As a few people mentioned Battle for Wesnoth (here:
http://catacomber.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=26&func=view&id=6500&catid=18) and some were curious about it, I can give a quick review of the game.
I play it for several years now, almost exclusively the campaigns.
- Wesnoth Homepage and Forum:
www.wesnoth.org
- Current stable version: 1.8.3
- There also is a development branch, which will be the next stable version when the current development cycle is done.
- Versions exist for Linux, Mac and PC.
The iDevice and PC versions are a little different. For one, the PC version is completely free, and it runs on old hardware, too. The whole game is 2D, with mostly beautifully animated sprites for the units. Only what is ported to the iDevices is available there, which is just a small fraction of the content available for the PC game.
The game comes in several parts:
- The main game with the "official" campaigns, multiplayer maps and eras (which combine several factions, like Undead, Drakes or Orcs). The official campaigns are all singleplayer. Some of the usermade campaigns are multiplayer.
- UMC: User Made Content. Wesnoth has a very active community, players contribute with artwork, multiplayer maps, full campaigns (some of these went into "mainline", the main game), factions, user guides, etc.
- Multiplayer: While there are some multiplayer campaigns, the main focus is on player-vs-player games. The Wesnoth community runs their own multiplayer server. Also, there is a ranking system called "Ladder", but as I do not play multiplayer, I don't know much about it.
The campaigns have a wide range in quality, difficulty, storytelling, etc.
From the "typical" heroic "save the world, kill the bad guys" stuff, to following the exploits of a Vampire Lord who wishes to regain his castle and fief, to drake slaves fighting for freedom from their human masters, or Desert Elves looking for a new home, the stories offered vary greatly.
The same is true for the battles which make up the main part of the game (if you want to be negative, you could say the campaigns consist of alot of fighting, held together by a bit of storyline. Luckily, mostly this is not true).
Campaign battles range from small skirmishes with just a few units, across midsize action where two or maybe three smaller groups (say, 15-20 units on each side) fight, to huge free-for-all clusterfucks where 4 or more armies with easily 30+ highlevel units on each side duke it out.
The game is simple to learn, but hard to master. There are no complicated rules (for example, defense is determined only by the terrain your unit is on; you have 4 or 5 damage types, and that's it). But the intricacies have a steep learning curve, and take some time and effort to understand and master.
As example: The drake faction is highly mobile with powerful attacks and fights the best during daytime (yes, there is a day/night cycle). After a while you learn that they are quite vulnerable to piercing attacks like the spears of the standard Loyalist army spearman. Also, as dragon descendants, they are resistant to fire, but vulnerable to cold. Now, the Undead faction has a unit that is very good with cold spells, attacks best at night, but is very vulnerable to Drake physical attacks. Whether you fight the Loyalists or the Undead, you need to deploy different units, follow different strategies and use different tactics.
All factions have their own strength and weaknesses, and different matchups (say, Undead vs. Orcs) call for different strategies and tactics, which gives the game alot of depth on that side.
Units can level up from experience gained by kills. Most from level 1 up to level 3, some to level 2 only, and a few rare ones to level 4.
Alot of units branch out when you advance them. For example the Elvish Fighter can develop into a better fighter until he becomes a Champion, or into a Marshall who fights less well, but provides leadership to units near him, making them fight better.
If you want to give it a try, download it from the Wesnoth homepage and you are good to go.
Start with the tutorial to get a feeling for the game. For beginning campaigns, I recommend "A Tale of Two Brothers (short and easy to play)" , "Descent into Darkness (short, but harder than the Two Brothers)", "Count Kromire (downloadable from within the game; moderately long, and pretty hard; interesting story)". The "official" starting campaign, "Heir to the Throne" is pretty long (around 25 scenarios), and gets very hard and drawnout in the later scenarios (at least that was my impression).
I have not played multiplayer for some years now, so you can consider me a newbie. As my girlfriend is somewhat interested as well: In case you want to setup a multiplayer match, leave me a PM here, or contact me on AIM (same username as here). We are both in CET timezone.
All in all, I can highly recommend Battle for Wesnoth.
UPDATE: I just tried to install v1.8.3 on my Windows XP Professional machine, and the installation failed with several extract errors. So back to 1.8.2 it is.
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