The Last Federation - Arcen Games' latest space dickery game

[Rujasu]

Like the title says, there's a simulation of a solar system with eight races of various dispositions and your only job is to **** around until you manage to unite them all under a single banner. Simple, right?



It's a bit on the easy side, except when the AFA cleanup mission bugs out with 100% certainty, but I've had a fair bit of fun with it. Patches have been daily so far and there's a promise of weekly bits of content for the next few months.

 

[Theo]

TB's take of it:



Interesting concept, have to try it at some point.

 

[Rahn]

It's a bit on the easy side, except when the AFA cleanup mission bugs out with 100% certainty

I figured there was something wrong with that mission. "Cleanup" didn't really do it justice.

 

[Rujasu]

The issue probably is that instead of the cleanup mission it triggers the "Attacked by AFA" mission that can happen if you hang around a planet with a lot of insurgents. Why it's always 20 flagships, I've no idea.
That and the tutorial hull/shield bug are probably the biggest things plaguing the game right now.

 

[Wellenbrecher]

Interesting concept, have to try it at some point.

Indeed. Screenshots really don't do the game any justice I'd say. Same with AI War back then.
When I saw posts about it and the entries for the game on GoG for example, it always gave me a distinct feeling of meh.
But in motion like that it's really interesting to me.

 

[Rujasu]

Spoiler: Just had a lively game

It was another case of "Race you start with fails to get along with anyone" but at least it resulted in a prolonged war between the Acutians and Skylaxians. I managed to end the conflict in the Skylaxians' favour by gifting an outpost of mine that the Acutians were attacking to the Evucks. They really didn't appreciate their new gift being blown up almost immediately, and took the Acutian homeworld down without much trouble.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Peaceful benevolent robots my ass!

 

[Rujasu]

Yeah, the Andor aren't supposed to be able to do that. I should probably open a mantis ticket for it or something.

 

[Kamos32]

I'm just going to assume nobody likes the Acutians period. Matter of fact everyone is killing each other for the privilege to try and land troops on the surface of their planet to kill them. The shot is even outdated, fleet strength over their planet was at 700,000 before I quit.

Spoiler

Also the Skylaxians have a ****ty planet.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Did you use nukes above their planet or something?

 

[Mage246]

Got really far into my first game before I realized that the point wasn't for all of the races to like ME, but for specific sets of races to like EACH OTHER. With a few exceptions, getting a race to like you is super easy. It's getting them to like each other that is more difficult.

 

[Rujasu]

1.006 supposedly made it much harder to form a federation, while at the same time increasing the tools for getting races to like each other. Trade was always almost cheating but the Boarines and Burlusts can't make trade deals, so they've been cannon fodder in almost every game.

 

[Mage246]

I'm still a bit mystified as to what I can do besides having one race gift tech to another and establish trade, care to give some pointers?

 

[Rujasu]

I'll have to give the latest version a shot to see what works and what doesn't, but something people might not realise is that a race gets an ever increasing relations bonus towards a race that has all it's RCI values well above 0. It's listed as "Wellbeing admiration" if you go to the race relations page and click on a race.
You're fairly powerless as far as just about anything in the simulation goes, but as long as you have the latest techs that buff your ship it's really hard to actually lose unless you let a single race conquer half of the solar system or something. Or be a four-headed **** and have everyone decide they don't want to have anything to do with you.

Spoiler: Well there's these now

Other than that, I'm just throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks. 1.006 is a whole new beast and it's going to take a while to reach a conclusion of any sort.

 

[Mage246]

Oh wow, I didn't realize that individual buildings also had attitude effects. I assumed they were just to strengthen a faction.

 

[Rujasu]

They were, but those attitude changing buildings were just recently added.

I only just got started with 1.006 and 1.007 is already out. Damnit Arcen, I can't keep up anymore. 

 

[Mage246]

Won my second game. Built the Peltians into an unstoppable powerhouse of sheep power and they conquered 3 planets. 

Actually still not really sure how that happened - I had it zoomed way up to see what would happen now that I had all of the tech and economy powers in one Federation. The Skylaxians, Andors, Thoraxians, and Evucks were also on their side (but I started my game with cultivating the Peltians and used them to form the Federation in the first place, with the Skylaxians). I actually had meant to have the Boarines join instead of the Thoraxians, but I didn't know that they would immediately form the anti-Federation Alliance before I could do it. The Thoraxians were dirt-poor the entire game due to the fact that the Acutians kept attacking them. Although at one point while the Federation was active I just parked in orbit and supported Armada Construction for a really long time until they managed to turn the tide even though they only had 25m people left (Acutians were being counter-invaded by thousands of ships from other Federation planets).

Was funny though - you get a little message every time the Peltians take over a planet to the effect that "wtf how are the peltians conquering planets - come see this!"