Federation & Empire, FedCom and Starfleet Battles

After some trades to get rid of some shelf space, I'm going to end up with a copy of Federation & Empire. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is a wargame based off of the Starfleet Universe, a sort of hyper-militaristic variation of the original Star Trek show. I've been crawling around TOS examining it, I'm extremely excited, although admittedly extremely intimidated. I've played a lot of Federation Commander, so have bit of the background in the SFU but am excited to be able to try out Federation & Empire.

Has anyone had any experience with it?

Anyone else played much Federation Commander? What's your favorite side to play?

I was in a Federation Commander campaign for awhile until recently when we stopped. It was fun as hell, but the point scoring was pretty fucked. The scenarios were generally free-for-alls and you got point for internal hits and damage done to enemy ships. The problem was, was that encouraged players to withdraw to repair shields while others fought it out. I did fairly well as the Romulans, especially the first scenario where I uncloaked and unleashed both of my plasma torpedos on the Federation player who had already used all his weapons. I would have surely died, however, if I had not been able to cloak and slink away when pinned between the Klingon and the Gorn player.

I have never played any Starfleet battles, but once tried to read the Commander's edition rulebook (several hundred pages) but never made it to the table. With Federation Commander, there isn't a lot of incentive to playing Starfleet Battles.

Federation & Empire is a beast. It's Advanced Third Reich in space. For the truly psychotic (bless their hearts), it's the perfect scenario generator for fleet-scale scenarios of Star Fleet Battles that take weeks to complete. I don't think I have ever seen a more thought-out rendition of interstellar science-fantasy warfare or a more seamless interface between tactical and strategic fleet battles.

Only SPI's Starforce comes to mind.

For reasons of time and space (its a big game), I was forced to sell it off and admire from afar it's insane splendor. I just traded for a copy of Klingon Border, though, so I find myself curious about Federation & Empire again.

Man, when are we going to get a modern designed, massive and epic strategic space empires wargame? And no, I'm not talking about TI:3. I'm talking about a proper fucking wargame.

I'm still waiting for the the Campaign System from Victory By Any Means (VBAM) to come out for FedCom.

Should be pretty decent. It's apparently going to be called Federation Admiral (previously no title).

You can check out there forums here .

Gary Sax wrote:

Man, when are we going to get a modern designed, massive and epic strategic space empires wargame? And no, I'm not talking about TI:3. I'm talking about a proper fucking wargame.

Agreed.

I just wish a designer could get a hold of an established IP. I think that would generate a lot of interest in such a wargame. But who knows, perhaps an all brand new "universe" would be the way to go, though I feel that would take a considerably longer time to develop, but who knows.

I'd be down for a regular wargame or as I stated in the other thread a CDG so we could simulate some aspects of political control.

Would be a great game: politics, economics, and giant battles in space. AWESOME.

Star Fleet Battles is right up the with ASL for rule sets. Reads like a DoD spec. I played a lot in college and some of the battles got up to fifty or sixty ships with a dozen players. We found a significant flaw in the game for big battles and lost interest after that. Plenty of rules, plenty of complication as you move up through the rule additions.

I liked the Feds the best, though the Klingons were excellent for raw horsepower.

Sag.

I enjoyed SFB but it had serious balance issues if you played the hell out of it. Federation & Empire I had heard of but never looked at seriously. I doubt I would get much play out of it, since it looks like it would occupy the same niche as Empires in Arms.

Gary Sax wrote:

Man, when are we going to get a modern designed, massive and epic strategic space empires wargame? And no, I'm not talking about TI:3. I'm talking about a proper fucking wargame.

I completely agree. I despise i]DESPISE[/i TI3, not for its theme or content, but because it is an awful fucking game. Way too long for what it is, a glorified Axis and Allies variant.

I love Sci-Fi, and I would really like to see a mature and intricate treatment of Sci-Fi empire game. No cartoon graphics. No space lions (I'm looking at you TI3). No euro mechanics.

I have starforce and outreach but have sadly never played them. I am probably going to have F&E set up on the wall of my apartment so I can play campaigns solo to learn the game.

Ahh SFB. I played a ton of SFB through middle and high school. I had a sweet gig at the FLGS that allowed us to play SFB all afternoon on slow days. Our games moved from single ships, then on to fleets and then finally back down to Tournament ships before many of us lost interest. The rulebook was a beast but we studied that thing like it was a freaking bible. My only real gripes were the lack of play-balancing on some races (Andromedans) and the mess we all called the cloaking rules. Talk about some epic rules arguments. Fortunately, the Captain's edition with it's "Doomsday" rulebook did a lot to clean up the game.

When Federation & Empire came out we gave it a try a couple of times. It was truly epic in scope, but damn you had to dedicate insane amounts of time to finish. I still maintain that no group has actually finished a whole campaign. It had elemets of sheer brilliance in its design but ultimately I think it was a failure. Mostly due to the fact that resolving battles in F&E almost took the same amount of time as if you had gamed them in SFB!

I still have all my SFB gear. I suppose nostalgia has keept me from cutting the cord and letting it go so far. Rules arguments and play balance aside my SFB days were good times. If anyone's interested in my SFB stuff, shoot me a PM and perhaps we can works something out.

-Will

Bulwyf wrote:

Ahh SFB. I played a ton of SFB through middle and high school. I had a sweet gig at the FLGS that allowed us to play SFB all afternoon on slow days. Our games moved from single ships, then on to fleets and then finally back down to Tournament ships before many of us lost interest. The rulebook was a beast but we studied that thing like it was a freaking bible. My only real gripes were the lack of play-balancing on some races (Andromedans) and the mess we all called the cloaking rules. Talk about some epic rules arguments. Fortunately, the Captain's edition with it's "Doomsday" rulebook did a lot to clean up the game.

When Federation & Empire came out we gave it a try a couple of times. It was truly epic in scope, but damn you had to dedicate insane amounts of time to finish. I still maintain that no group has actually finished a whole campaign. It had elemets of sheer brilliance in its design but ultimately I think it was a failure. Mostly due to the fact that resolving battles in F&E almost took the same amount of time as if you had gamed them in SFB!

I still have all my SFB gear. I suppose nostalgia has keept me from cutting the cord and letting it go so far. Rules arguments and play balance aside my SFB days were good times. If anyone's interested in my SFB stuff, shoot me a PM and perhaps we can works something out.

-Will

If you haven't tried Federation Commander yet, I really suggest it. It compacts SFB into a very reasonable game system with both a fleet and squadron scale. The game is still detailed enough for some maneuver and combat, but isn't so long to take a week for a fleet battle. Ships in fleet scale generally have half the internals and weapons, but still do the same amount of damage. So ships in the fleet scale like to "go boom". It's quite a lot of fun.

One complaint is that the Kzin have been nerfed, since they are limited to speed 16 drones.

I've been meaning to downgrade star fleet battles for Federation Commander for some time. I used to leove SFB but never got really into it. We'd play a few skimishes and then shelve it for a a month.

Speaking of cool Star fleet fighting games...has anyone tried Netreckk..or perphas it was called xtrek. It was simple vecotr graphics but insanely fun. If that is still running somewhere Ineed to download it.

Steve"Xtreker"Avery

Reading up on this game on TOS, I found one, and only one forum post where a full campaign of Federation & Empire was played anywhere close to completion:

Item #31 on this geeklist -
boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/29097/item/601798#item601798

Please note that this required the following (and I quote):

1. "A divorce".

2. "A modest inheritance".

It was ultimately destroyed by an angry family of parrots after biting off a player's earlobe.
So I say good luck to you.

I'm just waiting for the VBAM FedCom campaign book.

I like the idea of fighting a campaign on different levels based on what your group can reasonably do.

The smallest level looks pretty cool.