The Last Federation

[MaxAstro]

Thought I'd plug this here, as it seems likely to be enjoyed by people who like FTL or Drox Operative.

Last Federation is a grand strategy space game by Arcen Games (who some may know as the creators of AI War). It features a crazy in-depth strategy layer, and surprisingly satisfying combat that I can only describe as "turn-based realtime bullet hell". Which sounds nonsensical, but trust me, play the game and it'll make sense. :)

Basically you play as the lone survivor of an extinct race, trying to unite the other races of the solar system into a Federation of peace. This is made challenging by the fact that the other races of the solar system a) hate eachother, b) hate you, and c) are in several cases bloodthirsty monsters.

I particularly enjoy how each race has a completely different political system you have to take advantage of to interact with them. Want to get the Peltian commune to like you? You'll need to spend some time doing grunt work for them and earning voting proxies. Want to befriend a Burlust warlord? Roll into town, duel the current warlord to the death, and suddenly his former second in command thinks quite highly of you...

Anyway, the game is available now on Steam (at a discount until the 25th), or you can read more about it on Arcen's forums here.

[FlowerChild]

Someone was kind enough to gift it to me earlier, and I'm currently going through the early stages of the game.

Look very cool so far. Will be sure to post my impressions later once I've put in some more play time.

[Sarudak]

I really like arcen games. I make a point of purchasing the games they put out on principle because I want to keep supporting them. Especially since AI war is so good.

[logorouge]

A small preview of the game's next update :

"Races which are not yet spacefaring no longer know about your selling of slaves, or acts of extreme brutality, etc."

That distant sound you hear through your windows? That's my evil laugh echoing all the way from Canada. :)

[ThePowerofTower]

My first impression was a very polished, complex strategy which seems like what would happen if you put Crusader Kings into space, and added more variety. Not to mention a wonderful soundtrack, delightful art, and have I stressed enough how polished the interface feels? It's very intuitive. Love it, love it, love it.

[MaxAstro]

For anyone (like me) put off by the game's permadeath mechanic, I'm happy to announce that is going away in the next patch.

They are switching to a mechanic where dying costs you a number of months spent repairing your ship while the solar system moves on without you, which seems like a much more reasonable penalty for death. Also makes save-scumming less tempting...

Other then that nit-pick, I've been really having a lot of fun with this game; more than any other recent Arcen release.

[logorouge]

And the update is released. Also included:

"* You can now see what is going on with the ground troop numbers attacking and defending planets right on the solar map, which is kind of a big deal!"

Very excited about that one.

[MaxAstro]

...On the flip side, docking missions are now basically impossible. >.>

Ah, well. You win some, you lose some.

[DemonButter]

The docking missions were rather lame. Crank up the energy to your movement, put the left over on shield, have the special ability that diverts power to the shield on stand-by and all you had to do was touch the way-point. I've only played on medium so far but that felt really cheesy.

[MaxAstro]

Yeah, I think they went a little too far though, specifically with the first battle docking mission.

I think where they've got it with the next patch - where shield damage doesn't reset the timer - is a happy medium.

[Sarudak]

I haven't had any trouble with docking missions at all. Just use your special abilities and wipe the floor with any enemy ships. If anything I am finding this game to easy (playing on normal difficulty).

[DemonButter]

That's what I meant. I found that, even though they warn you about how they may be impossible, the docking missions were a breeze.

[Sarudak]

I'm actually finding all battles to be way too easy. I can easily farm credits by stomping all over some unfortunate races fleets even at their home planet. The cloacking device makes it easy for me to single-handedly take out the largest fleets the game will throw at me.

[MaxAstro]

The only docking mission I was really worried about was the one at the very start of the game - you can't just wipe the floor with the enemy ships, because doing that gets the ending you are presumably trying not to get.

Other then that, I definitely agree that the combat is too easy in some places. DemonButter, I think you are talking about the spacefaring tech delivery missions, rather than the docking missions; in that case, I completely agree with you. Those missions are way too easy right now, especially if you have a cloaking device.

[DemonButter]

You might be right, MaxAstro.

I also agree with Sarudak but now I'm wondering whether the player's extreme power is intentional since the player is the last Hydra many leagues ahead of all the other races. Maybe the difficulty remains with getting the races to do what you want without the others ruining your plans but then again... I still find that too easy :\.

[ThePowerofTower]

Well, honestly, I still haven't won a game. Whenever I get two races not only to like eachother and to like me, a third race comes and attacks one of them, and it's all shot from there.

I've thoroughly enjoyed huge space battles, myself, though. They're challenging, and there's a lot of variety; I max out my uses of special abilities and usually take out like 14 flagships before I leave. If my allies aren't taking enough flak for me I just max out energy and dodge shots for a turn, or pop an ability. So I think it's balanced in that regard; one-on-one battles really feel either early-game-ey or like routine missions to me.

[Sarudak]

The game has a communication problem but so far as I can tell the only way to get other races to like each other a lot is by brokering trade deals and the only way to make trade deals available is to set them up with resources wither by getting them to colonize moons (easy if available) or setting up mines (takes a long time). As far as getting races to like you the most effective way of doing this is by capturing manufacturing and science outposts and using them to boost that races production. It gives you a +30 influence bonus. Farming bribe items is also easy (too easy) and effective with some races.