Battle for Wesnoth (Free TBS Game)
 

Bumped into this downloadable, FREE, fantasy-themed, turn-based strategy game the other night and figured there are a few people here that might be interested:

Battle for Wesnoth

It reminds me of both the earlier Warlords games and the earlier Panzer General games. There are a handful of campaigns that come with the game, and another dozen or so that are easily downloaded into the game. Best thing about it is that everything--including the source code if you want it--is free.

I played the very effective tutorial last night in less than a half hour and am now about five battles into the first campaign. Playing on the medium difficulty setting, the AI seems adequate. The graphics are dated, but the gameplay is surprisingly fun and polished.

I 've played quite a few games myself and agree with most of your comments.

I think it was Marc Vaughn from SI Games that recommended in some other thread, and a damn good suggestion it was.

GB, have you finish the Siege of Elensefar scenario yet? It took me quite a few tries to manage that one...by far the hardest scenario I've played so far...

Another good thing about it is the support. Despite the fact that it's free (or maybe just because), the devs are currently updating and improving the game...

(BTW, it should be Wesnoth, no Z in there...)

Ah...funny you should mention the Siege of Elensefar. Glad to hear that someone else thought it was hard as well. I got to that one last night and got mauled. For the first time, most of the enemy units were level 2 or above, and I simply did not have enough experienced troops to put up a fight. With my relatively weak core units from previous scenarios in the campaign, I don't think I stand a chance of winning. I've gone back to the first scenario and am playing through things again to try and get to the Siege scenario with more experienced troops and more gold.

Eh, exactly what I had to do! :D

If you're in a bind, check out the game forum, there's quite a few helpful hints over there.

downloading

Is there a way to disable the time limits? They're extremely annoying.

I am going to give this a whirl.

Considering the game is open source, yes, there's a way. :p

(I don't know how, and I doubt it's easy, but it has to be possible.)

Wow I just ran across this and actually it is pretty good. Now it is at version 1.4.

Battle for Wesnoth is great imho - if you haven't played it already do the 'Orish' scenario (Son of ....) its very well put together.

(oh and my online tag for BoW is 'Wiz' normally)

The Oirish scenario? Is that when the bad guys plan to take over the world by setting up a network of theme pubs with over-priced Guinness? Yes, "Mr Obvious" that's me.

I love Wesnoth as well, although I dislike the way that some of the campaigns require you to know what's going to happen in the future, in order to develop the correct type of troops. (Like how you have to save the heavy infantry/Shock troopers/whatever they're called in the second scenario of "The Birth of Wesnoth", or you're five different shades of shagged 3 or 4 scenarios down the line). And, as mentioned above, you often have to go back 4 or 5 scenarios to make sure you have good enough troops.