Federation Commander

Posted: **Thu Jan 03, 2008 9:23 pm**

Is their any chance of seeing an F&E game simplified along the idea of Fedcommader? Or maybe some standard F&E scens/setups limited to the ships in Fedcommader?

Posted: **Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:06 pm**

The games that you are looking for are tentatively going to be called Klingon Invasion and Romulan Invasion. Personally I can't wait for these!

Per SVC's comments:

This is a future product line, not to be done in 2008 and that's not a promise it will be done in 2009 (and THAT's not a promise it will be done in 2010).

The general idea is "the F&E version of the SFB/FC conversion".

A faster, prettier, version of F&E, done by streamlining rules and concepts.

This would be done in two pieces:
1. Klingon Invasion covering half of the Federation, the Klingons and Kzintis
2. Romulan Invasion covering half of the Federation, Gorns, and Romulans.

Later, there might be a Four Powers War expansion adding Lyrans and Hydrans. Could even be an ISC expansion, and an Andromedan expansion.

Game System? I don't know, I'm still mulling concepts. Something "about the level of Axis and allies" maybe. Would it include plastic toys? Maybe. There is a Wikipedia article about this thing bu it was done by somebody else who is GUESSING and is not an official post by ADB.

This is NOT "F&E Risk" which is a separate proposal by various players and not a project I am working on.

I am NOT accepting input, suggestions, proposals, prototypes, or anything else. (Not even questions.) I will design it myself, when I have time and when I am ready. Any speculation or discussion would be seriously premature.

In a recent post that I can't put my fingers on at the moment, he mentioned wanted these to be a 2009 release.

Posted: **Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:34 pm**

Criminy... Crimin beat me too the post! I'm hoping it'll be a '09 release, 'cause that means he'll need play testers this year.

that's one of the items I hope to be able to inquire about at Origins.

Posted: **Fri Jan 04, 2008 12:09 am**

A good campaign system would be great.

Posted: **Fri Jan 04, 2008 12:39 am**

ADB intentionally doesn't do campaign rules, due to all the different play-groups and opinions. They did do a campaign designers handbook for SFB, but it was just that, a guidebook, not hard and fast rules.

Posted: **Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:27 pm**

Heh, if/when the Invasion games come out, this might be the step needed to bring a strategic client game to to SFBOL. Wishful thinking? Maybe. Still be interesting to play though.

Posted: **Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:39 pm**

Actually, we have a deal with VBAM for them to do a campaign book for FC.

Posted: **Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:08 pm**

That is good news the VBAM rules are great fun to use.

Posted: **Tue May 13, 2008 1:58 am**

This sounds interesting. As I posted on another thread, I used to play Federation Space and own (but have never played) Federation & Empire.

F&E is sort of intimidating in terms of how many rules and the complexity thereof. A trimmed-down version of this game would be a lot of fun....

Posted: **Tue May 13, 2008 2:23 pm**

As part of the design team for VBAM:FC, I can tell you at this point that we're making the initial emphasis on border operations, similar in scale to Federation Commander in general. While we eventually want to do the "Big One" allowing players to tackle the General War, the initial scenarios will put players in the position of squadron or task force commanders along the border. They will have objectives to accomplish to win the scenario that will put them in conflict with their opposite numbers on the other side of the border. The trick will be complete your goals without escalating tensions or accidentally starting a larger conflict.

A large scenario at this point would have one player as the fleet commander operating out of a starbase with other players as his task force commanders. The regular VBAM rules have been used for similar-style games in the Wing Commander setting and have gone very well.

Our hope is that not only will the scenarios be fun to play, but will also be a good battle generator for Federation Commander. Stay tuned!

Posted: **Wed May 21, 2008 6:52 pm**

Forgive my ignorance, but what is VBAM?

Posted: **Wed May 21, 2008 8:34 pm**

VBAM is short for Victory by any means a set of generic campagin rules.
http://www.vbamgames.com/ <-- Linky
They are quite good. I have played the main set VBAM, the Jovian chronicles setting.

Posted: **Thu May 22, 2008 12:12 am**

What would be really fun (but probably would drive me insane) is to combine the games. Use Federation & Emprie (or VBAM or whatever) for the main campaign but then switch over to FC (or SFB) for the individual battles.

It would be the best (or worst?) of both worlds.

Posted: **Thu May 22, 2008 11:39 am**

Then this must be your lucky day!!!! With VBAM:FC, you'll be able to resolve all engagements within the VBAM engine OR port over to Federation Commander for any battle you wish to fight out in more detail. While you probably wouldn't want to resolve *every* battle (that way lies insanity), you could certainly do so for the key battles. To be certain, some of the smaller-scale scenarios probably could support every battle being fought out in detail, particularly if all the players are available for face to face play.

Posted: **Fri May 23, 2008 1:22 am**

Finarvyn wrote:What would be really fun (but probably would drive me insane) is to combine the games. Use Federation & Emprie (or VBAM or whatever) for the main campaign but then switch over to FC (or SFB) for the individual battles.

It would be the best (or worst?) of both worlds.

You do realize that as the General War progresses, you eventually get to a point where hundreds of battles occur each and every turn... some involving more than 100 ships per side. Even in Federation Commander, those would take forever to resolve.

But, as previously stated, you could use F&E as a campaign system and then fight selected battles using Federation Commander

Federation Commander

F&E commander

F&E commander