Review of Battle for Westnoth
How do you review a game that is free? If you get just five hours of enjoyment out of it, isn't it still worth it, technically? I am going to give you what I think the replayability of the games are, so that you can get a handle on just how much you can get from it.
The Battle for Wesnoth was originally released in 2003, and it looks like it was released in 2001. The graphics are dated. Despite that, the game looks fine, because for the most part, PC graphics have not evolved in this past decade like they have in previous ones. Playing a 1987 game in 1996 would be hard. This is barely noticeable.
I thought the music was annoying, and I turned it off within an hour of play.
This is a turn-based strategy wargame. You move pieces across the board, then your opponent moves pieces, and so forth. When two pieces meet, combat begins based on a variety of rules in the game system. That's it. Simple enough.
In fact, if you check out the tutorial, you'll find yourself done in 10 or 15 minutes. The game is quite simple and easy to pick up.
You get gold every turn. The more villages you have flagged, the more gold you'll get. Units have a gold cost, and can only be recruited in forts and castles by your main unit's presence. They also have a gold upkeep. You can't find pots of gold on the map or gain it by defeating enemies, so you have to watch your resource intake.
Units have hit points, and some traits, and then a level and XP. As a unit levels up, they becom more powerful and gain new abilities. Some units can level into 2 o more things, and you can choose which you want. I leveled a spearman into a pikeman, and he still wasn't much. When I leveled him into a 3rd level Halbardier, however, he became a weapon of death. Dude had the first strike ability and dealt 20 damage a hit. Nasty.
Character have multiple attacks (usually). Some are close range, and some are range attacks. A character will deal a certain amount of damage, and have a certain amount of attacks. A Spearman might have a 5-3 attack with their spear. That means they attack three times, and deal 5 for each hit. Whichever way a unit it attacked, that is how it will defend itself. Some units have very weak close range attacks, or have no range attacks, so find the weakness and hit it.
Units also have traits when they are created, and skills that affect the game. There are only a few traits and units come with two. One is quick, and they move a bit farther, another has more hp, another hits more, etc. Then units have skills and abilities. There is one that heals and cure adjacent units each turn. When you level that one up o level 3, it gains the illuminate ability and makes adjacent squares day.
The game board moves through night and day. Two day, dusk, two night, dawn. Units are either lawful, chaotic or neutral. Chaotic units are at +25 at night and -25 at day to attack damage, lawful units are the opposite, and neutral units in the middle. If your scenario is underground, it is permanently night.
Units have various attack strengths and weaknesses. For example, a Knight has a lance with a piercing attack and a morning star with a smashing attack. The morning star does a lot more damage against skeletons. Find the right attack for an enemy's weakness and you can dole out some damage.
Here you can see Rhobryn's level, XP, HP, abilities (teleport), traits (strong,quick), movement left, and attacks with damage, # of attacks and type listed.
Units dodge more on certain terrain than on others. An elf in teh woods at night can dodge 70% of attacks that come its way. Exposed in a river or stream, you can usually hit a foe. Your horsemen are good on a plains, your pikemen good in towns, etc.
As a result, there are a number of factors you have to balance in order to attack. What is the dodge chance of your foe? How much damage and how many attacks do you get? What are your attacks range? What are your attacks characteristic vs their resistance? What time of day is it? What special abilities do you or your foe have? Attacking into a drain attack on defense means you might actually heal your foe instead of dealing damage. What ground are you on, for the counter attack?
Even though the game is simple enough, there is sufficient complexity here to make you think and play.
In the game, you can recall any troops that survive from one scenario in a campaign to the next. This costs 20 gold to do, but you usually begin the scenario with a large pot of gold, since gold can roll over from one scenario to the next with limitations. Troops that level up are going to be a lot better than new meat. Troops that you are given as part of a scenario have the loyal characteristic. That means they are gold free for upkeep, so treat them well and level them up, because they are worth it.
In the scenario I played, you have a couple of interesting things. At one point, I had to choose whether or not to ditch my elf allies and ally with bandits against the undead horde. I would lose my elf units, gain bandit ones, nad be able to recruit bandit-type units in the future. I stayed the course because my elves were awesome. Later, one of my captains ran back home to let everyone know what was happening and regaurd my town, because we were going to be gone longer. On his way, he has to fight some bad guys. If you recall units you have developed, then you do not get them back in the main scenario, because they have gone home, so I choose to use all fresh units. That was a nice difference. I also fought in a cave in one scenario, and found a bunch of trolls that I could ally with for some serious goldege. As a result, the campaign felt different, even though it had maybe 7 or 8 scenarios all in all. There were a ton of campaigns with radically different numbers of scenarios and difficulties, including the main campaign with 25 scenarios.
The game features hot seat and online multiplayer if you are interested.
In other news, I may not like BfW's math. I decided to reload an old save during a hard mission on this Isle of the Dead. My mermen had a 50% chance ot hit this bady guy and missed horribly they hit twice out of 12 attacks. That's odd, I think, so I reload to try again. This time, 4 out of 12., still low but close. I decide to try again, just to see - 7 out of 12. That's where I would expect to see it.
Throughout the rest of the scenario I save just before making attacks and then load and try again. The results were that I was regularly hitting lower than my %. I would hit 40% on a character with 70%, or 30% on one with 50%. The result was that I felt the actual hit percentages were much lower than the display percentages, but not on the counter attack. My opponent would hit their numbers on the counter. I would have a person with a7-% chance and four sims, three attacks each, only hit 4 times, despite math saying it should be more like 8-9. There were numerous examples of this.
This revelation greatly disturbs me. It means that the game may be cheating in favor of the foe, or that it has a problem with its basic mechanics
I'm not the biggest fan of the "been there, done that" fantasy that the game provides. Elves are sterotypical elves down to being good at archery, haughty, and tree huggers. Humans are every breed from bandits to nobles. Dwarves, orcs, undead, etc. All as you can imagine they would be, with no derivation. A bit more flavor would have been nice.
As a result, Battle for Wesnoth does have some dated graphics and some music that I really don't like that much. The gameplay is simple and easy to pick up, and there is some strategic depth here, but I doubt the simple mechanics can hold my interest for too much longer. I've played for about 6-7 total hours, and I want to play more, but how much more? 10 more hours? 5 more? 20 more? I can't say.
It's worth checking out, no question.
Overall: 3 stars outta 5
Battle for Wesnoth