As guessed in the title, Armada 2525 is set in the year 2525, just after your race passed an amazing feat in exploration and colonization in space. Now howver, you and others decide to fight over the galaxy.
Like most other games of the 4X genre, you must colonize and explore new worlds, harvesting the resources, and dusting off the opposition. You must make sure during the game to balance all the significant aspects of the game (expansion, industry, research, and defense) Because if you focus too much on one aspect, other players could easily take you out.
I was young and inexperienced with strategy games and learned this the hard way.
The combat system in the game was very interesting, you could say. It was simple, almost a little easy to me, yet let you get the job done with a challenge. At the start of the battle, the player is given different options to his newly deployed units like hide, defend, attack or penetrate. Once your orders are given the player is given the option about every 10 or so seconds to continue with the attack, retreat, or to order a full out attack. Ship to ground combat is even more simple. The attacking ships can fire at the ground line up and descend on the planet, firing at the planets defenses.
If the
attacking player wins his battle, he can either enslave the planet, or attack the population and destroy everyone. Research and technology in the game is, like most other things, simple. the player builds research centers and at the end of the production phase gives them to one of eight areas of research.
On the galaxy map, the neutron stars appear green. Once the player has colonized these stars they can set up research centers, that will research Neutronium Technollogy, which lets the player build what I call 'Uber' space ships at them.
What really made the game very fun was the Multiplayer aspect though. Playing with your friends for hours on end was amazing, ganging up on people, flawless! Many times when I was younger did I spend like 6 or 7 hours playing, if not longer. Sometimes I would even fall asleeps only to find that I lost the game. Though really, the multiplayer was the best thing for me, though I leave it to players to decide
I found it more of a normal, everyday strategy game though. It is still good, and actually impressed me with the graphics. It has some unique battle tactics, but overall it presents itself as a classic 4X game and should be pretty easy for gamers to pick up and succeed at.
