Wesnoth

“Use 70% experience setting and 2 gold per village, and you need not fear the results of a hundred battles; if you use 2 gold per village but not 70% experience, for every intelligent foe you face you will also face a complete moron; if you are ignorant of both the gold per village and the experience setting, what the **** are you noob doing playing Wesnoth?!”

~ Sun Tzu on Wesnoth

The Newest version of Wesnoth, please note the general awesomeness of the futuristic 3D Graphics

Battle for Wesnoth is an open source TBS able to run on most platforms including, but not restricted to: mac, windows and Dead Badgers running Linux.

While originally intended to be the most realistic chess clone ever, David White, the creator of Wesnoth, accidentally made it hex based in an accident.

The direction of Wesnoth thus changed into becoming the free open source game equipped with an AI that will inevitably grow sentient and conquer the world some day. The AI is practically invincible to human players due to its brilliant Scout Rushes. The only person ever known to come close to beating the Scout Rush performed by AI is called Higher Game, but he hasn't been seen on the official forum for some time now. That should teach you not to mess with the AI or you might not be ever heard of again either. The AI does not like competition.

Popularity of Wesnoth (blue), compared to Half-life (red)

Setting

Battle for Wesnoth is set in a completely original environment featuring fictional races such as Elves, Dwarves and the ever-mysterious Humans.

Jetryl, creator of the setting, once said that the original vision of the setting was: "A bunch of flowerly people sit around and pet purty unicorns, and live in a happy magical world full of fairys and wondrous, enchanting gnomes and shit. The unicorns get curried by pure-hearted, noble virgins, and prance gallantly through the glades of the wild, wonderful woods." in an exclusive interview, Jetryl later added: "To achieve this mankind has sworn eternal fealty to a vast, faceless void of leering, demonic, alien gods, which will drive humanity to madness, and a swift, bloody extinction. And then return to do the same to the next sentient race that raises its unwitting head in this reality." They were however forced to abandon this setting after a copyright infringement lawsuit from the chess developers.

Factions

The Fearsome Walking Californians can here be seen battling Troll Dwarflobbers (Please do not note the similarity to chess)

Though the Wesnoth forums are filled with poorly made factions who have a complete lack of merit as well as art, only six factions exist in the official game:

• Rebels: The Rebels (or left-wing anarchist freaks who are evil for not supporting our great führer in his just wars to bring us cheap gas if you prefer) consist mainly of treehugging freaks, their main tactics seem to be ignoring the enemy in order to get really nice haircuts. A little known fact is that 90% of the treehugging population is made out of hairdressers.
• Knalgan alliance: The Knalgan alliance troops are mainly known for being able to take ridiculously much damage before they explode in a rain of fat and bodily fluid. One of their commonly used tactics is rock solidarity, which basically includes marching forth and back outside of universities and shouting weird slogans about the oppression of rocks. Some people believe the Knalgans to be evil communists, due to their similarity to Karl Marx, and poor hygiene.
• Loyalists: The most versatile of the factions, these are likely the most fictional of the factions, rumoured to have originally been invented by H. P. Lovecraft - though as you know, no copies of his works actually exist, so this is yet to be determined.
• Northerners: Since there is a mountain of evidence suggesting that orcs evolved from Dorks, they were obviously created by our lord and saviour, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Northerners also include Trolls, who are widely feared for their constant flaming and rampant leet.
• Undead: Many a people have claimed that undead really are extremely powerful in the right hands, and it is therefore considered proven that all Wesnoth players play with their left hands. Nevertheless, there is one undead unit which is feared beyond anything else that fits into a hex - the WC or Walking Californian.
• Drakes: The Drakes were added because the community was just screaming for a race that was extremely hard to balance and hardly needed any skill to play properly. These flying monstrosities were created by the dreaded artist Neoriceisfood, who persistently claims his little sweethearts just need a hug.
• Mods: Some smart coders have made countless add-ons. Unlike the Sims department at EA, the Wesnoth crew actually encourages mods. They are mainly campaigns and MP eras. The most popular are the Roman and Calydonian eras, although rumors abound about an upcoming Yankees vs. Mets vs. Sherlock Holmes mod. Add-ons have horrid animation, stupid gameplay, and uncreative art. Microsoft often uses this as an argument against open source.

Campaigns

There are many campaigns made by people from all over Wesnoth. While most are available on the campaign server, only the most epic (note that this does not mean best or most fun to play, so the devs take no responsibility should the storyline permamently alter your neural system) are included in the initial download, these are:

• Heir to the Throne tells the tale of a righteous hero who decides to overthrow Wesnoth's blasphemous government in a bloody coup, because we all know people who inherit the throne always are much nicer and better than those who are elected. Along his journey, the hero is assisted by all good races in Wesnoth. The campaign is VERY LONG!
• Sonuva afro-american **** gives you control of an orcish tribe trying to escape genocide. After which you afflict genocide on your oppressors, because who wouldn't want to experience barbarossa all over again?
• The Eastern Invasion tells the epic tale of how Wesnoth is invaded by undead hordes from the east, this grand campaign introduces great innovations such as forcing the player to rely on luck rather than skill by making the time limit ridiculously short, and making half the units one can buy completly useless. The choice of having the invasion come from the east is of course obvious because, as we all know, Scary people who don't like giving everything they have to the Israelis because we say so and blow stuff up for no reason other than hating american freedom live there.
• The story of The Rise of Wesnoth tells how orcs enter the land through portals opened by evil mages and mankind is forced to flee over the sea. This story has nothing to do with warcraft and any such claims are completly ridiculous. Believing such things is Doubleplusungood crimethink and will cause you to need re-education.
• "The Hammer in Thongs" tells of the story of a bunch of midgets and their search for a weapon that can be used against the unalliance. It was written by Eric al-Qaida Raymond and features one of the most horrid examples of why intelagent people always use spell checker. IMPORTANT: Despite its name, campaign features no Hammer in it.

Latest version

The latest version of Wesnoth is 1.666.1. Features new to the release include:

• a new AI who is unable to use python for meta-programming.
• new crayon art drawn by the Wesnoth crew's resident kindergartener, Kitty.
• A system for using fake passports to log into the game's underground porn sharing servers, also known by its alias, "Multiplayer".
• A map editor that's built in so that the retards who use it do not have to learn how to compile a separate program.
• The implementation of a system to prevent the re-occurence of 9/11.
• The new campaign entitled "Wesnoth Episode VI: The Return of Mist".
• Mainline support for running on dead-badgers.
• Logging of the porn sharing servers in order to comply with the patriot act.

See also

• Sun Tzu
• This game which holds no similarity to anything ever stated within this article.
• Chess