Carrier Command is one of the most engaging games I played in my youth.
The combination of fluid 3D wireframe graphics (very much a novelty in the days when 8MHz was "turbo" and 4 color monochrome was the norm) and unique weaponry really made this game exciting. I've never been much for strategy and I'm sure I never actually beat the game but it was really fun to take and try to hold the islands in CC.
The game story is something like you need to defeat an equivalent carrier coming towards you from the other corner of the map. There are 99 (?) islands to use between you for resources and defense. When you reach an island you take it over by first defeating any enemy defenses in place and then launching your own "viral" complex; there were complexes for resource gathering, and defense. Once the complex was up and running the island became part of your resource network and your supply drone could use it as a stopover point.
That's right! You had to anticipate and allocate building requests. Built war material (planes, tanks, lasers, missiles, etc) were gathered by a drone supply ship and transported to you along the network route. If the enemy broke your network you ran out of supplies!! That's why I never beat the game... never paid enough attention to this aspect of things.
The game let you use multiple vehicles: the Manta aircraft (my favorite), the Walrus amphibious tank, and the carrier itself. Each had its purpose and you could outfit the aircraft and tank with differing weapons loadouts depending on your objective: CAP, bombing runs, Island take-over, etc. That was really exciting to me at the time - the ability to load my Manta with a combination of lasers, missiles, or bombs depending on my goals. The combat was fun ,too. Another fave weapon was the "tomahawk" equivalent that the carrier itself had - you launched a satellite drone overhead behind the carrier and used it to find targets for the missiles, it felt very powerful.
I can't believe there haven't been more clones of this game... it was so good. There's a fella making a remake which looks pretty nice, but he's just one guy and it's been in the works a longgg time (http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=472138) and another good one called Hostile Waters was made a few years ago that didn't sell nearly enough!
