Advice for new players

BOTF Strategy Guide

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mickit
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Advice for new players

Post by mickit »

Hey everyone,

I recently downloaded BOTF and started playing it for the first time since i was 17 (i'm 30 now) and i'm getting just as addicted to BOTF as i was back in the day. My favourite race to play is the Ferengi and i remember winning the game with them. I built a large enough fleet to resist the Borg, annihilated all other races and spread Ferengidom throughout the stars. My inner megalomaniac was well chuffed. Trouble is i have no idea how i did it. Looking back i think it may have been pure dumb luck.

Now that i'm getting back into it, i want to get more serious about the strategy. I was wondering how you guys approach the initial stages of the game. I know rapid expansion is probably important but i find i lose track of what colony is doing what and i don't feel as though the empire grows effectively despite having heaps of territory. This probably because in the rush to expand i'm neglecting structures etc. On dedicating certain systems to solely ship building and other solely to intel and research and others to industry and then makiing notes on which system is doing what to keep track.

Anyway i hope that all makes sense and i'm keen to hear your thoughts and experiences
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Flocke
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Re: Advice for new players

Post by Flocke »

hey mickit, welcome to the forums :)
for the beginning you might want to turn off the borg in stbof.ini file you find in your botf or, in case you play a mod, your mod install directory.
just set or add BORG=OFF
beside that, to beat the borg you need to advance research quick, expand your empire and build up a big fleet or one with good ships and high experience
e.g. I remember having fought the borg with a fleet of maybe fifteen federeation heavy destroyers on legendary and they had no problem to destroy a cube.
for training do alot of fighting or aquire the zakdorn when they are around
beside that just advance as quick as possible and don't rush your turns but take care on systems AND specially as ferengi buy some members but wait till they start to develop

there are also some guids on the forum you might like to read, but as for me, I always liked to figure things myself and think that already makes half the fun since once you've found all the tricks it's no hard match anymore ;)
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Re: Advice for new players

Post by cleverwise »

I have used both the tactic of expanding quickly and slowly. In expanding slowly you obviously have less systems to focus on, makes things easier, and you have less space to defend. The flip side is you have very reduced ship population support, population in general, credits, research, intel, etc. This probably won't be a huge issue at first playing on a huge map as it will take awhile to contact other majors. When I first got the game when it came out I mainly played this way.

Now the reverse side is expand fast and hard. While the computer is developing too (I am assuming you are single player here), you won't have to defend against much. This is the approach you mentioned. However pay more attention to your systems and build them out. At first this can seem concerning as you won't have much on the board but systems. However in a very short time you'll start exploding in research, intel, ship population support, credits, and ships. This is how I now play and I dominate the map. I get so strong even when at war with all four majors it isn't any big deal. Sure they may take a ship here or there but it isn't any big deal. I recently finished a Ferengi campaign where I took over the whole galaxy (no alliance with a major). I was at war with all of them and all fell. I ended up with over 60 systems and over 100,000 credits.

There are lots of good guides but here is what I usually do to build a system. First build a ton of food stations 10+ (I usually buy these), then I build 7 industry buildings (I usually buy these too). I leave all population in the food centers while I build out the industries so that way about 20 turns have gone by. At this point the population is swelling and I start moving some into industry to start building intel (at first to protect myself), energy and research.

You got to get intel going ASAP so other powers don't whack you. Anyway from there it is just a matter of building the various buildings. You can visit each through the list by hitting the left and right arrow keys when on a system build screen, or you may use the systems tab to glance at what each system is doing, or what I often do is look at the events tab and check the system when a building has been completed. This takes some time but pays out big time in a very well develop empire.

If you need some credits build ship(s) and scrap them. I also will start membering some minors once they are developed as you get a nice amount of population and credits from them. Of course you have to adjust there population assignments as they are often stuck in food production and usually have 1000+ extra food which is nuts.
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mickit
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Re: Advice for new players

Post by mickit »

Thanks for the tips so far, guys. It's really helpful. I played a few games last night and noticed that i seemed to encounter other empires pretty quickly, probably around turn 20 or so. I've been playing the ferengi level 5 on a large map and have tried all the various galaxy types. I guess it can vary on the game but is it pretty standard to encounter other empires relatively quickly? I seem to be encountering them within a few turns of each other and sometimes one turn after another. Pretty much straight away i'm then getting hit by espionage and empires are getting pissy about my expansion. It's not a problem but i guess i have a bit of an isolationist playing style and would ideally like the other empires to be on the other side of the galaxy :o). I prefer having time to play with setting up and empire building, and i think it could potentially be more interesting to meet a well established empire later in the game. If it's a case of that's just how the game is then fair enough, i''ll just work at getting better at it. Whilst i understand that encounters are out of the players control for the most part, I was just wondering if this is the typical experience for most players. If so what strategies are used to prolong the chance of a first contact or keep other races relatively at bay for a while?
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cleverwise
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Re: Advice for new players

Post by cleverwise »

I would suggest playing on a large map with lots of minors at level 2. I play those settings often and it takes quite a long time to encounter all the majors. You can often build a decent empire that way.
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Re: Advice for new players

Post by RomSurprise »

i have a bit of an isolationist playing style
My style, too. I can suggest settings more inclined to that style of play:
* tech level: pre-warp. Other races will grow more slowly than at higher tech. (setting your tech higher is a nice edge as you learn the game, again)
* largest galaxy size. Game will take longer, but so will encountering other races.
* no minor races. Other races benefit from gaining a fully developed world (esp Federation), but partly I find them annoying.

The Borg are nasty, and they arrive too early. If you're not comfortable editing your settings file, selecting "random events off" will work.

I played for years without knowing about the "farm growth benefit", so learn from my oversight. A system's growth rate is multiplied by the average of the population and the food output, up to the pop limit. It's a huge boost once your planet has ~60 population, so farms are important.
cleverwise wrote:First build a ton of food stations 10+ (I usually buy these)
Do you mean buy farms before you can fill them? With colonies growing 1/turn, I find plenty of time to build farms normally.
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Re: Advice for new players

Post by cleverwise »

RomSurprise wrote:
Do you mean buy farms before you can fill them? With colonies growing 1/turn, I find plenty of time to build farms normally.
Correct. When starting a new colony I buy several new farms usually around 7 additional ones. The build time for these farms is usually 17+ turns each. No way I am waiting that long. I also buy several industrial centers too. While you are buying these structures the population starts growing faster as I leave ALL population in the farms until I have built out all farms and industrial centers. This is for new colonies and not when you conquer systems or get a minor to join you.
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adi
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Re: Advice for new players

Post by adi »

cleverwise wrote:
RomSurprise wrote:
Do you mean buy farms before you can fill them? With colonies growing 1/turn, I find plenty of time to build farms normally.
Correct. When starting a new colony I buy several new farms usually around 7 additional ones. The build time for these farms is usually 17+ turns each. No way I am waiting that long. I also buy several industrial centers too. While you are buying these structures the population starts growing faster as I leave ALL population in the farms until I have built out all farms and industrial centers. This is for new colonies and not when you conquer systems or get a minor to join you.
I was annoyed by main buildings taking too much to build and upgrade. And so was the AI (because it did not scrap them it took it a long time to upgrade them). So i made a change in UE: all main building levels cost the same as the first level main building. That way they are cheap and you can buy them fast and any upgrade takes one turn and cost 0 (since the cost difference between levels is 0).
It saves you time upgrading and saves AI time upgrading all those unused main buildings it does not scrape.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2568

And even better than this there are moods out there where main buildings upgrade automatically when you reach the right tech level. Like TC's UCW2.0 and Dafedz Ultimate Mod 5.
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