Battle For Wesnoth

[Gwain]

I was wondering if any of you played this game.

If you don't know let me explain it, it's an open source turn based strategic fantasy game, it's an easy game to learn, yet hard to master.

the nice thing is that you can create your own factions (races), and campaigns, or even, if you know about python you can help the project, it's open source and registered under the GNU general public licence after all.

:)

edit: didn't added a link to it on purpose, don't know if is allowed

[Premier]

http://www.wesnoth.org/

Why wouldn't it be allowed? I mean, really.

[Chaos]

IIRC links to commercial sites are not allowed, but since Battle of Wesnoth is freeware, I see no reason why it should not be allowed.

[kleedrac]

As much as I like Wesnoth we've kinda given up on it over here for a couple reasons; 1) My wife always wins :) and 2) there's normally a version difference between the windows version my wife runs and the latest which gets auto-updated to my Ubuntu box. Other than that it's a great game and I strongly encourage anyone who liked Phantasy Star on the Genesis (or even Shining in the Darkness) will love this game.

[Gwain]

right, why not? :)

ow, i didn't liked to make it look like some extreme sponsoring of the game ;)

you guys should try 1.0.2, actually is considered the stable version of wesnoth, while the 1.1 (and the future 1.1.1) are still considered unstable.

talking about factions, what ones do you like?

i'm usually playing dwarves and Elves, but i would like to get better with the loyalists too (CHARGEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! ;) )

[Spuddly]

What I like best about Wesnoth:
It runs on Mac! Yipee!!

I've played through almost all the undead campaigns, until I get to one impossible level (which also happens to be the last written level for the undead campaign). I think I've beat the campaign where you play with a little boy and an old man.

[McDeath]

Version 1.2 is out. What does everyone think? Personally, I love it. New unit graphics, sounds, animations, campaigns...it does run a little slower, though.

[Saithis Bladewing]

Just downloaded this on recommendation from a friend. I must say, this is probably the most fun free game I have ever played. The graphics are gorgeous, the music is great and the gameplay is rather engaging. I honestly think I could see myself playing this well into the future.

[McDeath]

You snoth, I snoth, we all snoth for Wesnoth!
Anyway...wh is it so good? Because it's freeware. And it runs on Linux and Mac as well as Crashsoft.

[Saithis Bladewing]

And under 60mb at that. Rare to find a game this good that's so darn small.

And after quite a bit of expermentation, I have learnt that the map editor is quite a hoot as well.

[Dragor]

Wesnoth was very good whilst I was in to it- there is nothing more satisfying than having a fully upgraded unit kicking butt and unable to be stopped.

However, I played it too much. That's where it all went downhill for me :)

[Telok]

I enjoy Wesnoth in spurts. It's nice, but I can't finish any of the campaigns. Reason? All the attack/defense numbers seem to be off about 15% half the time. It gets to the point that I'm basing my strategy off of magic attacks hitting 50%-60% for my units and 80%-100% aginst my units. I've tested it too, those numbers are accurate for me.

It's streaky too, I tend to wonder what they're using for a RNG at times. Generally either every other map or by the day/night schedule, which makes almost zero sense at all. I could see the "per map" variation if they generated limited or static seeds for the RNG at map spawn, but that would be such a sloppy and obvious error that I just have to rule it out.

I like the game, I just can't play it very much. Lancers with hit rates less than 50% and dying if two enemy units can reach them after a charge... It just takes too many other units to coddle them to level 2 to be worth it.

[Saithis Bladewing]

It's possible you just have bad luck, I haven't had any problems in the campaigns. ;)

[McDeath]

Seems like a ridiculously bad run of luck. I have streaks of good and bad luck, but it all balances out. I'm not a very good player, but I do have fun.

[Saithis Bladewing]

I have good games and bad games, but it usually tends to even out. I notice I tend to get more good luck when I care about the result than when I don't.

[Rell Canis]

I've played it and finished a few campaigns. It's really good : despite the fantasy theme and KISS game rules, it's serious enough that you've got to really take care with your moves. Since the time of the day and type of terrain are so important, you can't just pack up a load of big units and charge down like you do in a RTS.

[Ethdred]

Yeah, picked it up after a previous mention on this board. It took up a lot of my time initially, so I've veered off it for a while. I did find that the luck seemed to be rather strange, and some of the scenarios were just impossible. But may hit it again this weekend

[Saithis Bladewing]

A lot of the scenarios, particularly in campaign mode, require a lot of very careful planning and management of both units and economy. In the campaign mode, you don't want to just think about your units for this battle, but also for the rest of the campaign. You've got to be able to take low level units, get them to level 2 or 3 (or even 4 for some magi) and be able to keep them there. You also have to be able to build a balanced force, know how to use and abuse terrain and, most of all, know how to steal villages. Stealing villages = victorious economy = victorious battle.

[McDeath]

I was wondering if anyone would be interested at running a campaign over the GitP boards? Considering the fantasy theme of the game, it would be easy enough to run a campaign, with sneaky tricks and espionage. It would be easy enough to let players steal gold from each other (reduce the gold you start battles with), upgrade their towns (castle tiles near their villages) and many other things. Anyone interested?

[invisiblejon]

A few thoughts on Wesnoth:

1) I had it installed on my iBook and had to delete it, not because of any problems, but because it was so fun that I kept playing it when I was supposed to be working. Like everyone's saying -- It's darn good freeware.

2) The management that the light/dark piece strength mechanics required reminded me a lot of the classic video game Archon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon_(computer_game)) (In a good way, not a bad way).

3) The "play against other players online" feature is remarkable in its commercial-grade utility. I especially liked being able to watch other people playing and the ability to replay "movies" of the game up to the point where you started watching.

Best Regards,

Jonathan L.
Games Advocate
Invisible City Productions (http://www.invisible-city.com/play/)

[Saithis Bladewing]

I don't have enough time to actually play a campaign, but it would be interesting and I would support such an action indirectly.

[McDeath]

Ah well, Saithis. There aren't enough players on this board. However, I have had a stroke of inspiration. I could start such a campaign on the official boards! Brilliant.

[Diarmuid]

McDeath, if you were to start that game, would you also just let it die like you did the last game you started? You still have a few players who wanted to play, and havent posted anything in the IC or OOC since 12/27. If you're not going to run the game anymore, at least the common courtesy to say so would have been nice.