Frequently Asked Questions

General

What is Battle for Wesnoth?

Battle for Wesnoth is a fantasy turn-based strategy game.

What license is the game distributed under?

The project is distributed under the GPL. All contributors retain copyright on the portions of the project that they contribute.

How to get informed about new releases?

Subscribe to new releases at Freshmeat.

A new version is out, but where is the download for [Windows, Mac OS, etc.]?

The downloads are NOT part of the official project. The BFW team only releases the game's source code. Binary executables or applications are always contributed by community volunteers. If not for these volunteers, there would never be any downloads for us to enjoy. The volunteers compile the game and upload it on their own time, and sometimes they cannot do this in a timely fashion (or at all, at times) Although there are usual packagers designated for each operating system, there are times when other members of the community are asked to step in and contribute when the usual people cannot.

Every time a new version is released, the usual volunteers are always notified by the project leaders. Please refrain from making forum posts asking where your download is because it doesn't help anything - the packagers already know, and they will get to it as soon as they can. In the past, the Windows and Mac communities have come together to produce home-grown unofficial builds for the community to use, and the renewed interest in community and learning how to compile is generally a good thing.

Why doesn't Wesnoth have my favorite feature?

Because we are building this game for ourselves, to suit our own preferences. We're not building the game for you, in large part because this is our hobby, not our job; whether you like it or not is immaterial to us. You may wonder, then, what the point is of soliciting ideas, as we do on the forum. We, the developers, have certainly come up with many good ideas on our own, but our players often do as well, and generally ones we don't think of ourselves. If a player comes up with an idea we like, we might implement it. Not because they asked for it, but because of its own merits as an addition to our game.

The beautiful thing about the license our game is distributed under, as compared to closed-source, commercial games, is that if you want that feature badly enough, you can take the code and art of our game and modify it yourself; you are free to re-use any work in Wesnoth, as long as you follow the rules of the GPL. From this, you can build a game exactly the way that you like. Just don't expect us to build that game for you. Building this game is our hobby, not our profession, and you did not pay us to make it; rather, we are the ones who have paid for it, in time and labor.

Do you want help making this game? How can I help?

Yes, we want your help. Whether you're a programmer, artist, musician, writer, translator, level designer, playtester, or just have some great suggestions, you're welcome to contribute. How? You can:

join the Project
share your point of view at the Forum
talk with us on IRC
report bugs you find at ReportingBugs
update the wiki
play against us via the Multiplayer menu
vote for Wesnoth at your favorite gaming web site
Spread the word!

What are the system requirements?

We are not completely certain, but an x86 running at 400 MHz with 128MB RAM should be adequate for versions 1.02 and below. For versions 1.1 and up we recommend a computer with at least 1 GHz and 512 MB RAM if you run KDE or Gnome as Windowmanager (The game itself needs about 100 MB RAM). Slower machines will have trouble scrolling large maps or processing AI turns with many units. See the forum thread about minimum and recommended system requirements.

I'm bored; how do I speed the game up?

There are several preferences you can change to shorten the time that the AI takes to make its moves. "Accelerated Speed" will make units move and fight faster. "Skip AI Moves" will not show the AI's units moving from hex to hex. Finally, you can turn off all combat animations via the "Show Combat" option on the Advanced tab.

My computer is too slow; how do I speed the game up?

First, turn off the music and sound effects. Turning off the color cursors will make your cursor respond faster. If scrolling the map is slow, run the game in "Full Screen" mode, not in a window. Turn off combat animations via the "Show Combat" option on the Advanced tab. You can try turning off halos and combat results, but this might make gameplay more difficult.

Gameplay and Controls

How do I learn to play?

If you just want to jump right in, start the game and play the tutorial. If you like reading documentation, see WesnothManual, which is also distributed as a PDF file. At any time while playing, you can select help from the menu button (or hit F1). The online help is quite extensive and provides information on terrains, weapons, traits, abilities, units and a good overview of how to play.

My unit leveled up but didn't improve. What happened?

This is called "After Maximum Level Advancement" or AMLA for short. While most level 0, 1, and 2 units can advance, some cannot. However, some level 3 units can advance to level 4, or even 5. You can see whether a unit can advance further by right clicking and selecting "description."

After a unit reaches the highest level it can get, every time it gains 100 experience it gains 3 hitpoints. It does not heal when this happens. This is a minor bonus so that experience gained by maxed out units is not altogether wasted. It is generally better to give experience to lower level units, rather than continue to advanced units that have reached their maximum level.

If the unit in question is the Necrophage, this is not a bug. The Necrophage eats the corpses of the dead, allowing it to periodically completely heal. Leveling into itself is how this is carried out.

I tried to trap an enemy with several weak units, but it still escaped. What happened?

Most units exert a zone of control (or ZOC). IF an enemy moves into one of the six adjacent hexes, the zone of control will prevent it from moving any farther. However some weak units are level 0, meaning they are so weak that they do not have a ZOC. You can still surround an enemy unit entirely with level 0 units to keep it from escaping, but if there is any gap in your ranks, it could escape.

Also, some units have the "skirmish" ability, which allows them to ignore ZOCs.

How can I see where an enemy unit can move next turn?

During you turn you can click on an enemy unit. Wesnoth will highlight all the hexes the unit can move to in the next turn. This is useful when trying to arrange your units to block an enemy's movement.

There's too much luck in this game!

Sooner or later, you will become frustrated when your archmage with four 70% attacks misses all four times. This does not mean that the AI is cheating or the random number generator is futzed. It means you are noticing random negative events more than positive ones. During the development of the game, many mathematicians have done sophisticated statistical analysis of the combat system. Likewise, programmers have examined the random number generator. No flaws have been found, so streaks of "bad" and "good" luck should just be accepted as part of having randomness in Wesnoth.

Since Wesnoth is GPLed, it is possible that a new development team will someday "fork" the source and produce a version more like Heroes of Might & Magic, with less or no randomness. Until then, don't charge with your horsemen against troll rocklobbers at night...

The (random unit) is overpowered/underpowered!

The development team has spent years tweaking the units in the game. Each unit has had its gold cost, attack types, combat damage, defensive values, resistances, upgrade paths, and other stats carefully scrutinized and loudly discussed in the forum. However, the game code and the units were being modified right up until the 1.0 release, so some unbalanced units may have slipped through.

If you have evidence to back up your claim, search the forum for past discussions about this unit, and then try posting.

The (random scenario) is too hard/easy!

See above answer about random units.

What do the different difficulty levels do?

That depends on the scenario. Usually, the opponent will get more money and be able to recruit higher-level units at higher difficulty levels, and you will have fewer turns available.

Maps, Scenarios and Campaigns

How do I beat scenario _______ ?

If you are stuck on a scenario in a campaign, you'll probably find a walkthrough at MainlineScenarios. Or check out the "Strategies and Tips" forum at http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

Are there any tools to help me create maps and scenarios?

Yes, there is a tool called wesnoth_editor. It is a normal map-editor that should be a good help for creating the plain maps. For creating the scenarios there already is a scenario-editor included in the mac build. But this editor is rather outdated and it exists only for MacOS X. At the moment some community members are working on creating a nice and working scenario editor. You can have a look at the forum post about this tool. You will also find more info at CampGen.

How do I download user campaigns?

Choose "Campaigns" in the main Wesnoth menu. Then scroll down to the bottom and choose "Get More Campaigns..." or since 1.1.5 there is a "Get add-ons" button in the main menu. This connects you to the campaign server. In the campaign server you can view a list of all available campaigns and download them, as well as posting or deleting your own campaigns.

If you are behind a firewall you may not be able to connect to the campaign server. In this case try to download the campaign directly from the campaign server through the web interface at http://wolff.to/campaigns/list.html. If you know how to change your firewall settings, then you should open port 15003 (version 1.1.1 and up) or port 15002 (versions 1.1.0 and lower). For added security, you can restrict traffic over those ports to the campaign server's IP address (currently 88.191.12.200).

I already created a campaign and published it on the campaign server. How can I get translations for the campaign?

Just have a look at WesCamp. This project is the easiest way to get translations for your campaign. All the info you need you can find at WesCamp.

How do I place an object or unit on my map with the map editor?

You can't. You need to make a multiplayer scenario file. There are more details on the maps page.

Multiplayer

How do i connect to a multiplayer server, when i sit behind a restrictive Firewall?

You have to open for TCP on port 14999 to play multiplayer games over the internet. For added security, you can restrict access to the server's IP address (currently 84.207.24.9 for the official server).

How to find players for multiplayer game?

Hang around for a while on multiplayer servers and you might find someone to play with. If you observe other people playing you will get informed when someone joins the servers. Maybe you find someone willing to play in the irc channel dedicated to mp: #wesnoth-mp at irc.freenode.net. You can also join #wesnoth at irc.freenode.net.

How to save and load a multiplayer game

Save the game. Give it a good name, so that you can find it among the other saved games.

Create new game. (Give it a name like "private game for X and Y", so that other players will not try joining it, and you do not have to explain or kick them.) The first item in the map/scenario list is "Saved games", select this. Choose the saved game. Wait for the other player(s) to connect. Start the game.

How can I make my computer into a dedicated Wesnoth server?

To setup a dedicated Wesnoth server, you have to compile the game with the "--enable-server" flag, and after you install, simply run wesnothd from the console. This will start the server, listening on TCP port 15000. To compile the server only you can use the flags "--disable-game --enable server". If you aren't using a linux or mac operating system, there are a few ways you can compile on Windows...here is one way http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/CompilingWesnoth/CrossCompiling

Which versions of Wesnoth can play together?

I'm on a MAC, and my friends are on XP. I would like to play together with them. Is this currently possible?

YES! All you need is to have the same version number.

For a list of Mac-XP-compatible games (including BfW) see: http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21818

Translations

I selected an asian translation and am not able to see the letters correctly. What happened?

Since the size of the necessary fonts is too large, you'll need to download them separately (if you don't already have them). After that, simply copy the font to the fonts/ directory in your wesnoth installation.

Chinese font: gkai00mp.ttf
Japanese font: sazanami-gothic.ttf

If you have futher questions have a look at this page.

FAQ

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