Tide Lords

Tide Lords is a strategy game that trusts you to think. You command fleets across a shifting map where weather and supply routes matter as much as firepower. Rushing almost always fails, and the game is honest about that from the tutorial onward.

The touch controls took an evening to click, but drag-to-select and pinch-to-zoom work better than we expected on a phone. Once it clicked, planning a pincer move felt tactile rather than fiddly. Matches can run long, so it's more of a lean-back experience than a quick fix.

Our main gripe is battery. Extended sessions on full graphics ran the phone warm, and we ended up capping the frame rate in settings. Do that and it's a smart, slow-burn strategy game worth living with.

What we liked

• Weather and supply lines that truly matter
• Surprisingly good touch controls once learned
• Deep planning for patient players