How to tell a good touchscreen strategy game from a bad one

Strategy on a touchscreen is a design minefield. The games that flop usually ported a PC interface straight over and expected your thumbs to cope.

The first thing I check is unit selection. Can I grab the right unit in a crowd without zooming and squinting? Frontier Command nails this with radial menus, and it changed how I felt about the whole genre on mobile.

Match length is the second signal. A good mobile strategy game respects that you might be playing in short windows. Ten to fifteen minute skirmishes beat two-hour campaigns you can never finish in one sitting.

I also watch for whether the AI actually does anything. If I can win by building a wall and waiting, I'm bored in an hour. Pressure keeps you thinking.

If a strategy game gets those three things right — selection, length, and a pushy opponent — it'll usually earn a spot on my phone for months.