Star Trek Fleet Command

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I've long been a fan of 4X strategy games and couldn't resist the chance to try one that runs entirely on my phone and has some decent reviews. To summarise my opinion of it: it does the 4X pretty well, but there's hardly any strategy! You get to explore a very impressive-looking universe with your spaceships, expand your production facilities and follow a research tree; exploit resources by mining them; and exterminate NPCs or other players. All of that works well, with a very good user interface and almost no program glitches. However, when it comes to making strategic decisions, there are very few. Your starships can basically do three things: shoot other ships, mine resources, or carry out missions that reward you with resources. The missions are the same for every player though the order in which they happen depends on which planets you visit. And with very few exceptions, the missions require you to do one of three things: shoot ships; visit a location; or give away resources. The makers of the game have done their best to cover up the lack of strategic decisions with some tweaks. One is that your ships are crewed by characters from the various Star Trek series; a ship's abilities will differ slightly depending on its combination of crew. (Everyone has access to the same characters but the rate at which they appear is a bit of a lottery). Another is the idea that you can eventually join one of the Federation, Romulans or Klingons and settle in their parts of the universe. A third is that occasionally you are called on to make "moral decisions" -- for example, having captured a fugitive, do you hand him over to the guy seeking his head? Finally there's the standard MMORPG alliance system - being in an alliance grants you benefits when your allies get benefits, and also gives you access to a special shop where you can get stuff you can't get elsewhere. Ah, yes. The shop. Like most commercial MMORPG games, you are given the opportunity to spend real money to improve your chances. Rather than complain about this as exploitation, these days I just try to figure out how long the game can be played for free before non-payment becomes a real disadvantage. In this case, I'd estimate it at two weeks, because by that time you should have reached the point where you can attack other players;' base stations and vice versa, and so you will be severely handicapped if your resource production, defences or research fall behind. The game offers options in the research tree to give major boosts to several such abilities by spending real money. You can probably afford one of these boosts using freely collected in-game currency, which extends playability by a few days, but not the whole lot. For folk who are captivated by being part of the Star Trek Universe, or who want to set their own goals (e.g. research and build the Enterprise) it's a great game that will keep you occupied for a very long time. For fans of strategy games, look elsewhere.