and considered it a close successor to MOO2. Just make sure you get the update patch, it helped with gameplay issues and I believe a memory leak that left you stranded in mid game.

Is it worth it? Sure! Would I pay a large chunk o' change on eBay? Well, it depends, not more than $40 including shipping. But then again I did pay big bucks for Sid Meiers Alien Crossfire for Alpha Centauri & also the original X-Com on CD! Now those are some great games!

I still play SF2 & Orion Pirates online from time to time. Even with all the mods and patches I just couldn't find the love for SF3.

Gal Civ 2, now here is a damn fine game and its currently sharing my time with only one other current game, BF2, which is a completely different experience. Sometimes i play hard, sometimes i play smart!

Frookie, I have Win XP and have no problems playing BotF. I really like the game and whole heartedly recommend it. As to should you buy it, I would say that depends on the price. Shop around you might find a cheaper copy. I'm seeing them on Amazon for $60 and up to almost $100. While BotF is a great game, I don't think any game, especially an older one is worth that kind of money. Frookie go on IRC and type /join #thegamingvault and I will talk to you more about the game.

You will love it if you like

Horribly unbalanced ships
Constant, fiddly micromanagement
Terrible tactical combat
UI that tries to tear out your eyes
The serious possibility of it taking you an hour to get started.

I've got it, and I even tried to play it a few months ago. It's awful - for some reason it took jiggery pokery to get it working (which it didn't last time), it looks like absolute ass, the micromanagement is depressing, the diplomacy is exploitable, the ships are shockingly unbalanced. The harder difficulties ARE hard, because the AI cheats it's dirty ass of, but I really can't see any reason to play it beyond 'you get a boner for Star Trek stuff'. Just wait for the GC2:ST mod to be finished - then you'll even get ship models with more than fifty polys.

Thats a pretty mixed response for BOTF. While I like the Startrek Idea and have watched almost all the iterations of the franchise, I do not consider myself a trekkie. The game is going to be roughly the equivalent of $45-50. A pretty steep investment for a 2nd hand game, but not really an issue, if I don't like it at least it has a decent resell value.

Thanks for the input guys.

BOTF for $40-$100???!!! LOL

It's a nice time-consuming game, but it's not all that (yes, I do have it currently installed on my XP...works fine).

The critisicims are valid. BOTF takes forever to get moving and once you've figured out what ships work best, the AI won't be able to keep up with you. Late game turns take forever. The Borg are wimps (7 Federation Dreadnaughts will destroy a borg every time... if you have 9, you won't even lose a ship.....6 cloaked Romulan Marauders works just as well).

However....it IS Star Trek and is an enjoyable game until you figure out the cheese factors. I still play it occasionally just to enjoy stomping on the arrogant Federation pukes.

When I want to play an old game on windows xp,

I go to to graphics property and I recude the material acceleration.

It work for everygame, I can run x-com 1 without any problem. Well X-Com2 do not work good but the first one is better hehe. (the great classic !!)