15 best strategy games for Android (2023)

The Battle of Polytopia

Price: Free / Up to $4.49

Some other features include offline play, pass-and-play local multiplayer, leaderboards, and low-poly graphics that should work well with most phones. Additionally, the controls are pretty easy, and everything does what it should. It’s a surprisingly competent game in the genre despite its looks. Even the in-app purchases aren’t offensive, which we like.

Bloons TD 6

Price: $4.99 with in-app purchases

It runs for $4.99 with additional in-app purchases if you choose to pay for them. The Kingdom Rush series of games are also quite good if you like tower defense strategy.

Card Thief

Price: Free / $1.99

Card Thief is one of the more unique strategy games. It’s a mix between strategy and a card game. Your goal is to move around to avoid detection. You’ll have equipment, stealth points, and more to help you avoid the guards and finish the level. It boasts a play time of two to three minutes per play. That makes it great for casual gamers. You can can download the game for free and unlock the full version for $1.99. It’s also available via Google Play Pass if you have it.

Chess by AI Factory Limited

Price: Free

Chess is one of the oldest strategy games. Chess Free is probably the best chess game on mobile. The graphics aren’t a lot to look at. However, you’ll have 12 difficulty levels across two game modes, ELO Ratings, save and load games, local multiplayer, a chess tutor, and a bunch of other cool stuff. It’s about as complete of a chess game as you can find. It utilizes the Treebeard Chess Engine. It’s the same one from MSN Chess. AI Factory Limited has a bunch of other simple board games like Checkers, GO, and several others.

Dungeon Warfare 2

Price: $4.99

What we think is neat, though, are the procedurally generated dungeons that give the game an almost endless appeal. You can also mix and match your difficulty modes for more challenges. There is just very little wrong with this game, and that makes it an easy recommendation.

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Kairosoft games

Price: Free to play / Varies

Kairosoft is a developer on Google Play with several criminally underrated strategy games. Some examples include Game Dev Story, Pocket Harvest, Grand Prix Story 2, Cafeteria Nipponica, Ninja Village, and many others. Many of the games blend strategy and simulation elements, but they’re all pretty good games that cover a variety of topics. Meanwhile, the games are either free to play, others are premium. It depends on the title. In any case, Kairosoft has a lot of good games and many of them are strategy games.

Legends of Runeterra

Price: Free to play

It’s free-to-play, but not offensively so. It’s definitely among the best games in its genre and it actually does require some strategy to do well.

Motorsport Manager Racing

Price: Free to play

It is a free-to-play game with no offline mode. That’s why the Play Store rating is a bit lower. For that, we recommend this game’s predecessor, Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 (Google Play). The only beef we have with that game is that it hasn’t been updated in a couple of years.

Northgard

Price: $8.99

Northgard is one of the newer strategy games on the list. It launched in 2021 for mobile and is a port of the Steam game from 2018. It’s almost identical to the PC version of the game except this one has touch controls. The game blends survival and strategy elements along with kingdom-building elements. You create a settlement on a newly discovered continent. From there, you manage your resources, train an army, and defend yourself from bad guys and harsh winters. There are several clans in the game, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. It’s a bit expensive and lower-end devices seem to struggle with it quite a bit. We only recommend this one to those with modern, higher-end devices.

Rebel Inc and Plague Inc

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Rebel Inc and Plague Inc are two excellent strategy games. Plague Inc has players creating viruses and trying to infect the entire world. It’s so frighteningly accurate that the CDC once asked the developers to speak about the game. Rebel Inc has players trying to quell rebellions in the region to help ease unrest. Your decisions affect the game story and there are five regions for you to play in. Both games are among the best strategy games for mobile. It’s also worth nothing that Rebel Inc, at least, is actually a very tough game to get through. Don’t get discouraged if it whips you out of the gate.

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Rusted Warfare

Price: $1.99

Rusted Warfare is a retro-style real-time strategy game with a lot going for it. It boasts a more hardcore RTS experience with no in-app purchases, no ads, and no pay-to-win mechanics. It also boasts over 40 player controlled units, various defenses, online and offline multiplayer, and support for mice and keyboards. The graphics aren’t winning any awards, but frankly that’s about the only ding we have on this one. Even then, it’s not bad if you’re into retro games. It even has a custom game mode for practice, fun, and goofing around with the game’s mechanics. This one should probably be more popular.

Seige Up RTS

Price: Free / $1.99 with in-app purchases

Where this game really shines, though, is the community. There is an in-game library of over 4,000 challenges created by players. You can also build and share your own levels if you want to. The game also includes built-in cheats, modding support, and more. Honestly, we could keep going but the feature list is simply too long. This is one of those really good ones you hear about.

Supercell games

Price: Free to play

Supercell is the developer of four of the most successful and popular strategy games ever. They are Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Brawl Stars, and Boom Beach. Clash of Clans and Boom Beach are RTS strategy games where you build a base, defend it against other players, and then attack other players. Clash Royale is a card game similar in scope to Hearthstone. Brawl Stars is a beat ’em up strategy game with some MOBA elements. Each game boasts a massive player base and that’s good news because they’re all online multiplayer games. There are also plenty of games like Clash of Clans as well as games like Clash Royale if you like the genre but want to try another developer’s spin on it.

Total War series

Price: $4.99-$14.99

These games are console and PC quality strategy games and that’s supported by the single upfront cost. Canonically speaking, Rome: Total War takes place before Medieval II, in case you want to play them in order.

Unciv

Price: Free

It doesn’t look like Civilization V, but the mechanics are there. The developer is actively working on this as well, so it’ll get even better with time. It’s also entirely free and is easily the best entirely free strategy game on mobile.

XCOM 2 Collections

Price: $19.99

The only downside is that this one requires a somewhat modern phone and won’t work on lower-end devices. Plus, $19.99 is a bit of a steep ask for a mobile game. Still, there are no additional in-app purchases and there is a lot of content to play through.

If we missed any of the best strategy games for Android, tell us about them in the comments. You can also check out our latest Android app and game lists by clicking here.
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