I look at my robots, and I mull. I’ve got tanky Steel Balls serving as a mobile frontline, buffered through hordes of little Crawlers carefully positioned to soak up sniper fire. Behind those loom my Fortresses, dishing out rockets that delete any medium unit, helped out by Fire Badgers to incinerate anything small. I’m lacking big target damage, though, so I pop down a Melting Point with the last of my cash and end my turn.
MechabellumDeveloper: Game RiverPublisher: Paradox ArcPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on PC (Steam)
WASPS! I forgot about wasps! The curtain drops and I see my opponent has pivoted to swarms of the buggers, forcing me to watch as they tear through my carefully balanced army with zero practical air-defence. Mustangs are the obvious counter next round, but that’s exactly what they’ll expect…
Welcome to Mechabellum, an autobattler that plays a bit like (simultaneous) turn-based Supreme Commander. It’s also one of the most chess-like games I’ve ever encountered, which is high-praise coming from someone who’s played a chess match or two pretty much every day for the past four years. Yes, Mechabellum is a video game about building armies of robots using imperfect information, rather than a board game whose roots stretch back to sixth century India – but I get the same kick out of both.
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They really are remarkably similar in a surprisingly varied number of ways. Consequences ripple out from early board states, where predicting your opponent’s moves is key. Players even use the same term, “lines”, to refer to how openings can play out, based on initial board conditions and the standard responses to them. It’s easy for me to imagine a tournament commentator remarking on when a Mechabellum game goes “out of book”.