The Last Federation - New From Arcen (Chris Park)

Games
#1

Has anyone else been keeping an eye on this? It gets released tomorrow (Friday). From what I can tell it’s a game of real-time diplomacy and turn-based combat, where you play the last of some alien race trying to coerce 8 or 9 other civilizations into forming the federation of the title, either through cultivating friendship and loyalty, conquering the holdouts, or staying in the shadows and playing “let’s you and him fight”. It seems to borrow pretty heavily from Drox Operative (at least in terms of look and diplomacy).

I like the idea, and the inter-species relationships appear to be quite complex, but without a lot of randomization I don’t know how much replayibility it will have.

#2

Linky: http://www.arcengames.com/w/index.php/tlf-features

Looks interesting.

#3

I thought it had a lot of randomization?

#4

I just started playing it yesterday and I’m liking it. There will be a good amount of randomization, from what I understand. I’m gonna try and put a video together tonight, but we did do a podcast about it a while back too if that helps.

#5

I have it on my wishlist and am not-so-patiently waiting for tomorrow.

In my experience, Arcen have great game ideas that turn into average games. Hopefully this one sticks to “great” on both sides of the equation.

#6

That’s what I always walk away with. However, since I am the sort of player that almost always goes for a diplomatic victory (when available) in my strategy games, this could be right up my alley. I suspect I’ll enjoy it more than their other titles.

#7

Looks like Drox Operative with turn based combat.

#8

Designer Chris Park demos the game and gets his ass kicked.

I just became a lot more interested.

#9

Grand strategy and turn-based combat has me extremely interested. But this video made no sense to me. I think he did a poor job explaining the basics.

#10

This is available now on GoG. I’m downloading now.

#11

I spent about an hour with it this morning. If the real-time element makes you nervous, don’t be.

The strategic game is largely menus and charts, and the game auto-pauses whenever you open one up, so the real-time aspect is inconsequential. The only time the clock is running is when you are waiting for a decision to be implemented (and the menus tell you how long that will take in both game time and real time) and when executing combat moves. There may be a way to turn auto-pause off, but why would you want to?

I’m finding combat tougher than in the videos. Without a shield that recharges, I haven’t even survived the second tutorial mission. Either I’m doing it wrong (likely) or I really suck at the combat (even more likely). I’m going to try a couple of ideas but if they don’t work may have to dial the combat down to Easy (there are separate difficulty settings for the combat and the strategy layer).

One thing I really like is that just as in AoW 3, the game puts all the information you need at your fingertips. The benefits and drawbacks of each mission you can select, and which weapons are most effective against a selected target. There appears to be no guesswork in the game.

#12

7 hours and counting on Steam.

How’s the tutorial section (assuming it exists…)?

#13

The tutorial isn’t a separate section, per se. Different elements of the game are slowly unlocked and explained as you play (I just unlocked research and the tech tree, for example). I think it’s based on the amount of time played, or it could be the number of completed missions. I’m not really sure. There is an option to turn the tutorial off and start with everything unlocked in future playthroughs.

I started another game and am doing much better. I realized that it’s not enough to see which weapons do the most damage to which targets, you also have to be aware of the weaponry and firing arc of enemies you will be coming in contact with. Turns out I was flying into the arc of some platform that fired missiles that were one-shot killers. I am an idiot. Also, now that more of the strategic layer has been opened up to me, I can see this game is a lot deeper than it would appear in the earlier videos.

One thing I can’t figure out is how to delete or change a move in combat after plotting it. Everything I try just seems to execute the original move.

#14

You can right click to step backwards through the moves you’ve made. So if you shift left click to set a waypoint, then left click to set your movement to the end of your range, you can right click to cancel back through that and redo.

#15

Thanks. I kept trying the standard of dragging the waypoint marker and regretting it.

#16

I’d love to hear more impressions on this one. It has me intrigued.

#17

Yeah me too. Also, how is the music? Arcen has had awesome music in its past games, even though I did not find the games very interesting themselves.

Well, the idea behind the games is usually pretty damn awesome, but the implementation is usually lacking (AI War not included, but I never could understand it)

#18

I love Arcen games and can’t wait to dive into this one. I’m waiting for Purchase on Steam now, just says Coming Soon.

#19

Game on. It’s avalible on Steam.

Tom M

#20

This is the best video I’ve seen as far as showing how the strategic game goes.