When comparing Star Traders 4X Empires Elite vs Merchant, the Slant community recommends Merchant for most people. In the question“What are the best Android games with economics-based gameplay?” Merchant is ranked 3rd while Star Traders 4X Empires Elite is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Merchant is:
The game has a nice retro pixel art style. From the menus to the dungeons or shop there is a very familiar aesthetic to the overall design that would have fit in quite well on consoles in the 80's.
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Pros
Pro Actively supported with frequent updates
The Trese Brothers studio is known for constant improvements and content additions to all their titles.
Pro Complex, multifaceted gameplay rivals desktop 4X titles
The depth of simulation in Star Traders 4X rivals that of the Galactic Civilizations and Master of Orion franchises from which it draws clear inspiration, and yet it's no simple genre clone: there are plenty of original ideas here.
Pro Pixel art
The game has a nice retro pixel art style. From the menus to the dungeons or shop there is a very familiar aesthetic to the overall design that would have fit in quite well on consoles in the 80's.
Pro Fun resource management mechanic
The player can sell their loot (gathered from a dungeon) for in game money, to then be spent on needed equipment or can equip their loot to try harder dungeons to get better loot to sell for new equipment. Each action is a gamble and may or may not pay off for the player.
Pro In active development
Merchant is still in a very active development phase, which means there will be plenty of bug fixes and new features and tweaks to the gameplay added.
Pro Dedicated subreddit
Merchant has a dedicated subreddit page where users can discuss the game, strategies and bugs.
Pro Completely free and zero permissions
Merchant is a completely free game that also has zero permissions.
Cons
Con Intriguing internal-faction system is poorly executed
Quoting pockettactics.com:
"In a strictly solo-play title whose main distinguishing feature is this faction system–the idea that you’re not playing as an ideologically pure civilization so much as guiding a fractious, corrupt plutocracy–you’d hope that those factions would be colorful and easily distinguished from one another. [...] Instead, what you have are two sets of three factions, each positioned, lore-wise, as starkly different from the others, though mechanically the separations are minor."
Con Unintuitive and poorly explained
Many important game systems are opaque to the player, and the tutorial and in-game documentation don't make up for this.
Con Current version has both ads and in-app purchases
Con Wait times
There are wait times in the game for both crafting and adventuring. This makes it impossible to sit and play for any length of time and makes the user have to come back to the game often in order to make any significant progress.
Con Lag/delay of action
When pressing buttons in the menus there is a noticeable delay until the requested action actually takes place.