Touching Special Places–2011’s Best iOS Strategy Titles

Dear reader, in the borrowed structure of Rampaging Roy Slaven, do you think iOS gaming is a waste of time and lacks the ego-stroking, self-determined legitimacy of ‘proper games’?  If the answer is ‘yes’, don’t bother reading further (or calling in to our talkback line). 

2011 was a very, VERY strong year for Apple’s touch devices.  Going against those famous words of Steve Jobs – who millions mourned at his sad passing – the strategy genre on iOS has been anything but ‘foolish’ and we’ve not been hungry for such games in the year’s duration. 

Let’s get straight into it, because if one thing is perennial in touch-gaming, it’s all about getting in as quickly as possible.  Chow those fibre pills, snack on a bag of prunes and park the beef on the Royal Dalton.  It is on. 

Starbase Orion

I’ve covered this gem prior, but it damn well deserves the praise heaped upon it and more.  Few things can beat a 4X space empire builder in your pocket, especially one packing asynchronous multiplayer.  It certainly makes for a more legitimate game than all of those internet browser affairs, revelling in the notion that it is indeed the direct portable descendent of Masters of Orion 2. 

Without reinviting verbosity, Starbase Orion is all about stellar conquest and developing a robust empire to feed an increasingly ravenous economic and military machine.  There is no great diplomatic facet, no differing paths to victory.  Starbase Orion is about subjugation, about annexation and obliteration, it is solely about annihilation.  Orbitally bombard an enemy base.  Deploy troop transports for a planetary invasion.  Research shipyards, greater naval weaponry, enhance your espionage and sabotage capacities, buttress border worlds with planetary defences and the exciting list goes on. 

The interface is slick; flicking between and arranging an empire and assigned planetary projects is one of triumph.  As the lifeblood of Starbase Orion is population, distributed between the three main disciplines of food production, manufacturing and research, shifting workforce ratios is as easy as moving population abstractions between discipline slots with a single swipe, either within a planetary worker pool or between planets or even between systems. 

The fact that players now have the opportunity to take what traditionally was a predominantly solitary experience into the realm of portable asynchronous multiplayer is the biggest feather in the cap of Starbase Orion.  What’s more, it features an intelligent turn-based system that measures empire projects and milestones against each other, so players with short-term development, manufacturing or explorative goals set might find they receive two or three sequential turns before their opposition receives theirs on account of finishing a project.  It might sound complicated and even slightly unbalanced, but it keeps things fast in the early game and becomes less of an observable facet after player expansion.

All in all, Starbase Orion is one hell of a game.  With a clutch of differing races and the ability to create custom ones, it should cure what ails any space strategy freak. 

Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion

Along with Starbase Orion, this is what I offer up as a shining example of iOS gaming depth.  Ravenmark is an army-centric fantasy turn-based strategy gem worthy of a much higher price tag – and on any other system, it would certainly be the case.  What makes Ravenmark special is the sheer degree of love a plucky studio out of Singapore put into this debut effort.  Not content with simply offering up a tactically-sound detachment-level TBS that can rival the best of Koei’s efforts (as Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the closest cousin to Ravenmark’s combat mechanics), but there’s an incredibly deep backstory not only to the world itself, but to each unit, religion and factions. 

The campaign itself is a tough but enjoyable one, with an ensemble of interesting characters and surprisingly fine writing and a great soundtrack.  I don’t want to say much more, dear reader, outside of fans of Japanese SRPGs and tabletop wargames owe it to themselves to pick it up.  From the intuitive UI to the crisp graphics and snappy movement and combat, Ravenmark is peerless and stands toe-to-toe with contemporaries of far greater budgets and manpower.

Legion of the Damned

Dear reader, love stalks me once more.  This time in the form of a hex-based sci-fi wargame based on the military science fiction novel series by acclaimed author William C. Dietz, and by Jupiter’s many moons, it is a winner! 

If you’re familiar with the names Missionforce: Cyberstorm or Panzer General, you should already be acquainted with what lineage Legion of the Damned stems from.  It might look perhaps a little basic to those thinking science fiction strategy gaming starts and stops with Starcraft, but this is a very different beast and, to use  a snippet of phraseology from George Stobbart, if you know your onions you will know there is some serious tactical firepower within Legion of the Damned. 

William C. Dietz also wrote the campaign story, so there’s some great military sci-fi trappings throughout in this tale of a reanimated rogue’s gallery of cyborgs given a second chance to serve the Empire as a bio-augmented frontier force against an encroaching alien threat. 

The meat and potatoes, naturally, is the combat.  After a raft of in-depth boot camp tutorials, the challenge ramps up quickly, testing a player’s ability to enact lessons learned prior.  The use of recon, artillery spotting and use of terrain is paramount – as well it should be – but each of the three factions brings a different experience to the wargaming table.  Punctuating each mission are fully-voiced slideshow animations that do a great job of adding flair to an already interesting title – something Legion of the Damned and Ravenmark share. 

However, dear reader, Legion of the Damned has, like Starbase Orion, a planet-splitting weapon in its feature arsenal.  Outside of the map creation and sharing component, you have an asynchronous multiplayer battleground to dig into.  When setting up a game, players can select a free-for-all or a team-based 2v2 match.  The option to choose a faction is also offset by the fact there are three ‘loadouts’ or compositional army types – Recon, Assault and Resistance – and feature differing unit numbers and classes upon deployment to the field. 

Legion of the Damned is a game of territory or flag capture, so even the early game of a match is speedy and directed.  Add to this the fact that each match is constrained to eight turns and you’ve got a savagely mobile game, if you’ll pardon the pun.  The multiplayer server allows you to set up a game, give it a lofty title (thus far, my pitiful, withered porridge has added to the pantheon of great battles like Thermopylae, Rorke’s Drift and River Plate with ‘Firefight’, ‘Left Offworld’ and the miserable ‘Frontier Alliances’), and it will sit on the server until the requisite number of players has been met.  The glory of push notifications means you’ll be sent a message when the dropships have landed and troops are in position. 

Also, like all good asynchronous games, it supports dead drop messaging both globally and between team members, so players can leave eloquent appraisals between turns or denigrating notes that would leave Xbox Live teen gun-heads shamefaced and red-cheeked.  As expected, the community I’ve dealt with so far, dear reader, is a fine and upstanding one. 

In summary, Legion of the Damned should be on any discerning iOS strategy gamer’s machine. 

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And there you have it, dear reader, another list you never asked for.  You can continue to believe iOS gaming is nothing but Canabalt and Angry Birds clones, weak tilt-based non-events, busy work disguised as quaint pixel gems…OR, you can sink your canines into the rich red meat supplied above.  Granted, these aren’t your 99c specials – Starbase Orion, Ravenmark and Legion of the Damned hover around the five dollar mark – but on any other platform, a pundit would be paying in excess of fifteen dollars for such software.

iOS gaming just keeps getting better for strategy games.  You’re now acquainted with the best of 2011 on the platform.