Iron Tide Command

Iron Tide Command drops you in charge of a small fleet and asks you to grow it through smart moves rather than brute force. It's a turn-based strategy game at heart, with fog of war, supply lines, and enemies who genuinely seem to have a plan.

The interface is the quiet hero. Managing a fleet on a small screen could be a nightmare, but everything is tucked away neatly and pulls up with a tap. We had a few tense matches that came down to a single misjudged move — the good kind of tense.

It's a slower game, so bring patience. Once it clicks, though, the satisfaction of springing a trap you set three turns ago is hard to beat.

What we liked

• Clean interface for a complex game
• Enemy AI that actually plans ahead
• Deeply satisfying long-game payoffs