Don't be fooled by the looks of The Grandest Fleet from QQP. While it has all the trappings of just another ship simulation, it's actually a well-developed strategy game. In other words, unlike a regular naval wargame sim, you don't have to apply for the U.S. Naval Academy before you play.

	Simulation war games rank right below intestinal surgery on my list of favorite things to do. My attitude is that if I'm smart enough to put myself in a position to blast my opponent's battleship to kingdom come, I'd prefer clicking a mouse button and letting the computer do the work over going blind trying to decipher a screen full of periscope screens and gauges, or wrestling with a joystick that looks as though its designer had a serious case of penis envy. The Grandest Fleet lets you command your flotilla with remarkable ease, and allows you to attack without breaking a sweat.

	If you give up on this game quickly, it won't be because you're bored. Aside from nine fixed battle maps, the game lets you put together your own randomly-generated map. If you ever tire of fighting one battle at a time, you can move on to a campaign, which consists of three separate battles. Under the campaign format, you can carry some of your firepower from one successful battle to the next. There are also 21 difficulty levels, and you can play against a friend or the computer. And if you have a friend from out of town that you're dying to pummel, The Grandest Fleet lets you do battle by modem.

	Once you've chosen a battle map and anointed yourself as the good guy, you get into the gameplay itself. The first thing you'll notice is that the water around each of cities has an ugly-looking white border around it. I'm assuming this was someone's notion of what frothy waves looks like, but they certainly would have been a lot better off usingsome sort of simple highlight. As ugly as it is, the froth is important, because it's the only place you can put your fleet at the start of the game. It's also about the only design element I can give QQP a hard time about, because the rest of the game looks great.

	Playing The Grandest Fleet is extremely simple, because all of the information you need to make a decision appears on the screen with the click of a mouse button. When you're building your fleet, you're always aware of what you've spent and how much money you have available. When you're moving your ships or attacking your opponent, you don't have to go to another menu to find out what you're capable of doing. And, when you're performing administrative work with your cities, you can see all of the information that you need.

	Having thrown that large bouquet of roses at The Grandest Fleet's feet, I do have one complaint. There's no intelligence element to this game. When you face the computer, the only way to scout his movements is to scroll around the entire map once its turn is finished. I'm not asking for complete intelligence reports, but it would be nice if you could call up the last known locations of your opponent's ships.

	Beware of the lure of the naval warfare element of this game. It's easy to start feeling like the Commodore of the High Seas, all the while forgetting that controlling cities is the key to success. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game wins, and the only way you can earn victory points is by controlling cities. You could put every ship your opponent owns on the ocean floor, but if he has more cities, or his cities are bigger than yours, he's going to win even though he doesn't have a poopdeck to stand on.

	If that's not reason enough, remember that your cities can also help provide you with a really big poopdeck. As they grow, you earn more and more culture, technology and resource points. These points give you some flexibility in deciding how you're going to control the high seas. For instance, if you'd prefer to seize a neutral city without having to attack it, you can take the easy way out and bribe the city to join your side. This seems extremely tacky and sordid, but you can rationalize any guilt feelings you might suffer by telling yourself you're not offering them money; your swaying them to your side with technology and resource points.

	Of course, culture isn't the only thing happening downtown. As your cities grow, you're able to build airports and shipyards, which allow you to improve both your offensive and defensive war-making capability. An airport will allow you to station a bomber group in your city, which will improve your chances of holding onto it immensely. Once you've built a shipyard, you'll eventually be able to build a supership, which will make your opponent's flagship look like a rowboat in comparison.

	Spending some time improving your air power will also make this game a lot easier. Your bombers can attack and defend when based on land. From the sea, they increase the reach of your firepower, allowing you to attack an opponent's city while staying safely out of range of any ships or forts he may have defending his turf.

	Whether you're an old seadog, or you get queasy if the waves in your bathtub get too high, this is a game worth having. It stays true to its naval motif with its extremely simple game-playing design, but offers enough of a management challenge to satisfy the die-hard strategy game buff. Even if you're still a little confused over which is your port and which is your starboard, The Grandest Fleet from QQP is a great way to sail the seven seas.