Ironclad Dominion

Ironclad Dominion squeezes a surprising amount of strategy into a phone-friendly package. You manage a tiny empire, balance resources, expand across a hex map and fend off rival factions, all in turn-based chunks that fit neatly into a coffee break. The interface is clearly designed for thumbs rather than a mouse.

The AI opponents play sensibly enough to keep you honest, and the tech tree is small enough to actually understand. I appreciated that a full match can wrap up in under an hour, so it never becomes a second job.

Everything is single-player and offline, with no online leaderboards pestering you. Skirmish mode is where I spent most of my time, tweaking the map size and difficulty until matches felt just right.

What we liked

• Touch-first strategy controls
• Matches that finish in a reasonable time
• Entirely offline with adjustable difficulty