That moment a strategy game finally clicks

There's a particular feeling in strategy games that keeps me playing. You fail a map several times, you tweak one thing, and suddenly the whole run flows like it was always meant to.

It happened to me on an Ironhold Siege map recently. Three losses, then a single tower moved two tiles left, and the wave that kept breaking through simply melted. I actually said something out loud.

That click is the reward these games are really selling. Not the win screen, but the moment your mental model of the map matches reality.

If a strategy game never gives you that feeling, it's usually because its rules are too fuzzy to learn. The good ones make understanding feel like progress on its own.