The Battle for Wesnoth [PC - TBS]

[Corenat Rovarnus]

Previously on Church of ProZ...
The initial misspelled review by Mr. Vegas: http://churchofproz.forumotion.net/t767-battle-for-westnoth-review
My extremely witty plays on the mainline campaign titles http://churchofproz.forumotion.net/t1258-under-the-burning-puns


Legitimate Acquisition --> https://www.wesnoth.org/
The Battle For Wesnoth is a free open source turn based strategy game utilizing a hex grid. There are six different playable factions in the default era, with many more units and scenarios available on the official add-on server.
It's currently on version 1.12 with a new and improved world map, graphics and interface with 1.14 soon to be published on Steam.

I've been playing this again recently with @Interovegas and @Xenoe so thought I'd make a new topic here. The replay value is pretty high, even with my previous experience the campaigns and multiplayer still provide an ample challenge.

In particular there seems to be precious little material on the Drake faction, so I must be one of the foremost authorities in the world on playing them by now.

[Interovegas]

We played this game so long ago that it's weird this didn't already have a page.

[Corenat Rovarnus]

As of May 2nd version 1.14 is now the latest stable branch, and it's now available on Steam! The textures are looking a little airbrushed but graphics was never the main draw anyway.

[Corenat Rovarnus]

Some single player campaign reviews:

A Tale of Two Brothers - A short and sweet campaign, only 4 scenarios. The second level "Chase" was a little annoying but only because you're playing Loyalists who have crap movement over forest. Because it's so short you usually don't get to train a unit up to level 3, but that's alright as you don't really need level 3 units for the final scenario.

An Orcish Incursion - This campaign is almost the embodiment of what Wesnoth started as, you can't get much more core than AOI. The theme is small scale skirmish type scenarios of elves vs orcs except one against undead in a swamp. Despite having twice the scenarios of Two Brothers I was able to finish this in equivalent time.

Legend of Wesmere  - This has turned out to be the most frustrating campaign I've played in this game - and that includes the user made ones. Its main theme is large pitched battles between multiple armies, which is great for the spectacle, but the sheer number of units on the map makes each turn drag out into eternity as 70+ guys make their individual move, and going back a save to redo something is painful.
What really irks me is that you can only recruit Elvish Fighters and Archers for the entire first 3 scenarios. Not only does this make army composition pretty monotonous, but no shamans means if a unit gets hit by a single assassin's dagger they are out of commission for the rest of the scenario, unless they happen to be on or next to a village.

The scenario "Bounty Hunters" was nearly impossible to beat on Hard without constantly reloading for RNG, as you have to escape from two saurian forces that field double your troops and quickly and effortlessly close in on your formation. Everyone having skirmisher makes it so you need a full six-sided block to completely protect a wounded unit. Then when you reach the river it surprise-spawns several powerful aquatic monsters that will attack the nearest target, which is usually one of your critical units.