Game summary
A game for 2 – 4 players
Play time 60 – 120 minutes
Publisher is Explor8
Introduction
It’s 2442, so the near future. There is contact with extraterrestrial life! But the universe is big and there are many federations. One of these federations counts a membership of 5 planets and are open for 1 new member. Of course, you will not be the only one who is ready for this. So, do you have what it takes to be able to take that place and be the new member of this federation? Grap your starships and get ready for this warp into space 🚀.
Let’s get it on the table
Place the main board on the table. In the center of the board the senate with on top the major projects. Here the major marker tokens need to be set on the first step of the track. Scoring markers are needed on the scoring track, starting all on 0.
The Senate is surrounded by the 5 planets which you can visit during the game. Each planet had his own unique ability, and you sort the dedicated tokens on for each planet. As you can achieve medals related to each visit of a planet, these medals need to be set on their tracks.
Shuffle the left and right Law tiles and get yourself a player board. These player board don’t have any difference, so choose the color you like. Place on you player board the ambassadors, spaceship, and the correct accreditation scale.
Then you’re ready the be part of this space adventure.
Let’s play!
The upcoming 5 rounds, what means a year per round, each turn you will have the following actions;
Ambassador phase;
Each player will have a total of 4 ambassadors they need to use each round.
Play one of your ambassadors, choose to apply a vote or funding symbol. The vote symbol will have an effect on which law will pass at the end of a round.
And the fund symbol, will help the major projects.
You need to place the ambassador on the senate part of the board and choose left or right wing of the senate. Placement will active an action on the indicated Federation planet or senate room.
If you choose to apply the fund symbol, you are also able to put a special mission token on your own player board. This will be useful when you want to go on a special mission, where you will need spaceships.
After this placement on the senate and you choose a planet action, you will visit this planet.
Each planet will have his own specific action and achievements. When you visit the same Federation planet several times, you will earn medals of honor. These medals will give extra VP, in the end game scoring.
When the planet action has been done, you are able to send your spaceship on an special mission. This can only be done when you have a spaceship in your hanger and have the required accommodations. This way you can also achieve extra medals of honors that can give the extra boost in VP.
Executive phase;
When all ambassadors are placed by each player and actions are done, end of a round sets in so the executive phase starts. During this phase each player starts with receiving income based on the production structures they build.
Then if your level of accreditation is high enough, you will need to pay the indicated cost.
If there are funding’s played during the round, the dedicated major project will be increased accordingly.
Now the player who has the highest voting power, will get VP related to the accreditation level that player has. This will be done for each floor of the senate.
After, the law with the most votes, related to the left or right part of the senate will be determined.
After 5 rounds, the game will end and final scoring starts.
The Game ends
After 5 rounds, the game will end and final scoring which will be based on the following steps;
1 Medals of honor
2 Remaining resources
3 Funded Major Projects
So, if you will have the highest VP in the end, you win and joins the Federation!
Final Conclusion & rating
Federation is a very interactive Eurogame with an even beter worker placement mechanic. We had the privilege to play de deluxe edition of Federation. This is really an added value and gives the game more body. The deluxe edition is also the verse that is available on the market and not only during the Kickstarter campaign. Good inlay which makes it easy and quick setup for this type of board game.
At spiel we also had a good preview gameplay from Explor8, what was already very good start.
Truly like the way you can achieve your VP. Sometimes also frustrating not getting enough votes for the law you’re aiming for. Diversity in planets and always having a way to get medals of honor, is also nicely implemented.
If we would need to point out something, it would be the law tiles when you’re heading into the round 4. When you turn these law tiles and they are the same, you will than know what to expect when the last and final round is not even started, because the law tiles cannot be the same during a round.
Up to now, we’ve played several games with a diversity in players, what didn’t affect the gameplay. Some games this does has an effect and changes the gameplay or the interactivity. But with Federation we did have this, and it stays balanced. Also, a lot of extra tiles for each part of the game elements to make it different than the previous games. So this game has really a high replayability.
So yes, be that player who want to be part of this journey and become the new member in this Federation.
My thanks goes out to Explor8 for this review copy.
