The Battle for Wesnoth Wiki - User contributions [en]

Glossary

2008-02-29T23:11:29Z

PaÅlo: some links to the relevant wiki pages.

This is an alphabetical list of words that have special meaning in the context of Wesnoth. Each word is explained briefly here; if you feel that a longer description is necessary, please create a link to (a part of) separate page. The purpose of the list is to help beginning players and translators quickly find the meaning of some word.

== A ==

; ability : A special game rule or capability applied to all units of the given unit type - for example every Elvish Shaman has the ability "heal". (See [[AbilitiesWML]] for creating abilities.)

== C ==

; campaign: A sequence of scenarios with a connecting storyline. ([[MainlineCampaigns]], [[UserCampaigns]], [[CampaignWML]])

== E ==

; era: A set of factions available in multiplayer. You can download additional eras from the [[UserCampaigns#Campaign server|campaign server]]. ([[EraWML]])

== F ==

; faction: A set of units available to be plated as a side in multiplayer games. ([[EraWML|multiplayer_side WML tag]])

; fog of war: A scenario option; enemy units are displayed only when close to player's units

== M ==

; mainline: A [[MainlineCampaigns|campaign]], multiplayer map, era, faction, image, or other resource that ships with the Wesnoth distribution. The opposiyte of "[[#U|UMC]]".

== S ==

; scenario: A sequence of turns played on one map. ([[ScenarioWML]])

; shroud: A scenario option; the whole map is black at the beginning, only parts already "discovered" by the player are visible.

== T ==

; team color (TColor, TC): A unit graphic done so that color of some unit part (e.g. clothes) reflects the team where unit belongs ([[Team Color Shifting]])

; trait: A random minor modification of a unit; it makes a unit different from other units of the same type. ([[UnitsWML|the trait tag]])

== U ==

; UMC: "User-Made content" or "User-Maintained Content", campaigns and other material that does not ship with the game but is available for download from the [[UserCampaigns#Campaign server|Wesnoth campaign server]].

== W ==

; [[WesCamp|Wescamp]]: The project for translating unofficial user-made campaigns

== Z ==

; zone of control (ZOC): game rule; when a unit moves to a hex adjacent to enemy unit, it usually cannot move further.

; zone-locked: said of a unit that has entered an enemy ZOC and therefor cannot move further.

Glossary

2008-02-29T22:41:07Z

PaÅlo: /* A */ use the preview!

This is an alphabetical list of words that have special meaning in the context of Wesnoth. Each word is explained briefly here; if you feel that a longer description is necessary, please create a link to (a part of) separate page. The purpose of the list is to help beginning players and translators quickly find the meaning of some word.

== A ==

; ability : A special game rule or capability applied to all units of the given unit type - for example every Elvish Shaman has the ability "heal". (See [[AbilitiesWML]] for creating abilities.)

== C ==

; campaign: A sequence of scenarios with a connecting storyline.

== E ==

; era: A set of factions available in multiplayer. You can download additional eras from the campaign server

== F ==

; faction: A set of units available to be plated as a side in multiplayer games.

; fog of war: A scenario option; enemy units are displayed only when close to player's units

== M ==

; mainline: A campaign, multiplayer map, era, faction, image, or other resource that ships with the Wesnoth distribution. The opposiyte of "UMC".

== S ==

; scenario: A sequence of turns played on one map.

; shroud: A scenario option; the whole map is black at the beginning, only parts already "discovered" by the player are visible.

== T ==

; team color (TColor, TC): A unit graphic done so that color of some unit part (e.g. clothes) reflects the team where unit belongs

; trait: A random minor modification of a unit; it makes a unit different from other units of the same type.

== U ==

; UMC: "User-Made content" or "User-Maintained Content", campaigns and other material that does not ship with the game but is available for download from the Wesnoth campaign server.

== W ==

; [[WesCamp|Wescamp]]: The project for translating unofficial user-made campaigns

== Z ==

; zone of control (ZOC): game rule; when a unit moves to a hex adjacent to enemy unit, it usually cannot move further

; zone-locked: said of a unit that has entered an enemy ZOC and therefor cannot move further.

Glossary

2008-02-29T22:39:43Z

PaÅlo: /* A */ link to AbilityWML

This is an alphabetical list of words that have special meaning in the context of Wesnoth. Each word is explained briefly here; if you feel that a longer description is necessary, please create a link to (a part of) separate page. The purpose of the list is to help beginning players and translators quickly find the meaning of some word.

== A ==

; ability : A special game rule or capability applied to all units of the given unit type - for example every Elvish Shaman has the ability "heal". (See [[AbilityWML]] for creating abilities.)

== C ==

; campaign: A sequence of scenarios with a connecting storyline.

== E ==

; era: A set of factions available in multiplayer. You can download additional eras from the campaign server

== F ==

; faction: A set of units available to be plated as a side in multiplayer games.

; fog of war: A scenario option; enemy units are displayed only when close to player's units

== M ==

; mainline: A campaign, multiplayer map, era, faction, image, or other resource that ships with the Wesnoth distribution. The opposiyte of "UMC".

== S ==

; scenario: A sequence of turns played on one map.

; shroud: A scenario option; the whole map is black at the beginning, only parts already "discovered" by the player are visible.

== T ==

; team color (TColor, TC): A unit graphic done so that color of some unit part (e.g. clothes) reflects the team where unit belongs

; trait: A random minor modification of a unit; it makes a unit different from other units of the same type.

== U ==

; UMC: "User-Made content" or "User-Maintained Content", campaigns and other material that does not ship with the game but is available for download from the Wesnoth campaign server.

== W ==

; [[WesCamp|Wescamp]]: The project for translating unofficial user-made campaigns

== Z ==

; zone of control (ZOC): game rule; when a unit moves to a hex adjacent to enemy unit, it usually cannot move further

; zone-locked: said of a unit that has entered an enemy ZOC and therefor cannot move further.

Talk:Observer:Profiles

2008-02-13T21:20:53Z

PaÅlo: Dates of the interviews?

I love this topic! -anon.

== Dates of the interviews? ==

A note to DDR: For people readings the interviews sometimes later, it would be useful to have the date of the interview ... such things as ''just now'' or ''in the next some weeks'' are kind of relative ... -- [[User:Paŭlo|Paŭlo]] 21:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

EasyCoding

2008-02-03T15:16:48Z

PaÅlo: Oops ... (undone my revert)

== Foreword ==
This page is here to document easy to do coding tasks. It is not here to double the feature request database, and should only be filled by people that know the code well enough to judge the difficulty of a given task.

If you are such a person, you should feel free to edit this page.

If you're not, you should post a feature request and discuss your idea on the forum or IRC. A coder with better knowledge of the code might give you the green light to add your feature here.

Anybody should feel free to add "clues" to any tasks, that is entry points, traps to avoid, person to contact to discuss and so on.

If you plan to work on a feature, write your name at the bottom of the feature, with the date. Note that if you are too long at working on a feature I'll "free" it back (that is if you're not working on it. If you have problems implementing it, just tell us....)

--[[User:Boucman|Boucman]] 20:48, 3 October 2006 (CEST)

== Animation related features ==
=== Victory animation ===
'''an animation to be played by the surviving unit during the death animation of the other unit'''

this should be fairly easy to do, just duplicate all death animation code, and modify the unit_die function to change the state of both units.

ask Boucman for extra help

* unit_display.cpp
* unit_type.cpp
* unit.cpp
* unit_animation.cpp;

Done! Submitting patch as soon as it can be tested. [[User:TheAT|TheAT]] 01:53, 17 October 2006 (CEST)

=== En Guard animation ===
'''An animation to replace the standing animation when the unit is next to an enemy'''

Slightly more tricky than the previous one, you should copy most of the standing code,
but beware that this should be invisible to external callers.
The call to get_stats should be looked at

Ask Boucman for extra help

* unit.cpp
* unit_type.cpp
* unit_animation.cpp

=== Special tags for Extra_anim ===
'''Special tags in the animate_unit event to call standard unit animations'''

One of the big limitation of the extra_animation tags is
that you need to modify the unit itself to have the extra anim.
Most anims can't be easily called that way.
It would be interesting to have special tags that would be recognised
to call the standard animations (attack, defense, etc...)

The tricky part is to handle correctly the "offset" parameter,
and add all the WML handling to "fill in" the information
we won't have available (non-existant filtering criterias)

This is more tricky than the two above,
and I would advise doing one of the other two first to understand how it works

Ask Boucman for extra help

* unit.cpp
* actions.cpp

=== Animate flags during a [delay] event ===
currently, the [event] tag calls SDL_delay() and blocks the game completely. It would be trivial to change it to a loop that would call event::pump() every 10ms to have all animations updated

the tricky part is to make sure the screen is somehow "locked" and that player can't play during that time (should be the case, simple checking is needed)

grep should give you the file to change

Note: this possibly shouldn't be implemented anymore, due to the blurred dialogs which would need to be reblurred on every redraw. Unless, of course, you can implement this so that the contents of dialogs aren't reblurred and redrawn but only the rest of the screen. -zookeeper

I am on this.Boucman please email me with more details when you have time [[User:Spx2|Spx2]] 12:31, 23 December 2006 (CEST)

Boucman please email me with an event that i can test this on

== WML related features ==

=== Side/team-specific [item]s ===
Allow the team_name= key also in [item], as it is in [label].
=== Side-specific results ===
Giving result=defeat or result=victory for specific sides. ([http://gna.org/bugs/index.php?4960 FR #4960])
=== Recall Event ===
WML event trigger for recalling (the current one triggers on both recalls and recruits) ([http://gna.org/bugs/index.php?3622 FR #3622]) (please read the comments of the report for a proper description of how this should work)
=== Enabling checking of damage dealt in WML ===
A WML variable should be set when triggering some combat-related events, allowing WML to know the amount of damage being dealt. ([http://gna.org/bugs/index.php?7673 FR #7673])
=== Support for leaderless multiplayergames ===
Add support for the WML key victory_when_enemies_defeated= in the scenario tag during multiplayergames. ([https://gna.org/bugs/index.php?8106 FR #8106])
=== Textboxes in options menu ===
Allow wml [query] tag allowing players to enter text into textboxes, similar to [option] but getting a string variable from the user.

== GUI related features ==
=== Theme Changes ===
* show number of owned villages/total villages (FR: #3135) (--[[User:Alink|alink]] done but must update help, doc, tooltip...)
* allow custom themes to display values of WML variables ([http://gna.org/bugs/index.php?6209 FR #6209])
* hide the hourglass item from the statusbar when there is no timer

=== Widget Changes ===
* show side number, name and team association information in the status table
* make games sortable in the lobby (open slots, total number of players, era, XP modifier, gold per village, fog/shroud)
* input history (chat, commands, ..), seek Sapient for more info and tips

== Miscellaneous ==
=== More powerful village naming ===
'''Adding mountain names and other features to village names, having a second random name in village names'''

Currently the village naming engine has a very good structure that could allow
more powerfull names to be generated.
Understanding how it works should be quite easy, and a few usefull improvements could be added.

* Currently villages can use lake names and river names, this should be extended to other features like bridges, swamps, mountains etc...
* It would be nice to have a separate list of "first sylabus" and "last sylabus" for naming. That's not really needed in english, but some translations could use it
* Again, it is common to have villages with more than one "random" word in them. having a $name2 variable would be nice

ACardboardRobot 2/2/07

=== Debug Mode ===
* New debug command functionality (setting status.variables, possibly terrain, WML value display)
* Make it possible to toggle shroud and fog (but take care that this is only possible in campaigns)

EasyCoding

2008-02-03T15:15:11Z

PaÅlo: Revert ("ACardboardRobot 2/2/07")

== Foreword ==
This page is here to document easy to do coding tasks. It is not here to double the feature request database, and should only be filled by people that know the code well enough to judge the difficulty of a given task.

If you are such a person, you should feel free to edit this page.

If you're not, you should post a feature request and discuss your idea on the forum or IRC. A coder with better knowledge of the code might give you the green light to add your feature here.

Anybody should feel free to add "clues" to any tasks, that is entry points, traps to avoid, person to contact to discuss and so on.

If you plan to work on a feature, write your name at the bottom of the feature, with the date. Note that if you are too long at working on a feature I'll "free" it back (that is if you're not working on it. If you have problems implementing it, just tell us....)

--[[User:Boucman|Boucman]] 20:48, 3 October 2006 (CEST)

== Animation related features ==
=== Victory animation ===
'''an animation to be played by the surviving unit during the death animation of the other unit'''

this should be fairly easy to do, just duplicate all death animation code, and modify the unit_die function to change the state of both units.

ask Boucman for extra help

* unit_display.cpp
* unit_type.cpp
* unit.cpp
* unit_animation.cpp;

Done! Submitting patch as soon as it can be tested. [[User:TheAT|TheAT]] 01:53, 17 October 2006 (CEST)

=== En Guard animation ===
'''An animation to replace the standing animation when the unit is next to an enemy'''

Slightly more tricky than the previous one, you should copy most of the standing code,
but beware that this should be invisible to external callers.
The call to get_stats should be looked at

Ask Boucman for extra help

* unit.cpp
* unit_type.cpp
* unit_animation.cpp

=== Special tags for Extra_anim ===
'''Special tags in the animate_unit event to call standard unit animations'''

One of the big limitation of the extra_animation tags is
that you need to modify the unit itself to have the extra anim.
Most anims can't be easily called that way.
It would be interesting to have special tags that would be recognised
to call the standard animations (attack, defense, etc...)

The tricky part is to handle correctly the "offset" parameter,
and add all the WML handling to "fill in" the information
we won't have available (non-existant filtering criterias)

This is more tricky than the two above,
and I would advise doing one of the other two first to understand how it works

Ask Boucman for extra help

* unit.cpp
* actions.cpp

=== Animate flags during a [delay] event ===
currently, the [event] tag calls SDL_delay() and blocks the game completely. It would be trivial to change it to a loop that would call event::pump() every 10ms to have all animations updated

the tricky part is to make sure the screen is somehow "locked" and that player can't play during that time (should be the case, simple checking is needed)

grep should give you the file to change

Note: this possibly shouldn't be implemented anymore, due to the blurred dialogs which would need to be reblurred on every redraw. Unless, of course, you can implement this so that the contents of dialogs aren't reblurred and redrawn but only the rest of the screen. -zookeeper

I am on this.Boucman please email me with more details when you have time [[User:Spx2|Spx2]] 12:31, 23 December 2006 (CEST)

Boucman please email me with an event that i can test this on

== WML related features ==

=== Side/team-specific [item]s ===
Allow the team_name= key also in [item], as it is in [label].
=== Side-specific results ===
Giving result=defeat or result=victory for specific sides. ([http://gna.org/bugs/index.php?4960 FR #4960])
=== Recall Event ===
WML event trigger for recalling (the current one triggers on both recalls and recruits) ([http://gna.org/bugs/index.php?3622 FR #3622]) (please read the comments of the report for a proper description of how this should work)
=== Enabling checking of damage dealt in WML ===
A WML variable should be set when triggering some combat-related events, allowing WML to know the amount of damage being dealt. ([http://gna.org/bugs/index.php?7673 FR #7673])
=== Support for leaderless multiplayergames ===
Add support for the WML key victory_when_enemies_defeated= in the scenario tag during multiplayergames. ([https://gna.org/bugs/index.php?8106 FR #8106])
=== Textboxes in options menu ===
Allow wml [query] tag allowing players to enter text into textboxes, similar to [option] but getting a string variable from the user.

== GUI related features ==
=== Theme Changes ===
* show number of owned villages/total villages (FR: #3135) (--[[User:Alink|alink]] done but must update help, doc, tooltip...)
* allow custom themes to display values of WML variables ([http://gna.org/bugs/index.php?6209 FR #6209])
* hide the hourglass item from the statusbar when there is no timer

=== Widget Changes ===
* show side number, name and team association information in the status table
* make games sortable in the lobby (open slots, total number of players, era, XP modifier, gold per village, fog/shroud)
* input history (chat, commands, ..), seek Sapient for more info and tips

== Miscellaneous ==
=== More powerful village naming ===
'''Adding mountain names and other features to village names, having a second random name in village names'''

Currently the village naming engine has a very good structure that could allow
more powerfull names to be generated.
Understanding how it works should be quite easy, and a few usefull improvements could be added.

* Currently villages can use lake names and river names, this should be extended to other features like bridges, swamps, mountains etc...
* It would be nice to have a separate list of "first sylabus" and "last sylabus" for naming. That's not really needed in english, but some translations could use it
* Again, it is common to have villages with more than one "random" word in them. having a $name2 variable would be nice

=== Debug Mode ===
* New debug command functionality (setting status.variables, possibly terrain, WML value display)
* Make it possible to toggle shroud and fog (but take care that this is only possible in campaigns)

CampaignStrategies

2008-01-27T13:28:09Z

PaÅlo: /* The importance of loyalty */ - why 40 gold?

{{Needs update}}
== Campaign Strategies ==

Campaigns are multiple scenarios with a common storyline, played against the computer in single player mode. Once you have won a campaign scenario, you progress to the next. Keep in mind the following points.

== Recalling units ==

The main difference between campaigns and individual scenarios is recalling units that survived previous scenarios. This is an important advantage that balances out later scenarios in a campaign being more difficult than early ones. Later in a campaign, you should usually have several high level units available to recall.

== The importance of loyalty ==

Units with the ''loyal'' trait do not require any upkeep, regardless of their level. During a 20 turn scenario each level 3 unit will cost 80 gold to recall and maintain, but if that unit is Loyal it will cost only 20 gold. Multiply by the number of units you recall, and soon you are talking serious money! This is especially important in longer campaigns, where you will typically advance and recall many units.

In previous versions of the game (0.8.11 and earlier), Loyal was a trait that could be assigned randomly. Because of its economic effect, it was probably the most important trait for playing a long campaign. Loyal is no longer random, and is only given to those units that join your cause of their own choice -- your leader, friendly units you discover hiding in villages, riders joining you, and so on. Keep them safe, their upkeep cost is much lower than normal units!

== Go back and redo ==

If you are struggling in a campaign scenario, perhaps you should go back to an earlier scenario and try to win it more convincingly. If you lose all your high level units and your leader barely survives, or you use up all your gold, then later scenarios in the campaign may be very difficult to play. Note that some scenarios are designed to sap your army and gold, so this isn't a hard and fast rule.

== Balance your army ==

Most campaigns call for a range of units. Especially when playing the campaign for the first time, you don't know what types of terrain or opponents you are going to face later in the campaign. Some scenarios are mostly open grassland,
some are underground, some have lots of water, or lots of mountains. To succeed in completing a campaign, you will usually need to recall level 2 or 3 units of several different types.
Keep this in mind when choosing what types of units to recruit.
For instance, if your army has lots of mages, consider recruiting and levelling up some melee units in case you meet some Dark Adepts. If available, consider developing healers early in the campaign, you will probably need them later.

Once you have mastered a campaign, it may be fun going back and replaying it with an unbalanced army. For instance, some people have played most of [[HeirToTheThrone]] with only Shamans, Druids and Shydes. But doing this when playing the first time is probably just going to be frustrating and not much fun!

== Exploit your last moves ==

When you are about to win a scenario, it is worthwhile maximizing
the experience your units gain before you clinch the win.
Normally you have to worry about counterattack by the enemy,
but if you win the scenario the enemy won't have a chance to!
So, on the last few turns, it is worth aggressively attacking enemy units as long as your own units do not die while attacking.
On the last round, attack that Paladin with your Lich.
You don't have to worry about the Lich being surrounded and killed next turn, since there will not be another turn.

Usually, it is worth trying to finish a scenario early. However,
in some scenarios you may have gained control of all the villages
on the map -- in this case it might be worth just collecting the
income while milking the few remaining enemies for experience,
instead of going for a quick kill.

== See Also ==
* [[AdvancedTactics]]

SideWML

2008-01-05T17:04:01Z

PaÅlo: /* the [side] tag */ double "describe"

{{WML Tags}}
== the [side] tag ==

The [side] tag is used to describe a side in a particular scenario.

The following keys are recognized:

* ''side'' a digit. The leader of this side is placed on the tile represented by this digit (see [[BuildingMaps]]). When defining sides, they must be defined in order since the side number is checked against the number of sides seen so far.

* ''controller'' how moves for this side should be inputted.
** 'ai' the Wesnoth AI makes this side's moves. This is the default setting.
** 'human' a player controls this side's moves.
** 'null' the side doesn't get a turn to move and doesn't have a leader generated from the contents of the [side] tag. (It still can get units from [unit] tags in the [side] tag.)

* ''no_leader'' if "no" (default), then keys describing a unit which will begin on the side's keep will be the remainder of the '''[side]''' tag, See [[SingleUnitWML]]. Note that if the keys ''x'', ''y'' are included, the leader will begin there regardless of keep location. If this side has a recall list from a previous level, then the recall list will be searched for a leader (using canrecruit) and if one is found it will be used instead of the one described in the '''[side]''' tag.

* ''type'' the unit type of the side's leader. This must be present if ''no_leader'' is not set to "yes." ''Description'', ''type'', ''x'', ''y'', ''profile'', and ''hitpoints'' are examples of keys from [[SingleUnitWML]] that will describe the leader if placed within the [side] tag.

* ''description'' (translatable) the name of the side's leader. It is used in standard unit filter ([[FilterWML]]) and it is not affected by a player renaming a unit.

* ''unrenamable'' if "no" (default), the player can rename the unit. Renaming the unit alters the ''user_description'' key, so the ''description'' key can still be used for filtering. It is generally a good idea to set this to yes in campaigns since dialog will usually refer to the leader by name. It is technically possible to read ''user_description'' into a variable every time you want to call the leader by name, but this is a hassle.

* ''recruit'' a list of unit types. At the beginning of the scenario, the side gains recruitment of these units.

* ''gold'' the starting gold for this side. Default 100. (If gold is carried over from a previous scenario, this value is the minimum starting gold.)

* ''income'' the base income for this side, default 0. This is added to ''base_income'', '''[game_config]''' to determine the side's base income. (see [[GameConfigWML]]).

* ''fog'' if 'yes', this side cannot see any tiles it is not within vision of, except at the start.

* ''shroud'' if 'yes', this side cannot see any tiles it has not moved within sight of.

* ''shroud_data'' describes the area which this team has de-shrouded. An example:
|
|00011111000
This would leave the first column on the map unaltered and would change the second column for 11 tiles. A '0' means: shrouded, '1' means unshrouded. You can either call an external file using {@filename} (see [[PreprocessorRef]]) or place the data in quotes. For making an external file see [[BuildingScenariosShroudData]].

* ''persistent'' whether the side exists in any other scenarios. If '1'(yes), then ''save_id''(see below) becomes active for this side. Default '0'(no); when '''controller=human''', this is always '1'.

* ''save_id'' default ''description'' if available, 'Unknown' otherwise. The ID of the side with respect to the previous and next scenarios. Used to carry over the side's recall list (including the side's leader), recruitment list, and starting gold from scenario to scenario. Also used for the side's displayed name in the victory gold-calculation dialog.

* ''team_name'' a non translatable string representing the team's description. Sides with the same team_name are allied. Default ''side''.

* ''user_team_name'' a translatable string representing the team's description. This has no effect on alliances. Default ''team_name''.

* ''colour'' if you want side 4 to be the same colour as side 2 normally is, put colour=2.
** The default list of numbers and corresponding colours can be found in data/team_colors.cfg.
** Note that in Wesnoth 1.3.4 and later releases, the IDs of the color ranges shipped with Wesnoth are descriptive names (e.g. 'teal', 'orange', etc.), declared in data data/core/team_colors.cfg. Old numeric IDs are kept for backwards compatibility.

* ''flag'' a custom flag animation to use instead of the default one to mark captured villages. {{DevFeature}} an automatic side-coloring is applied.
** Example animation that has three frames and loops every 750ms: ''flag=misc/myflag-1.png:250,misc/myflag-2.png:250,misc/myflag-3.png:250''

* ''flag_icon'' {{DevFeature}} a custom flag icon to indicate the side playing in the statusbar (a size of 24x16 is recommended). An automatic side-coloring is applied.

* ''village_gold'' the amount of gold given to this side per village it controls per turn. Default specified in ''village_income'', '''[game_config]''' ([[GameConfigWML]]).

* ''share_maps'' whether sides allied with this side see all terrains that this side sees, if they are on shroud.

* ''share_view'' whether sides allied with this side see the units that this side sees, if they are on FoW (fog).

* ''disallow_observers'' {{DevFeature}} prevents observers from seeing this side turn. (default: no)

* ''name'', ''id'', ''leader'' not used; see [[EraWML]].

* ''music'' music to play for this player. Default specified in [scenario] (see [[ScenarioWML]]).

* '''[ai]''' if '''controller=ai''', gives parameters to the AI. See [[AiWML]].

* '''[village]''' describes a village the side begins in control of.
** ''x'', ''y'' the location of the village.

* '''[unit]''' describes a unit which begins on the side. See [[SingleUnitWML]]. If the side has a recall list and the unit is not given a location, it will start on the recall list. Note that the ''side'' attribute under '''[unit]''' will be ignored, as the side will come from the ''side'' attribute of '''[side]'''.

The following keys are multiplayer only:

* ''allow_player'' if false then this side will not be allowed to be modified and will be hidden during game creation.

* ''team_lock'' if true then this side's team is not allowed to be modified.

* ''colour_lock'' if true then this side's color is not allowed to be modified.

* ''gold_lock'' if true then this side's gold is not allowed to be modified.

* ''income_lock'' if true then this side's income is not allowed to be modified.

== See Also ==
* [[EraWML]]
* [[ScenarioWML]]
* [[ReferenceWML]]

[[Category: WML Reference]]

Template:Observer:On this day

2008-01-05T16:47:33Z

PaÅlo: right version number not only in the link ...

Wesnoth 1.3.13 has been released! Download the [http://downloads.sourceforge.net/wesnoth/wesnoth-1.3.13-windows.exe?download windows version], or the [http://downloads.sourceforge.net/wesnoth/wesnoth-1.3.13.tar.bz2?download source code].

Observer:Profiles

2007-12-22T19:01:59Z

PaÅlo: + Table of contents (is normally showed only from 4 sections on)

__FORCETOC__

== '''Transcript: An Interview With [http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/User:Sapient Sapient]''' ==

Hi, [http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/User:Sapient Sapient], and welcome to [http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/The_Observer The Observer]. We have five questions we would like to ask you, today.

'''1) How did you find wesnoth, and why have you stayed with the project for two years? What pull keeps you here, Sapient?'''

I found wesnoth from a long and winding path. I used to hang out a lot on Radio Rivendell forums, then one day a guy posted a link in there to some video game music. The website led over to some free video game reviews, then that led over to Wesnoth. I was a Wesnoth player a long time before I touched the source code. I played around a lot with WML and had a lot of fun with it, As you can see from my old map pack, which still gets a lot of downloads I see. Then my relationship with Wesnoth changed a lot when I started getting into the C++. At first I just wanted to improve the MP Timer controls, then Soliton talked me into doing some UI improvements. He's a real good proponent for the project. I never read a book on C++ or officially studied it in a class, but I knew a lot about C and Java. It was fun learning the new language and I enjoyed it a lot; Xan was a good tutor when I had a question. I've never actually completed an official campaign to this day, unless you count the tutorial, So I guess you could say I'm a bit odd in that I like coding more than playing. I used to actually be addicted to video games such as MMORPGS so I try to keep a tight tab on how much time I play

'''2) You dedicated to improving the WML. Are you coding in any new features at this moment? Is it difficult to manipulate WML at the source level?'''

Yes, as you have noticed improving WML is one of the areas that I find the most fun. I have more plans for improving the language as well. Currently, I'd like to give the WML author a way to store all locations that are reachable by certain unit(s), and a way to use the pathfinding algorithm to store the path a unit would take if it can go from A to B. As for crazy ideas, maybe WML should have support for functions/calling. I recently refactored the Standard Location Filter code, but that was an internal change. The WML authors won't notice it, just C++ coders. Before that I made the C++ for WML variable lookups / modifications much cleaner. Again, an internal change; but one that will help future coders. These were difficult changes, yes, but they will make future work easier. As for creating WML events/additions, some of them are very very simple. But it requires a lot of foresight and planning so that you are adding value to the language and you don't have to go back later to change the way something works. I remember from my days as a WML Author that losing backwards compatibility is a real nuisance and a deterrent to development.

'''3) Have you ever been tempted to misuse your power? (even if you have not, in the end)'''

Honestly, no; I'm a pretty humble soul. I never wanted to give myself uber powers through manipulations. Although I do try to think up such scenarios sometimes. I think like a criminal mastermind sometimes, but this is more to put myself in someone else's frame of mind. Then you can anticipate their moves.

'''4) What sort of computer do you use, and what OS? Why do you use it?'''

That's an interesting question. Maxy used to be the dev with the lowest end computer, but now I'm pretty sure I have that distinction. I'm running Windows XP Professional, on a Pentium 4 with 256 MB Ram. I have a 16MB video card. I intentionally had them downgrade it from a 32MB video card when I ordered the laptop just so I could get more work done in college and graduate. (Let that be a lesson to you college students, heh!) As for why I use this OS, well I'm a creature of habit I guess. I got everything set up the way I want it over a process of many years and I don't have enough drive space or spare computers or backup devices to really experiment too much with it. One of these days, I'll do that, at least, that's what I keep telling myself anyways.

'''5) Sapient, does your [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/images/avatars/1537513845d2bf5717318.png dodging ninja avatar] on the forums have any deeper meaning? What does it represent, symbolically?'''

Yes, my avatar does have a deeper meaning. I'm not sure I want to give it away, though! I used to play a lot as Northerners and I would have some really lucky assassin strategies sometimes - I developed the saying "You can't kill a true ninja!" I have an appreciation for bounty hunter fiction stories, too. I was once contemplating creating a campaign based on the story of a bounty hunter during the beginning of Ashveire's reign. He would basically be tasked with rounding up dissidents who were still loyal to the previous ruler. And the game play would be focused on using the fewest number of units possible, rather than the usual bonuses.

== '''Transcript: An Interview With [http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/User:Jetryl Jetryl]''' ==

'''1) As the art director for Wesnoth, where do you plan to take us, graphically? Do you have any 'big project' under way at the moment?'''

First, I intend to see the team-coloration project to fruition; to give the drakes, naga, and mermen the same recolorable patches (and general cleanups to their sprites) that all the other races have.

After that, there are a few possibilities - completing these would put us above the graphical level of quality seen in commercial games like final fantasy tactics, and because our graphics could (and have already) made other, radically different games possible, it would be a win for OSS as a whole. These include:
- Giving our units a set of northeast facings similar to our current southeast facings. This would solve most of the graphical cheapness that happens when one of our units plays an animation that depicts him swinging his weapon in the opposite direction of his opponent.

- Giving our units walking animations. Far more difficult than the job I just mentioned, but this could well launch our content into being suitable for an RTS - something which open source has already finished code for in the form of the Stratagus Engine. It would also make Wesnoth itself look incredibly good - there are many similar games like FFT, Disgaea, and Tactics Ogre that demonstrate that walking animations work in a game of our type, and greatly enhance the visual experience. When the time comes, I'll probably be leveraging a lot of community help on this.

- Providing our game with a single set of high quality, consistent portraits.

- Cleaning up a few loose ends in the terrain department - coming up with a better solution to dirt tiles/transitions and snow transitions. Coming up with better bridges, replacing the desert hill/mountain tiles, and also finishing a start that freim made on snow mountain tiles.

'''2) When you first joined, nearly four years ago, the art was quite different than it is now. How do you feel about the changes since then? Do you ever want to go back, and play the pre 1.0 releases?'''

I really don't have any nostalgia for the old graphics, mostly because (at least ideally) the new graphics have preserved everything that was good about the old ones, and discarded everything that was bad.

If nothing else; looking at the old versions really offers a sense of accomplishment. I feel that we've made as much of an improvement between the days of 0.6 and 1.3.x as was made between many sequels of commercial games. We still have plenty of things to do, but what has been done so far is very encouraging.

'''3) What is your favorite program to draw with?'''

Photoshop. It's a good "jack of all trades" program, and I've found it strangely better at pixel art that a lot of the programs out there that are dedicated solely to making pixel art easier. I think a lot of this has to do with depth in other features that photoshop developed to make general image editing easier, but which are equally applicable to sprite art and which are missing from a lot of the simpler "made for sprite art" programs.

These include things like photoshop's extensive history support, not only being able to "undo" as far as 50 steps back, but also being able to "save the state of the document", so that you can explore a certain direction with a work, but are still able to roll back to the old one no matter how much further you progress into the work. The 800lb gorilla in the room is probably layers - I can place elements which would obscure things behind them, but which I'm unsure of the right position of, in a separate layer. For example, I can put the shield of a sprite in one layer, and his mostly-complete body underneath. As the balance of the sprite's pose changes during the drawing, I can shift his shield to accommodate with almost no drawing whatsoever. Photoshop's color manipulation tools are also useful for quick previews of radically different color schemes.

The GIMP is another program that a number of our artists use. I'm not terribly fond of it's interface, since it makes certain basic operations that I do in photoshop take more time (such as selecting a range of pixels and translating their position without cutting and pasting them). I believe a few of these things came from an attempt to better position the gimp as a "photo editor" than Photoshop, which has some bias in its interface conventions that it inherited from older programs like Silicon Beach's SuperPaint - these programs had an interface for basic editing (drawing, selecting, moving) that was more like what the program MS Paint now has. However, I suspect that this might just be my acclimation to photoshop's style of interface, and I know that the gimp can be very powerful when a person becomes experienced at using it. It also has the benefit of being "free software" in both senses of the term.

'''4) What do you think of the new animations that the 1.3.x line introduced?'''

The centerpiece of the new animations has been the idle animations, and I think they really help with a major flaw that wesnoth used to, and still does have. In many older games, even games within our general category, there is a considerable amount of visual action on the screen even when no gameplay interaction is taking place. I strongly suspect that this visual motion, this "liveliness" to the whole screen has a considerable and natural psychological appeal to players; in much the same way that vibrant, lively colors do. If you look even at the classic game civilization, it had animation of its water terrain through palette cycling, which often resulted in a while third or more of the screen having some sense of motion to it. Simcity (especially 2000 and thereafter), went to the length of animating many of the building tiles. Our idle animations don't completely solve this problem, but they do a lot to help with it.

Boucman, as well, has done a number of changes and major cleanups with our animation WML which will really ease a number of future additions; mostly what I mentioned in the answer to question #1. He, and zookeeper who helped him with the content end, really deserve a standing ovation; they're the people who really made these improvements possible.

'''5) Is it difficult to deal with the different art styles brought to wesnoth? How do you reconcile the different artist's work to produce a 'Wesnoth' style?'''

It is difficult, and it's resulted in a lot of wasted work. By far, the leading cause of "lost work" has been poor work that wasn't up to snuff, rather than bits of good work done in separate styles. Our sprite art, our terrain art, and our attack icons have all stabilized in style, and no one that was good enough to do them the right way has been so wasteful as to make images blatantly in the wrong style. Our portraits have not quite stabilized in style; we have more than one body of work in disparate "styles", and this is a problem we'll need to resolve to get a full set (consider the difference between the drake and saurian portraits, and the human portraits).

This lack of quality would be an issue with a commercial company, but they deal with it in a different way - they simply end or never begin an artist's employment. I have to make the same judgement that a commercial company would make, but on a piece by piece basis - often I can work with someone better to bring them up to par (like leonhard, who did some great work on the attack icons), but even with my own work I have to carefully judge if a piece is of the right quality to fit in.

One of the problems we've run into is that it's far more attractive to most players to try to expand our content horizontally, than it is to expand it vertically. It's far more appealing to try and make a new monster, than to make the same number of images for an existing unit to improve its animations. A lot of this, I think, has to do with "authorship" - when someone makes a whole new monster, they can call it their own. The upside of this is that this phenomenon can be turned to our ends, but only if the person is willing to do enough work that whole units' worth of images can be done by them. People like Eternal and Neoriceisgood have done some excellent work on our team-color redesign, and have probably been spurred by the fact that by doing all the work necessary for the new imagery of a unit, they could really call it their own. We've had success by giving people like that "artistic license" over a major area if they're willing to do all the relevant work; I've certainly been a bit motivated by this myself. It's darkly ironic, because if the people who do UMC were willing to work on core content, their work would be seen every time someone played wesnoth - far more often than it would on UMC, and vastly more so than on content that never got finished; that was just left to die in a forum thread for some pipe-dream campaign/era. I think that a lot of this phenomenon is similar to what ESR described here:
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_10/raymond/index.html

How I reconcile the art is simple - if it's even directed at something useful to begin with, I make a judgement of whether it would be economical for the game if I spent my time editing it into shape. Sometimes something is far enough off-base that my time is simply better spent recreating it from scratch. At those times I either do exactly that, or just ignore the piece and continue working on what I was doing at the time. A lot of the time, I try to offer advice to people on how to improve their work - it's actually spurred a number of people to continue helping for quite a while, and has improved some to the point where they're independently able to do mainline work. The mechanics of how I actually fix an individual piece are probably beyond the scope of an interview like this - I'd probably have to explain a lot of "how to draw".

<small>[[The Observer|Return to Page 1]]</small>

[[Category:The Observer]]

GettingStarted

2007-10-06T09:25:09Z

PaÅlo: /* Finding Your Way Around Battle For Wesnoth */ to -> too

{| style="float:right;"
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The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme.

''Build up a great army'', gradually turning raw recruits into hardened veterans. In later games, recall your toughest warriors and form a deadly host against whom none can stand! Choose units from a large pool of specialists, and hand-pick a force with the right strengths to fight well on different terrains against all manner of opposition.

Fight to regain the throne of Wesnoth, of which you are the legitimate heir, or use your dread power over the Undead to dominate the land of mortals, or lead your glorious Orcish tribe to victory against the humans who dared despoil your lands … Wesnoth has many different sagas waiting to be played out. You can create your own custom units, and write your own scenarios – or even full-blown campaigns. You can also challenge your friends – or strangers – and fight in epic ''multi-player'' fantasy battles.

=== Welcome to Wesnoth ===
==== The Land of Wesnoth ====
The Land of Wesnoth is generally divided into three areas: the northlands, which are generally lawless; the kingdom of Wesnoth and its occasional principality, Elensefar; and the domain of the Southwest Elves.

The Kingdom of Wesnoth lies in the center of the land. Its borders are the Great River to the north, the Lower Hills in the east and south, the Green Swamp to the southwest, and the Ocean to the west. Elensefar, a once-province of Wesnoth, is bordered by the Great River to the north, a loosely defined line with Wesnoth to the east, the Bay of Pearls to the south, and the ocean to the west. There is no government of the Northlands. Various groups of orcs, dwarves, barbarians and even elves populate the region. The northern and eastern borders are not defined, the southern border is the Great River, and the western border is the Ocean.

As you travel around the land you will encounter peaceful villages where you can heal your troops and obtain a good income to support your army. You will also have to cross mountains and rivers, either on foot or mounted, push through forests, hills and tundra, or brazenly cross open grassland. In each of these areas different creatures have adapted to live there and can travel more easily and fight better when they are in familiar terrain. In the hills, mountains and underground caves orcs and dwarves are most at home. In the forests the elves reign supreme while in the oceans and rivers mermen and nagas control the waves.

==== The Creatures of Wesnoth ====

The world of Wesnoth contains several races that have joined forces into different factions. Here, Elves and Dwarves fight side by side against Orcs and Humans. In most campaigns, you will mostly control units from one faction, but often you will have a recruit list with units mixed in from other factions, and will not have some units from a faction available. Basically, your recruit list is determined by the plot of the campaign, not by a predetermined ruleset.

Sometimes factions make alliances with others, so you may face more than one faction in a scenario.

[Expand and draw on information in [[RaceDescriptions]].]

=== Finding Your Way Around Battle For Wesnoth ===
<div class="thumb tright"><div>
[http://exong.net/wesnoth-attach/files/splash111_1152_744.jpg http://exong.net/wesnoth-attach/files/splash111_300_159.jpg]
<div class="thumbcaption"><div align="center">The Main Menu<br>(Click to enlarge)</div></div></div>
</div>
When Wesnoth first starts it displays an initial background and a column of buttons called the Main Menu. The buttons only work with a mouse. For the impatient, we recommend you: click the 'Language' button to set your language; then click the 'Tutorial' button to run the tutorial; and then play the campaign, 'The Two Brothers' by clicking the 'Campaign' button and selecting it from the list provided.

The Main Menu buttons are:

*Tutorial
:The tutorial is a real, but basic, game which teaches you some of the basic controls needed to play the game. Winning or losing is not important here, but learning what to do is. Click the Tutorial button to play. In the Tutorial you are in the role of the young prince Konrad, learning from the Elder Mage Delfador - pay attention or he might turn you into a newt.

*Campaign
:Wesnoth was primarily designed to play campaigns. Campaigns are a series of connected scenarios. Click this button to start a new campaign. You will be presented with a list of campaigns available on your computer (more can be downloaded if you wish). Select your campaign and click OK to start or Cancel to quit.

:Each campaign has a difficulty level: easy, medium (normal), and hard. We recommend medium as this level is challenging, but not difficult. You may not change the difficulty during the campaign. In case you have serious problems fighting your way through easy difficulty, the guide about [[BasicStrategy]] will surely help you. Once you have selected the difficulty, you will start with the first scenario of the campaign. A good campaign to start with is the Heir to The Throne. It is not too difficult on easy, but gets challenging later on. You can find walkthroughs or descriptions of the available campaigns at:
::* [[MainlineScenarios]]
::* [[UserScenarios]]
::* [[BeginnerScenarios]]

*Multiplayer
:Click this button to play single scenarios against one or more opponents. You can play the games over the internet or at your computer, against computer or human opponents. When you select this button a dialogue will appear and allow you to choose how you want to play the scenario. To learn more, see [[#Multiplayer|Multiplayer]].

*Load
:Click this button to load a previously saved game. You will be shown a dialogue listing saved games. Select the game and click Ok to load and continue, or Cancel to return to the Main Menu.

:If you select a replay game, you can check the Replay check box. The loaded game will make all the moves from the beginning while you watch.

*Language
:Click this button, select your language, and click OK to use it, or Cancel to continue with the current language. The first time Wesnoth starts, it defaults to English, but once you change it, it will start in that language.

*Preferences

:Click here to change default settings. These are explained in more detail in [[PlayingBattleForWesnoth#Preferences|the Manual]].

*About
:Click this button for a list of major Wesnoth contributors. You may find most of them at irc.freenode.org:6667 on #wesnoth. Or visit http://www.wesnoth.org for news, forums, and Wiki updates. The project is hosted on https://gna.org/projects/wesnoth, where you can download the latest production or developer release, review and report problems (bugs).

*Quit
:Click this button to close Wesnoth.

This getting started guide provides a basic introduction to Battle for Wesnoth. You can find more details about playing the game in the [[WesnothManual|Manual]].

=== Play a Game ===
There are two basic ways to play Battle for Wesnoth:
*Play a sequence of connected scenarios, known as a campaign, against the computer
*Play a single scenario against computer or human opponents

==== Campaigns ====

Campaigns can take a long time to complete. Typical campaigns have about 10-20 scenarios. The main advantage with campaigns is that they allow you to develop your army. As you complete each scenario, the remaining units at the end are saved for you to use in the next scenario.
If you choose not to use a unit at all during a scenario it is carried over
to the next, so you don't lose units you don't use.

The campaign is the primary form in which Wesnoth is intended to be played, is probably the most enjoyable, and is the recommended way for new players to learn the game.

==== Scenarios ====

A single scenario takes about 30 minutes to 2 hours to complete.
This is the fastest way to play, but your units are not saved and you cannot use
campaign units. You can play scenarios against the computer or against other players either over the internet or at your computer. Scenarios are accessed through the 'Multiplayer' button on the main menu.

===== Multiplayer =====
Multiplayer games are played against other players via the Internet (you can also run them on your LAN if you have one). These games are co-ordinated through the [[Improved_Manual#Campaign_Server|Wesnoth campaign server]].
Multiplayer games can take anywhere from 1 hour to 10 hours, depending on
how many players there are (and the size of the map). The average time is between 3 to 7 hours.
Games can be saved and loaded as many times as you like.
So, it's possible for some games to last 1 or 2 weeks, even though
the play time is only a few hours. You cannot carry over
units in multiplayer from one scenario to the next, so building up
your army's strength is possible only within the scenario.

===== Hotseat =====
Hotseat games are similar to Multiplayer games except everyone plays at the same computer by taking turns in the 'hotseat'. Hotseat games will take about the same time to play as games played over the Internet.

===== Human vs AI =====
You can also play any of the campaign scenarios against AI opponents rather than human players. This can be a good way to become familiar with the various maps that are used for multiplayer games before playing against real opponents. It can also be used as a simple way to explore the capabilities of units from the different factions by choosing which faction you will play and which faction your opponents are in these games.

==== The Game Screen ====

Regardless of whether you are playing a scenario or a campaign, the basic layout of the game screen is the same. The majority of the screen is filled with a map which shows all of the action that takes place in the game. Around the map are various elements which provide useful information about the game and are described in more detail below.

Across the top of the screen from left to right are the following items:
#Menu button
#Actions button
#Turn counter *
#Your gold
#Your total villages
#Your total units
#Your upkeep
#Your income
#Current hex type
#Current hex position

Down the right of the screen from top to bottom are:
#Full map, scaled *
#Time of day indicator
#Unit profile for last selected unit*
#End Turn button *

(Items marked with a * are currently undocumented)

*Menu button: Displays a drop-down menu with the following options:

#Scenario Objectives: Lists the victory and defeat conditions.
#Statistics
#Unit List: Lists your active units, including their map position.
#Status Table: Summary list of visible player units, villages, income etc.
#Save Game: Write the current game position to disk.
#Load Game
#Preferences: see [[PlayingBattleForWesnoth#Preferences|the Manual]] for details.
#Help
#Quit Game: Close the game, without saving, and return to the Main menu.

*Actions button: Displays a drop-down menu with the following options:
#Next unit
#Recruit: Lists units your commander can recruit from a keep.
#Recall (Campaign only): Lists units your commander can recall from a keep.
#Show enemy moves
#Best possible enemy moves
#End Turn: On your turn, select it to end your turn.

*Your gold, villages, units, upkeep, and income
:Quick way to check how your army is doing. A negative income means you'll lose gold, a positive means you gain gold. Upkeep is the gold you pay your units. Villages shows how many you own, each village will give you Gold.

*Current hex
:Shows the terrain type and position of the hex pointed to by the mouse. If a unit is on the hex, its resistance on that terrain is shown after the position. The position is in column, row order.

*Time of day indicator
:Putting your mouse over the indicator will bring up a tooltip showing the effect of the time of day. Wesnoth has a 6-turn day and different alignments have bonuses depending on the time of day.

==== Recruit and Recall ====
When you first start a scenario or campaign you will only have a few units on the map. One of these will be your commander (identified by a little crown icon). Your commander is usually placed in a castle on a special hex called a keep. Whenever your commander is on a keep (not only your own, but also the keep of any enemy castles you capture) and you have enough gold, you can recruit units for your army. In later scenarios you can recall experienced units that survived earlier scenarios. From here, you can start to build your army to conquer the enemy.

The first thing you will probably want to do is recruit your first unit. Press 'ctrl-r' (or right click on an empty castle hex and select 'recruit') and you will be able to recruit a unit from a list of all the units available to you. Each recruit is placed on an empty castle square. Once you have filled the castle, you cannot recruit any more until units move off. Your opponent's commander is similarly placed on its castle keep and will begin by recruiting its troops -- so don't dilly-dally looking at the scenery, there's a battle to be won.

At the end of each successful scenario, all your remaining troops are
automatically saved. At the start of the next scenario you may
recall them in a similar way to recruiting. Recalled troops are often more
experienced than recruits and usually a better choice.

==== Your Army ====

All game types use the same soldiers, called units. Each unit is identified
by Race, Level, and Class. Each unit has strengths and weaknesses,
based on their Resistance, current Terrain, and Level.
Full details are in the [[UnitTables]] and [[MoveTypeTables]].

==== Life and Death - Experience ====

As your troops gain battle experience, they will learn more skills and
become stronger. They will also die in battle, so you'll need to
recruit and recall more when that happens. But choose wisely, for each has
strengths and weaknesses a cunning opponent will quickly exploit.

==== Money ====
Your army does not fight for free. It costs you money to recruit units and money to maintain them. You start each scenario with money carried over from previous scenarios (although each scenario ensures you have at least a minimum amount of gold to start if you didn't carry over enough from previous scenarios) and can gain more by meeting scenario objectives quickly and, during a scenario, by controlling villages. Each village you control will give you two gold pieces income per turn. When you first start a scenario it is usually worthwhile to gain control of as many villages as you can to ensure you have sufficient income to wage war. You can see your current gold and current income at the top of the screen as described in the section on [[#The_Game_Screen|the Game Screen]]. More information can be found in [[PlayingBattleForWesnoth#Gold|the manual]].

==== Save and Load ====
At the start of each scenario, you have the option to save it.
If you are defeated, you may load it and try again. Once you have succeeded,
you will again be asked to save the next scenario and play that.
If you have to stop playing during a scenario, you can save your turn
and load it again later. Just remember, a good BFW player never needs to
save '''during''' a scenario. However, most beginners tend to do so rather
often. ;)

=== Getting the Most Fun Out of the Game ===

Remember, the idea of a game is to have fun! Here are some recommendations
from the development team on how to get the most fun out of the game:

* Consider playing the campaign on 'Medium' difficulty level, especially if you have prior experience with strategy games. We feel you'll find it much more rewarding.
* Don't sweat it too much when you lose some units. The campaign was designed to accommodate the player losing some units along the way.
* Don't abuse saved games. Long ago, Wesnoth only allowed saving the game at the end of a scenario. Mid-scenario saving was added as a convenience to use if you had to continue the game another day, or to protect against crashes. We do not recommend loading mid-scenario saved games over and over because your White Mage keeps getting killed. Learn to protect your White Mage instead, and balance risks! That is part of the strategy.
* If you must load a saved game, we recommend going back to the start of the scenario, so that you choose a new strategy that works, rather than simply finding random numbers that favor you.
* But remember, the aim is to have fun! You may have different tastes than the developers, so do what you enjoy most! If you enjoy loading the saved game every time you make a mistake, looking for the 'perfect' game where you never lose a unit, by all means, go right ahead!

==== At the start of a scenario ====
* First, read the scenario objectives. Sometimes you do not have to kill enemy leaders; instead it is enough that you survive for a certain number of turns, or pick up a particular object
* Look at the map: the terrain, the position of your leader and the other leader(s).
* Then, begin to recruit units. Cheap units are useful to soak up the first wave of an enemy's attack; advanced units can then be brought in as support. Fast units can be used as scouts, for exploring the map and to quickly conquer villages.

==== During the scenario ====
* Try to capture and keep control of as many villages as possible to keep the gold coming in
* Keep units in packs so the enemy cannot attack from as many sides, and so you can outnumber each enemy unit. Put your units in a line so that the enemy cannot attack any one of your units from more than two sides.
* Different units have different strengths and weaknesses depending on terrain and who they are attacking; right click on units and select "Describe unit" to learn more
* You can use lower level units as cannon fodder, to slow down enemy. e.g. you can use them to block enemy reaching your important units
* You can cause damage to enemies with advanced units and then finish them with lower level units - to give them more experience (and finally make them advance to next level)
* When you have a White Mage (advances from Mage) or Druid (advances from Shaman), put it in the middle of a circle of units to heal them as they move across the map (Shamans can do this too, but not as well)
* Losing units is expected, even advanced units
* Time of day really matters:
** lawful units do more damage at day and less damage at night
** chaotic units do more damage at night and less damage at day
** remember to always check the time of day on the right side of the screen. Plan ahead - think about what it's going to be next turn as well as this turn.
* Some units are resistant or vulnerable to different kind of attacks. Mounted units are weak vs pierce attacks. Fire and holy attacks destroy undead. To see how much a unit resists an attack type, right click on the unit, select 'Unit Description', then select 'Resistance'. It will show you how resistant a unit is to different types of attacks.

==== Healing ====
An important part of succeeding at Battle for Wesnoth is keeping your units healthy. When your units take damage you can heal them by moving them onto villages or next to special healing units (e.g. the Elvish Shaman and White Mage). Some other units you will encounter, such as Trolls, have the ability to heal themselves naturally. You can find more detailed information about healing in [[PlayingBattleForWesnoth#Healing|Chapter 2]].

==== Winning a scenario ====
* Advanced units are needed to quickly kill enemy commanders, and to avoid losing lots of units.
* The quicker you win a scenario, the more gold you get; you will get more gold from winning early than from all of the map's villages for the rest of the turns.
* Killing all enemy leaders usually gives instant victory.

==== More general tips ====
* After slaughtering scenarios (where you take lots of punishment) there are usually "breathing room" scenarios where you can rather easily gain some gold and experience (advanced units)
* Advanced units have higher upkeep than lower level units (1 gp per level), loyal units are an exception.

<noinclude>

=== See Also ===
* [[WesnothManual]]
* [[AdvancedTactics]]

{{Play}}
</noinclude>

User:Paŭlo

2007-09-30T10:47:48Z

PaÅlo: about myself

I'm known as [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=104387 pauxlo] in the Wesnoth-Forum, ''Paulo'' in the multiplayer server (both being transkriptions of the right name ''Paŭlo'') and [https://gna.org/users/epaul epaul] in the BugTracker. My real-life name is ''Paul Ebermann'' (do a google search to learn more).

My contributions so far are very very minor ... some bug reports, and one WML debugging help for the Free Goblins Faction. (Since my time is limited, and I have some projects outside of Wesnoth, I don't plan to get involved really more.)

http://www.math.hu-berlin.de/~ebermann/bildoj/pauxlo-2007-04-26-ombro-verda.jpg

I came to Wesnoth by a DVD named ''Esperanto elektronike'', which contained an very old version (1.0.2 or so) of the game (with the Esperanto translation).