The Banner Saga was a bit of alright, wasn't it? It combined some amazing storytelling, a branching narrative, and some of the deepest strategy combat seen on mobile.
Even better, The Banner Saga 2 launches this week on iOS and Android! If you're just too darn impatient to wait another couple of days though, you can try the following six best strategy games on mobile. To the word vessel!
(I mean the article.)
The Banner Saga
Where better to start for a Banner Saga fix than with the original Banner Saga? This little viking story was beautiful, with amazing characters and compelling combat to boot. Just thinking about it has gotten me all excited for the sequel. Hey! That's out soon! Cool.
Plague Inc.
Plague Inc. is awesome. It puts you in the shoes of a deadly virus or bacterium (do pathogens have shoes? Maybe cytoplasm is more accurate!), tasked with taking over the world.
In order to spread, you increase stats in transmissibility, temperature tolerance, deadliness, and more.
Ahhhh, world domination is fun.
FTL: Faster Than Light
FTL is a very cool sci-fi spaceship management sim. You've got to look after your crew and make sure they don't die of oxygen starvation and the like (all pretty normal everyday stuff). You'll face decisions about which planet to go to, whether to help or investigate a shifty-looking unknown craft, and how to deal with space pirates!
It's also a roguelike, so if you die, it's back to the beginning with you, mister.
Clash Royale
Probably the best card game out there (though I might be doing Hearthstone a disservice there), Clash Royale is an RTS with all the polish you've come to expect from Supercell.
Perfectly weighted, the cards are amazingly satisfying to use - and opening chests to find what cards you've received is as exciting after 30 hours as it is at the start.
Much like Hearthstone (again), it's got one of the fairest and least obtrusive free to play models around, too, so you've got no excuse not to play it.
Rymdkapsel
Another spacey one (sorry, but space just makes everything cooler!), Rymdkapsel is a rather more relaxing, subdued affair. It's a base building sim where all your inhabitants are little white cubes. They're so cute! And you slot together rooms like a jigsaw puzzle, which is very pleasing in the brain module.
Rymdkapsel is somehow quite mellow, which is not an adjective you can often apply to a strategy game. It gets quite heated late on, mind: you need to keep growing your base and its defenses to stave off the ever growing enemy force. May the force be with you, soldier.
(It's space, so that phrase still counts, right?!)
XCOM: Enemy Within
The big daddy of strategy games on mobile, XCOM is a masterclass. It's a wonder they managed to cram this sci-fi take on Thunderbirds into an iPhone - but they did it, and thank God they did.
The level of tactical team play possible with your squad is tremendous, and you'll grow a little too attached to your best lineup. Try not to though, because unfortunately one of them will likely end up as alien fodder.
