Imagine a gruesome war raging across an entire planet. Thousands of territories, hundreds of clans, colliding with one another for weeks at a time as part of an all-encompassing war between two sides out for each other’s blood. Now imagine you’re one of the players participating in this epic event, sending thousands of troops towards the frontlines every day.
The game you’re now thinking about is called Mech Wars, the world: Terra-Xi. A futuristic browser-based strategy game that involves thousands of players in the battle for control over a post-apocalyptic planet. Starting out with a bit of land and some credits, you’re left to your own devices in a cruel world of fierce mech battles. Clan politics, alliances, NAPs, high-tech research and black market trading facilities are all at your disposal. Your future depends on how you make use of these tools.
Huh? Text-based? Browser-based? Does it sound boring to you? I thought it might – and yet this easily ranks as one of the best games I’ve ever played. And better yet – it has only recently made a spectacular return from the dead. Read on to find out why.
Mech Wars was known as one of the most unforgiving browser-based strategy games of its time. You had initial nebwie protection, but there was nothing to stop an opponent from constantly raiding your territory for resources after that. This forced everyone who wanted to survive to join a clan.
These clans in turn engaged in diplomacy, forming non-agression pacts and alliances, for further protection. Over time these alliances grew to significant sizes and as you might expect these major power blocks quickly sparked massive wars.
In a way it was the EVE Online of its time. Harsh and unforgiving, but with incredible rewards (fun! and lots of it) for those determined enough to see it through the hard times. Tales and legends being born not from pre-fabricated stories, but actual events that occured between players. In-game news services not sprouting all sorts of made-up unrelated tripe, but following live player-driven events, war declarations, new alliances, etc.
I joined the game after it had already run for several rounds. Together with a friend – who we’ll refer to as DK from now on – I set about growing my territory. And eventually we formed a clan called The Enforcers. We were off to a great start: allied with many highly ranked clans, gaining a wealth of members and swiftly rising on the clan rankings.
Then out of nowhere, we were attacked. Several of our members were nearly razed as a result of sneak attacks at a time when next to no one was online. The following morning we declared war on these aggressors and sent whatever forces we could spare to decimate this new threath. Against all odds we swiftly overcame this much more sizable clan (our 20 vs 34) and in a matter of days nearly all of their territories were stripped of defenses and resources.
Not long afterwards something unexpected happened. Rather than surrendering to our clearly superior forces, these opponents decided to use sneaky tricks to get rid of us. In classic Mech Wars fashion – that will be familiar to EVE players – they posted a desperate cry for help on the forums. Supposedly we had engaged these tricksters without provocation and proceeded to farm their territories. None of it was true of course, but it was the ideal excuse for a number of highly ranked clans that totally outnumbered us to strike.
Before things got too out of hand and we’d face a similar razing of our territories. Me and DK decided to disband The Enforcers and team up with more numerous groups.
I was recruited into The Preatorian Guard, one of our allies throughout the round. Amongst the top 20 clans in the game with the least amount of members in the top 25 – TPG was a renown clan of expert commanders. Meanwhile DK joined a much larger clan, also in the top 20, that had actually seperated into two entities due to its size. The maximum member cap was 100 and sX contained nearly 200 members.
What we hadn’t expected was that we’d be thrown into war against one another. While The Enforcers had been struggling against small aggressors, bigger clans had been gearing up for a war unlike any before on Terra-Xi. Quha – one of the oldest clans in Mech Wars – had returned with its assortment of allies, and even larger assortment of enemies. Everyone was preparing for an all-out, no-holds-barred, war.
Shot of a preliminary beta several months ago
Finally… war erupted. Not just a single clan attacking another, but many dozens of clans in each alliance sending its troops out to do battle. TPG was caught in the action from the get-go and had me in a mostly defensive position, because my territory was defensively favorably located in terms of traveling times. Several times a day I would log in and send reinforcements to whoever needed them, while attacking a – small – number of territories myself.
After weeks of fighting, the war seemed to drag on with no end in sight. Each day new clans would join the battle on either side – and each day other clans were effectively wiped out. The Preatorian Guard had faired surprisingle well thus far, as one of the smallest highly ranked clans. We had already laid waste to several clans at this point and were growing stronger rather than weaker. Unfortunately sX had also done surprisingly well, for their numbers proved to be only part of their strength and they had torn through the ranks of our allies.
It came as no surprise when roughly a month into the war we got the order from alliance high command. TPG was to engage the 2nd division of sX, where DK was holed up as well. I was assigned one initial strike target and two additional combined-forces strike targets. Our first hit decimated numerous sX territories and gave us an early advantage, but sX did not take long to recuperate and launch a counter-offensive.
The following weeks were somewhat of an oddity. I’d be waging brutal war on the sX one moment – and happily chatting about the latest developments in the war with my hated enemy, sX-member DK, the next. I was quickly relegated to near-exclusive defensive duties, whereas DK was one of the prime forces decimating our territories. Yet even with their vast numerical advantage – sX2 still proved incapable of truly breaking our defenses.
And that was when Clan Orca stepped in. One of the old guard, Orca wasn’t known for particularly capable commanders. But they were one of the largest clans in the game and they turned everything they had onto us. In two days of fighting they discovered my prime defensive position and decimated my territory with a 7-way all-out attack versus only two defenders.
In less than a week the combined force of sX2 and Orca had decimated nearly all of our territories. Very shortly after that, our side lost the war that had engulfed most of Terra-Xi.
This epic war of insane proportions quickly became another legend in the world of Mech Wars. Future rounds would have people referring to it as the 2nd terra war and any participant in the fighting will likely remember it to the end of their days. The unbelievable amounts of players and mechs involved, the coverage of the ongoing developments surrounding the war in the Daily Terra, the constant new war declarations and alliances being formed. They all amounted to an incredibly engaging experience.
Clans were desperately trying to cling to their last bits of territory without giving in. What once were plain battles of statistics, became desperate struggles for surival and gruesome grudgematches. Alliances were fighting for what they believed in and role-playing was not the exception, it was the rule (okay, frequently mixed with some non-RP). Most clans had their own history and lore – and the RP storytelling forum was nearly as active as any other. It wasn’t just a game of epic text battles, it was an epic interactive tale being spun in real-time.
When I started playing Mech Wars I had heard about the Terra War that had come before it. The stories told of weeklong battles and horrible betrayals. And I probably felt as you might do right now: clearly just an exaggerated bit of nostalgia. Yet by the time my first round ended I knew those stories hadn’t been exaggerated one bit.
Unfortunately the game slowly died out in subsequent rounds, as gameplay changes drove people away and the game eventually closed down entirely. Up until yesterday us Mech Wars veterans were limited to talking about the good old days.
However, now you can join the game yourself. Mech Wars has returned for more and could well be here to stay. So what are you waiting for? Head on over there and sign up!
Note: Mech Wars is currently in beta testing, which means it’s not running in normal fashion. Wait until it’s out of beta if you want the full epic experience, because its not coming for a while yet.
Note 2: I might have gotten some of the details wrong, it has been nearly a decade now.
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loved the story this was a truely epic game. played it for about a year and i still bore my friends every so often with storys of my collage class’ clan