Most of the time when you get a "free strategy game" the game will be completely stuffed with waiting times.
As in, when you want to start recruiting troops, a timer will pop up saying "2 hours 30 minutes" and you'll have to wait 2 1/2 hours before you can actually do anything. Also, let's say you're running out of space for your resources so you want to upgrade your storehouse. A timer pops up saying "1d" and you will have to wait a WHOLE DAY before you can continue playing.
I like strategy games, so I've been trying loads of different games billed as "strategy". Just to mention a few, Goodgame Empire, Clash of Clans, Forge of Empires, Empire War: Age of Heroes 2, Age of Kingdom: Empire Clash, Game of War, Tribal Wars 2, Nords Heroes of the North, and LOADS more.
Every single one of those games is chock full of waiting unless you spend loads of real money to skip the wait. I mean, what exactly does waiting add to the game? Do the developers add waiting because they think it'll make the game more fun? Do they add them because they think more people will play the game?
No, of course not!
It's because the developers of the above mentioned games are extremely greedy and don't care for anything but cold hard cash. For some reason developers want to make all their games FREE and fill them with this waiting junk instead of making a good game and selling it for money. They claim people won't download them if they cost money, but what about Minecraft? That many downloads and it costs money.
What about if you just want to sit down and play a game for an hour or two? How exactly are you supposed to do that if you have to wait 1 day for each upgrade or shell out your hard earned money to skip waits that shouldn't have been there in the first place? Unless you want to entertain yourself by staring at a counter ticking down for 2 hours, it's not happening. These "waiting games" don't give you any entertainment at ALL. I'd rather pay money to buy a game than get it for free and get monetized to death.