The Battle for Wesnoth

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Ogre
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The Battle for Wesnoth

Post by Ogre »

This is one of the best TBS games I have ever played...and it's free!!!
I'll let this quote from the dedicated game site do the talking:
"Build up a formidable fighting force, starting from a single leader and a small amount of gold.
Over 200 unit types in six major factions, all with distinctive abilities, weapons and spells.
Experienced units gain powerful new abilities as they advance.
Several multi-player options available, including internet play.
Scores of different custom-designed maps, and unlimited random maps.
Hundreds of campaign scenarios available for download via a simple in-game procedure.
'Fog of war' feature available for a true test of generalship.
Sophisticated mark-up language lets advanced users make their own maps, factions or campaigns.
Excellent language support – 20 different languages currently available.
GNU/Linux, Windows, MacOSX, BeOS, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, OS/2 & eComStation compatible."

The Battle for Wesnoth
http://www.wesnoth.org/
by David White, 2003

Download: http://curlysworldoffreeware.com/game_info.php?gameid=6

Genre: Strategy (turn based)
Theme: Fantasy
Freeware (GNU Public License)
Attachments
Pretty title screen (don't worry, it comes in English too).
Pretty title screen (don't worry, it comes in English too).
wesnoth-menu-latin.JPG (101.07 KiB) Viewed 18235 times
Now that's a big lightsabre! ;)
Now that's a big lightsabre! ;)
wesnoth-delfador.JPG (95.26 KiB) Viewed 18235 times
Who says war is bad?
Who says war is bad?
wesnoth-drake-death.JPG (114.58 KiB) Viewed 18235 times
"There are two ways to live your life
One is as though nothing is a miracle
The other is as though everything is a miracle"
-Albert Einstein
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Maz
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Post by Maz »

This is excellent game indeed :) And for FC 4 Linux it's available from Fedora Extras repository. Installable straight away with command 'yum install wesnoth'!
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Ogre
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Post by Ogre »

There are a few things I should add:

1. I forgot to mention the download size (for window OS): 36Mb
That is for the stable version, the development version is 56Mb which I have not yet tried, so I can't comment on it.

2. The graphics in the game are a lot better than they look in my screenshots....I had to reduce the quality to get under the attachment size limit.

3. I am running the game on my PII 256Mhz PC with the music turned off, "accelerated moves", and "don't show enemy movement"...but the game still runs a bit slow (I also had to change settings down to 16 bit graphics). I reckon you would have no problems with a 400Mhz PC or better.
It's still definitely worth downloading, even if you do have a slow PC like mine.

I have been playing the first campaign on medium difficulty and I am up to about the 6th or 7th mission, which I have attempted about a dozen times now, because I keep getting slaughtered. Might have to go back and replay the previous mission to save up more gold for this one. :)

The more i play it, the more I like it...which is a great sign because usually I lose interest with games fairly quickly. Not this one. In fact...it may well end up on my "top 10 favorite games of all time" list.
"There are two ways to live your life
One is as though nothing is a miracle
The other is as though everything is a miracle"
-Albert Einstein
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Tinoco
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Post by Tinoco »

I've Dl it Ogre and gave it a shot for a while, looks rather dificult but in a chalenging way and the graphs look great, certainly a good adition to this forum!

The mechanism behind the game seems quite complex but of course I've only played it for a while ;)
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Maz
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Post by Maz »

Mechanism is quite similair to Fantacy General, which was a great piece of software... Unfortunately I think it's not freeware. :)
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Monteque
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Post by Monteque »

Looks nice. Maybe I should try it. :)
[img]http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/5705/sig2rose5ju.jpg[/img]
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Tinoco
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Post by Tinoco »

I have been playing the first campaign on medium difficulty and I am up to about the 6th or 7th mission, which I have attempted about a dozen times now, because I keep getting slaughtered. Might have to go back and replay the previous mission to save up more gold for this one.
Yep Ogre build up strong units and save money that way you'll have 3rd level knights which can make up to 42 of damage (can destry enemies in one move!!!!!)

Execelent game I'm completely addicted, great storyline, based on the story of Warcraft III with all the elves and undead!

Nice adiciton OGRE!!! ;)
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Ogre
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Post by Ogre »

I did get past that mission by going back to the previous and making more gold.
Grand Knights are cool, but I prefer Paladins because if you send one or 2 out with a small troop of Horsemen, you can heal with out villages. (same tactic used for Druids with a troop of elves)
I have to say my favorite units are the Elven Avenger (3rd level archer/ranger) and the Elven Sharpshooter (3rd level archer/marksmen)...they both have a good damage rating, can parry both melee and range attacks, and if you keep them in the forest they have a great defense rating. Especially good if you have a couple of druids or shydes with them to heal whatever small amounts of damage they take.
Also they are neutral, so not affected by day/night!
"There are two ways to live your life
One is as though nothing is a miracle
The other is as though everything is a miracle"
-Albert Einstein
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Tinoco
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Post by Tinoco »

Ups this means you have gone much further than me! :p I seldomly use elves and rarely can make the go to a better level, nice hint, thanks Ogre!

I guess know that I know how to play I may restart the game, and perhaps go to the dificult level ;) I've been playin it on average :p
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Ogre
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Post by Ogre »

I just finished stage 15 - 'The Lost General' today. It was a good one for pumping up experience on my weak units (64 turns!).

There are some stages that are quite difficult (I was stuck on 'The Seige of Elsenfar' for ages), most are challenging but winnable. Ocasionally you get a real easy one which is great for pumping up the experience on the weaker units (Elvish Shaman, Mage...etc). Once you get to level 2 on these units, they have enough HP to take a hit without being wiped out first shot. - then you just need a couple of other units to cover them so they can crawl back to a village or healer.
The tactic I use for pumping the weak guys is to send a platoon of about 3 or 4 tough units into battle with a weak unit or 2 tucked in right behind them (preferably on terrain that favours the weak units). Once the tough guys have given the baddies a flogging, you let the weak guys in for the finishing blow (I think it says something about this in the startup tips box - not 100% sure though).

Another great thing about this game is that even though I have gone quite a few missions into the campaign, there are still new unit types being introduced!!
"There are two ways to live your life
One is as though nothing is a miracle
The other is as though everything is a miracle"
-Albert Einstein
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Tinoco
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Post by Tinoco »

Hum you must be about the same stage as I am... I think I'm at stage 17 but it keeps getting tougher on the tunnels, just a great penalty for beeing underground, but your hint on the Shamans was excelent I din't knew units could cure one another ;) Thanks!
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Maz
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Post by Maz »

White mages can do that too (AFAIR). And (again AFAIR) it keeps getting tougher...
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Tinoco
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Post by Tinoco »

Tell me about ir fadedmind, just started the 4th campaign on the toughest level and its really tought to win...

About White mages, I can't get them past level 1, they keep dying on me :p
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Ogre
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Post by Ogre »

I didn't get anywhere with mages until 'The Lost General' level (one of the levels in the dwarf caverns).

This is how I got 2 white mages and 1 3rd level Arch Mage (after 2nd level Red):

If you send 2 or 3 mages (preferably with both the 'quick' & 'resilient' attributes, and also some experience gained in previous missions) with 3 - 4 dwarfs and 2 druids directly south to where the signpost is (they actually comment about a recent cave in when you get near the spot)...then go near the south wall. 2 thin passages will open with a whole heap of undead on the other side. Stick one of your dwarfs in front in each passage with a druid right behind them and place the mages behind the healers.

Let the dwarfs knock the enemy hit points right down (to 10 HP or less), then withdraw them and put the mage in for the kill....as soon as your mage kills it, immediately stick a fresh dwarf in the vacant spot created by the dead enemy to cover the mage, and on the next turn retreat the mage and move the dwarf one space back so it is next to the druid again...keep this up until you either kill 'em all or until the enemy find a way to get around behind you. (if a dwarf does take a big hit, just replace it with a fresh one and put it between the 2 druids or move it to the nearby village until it recovers).

Note that druids (or any unit with the 'cure' ability) can heal up to 18 HP per turn - but with a maximum of 8 HP per unit healed. So they can heal 2 units 8HP each -or- 3 units 6HP each...etc...

BTW...While this is all happening, you will also need to keep pumping out new dwarfs to capture villages and to defeat the trolls coming from the west (Delfador can back them up too).

There is probably a better way to finish this level, (i.e. you will get a lot more money if you go in hard with a lot of strong units and finish it quick)...but I found this way was preferable for me. :)
"There are two ways to live your life
One is as though nothing is a miracle
The other is as though everything is a miracle"
-Albert Einstein
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Tinoco
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Post by Tinoco »

LOL I used the same tactic but with diferent characters :p

I sent a Paladin(3rd level) with an outlaw, dawrves, the elve main character and a couple of poachers! ;) Cahotic creatures work well there ;)

Its a pitty the game dosen't allow partial damage as in RPGs, at a certain point you either kill or get killed in a flash, I'm playing the 4th campaign in the tougest level and you rarely get good results, often you get 30% chace to hit :(
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

"Battle for Wesnoth" is updated to version 1.2.7.

"The main reason for this release was a security vulnerability of the multiplayer part. An invalid utf-8 string could make other clients crash. The main issues could already be fixed via a server update, but it is at least problematic if you run direct games or your own server. Since we did now implement a whole fix on the code side, please update 1.2.7 so that you are not affected anymore by this vulnerability."

You can find the new files for Windows, Linux and Mac at our game info page:

http://curlysworldoffreeware.com/game_info.php?gameid=6

Because of technical reasons I cannot delete the old (not working) download links at the moment, so please ignore them and use the download links that says "Newest Version". I will delete the old links as soon as possible...
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

"Battle for Wesnoth" is updated to version 1.2.8.

"This is a bugfix release for 1.2 and it is compatible with the other 1.2 versions. The main reason for this release was an important security fix. This issue was filed as CVE-2007-5742, it did allow others to view the content of files on the remote computer. We did now fix this problem by removing the option to use ../ in paths.

Another problem could arise with the preference option "turn_cmd". Due to this problem the computer could either be stalled by a faulty add-on or *maybe* (we found no way to do so) some other application could be started. This option has now been removed since it probably wasn't used anyway.

Beside those important changes only small things were changed. For all the other changes (really not much), have a look at the changelog.

Since those are rather serious issues we do advise everybody using the 1.2.x stable series to upgrade to 1.2.8 as soon as possible. All saves and the existing content should still work after this upgrade. In general be careful in regards to add-ons you use, there might be some bad ones available even on the official add-on server because the content available there is usually not checked."

You can find the new files for Windows, Linux and Mac at our game info page:

http://curlysworldoffreeware.com/game_info.php?gameid=6
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eMTe
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Post by eMTe »

We have to update it once again, this time to 1.4 :P .
"As you have noticed over the years, we are not angry people." (itebygur)
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

I will update the files today. Please remind me if I forget about it...
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Maz
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Post by Maz »

Updates could be added in bug tracker too. That way we won't forget them :)
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