Last updated on October 13th, 2025 at 02:25 pm
Network WARS – Strategy Game Review
Network WARS is a Strategy game from James Rutt, first launched in 25th August 2021.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 29+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Network WARS Stand Out
Network Wars has five Factions each trying to gain total control of the Network. You are the RED Faction. The other four factions are controlled by an AI.
Very simple to play, but takes great strategic depth to master. Every game is different, with a new set of challenges and opportunities.
Can you win the NetworkWars?
NO ADS. NO IN-GAME PURCHASES. NO TIME LIMITS.
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Network WARS is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 26th August 2021
Recent improvements include:
Minor Fixes
Download & Availability
Network WARS is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Incredible amount of interest and emergent complexity from a very simple set of rules.
This deceptively simple app is one of our favorites. The basic rules are easy to learn but the game dynamics shift with every randomly-generated round. Its like a miniature induction into intuitive game theory! But fun.
This is a fantastic addictive game with realistic strategies. There is one flaw that gives the human player a tremendous advantage. Bots never attack a node that has an equal or higher value. Attacking a higher node sometimes is a great strategy as it weakens the node so that it gets attacked by other bots or allows the player to use more than 1 node to gang up on a higher node.
Games are short and engaging. Most attractive game we have on our tablet.
We loved playing Network Wars (created by Jim Rutt) because it reminds us of all the bar work effects the world is littered with if you can function stacking. Every function stacking beyond a threshold achieves a network effect. We like the way game mechanics reinforce network effect availability in the game and in general. ~Bobby.
This is an interesting twist on Risk-style strategy games. We have our suspicions about how the battles are decided, but its definitely not 3v2 with defenders winning ties. Each game is completely random, which leaves some games feeling very lopsided. We wish we could wager on the outcome, or that there was some sort of challenge metric assigned to maps where our high-density units are at the 4 corners of the map.
Dont 100% understand how everything works because sometimes the math works out differently than we expect, but the game is interesting and a good challenge.
Why isnt the math consistent? Sometimes a 3 will beat a 2, but sometimes it doesnt, and sometimes a 2 will beat a 3 when it doesnt seem like it should. If theres an explanation for this that can be factored into the players strategy, please include the logic in the instructions. If there isnt an explanation, please fix this broken but almost great game.
The basic concept is great. But when we attack a 2 with a 6; we assume we should win and end up with a 3 on that tile? Instead the tile did not change colors, an we both dropped to a 1? If this is a bug, it wrecks the game. If thats by design it would help to explain why.
We hope this game gets updated. Classic mode and other-more reasonable- modes 3 big problems. 1) how rolls are determined isnt stated, nor obvious. Is it random or not? Modifiers? Unknown. -An 8 unit spot shouldnt be whittled down to 2 by a 2 unit enemy. Likewise, Ive played rounds where every one of our rolls is bad. And we mean that. every roll. 2) you cant call off an attack once started. Its all or nothing. Thus, if you have a series of rapid awful rolls on the attack, you dont get to cut your losses and wait. You whittle yourself down to 1. This is a deviation from risk rules that does not add to the game, imo. 3) whacky starting positions. In some ways it keeps things interesting, but sometimes the game starts off truly absurdly. Theres no sense playing them. Play one turn, get bad rolls, and its done. Auto surrender. Its annoying. We can think of several novel ways to bring both choice and chance into determining starting position, so its doable.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.1
- Size: 53.65 MB
- iOS: 10.0 or later
- Languages:
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: James Rutt
Last updated: 26th August 2021 | Genre: Strategy | Developer: James Rutt