Q: How to fragment an empire

BOTF Strategy Guide

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RSP_101
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Q: How to fragment an empire

Post by RSP_101 »

Good afternoon guys/girls,

I stumbled across BOTF the other month by accident when looking at some other stuff and immediately received forgotten hours of my life back from childhood. I can't believe I had forgot about the game and now its taking some hammering, much to my wife's upset. Thanks guys lol. You guys have done a fantastic job with the game and all the add-ons, still working through them.

So to the question, I do apologise if this has been covered previously. I did have a good look round but couldn't see anything directly on this topic. On my first game back I jumped straight into I got my butt handed to me. Seems I'd lost all the tricks of the trade too so I had a read of Calladice’s FAQ Birth of the Federation: A Strategy Guide. This with some practice got me back up on my feet and I can hold my own now. However there is one part I cannot for love nor money get to work and that is section 14 specifically "War of Attrition". It makes reference to native members of an empire being so demoralised that they claim independence and become their own minor system to be bought or subjugated.

I decided to do 3 tests across two games, as per below and the morale of the other empires doesn't change nor do systems start claiming independence. Is it something I am missing/not doing or is it just not possible??? Memory not being the best I thought I had achieved this as a kid but I could of been daydreaming.

Game 1 Test 1 - Large No Build Upgrade Mod, Large Galaxy, Irregular, Many minors, from T1 and I was the Romulans

Rather thank talking from the beginning, the following happened:

Met the Federation, decided they needed new management (as did the Klingons from the other side). Met the Klingons in the middle, bye bye federation. The Klingons morale was fanatic as you would expect and I decided I would try and degrade it. Followed the advice in the strategy by sabotaging their economy (getting reports every turn), raiding their systems and blowing up every ship in site. After multiple turns, no change to Klingon morale and no systems running free I thought I'd give a stronger persuasion to be upset by taking systems off them. To wrap things up, I captures half the Klingon sytems (roughly 12-15) and the Klingons morale was still at Fanatic. After everything I have read on morale and the Klingons, this seems a bit high. Needless to say, my strategy to split the empire had failed and I invaded the lot to win the game.

This encouraged me to have another go:
Game 2 Test 2 - Birth Of The Federation, Large Galaxy, Irregular, Many minors, Opposition T1 but I was T5 as the Federation (to speed up the test)

So I am in testing mode now and wanted to keep all competitors at 6 systems max. I took over the galaxy, got every minor race, boxed all 4 empires in and set my systems up for intel. Before the onslaught, the morale of each empire was (R, F, K = Content, C = Apathetic). I went to town on all 4 at the same time, sabotaging, spying, fleets of defiants raiding and destroying every single ship that moved. Multiple turns had passed and my empire was fanatic which was great but still no change to their morale. I saved my game here as test 3 takes a little alternate path from here. Still on test 2 I start invading Cardassian systems, with only the home system left, no ship and struggling to sabotage anything else I wasn't very happy that they only had a constant mild displeasement. So this was a similar outcome to the first. Maybe I did daydream it but why would someone put it in their strategy guide if its possible.

Game 2 Test 3 - from the saved point before the Cardassian invasion

So I can't get enemy systems to fragment but I wonder if my goodie Federation systems would leave me??? Only one way to find out, I declared war on every major and minor race and bombed every system till there were no inhabitants left. I did feel some guilt by the time I had wiped out the Cardassians, the Ferengi, the Klingons and half the minor races, plus my systems were very mad at me. They were all rebellious at 1 morale after the Cardassians and even the contined bombing of the rest did not cause one system to leave me.


Sorry its a long one but its really annoying me that I might have missed something. Any help would really be appreciated, cause if its not possible then I'll go back to being my happy self, never be the federation again and carrying on invading the galaxy with the chilled out empires.

Thanks guys.
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thunderchero
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Re: Q: How to fragment an empire

Post by thunderchero »

Hi RSP_101,

The best answer is Calladice’s guide was based on original version and does not apply to most mods with code changes.

Large maps, no upgrades and code changes, changes how AI will react to everything so you need to develop your own strategies.

So just enjoy the game, or if you want to try a "War of Attrition" use original version "vanilla"
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Spocks-cuddly-tribble
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Re: Q: How to fragment an empire

Post by Spocks-cuddly-tribble »

Hi RSP_101,

First, I presume you are talking unmodded 'vanilla' BotF (many mods alter/fix exploits/bugs i.e. game mechanics).

1. To enable rebellions the random events must be turned on (due to a structural programming error):
viewtopic.php?f=242&t=1082#p15820

Also note the random events on/off button in the options menu has a strange bug:
viewtopic.php?f=229&t=1493#p20540

2. Morale data of foreign empires in the intel screen is only updated for three turns after first contact, unless updated by espionage (indicated by changing colour IIRC).
I don't know how many bugs is too many but that point is reached somewhere before however many in BotF is.
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RSP_101
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Re: Q: How to fragment an empire

Post by RSP_101 »

Cheers for the info, seems I was looking in the wrong areas and I didn’t realise that aspect was lost during modifications. Happy days and thanks again.
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