Wesnoth Basics

Hello fellow Player! This guide is made for those people who just discovered the game and want to learn the basics. I'll try to use some visual examples, quickly explain some of the main aspects of the game and provide links where you can find more about the game.

Campaigns

Since I used to play this more when I was still a kid learning how to use Ubuntu, I don't remember much about the story itself, but if you're a fan of the high fantasy/medieval genre, you should give it a try.


The most important thing here is Recalling.





Recalling lets you use units from previous battles, keeping their XP and restoring them to full HP. Since it's cheaper to recall expensive units than buying new ones, some people prefer leveling up their units at the start of a campaign and then recalling them on the following stages. It's a powerful resource that you can work with (Even for roleplay purposes, if you're into that), but keep in mind that it's exclusive for Campaigns.

Multiplayer

Setting a multiplayer game is easy. First, to connect to the official game servers, you must create an account in the forums[forums.wesnoth.org]. Then, you have to either create your own room or join someone else's




The first image is the room creation interface. You just select the map, the era, basic room settings such as name and password (optional) and you're good to go.

I've highlighted some important things on the second image. Keep in mind that this is a view from the Host side.

1- Number of player slots and Map name.
2- "Choose Faction and/or Leader" Button.
3- Information about your leader, color, controlling player and income.
4- Players and Observers.

Game Modes

- Colosseum: The fastest and best mode to understand the game (After the tutorials) since you only control one character and upgrade him after every round. Basically, you and other 2 or 5 gladiators choose each a character and fight against waves of monsters in order to survive. You won't learn combat tactics and tricks, but you'll get used to the combat system, keywords and terrain advantage. Plus, you'll be able to find factions that you like by playing with their units individually.

- Standard*: You have a general that recruits troops and fight against other general(s) in order to win. It's similar to the singleplayer campaigns, except you win by killing the enemy generals.

- Survival/RPG: Pretty much like Colosseum, but usually you have a map to explore or a fixed map and sometimes you can recruit units to assist you. I find it quite boring, so I don't know much about it.

*I don't know how it's actually called, but that's how we call it in my group of friends.

Eras

These add new factions and generals to the game.

- Bob's RPG Era: One of the most complete eras for playing RPG modes.

- Ageless Era: This is a collection of other player made eras. It adds 30+ new factions to the game, a lot of new keywords and mechanics. I suggest you download this after you get bored of the default era and want to try new things, but keep in mind that the game becomes unbalanced when you try to use different eras in the same game.

Server Hosting(Incomplete)

Some players might have troubles to connect to the official servers. If you're willing to play with your friends, but can't connect to any of the official Wesnoth servers, you can try hosting a Local Server.

The first step you must take is setting up a Hamachi or a VPN to simulate a Local environment, unless your friends are connected to the same network as you.

For more information on how to setup a server using Hamachi, you can take a look at this Minecraft server guide[minecraft.gamepedia.com]. Even though it's a different game, the idea behind the server setup is pretty much the same. If it's still a bit confusing, try looking for another tutorial on the internet.


This is the screen that you find after clicking on the "Multiplayer" button in the main screen. To host a LAN (Local) server, simply click on "Host Networked Game". Then, the message below will be shown.



Simply click "Yes" and it will host a server on your local network. This is how it looks on the CMD:

127.0.0.1 is your local IP, which means that it "masks" your true IP while working the same way for local connections. If the CMD shows something similar to this, the server is probably working.



This is how the screen will look like to the host

As for the client side, you must click on the "Connect to Server" button in the Multiplayer tab, then this will show up:



Just change the Server to the host's IPV4 and you're (probably) in!

If the instructions above are not working for you, you might try to connect to another official server. Just click on the "Connect to Server" button in the Multiplayer tab, then in "View List" and try connecting to either the second or third server.

Combat Tips and Tricks

In this section, I hope to cover the basics of how positioning and tactics influence your combats, how they work and how to use units' traits and alignment to your advantage.

First, let's see an unit in the recruitment window:


In the highlighted area, we can spot some important unit information such as HP (Health Points), Alignment, MP (Movement Points) and Attacks.















There are 4 kinds of alignment in the game:

Lawful

25% bonus at day
0% bonus at dawn/dusk
-25% bonus at night.

Mostly found in Loyalists and Drakes (Drakes). Some in Dunefolk and Rebels (Mermen).

Neutral

0% bonus at day
0% bonus at dawn/dusk
0% bonus at night.

Mostly found in Knalgan Alliance (Dwarves) and Rebels (Elves). Some in Dunefolk.

Chaotic

-25% bonus at day
0% bonus at dawn/dusk
25% bonus at night.

Mostly found on Northerners and Undead. Some in Knalgan Alliance (Human Outlaws) and Drakes (Saurians).

Liminal

-25% bonus at day
0% bonus at dawn/dusk
-25% bonus at night.

Only some in Dunefolk.

Alignments make a huge difference in combat and recruiting/moving your troops according to it will give you a big swing in advantage in most situations. Understanding them and paying attention to the day cycle are the first steps to becoming a good tactician.


Now, for analyzing attacks, I'll bring up some images of a combat. Let's say that our Elf Fighter is going to battle an Orcish grunt.



Notice that he's a chaotic unit and our Elf is a neutral unit, so we have an advantage when fighting during the day.



Each attack has Damage, Number of Strikes, Hit percentage. They can be either Melee or Ranged and the defending unit can only counterattack with an attack of the same type. Damage is influenced by the unit's resistance and the hit percentage is only affected by the terrain in which the unit is, except for attack abilities such as Marksman or Magical.



In this case, the orc cannot hit us back if we use the ranged attack, but when we try to attack the Goblin Archer...



... He has a better retaliation if we use Ranged attacks. In this case, it's better if we attack him using Melee Attacks.

Useful Links

These are some useful links that are going to help you if you want to learn more about the game.

- Wesnoth Official site: https://www.wesnoth.org/

- Forums: https://forums.wesnoth.org/

- Factions and Eras information: https://wiki.wesnoth.org/Factions_and_Eras

- All units in Default + Dunefolk Era: https://units.wesnoth.org/1.14/mainline/en_US/era_dunefolk.html

- All units in Ageless Era: https://units.wesnoth.org/1.14/Ageless_Era/en_US/Ageless%20Era.html

- Common Sense Compendium (Old but Gold): https://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9354

- Important Links for New Users: https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34903

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this guide until now! When I saw that the game was going to be released on Steam, I rushed to make this in order to help new players getting into this wonderful game, even though I'm not a very experienced player myself. If you have any other doubts that weren't covered here, want to suggest something or found any typos (English isn't my native language), feel free to send me a PM or comment below.

Good luck and have fun!

[tQ ReCrack]

It means the Orc does 6 damage that hits 3 times at a 40% chance per hit. Similarly, the Elf does 3 damage that hits 3 times at a 60% chance per hit.

[Monsieur Senorita's Sushi Tavern]

I apologize for reawakening this thread four years on, but could you explain exactly what the ''_x_'' section under a weapon (mentioned during the combat section of the guide) represents?

For example, when the ELVISH ARCHER is fighting the ORCISH ARCHER, the ELF has a ''3x3'' under his bow with a green 60%. The ORC's bow is listed with a ''6x3'' and a yellow 40% but I do not exactly understand why the ORC has the ranged advantage here; Does the ORC have a chance to do hit 6 times out of 3, or will he retaliate with 6 times the amount of damage (3) that the ELF inflicts on him?

Just a little confused by what mechanic of combat the acronym is supposed to represent. Of course this is probably explained in game, in which case I will edit or delete this comment.

[Lûte the Goblin]

They should be on by default, GangrieL~.

[DeaDwooD]

How i enable the health bars next to the units ?

[Kracktos]

Hi, I registered on the Game Forum to be able to play online, but can't I get an activation email?

My account is

username: Kracktos
email: [e-mail]

Thanks

[vonWolfens]

Servers are quite easy actually:
1: Forward Port 15000 in your Router Settings to your PC
2: Get your public IP
3: Start server in game, people can connect via 'public-ip:150000'

PS: If you use Hamachi you do not need any of these steps just connect to your friends IPv4

[Edu Ghi]

pow q massa, vlw muito, vou olhar suas dicas e ver por aonde começar. muito obrigado!

[GravityI]

I'm not sure what it could be. Mine is working well, but maybe the server was going under maintenance during the period you tried to connect, the link isn't correctly typed (It should be "add-ons.wesnoth.org" , without the quotation marks) or maybe your firewall is blocking the connection port (15002 I think).

I found a similar topic on the forums. [forums.wesnoth.org] If you can't solve the problem, you should make a post there with more information so they can offer better assistance.

I wish you good luck! If you need more help, you can comment here or send me a PM anytime! I'm also brazilian, so you can type in portuguese if you want to :)

[Edu Ghi]

hello. I am encontering server errors when trying to installl the add-ons. aany advice?

[ZoroTheBold]

Thank you so much! Keep up the great work!