Are Federations good now?

[Troysdownfall]

Basically the title. I remember in previous patches the AI not making good Federation templates/fleets and not helping to raise the Federation level. Has this been improved?

[Foolswalkin]

They definitely want to raise the level, at least in Trade and Holy Covenant. The fleets can be designed by you when you're president, using all the tech available to all members, so that's maybe an improvement?

Is this what you were looking for?

[pete3great]

Originally posted by Foolswalkin:

They definitely want to raise the level, at least in Trade and Holy Covenant. The fleets can be designed by you when you're president, using all the tech available to all members, so that's maybe an improvement?

Is this what you were looking for?

Hegemonies are also great for people who know how to use them. Still, of them all, Trade remains the strongest (re: player built toward trade).

[Orion Invictus]

Yes.

[Kypamop]

They are decent alternative if you can not vassalize.

[Troysdownfall]

Appreciate all the answers. Glad Paradox is making improvements on already existing features.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Kypamop:

They are decent alternative if you can not vassalize.

Vassals become part of your federation by default. So this is not mutually exclusive. In fact it would be extremely stupid to have a vassal who is not in your federation.

I.e. at minimum free commercial pact + free migration treaties with everyone. And they can never vote against you or become president. Also you can vassalize them with "overlord wars - none" and "subject wars - all" however they must obey the federation war rules (so they actually cannot start their own wars, nor refuse to join federation wars)

Ideally you start the federation with a vassal you created, then vassalize everyone else.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Troysdownfall:

Are Federations good now?

Basically the title. I remember in previous patches the AI not making good Federation templates/fleets and not helping to raise the Federation level. Has this been improved?

Federations been strong since basically ever, tho? OP even, if you knew what you were doing. I havent been in a federation for a loooong time because of that.

Only federation leader can make designs, so if you are president you can have them only make good choices, altho unfortunately you do have to design each ship type.
However, they would still produce a lot of ships for you for free.

Those things havent been changed, as they were already like that before.

However there was indeed a time when they didnt send envoys to improve level, but thats been fixed since.

[ScreamCon]

Megacorp + diplomatic power boosting branch office + union federation = Ultracorp abroad.
Can you feel it?
The rising optimism in the air IS Ultracorp.
Misery only occurs to partners not in the federation lol

I'd rather be a diplomatic xenophile megacorp than a fanatic militarist but it depends. Sometimes I like to ravage the galaxy and contest borders xenos thought were safe.

Uh as far as federations go its possibly worse now due to even more bugs from latest patch. Ho HO ho, merry xmas !

the gift opens as it drops to reveal as a gift bomb
Down the chimney, shoooomp

I can already feel the warm glow of burning timbers

[Oakshadow]

The biggest weakness to a federation in the past was the AI taking over or repeatedly attempting to pass federation laws or go to war when other members would obviously say no.... messing up your cohesion.

With the AI improvements and the new vassal system, Federations have become just an added layer of bonuses on top of what you get as an overlord. Meaning they have little to no downsides anymore. It's all just bonuses and free ships.

[Foolswalkin]

I have had some members repeatedly negate the admission of other, seemingly-to-me obvious members, and also say no to wars a lot. If it's a trade federation, its usually worth the headache. I don't know about the others.

[CrUsHeR]

Uh-oh... Trade League nerf incoming? Not like they nerfed it twice already, and quite severly.

The Trade League policy used to give 0.25 unity + consumer goods, then it was halved to .125, and finally down to .12 where you actually need some artisans or run negative CGs.

FWIW the Research Cooperative is also great. Mostly for machine empires, or if you run some kind of technocracy build, avoiding trade. The free research agreements can be quite notable if the AI difficulty bonuses are high enough.

+ The Common Ground origin now has an event at game start where you can choose your federation type.

[Tiasmoon]

Trade League (and the unity policy) are back at 0.25 Unity again. That said, its amusingly pretty weak.. compared to faction unity abuse, that is.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2901250003

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2901326315

[CrUsHeR]

Hm yeah but for that you need to play democratic + parliamentary system. Otherwise the factions don't even form before 2210-2220. You don't get to select rulers & they don't have agendas. And the democracy government effect is probably the worst ingame (resettlement chance).

Besides not being a megacorp, missing out on thousands of energy from branch offices and the endless stacking branch office building effects (immigration pull, amenities, naval cap, diplomatic weight)

Also, while Egalitarian in itself has great effects, it also is a very hard to please faction, and if enacting leader enhancement policies or manual resettlement then you cannot have them at 80%.


BTW if you really want free early unity, try playing Void Dwellers megacorp. You probably have the first tradition finished within 5-6 years. Just the ruler jobs on the upgraded habitats are doing everything.

It's just that the void dweller origin itself has been nerfed beyond recognition, standalone barely half as efficient as practically every other origin (not counting life-seeded or doomsday...)



BTW i just checked, Trade League is 0.2 / 0.2 in the live version. So i was wrong with 0.12, but 0.25 is only from Consumer Benefits. You still always drop from high CG to low/negative once forming the federation (unless having an unproportional overproduction of trade)

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Hm yeah but for that you need to play democratic + parliamentary system. Otherwise the factions don't even form before 2210-2220. You don't get to select rulers & they don't have agendas. And the democracy government effect is probably the worst ingame (resettlement chance).

Besides not being a megacorp, missing out on thousands of energy from branch offices and the endless stacking branch office building effects (immigration pull, amenities, naval cap, diplomatic weight)

Also, while Egalitarian in itself has great effects, it also is a very hard to please faction, and if enacting leader enhancement policies or manual resettlement then you cannot have them at 80%.


BTW if you really want free early unity, try playing Void Dwellers megacorp. You probably have the first tradition finished within 5-6 years. Just the ruler jobs on the upgraded habitats are doing everything.

It's just that the void dweller origin itself has been nerfed beyond recognition, standalone barely half as efficient as practically every other origin (not counting life-seeded or doomsday...)



BTW i just checked, Trade League is 0.2 / 0.2 in the live version. So i was wrong with 0.12, but 0.25 is only from Consumer Benefits. You still always drop from high CG to low/negative once forming the federation (unless having an unproportional overproduction of trade)

I did none of what you said and found Federations to work really well. What difficulty do you play on, exactly?

[pete3great]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

You still always drop from high CG to low/negative once forming the federation (unless having an unproportional overproduction of trade)

I find this to be a bizarre criticism. It's like when someone can't be hired at a job because they're "too qualified" or when a politician is declared to have lost a debate because they were "too prepared." You're complaining that a surplus of trade is a bad thing. It isn't.