Well that'll certainly help. More sources of income will be nice, but I hope some quests will give us the ability to spend money as well. For instance, if we were enhancing the quest to, say, deliver terraforming specs to a non-spacefaring planet still under blockade, perhaps we could bribe one of the blockading powers to deliver it for us rather than risk a reputation loss.
It's just... I see how the quests will
help, but I still see the fundamentals as needing time devoted to them as well. It's not much of a strategy game if the optimum gameplay is so simple, and while quests will inject variety into my gameplay experience I don't see it doing much for putting some variety in my strategy experience.
"Build attitude buildings such that favored races will found the Federation, then go build more attitude buildings on other races to ensure harmonious solar system while trying to count to three hundred. Invite other races into formed Federation. For advanced users, get Andor (with Federationists) or Skylaxians on mutually good terms with races who hate you by using more attitude buildings."
That's how I've played my last two games. Sure, I'll pick up some research projects here and there, and I snag every hydral lab and pirate convoy I get (gotta get those bribe items for the Burlust, you see), but the Hydral labs can be autoresolved for twelve-turn wins, and only thing slowing the pirate convoys down is that the boarding logic seems wonky sometimes.
The problem is that right now the most crucial stat is how races feel towards each other, not how they feel towards you; some of the "join existing Federation" influence requirements are punitively high, so it's simpler just to wait three hundred months for them and the Andor or Skylaxians to fall in love with each other thanks to the attitude buildings you dropped. Not that picking up influence with a race is particularly difficult. If I couldn't backdoor a race into the Federation, then it would still just a matter of time. Nothing's happening on the map, and even if it was I tend to have two ways to interact with it: ask people to call the war off if I care what they think, or destroy their fleets if I don't. Either way, it's a quick intervention then back to grinding influence.
Wars are too simple, and tend to be too binary: we wiped out the target race, or didn't achieve anything. Fights over outposts should only happen during wars, and they should be a key focus of the war. We need outposts for natural resources as well, and colonized moons to be turned into two things: "Fortify Moon" which covers a moon with military defenses such that the planet can't be attacked until it's cleared out, and a
real "Colonize Moon" that gives you additional population space.
I also continue to strongly believe that armadas not costing maintenance is a mistake. The conflict between guns and butter is a very basic and important strategic consideration for any nation. If a race had to choose between building new fleets, expanding their economic infrastructure, researching better technology (which makes ships that cost more per power, but reduce what you spend on maintenance per power), and maintaining existing fleets, then it would be possible to outlast a race that has a temporary advantage in military because they neglected their economy or research.
The presence of anti-Federation demonstrators also begs for public opinion to be another stat to keep track of. The Hydral can quickly become the people's champ by moving in and providing medical aid in a plague, until eventually (perhaps with a few well-paid agitators the Hydral puts in) the people demand that their government join the Federation.
I mean, I hope at least some of this is making sense. The Last Federation is exactly the kind of game concept I want to play, but right now I just don't think it's delivering on the "strategy" part of the game. I don't want it to be unmanageable, but right now once you learn not to see the garbage options you see that
you need to do very little to win.
