Making strategy games work on touch

Strategy on phones lives or dies on the interface. Too many ports cram a desktop UI onto a small screen and expect you to poke tiny buttons mid-battle. It's miserable.

The games that get it right cut down complexity without dumbing it down. Ironline Command trimmed resources to two and added a plan-while-paused option, and suddenly a genre I thought didn't belong on phones felt natural.

The trick is fewer, clearer decisions that matter more. On a small screen, five middling choices are worse than two important ones.

If you've written off mobile strategy after a bad port, try one built for touch from the start. It's a different, better experience.