Star Trek: Birth of the Federation Review
Mar. 19th, 2007 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
demonicgerbilBEHOLD
A disappointing strategy/conquest game.
Released by Microprose towards the end of that company's lifetime, Birth of the Federation promised a Master of Orion or Civilization like experience set in the Star Trek universe. The game's designers certainly did all of the appropriate things for the atmosphere of the experience, but they failed on the implementation leaving it an interesting but ultimately unsatisfying one.
Like other 4X games, the goal is quite simple: Grow and expand your empire, crush your enemies, and ultimately meet whatever victory condition you have for that game and win. Birth of the Federation has two options available for victory conditions: the normal dominance approach, which can be won cooperatively with an ally, and the vengeance approach where each empire's goal is to destroy a specific other empire, making for a potentially more brutal game.
Each race in the game has its own graphical skin and its own sound effects. As you play through it, it sucks you in so that you feel like you're something more than just a player messing around with a game. The Federation's blue skin bring backs memories of Star Trek: Next Generation. The Klingon's skin emphasizes their violence nature. The Cardassian skin feels like something pulled right out of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The voices used in the game and the sound effects are likely tailored for each race.
Planetary management is fairly standard: You order buildings or ships constructed and allocate population between various tasks. The map screen has a variety of overlays that can be displayed on top of it, allowing for a variety of information to be displayed. This makes keeping an eye on the empire fairly simple.
Technology is generated by assigning population to work in research. There are several fields of study available and the amount of research going into each one can be controlled with sliders. The different levels of technology typically allow the construction of more advanced buildings on planets, but certain levels of technology open up the construction of different ships as well.
Diplomacy in this game, unfortunately, isn't very well constructed. The other major powers in the universe tend to backstab far too often, which often sabotages their own efforts. The minor powers can be entirely swayed by money, except the Vulcans who automatically join the Federation almost as soon as they meet each other. The minor races are useful, however, as they bring unique special buildings to the empire which can have far-reaching empire-wide effects.
Movement of ships around the map screen takes place between turns, and when two opposing fleets meet during the movement phase they can engage in combat. Combat is handled by giving out orders to either groups of ships, or individual ships, followed by the AI carrying out those orders. Unfortunately battles tend to have little strategy to them. The most effective approach almost always is being the first with the most to the fight - unless you're playing the Romulans, because their ships have cloaking technology they get to act first, meaning that they can often decimate an opposing force before the enemy can react.
Now for a quick scoring summary for those of you keeping track of the numbers:
Gameplay: 4
This is more or less Master of Orion's jealous little brother. It doesn't have the same depth in ship construction or tactics as Master of Orion, it also doesn't have the simple depth of Master of Orion 2's planetary management. Upgrading old buildings constantly in Birth of the Federation is just tedious, defending your borders virtually impossible due to being unable to maintain a large enough fleet to guard it all. This could have been much better.
Graphics: 8
The graphics are perhaps the best part of the game, setting the mood and drawing you into it despite the sub-par gameplay.
Sound: 8
Another excellent feature, Birth of the Federation's audio is very fitting for the setting.
Replay: 6
It's easy to devote the time needed for a few games to this title, but the annoyances quickly add up
Other: N/A
Birth of the Federation also has its share of bugs. When played on the computer I bought it for (a Windows 98 machine), it suffered mysterious slowdown about a hundred turns into the game, no matter the size of the galaxy or what race was being played. Later patches have fixed the crashes that plagued (at least for me) the version which shipped.
Overall: 5
Birth of the Federation is an unfortunate 4X game that gets all the atmosphere and feel right, but misses out on the genre's most fundamental point: the gameplay.
A disappointing strategy/conquest game.
Released by Microprose towards the end of that company's lifetime, Birth of the Federation promised a Master of Orion or Civilization like experience set in the Star Trek universe. The game's designers certainly did all of the appropriate things for the atmosphere of the experience, but they failed on the implementation leaving it an interesting but ultimately unsatisfying one.
Like other 4X games, the goal is quite simple: Grow and expand your empire, crush your enemies, and ultimately meet whatever victory condition you have for that game and win. Birth of the Federation has two options available for victory conditions: the normal dominance approach, which can be won cooperatively with an ally, and the vengeance approach where each empire's goal is to destroy a specific other empire, making for a potentially more brutal game.
Each race in the game has its own graphical skin and its own sound effects. As you play through it, it sucks you in so that you feel like you're something more than just a player messing around with a game. The Federation's blue skin bring backs memories of Star Trek: Next Generation. The Klingon's skin emphasizes their violence nature. The Cardassian skin feels like something pulled right out of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The voices used in the game and the sound effects are likely tailored for each race.
Planetary management is fairly standard: You order buildings or ships constructed and allocate population between various tasks. The map screen has a variety of overlays that can be displayed on top of it, allowing for a variety of information to be displayed. This makes keeping an eye on the empire fairly simple.
Technology is generated by assigning population to work in research. There are several fields of study available and the amount of research going into each one can be controlled with sliders. The different levels of technology typically allow the construction of more advanced buildings on planets, but certain levels of technology open up the construction of different ships as well.
Diplomacy in this game, unfortunately, isn't very well constructed. The other major powers in the universe tend to backstab far too often, which often sabotages their own efforts. The minor powers can be entirely swayed by money, except the Vulcans who automatically join the Federation almost as soon as they meet each other. The minor races are useful, however, as they bring unique special buildings to the empire which can have far-reaching empire-wide effects.
Movement of ships around the map screen takes place between turns, and when two opposing fleets meet during the movement phase they can engage in combat. Combat is handled by giving out orders to either groups of ships, or individual ships, followed by the AI carrying out those orders. Unfortunately battles tend to have little strategy to them. The most effective approach almost always is being the first with the most to the fight - unless you're playing the Romulans, because their ships have cloaking technology they get to act first, meaning that they can often decimate an opposing force before the enemy can react.
Now for a quick scoring summary for those of you keeping track of the numbers:
Gameplay: 4
This is more or less Master of Orion's jealous little brother. It doesn't have the same depth in ship construction or tactics as Master of Orion, it also doesn't have the simple depth of Master of Orion 2's planetary management. Upgrading old buildings constantly in Birth of the Federation is just tedious, defending your borders virtually impossible due to being unable to maintain a large enough fleet to guard it all. This could have been much better.
Graphics: 8
The graphics are perhaps the best part of the game, setting the mood and drawing you into it despite the sub-par gameplay.
Sound: 8
Another excellent feature, Birth of the Federation's audio is very fitting for the setting.
Replay: 6
It's easy to devote the time needed for a few games to this title, but the annoyances quickly add up
Other: N/A
Birth of the Federation also has its share of bugs. When played on the computer I bought it for (a Windows 98 machine), it suffered mysterious slowdown about a hundred turns into the game, no matter the size of the galaxy or what race was being played. Later patches have fixed the crashes that plagued (at least for me) the version which shipped.
Overall: 5
Birth of the Federation is an unfortunate 4X game that gets all the atmosphere and feel right, but misses out on the genre's most fundamental point: the gameplay.