The Last Federation is an obscure game made by Arcen, the makers of AI War. I haven't played this game yet, though I intend to try it at some point but I think the premise just absolutely SCREAMS Star Trek to me and I think if the people who own the Star Trek IP were smart they would go to Arcen and offer them a reasonable development budget to make a more polished spiritual successor to The Last Federation in the Star Trek universe and have basically a guaranteed cult hit created by a studio with a known record of creating games that are interested in mechanical nuance in an oddly similar way to the way Star Trek is interested in narrative nuance to storytelling and perspectives. (I mean have you played Tidalis?, "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Variations" is the whole shtick of that game's approach to the match-three genre!!!)
Not that Star Trek doesn't fumble the ball or tell war stories, I am talking about the trek that isn't too cheesey... (note: slices of cheese are necessary though to engage the audience, I mean in terms of taste not taste), you know.... the good trek
description from GOG
From the creators of AI War: Fleet Command comes an all-new grand strategy title with turn-based tactical combat, set in a deep simulation of an entire solar system and its billions of inhabitants. You are the last of a murdered race, determined to unify or destroy the 8 others.
As the last remaining Hydral, it is up to you to create a lasting federation of planets and usher in an era of peace and prosperity to the solar system. Bring spacefaring technology to underdeveloped societies, manipulate their economies, political systems, and diplomatic relations. Do whatever it takes to end strife in your solar system. Remember, when helping civilizations evolve, sometimes they evolve faster when a large multi-headed monster is glaring menacingly at them.
I think in particular any Star Trek game is probably going to need to lean a bit on the lore and story of Star Trek to be authentic.. but that requires potentially a lot of work and custom story writing but the translation is so obvious here that I am sure Arcen studios could look at the Star Trek universe and basically just map most of their pre-existing mechanisms in The Last Federation to their Star Trek closest equivalent and be off to the races with setting up naturally evolving dynamic stories, plausible "what ifs" in the Star Trek universe, without having to do a large amount of storywriting from scratch or feel constrained by needing to get an entire plotline and details approved by an overarching IP holder....
I just thought of another amusing synergy here, the most common complaint about The Last Federation seems to be that the actual ship combat feels a bit disjointed from the rest of the strategy game and there is a tension over whether those two radically different parts of the game cohere into a satisfying wholistic experience. Well.... a HUGE part of Star Trek is nerding out about the ships.. so no Star Trek Fan is going to say "Damn it WHY are you making me command all these cool Star Trek ships and making me manually zoom them around blasting lasers at enemies when I have an EMPIRE TO MANAGE" who is simultaneously the kind of nerd who will purchase a Star Trek strategy pc video game so boom there goes the biggest flaw of The Last Federation with just a bit of reframing.
After all most of the most venerable captains in Federation see the place where you can make a true difference is in actually being the captain of a Starfleet ship and going out there yourself to help people, it is part of the DNA of the show to never really want to leave the "buccaneering ship captain" part behind.
What was formerly an odd quirk that could be offputting to new players is now a clever excuse for fans to get to take command of their favorite star trek ships and blast it out in battles in between playing an empire/diplomacy strategy game that is actually authentic to the heart of Star Trek.
I mean COME ON the plot for The Last Federation is straight out of a Star Trek Voyager episode, a last-of-a-species ancient being with a badass ship, immense power, and a benign interest in stopping intergalactic war (or not?) that isn't widely known in the universe is totally within the realm of reason for Star Trek lore. There are probably a dozen characters/species that could fit that description pre-existing in the Star Trek lore ready to go.
....or you know make it a freakin' Star Trek Prodigy themed game where your ship is the U.S.S. Protostar and it features all the characters from Prodigy as the crew of your ship oh my gosh yes yes yes
sorry for a billion edits I am tired
I haven't, I don't have Stellaris, but to be honest I am kind of exhausted by the theme of 4x games which always boils down to "paint the map your color".... like I don't want to, I am bored with that. I want to win but the unquestioned assumptions in the foundations of 4x games is a bit too cynical for me even though I love playing war games, but then again there is a difference between two sides blasting it out in a war and an ever growing suffocating empire that consumes all under its color and banner and has no other objective than endless growth...
Almost every 4x game is concerned with consolidating power under your control, I mean yeah it is fun right! I am not trying to bash it as inherently bad but at a certain level I find it a really constricting theme after awhile even though I love playing evil villains in fantasy as the next person. I just want more from the genre in terms of evolution of game design at a foundational level not just more stuff and more dlc and more mechanics and more different kinds of space war. If the only shape of an empire game is of an oppressive unstoppable regime either succeeding or failing to rise I just think that is pretty limited in vision. Not that there isn't an amazing diversity of strategy games that don't fit the mold that I am describing, but in general I think there is truth to my point.
For a reference of what something different can look like, see modern euro game design in board gaming, in particular I think the board game Oceans creates a compelling strategy experience that while still being about winning isn't inherently about just being the most powerful creature or presence on the board at any one moment. Mutual benefits are complex and arise spontaneously because the objective isn't complete annihilation for anybody.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/232414/oceans
I guess you could argue my criticism is all a matter of perspective, any kind of winning is going to encourage more winning and snowball to some degree in a system that isn't totally random, but then again the feeling of getting near the end game of almost any 4x gets a little bit tedious for most people, not only because every single turn takes more and more admin/micromanagement of a bigger and bigger empire but also because the most common impact of winning a 4x game is that the gameboard/environment becomes more and more homogeneous and less and less dynamic the closer you get to winning. Winning should reward you with interesting choices and dynamic board states not an experience that feels like a chokehold even though winning again can always be reframed as the process of gaining a chokehold on a system.
(again, a general point, I know and love that there always exception to the rule)