Kevin C. Wong

iOS Game - The Battle of Polytopia (2019) [+]

The Battle of Polytopia (2019) is a small Civilization-like 4X game. You start with a city. You explore and conquer other cities. You have one resource, stars, which are used to build units and develop resource squares. You also spend stars to develop technologies and the tech tree and units go to around Medieval Age.

The graphics are cute. The map is 16 x 16 with up to 3 computer players (you can buy more civilizations, each with a starting tech and maybe a bonus, and then play games with more and more computer players -- I hope the map gets bigger). No diplomacy so you're just attacking each other as soon as you find them.

User interface is simple and quite fine with touch. Units can't stack so first tap selects unit and second selects area underneath and then you get available choices and unavailable choices greyed out. Units can only do one thing (for the most part) and are grayed out once they've moved. There's a help system that hints a unit or city that hasn't done anything this turn.

It's a really fun game. Free, no ads, completely fine with the four included civilizations. There are a score of add-on civilizations costing $1 or $2 each. I don't think you get new game modes or anything like that. Apparently you can play with other people too (over internet or pass and play).