Now that federations are becoming much more powerful with their various bonuses, will there still be a good reason to NOT join one? Are single empires intended to be able to keep up with federations?



Regular subjects and hegemony federations seem to be pretty similar from a conceptual perspective, but the bonuses for a hegemony seem to be stronger from what I know so far, especially if other members of a hegemony federation still get the AI difficulty bonus. Are regular subjects intended to be able to compete with hegemony federations for empires that want to expand by subjugation?



The starting bonus for a trade league (getting all three other trade policies together) seems to be pretty strong, so a good strategy would be to form such a federation as early as possible. Can you form a trade-league with a 1-planet sector you released as a vassal for just that purpose?



What are your general thoughts about 2-empire federations consisting of one very large empire and one very small empire, where the smaller empire just exists for the purpose of giving the larger empire the federation bonuses?