Ok firstly, well done for getting this game going. I was a fan of BOTF so its good to see this. Ive just started to have a play - spent a bit of time as Feds, then Klingons then Romulans and there are a few things to note. Firstly, it wasnt immediately obvious how you move ships. I read a comment elsewhere about this and eventually worked it out which brings me onto the main issue. Although knowing BOTF i was a bit put off at first with no clear rules set. The manual is in German and when i translated it the English was very poor (ok the fault of the translation i know) but also the rules barely told me anything - almost as if a presumption is made that players will have familiarity when familiarity should not be presumed.

Ive basically had to play around, make mistakes and save the game and try different things, not made easier by the errors in the English - although i understand English may not be the first language of the writers. Some aspects can be worked out, like working out building barracks to get the troops to transport or scrolling down the build list - when there was no visible scroll bar/sign you could do this. I am still working out Intel as ive noticed a few times after ive set my intel that no intel investment seems to have been made and i now see you have to invest in the espionage first - which actually i quite like.

I also note that when i load a saved game it still gives me the option of choosing race - this means you could log on as an opposing race and gather info and then reload and start as played race.

Still, i like what i see so far. But i really think the manual needs working on and have more detail.

Will there be an option to start at different tech levels as with BOTF?
Unless ive missed it, is there a tech tree in the game like with BOTF, to see what advancements are there especially ships?

Alpha7 promises "graphical start menu, omega race, additional start parameters like galaxy shape and size" etc ... and I've been watching here, progress seems slow but steady.

Of course you could technically abuse the save/load as another empire, to gain information or manipulate events. You could even play as multiple empires simultaneously (via network or "hotseat") ... in Alpha6 you can theoretically control 5 of the 6 major races every turn. There's really no way to prevent such meta-game cheating - although it might be limited if the game kept player-assignments in the savedata, or if it enabled a password-lock option for each human player. The game designers can't really prevent cheating if people insist on cheating, especially since BotE is opensource.

Thanks for your nice words and your feedback.

Indeed it's a problem to get familar very quick with BotE - and more in English but also in German. Yes - the manual is nice to read but a Quick Play Guide would be better...

long-lasting solutions like ingame-tutorial or ingame-advisors we try to get through via some -mostly German- things like http://translate.google.de/translate?hl ... e_Schritte .

Sometimes I'm collecting further topics also here http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... hl%C3%A4ge when I have time for it. I can give you access if you'll want to add some topics (after you registered there)


Some helpers also wanted to translate or write additional help in native English but yet no result came back to us.

But don't hesitate to ask whenever you have a question or a feedback or a better ingame English text.

Well I'm not an intel specialist but
- most important is your own inner security (intel reserve maybe 80%)
- 2nd sabotage (brings advantages to you, needs -belonging to the race- MANY intel % = intel points), also avaible without any espionage
- espionage brings you some informations and then you can do some special sabotage, but atm not very efficiently - thoughts about making it more efficient are done

we have many long-lasting plans, also for starting on higher levels or a ingame-techtree... atm you can (only) modify starting conditions by StartBulidings.data and Startships.data http://translate.google.de/translate?hl ... stellungen

some info about ships are here http://translate.google.de/translate?hl ... B6deration but better way is ingame tooltip http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... au-Tooltip - in addition to weapons, shields etc. upkeep costs should be focused.

Some old info about ships (but in English) are also here http://www.botf2.com/bote/default.aspx

hope you'll enjoy BotE some further time (and you'll get more familar with it)

...and think about: if you're a single player - the only person you're cheating is yourself...so starting as another race for getting info is a feature not a bug ...starting it to continue a almost lost game with another race maybe keeps your fun...

there are editors in the ../bote/data/.. subfolders that show you detailed information about ships, buildings, etc. which may count as some sort of tech tree. But still, like with the meta-game-cheats, the version right now is Alpha, so it's kind of an developing version where players are given more choices in their hands in order to test out bugs for example. So the emphasis is more on testing rather than actual (restrictive) competitive gameplay.

a short video sometimes tells more than long text, so what we are basically hoping for players (especially the natively english-speaking ones) like you to do is to work through all/most of the details of the game so far and then explain the basic ones in a (maybe HD) screencapture video while playing the game so that everyone can share what he has learned "the hard way" so to speak. That would be the optimal case. The other possibility would be to manually translate or create a new english manual. But this seems way more tedious than just do a short 10 minutes video (or multiple 1 minute ones) which might even be included into the release version if it explains it really good and the one creating it agrees to that.

as for game development, we are currently debugging the whole code since we encountered major stability problems after introducing variable galaxy shapes and sizes. It is making steady progress and hopefully soon enough we can eliminate all relevant memory leaks.

Indeed this would be the best...examples here (but only in German) http://birth-of-the-empires.de/phpBB3/v ... 215#p25215

Thanks for the comments. Im currently not getting anywhere with Intel by using Espionage so will have a pop at sabotage direct - although i do like the idea of espionage leading to enhanced sabotage.

As for the changing of races mid game to get a lead, i agree its a no-no, but i noticed it was there...

Im going to play a few games with each race to get up to speed with the feel of them. I wonder though whether there will be the option of starting at different techs like with BOTF.

The minor races i like - a lot - some similarities are there understandably to those in BOTF which is good, but i like the sheer variety i've seen so far - clearly some nice work has gone into this. Its also nice to see the absence of AI scouts hurling themselves at my starbases pointlessly. Terraforming and the systems generally looks much better and i quite like the feel of the different resources and the effect on micromanagement.

One problem of note with the Rotharians is cloaking vessels. I select cloak only to find it is not always then activated and i dont find out until the turn runs - even when it does activate.

not getting results with intel can have 2 origins: first, you just produced too few intel points, i.e. you need to allocate more labor units to your intel facilities because the enemy's inner security is stronger than you. this would be the trivial cause. The other one is that you forgot to actually tell your agents to start working. In botf, you could not change the timing of your intelligence work. In bote, you have 2 depots. first depot is race-specific and describes the initial "infiltration" phase. second depots is time-dependent and allows you to determine which percentage of infiltrated "sleeping" agents are actually recruited and do espionage or intel attempts at that given turn.

So you need to actually use your collected intel points in a second menu window and spent these points to get results. This is especially useful if you want to pre-infiltrate an empire prior to actually declaring war and then strike with a huge intel force at once crushing let's say the military in the first few turns of the war.

Doing espionage before sabotage is indeed helpful since only this approach allows you to do special attempts and previously espionaged targets like stealing a ship or something like that. Sabotage alone is not that specific and tends to waste more intel points by hitting "2 unimportant primitive farms in the backyard of that empire" than the other way I mentioned.

different starting techs are planned, yes.

activating the cloak is indeed a bit difficult. this arises from the fact, that we use a rather old GUI library called Microsoft MFC. As many things that come from that company, it somehow behaves strangely when things get a little more complicated that 1 + 1 so in our case, if you simulataneously give that fleet another order that you want to cloak, then it gets overidden in most cases. But not when you give that cloak order first, then click somewhere, get back to the fleet and then give a new fleet movement order. well..

Ok one issue has cropped up. Playing as Cartare Union and in my push vs the Rotharians i note their empire has fallen. I note there are 3 systems close by still with populations so presume either its an error or the empire has collapsed into chaos. I attack the systems and the option to attack appears, but there was no attack resolution. I try to colonise thinking it might be an error then attack a similar system twice elsewhere but the attack doesnt get resolved. I get the option to attack, i have transports with security forces but no result. So what happened? Even if the empire has fallen i should still get the opportunity to take over the system that is now in a state of anarchy/independence.

their empire has probably fallen apart largely (like it was also possible in botf) and the invasion algorithm (still) only works on major empires so it's not implemented yet to conquer systems that have separated from the enemy empire. Maybe Alpha 7, probably fixed in Alpha 8.

you have to bomb those systems down and recolonize for the time being.

One issue that has cropped up. Playing as Coalition ive reached 9 techs but then im told there are no more techs to research. Ive won before via 10 techs so dont know what the problem is.

Also another Qu. What advantage does having a monopoly have? i say this because ive not noticed any benefit.

in alpha7 there are more than 10 tech (15 to be exact). It's just that they are missing in alpha6.

monopolies will have you gain money from transactions other major players take on the stock exchange trading for that specific resource, so if anyone tries to buy titanium and you have the monopoly, you will get a 15% fee for that transaction automatically the next turn, i.e. it gets more expensive for other players to buy that resource and you make money all the time they do.

btw. we are currently looking for some testers of our latest pre-alpha7 developer version build and it seems you are getting quite deep into gameplay so if you want to help us find some bugs and check out the latest features, just post it here, Reg will be able to help you get the necessary files.

I did a Tech14Mod for buildings (download here: http://bote2.square7.ch/bote2db/Tech14MOD.zip) but it isn't finished (it works almost 99,99%) and I'm not 100% satisfied...it will not come in Alpha7 - maybe later

and here also some ships (only higher speed) http://birth-of-the-empires.de/phpBB3/v ... 107#p25107

if you want just test it .... maybe a nice variation

well but at least the techs are to be researched in alpha7 no matter if there are no corresponding structure upgrades for that in alpha7.