AI v Human is a good start point for practice. But don’t expect too much intelligence from the computer. You may even host your own game, fun for a cultural version of a LAN party. Yes, force your friends to play in costumes with pointy hats!

Figure 5: Choosing an option in multiplayer mode

Observing from a distance

Okay, I admit it on my home network my son beat me. I’m still more intelligent than he is. Only he didn’t realise that, and the game was on his side, and anyway who cares. At first Nelson played the game because of the promise of a little extra pocket money. But as soon as he had got the hang of things he went online. As I write he is sitting next to me with my laptop fighting, labelling and chatting. Dynamic and active and learning some basic English words on the way. Okay so the words include kill, retreat, and run. But the chatting in general is clean and all the interacting partners are honestly doing their best to capture the spirit of the occasion. The multiplayer feature adds great value to the game and he continuously switches the chat option “Send to allies” thus fostering a real feeling of competition through medieval insults and modern day slang. To find out what he thought about the battle of Wesnoth I asked Nelson a number of pertinent questions:

AB: What was your first impression of the game?

NB: First, I thought it just was a game with just a few figures in it—rather limited. But later, I saw the figures rise to another level and I could then use much stronger attacks. I liked the feeling of progress a lot.

AB: And the graphics?

NB: A little on the old fashioned side.

AB: Did you win?

NB: Not yet. Apart from against you.

AB: (Ahem)… okay, moving on… Do you have any ideas on how the game can be improved?

NB: Adding shops for buying things that make you stronger, weapons, healing magic, daisy cutters.

AB: Would you consider adding your own campaigns to the game if you could?

NB: Yes. As long as it doesn’t take too much time to learn.

AB: Is there anything else you would like to add?

NB: No, I am busy playing. Go away!

So as you can see from the conversation, Nelson likes playing the game, but does see some room for improvement with the graphics and feature enhancements. Myself, I think that the multiplayer feature makes the game. It is well worth giving it a test run through the tutorial on a rainy Sunday morning. Just remember to feed the cat, you may lose yourself in the multiplayer mode.

Remember to feed the cat, you may lose yourself in the multiplayer mode

Mapping Wesnoth

The Battle for Wesnoth, the game itself is a mature and well polished product. Creation of personalised campaigns is still a little on the raw side. But, I have no doubt that this minor weakness will be changed for the better in the coming months. To build a campaign yourself requires the creation of resources such as maps, figures and music, and the configuration of these resources into a scenario. A campaign is generated out of a series of these self-created scenarios. Maps are easily rendered via the inbuilt editor. The editor allows you to place land types on the map and save the it in text or binary format. Text format costs a little bit more disc space, but with practice the text is readable by your standard ten-year-old. Map generation is the obvious and simple part. Building a campaign is somewhat harder. A tool that simplifies this process is “CampGen”. Campgen is a Python script based on WxWidgets, a free software, cross-platform, native UI framework (see figure 6).

Figure 6: Screen grab of CampGen

Conclusions

The game is interactive, community orientated and has a rich set of features

Wesnoth is well worth trying out. The game is interactive, community orientated and has a rich set of features. A layman given enough time can make, via the help of tools, new scenarios and campaigns. The battle for Wesnoth is thus a living entity slowly expanding through the energy of its online community. I expect it to become more successful and look forward to playing version 2 with a mature set of tools for campaign generation.

Bibliography

Community forum

External Utilities (Campgen)

Getting started information

WxWidgets