The Battle for Wesnoth

The Good
The Battle for Wesnoth is an independently made, open source game. As such one cannot compare it in terms of production to mainstream releases. The game itself is turn based and has a tile movement system, yet it’s incredible how much strategy has been squeezed into such a deceptively simple display.

As an RTS fan I rarely find a game that is tactically interesting and challenging, and Wesnoth is both. There is no room for sitting back and simply charging at the enemy. You often (though not always) start with your hero in a castle where they can recruit units. Your objectives play a key part in how you progress in a mission, most missions giving nicely varied and topical objectives. Staying back and pumping out troops isn’t always the best plan, especially as you need to control scattered villages across the map in order to pay the upkeep of your ever-expanding army.

You’ll have to consider your supply lines (namely how far the front lines are from the reinforcing castles) and constantly be aware of any holes in your defence or isolated units, as the enemy frequently calls your bluff.

You need to be very conscious of rotating injured units with fresh reinforcements or risk seeing your whole force decimated. In fact this is one of the few RTS’ that depicts this dynamic where most just have dead or living units.

As each unit fights better on certain terrain, against certain targets or even at a certain time of day, you need to match strengths against weakness.

Units gain experience and evolve into more powerful or specialised troops that can be recalled for later missions. You have to use these invaluable (and named) soldiers carefully, and you often have a lot of affection for the ones who’ve been with you throughout each campaign.

What you have in this game is a strong SYSTEM, one that is easy to learn but hard to master. At no point does it point out the frontline of the battle in glitzy neon graphics, but tactically it is obvious where the focuses of combat are and where you are beginning to break through. Injured troops do not wail or drag themselves limply around, but they are apparent and must be attended to. The fights themselves are simple animations following some invisible mathematical formula, yet it is just as thrilling when your Peasant holds out against all odds, a bare fraction of health left, allowing you time for the reinforcements to arrive. It is megawatt power for the imagination.

The campaigns are the main component of the game, though there is also a multiplayer that is built around the strengths of the game dynamics. Some of these story campaigns are pleasantly innovative, particularly one set in a post-apocalyptic desert. With elves. Pretty much all of them give a nice narrative framework to base the fights around.

The provided campaigns aren’t the only ones on offer as the game supports a simple and swift ad-on connection that lets you browse and download additional user-generated material, much of which is of equal quality to those provided.

Oh and the music is very nice, if a little repetitive.

The Bad
Holy crap is this game hard! It really catches you off guard just how intelligent the enemy A.I is. And that’s the kicker- the game isn’t hard because it places any constraints on you. It’s hard because you’ve spent too much time sending your biggest tanks towards the enemy, brain withered and wilted in the face of an actual tactician.

That this game has a colossal learning curve, though one based around tactics and not the easy-to-grasp interface, isn’t a bad thing by definition. It’s the main reason I love the game and something you should never change about it. It is distracting to first time players who finds themselves defeated again and again by the second level of a campaign. My advice? Play harder. A battle hard won is immeasurably more satisfying than a battle won because you have more resources.

I’ve stated already that you shouldn’t judge anything aesthetically in the game, given its engine and user-generated nature. However many of the campaigns are uneven in terms of quality.

The aforementioned post-apocalyptic elf storyline is very interesting and original, yet is presented with simple text on a black screen before each mission, whereas others have illustrated cut scenes, progress maps and such. Other campaigns recycle unit sprites and sound effects and occasionally have very crude hero portraits. It would be nice in a later release of the game if the provided campaigns could just be sexed up a little by, and I feel like a dick for saying this, a better artist. A bit of polish and this game will shine.

The Bottom Line
You'll be pressed in finding a game as pleasing to the grey squishy thing between your ears as this. Oh and did I mention that it's free? Genius.

The Good
This game deserves praise, and Curlymcdom's review touches all the right points. In short the game provides an unique tactical variety that forces a deep strategical thinking on the player from the very start.

You start your battle in an immovable fort from which you can recruit units for gold, of which you have a limited amount. Gold is acquired by gaining control of villages (which pull double and triple duty as a healing center and a fortified location for most units) making the frame for a simple, yet enjoyable economic king-of-the-hill game where each opponent tries to hold on as much villages as possible without compromising their overall defenses. Speaking of which - your goal is very simple: Kill the other leader. Simple, however, is by no means easy since the leader is usually a high level unit that can hold their own against a host of low level grunts. Although you need the leader in a specific part of your fort to recruit new soldiers, most commanders will move their leader, either to capture villages early on (particularly if you have a very mobile leader) or let the leader follow the initial wave of your troops in the hope of turning the tables at a key point with its awesome presence (if you have a more battle oriented leader).

What makes this game stand out is the huge diversity of the units you can recruit. Each unit has different movement and defense properties on different terrains, as well as different attacks that affect different troops differently. Well, that sentence wasn't very clear, but here is an example from the game: A human horseman is extremely fast on open, flat grassland and can outrun almost any other unit. It also has a very powerful attack that, combined with the horseman's speed, can kill a unit the moment it's seen. However there is a down side - power comes at the cost of defense and once your opponent's turn comes up you might discover that the initial weak troop was a mere distraction to lure your horseman closer to the slower enemy soldiers who can dispatch it easily with ranged attacks against which the horseman cannot retaliate. This is not the only possible scenario too. Suppose you order your horseman to attack a skeleton on a mountain. Now the situation is reversed - the horseman that was fast on grassland, will barely be able to climb the mountain, and even there the horseman's piercing attack will do little damage to a skeletal body, where as the skeleton will use the horseman's momentum against him, striking the rider down where it stands.

In a game with a dozen terrain types, two basic attacks (melee or ranged) but half a dozen attack types (from piercing to arcane) and a countless host of units every location is a potential threat or an opportunity. All depending on your strategical at the start when you purchased your units and plotted their course. A mountain trail would benefit some units, while a forest grove will support a completely different set.

If that wasn't enough, units can also gain experience from battle and evolve into stronger versions with even more possibilities! A human spearman can choose to evolve into a powerful offensive swordsman, a defensively oriented pikeman or a ranged based javalineer. Each unit is stronger than the basic spearman, but each one has completely different role on the battlefield. It's up to you to decide which evolution path is best suited to what situation. Thankfully, the game provides an encyclopedia that completely describes all possible attributes of your recruits or their upgrades, from defensive and movement properties in every terrain to their attacks and abilities (almost all of which are useful in their own way). Furthermore, the game will also give you the same information about visible enemy units, as well as providing a statistical prediction of the result of any fight between two units. These options are excellently integrated into the turn based gameplay so that you are never discouraged or inconvenienced when you try to decide on a possible approach.

All in all, the good part of the game is quite polished and well presented. Even the graphics aren't much of a problem - the little sprites looks very natural in this setting adding, rather than subtracting, from the general experienced. The large community that provides user made maps, campaigns and units is just the icing on the proverbial cake.

The Bad
Nevertheless, all of the above is undermined by one simple issue - luck based combat. It's hard to say what went through the head of the designer who is responsible for this poor decision, but the love child of an excellent strategical setting and tactics that are nothing more than a throw of the dice is a deformity that can barely make a few steps before falling over drooling.

Since I started with a horseman example above, I'll use the same one here: The chance to hit any unit in the game or be hit by it is between 40% and 70% (and extremely poorly placed unit has an 80% chance of being hit). On average you have about 50% to hit or be hit. That wouldn't be much of a problem if the damage done was significantly lower than the overall health of the unit, but mostly that's not the case. The horseman form my example for one, has a chance of 75% to kill most weak units, or 25% to kill a stronger unit on its charge (because it delivers two very powerful blows). This means that if you're lucky a group of horsemen can instantly kill two or three enemies. On the other hand you could get unlucky and the horseman's charge will be wasted while on the next turn you'll see your entire troop of horsemen destroyed by a counter-attack from a much more inferior forces. "Don't use horsemen then" you could say. "Limit yourself to units with lower damage but better defense" you could argue. That, however, only shifts the problem slightly. I really can't count the times where a unit was surrounded by six other units and still held its own through the magic of statistics. Or when a high level magical unit (always 70% to any hit on any terrain against any enemy) couldn't score a single hit against a much weaker opponent, while the opponent in question was gleefully chipping away my behemoth's health. On average that doesn't happen. On average the horsemen do more damage than they take. On average strong unit destroy the weak and swarming tactics are an excellent way to destroy a stronger target. But an average is a complex thing that demand endless amount of tries, whereas any single game could have a 95% successful outcome succeed only once in ten tries (yes, that happened to me too).

It could go the other way too, of course, and you can see your frustrating enemy lose soldier after soldier trying to finish off your mortally wounded unit. As humorous as that might be, it goes to show just how much any strategy can be undermined by poorly designed tactics. Not that great strategical games don't have a luck component, they do it to spice things up. But just as a dish could be over spiced, so could a strategy game be ruined when it relies too heavily on luck.

Other than the above there isn't much bad with this game. Anything else is just nitpicking (which include some poorly made campaigns). But then again, it doesn't take much to ruin a game for me. In my mind a strategy game should be a test of wits or skill, not whether I feel like a lucky punk today. When I fail I like to know that it's because of my own shortcomings in developing a sound strategy, not because I lost a roll of dice. Had I wanted that I could have played Yahtzee or something.

The Bottom Line
It's a perfect game for those who enjoy both luck and strategy, but less appealing to anyone else. The main story line isn't compelling enough to push you forward despite yourself, nor is it any worse than the plot of many other games. The game is quite solid and certain of what it wants to be, it's just that it may not be appealing to some strategy fans, nor is likely to convert anyone new to the genre. Overall it's a niche game, but one that fills its niche masterfully.

The Good
Battle for Wesnoth recalls the golden age of PC strategy games. If you like to have control of an army, will love the various quests in the game.

The Bad
Initially, the game has a few campaigns, but you can increase your Battle for Wesnoth downloading more adventures. Oh, and the graphics are very simple.

The Bottom Line
What is the most important feature of a good game, lush graphics and an engaging strategy that holds on the keyboard? If you also prefer a well-designed game, your game is Battle for Wesnoth, an addictive saga that will test all your skills as a general. Prepare for war, the orcs are on the way and the fate of the castle is in your hands!