individual counters to represent large fleets, with the constituent ship counters being kept off map. While nominally a two player game, players must keep each empire's records separate, meaning that is easy to run each side as a team with up to one player per empire. Team play can involve up eight people, but more typically involves four to five players. The main boxed set has a series of scenarios that can be played individually, but together outline the play of the entire General War. As well, it also allows for free campaigns outside of the canonical Star Fleet Universe timeline to be played, with canonical orders of battle for each of the stellar empires. The expansions typically have a number of scenarios, which may be a focused treatment of a particular part of the General War, or an alternate way the war could have begun. There are also a limited number of scenarios that show other conflicts in the region, such as the Four Powers War. Editions and supplements Early versions Federation and Empire itself was originally published in 1986 by Task Force Games (TFG). The rulebook has been revised five times since then. All editions come with 'fleet charts' (sheets of off-map holding areas for excess counters), 'capital charts' (to detail the contents of the capital systems of the various empires), and the main map. The original set included 10 numbered sheets of double-sided counters for ships as well as two sheets of single-sided counters for markers and the like. TFG's first strategic level game for the Star Fleet Universe was Federation Space, released in 1981. It was derived from the current working draft of what became Federation and Empire, and so can be considered an "older brother" to it, even though there are notable differences between the two. One such difference was that Federation Space did not use the battleforce concept in combat resolution. All the starships in the battle hex participated in combat. The result was that the sheer quantity of ships tended to dominate the contest over the quality of the ships in the contest. This almost always resulted in hordes of the inferior ships of the Klingon Deep Space Fleet overwhelming the smaller but high-quality Federation Starfleet. Another difference with F&E is that the rules for handling fleet carriers with their fighter wings were immature. Deluxe Edition Federation and Empire Deluxe Edition was published