Can strategy games really work with touch controls?

Touch controls and strategy games used to be a painful mix — fat fingers, tiny units, menus buried three taps deep. Playing Tidewardens made us realise how far the design has come when someone actually puts in the effort.

The best touch strategy games keep the map readable at a glance and avoid cramming too much onto one screen. Tidewardens zooms cleanly and groups its actions sensibly, so you're rarely fighting the interface instead of the enemy.

It still helps to play on a bigger screen. A tablet turns a fiddly phone game into a comfortable one, and a lot of these games are clearly designed with that in mind even if they run fine on a phone.

So yes, strategy can work on touch — but the burden is entirely on the designers to respect your fingers. When they do, it's great. When they don't, no amount of patience saves it.