Page 3
Fig. 4. The NCC-1701ELike Monopoly, you trade your four houses for a hotel by upgrading weapons research and shipyards in order to gain strength and position. When the enemy lands on Park Place with a hotel on it he's going to pay! In Armada that is akin to a few light and medium enemy interceptors attacking two Borg cubes and being assimilated! Sometimes you are left alone to gain strength and other times the enemy finds you and relentlessly attacks.
Some missions have objectives that are not all power-based. You may have to navigate and elude enemies and in order to get to a certain map position to achieve a certain goal. Armada has a chess element designed into certain missions. There are times when you need to use your pieces like sacrificing a rook to save your king. When you move to a new dilithium moon after wresting it from your enemies, station a force there to protect your mining freighters even though the chance of them being destroyed by a counter-attack is strong.
THE SOUNDSSeveral of the missions are long but the time melts away as you addictively build up your resources. A nice feature of Armada is that it allows you to save a mission at any stage allowing you to pick it up later. One mission successfully completed unfolds to the next in a logical sequence.
All effects are ample but you can get weary of the same response verbiage from you newly commissioned ships' captains touting their allegiance to the Empire. There is different background music for each race's missions: its not obtrusive. The Borg music is quite relaxing and gives a feel of vast spatial expanse. Even the Romulans have varied verbal responses to your commands.
They have that same "smart aleck," superior tone as they do on the TV Star Trek. The smaller, cloaked vessels have a captain with a hoarse whisper that seemingly pokes fun with replies like "move it" when you tell them to navigate somewhere. Weapons' sounds seem right. The Klingons sometimes speak their language. Phasers and weapon beams are fine. Even the transport beam sound is just like that of the "real" TV shows.
