Does no-one here remember BOF?

[gunnergoz]

I enjoyed BoF but found the galaxy display to be the worst part of it...it was laughably outdated and difficult to get around in and to get information out of. I'd love to see the game brought back out and improved. It had some nice features, like the minor races and their special attributes. It did seem rushed out but I don't recall crash bugs...just stuff that more polishing and beta testing could have cleaned up. And it ran pretty well on the system I had at the time, which was slightly above the mainstream but not a "hot setup."

[Gyromancer]

I'd give BotF a 6 out of 10, just behind SE IV and a tiny bit ahead of Ascendancy (since the AI could actually play the game most of the time...)

My biggest problems with the game:
Couldn't design ships.
Cloak was WAY too powerful.
The whole tech system was BORING.
The production facility upgrade model was terrible.
The happiness model was too simplistic. (Though I liked the race-dependent nature of it.)
It was the first game I ever had that used the perma-spin on the CD rom as a copy protection scheme.


Still, it was good for 200-300 hours of gaming. (It was a slow year as I recall....

[Kloreep]

Yep, I've played BOTF. I still have it, too, but not on my comp. It was immersive, I'll give it that; and the game seemed like it could have been really fun. But MM became too much of a pain to bother. Also, I found colonies took way too long to develop; IMO, they didn't properly balance population growth.

[Master-Mike]

I loved BOTF. Me and a mate still play it sometimes. We had games that lasted weeks, starting at tech 1 level and reaching level 10. We had big battles numerous times invading each others planets to get an advantage. Were really looking forward to MOO3, week long games, bring it on. I hope they build at BOTF style game base of the MOO3 engine, that would be great. I hope some developers are listening. I look forward to playing 18 hours straight m/p games, did that once with BOTF.

[Anguille2]

I still play Botf...it's my favorite space game. MOO2 takes it's place from time to time (more often these days) as the gameplay is better...still Botf has so many things i love (music and display for each race; 3d space battles; minor races; borders and neutral zones...)
I hope they'll make a sequel someday...may depend on the success of MOO3.

[Hydro]

I remember BotF was billed as the “Next Moo!”. Well, it wasn’t, but I still liked it and still play it from time to time. On the plus side, I liked that each race had distinct advantages and disadvantages that were tied into their strategy, and I liked the minor races. The combat system was a little Moo3-like where you give general orders to your ships, which took a while to get used to after micromanaging Moo.

I didn’t like the linear tech tree that had a couple of objectives, and the lack of rush building and scrapping penalties (scrap a transport for full value, then build a transport at a colony you established last turn in one year without penalty – I don’t think so). There were some bugs, but nothing that crashed the game or made it unplayable.

It could have been much better done, and suffered from a terrible galaxy map. Cloak was too powerful, especially on a Kvort class Klingon uber-cruiser, and the Cardassians were completely hopeless. As has been said, it didn’t live up to what it could have been! Maybe one day it will be Moo3-ed?

Hydro

[Organ001]

When I first got MOO3 I have a P-133 and I thought the 5mins/turns was because my computer sucked, but when I got a P3 awhile later, the 5mins turns were still there
Other than that, I never had any bugs, I didnt even there were patches until recently when I decided to reinstall it.
I agree that the cloak was broken, 9 Romulan Warbird would smoke anything in the game, including the Borg.
I remember when once the Borg invaded the galaxy on the other side of the map and took over two small empires and once the Borg have a couple colonies and start producing cubes... damn the game got hard.
I think I must have lost like 200 destroyers as cannon fodder while my Soverigns took out the cubes.
Hmmm... I think im going to play again

[Hydro]

200 Fed destroyers! When I have over 20 plus DDs, a handful of CLs, CCs and some support ships my maintenance starts bankrupting my economy! What level did you start, and what turn was it?

I mainly played Fed and I never beat a Borg Cube. Since I started Early (level 2) or Advanced games (level 3 industry to start) the Borg turned up around turn 100 killed everyone since there were no fleets that even had a chance except Romulan (maybe I’ll start a Rommie game, just to see). So, I turned random events off. Sigh.

Another problem – Roms have the second best negotiation rate in the game, which struck me as odd for a xenophobic race. I’d have thought the Ferengi would be better, but their only advantage is establishing trade and getting better sympathy without bribes. But, they have to generate a lot more sympathy to develop than Feds (who have it easy) or Roms (who are just slightly worse than Feds). Of course, the minor races dislike the Cardassians and Klingons. Who can blame them?

I never had a huge problem you describe with long turn resolutions.

Also, I have no sound with BotF in XP. Kind of a blessing, though...

Hydro