The Last Federation

[clyde]

 

So I just started playing The Last Federation. I've enjoyed my first hour or so. I was able to effectively conceptualize enough of what was going on, but then somehow my first sight of the flagship customization overwhelmed me so I decided to take a break and start a thread.

I don't know how important the decisions I'm making at the beginning are, but they feel pretty important. I just gave space-faring tech to two peace-leaning species and to one that looks stupid enough that I may be able to control. Then a war-loving race became space-faring on their own so I took a black-ops mission to get another war-loving race into space-faring tech. Even though I haven't seen the consequences yet, it's a neat context to be looking at a galaxy map and reading about these different species; trying to figure out which ones I want to boost.

I thought the 2D Flotilla-style combat would be tedious from the screenshots, but I'm enjoying it and quickly getting overwhelmed with the possibility to upgrade my ship. I probably just haven't encountered enough ships to understand why I would equip my flagship with a "disruptor". I'm having fun. I typically throw myself at these games and enjoy doing horribly. I'm looking forward to watching the gullible owl-race get turned against me or whatever. 

[clyde]

In my first game, the thing I'm having a hard time with is understanding what my expectations should be for the pace of the game. I don't know if games are going to last a few hours or a few months. I actually don't know if it even ends. But I am very conservative with time so I'm reading a lot of the tool-tips as I test out all these options and when there are no obvious quests to do, I try something like investing time in boosting a species' economy but I don't really know what I'm doing there and when I advance the clock I get nervous as populations and military powers inflate very quickly. It's not a complaint, I'm just saying that time seems like a valuable resource and I have very little idea of how I should be spending it.

 

 

--------

Later on. Apparently I'm still in the tutorial. I'm going to miss the written voice of the "computer" when it ends. I hope this is what Cortana will be like.
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/442825888107019643/9C8689FF8D57C3CEDBB90C52AE9D36D9EB930C16/

[Dewar]

I beat this through the first time in two evenings of play, so approximately 5 hours real time. Unfortunately, I found it too easy to get my first four planets into the federation, then militarily steamrolled the folks whose federation invite conditions were too difficult. I plan on playing again with the combat difficulty higher to try and encourage more thinking and less warring. 

 

Each time you die, it takes 12 months to repair, and I did that a quite a few times right at the end. While at certain points time can be of the essence, it was my experience that you shouldn't fear spending a year or more doing something if you think it's going to be really helpful. If I had to guess, I played the game for a couple hundred years in-game time.

 

Also, the tutorial keeps on busting out new features for quite a while. I think the one that talks about mineral resources was the last one I got, but I still had some holes on the control panel at the bottom so I might have beat the game before the tutorial was even over.

[clyde]

I was not expecting tht the game would be that short. I'm pretty slow, but still I've only just now managed to get the Skylaxians to approve of me 100+ and I've been focusing on that alliance. I just got the forming-a-federation tool-tip. After about 3 hours of play I think I've progressed less than a decade in game. Thanks for your time estimate, that will change how careful I am.

Did you ever try to duel a Burlust leader? I am curious what that would involve, but I don't want to die.

[clyde]

Still not sure if I'm doing it right, but things are starting to get bad for various planets (environment, civil-societyt, and economy) which is making piracy happen in a couple of places. This appears to be good for me because I can participate in battles that makes my approval rating go up with everyone. Before the piracy thing started happening, I had been researching tech with various species and then gifting them to everyone else that I wasn't afraid of. I wonder if I will eventually be able to have a grasp on this game. I probably will know enough to watch some sort of video-tutorial by the time this one is over.

[Dewar]

I did a lot of co-op to destroy pirate base missions. Usually the forces aren't too hard and it's a free 3000 credits. I tried to keep the planetary stats positive on my allied worlds, and pretty much ignored them on other planets. In my play through, I found the assist building fleets action to be way overpowered, both in the amount of influence it gives you and the amount of power it gives your allies. The final planet that I was trying to get to join my federation needed an approval of 250 so I sat above that planet for something like 10 years building fleets. When I was done and got them in the federation, I noticed they only had a few defensive armadas. Turns out they were already half way through conquering two other planets.

 

I saved and tried to fight a Burlust leader. He had 20 million shield HP. By the end of the game their regular ships had about 2 million and were fairly beatable, but it seems like fighting a leader is more a goal for a longer game.

 

For the record, I started captured by the Acutians, granted space faring tech to the Peltians and Andors first. Started the federation with the Boarines going to the the Peltians first, then added in the Andors shortly after. With that core of three I started building military and tech with the Pelitians (who were closest to the Acutians.) I added in the Skylaxians fairly easy and eventually the Evucks using the military trick I mentioned in the first paragraph, then conquered the Acutians, Thoraxians, and finally the Burlusts.

[clyde]

The Last Federation is $4 on the Humble Store today. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but I've been having a good time trying to figure out how to play. I managed to encourage two planets to start trading with each other for the first time. I want the Boarine to start trading too so that everyone can start liking each other a little bit, but they are busy "privateering".