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The Battle for Wesnoth
Title screen (1.6)
Developer(s)	The Battle for Wesnoth development team
Designer(s)	David White and others
License	GNU General Public License
Engine	custom
Version	1.6.5 (stable, released September 10, 2009; 6 month(s) ago (2009-09-10)) 1.7.15/1.8 RC 1 (development, released March 15, 2010; 2 day(s) ago (2010-03-15))
Platform(s)	Cross-platform
Release date(s)	October 2, 2005 (version 1.0)
Genre(s)	Turn-based strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Media	Download
Input methods	Keyboard, mouse

The Battle for Wesnoth, or simply Wesnoth, is a turn-based strategy game designed by David White and released in June 2003.

White based Wesnoth on the Sega Genesis games Master of Monsters and Warsong (also known as Langrisser). He wanted to create a freely-available, open source strategy game that had very simple rules, but had a strong artificial intelligence and was challenging and fun.^[1]

The current stable release of the game is 1.6.5, released on September 10, 2009. The Battle for Wesnoth is cross-platform, so it is available for a variety of different operating systems. Released under the GNU General Public License, The Battle for Wesnoth is free software.

Overview

A screenshot from Wesnoth 1.6

The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game played on a hex map, with single-player campaigns as well as multi-player matches. A central philosophy in the design of the game is the KISS principle; for a new idea to be accepted, it should not complicate gameplay.^[2]

Each unit has its own strengths and weaknesses. A unit's defense is based on the type of terrain it stands on, making terrain and placement of units very important. Different types of attacks (melee and ranged), weapon types (pierce, blade, impact, arcane, cold, and fire), and a day-night cycle that alternately favors lawful and chaotic units, add to the strategy. Throughout the campaigns, units can advance to higher level counterparts and become more powerful.

Game environment

The Battle for Wesnoth is set in a fantasy environment, in which players build armies made up of units from races such as humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, trolls, and more. This includes many custom made races, as anyone can customize the game.

The name Wesnoth was originally developed by the game's creator as a combination of syllables that he thought would sound good as a name for a fantasy land. When the project became larger and more elaborate, the developers created a fictional etymology for the name: the inhabitants of the land of Wesnoth came from the West and North, giving Westnorth, which eventually evolved to Wesnoth. This etymology is explained in the campaign The Rise of Wesnoth.

Factions

Graphic of a Sylph in Wesnoth, created by Kathrin Polikeit.

The Battle for Wesnoth currently has six default factions to choose from:

• Rebels: Consist mostly of elvish units, with ent-like woses, mermen, and mages. Most of their level 1 units are capable of both melee and ranged attacks, making the rebels very versatile. Elves ignore the time of day and have high defense in forests. They are generally faster, but slightly weaker than other units in most other terrain.
• Knalgan Alliance: These consist of slow but sturdy dwarves with strong melee attacks, allied with human outlaws who fight better under the cover of darkness. Generally, dwarves gain a high defense when occupying mountains and hills. Dwarves are also more adept at traversing caves than any other faction and ignore the time of day. They are vulnerable to attack in open terrain, while their human outlaws fight better in this same terrain.
• Loyalists: These are human cavalry, mages and infantry that ordinarily fight better in the daytime, with mermen allies. They are the most diverse faction, with more units than any other faction except the Knalgan Alliance.
• Northerners: A faction of orcs and goblins, along with troll, and nāga allies. Their focus is on cheap recruiting, brute force, and close combat, fighting much better at night. Most units require little XP to advance levels. Units often achieve higher mobility when crossing hills.
• Undead: The undead are vulnerable to fire, impact, and arcane attacks, but have high resistance against blade, pierce and especially cold damage. The undead rely on easy access to magic and poison attacks. Some units are able to drain health from enemies in order to replenish their own, and most are immune to poisoning. Unlike other races, most undead units have no traits and no personal names.
• Drakes: A dragon-like race that fights better by day. Most can fly and breathe fire. Their Saurian allies are faster and prefer fighting by night and in swamp areas, though they share the Drakes' vulnerability to cold. Drakes are the most maneuverable faction, though their size makes them prone to attack in most terrain.

The exact units used by the factions, and the faction names, change based on the era or the campaign. The above are the factions of the "Default" era, which is the most played one on the multiplayer servers, and its extension "Age Of Heroes".

There are also a number of user-created factions, several of which are grouped together in downloadable "Eras." For example, the Imperial Era includes the Roman-influenced Lavinians, the Marauders, and the Wild Elves, featuring completely new unit trees and abilities. However, it is quite possible to create factions that can be used in the default eras, though the amount of blessing given by the creators for each may vary.

Campaigns

Game tutorial in game (version 1.6.4)

The stable version of The Battle for Wesnoth currently comes with campaigns each having three levels of difficulty. More campaigns, mostly user-authored ones, can be obtained by clicking on the "Get Add-ons" button which connects the player to the campaign server. The list below contains the Campaigns packaged with the official game (relevant as of 1.7.7)

• Heir to the Throne: A young heir, Konrad, allies with rebellious elves and other races to claim the throne from the evil usurper queen Asheviere, her loyalist army, and her orcish mercenaries. This was the original campaign shipped with the game and is still the flagship product, from which most main characters associated with Wesnoth are derived.
• An Orcish Incursion: A beginner's campaign in which you must fight off the first orcs to invade the Great Continent.
• The South Guard: A young knight Deoran, is dispatched to take command of the South Guard...
• Liberty: Several poor villages are betrayed by the Kingdom of Wesnoth, which has recently fallen under the influence of the evil Queen Asheviere. They decide to fight back and become outlaws.
• Legend of Wesmere: The tale of Kalenz, the High Lord who rallied his people after the second orcish invasion of the Great Continent and became the most renowned hero in the recorded history of the Elves.
• The Eastern Invasion: In this campaign, an officer in the army of Wesnoth known as Gweddry tries to save the kingdom of Wesnoth from an undead invasion.
• The Hammer of Thursagan: In the first years of the Northern Alliance, an expedition from Knalga seeks out their kin at Kal Kartha and to learn the fate of the legendary Hammer of Thursagan. (Written by the well-known hacker and open-source advocate, Eric S. Raymond.)
• Descent into Darkness: Malin Keshar, a young mage from the town of Parthyn, attempts to defend his home from marauding orcs by enlisting the help of a necromancer named Darken Volk. By doing so, he learns the forbidden arts and the true power of the undead.
• Delfador's Memoirs*: Wesnoth seems to be slipping inexorably into chaos, as marauding orcs pour south across the Great River, and mysterious and deadly creatures roam the night. Who is the shadowy Iliah-Malal? Can you defeat him before he destroys all life in Wesnoth?
• The Sceptre of Fire: The story of the creation of the Scepter of Fire, featured in the "Heir to the Throne" campaign, by the Dwarves of Knalga.
• Son of the Black Eye: An orc named Kapou'e is the son of the only orc to have unified the orcish tribes, Black-Eye Karun, who was betrayed and murdered by the humans. Kapou'e fights back against the human earldoms and attempts to re-unite the orcish clans under his banner.
• The Rise of Wesnoth: This campaign is about the founding of Wesnoth by Prince Haldric, its first king. He must lead his people from the Green Isle, which is being infested by orcs, east towards their future home.
• Northern Rebirth: The people held captive by the orcs in the city of Dwarven Doors rebel against their masters in a struggle that will shape the fate of the Northlands.
• Under the Burning Suns: This campaign takes place in the distant future of Wesnoth, where the elves live in the desert, under two burning suns. Meteors fell from the sky and destroyed their home, forcing them to embark on a journey following their courageous and visionary leader, Kaleh.^[3]

Editor

Battle for Wesnoth’s map editor

The Battle for Wesnoth has a built-in map editor, which supports features such as multiple open maps and random map generation. The editor supports all in-game terrains, as well as custom terrains created for campaigns. The time of day can be selected from one of the built-in presets or custom lighting can be created.^[4]

WML

Using a simple text editor, new campaigns can be created using what is known as Wesnoth Markup Language (WML). As its name suggests, WML is similar to HTML and other markup languages in syntax with tags defining events and sides in a scenario. Examples for the latest stable version are offered on the site's wiki.^[5]

Lua

From the 1.7 development version upwards, Code in Lua can be embedded in WML events which gets executed when those events fire.^[6] From 1.7.14 on, Lua can also used to create alternate (or supplemental) AI implementations.^[7]

Development

The game is programmed in C++. It is cross-platform, and runs on AmigaOS 4, BeOS, FreeBSD, Linux (including OS flavors running on GP2X and Nokia n800 and n810 handheld devices), Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, MorphOS, NetBSD, OpenBSD, RISC OS, iPhone OS, and Solaris.

Wesnoth development is decentralized due to its free and open-source nature. The officially-blessed campaigns and units bundled with the game download are often derived from content created by the community, somewhat differently from the user-generated content in proprietary games where such content, while available, is usually not incorporated into official builds of the game. The Wesnoth forums and wiki are used to develop new campaigns, including new unit types and story artwork. The game is able to download new campaigns from a central add-on server. Content featured on the official campaign server must be licensed under the GNU GPL, like the game itself.

Even when not counting this community content, the list of contributors to the official version of the game as displayed in-game contains almost 400 entries (May 2007). Developers of the game also include well known authors from the free software and open source scene, like the co-founder of the Open Source Initiative Eric S. Raymond,^[8] or Linux kernel programmer Rusty Russell.^[9][10]

Releases

In October 2005, the game reached its 1.0 milestone release. On September 10, 2009, version 1.6.5 was released. On March 15, 2010, the latest release in the 1.7.x development branch, 1.7.15, was released. Because it serves as a transition to the next stable release, version 1.7.15 is also known as 1.8 Release Candidate 1. Various versions of Wesnoth have been downloaded from the central site over three million times.^[11] The game is available in about 46 languages as of March 2010.^[12]

See also

	free software portal
	video games portal

• List of open source games

References

External links

• The Battle for Wesnoth — Official Website
• Sourceforge page
• Gna! project page
• Battle for Wesnoth at The Linux Game Tome
• Trailer at YouTube

From Wikiquote

The Battle for Wesnoth is a free computer game from http://www.wesnoth.org in which humans, elves, orcs, drakes, dwarves, and other fantasy species fight for control of the land of Wesnoth and the surrounding territories.

Wesnoth FAQ

• What license is the game distributed under? The project is distributed under the GPL. All contributors retain copyright on the portions of the project that they contribute. -- Wesnoth FAQ

The Tome of Wesnoth

Generally avoid moving next to an unoccupied village. An enemy unit may move onto the village and attack you, while enjoying the defense and healing of the village.

• You can use units from a previous scenario by selecting 'Recall' in the game menu. By recalling the same units over and over, you can build up a powerful and experienced army.
• In most campaigns you will receive a gold bonus for finishing early, depending on the number of villages on the map, and the number of turns you finish early. You will always earn more gold this way than through capturing villages and waiting for turns to run out.
• Units are healed when they advance a level. Used wisely, this can turn a fight.
• Use healers to support your attacks - they will win you battles without needing to attack anything themselves.
• Use lines of units to screen injured units and let them recover.
• Read the hotkeys list in the preferences menu.

Tutorial (version 1.0)

• That was explained well! But... -- Konrad, at the menu allowing Konrad to ask Delfador more questions
• What do I do next? -- Konrad, when finished with Delfador's explanations

Basic Training

• Konrad: Can Merle retaliate from my attack? when attacking Merle, an Elvish Shaman

  Delfador: Whenever a unit is attacked, it retaliates with one of their own weapons. This means that after each blow from the attacker, the defender retaliates with one blow. This continues until one side runs out of blows, in which case the other unit continues attacking until its blows are depleted as well. However, any unit can only retaliate by using a weapon of the same range as the one used to attack. This means that a ranged attack can only be countered by a ranged attack and a melee attack can only be countered by a melee attack. Most units have mor powerful melee attacks then ranged attacks. Units with strong ranged attacks are useful in retaliation against melee oriented units. Some melee units without ranged attacks won't be able to retaliate at all. However ranged units cannot shoot acrosss multiple hexees; this is one of the distinctive features of Wesnoth.

Son of the Black Eye, Chapter One (Spoilers)

• Argh! I'm done! My people is doomed! -- Kapou'e if he dies

Toward Mountains of Haag

• I've never pushed so far, we are crossing the border of the Black Eye lands. -- the first unit to move five hexes left of the keep
• You are right, my son. We will help our orcish friends. But take care of you ... I would be desperate if something would happen to you. -- Blemaker to his son Grüu, both trolls, after they decide to help the orcs fight the dwarves (If Grüu dies, then you lose the scenario.)

To The Harbour Of Tirigaz

• Kapou'e: I can see something is moving in these hills. Looks like there are undead there. Grüu: Excellent! It is time for exercise!

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

The Battle for Wesnoth

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Battle for Wesnoth

• http://www.wesnoth.org official site
  • Wesnoth wiki and FAQ
  • Gna! project page
• Battle for Wesnoth and Guide from Gameinfo, a GFDL wiki

From Wikia Gaming, your source for walkthroughs, games, guides, and more!

This is the menu screen for Wesnoth 1.0.1. (License: GNU GPL v2)

Elves fight against the orcs. (License: GNU GPL v2)

The Battle for Wesnoth is a free, open source turn-based strategy game. The setting is Wesnoth, a typical fantasy land populated with humans, elves, and orcs. Unlike some other strategy games that emphasize building, Wesnoth emphasizes unit positioning and tactics. Players of Wesnoth typically go on campaigns by themselves, or play multiplayer scenarios with each other over the internet. There is a Tutorial to ease new players into the game.

Scenarios and Campaigns

In a scenario, multiple armies fight each other for control of maps. The map contains hexagonal tiles; units can only attack units on neighboring hexes. In a typical battle, the leaders recruit units from castles. The units occupy and flag villages to pay for recruiting and upkeep. Eventually the units meet and fight. The most common objective is to defeat the enemy leader, though some maps have other objectives.

In a campaign, one player fights through a sequence of scenarios. The leader can recall units from previous scenarios and build an experienced army. The game includes Heir to the Throne; Konrad is the heir who must retake the throne of Wesnoth from the tyrant Asheviere.

Combat

The game's tutorial reveals the basics of combat in Wesnoth. Players who want to review the combat system may consult the The Battle for Wesnoth/walkthrough on this wiki.

There are two ways in which Wesnoth distinguishes its combat system from those of other games:

• Units may only attack adjacent units. Ranged attacks do not fly across multiple hexagon spaces, but instead force the unit being attacked to retaliate with a ranged weapon instead of a melee weapon.
• Defense is a percent chance that a strike will hit. A "defense bonus" is determined only by the type of terrain that a unit stands on. For example, an Orcish Grunt has a 50% defense in forest, a 40% defense in open grassland, and a 20% defense in water. In contrast, a Merman Fighter has 60% defense in water.

Defense introduces an element of randomness and luck into the game, because no one can 100% predict which strikes will hit. Thus managing luck is an important part of tactics in Wesnoth. Good players must be able to make decisions not knowing exactly what will happen.

The positioning of units is also important to tactics, not only because units can take advantage of better defense on certain types of terrain, but because wounded units that are too far away from their opponents cannot be hit by any attack.

Game Versions

Wesnoth is a cross-platform game built upon the SDL library. Thus, the game is exactly the same regardless of which platform it runs on.

Compatibility

Stable versions of Wesnoth are multiplayer-compatible with the other versions of the same branch, but not with development versions or old versions.

History

Wesnoth 1.2 appeared on 23 December 2006. The previous stable version, Wesnoth 1.0, appeared on 3 October 2005.

External Links

• Official site
  • FAQ
  • Gna! project page
• On some wiki
  • Wikipedia:The Battle for Wesnoth encyclopedia article
  • Wikiquote:The Battle for Wesnoth quotes from the game
  • Commons:The Battle for Wesnoth screenshots
• On Everything2: Battle for Wesnoth (thing) by Glowing Fish