Federation Commander

does anyone ever just play the game where you own a single empire (ie just the Klingons or just the feds) or do you always play where you have multiple ships from multiple empires?

99% of the time, we deal random ships to the players at the start, but every now and then, we will select a point value and everyone selects ships from a single empire to fill the value.

The only problem with single empire forces is a lack of firing opportunities due to no weapon cards.

Scoutdad wrote:99% of the time, we deal random ships to the players at the start, but every now and then, we will select a point value and everyone selects ships from a single empire to fill the value.

The only problem with single empire forces is a lack of firing opportunities due to no weapon cards.

exactly, I was wondering if that is a big issue (making the game too slow or unbalanced) or just a minor annoyance.

By the way have you ever played brawling battleships http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8643 ... attleships) it is very similar but I think the SFBF has a bit more detail

Both seem to have a basis in a game called Naval War ---

WWII era ships BBs, CAs CVs-- with subs, torpedo boats, mines etc --
Put out by Heritage in the 70s, and picked up by Avalon Hill sometime early mid-80s ---

Don't believe its still in print though --

We used to play single Empire games and found it was to streaky based on card draws. Adding a mercenary Orion helped a bit. Now we usually play Coalition vs. Alliance.

hmm... that's actually a very good idea... Colation/alliance... I need to try that.

By our third game we were running coalition vs alliance with the odd Orion on each side. Allows for greater weapon variety. We also separate our ship stacks that way for reinforcement draws.