Are there any games like BOTF?

[Deimos]

I started playing BOTF when it first came out, way back in 1999 (gosh I'm old!).

But ever since then, there hasn't been, to my knowledge, an alternative that matches the addictiveness and gameplay functionality of BOTF.

I know there's fan projects like Supremacy etc, but they seem to pale in comparison to BOTF in terms of professional finish/polish and seem to be in a perpetual pre release state.

I've been racking my brain trying to think of games that might come close to BOTF, but am really drawing a blank.

[Dewbacca]

BotF was built from the concept of "Masters of Orion", aka MoO, or it's sequel, MoO2, I'm not sure which.

So games built with that in mind, like Interstellar Space: Genesis or Stellaris (both found on Steam) are in the same vein of turn based galactic strategy games.

List of space strategy games here:
https://www.thegamer.com/best-strategy- ... ace-scifi/

[Deimos]

I've got over 1000 hours in Stellaris, but sadly I've lost interest since their last few expansions, they've made the game way too complex and slow, I find.
Will check out Interstellar space though, thanks!

[Silverbreaker]

yeah, Stellaris is unnecessary complex without a feeling of real impact on the gameplay... and the battles are so awful, to 'easy', to clunky and without any meaning... I cant even describe... I really dislike Stellaris with or without the Star Trek New Horizons Mod.

I play often the Sins of Solar Empire Mod Armada III... and then I become hungry again for BotF because of obvious reasons... its still my favorite 4x-game, after all this time ... and Ive played A LOT of them to find a better one... but Ive never found one. BotF got it all right - in 1999

[Deimos]

Stellaris was a lot better when they had different faster than light drives, then they made every race have the same system to system lane drive, which I think sucks.

Ah well

Yea sins is a good game, only major negative for me is the fact they have this really awesome intro video about the Vasari and this evil menace that's chasing them, but they never added a story mode or campaign? Not even after all the expansions they released.
I think they did a great disservice to the game by doing that.
The sandbox-style gameplay is a lot of fun, but to not add a campaign was a disappointment for me.
They "May" be working on a sins 2, but supposedly due to legal reasons they can't comment (which sounds weird to me), but if they are, hopefully it will be a campaign/story mode with sandbox.

[Iceman]

One of my all-time favorites in the genre (besides MoO and MoO2 obviously) is Armada 2526 with the Supernova expansion, by Bob Smith. Really cool design, awesomely fun PBEM. If you're not put off by BotF's gfx, you won't mind Armada's I guess.

[Deimos]

One of my all-time favorites in the genre (besides MoO and MoO2 obviously) is Armada 2526 with the Supernova expansion, by Bob Smith. Really cool design, awesomely fun PBEM. If you're not put off by BotF's gfx, you won't mind Armada's I guess.

Yea I remember that game, sadly though it has the same annoying turn time issue as BOTF, if not worse.

Not to mention stupid AI diplomacy to boot.

So I played the game here and then I purchaed the gold edition on Gamer's Gate. The game is fun to play and moddable. However once you hit turn 200 or colonize 20 planets the game has a dramatic slow down in game play. At that point you'll mostly be waiting on the Resource or Population Manager, often times 20 mins plus for your turn to come up. At turn 200, I was just getting into the game and having fun. So I checked if there was a fix for this. No fix. Per the developers, the game is not designed to be played for long periods or for you to colonize every planet in sight. I usually won the game after 30-45 minutes of game play, often winning before I ever met another race, having gotten bored with that, I modded the victory conditions for more time. What's the point of having a universe with hundreds of planets, but if you colonize more then 20 planets, the game becomes unplayable with long periods (many minutes waiting on the AI to complete processing your turn) between turns. Eventually you'll get tired of waiting and hit crl+alt+del, kill the game and go play something else.

The other thing is that diplomacy is a joke. The ai will attack you, make peace, agree not to attack you for 20 turns, 5 turns later will attack you again, make peace, make you an ally, attack someone else, you'll attack the enemy of your ally, they'll make peace, you won't even know they made peace, etc. Or you can attack another race, make peace, attack them again, make peace, etc. If a planet has too amny defesnses, buy the planet, the ai will sell any planet they have except their home base. Hey, there's an invasion fleet at your planet, just buy their ships if you have the cash.

Iif you manage to wipe out a race, they'll become friendly and start asking you for tech, even though they don't have any ships or planets and you've completely wiped them out.

I've never been able to get thru all the techs in the game, just takes to long to research them and playing with the default game without modding, you'll just barely scratch the surface. Once you've researched every tech in a particular catagory, it would have been nice to get a messages about it, but you don't so you have to keep checking and then remember to go thru every planet and delete that type of research facility. I have noticed from conquered planets that the ai does not have the same limitations as you do when it comes to building research facilities. So the top tier reseach facility, you can only build 1 for your empire, where as the ai can build 4 per planet. And on top of that, the ai will always be willing to sell you any tech that you don't have and they've researched.

[cleverwise]

I am replying late however for a descent 4X game with lots of charm there is Horizon which is available on Steam. It is a slow moving game with lots of diplomacy (share technology, build alliances [can have many]), research, interesting story lines, the ability to custom design ships, and more.