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[Wesnoth-wiki-changes] GettingStarted


From: wiki
Subject: [Wesnoth-wiki-changes] GettingStarted
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 17:39 +0200

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IP: 192.173.4.9
URI: http://wesnoth.slack.it/?GettingStarted
 - - - - -
<!--
The intended audience are young people without previous war game knowledge.
They may only have a vague notion of what 'strategy' and 'tactics' are, so I
don't assume much there. Rather than give specific 'click here, type there'
instructions, I prefer to move the reader from how the game should be
played to describing Wesnoth's world and get them excited enough to want to
see for themselves.
The average reader is about 10 - 15 years. Try to use simple words for
this age group.

I feel definitions, like campaign and unit, should be given early on
because it makes the rest easier to write.

By immeadiately giving a mindset and overview, the reader can then use it
when discussing details about hit points and Fog of War.

I think mentioning unit names is a bad idea, since they're still trying
to get the game running and specific units have no meaning to them.
There is no real discussion on strategy, I suspect because most people
don't use any:)

 still much to do. The material is here, but needs reorganising. The
scenario scetions should follow each other. The text got word wrapped by my
editor, so some points might run into others.
The word unit should be introduced very early, but without detail. A unit
section can describe units more fully. The words troops and army aren't
really suitable for Wesnoth, unit seems all that's needed.
Some material is duplicated and should be cleaned up. I tried to put the
main points about bfw in the first paragraphs.
In some cases the basic tactics can be introduced as a scenario
walkthrough, in others, it may even be too advanced.

           I'm not sure what is the best approach when dealing with villages and
recruiting. Villages affect many aspects, but are part of the world. Perhaps
it might be better to have a Gold system section instead. -Blackbeard
 -->

<h1>Getting Started</h1>
<h2>About Wesnoth</h2>
<!-- forgot to mention its a turn based game -BB -->
<p>
<!-- it's not first person it's third -BB -->
<em>The Battle For Wesnoth</em> (BFW) is a turn based, third person, fantasy 
war game.
Use your strategic and tactical skills to beat computer opponents.
Engage in campaigns that take you from scenario to scenario on to
final victory. Each campaign is a story told through scenarios. Each
scenario has an objective you must achieve before facing the next.
</p>
<h2>Save and Load</h2>
<p>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 <em>during</em> a scenario.
</p>

<h2>Recruit and Recall</h2>
<p>At the start of each scenario, your commander is placed in a castle on a
special keep square (actually a hex). From here, you can recruit or recall
your troops. 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 able to
recruit troops. Select an empty castle hex first, and the recruit will appear
there. You must wait until your next turn to move recruits off your castle.
</p>
<p>
At the end of each successful scenario, all your remaining troops are
automatically saved for you. 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.
</p>
<p>
You may only recruit and recall when you commander is on the castle's keep
hex. Since most castles have a keep, you can move your commander to any
castle's keep to recruit and recall.
</p>

<!-- need to read up on factions more *blush* -->
<h2>Factions and Races</h2>
<p>The world of  Wesnoth contains several races that have joined forces
into different factions. Here, Elf and Dwarf fight side by side against Orc
and Human. In campaigns, you will belong to one faction and battle with the
others. This allows you to recruit different races and recall them later.
</p>
<p>
Sometimes factions make alliances with others, so you may face more
than one faction in a scenario.
<!-- to be continued
 The peaceful villages will heal your troops and earn you a good
income to support your army. Cross mountains and rivers, either on foot or
mounted, push through forests, hills and tundra, or brazenly cross open
grassland, its all here in Wesnoth.
 -->
</p>

<h2>Life and Death - Experience</h2>
<p>
As your troops gain battle experience, they will learn more skills and
become stronger. They will also die in battle too, 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.
</p>
<!-- ToDo:
<p>
Many challenges and rewards await you as you begin Your Battle for
Wesnoth.</p>
        From your castle keep, recruit and recall a powerful
army to gain victory. Proceed from battle to battle to advance your cause.

We first introduce you to your army, outline the different ways you can
play, and then focus on basic tatics and strategies.

</p>
 -->
<!-- Units must be reworked..this sucks -->
<h2>Army Units</h2>
<p>
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.
</p>

<h2>Game Play</h2><!-- need a better title? -->
<p>
You can play The Battle For Wesnoth as a campaign, one scenario,
multiplayer, and hotseat.
</p>
<dl>
<dt>Scenario
<dd>A single Life and Death battle where you pit your forces against one or
more computer players.<dt>Campaign
<dd>A sequence of scenarios that allow you to develop your army by
recalling surviving units from previous scenarios.<dt>Multiplayer
<dd>A scenario played over a network with human and computer players.
<dt>Hotseat
<dd>A scenario played by several people using one computer. When a player
takes their turn at the computer, they're in the <em>hotseat</em>.
</dl>

<!-- An almost complete description of all GUI components -BB -->
||Finding Your Way Around Wesnoth||

You can use both the keyboard and mouse to navigate around Wesnoth. Some
controls respond to mouse only and others to keyboard. Wesnoth supports
several languages, so please select your preferred language before playing.
You may change the language at any time.

Some buttons contain features beyond getting started, such as Hotkeys and
Multiplay, which are explained in the MANUAL, not here.

<em>For the impatient, we recommend you first set your language, run the 
tutorial,
and then play a campaign.</em>


When Wesnoth starts it displays an initial background and a list of buttons
called the Main Menu. The buttons only work with a mouse. The following
sections describe the Main Menu.


Quit

Click this button to close Wesnoth.


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.


Tutorial

The tutorial is a real, but basic, game (called a scenario) where Delfador
teaches Konrad how to play. Winning or losing is not important, here, but
learning what to do is. Click the Tutorial button to play as Konrad and
remember what Delfador tells him.


Campaign

Wesnoth was designed to play campaigns only. Click this button for a list of
campaigns. Select your campaign and 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 interesting, but not difficult. You may
not change the difficulty during the campaign. Once you have selected the
difficulty, you will start with the first scenario.

To learn more on Campaigns, see 'Playing a Campaign' and 'Load'.


Preferences

Click here to change default settings. You will be shown a dialouge with the
following options:

1- Music Volume (slider)
 Drag the slider to the left, to make the music softer, and to the right to
 make it louder.

2- sfx volume (slider)
 Drag the slider to the left, to make the sound effects softer, and to the
 right to make them louder.

3- Scroll speed (slider)
 Drag the slider to the left, to make the map scroll slower, and to the right
 to make it scroll faster.

4- Full Screen (check box)
 Check this box to expand Wesnoth to fill the whole screen, or uncheck it, to
 return to a window.

5- Turn Dialog (check box)
 Check this box to show you a prompt dialogue whenever its your turn to move,
 or uncheck it, to disable the turn dialogue.

6- Accelerated Speed (check box)
 Check this box to double move speed, or uncheck it, for normal move speed.

7- Turn Bell (check box)
 Check this box to sound a Bell on your turn, or uncheck it, to turn it off.

8- Show Grid (check box)
 Check this box to outline each map hex, or uncheck it, to turn it off.

9- Show Team Colours (check box)
 Check this box, to show each unit's team colour, or uncheck it, to turn it
 off.

10- Video Mode (button)
 Click this button to change the screen size. Choose from a list of available
 sizes. Caution: Wesnoth may display badly, or not at all, if you make a
 poor choice.

11- Hotkeys (button)
 Click this button to change hotkeys. Caution: You may lose keyboard control
 over one or more functions, if you disable hotkeys. To learn more, see
 'Keyboard Control'.

12- Close Window (button)
 Click this button to return to the Main Menu. All changes will be kept.


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
http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/wesnoth , where you can download the latest 
production or
developer release, review and report problems (bugs).


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.


Multiplayer

Click this button to play network games. A dialogue will appear for you to
create or connect to a game server. To learn more, see 'Network Games'.



Game Navigation

After loading a game or campaign, Wesnoth divides its screen into several
sections, listed here and described below (items marked with a * are 
undocumented).

 1- Menu (button)
 2- Your total Gold (display)
 3- Your total villages (display)
 4- Your total units (display)
 5- Your total upkeep (display)
 6- Your total Income (display)
 7- Current hex type (info)
 8- Current hex position (info)
 9- Full map, scaled (select) *
 10- Day cycle (graphic)
 11- Last selected Unit profile (info) *
 12- Turn counter (info) *
 13- End Turn (button) *
 14- Map (active) *

The map covers most of the window and is the most complex, so we discribe it
last. The other areas are useful when using the map, so we explain them now.


Menu button: Displays a popup, lists the following options:

 1- Scenario Objectives: Lists the victory and defeat conditions.
 2- Unit List: Lists your active units, including their map position.
 3- Recruit: Lists units your commander can recruit from a keep.
 4- Recall (Campaign only): Lists units your commander can recall from a keep.
 5- Status Table: Summary list of visible player units, villages, income etc.
 6- End Turn: On your turn, select it to end your turn.
 7- Save Game: Write the current game position to disk.
 8- Preferences: see Main Menu:preferences, for details.
 9- Quit Game: Close the game, without saving, and return to the Main menu.

Your Total Gold, villages, units, upkeep, and income (info)
 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 viilage 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 terrain Resistence is shown after the position.
 The position is in column, row order.

Day Cycle
 This is the picture underneath the mini-map to the right.  Putting your mouse
 over it will bring up a helpful tooltip.  Note that Wesnoth has a 6-turn day
 and that differnt alignments have bonuses depending on the time of day.

<!-- End of GUI description -BB -->

<!-- not sure this is important in a starting guide, the idea is to show
wesnoth isn't a quick shoot-em-up, and also warn them what they're getting
into timewise -->
<h2>Time to Play</h2>
<h3>Campaign</h3>
<p>
Campaigns take a very long time to complete, ranging from weeks to months.
Typical campaigns have about 20 to 30 scenarios. The main advantage with
campaigns is developing your army. As you complete each scenario, the
remaing 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.</p><p>
The campaign is the primary form in which Wesnoth is intended to be played,
and is probably the most enjoyable.</p>
<h3>Scenarios</h3>
<p>
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. Depending on the scenario, you may play with an artificial
player or against several.
</p>
<h3>Multiplayer</h3>
<p>
Multiplayer games can take anything from 1 hour to 10 hours, depending on
how many players there are. 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. Currently, you cannot use campaign units, so building up your army's
strength is <!-- sometimes --> impossible.</p><h3>Hotseat</h3>
<p>
<em>Whoever has played hotseat games, please enter some average game times
for 3 to 4 players, or whatever.</em></p>

<h3>Getting the Most Fun Out of the Game</h3>
<p>
Remember, the idea of a game is to have fun! Here are some recommendations
from the development team on how to get themost 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 accomodate 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 to
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!</p>

<h2>At the start of a scenario</h2>
* First, read the scenario objectives. Sometimes you do not have to kill
enemy leaders instead it is enough that you survive number of turns, or
pick up a particular object
* 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

<h2>During the scenario</h2>
* 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 unit 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 them finish them
with lowerlevel 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
* 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 attakcs. Fire and holy
destroy undeads. 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.
<h3>Healing</h3>
* Villages heal units from normal damage and poison
* A village heals by a fixed amount regardless of unit level.
* A unit can only be healed up to 8HP per turn.
* A unit may take several turns to be fully healed.
* A village takes the first turn to cure a poisoned unit, no healing is done.
* Healers can heal other units the same way villages do.
* Each healer can heal up to six units each turn.
* Healers (Elvish Shaman, Elvish Druid, Elvish Shyde, White Mage, Mage of
Light) heal all wounded units around them, so you can keep units close to
the battle without losing them.
* Some healers can cure poisoned units in the same way villages do.
* Healers will first heal their own units and then all friendly ones.
* Healers do not heal enemy units.
* Healers cannot heal themselves, but see next point.
* Use your healers in pairs, so they can heal each other if needed.
* Healers can heal the same unit and speed up healing.
* Trolls regenerate themselves when injured.
* Trolls cannot regnerate other units.
* Trolls cure themselves from posion as a village does.
* Trolls can be healed by healers and a village.

<h2>Winning a scenario</h2>
* 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 gives instant victory

<h2>More general tips</h2>
* After slaughtering scenarios (where your ass gets seriously kicked) 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.
<br/>

||See Also||
* WesnothManual
* AdvancedTactics






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