Birth of the Federation

Hi everyone, first time poster, I'm so happy there is a BOTF community. So I've been playing BOTF the past week and I get to around turn 250 on a medium sized galaxy as the Federation. I'm basically far exceeding the other empires and I'm on normal mode but I can't seem to win. Do I basically have to create an alliance with another empire? They're all so flip floppy, does it take a lot more turns of bribing etc to get into an alliance? I can only do limited bombing of planets as the Feds as you guys know... any advice? I'm assuming Klingon games go faster because you can conquer and your worlds won't rebel.

As feds use other ways to make races declare war on you (intel or combat). when ever you can liberate minors and then get them to join you.

but for game to declare you the winner, you must control 60% or 80% of the galaxy. I forget %

good luck and have fun

thunderchero

Thanks for your reply. So can you be more specific? How do I get to the domination win condition, best method(s)? Is it essentially liberating minor races by using troop transports? Can I have them defect to my side by bringing if they're part of another empire or are they subjugated and need troop transports? What's the best way of getting into an alliance?

domination conditions is 60% on vanilla, but some mods edit this value.
so you must occupy 60% of all inhabited systems before you would get message of "Every major government has admitted our galactic dominance. Shall we accept their surrender?"
as for alliance victory, it is 75% of inhabited systems owned by you and your allies before for you would get this message "Your alliance has achieved dominance. Do you wish to declare victory now or crush all your enemies?"
As you may have noticed getting and keeping an alliance is not easy.

I only mentioned liberating minors to keep your morale up (it give a large morale boost to feds). but minors do count towards systems held. and yes you use troop transports to liberate minors.

If you're playing as the Federation and having trouble conquering planets. I would suggest making a very large Strike fleet as to limit the amount of turns you have to bombard a planet before deploying troops. Couple it with some space victories to raise moral back up after you invade and conquer a planet since that will bring moral down.
good luck

hi and welcome at AFC,

I usually have some systems left to colonize. This always gives a nice moral boost in late game. There's no downside to it (no overcolonization minus or other). Also, winning fights against ships helps. Try to win a number of fights each turn. Farm the spots where the AI produces ships and destroy them. Build fast ships which intercept other fleets. (heavy dest, defiants). Still try to get minor races when you can. Feds get huge moral boosts by treaties. It can't hurt to check the moral chart to see where you get a moral plus from. I think it's somewhere in the Strategy guide - or use Ultimate Editor.

about conquering:

There are different ways.

I usually destroy the orbs first. Hover over a system to see how many it has. This also shows the ground combat strength of said system. A good way is to destroy orbs with heavy ships which pack a punch. When the orbs are down, send a squad of transporters in.

I wouldn't use the fast, smaller ships to conquer although it's a recommend strategy to sacrifice them. I think it's quicker to conquer this way and more an mp tactic. Military intel is an (unreliable) option, too. It can remove orbs but takes ages depending on counter-intel and number of enemy systems plus number of orbs in them - so it's mostly useless imo - just an harrassing option.

Also hover over TTs to see their ground combat strength. Also make sure to have upgraded Transporters.

kind regards