Star Trek: The Next Generation - Birth of the Federation

aka: BotF
Moby ID: 2508

Description official descriptions

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Birth of the Federation is a 4X turn-based strategy game most similar to Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares. Players choose one of five major races: Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian or Ferengi, and expand their territory through diplomatic relations with minor races and colonizing new planets, as well as upgrade infrastructure and ships, spy on and fight other players, handle random events such as Borg incursions, and research new technologies.

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Credits (Windows version)

110 People (100 developers, 10 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 69% (based on 25 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 23 ratings with 4 reviews)

Just not quite enough to satisify.

The Good
(Civ for Star Trek fans) The tech tree was well thought out and it had a great idea. In some flops the whole basis for the game is flawed to varing degrees. In this one the foundation was well layed and could go anywere.

The Bad
... its just that it never did go anywhere. First it only included New Generation ships and tech. A major major mistake. You start out on earth with no other planets and ships that look like the picards generation? In all fairness to the designers I am sure they would have loved to included a look of the old, and a proper tech progression but were restrained due to contract infringement. They only had rights to produce a game based on the New Generation not the whole series. However the damage was done and if you play the game you just cant get past that major flaw. Second major gripe is that some minor races (Vuclan, Bajoran, ect) that should never join certain powers will.

The Bottom Line
If you can find it in the bargin bin under five dollars its worth a few hours of play but not more.

Windows · by William Shawn McDonie (1131) · 2000

One of the best StarTrek games ever made

The Good
This game has provided many many hours of fun and enjoyment. Both Single Player and Multi Player.

Turn based stratagy game, can choose between 5 races. Great Mods available on the net.

The Bad
A little buggy and no one had made a sequel YET.

The Bottom Line
If your a Star Trek fan & like to use your head, and are fed up with mindless shooters, try BOTF.

One of my favorite games and I have spent more time playing it than any other game. Lots of replay value.

Windows · by Tony Montana (1) · 2003

Far too complicated!

The Good
I wish there was some way to scale this game back. I really enjoyed some elements of it: building armadas and defending my territories was great, opening diplomatic relations with new species was interesting. However, making sure the people on one planet were entertained wasn't.

This game would have worked if the scope were limited. Every aspect of the game looked good, sounded good, and played well, but having to deal with incredible amounts of minutiae every turn really bogged the game down.

But I will complain more later.

I really liked the interface. The interface resembled the computers used by the various species in ST:TNG so the Federation interfaced looked like the Enterprise computer's, etc. The sounds were great, ranging from familiar beeps and whistles to the thunderous impact of a proton(photon?) torpedo. I also like how you could adjust the parameters of gameplay as far as how much of the galaxy you had to control.

The Bad
Remember Star Wars: Rebellion? The controls of BOTF are better (infinitely better) but BOTF could have improved by lessening its scope, or by offering some level of automation.

The game was turn based which isn't terrible, but later turns (80+) had incredibly long load times.

There was also a fundamental problem in BOTF commented on by another reviewer, the Next Generation universe was a poor choice for this style of game. Within this time period, you already know too much about the different species and technologies to make a first contact type game viable. This would have been feasible in the Enterprise universe (referring to the series), but it doesn't make sense to have ST:TNG level technology when you are just leaving the earth.

Also a cute randomizing factor (which you can toggle) allows the Borg and Doomsday devices to show up and destroy everything. Hmmm, great idea.

The Bottom Line
Light years beyond Star Wars: Rebellion but just as flawed. Actually does too good of a job on every aspect, resulting in slow, tedious gameplay.

Windows · by Terrence Bosky (5397) · 2002

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Licensing

The game strictly had a license for using races and ships from Star Trek: The Next Generation, but not the other shows of the franchise which partially overlapped in the in-universe timeline. This is why, for example, the Trill race used their TNG look instead of their better-known one from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. One exception is the Federation Defiant-class ship which debuted in DS9, and appears in this game due to a loophole as it was present in the 1996 TNG film Star Trek: First Contact.

Macintosh

A Macintosh port was announced by MacSoft in July 1998, but was ultimately not released.

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  • MobyGames ID: 2508
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by coder.

Additional contributors: Opipeuter, Plok.

Game added October 14, 2000. Last modified March 6, 2024.