Tidehold Command

Tidehold Command scratches the strategy itch without demanding an hour per session. You lay out defenses along a harbor, manage a trickle of resources, and repel waves of raiders that get cleverer over time. Pinch-to-zoom and drag work smoothly, and I never fought the controls.

The difficulty ramps hard around the fifth map, which I liked, though newer players might bounce off it. There's a slower campaign mode for that. What impressed me was how readable everything stays on a small screen.

Battery-wise it's fine on low graphics, and there's no forced online connection for the single-player campaign, which is rarer than it should be.

What we liked

• Clean touch controls for base layout
• Meaty difficulty curve
• Offline single-player campaign