The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme.
Build up a great army, gradually turning raw recruits into hardened veterans. In later games, recall your toughest warriors and form a deadly host against whom none can stand! Choose units from a large pool of specialists, and hand-pick a force with the right strengths to fight well on different terrains against all manner of opposition.
Wesnoth has many different sagas waiting to be played out. Fight to regain the throne of Wesnoth, of which you are the legitimate heir... step into the boots of a young officer sent to guard a not-so-sleepy frontier outpost... vanquish a horde of undead warriors unleashed by a foul necromancer, who also happens to have taken your brother hostage... guide a band of elvish survivors in an epic quest to find a new home.
200+ unit types. 16 races. 6 major factions. Hundreds of years of history. The world of Wesnoth is absolutely huge and limited only by your creativity - make your own custom units, compose your own maps, and write your own scenarios or even full-blown campaigns. You can also challenge up to 8 friends - or strangers - and fight in epic multi-player fantasy battles.
Reviewer: Akina15 The Battle For Wesnoth is an ever evolving turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme and a variety of races. The most common of races are elves, humans (known as loyalists in this game), orcs and the undead. Want to play a troll? No problem! How about the mythical merpeople and Naga? Sure! There are 16 different races, each with their own different ranks of fighters. In addition, each type of fighter has their own strengths and weaknesses based on the terrain they’re fighting in.
There are also three types of allegiances: lawful, neutral and chaotic. Each one has a period during the day where they are at their strongest or at their weakest. Chaotics, like goblins, orcs, and lichens (aka the undead) are the strongest during the night. Lawfuls (see: loyalists, drakes, and kalifa) are the strongest during the day. Neutrals aren’t affected by the period of the day at all.
Now, the when an enemy is selected by the unit you want to attack with, data such as HP, MP and XP of both units is displayed. However, this is not the only thing displayed. The strength of the weapons in melee and ranged is also displayed. If you decided to click on the fight probabilities, you can see the outcome of the attack, the chance for several levels of damage and the strength of both units. This helps you decide on whether or not you really want to attack that Dark Sorcerer or having an Elder Wose go up against a Duelist is a good idea.
Now there are several different ways of playing this game. You can do a single player where you fight against the computer with one or more enemies of the same or different races. Gold amounts earned for each village you take for your race can be adjusted as well in this setting. Fog of war, race and map settings can be altered as well! The possibilities are endless! Not to mention, this single player setting can be made to play up eight total players, even those whom you invite to play over the internet.
There are also many different campaigns to choose from in this game along with the ability to download even more! Rescue your brother who was kidnapped by a dark adversary…help find elves find a new home for them after theirs was burned to the ground…reclaim your throne as the legitimate heir…become a newly trained officer sent out to guard a place that was believed to be a sleepy town. The possibilities are endless.
The game is ever changing itself. Since the game can be edited by the players themselves, new additions or problems are worked out by those who can edit the program to bring you a better gaming experience.
This game will keep you on your toes with each turn you take.
Reviewer: Whooosh Battle for Wesnoth is a fun turn based fantasy strategy game where you lead an army to victory. You do so by taking over castles and town which will earn you cash and allow you to buy more units. There are plenty of fantasy races to choose from, such as the usual fantasy fare of humans, elves, dwarfs, undead as well as lizard men and mermen and each race also have their own specific unit types and advantages and disadvantages. Elven units have better ranged units and their special units can hide in forests as well as powerful druids, humans have very good cavalry as well as defensive units etc. This is important as strategy is a very big part of the game and each race plays different depending on what units you have. Elves are weaker so you'll need to make sure you protect them by moving your units together in a group while with Humans, because they have very good cavalry you can use them as a quick strike force and do some hit and runs while your slower more powerful units move closer to deal the final blow. The races are grouped together in a faction so when playing Humans you can use some elven and dwarf units which allow you to mix and match your army and pick specialist units from each race to fulfill the roles they are best at. As you play, your units will gain experience and level up, making them better and some units can eventually be promoted or upgraded to even better units. Some units even have 2 upgrade paths so you have plenty of choice and variability in the units you choose to field.
The game can become complicated as the outcome of a fight between two units can be determined by many different things like environment, some environments can had defensive bonuses to your units, particularly if they are of a certain race (i.e. elves have bonuses in forests, dwarves have bonuses on mountains) as well as the day night cycle can have an effect as good units like humans and elves perform better in the day and evil units like orcs and undead perform better at night, this can influence your ability to perform well or fail miserably.
There is the main campaign that comes with the game (The titular Battle for Wesnoth) where you fight to regain your throne against an evil undead horde) and there are also plenty of player-made campaign and scenarios you can try your hand at if you get bored or just want a quick game. You're better off investing your time in a campaign however as the sense of accomplishment you get as you slowly build your fighting force from weak cannon fodder units to strong powerhouse is totally worth it.
Overall it's a very fun game to play, whether you’re a hardened veteran of turn based strategy game or just looking for something to pass the time.
