- Original Release: 1999
- Developer: MicroProse
- Publisher: Hasbro Interactive
- Platform: PC
Birth of the Federation is a turn based 4x strategy game (think of a turn-based Stellaris). You can play as the Federation (although it’s just humans), Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians of Ferrengi.
My first attempt ended in tragedy my science ship was lost to a neutron star pretty much straight away, then a major accident happened at another colony and I seemed to not have the dilithium required to build more. I used the game to learn the other parts of the game ready for the next game.
The start of the game is all about colonising systems, sustaining them (either manually or using the handy auto builder). Spacedocks are the most important element as they expand your reach, letting you colonise more star systems. Once you encounter other races, you can offer messages of peace, friendship, give gifts, demand goods or declare war. Unfortunately, the diplomacy is the weakest element. With the major races, it’s pretty much buying time before war, while with minor races if you’re lucky or throw enough money at them, you can get a system and possibly a couple of ships added to your faction as they join you.
There are two game types: control 60% of the galaxy or wipe out two factions that are set as your rivals. At some point, you’re going to need to take over systems owned by other factions, and you can only do so by wiping out all life in the system, which seems a bit overboard. This will anger other factions, so the game seems to be building up your recourses and ships enough to take on everyone near the end. The final part of the games (either winning or losing) seems anti-climatic, as it seems to be having a fleet bomb a defenceless planet (note: I’ve since found out that there are other ways to do this, but it wasn’t clear in the game).
Ship battles can be fought though a turn-based tactical screen, with some tactics working well over others. It mainly comes down to having more and better ships, though.
Birth of a Federation has a lot of depth, and I suspect would have been great when it came out. The genre has evolved a lot since then, so I wouldn’t recommend it now.
Where to get
How to play Star Trek: Birth of a Federation on Windows 11
The Collection Chamber version has been modified to work in Windows 11.
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I loved it a lot, but its just so buggy. There is a remake of it that is better in many ways but last time I checked it had no ai. Anyway…I believe it’s called star trek supremacy.
I remember that game, i played it a lot, but i had no idea what i was doing. The giant Crystal lifeform always destroyed my fleets.
Loved this game. Had a great modding scene too. Fav was ultimate dominion mod that replaced the Ferengi with the Dominion and add in every TNG/DS9/VOY ships and races. I really wish we could get a modern take on this.
I wanted to love this game but I always found myself going back to Star Wars Rebellion (Supremacy in the UK).
Such a great game until the Borg showed up and wrecked your fleets
Remember playing this so much as a kid !, The first strategy game other then AoE that really held my attention. I remember it as being surprisingly deep, rewarding gameplay and very replayable. Here’s hoping Star Trek Infitite can live up to these high expectations
Fantastic game, as addictive as Civilization. The Borg in this game are old-school, “The Best of Both Worlds” badasses who can end your game if your ship research hasn’t progressed far enough. I hope the just-announced Star Trek: Infinite from Paradox can improve on BotF.
I lost so many hours to this, I remember my dad opening my door at age 16 exclaimking why I wasn’t in bed at 4am…i was a bit, but it’s only 11pm….no…no it was 4 am!
I mainly played it just for the combat and to start wars with other species, i just used cheats to get full resources
I bought that game and installed it on my 333mhz computer. It was a bit hard core for my liking. I remember getting to the point you could do tech research and somebody spent some serious time going way in depth on science with it. Was a bit more than I cared to chew.
I loved this game.
The Klingons were the easiest to play as because you could just declare war on everyone. The UFP was the hardest because when you did have to go to war you ended up with protests and members would secede