The release date for Making History II has been officially set for May 25th, 2010! In addition we are running a preorder campaign with Stardock which will give players access to the beta version of the game when we open it up later in the spring. Once we move into open beta we will make preorders available on our site as well. This will be for the digital download version of the game. We're excited to see MHII getting close to release and are working to get you playing as early as possible!

It's official -- we will be having a booth at PAX East! We'll be in booth #110, near EA, 2K, and Turbine. We'll be showing off MHII and hope to use the WiFi at the show to connect people up to the multiplayer service as well. We'll publish more details on our PAX plans as we get closer to the show. If you're coming to PAX make sure to stop by and say hello.

A little before 11:00 this morning RedPlanet downloaded Valerii's "World War 1" scenario to push our scenario download count over 100,000. They will both be receiving an MHII t-shirt and a free copy of MHII (when it ships!) with our thanks for being an active part of the community. Almost 200 scenarios have been made for Making History and Making History Gold, and the pace has kept up with 8 new scenarios since the new year started. We love seeing the creativity that people have displayed over the years, from Ian's epic "World Aflame" mod which took the WWII realism to a new level to Odanan's incredible "Deadlock" mod which completely transformed Making History Gold into a WWI game.

Our goal with Making History and the website is to create a place where people can play, mod, and talk about historical strategy games. One reason we are so excited about the web based multiplayer feature of Making History II is that it allows us to integrate the game and the community much more tightly. We're looking forward to a great 2010 for Making History and are grateful to have all of you along with us!

Hey everyone, I'm MHII producer Dave McCool. You might have noticed that we took down the February 2nd release date from the site. Our goal was to be in beta by now, but we're still working on getting to that point.

Making History II is the first game we are shipping on our new Sandstone engine and multiplayer platform, and it's taking a bit longer than we had expected. We take the quality of our games very seriously and won't ship MHII until we feel that it's at a level we're proud to deliver to our community.

The game is coming together really well -- it's fun to play, the new map looks great, and firing up a multiplayer game from the web service is incredibly smooth. We are in internal testing for the game now, and plan to move into beta testing in the coming weeks. We're still hopeful for a Q1 release, perhaps using PAX East as a big send off for the game. We want to thank all of you who are hanging in there patiently; we're doing our best to make sure Making History II is worth the wait!

MHII designer Ralph Gerth answers some of the most frequently asked questions posed by the MAKING HISTORY community. Learn more about the gameplay you can expect, changes from MHI, the addition of special forces, improved naval combat and more.

The second series of Main Battle tanks reflects an era where many designs were in transition as technology improvements were considered based on new purposes and strategic goals. Central to this was the Cold War where leaders in both the east and the west tried to develop armor that would give advantage should WWIII start in Europe. In some cases armor was also used to generate income through exports, or to support allies. In the course of this evolution, tanks became smaller and more agile, to increase their maneuverability and road speed at the expense of very heavy armor. As newer munitions were developed with the ability to pierce heavy armor, finding the optimum balance of mobility, protection, and offensive power became the goal. This series shows some tanks that did that successfully, others less so. This second group of Main Battle Tanks is included in MAKING HISTORY II as part of a series that, while not created or used in the WWII historically, may well be developed by players as they make their own history. It is possible in the game to focus deeply on one area (tank research in this case) and develop the technology more quickly than occurred in actual history.

In Making History II: The War of the World, the game map is divided into smaller territorial areas we call regions. Similar to a province, regions are the primary possession of every nation. One of our foremost goals for MHII was to increase the concept of the nation as a character in the game world. We wanted them to have a greater presence besides just responding to players actions or acting as a stiff scripted entity. Since a nation is defined by both the government and the territory it controls, the regions seemed like the fundamental location for generating and organizing the gameplay. Conceptually, we want the game to be a dynamic space where regions are in varying degrees of flux. The governments running the nations are one force in this equation; the other part is driven by the people who make up the population of your regions.

One of the most exciting changes for MHII is the variety of ground forces available to players. Infantry units, the backbone of any ground force, have expanded their tactical usage with new unit types. MHII gives players the option to customize their infantry to support nearly any military plan or counter any enemy strategy. Each nation will have access to seven types of infantry unit: Militia, Regular, Mounted, Airborne, Engineers, Marines, and Mountain troops.

Making History II is more than a game about WWII. In some respects WWII is just the historical setting for an epic game about managing a nations economy, military, diplomacy and people. The political and international challenges of the early to mid 2oth century were dramatic to say the least. Weve set out to create a game that provides some of that experience covering not just the battlefields but the home fronts too. Underlying it all is a dynamic human element that is the source of much of the conflict.

At the region level is where the action begins. Each region has a set of key demographic identity properties that are used to calculate an allegiance to the national government. If the nation and region share similar cultural, ethnic and religious identity, then it will be less prone to production strikes or even a revolt. Fed into this is a national stability property which is derived from financial and ideological status, plus an average of all nationwide region revolt levels.

The military gameplay in Making History II: The War of the World will be dramatically different from the first Making History. With MHII weve moved away from units being more like traditional board game pieces to a system where each unit has its own set of properties. All military forces can now take damage, be reinforced or repaired. By giving units the ability to survive a battle despite being hit, it makes a lot more sense to include other standard unit properties like experience and morale. Units gain experience by engaging in combat. Morale is affected by battlefield results and possibly domestic conditions.