Wing Commander™: Armada

Armada taken purely as a strategy game is unique. Strip away the Wing Commander theme and the head to head space sim combat and you have a strategy game that's simple but potentially very interesting. The scenarios take place on an unexplored star map interconnected by jump routes. You start with a carrier, which serves as both your only means of expansion as well as the game's objective. To win, you have to kill your opponent's carrier and vice versa. Because your carrier is necessary for upgrading planets and useful as fighter support, you can't simply leave it protected deep in your territory. Each turn you can give your units orders to move one jump route. As you scout the map you'll find planets that offer minerals to exploit and strategic choke points. What makes Armada interesting is that these minerals are finite, making turtling a very bad idea. You also have the option to strip-mine which doubles the resource output but quadruples the depletion cost to the planet, good for quick expansion but inefficient. Resources must be transported manually to shipyards, which does involve micromanagement. Shipyards will then convert resources into fighters, which you can use for scouting and offense. Armada is a good game of risk management unfortunately hampered by a mediocre AI. Also, I would switch on autocalc for combat since battles are capped to 2 fighters per side at a given time, allowing a skilled pilot to defeat overwhelming odds in piecemeal.

In this game you can fight for supremacy on with strategy as well as while dogfighting. You can move your carrier around the map (think endless space or Sins of a solar empire with planets being linked by strings), conquer worlds and add your own defenses and factories. With your forces assembled you can go and hunt down the enemy flagship and bombard it with torpedoes to push them from the system. I had a great time playing this with my friends when I was younger, the split screen really helped so you could fight against your friends and elbow them if they blew up your ship. Great fun and a definite rebuy for me!

It's old, it feels it, but I can have my fun. Biggest memories were fighting with family members growing up, so can't really replicate that. Alt-O when in combat lets you change keybinds. Keybinds won't update until the next combat. Hey, at least we can set them! The strategy part is simple, only one resource type. Two factions, five combat ships each. This was really about multiplayer. Turn ship, shoot guns, and afterburners.

No dogfight pause, no alt-tab, no instructions for how to level up fortresses.