Fragile Allegiance is a unique and complex sci-fi strategy game. Working for “Tetra Corp” the player is sent off to colonize and take control over the asteroid sector K240. Be careful though, there are many others that are looking to colonize this small sector and the competition is fierce. Choose to take control using just diplomacy or using the cruel and dangerous tactics of military power to force your ways.
For strategy games of its time, Fragile Allegiance is very complex and unique.
Many games usually limit what players can actually do and control, but in this game you can have control on every aspect! Thankfully, Interplay developed a number of tutorials to assist the player with the games complexities and they are very helpful. For those who enjoy accomplishing different missions and requirements, you will not find that here. The player is left with just the outline of the story and you are on your way, many players would probably not enjoy this since there is no plot line, turns or twists, just control or be controlled.
To begin the player can choose how large the sector can be, how many other alien races there will be to compete with, and how
hard they will be. What I really enjoyed was how the player can control the passage of time, in some games the passage of time is very fast and it might be hard for a player to keep up with the micromanaging at such a fast pace. Turning down the time helps the player to not feel rushed and unorganized eventually leading to frustration. Thankfully there are “supervisors” that you can hire in the game to also help micromanaging so that the player can focus on more important issues. When you first begin you are given an asteroid (of random size) and a number of credits to begin building your first colony.
The building aspect is very fun since you can decide the exact layout of all your buildings on each asteroid which adds even more strategy. There are many different types of buildings to choose from and upgrades/new designs are available later on in the game as you gain more credits. One flaw of the building layout is the fixed camera angle; sometimes buildings can be lost in between taller buildings and can become frustrating. Luckily there is an alternate building view which gives a grid to the area allowed to build on and shows them in a flat view (I prefer it this way) that can help with frustration.
As time goes, you will soon come in contact with other races, you can choose a number of responses to their requests or even request of them. Each race is different in how they will be towards you and will react as well on how you treat other races.
One of the best parts to this game is the military battles. Eventually players are able to produce a huge amount of different space ships that you can put into fleets. You can use these fleets to attack asteroids or other fleets. At the same time as fleets, there are a number of different missiles that can be produced as well. My favorite missile is the vortex missile which unleashes a number of small tornados onto the asteroid and does a great job at destroying buildings on the landscape to assist the fleets.
Any person who enjoys strategy games that are not too frustrating should check Fragile Allegiance out. So far I still haven’t actually won because I continue to want to try different ways to explore the sector, or I’m usually defeated. Try your luck; I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.
