Star Trek: Armada

Star Trek: Armada is a real-time strategy game published in 2000 by Activision. The game's look and feel is based primarily on Star Trek: The Next Generation, with elements from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager also being incorporated. Playable factions include the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire and the Borg Collective. The game received mixed reviews but was noted for being one of the better Star Trek games to be made. A sequel, Star Trek: Armada II, was released on November 16, 2001.

In a cross-promotion with the Star Trek Customizable Card Game, an initial run of Star Trek: Armada boxes contained an exclusive playable card, the Akira class U.S.S. Jupiter.

The last Activision-released patch was 1.2, however, a group of modders have also released an unofficial 1.3 patch.

Plot
Following the Dominion War, the Federation turns to rebuilding. However, a Federation timeship, the U.S.S. Premonition, suddenly appears, under attack by the Borg. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, commanding the U.S.S. Enterprise-E, comes to its aid. The U.S.S. Premonition's captain, Thaddeus Demming, warns Picard of an impending Borg invasion that, in his timeline, led to the devastation of the Alpha Quadrant.

Elsewhere, the Klingon Empire finds itself in the midst of a civil war, led by Toral, the illegitimate son of Duras, who was the former head of the powerful Klingon House Duras. With the help of Commander Worf, who commands the U.S.S. Avenger, Toral is defeated. He retreats to the Romulan/Klingon Neutral Zone, and reveals that he was assisted by agents from the Romulan Star Empire.

During this time, the Romulans come across a stable Omega Particle in space. The particle, first uncovered by a Ferengi mining guild, is about to be sold to the Cardassians; the Tal Shiar sends Admiral Sela to secure it before that sale can proceed. Despite Borg interference, Admiral Sela delivers the Omega Particle to a fortified Romulan base.

The Borg Collective, wanting to secure the Omega Particle at all costs, assimilate a Dominion cloning facility and use it to clone Locutus of Borg, the former title of Jean-Luc Picard when he was assimilated shortly before the Battle of Wolf 359. With Locutus of Borg leading their armada, they take the Omega Particle from the Romulans. With the Omega Particle secure, Locutus attacks Earth. He is successful, but the U.S.S. Enterprise-E is able to escape through a temporal vortex created by the U.S.S. Premonition.

Going back in time, the U.S.S. Enterprise-E is able to forge an alliance with both the Romulan and Klingon Empires. Together, they are able to repel the invasion of Earth, and take the fight to the very heart of the Borg Collective, where the near-limitless power of the Omega Particle is fueling their war machine. Using a captured transwarp gate, the alliance strikes at the Borg's staging grounds, destroying the Omega Particle. However, Locutus travels back in time before he can be defeated.

Now in an earlier part of the timeline, Locutus, in a Borg Sphere, tries to kill Jean-Luc Picard shortly after the U.S.S. Enterprise-D's very first mission at Debeb IV's Farpoint Station. However, Locutus is thwarted by the U.S.S. Premonition which, unaffected by the changes to the timeline, pursues Locutus back in time and destroys his ship. When a battle-weary U.S.S. Premonition returns to the "present" and witnesses that all has returned to normal, Captain Demming sends the ship and crew home to a brighter future. Picard ends with a positive note as a new Federation-Klingon-Romulan alliance forms.

Gameplay
Star Trek: Armada is a real-time strategy video game in which players select a faction from the Star Trek universe and build fleets of starships to conduct battle. Four playable factions are featured in the game: the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Borg. A handful of ships from other Star Trek races make cameo appearances, such as the Dominion, Cardassians, and Ferengi. Not including construction, mining, and campaign-only ships, each faction fields six different classes of starship ranging from scouts to capital ships. Each class of ship possesses a unique tactical ability.

The game features a continuous campaign divided into five parts: one for each of the playable races and a fifth part in which the player fights against the Borg while controlling an alliance of the other three races. The game's multi-player mode allows for skirmish battles with the computer or other players. Individual games are played out on a representative scale that is roughly equivalent to a planetary system. The player may encounter a variety of celestial bodies such as planetoids, asteroids, and nebulae, each having an effect on gameplay.

Three resources are used in the game: Crew, Dilithium and Officers. Crew is automatically generated over time via starbases (the resource rate can be increased by building a Starbase in orbit of a planet), while Dilithium is mined from moons by resource gatherers. Officers are used to command ships, which artificially limits the number of units that a player can field at any one time.

Reception
Star Trek: Armada was noted as one of the few good Star Trek games to be made by GameSpot, garnering a 7.9 out of 10. GameSpot praised the game for its graphics, which accurately replicated the ships from Star Trek: The Next Generation. GameSpot also noted the slight twists in resource and unit mechanics, but concluded that the game was more or less a standard RTS.

IGN gave Star Trek: Armada a 6.0 out of 10, criticizing a formulaic approach that failed to distinguish the game from other RTS titles. They also considered the single-player game to be boring. Both GameSpot and IGN noted several bugs causing video and sound problems, as well as alt-tabbing causing the game to crash.

Star Trek: Armada's sales made it the second best selling Star Trek game's behind Interplay's Star Trek: 25th Anniversary. Activision helped this by releasing simple modding tools on their site for people to create game maps and simple ships for the game. Many mods came to prominence for Star Trek: Armada, such as the Millennium Project.