TLF Q&A: If Empires "Rise And Fall," Can You Describe How That Happens?

From the creators of AI War: Fleet Command comes an all-new grand strategy title with turn-based tactical combat, set in a deep simulation of an entire solar system and its billions of inhabitants. You are the last of a murdered race, determined to unify or destroy the 8 others.  But you must work from the shadows, using superior technology -- bring your cape and cowl. 

The Last Federation is now available on Steam, GOG.com, Humble Store, and GamersGate!  Check out its game page for details, or swing by the forums for the game

Awesome question from Uncle Ruckus on the Steam forums for the game.

First Question: Can only 5 races exist at a time?

No, all 8 races are in every game.  However, only 5 races can be involved in a single combat (with you in it) at once.  All 8 could be involved in a wider conflict at a planet, however.  Sorry for any confusion there with the marketing copy.

Second Question: It said watch nations fall and rise. So new nations can rise up?  Could you describe how one could comeback?

Well, it depends on what you mean by "fall." It works in either sense, so I'll describe both:

A. If by a race "falling," we mean that they get kicked to the _edge_ of oblivion and look likely to crumble, then there are a whole lot of things you can do to help them rebound. Or sometimes they will do it on their own.

One example from simply Observer mode was given to me by a player who saw something cool happen. I think it was the Acutians who had taken over 7 planets and were slamming on the last planet. I'm not sure which race it was who was the one holdout. In that particular case, the race was on the verge of extinction, but then they researched one of the Ultimate technologies (either God Mote or Time Travel), and started making a strong comeback.

So you could call that rising and falling.

B. If by a race "falling" you mean losing all their planets and being marked as "dead" on the solar map, then that also works. Specifically, there can be minority populations of races on various planets (hostile or neutral or friendly). These minorities might be labeled as Expatriates, Refugees, Prisoners Of War, or even Resistance fighters. You might also have one or more pirate bases that belong to a race that died.

I should note that these things will NOT appear fresh off of races that have died. Aka, if there were no pirate bases of that race prior to the race dying, that's just it. And same for the minority populations. A race doesn't just come back from nothing. And it's also possible that a minority population will die in captivity (POWs) or in fighting (Resistance Fighters) or suffer from a birth rate lower than a death rate (Expatriates or Refugees). In any of those cases, or in the case that their pirate base gets destroyed by another race or you yourself, that race may be completely obliterated beyond all traces even after their governments and larger populations are all gone.

By "rising" from one of these situations where there are pirate bases or other minority classes, what that means is that the race recaptures a planet after holding no planets. That always comes about via Resistance Fighters taking over a planet, and that's typically only feasible for a short window while the invader race has not yet really mastered the new world.

How does this happen?
1. It may (unlikely, though) happen on its own, via Resistance Fighters that simply escaped the main fighting.
2. It may happen as a result of you breaking the POWs out of prison.
3. It may happen as a result of you smuggling the pirates from their base onto the planet to become resistance fighters.
4. It may happen as a result of either the oppressed minority population rebelling on its own and turning into resistance fighters (somewhat unlikely), or you stirring them up directly.


C. Oh, I'll go on and add one more case, relating to "rising" in a different sense. There are something like half a dozen kinds of alliances that can happen between multiple governments, and these are hostile to the federation. The Solar Axis Pact, the Union of Independent States, The Betrayed, Smuggler Empires, etc. If those things happen, that's kind of a super-government that rises above the governments that are comprising it. In the same sense that your own federation is a super-government above its races.

When the conditions are met that cause these other alliances to form (they are not random, it's specific criteria), then that's one way of saying a nation is "rising." Or a coalition, if you prefer. It's kind of like NATO or Anti-NATO, depending on your political views. I am fine with it either way you want to look at it, I'm not trying to make a political statement. ;)

Anyway, in order for your federation to survive, all those competing alliances must be stamped out. That could be in the form simply killing them all, or in causing them to be dissolved via other criteria (usually having only one member remaining alive). That could then be looked on as one form of a (super)nation falling.

So, there's a variety of interpretations there, but I think they're all interesting. :)