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96-521: MechAssault takes place in the BattleTech universe, a science-fiction universe that often revolves around pitched battles between human-piloted walking, heavily armed and armored machines, called BattleMechs. The plot of the game centers on an inhabited planet called Helios in the dominion of the Inner Sphere, a powerful coalition of feuding factions in control of large areas of space. The player

192-426: A dial in its base. BattleMechs, the hulking flagship units of the franchise, made a natural subject for computer emulation, and so in 1988 Infocom released a PC/Commodore 64/Amiga based RPG called BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception . It was later followed up with a sequel, BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Revenge in 1990. Both games were reasonably well received, although aside from storyline continuity

288-540: A larger board position, providing an extremely abstract strategic model in which the determinant of victory is a generalisation of territorial control and influence projection. Contrarily, in wargames counters typically represent decidedly more concrete and internally quite complex entities (companies, battalions, etc.), with detailed interior state (stat blocks and tables of troop numbers, equipment, operational readiness, artillery charts, etc.), often with convoluted rules governing how they operate and interact, and furthermore

384-408: A lot of wargaming experience (it is usually considered a hardcore hobby), so learning a complicated new wargame is easy if it is similar enough to ones they've already played. By contrast, military officers typically have little or no wargaming experience. A second reason is that the technical data required to design an accurate and precise model, such as the performance characteristics of a fighter jet,

480-449: A modern JVM , while the other three are Microsoft Windows programs. Wargames were played remotely through the mail, with players sending lists of moves, or orders, to each other through the mail. In some early PBM systems, six sided dice rolling was simulated by designating a specific stock and a future date and once that date passed, the players would determine an action's outcome using the sales in hundreds value for specific stocks on

576-617: A player to find opponents with a computer game: a computer game can use artificial intelligence to provide a virtual opponent, or connect him to another human player over the Internet. For these reasons, computers are now the dominant medium for wargaming. In the recent years, programs have been developed for computer-assisted gaming as regards to wargaming. Two different categories can be distinguished: local computer assisted wargames and remote computer assisted wargames. Local computer assisted wargames are mostly not designed toward recreating

672-480: A real historical era of warfare. Among recreational wargamers, the most popular historical era is World War 2. Professional military wargamers prefer the modern era. A fantasy setting depicts a fictional world in which the combatants wield fictional or anachronistic armaments, but it should be similar enough to some historical era of warfare such that the combatants fight in a familiar and credible way. For instance, Warhammer Age of Sigmar has wizards and dragons, but

768-410: A scale model of the battlefield. At the operational level , the scenario is a military campaign, and the basic unit of command is a large group of soldiers. At this level, the outcomes of battles are usually determined by a simple computation. At the strategic level , the scenario is an entire war. The player addresses higher-level concerns such as economics, research, and diplomacy. The time span of

864-495: A science-fiction feudalistic Dark Age setting. The game was at first called Battledroids . The name of the game was changed to BattleTech in the second edition because George Lucas and Lucasfilm claimed the rights to the term " droid "; the machines themselves were renamed BattleMechs from the second edition onward. The game components included: Rather than create their own original robot art, FASA decided to use already-extant designs that had originally been created for

960-558: A specific date and then dividing the NYSE published sales in hundreds by six, using the remainder as the dice result. Nuclear Destruction , by the Flying Buffalo , was an early PBM game in 1970. Origins Award Hall-of-Fame member Middle-Earth Play-By-Mail is still active today. Reality Simulations, Inc. still runs a number of PBM games, such as Duel2 (formerly known as Duelmasters), Hyborian War , and Forgotten Realms: War of

1056-451: A tool and a chore, and players are often bluntly obliged to use whatever is provided to them. Professional wargames that are arbitrated by an umpire or the players themselves (manual wargames) tend to have simple models and computations compared to recreational wargames. Umpires may even be allowed to make arbitrary decisions using their own expertise. One reason for this is to keep the learning curve small. Recreational wargamers tend to have

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1152-608: A variety of different Japanese anime , including Dougram , Crusher Joe , and Macross . The rights to these images were licensed from Twentieth Century Imports (TCI) . In later years, FASA abandoned these images as a result of a lawsuit brought against them by Playmates Toys and Harmony Gold over the use of said images. The anime-sourced BattleMechs continued to be referenced in-universe, but their images were no longer seen in new sourcebooks. This led them to be termed by fans as "the Unseen". When Fantasy Productions licensed

1248-500: A variety of weapons. Typically, these are represented on the game board by two-inch-tall miniature figurines that the players can paint to their own specifications, although older publications such as the 1st edition included small scale plastic models originally created for the Macross TV series, and the 2nd and 4th edition boxed sets included small cardboard pictures (front and back images) that were set in rubber bases to represent

1344-456: Is a BattleMech pilot (referred to throughout the game as simply "Captain" or, "MechWarrior") in the employment of an elite mercenary organization called Wolf's Dragoons. The player's ship is hired to investigate the cessation of communications from the planet Helios. The Dragoons' ship, the Icarus arrives at the planet and is shot down upon entering the atmosphere, causing the ship to crash-land on

1440-494: Is a look at the constant design and development of new types of tanks during World War II. The most successful card wargame (as a card game and as a wargame) would almost certainly be Up Front , a card game about tactical combat in World War II published by Avalon Hill in 1983. The abstractness is harnessed in the game by having the deck produce random terrain, and chances to fire, and the like, simulating uncertainty as to

1536-536: Is common terminology for a military's field training exercises to be referred to as "live wargames", but certain institutions such as the US Navy do not accept this. Likewise, activities like paintball and airsoft are often classified as combat sports . In contrast however the War Olympics also calls itself “the international army games” and often is referred to as wargaming colloquially. Modern wargaming

1632-424: Is generally blamed for the uneven advancement, the destruction of industry and institutes of learning over the centuries of warfare having resulted in the loss of much technology and knowledge. As rivalries and conflicts have dragged on, advanced technologies are redeveloped for the battlefield. Chicago-based FASA Corporation's original 1984 game focused on enormous robotic, semi-humanoid battle machines battling in

1728-615: Is identical to real-world history up until approximately 1984, when the reported histories begin to diverge; in particular, the game designers did not foresee the fall of the Soviet Union , which plays a major role past 1991 in the fictional BattleTech history. Individual lifestyles remain largely unchanged from those of modern times, due in part to stretches of protracted interplanetary warfare during which technological progress slowed or even reversed. Cultural, political and social conventions vary considerably between worlds, but feudalism

1824-403: Is longer than a sub-machine gun, due to the differing ammunitions) and thus preserve some verisimilitude, all the while compressing the battle to fit the confines of the table. Additionally, the ranges are multiples of 6, which makes them easier to remember. In real warfare, commanders have incomplete information about their enemy and the battlespace. A wargame that conceals some information from

1920-454: Is longer than most game tables. If model soldiers could shoot each other from opposite ends of the table, without the need to maneuver, the game would be very monotonous. For example, the miniature wargame Bolt Action solves this problem by reducing a rifle's range to 24 inches, a sub-machine gun's range to 12 inches, and a pistol's range to 6 inches. Even if these ranges are not realistic, their proportions make intuitive sense (a rifle's range

2016-470: Is often classified. The exact definition of "wargame" varies from one writer to the next and one organization to the next. To prevent confusion, this section will establish the general definition employed by this article. A wargame must have a setting that is based on some historical era of warfare so as to establish what armaments, unit types, and doctrines the combatants may wield and the environment they fight in. A historical setting accurately depicts

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2112-460: Is sometimes tricky as they are typically used to simulate hypothetical future scenarios. Whereas the rules of chess are relatively simple, and those of Go even simpler, with the complexity of these games an emergent property of the evolving strategic state of the board, wargames contrarily tend to have very sophisticated rules as a matter of their commitment to representing the concrete realities of (various kinds of) warfare. Generally speaking,

2208-502: Is that the referee must be very knowledgeable in warfare and impartial, else they may issue unrealistic or unfair rulings. Another way to address complexity is to use a computer to automate some or all of the routine procedures. Video games can be both sophisticated and easy to learn, which is why computer wargames are more popular than tabletop wargames. Every wargame must have a sense of scale , so that it may realistically simulate how topography, distance, and time affect warfare. Scale

2304-414: Is usually expressed as a ratio, e.g. a scale of 1:1000 indicates that 1 cm on the game map represents 10 m (1,000 cm). In miniature wargaming, scale is more often expressed as the height of a model of a human measured from the base of its feet up to the eyes or top of the head (e.g. 28mm). Military wargames typically aim to model time and space as realistically as is feasible, so everything in

2400-540: Is widespread, with many states ruled by hereditary lords and other nobility, below which are numerous social classes. A key feature of the BattleTech universe is the absence of non-human intelligent life . Other than one or two isolated encounters in novels, mankind is the only sentient species. Above all, the central theme of BattleTech is conflict, consistent with the franchise's wargaming core. Interstellar and civil wars, planetary battles, factionalization and infighting, as well as institutionalized combat in

2496-454: The tactical level , the scenario is a single battle. The basic unit of command is an individual soldier or small group of soldiers. The time span of the scenario is in the order of minutes. At this level, the specific capabilities of the soldiers and their armaments are described in detail. An example of a tactical-level games is Flames of War , in which players use miniature figurines to represent individual soldiers, and move them around on

2592-649: The Fog of War is built into the game by representing units with upright wooden blocks that are marked on only one face, which is oriented towards the player who owns the block. The opponent cannot see the markings from his position. The first such block wargame was Quebec 1759 by Columbia Games (previously named Gamma Two Games), depicting the campaign surrounding the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Because of their nature, cards are well suited for abstract games, as opposed to

2688-418: The railgun . There are exceptions such as faster-than-light travel and communication, without which the setting cannot function. Radically advanced tech mixes with seemingly anachronistic technologies such as internal combustion engines and projectile weapons . Artificial intelligence , nanotechnology , androids , and many other staples of future fiction are generally absent or downplayed. Incessant warfare

2784-531: The "pod" ownership community continue to update the software and hardware for the Tesla II cockpits (e.g., by developing kits that allow to replace the original CRT monitors with modern LCD ones ) for both private, commercial, and convention use. Wargaming A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation , to train military officers in

2880-407: The 1990s. A professional wargame is a wargame that is used by a military as a serious tool for training or research. A recreational wargame is one played for fun, often in a competitive context. Recreational wargames can cover a wide variety of subjects, from pre-historic to modern – even fantasy or sci-fi combat. Games which do not include modern armaments and tactics are of limited interest to

2976-582: The Combat Operations book). The Succession Wars is played on a political star map , with players trying to capture regions of space. Recent years have seen a trend of consolidating the expansions into "core products" for efficiency. Beginning under FanPro's aegis, then continued under Catalyst Game Labs, the various rulesets have been combined into a series of Core Rulebooks: After the FASA Corporation closed in 2000, Wizkids bought

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3072-567: The Inner Sphere, ComStar, the Periphery states and the fallen Star League. FASA launched two additional systems to complement the core game: BattleTroops , an infantry combat system, and BattleForce , a large-scale combat simulator governing the actions of massed BattleTech units. The Succession Wars , a board game released in 1987, is one of only two purely strategic titles of the series (the other being "The Inner Sphere in Flames" from

3168-565: The art of strategic thinking , or to study the nature of potential conflicts. Many wargames re-create specific historic battles, and can cover either whole wars, or any campaigns , battles, or lower-level engagements within them. Many simulate land combat, but there are wargames for naval , air combat , and cyber as well as many that combine various domains. There is ambiguity as to whether or not activities where participants physically perform mock combat actions (e.g. friendly warships firing dummy rounds at each other) are considered wargames. It

3264-410: The battle. This mode can be played with one or two players. In Destruction mode, the player can choose a 'Mech and fight to the death in deathmatch or team deathmatch . The player or team with the most kills wins. Last Man Standing is a free-for-all with no respawning as a mech. Once a player dies, they respawn as an unarmed infantryman. Gameplay can be either deathmatch or team deathmatch. Capture

3360-617: The battlefield are represented by miniature models, as opposed to abstract pieces such as wooden blocks or plastic counters. Likewise, the battlefield itself is represented by model terrain, as opposed to a flat board or map; naval wargames are often played on a floor because they tend to require more space than a tabletop. Most miniature wargaming is recreational because issues of scale get in the way of realism. Miniature wargaming can be more expensive and time-consuming than other forms of wargaming. Furthermore, most manufacturers do not sell ready-to-play models, they sell boxes of model parts, which

3456-413: The battlefield inside computer memory, but employing the computer to play the role of game master by storing game rules and unit characteristics, tracking unit status and positions or distances, animating the game with sounds and voice and resolving combat. Flow of play is simple: each turn, the units come up in a random order. Therefore, the more units an opponent has, the more chance he will be selected for

3552-503: The best Xbox game of November 2002, and later presented it with the annual awards for "Best Online Game on Xbox", "Best Shooter on Xbox", and overall "Game of the Year on Xbox". It was a runner-up in the publication's "Best Sound" and "Best Graphics (Technical)" categories. BattleTech BattleTech is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2001, which

3648-400: The characteristics of a game, they could invite other players from their friends list or leave slots open for any online player to join the battle. MechAssault had several modes of combat in which players could engage, often based around by-now-common forms of online competitive gaming. In Grinder mode (local play only), the player tries to survive as more and more 'Mechs are spawned into

3744-407: The combat is mostly based on medieval warfare (spearmen, archers, knights, etc.). Some are also set in a hypothetical future or counterfactual past, to simulate, for example, a "World War Three" or rebellion of colonists on Mars. A wargame's scenario describes the circumstances of the specific conflict being simulated, from the layout of the terrain to the exact composition of the fighting forces to

3840-410: The common "Quick Match", which enables a player to find an online match quickly regardless of qualifications. For players who wanted to join a specific type of online session of MechAssault hosted by another player, "Optimatch" allowed the player to specify the criteria for the session they want to join. The player could also create and host an online session of MechAssault . Once the player defined all

3936-418: The company later released a statement noting that their primary troubles had been with finding a publisher, which eventually led to the announcement of a free-to-play reboot called Mechwarrior Online , set around the start of the clan invasions. The game was published in 2013 by Infinite Games Publishing, the same company which later published MechWarrior Tactics . IGP filed for bankruptcy and sold off

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4032-530: The complexity also makes wargames difficult to enjoy, but some players enjoy high realism, so finding a balance between realism and simplicity is tricky when it comes to recreational wargames. One way to solve the problem of complexity is to use a referee who has the discretion to arbitrate events, using whatever tools and knowledge they deem fit. This solution is popular with military instructors because it allows them to apply their own expertise when they use wargames to instruct students. The drawback of this approach

4128-498: The concept of play-by-email gaming, however the presentation and actual capabilities are completely different. They have been designed to replicate the look and feel of existing board or miniatures wargames on the computer. The map and counters are presented to the user who can then manipulate these, more-or-less as if he were playing the physical game, and send a saved file off to his opponent, who can review what has been done without having to duplicate everything on his physical set-up of

4224-472: The deck is merely one of the most important elements of the game. The term "wargame" is rarely used in the video gaming hobby; the term "strategy game" is preferred. "Computer wargame" distinguishes a game from a "tabletop wargame". Computer wargames have many advantages over traditional wargames. In a computer game, all the routine procedures and calculations are automated. The player needs only to make strategic and tactical decisions. The learning curve for

4320-425: The designer will have to juggle their competing demands. This can lead to great complexity, high development costs, and a compromised product that satisfies nobody. Commercial wargames are under more pressure to deliver an enjoyable experience for the players, who expect a user-friendly interface, a reasonable learning curve, exciting gameplay, and so forth. By contrast, military organizations tend to see wargaming as

4416-437: The designers to acquire feedback. Consequently, errors in professional wargame models tend to persist. Although commercial wargame designers study consumer trends and listen to player feedback, their products are usually designed and sold with a take-it-or-leave-it approach. Professional wargames, by contrast, are typically commissioned by the military that plans to use them. If a wargame is commissioned by several clients, then

4512-450: The emphasis is on verisimilitude, i.e. the satisfactory appearance of realism. In any case, no wargame can be perfectly realistic. A wargame's design must make trade-offs between realism, playability, and fun, and function within the constraints of its medium. Fantasy wargames arguably stretch the definition of wargaming by representing fictional or anachronistic armaments, but they may still be called wargames if they resemble real warfare to

4608-560: The first BattleTech Center at the North Pier Mall in Chicago. The BattleTech Center featured 16 networked, full-sized cockpits or "pods" that resembled a BattleMech cockpit with over 80 separate controls. Each player selected a 'Mech to pilot into combat against up to seven other human players in the other cockpits. Virtual World Entertainment, the company that managed the centers, later opened many other Virtual World centers around

4704-473: The flag is a team based game where the opposing team spawn on opposite ends of the map and try to "Capture" the enemy flag without giving up their own. A fairly common metagame during the height of online popularity was known as "Elemental". A Last Man Standing match, "Elemental" saw only one player choose a Mech while all others chose the Elemental mobile armor, a much smaller and weaker playable class. This

4800-400: The game is in the order of months or years. A wargame must simulate warfare to a reasonable degree of realism, though what counts as sufficient realism depends on the players. Military wargames need to be highly realistic because their purpose is to prepare officers for real warfare. Recreational wargames only need to be as realistic as it pleases the players, so in most recreational wargames

4896-549: The game was ported for release on June 12, 2003, Famitsu gave it a score of 28 out of 40. By July 2006, the game had sold 750,000 units and earned $ 26 million in the U.S. NextGen ranked it as the 85th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2 , Xbox or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in that country. Combined sales of the MechAssault series reached 1.1 million units. GameSpot named it

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4992-429: The game, and respond. Some allow for both players to get on-line and see each other's moves in real-time. These systems are generally set up so that while one can play the game, the program has no knowledge of the rules, and cannot enforce them. The human players must have a knowledge of the rules themselves. The idea is to promote the playing of the games (by making play against a remote opponent easier), while supporting

5088-447: The global state of the game is often governed by extensive non-local rules representing exigencies like seasonal weather or supply lines. This makes wargames difficult to learn, as it can be difficult to simply begin playing without already understanding a great deal about how to do so. Even experienced wargamers usually play with their rulebook on hand, because the rules for most wargames are too complex to fully memorize. For many people,

5184-521: The industry (and reducing copyright issues) by ensuring that the players have access to the actual physical game. The four main programs that can be used to play a number of games each are Aide de Camp , Cyberboard , Vassal and ZunTzu . Aide de Camp is available for purchase, while the other three are offered free. Vassal is in turn an outgrowth of the VASL (Virtual ASL ) project, and uses Java , making it accessible to any computer that can run

5280-491: The information he judges the players should know. Some recreational wargames use a referee too, often referring to them as "the GameMaster" (e.g. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader ). The fog of war is easy to simulate in a computer wargame, as a virtual environment is free of the physical constraints of a tabletop game. The computer itself can serve as the referee. Miniature wargaming is a form of wargaming where units on

5376-434: The large number of such pre-designed BattleMechs, vehicles, aerospace units and other military hardware, the creators also established a system of custom design rules, enabling players to generate their own units and field them in combat. In addition to game rule books, FASA published several background books detailing the history, political and social structures of various factions in the game, including all five Great Houses of

5472-515: The liberation of the planet from Word of Blake rule, and assassinate Commander Strader. MechAssault was one of the first games on the Xbox to feature the ability to be played on the Xbox Live service. "MechAssault" included many of the basic Live services that are now considered standard on any Live-enabled video game. These features included options for finding and creating online matches, such as

5568-517: The license from Topps. CGL continues to hold the license to this day; with the end of the MechWarrior: Dark Age miniatures game, the name of the traditional tabletop game has reverted to simply BattleTech . On June 24, 2009, Catalyst Game Labs announced that they had secured the rights to the "Unseen" art. As a result, art depicting the original 'Mechs could be legally used again. However, an update on August 11, 2009, stated that

5664-429: The local conditions (nature of the terrain, etc.). Dan Verssen Games is a specialist designer and publisher of card games for several genres, including air combat and World War II and modern land combat. Also, card driven games (CDGs), first introduced in 1993, use a deck of (custom) cards to drive most elements of the game, such as unit movement (activation) and random events. These are, however, distinctly board games,

5760-448: The mid 3100s. A detailed timeline stretching from the late 20th century to the mid-32nd describes humanity's technological, social and political development and spread through space both in broad historical terms and through accounts of the lives of individuals who experienced and shaped that history, with an emphasis on (initially) the year 3025 and creating an ongoing storyline from there. Generally, BattleTech assumes that its history

5856-422: The military, though wargames covering famous historical battles can interest military historians . As professional wargames are used to prepare officers for actual warfare, there is naturally a strong emphasis on realism and current events. Military organizations are typically secretive about their current wargames, and this makes designing a professional wargame a challenge. The data the designers require, such as

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5952-543: The more realistic a wargame seeks to be, the more complicated its rules are. For example, chess pieces only have a few rules determining their behaviour, such as how and when they are allowed to move or capture based on their type and board location, providing a highly abstracted model of warfare which represents troop positioning and composition. Stones in Go have no properties, behaviours, or state on their own, and only potentially represent, relative to other stones, elements of

6048-448: The next turn. When a unit comes up, the commander specifies an order and if offensive action is being taken, a target, along with details about distance. The results of the order, base move distance and effect to target, are reported, and the unit is moved on the tabletop. All distance relationships are tracked on the tabletop. All record-keeping is tracked by the computer. Remote computer assisted wargames can be considered as extensions to

6144-532: The old editions." In the August 1997 edition of Dragon (Issue 238), Rick Swan reviewed FASA's fourth edition of BattleTech, and called it "A snap to learn... as exciting as it is addictive; there are few gaming experiences more satisfying than blasting giant robots into scrap metal." However, for people who already owned the third edition, Swan suggested that "there's no compelling reason to invest in version four." The BattleTech franchise first extended beyond

6240-426: The original game , several board games, role playing games , video games, a collectible card game , a series of more than 100 novels , and an animated television series . In its most basic form, BattleTech is played on a map sheet composed of hexagonal terrain tiles. The combat units are roughly 12-metre-tall (39 ft) humanoid armored combat units called BattleMechs, powered by fusion reactors and armed with

6336-515: The part of the deal regarding designs that originated in images from Macross had fallen through, returning the original images to Unseen status once again. Since then, designs that originated in images from Dougram and Crusher Joe are no longer considered Unseen. In the March 1988 edition of Dragon (Issue 131), Jim Bambra called the first edition BattleTech tabletop game "a brilliantly conceived and presented game of robotic combat set in

6432-496: The performance characteristics of weapons or the locations of military bases, are often classified, which makes it difficult for the designers to verify that their models are accurate. Secrecy also makes it harder to disseminate corrections if the wargame has already been delivered to the clients. Then there is the small player base. Whereas a commercial wargame might have thousands or even millions of players, professional wargames tend to have small player bases, which makes it harder for

6528-423: The player is called a closed game. An open wargame has no secret information. Most recreational wargames are open wargames. A closed wargame can simulate the espionage and reconnaissance aspects of war. Military wargames often use referees to manage secret information. The players may be forced to sit in separate rooms, and communicate their orders with the referee in the game room, who in turn reports back only

6624-434: The player is smaller, as the game can be played without mastering all its mechanics. The gameplay is faster, as a computer can process calculations much faster than a human. Computer wargames often have more sophisticated mechanics than traditional wargames thanks to automation. Computer games tend to be cheaper than traditional wargames because, being software, they can be copied and distributed very efficiently. It's easier for

6720-503: The players are expected to assemble and paint themselves. This requires skill, time, and money, but many players like the opportunity to show off their artistic skills. Miniature wargaming is often as much about artistry as it is about play. A board wargame is played on a board that has a more-or-less fixed layout and is supplied by the game's manufacturer. This is in contrast to customizable playing fields made with modular components, such as in miniature wargaming . In block wargaming ,

6816-404: The popular Magic: The Gathering . WizKids , owners of the BattleTech franchise after 2001, introduced a collectable miniatures-based variant of the classic tabletop game called MechWarrior: Dark Age in 2002 (later renamed MechWarrior: Age of Destruction ). The game incorporates WizKids' " Clix System ", a means of tracking the combat statistics and abilities of each figure by turning

6912-681: The property, these "Unseen" images were expanded to include all art produced "out-of-house" – that is, whose copyrights resided with the creators, not the company. Catalyst Game Labs has continued this practice. The game's popularity spawned several variants and expansions to the core system, including CityTech which fleshed out urban operations, infantry, and vehicle combat, AeroTech which focused on air and space-based operations, and BattleSpace which detailed large spacecraft combat. FASA also published numerous sourcebooks, known as Technical Readouts, which featured specifications for new combat units that players could select from. However, despite

7008-405: The release of a BattleTech game known as MechWarrior: Living Legends and the first public beta was released on December 26, 2009. A possible MechWarrior 5 was being produced, though it lingered in development for about a year and was eventually canceled. Originally, Smith & Tinker owned the BattleTech electronic rights, but, after failing to find funding for a new MechWarrior game,

7104-521: The rights in December 2014. Piranha Games continued work on MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries , was released as an Epic Games exclusive in December 2019. Piranha Games will be releasing a stand-alone sequel to MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries called MechWarrior 5: Clans on October 3, 2024. The franchise saw its first online-dedicated game with Multiplayer BattleTech: EGA in 1992, which was followed by Multiplayer Battletech: Solaris in 1996. 1994 saw

7200-622: The rights to the game in January 2001. They reworked the IP to launch their MechWarrior: Dark Age collectible miniatures game, but licensed the rights to continue to publish products for the old game to FanPro (itself a subsidiary of Fantasy Productions ). Topps bought Wizkids in 2003, but this did not change any publishing agreements at that time. FanPro held the license to the original tabletop game (which they rebranded as "Classic BattleTech") until 2007. At that point Catalyst Game Labs (CGL) acquired

7296-590: The rights to the series were bought by Piranha Games in 2011, who had originally been working with Smith & Tinker to create MechWarrior 5. On July 9, 2009, it was confirmed that the franchise would be rebooted. Further trailers were released and it was confirmed that the timeline would be set around 3015. Though it seemed that the legal troubles which originally plagued FASA due to the similarities between BattleTech mechs and those in Robotech/Macross had returned to cause some troubles for Piranha Games,

7392-406: The rules revisions "presenting the fundamentals in clear, simple language". Swan also admired the game's post-apocalyptic vision, calling it "one of the hobby's richest settings." He concluded with a recommendation to buy the third edition: "While the previous version was a class act ... the third edition stands as the definitive treatment, a handsome upgrade worth the purchase price even for owners of

7488-416: The satisfaction of the players. For example, Warhammer Fantasy Battle has wizards and dragons, but the bulk of the armaments are taken from medieval warfare (spearmen, knights, archers, etc.). Validation is the process by which a given wargame is proven to be realistic. For historical wargames, this usually means being able to accurately recreate a certain historical battle. Validating military wargames

7584-427: The scenario is imbalanced and urge players to switch sides and play again to compare their performance. It is easier to design a balanced scenario where all players have a fair chance of winning if it is fictionalized. Board wargames usually have a fixed scenario. A wargame's level of war determines to the scope of the scenario, the basic unit of command, and the degree to which lower level processes are abstracted. At

7680-731: The second game held few similarities to its predecessor. The first pure simulation of BattleMech combat, however, was released for computers in 1989. Titled MechWarrior and published by Activision , the single-player game gave users the opportunity to pilot a range of Mechs and engage in combat against computer-controlled opponents. Sequels MechWarrior 2 (1995), MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries (1996), MechWarrior 3 (1999) and MechWarrior 4 (2000), and MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries (2002) created simulations of progressively higher technical sophistication. "Mekpaks" for MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries made by Mektek were released, adding new weapons, Mechs and graphics. A group also modded Crysis for

7776-759: The series' first console original title, the simply titled BattleTech for the Sega Genesis . Other notable titles include the MechCommander series for the PC ( MechCommander in 1998 and MechCommander 2 in 2001), the MechAssault series ( MechAssault and MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf in 2002 and 2004, respectively, for the Xbox , and MechAssault: Phantom War in 2006 for the Nintendo DS ). A new turn-based strategy game , simply titled BattleTech ,

7872-405: The shape of arena contests and duelling , form the grist of both novelized fiction and game backstories. The level of technology evident in BattleTech is an unusual blend of the highly futuristic and the nearly modern. The universe leans towards hard science fiction concepts. Much of the technology is either similar to that of the present day, or considered plausible in the near-future, such as

7968-451: The simulation aspects of wargames. Traditional card games are not considered wargames even when nominally about the same subject (such as the game War ). An early card wargame was Nuclear War , a 'tongue-in-cheek game of the end of the world', first published in 1966 and still published today by Flying Buffalo . It does not simulate how any actual nuclear exchange would happen, but it is still structured unlike most card games because of

8064-463: The simulation conforms to a single scale. Recreational wargame designers, by contrast, tend to use abstract scaling techniques to make their wargames easier to learn and play. Tabletop miniature wargames , for instance, cannot realistically model the range of modern firearms, because miniature wargaming models are typically built to a scale between 1:64 and 1:120. At those scales, riflemen should be able to shoot each other from several meters away, which

8160-461: The surface of Helios. It is later discovered by the player that a rogue technology-worshipping cult known as the Word of Blake has invaded and conquered Helios, and is under the rule of an iron-fisted fanatic called Commander Strader. The game follows the player as, commanded by elite officer Major Natalia and assisted by inept techie Lieutenant Foster, they fight the military forces of the cult, assist in

8256-546: The tabletop wargame format with the release of MechWarrior , a role-playing game in which players portray BattleMech pilots or other characters in the 31st century. The RPG system has been republished in several editions and expanded by various sourcebooks and supplements. In 1996, FASA also introduced the BattleTech Collectible Card Game , a CCG developed by Wizards of the Coast , creators of

8352-466: The units. The game is played in turns, each of which represents 10 seconds of real time, with each turn composed of multiple phases. BattleTech' s fictional history covers the approximately 1,150 years from the end of the 20th century to the middle of the 32nd. Most works in the series are set during the early to middle decades of the 31st century, though a few publications concern earlier ages. MechWarrior: Dark Ages and its related novels take place in

8448-502: The victory conditions of the players. Historical wargames often re-enact historical battles. Alternatively, the game may provide fictional "what-if" scenarios. One challenge in the design of historical wargames is that the scenarios may be inherently unbalanced and present one side with an unwinnable situation. In such cases, the victory conditions may be adjusted for the disadvantaged side so that they can win simply by doing better than what happened historically. Some games simply concede that

8544-584: The war-torn universe of the Successor States", and complimented the high production values of the game components. Bambra concluded with a recommendation: "Try the Battletech game. If you like it, it might inspire you to form your own BattleMech unit and battle your way across the Successor States." In the June 1993 edition of Dragon (Issue 194), Rick Swan reviewed FASA's third edition and liked

8640-414: The way it deals with its subject. In the late 1970s Battleline Publications (a board wargame company) produced two card games, Naval War and Armor Supremacy . The first was fairly popular in wargaming circles, and is a light system of naval combat, though again not depicting any 'real' situation (players may operate ships from opposing navies side-by-side). Armor Supremacy was not as successful, but

8736-427: The world. It later merged with FASA Interactive Technologies (FIT) to form Virtual World Entertainment Group (VWEG) in order to better capitalize on FASA's properties. In 1999, Microsoft Corporation purchased VWEG to integrate FIT into Microsoft Game Studios and sold VWE. VWE continues to develop and support the current BattleTech VR platform called the Tesla II system, featuring BattleTech: Firestorm . Members of

8832-406: Was decided by players in voice chat prior to the start of the game. It was later released as an official game type known as "Giant Killers". The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic . Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot said, "If you're going to buy one game with your Xbox Live starter kit, MechAssault is the one to get." In Japan, where

8928-441: Was in turn acquired by Topps in 2003; and published since 2007 by Catalyst Game Labs . The trademark is currently owned by Topps and, for video games, Microsoft Gaming ; Catalyst Game Studios licenses the franchise from Topps. The series began with FASA's debut of the board game BattleTech (originally named Battledroids ) by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock III and has since grown to include numerous expansions to

9024-615: Was invented in Prussia in the early 19th-century, and eventually the Prussian military adopted wargaming as a tool for training their officers and developing doctrine. After Prussia defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War , wargaming was widely adopted by military officers in other countries. Civilian enthusiasts also played wargames for fun, but this was a niche hobby until the development of consumer electronic wargames in

9120-583: Was released in April 2018. The game was developed by Harebrained Schemes , and led by Jordan Weisman , the creator of the series. BattleTech material appeared in various publications from other companies, ranging from articles in professional gaming magazines to fanzines devoted exclusively to the game. FASA provided some material to gaming magazines, allowed associated fan clubs like MechForce to publish newsletters, and treated some magazines like BattleTechnology as semi-official publications. Some of this material

9216-405: Was treated as canon at the time and some of it, especially 'Mech designs, came to be used in official product. An exhaustive list is impossible but more notable publications are listed below. Magazines with some BattleTech articles: Fanzines and magazines dedicated to BattleTech: The BattleTech creators' goal of creating an immersive BattleMech simulation came about 1990 with the opening of

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