The Battle for Wesnoth

Graphic of a Sylph in Wesnoth'.

The Battle for Wesnoth currently has six default factions to choose from:

• Rebels

Consist mostly of elvish units, with ent-like woses, mermen, and mages. Most of their level 1 units are capable of both melee and ranged attacks, making the rebels very versatile. Elves ignore the time of day with their neutral alignment and have high defense in forests. They are generally faster, but slightly weaker than other units in most other terrain.

• Knalgan Alliance

These consist of slow but sturdy dwarves with strong melee attacks, allied with human outlaws who fight better under the cover of darkness. Generally, dwarves gain a high defense when occupying mountains and hills. Dwarves are also more adept at traversing caves than any other faction and ignore the time of day. They are vulnerable to attack in open terrain, while their human outlaws fight better in this same terrain.

• Loyalists

These are human cavalry, mages and infantry that ordinarily fight better in the daytime, with mermen allies. They are the most diverse faction, with more units than any other faction except the Knalgan Alliance.

• Northerners

A faction of orcs and goblins, along with troll and naga allies. Their focus is on cheap recruiting, brute force, and close combat, fighting better at night with their chaotic alignment. Most units require little XP (fighting experience) to advance levels. Units often achieve higher mobility when crossing hills.

• Undead

The undead are vulnerable to fire, impact, and arcane attacks, but have high resistance against blade, pierce and especially cold damage. The undead rely on easy access to magic and poison attacks. Some units are able to drain health from enemies in order to replenish their own, and most are immune to poisoning. Unlike other races, most undead units have no traits and no personal names.

• Drakes

A dragon-like race that fights better by day. Most can fly and breathe fire. Their Saurian allies are faster and prefer fighting by night and in swamp areas, though they share the Drakes' vulnerability to cold. Drakes are the most maneuverable faction, though their size makes them prone to attack in most terrain.

The exact units used by the factions, and the faction names, change based on the era or the campaign. The above are the factions of the "Default" era, which is the most played one on the multiplayer servers, and its extension "Age Of Heroes".

There are also a number of user-created factions, several of which are grouped together in downloadable "Eras". For example, the Imperial Era includes the Roman-influenced Lavinians, the Marauders, and the Wild Elves, featuring completely new unit trees and abilities. An alternative era, which contains the Islam-influenced faction Khalifate, was integrated (as of 6 January 2014) in the official development line, Wesnoth 1.11.8,[13] tested to become part of the mainline version. This faction has since been renamed to the Dunefolk in version 1.13.11.[14] However, it is quite possible to create factions that can be used in the default eras, though the amount of blessing given by the creators for each may vary.

Campaign progression in Wesnoth includes cutscenes such as this, where the story is explained.

The stable version of The Battle for Wesnoth comes with 16 single-player campaigns and a tutorial, each of which has various difficulty levels.[15] More user-authored campaigns can be obtained in the form of add-ons stored on Wesnoth's campaign server, and these are sometimes mainlined as official campaigns. The original campaign for The Battle for Wesnoth was "Heir to the Throne", a campaign with 23 gameplay scenarios where Konrad, a young heir to the throne of Wesnoth, allies with rebellious elves and other races to claim the throne from the usurper queen Asheviere, her loyalist army, and her orcish mercenaries. Characters from "Heir to the Throne" are protagonists in campaigns such as "Legend of Wesmere" and "Delfador's Memoirs". Other campaigns feature different factions, like the dwarves in "The Hammer of Thursagan" or "Northern Rebirth" or "Sceptre of Fire", the loyalist army of Wesnoth in "The South Guard" or "The Eastern Invasion", and undead in "Descent into Darkness" or "Secrets of the Ancients". Even mermen can be played in "Dead Water", or orcs in "Son of the Black Eye". Finally, "Under the Burning Suns" is set in the distant future, long after the time of the other campaigns, featuring elves who fight better during the day.

A multiplayer campaign titled "World of Conquest" is added to the game on version 1.16 after previously being an unofficial add-on.[16] There are plans to add a campaign named "Winds of Fate".[17]

Many official campaigns were only user-made add-ons, for example "An Orcish Incursion", which has been removed from the mainline in 1.15.3. Unofficial campaigns are translated into many languages the same way as the official ones. Some of them are very long and well balanced, like "Invasion from Unknown", while others serve to show units not available in the mainline, or as examples for future campaign makers, like "A simple campaign", "WML Guide" or "The Final Exam". The longest unofficial campaigns have more translatable strings than the longest official campaigns.

It is possible to create and distribute additional content (user made content, or UMC), such as campaigns, maps and multiplayer "eras" using an "add-on" system. These add-ons can be downloaded, updated and removed using an in-game add-on server; alternatively, they can be installed and updated by manually downloading the add-on's files and placing them in the appropriate directory, or they can be removed by deleting these files.

The Battle for Wesnoth's map editor

The Battle for Wesnoth has a built-in map editor, which supports features such as multiple open maps and random map generation. The editor supports all in-game terrains, as well as custom terrains created for campaigns. The time of day can be selected from one of the built-in presets or custom lighting can be created.[18]

Using any standard text editor, new content can be created using what is known as Wesnoth Markup Language (WML). As its name suggests, WML is similar to XML and other markup languages in syntax with tags defining events and sides in a scenario. WML has evolved from what was a simple markup/configuration language into a specialized programming language designed for easily modifying the game. Examples for the latest stable version are offered on the site's wiki.[19]

From the 1.7 development version upwards, code in Lua can be embedded in WML events which gets executed when those events fire.[20] From 1.7.14 on, Lua can also be used to create alternate (or supplemental) AI implementations.[21]

As of July 2015, The Battle for Wesnoth development team consisted of no more than five developers. On the homepage for the game, the reason for a lack of bug fixes was explained: "Sadly, a hard truth must be faced: Wesnoth, as a project, is understaffed. At this time, there are fewer than half a dozen developers working on each new version of the game, and even fewer of them are able to work on the engine itself".[29]

In September 2021, project manager Pentarctagon released a statement on the Wesnoth Forums claiming that Wesnoth had a better internal structure than before, yet still called the project "chronically understaffed".[30]

The art development team was founded by Francisco Muñoz, and directed by Richard Kettering with Hogne Håskjold as the director of terrain art. The current set of portraits were designed primarily by Kathrin Polikeit and Emilien Rotival, replacing the older set of comic-style portraits done by Jason Lutes.[31] Most artwork is stored in the portable network graphics format and all are licensed under the GNU General Public License.[32]

The musical style of the game's soundtrack is orchestral, with a symphony of strings, brass, winds, percussion, and occasionally ethnic instruments when the game allows for it, covering a variety of genre and periods. Because the themes are based on traditional and medieval styles, the music development department rejects all music with synths, loops, drum kits, electric guitars, or any pop/rock instruments.[33] Because Wesnoth has no budget and relies completely on volunteer composers, its soundtrack is entirely synthesized.[34]

The music development team is currently headed by Mattias Westlund and includes some well-known composers like Doug Kaufman and Timothy Pinkham[35] and the game's soundtrack is licensed as free music under the GNU General Public License and rendered in the Ogg Vorbis format.[36] Because the game is constantly evolving, the current list of soundtracks evolves.[37]

The first development release of Wesnoth 0.1 was released on June 18, 2003.[11] In October 2005, the game reached its 1.0 milestone release.[2] On January 29, 2012, version 1.10 was released. This version introduced the campaign "Dead Water".[38]

In January 2014, a new faction under the name of the Khalifate was added in a development release. It was intended offer new multiplayer options. Khalifate units use no magic, but instead are intended to rely on careful use of terrain and coordinated strikes around dusk or dawn.[13] This faction was released as part of version 1.12 in November 2014.[39] The Khalifate were renamed to Dunefolk in version 1.13.11.[14]

On May 2, 2018, version 1.14.0 was released. This update introduced the campaign "Secrets of the Ancients". it also made major changes to the desert elves seen in the campaign "Under the Burning Suns". Many units have had changes, such as new portraits and animations.[40] In October 2021 version 1.16 was released. It included many changes to old campaigns such as "The Hammer of Thursagan" as well changes to the Dunefolk faction.[41]

Aside of the stand-alone source and binary releases, Wesnoth was previously made available through the Desura digital distribution service. Wesnoth was submitted to Steam Greenlight on July 23, 2016, and was subsequently approved for release by the Steam community.[42] With the release of v1.14.0, the game became then available on Steam in May 2018.[43] At the same time, registration was made mandatory for playing on the official server.[44]

Besides the official wesnoth game version, there is always an alternative development version, that introduces more new features and improvements for players and content creators. This development version is rolling subject to further tweaking and polishing, depending on the wesnoth community feedback. There are development versions for a future 1.18 update. This update plans on adding a new campaign named "Winds of Fate".[17]