How to pick a mobile strategy game that won't waste your week

There are more mobile strategy games than anyone could play in a lifetime, and a lot of them look identical in screenshots. Here's the checklist I run through before installing anything new.

First, watch actual gameplay, not the trailer. Trailers hide the interface. I want to see how crowded the screen gets and whether the controls look fiddly on a phone-sized display.

Second, read about the mid-game, not the tutorial. Everything is fun for the first hour. What matters is whether the systems open up or just repeat with bigger numbers.

Third, check how the game respects your time. Some titles gate progress heavily. That's not automatically bad, but you should know before you invest, not discover it at hour ten.

Run those three checks and you'll dodge most of the disappointments. It takes ten minutes and saves whole evenings.