[HN Gopher] Battle for Wesnoth: open-source, turn-based strategy...
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Battle for Wesnoth: open-source, turn-based strategy game
Author : akyuu
Score : 350 points
Date : 2026-04-06 17:37 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wesnoth.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wesnoth.org)
| uberman wrote:
| I love this game. It is also fairly easy to tinker with the units
| if you are like me, that is a big win.
| bedroom_jabroni wrote:
| An absolute gem I came across randomly many years ago. Picked up
| Mewgenics and it left me wishing it had some mechanics from
| Wesnoth like faster animations (Mewgenics caps at 4x), undo
| action (at least if the action doesn't trigger any rng/damage
| behavior), skip enemy turns.
|
| I only wish they added more campaigns into the official lore.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Grew up playing Wesnoth, still adore the game. There is a TON of
| third party content and a serious extended universe, too!
| hyperionultra wrote:
| Could you name a few places to find 3rd party content?
| tmtvl wrote:
| Last time I checked there was an option on the main menu to
| download user-made campaigns.
| IsTom wrote:
| There's a "addons" browser in the game.
| rpmisms wrote:
| It's under the "add-ons" menu in game. I would recommend
| playing the top-ranked campaigns. Some amazing stuff in
| there. I adore Legend of the Invincibles. Fun story, tons of
| new gameplay mechanics.
| ramses0 wrote:
| A+! They even had an iOS version a while back:
| `https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-battle-for-wesnoth/id14507...`
| (this may be the "Mac" version, see: `https://www.reddit.com/r/we
| snoth/comments/1pjkwbw/i_had_wesn...`).
|
| If that's your jam then there's also a (non-open-source) "Hero's
| Hour" which tickles the old Heroes of Might and Magic stylings,
| works reasonably well on Xbox, where I've been doing most of my
| gaming lately.
|
| As far as Open Source gaming success stories, I'd put this up
| there in the Top 5 for "Original IP and Concept" (if that makes
| sense). Just a stellar labor of love, worth giving it a shot to
| play!
| haunter wrote:
| Also on Steam
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/599390/Battle_for_Wesnoth...
| WickyNilliams wrote:
| Don't suppose you've played in the steamdeck? Curious how
| well it works there
| everdrive wrote:
| I played the heck out of this about a decade ago. It's an amazing
| game, and I'd love to return to it and see what has changed.
| thatoneengineer wrote:
| Same!
| drob518 wrote:
| Same! Just downloaded the latest version for nostalgia's
| sake.
| myky22 wrote:
| Same, i think It was on my first Linux OS. The good old days
| hehe
| anilkuscu wrote:
| only missing point about this game is some of the real word
| parameters like moral,flanking etc. Maybe a real history mod
| would be amazing like ancient era or medieval ages.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Modern strategy games for leisure can be traced back to actual
| militaries or hardcore history buffs--systems that _would_ try
| to model morale etc., often to a degree which, er, doesn 't
| have mass-market appeal. :p
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail_(game)
| rhdunn wrote:
| My only gripe with the game is that healing doesn't give XP to
| the healing units. This means you need to place them in combat to
| level up instead of placing them behind the fighters like they
| are intended to be, and with them initially having low health
| they are very squishy. I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing
| a monster to 1-2 HP and then getting them to attack, but it feels
| like going against their role.
| marknutter wrote:
| It's OSS, no?
| tmtvl wrote:
| It is, but making a change that doesn't mess up the balance
| of the game can be tricky.
| jjmarr wrote:
| I've enjoyed this, honestly. There's a whole short-term
| pain/long-term gain tradeoff to risking healers that adds more
| strategy to the campaign.
|
| > I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing a monster to 1-2
| HP
|
| In practice, I've found it difficult to get monsters to 1-2 HP
| since it often means _not_ using your most powerful attacks. On
| harder difficulties I usually can 't afford the opportunity
| cost.
| gwerbin wrote:
| Yeah I personally found this to be a big part of the tactical
| and strategic challenge. It reminded me a lot of Pokemon
| where you have a similar challenge, of slotting "exposure to
| fighting" into a limited action and HP budget.
|
| Edit: Now that I think about it, _most_ turn-based games have
| this mechanic. It 's almost an idiomatic balance/design
| decision in gaming.
|
| Compare to Dota where support heroes have acquired more and
| more opportunities for assist gold/XP, it does in some sense
| make the game "easier" for the support players, but then the
| game is harder in other ways because now the supports are all
| way more farmed and dangerous than in older versions. It's
| the difference between controlling an army of many units and
| having to manage them all, versus controlling one unit and
| needing to work together within a team.
| vkou wrote:
| Dota/League does this because each hero is controlled by a
| human, and humans don't like playing low-impact, low-
| wealth, low-exp supports.
| 8note wrote:
| gloomhaven has a reasonable solution to this - some heals
| give experience, others dont, and often times gaining
| experience comes with giving up other resources
| thih9 wrote:
| > Frequently Proposed Ideas (FPIs)
|
| > 7. Healing/leadership should give experience
|
| > It is felt that allowing units to gain experience without
| risk would make leveling-up of such units inevitable. Further,
| one of the motivating examples of this is so that units such as
| shaman can have a hope to level up in multiplayer. It is
| pointed out that if the experience gains were high enough to
| allow shaman to level up in a single multiplayer game, then it
| would be trivial to gain the best type of healing unit in a
| campaign very quickly.
|
| https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=34904#w0fpi7
| (2011)
| a_t48 wrote:
| There's various ways around this (like capping amount of
| experience per level by source), but ain't game design fun?
| shevy-java wrote:
| It depends. Personally I think they should make
| alternatives more easy. For instance, under Options, for
| people to pick other ways to level up. Does not have to be
| 1000000 ways, just, say 3-5 ways in total, first one being
| the main default and only the main default is kept
| balanced, the rest can be unbalanced, just allowed per
| option as-is.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Other aspects of the game or mod-able, but such things as
| this I guess is against the grain enough to probably be
| difficult.
| otikik wrote:
| Isn't the strategy then to keep them behind the fighter units,
| wait until an enemy is 1 HP away from death, make the healer
| advance and make a kill, then put a fighter in front of them
| again?
| bluGill wrote:
| Yes, but people don't like that because everyonce in a while
| a unit misses completely and then it will be targeted and die
| the next turn.
| otikik wrote:
| No risk, no gain
| shevy-java wrote:
| An indirect compensation is that these units require less XP to
| advance, but I understand your concern too.
|
| > I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing a monster to 1-2
| HP and then getting them to attack, but it feels like going
| against their role.
|
| This is a problem with the XP-per-kill system. Wesnoth could
| use a variant instead. I use the above strategy all the time to
| level the healers up.
|
| Note that elven units have slow (their healers), which is very
| powerful in its own right for getting a kill on a unit. First
| slow, then deal damage with other units.
| jcmontx wrote:
| Never heard of this game. Is it similar to Warcraft III?
| orangesilk wrote:
| No. Warcraft 3 ist real time strategy, Wesnoth is turn based
| strategy.
| aetherson wrote:
| Not really. It's turn-based and hex-based.
| shellwizard wrote:
| Similar to panzer general then?
| the_af wrote:
| No. This is turn based, it doesn't play like any RTS game.
| markatto wrote:
| It's turn based, the most similar game I've played is probably
| Fantasy General. Closer to Advance Wars or Fire Emblem than
| Warcraft.
| jjmarr wrote:
| Highly suggest connecting with one of the lead developers,
| Charles Dang/Vultraz, if you have any C++ jobs in the USA.
|
| He's been a developer on Wesnoth since 2012 but only graduated
| university in 2024. Unfortunately, it's been an absolutely brutal
| market for new graduates. Even if you're a maintainer on one of
| the most popular OSS C++ projects on GitHub.
|
| I can't recommend him enough.
|
| edit: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-dang-10994b1b4
| wwilson wrote:
| Thanks,our company is in the DC area so I just reached out with
| an offer to chat. Wesnoth is an incredible project, I can't
| believe he doesn't have a programming job.
| szmarczak wrote:
| > Unfortunately, it's been an absolutely brutal market for new
| graduates.
|
| Furthermore, more and more companies are looking for
| "professional" devs using AI tools such as Claude Code. By
| "professional" I mean proficient in using those AI tools, not
| actual knowledge. And they don't even specify this in the job
| offer and you learn this during the interview.
| jjmarr wrote:
| I don't understand why you're downvoted. Many of my 2025
| graduate friends are seeing this problem.
|
| Unlimited token-based usage of Claude Code is not in the
| budget for many students and employees.
|
| At the same time, companies are demanding experience with
| these tools.
|
| This is stratifying the industry. I have many talented
| classmates that can only use free GitHub Copilot. They're
| likely being screened out in favour of rich classmates with
| $200/month Claude subs.
|
| As a result, they'll be more likely to get low-paying jobs
| that don't provide access to top-tier AI tools and the effect
| will compound.
|
| I think this'll be even worse as Claude phases out subsidies.
|
| If $2000/month subscription to Claude for 4 years of
| university is the minimum required for a Big Tech job, this
| field is going to become law/finance levels of cliquey.
|
| Nobody is talking about that because it's bad for both AI
| booster and skeptic narratives but it's happening.
| 8note wrote:
| i expect students have or will get claude access via their
| university, pr at a discount if they register with their
| university email?
|
| students generally get specific subsidized/free tiers for
| all kinds of tech
| jjmarr wrote:
| Claude has partnerships with specific universities but
| not the one I attended.
|
| I don't believe there's a general student discount for
| Claude.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I am very surprised if he can't find a job, as an American, in
| DC, with 12 years of C++ experience. Sure companies aren't
| great at assessing open source experience, but there is _one_
| area its _easy_ to find a job as a dev: work that requires a
| clearance.
| setgree wrote:
| St. John's college is a great place that draws a special type
| of young person, but its graduates are not very STEM-legible.
| As far as I know they still offer no choice of major & no
| hands-on classes -- just the great books.
|
| Of course that makes this person's skill all the more
| impressive.
| henryfjordan wrote:
| Not everyone will take a job that requires clearance because
| they are usually "defense" related.
| nimih wrote:
| Also, acquiring said clearance is not always
| straightforward, even if you lack sufficient scruples to be
| willing to pursue it in the first place.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| That is sad. Maintaining something like this really takes
| almost all the skills also needed for enterprise, or a dozen
| places.
|
| That it doesn't get him instant hired is the sad part, what are
| we coming to.
| EmeraldSky wrote:
| Even with 5 (albeit small) linux kernel patches, 2 Firefox
| patches.. employers weren't interested. I've stopped
| contributing to open source completely. I'm considering
| switching fields. It was interesting but these days I need some
| ROI, personally.
| orangesilk wrote:
| What would need to happen that more players are available for
| online games?
| mattlondon wrote:
| Blocked by Anubis? Just says "invalid response" with no
| explanation or instructions for how to fix it. Chrome on Android
| - not exactly niche.
|
| Thanks for that.
| tetromino_ wrote:
| Same happened for me when I clicked on the link, I had to
| delete the cookies for wesnoth.org and then load the site
| again. I think their Anubis setup might be broken a bit
| macleginn wrote:
| So it's like HMM but the whole map is in battle mode?
| MinimalAction wrote:
| Interesting! Is this similar to Age of Empires?
| phamilton wrote:
| More like Fire Emblem
| garretraziel wrote:
| Not at all. That would be a game called 0ad.
| CivBase wrote:
| Not really. This game uses a turn-based combat system with a
| hex grid. It's more like Sid Meier's Civilization, but with a
| _drastically_ simplified economy and a strong focus on battles.
| It also has a Tolkein-esque fantasy theme instead of a real-
| life history theme.
|
| If that sounds at all interesting, I suggest giving it a shot.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| think more hexbased, turnbased, terrain and dice roll mechanics
| with unit upgrades being extremely important.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| More like Heroes of Might and Magic. It's a turn-based strategy
| game where battles take place on a hex grid map. It's got full
| campaigns, lots of factions and units, resources to gather...
| it's one of my favorite OSS projects. Wesnoth has been in
| active development forever and is a real labor of love, as well
| as a showcase of collaborative game development.
| butlike wrote:
| More like Final Fantasy Tactics
| mdtrooper wrote:
| 0 A.D. https://play0ad.com/ is more similar to Age of Empires.
| plutokras wrote:
| In high school I kept a USB drive full of portable apps. This was
| one of them. I can still recommend it.
| coolgoose wrote:
| I've been playing this for 10+ years :) it's one awesome game and
| the details for sprites and art direction is sweet.
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| Sweet! Does anyone have a list of _high-quality_ open source
| games like this?
|
| (Subjective interpretation, but something like, "I couldn't
| believe it's free, I would have paid for it anyway.")
| ecshafer wrote:
| The Free Civ and Free Colonization games are good. Brogue,
| Nethack, DCSS are good if you like roguelikes. OpenMW is a
| totally open source reimplementation of Morrowind, so that
| might fit the bill.
| jordigh wrote:
| I know it's a very niche domain, but I feel this way about
| Lizard.
|
| My lizard is the lizard of website:
| https://rainwarrior.ca/lizard/
|
| My lizard is the lizard of source:
| https://github.com/bbbradsmith/lizard_src_demo/
| reddalo wrote:
| OpenRCT2 is a reimplementation of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2.
|
| Just like its cousing OpenTTD which is a reimplementation of
| Chris Sawyer's Transport Tycoon.
| fwipsy wrote:
| Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead: Like Dwarf Fortress but post-
| apocalyptic survival horror. Endless Sky: top-down space
| shooter inspired by Escape Velocity SuperTux: inspired by Super
| Mario SuperTuxKart: inspired by Mario Kart
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_video_game...
| and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_video_games...
| anthk wrote:
| Well:
|
| - Supertux2, it got recently revamped, the quality
| skyrocketed. Much better controls and artwork.
|
| - Supetux Advance, this is really great too.
|
| - Retux (More Wariolike than Mario)
|
| - Nethack/Slashem. A Roguelike more bound to
| interaction/exploration/mechanics than combat, but Slashem
| makes combat crazy with the Doppleganger Monk, which is
| basically a Shonen Manga, the role. (Dragon Ball/Naruto
| depending on your age).
|
| - DCSS. Basically, not Nethack/Slashem, much more combat
| oriented than the Slashem combinatorics playing with the Monk
| a la Jackie Chan, this is more like an ARPG made a Rogue.
|
| - Frotz/Lectrote/Winfrotz/whatver Z Machine interpreter and
| "All Things Devour". Spiritwrak, too. Great libre text
| adventures and _still_ enganing because of weird mechanics.
|
| - Frozen Bubble
|
| - OpenArena.
|
| - FreeDoom, better compiled with Deutex on daily builds.
|
| - FreeCiv.
|
| - OpenTTD today can be standalone enough.
|
| - Frozen Bubble
|
| - Minetest+tons of subgames such as Glitch, Nodecore...
|
| - OOlite
|
| - Speed Dreams. If the controls are hard, try the arcade
| mode. If the controls are still hard, get SupertuxKart, pick
| some real life car from the addons and get all the SD tracks
| from the inline downloader, they are several.
| avadodin wrote:
| OpenArena even has a browser version these days but sadly
| it doesn't seem to have any active servers anymore. I had
| progressed to the point where I could strafe jump and
| rocket jump all day.
| throw_await wrote:
| Luanti aka minetest
|
| Widelands as a settler clone
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| 0ad https://play0ad.com/
|
| My first reaction was exactly that; I can't believe it's free!
| efskap wrote:
| If you like arena shooters, Xonotic is quite remarkable.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xonotic
| tzot wrote:
| Oh, yeah! And I believe there are not many games which have
| Linux, Windows and MacOS versions allowing interplay. Several
| years ago we had one or two LAN parties with hardware running
| all three operating systems.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Endless Sky, GPLv3 space trading game. Being a space trucker is
| dangerously addictive.
| workethics wrote:
| Mindustry is worth a look if you like factorio and tower
| defense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindustry
|
| Edited to add:
|
| If you like RTS then Beyond All Reason is fantastic:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_All_Reason
| nilslindemann wrote:
| Not Open Source but still/now free to play (these are my favs,
| I played them through back and forth):
|
| - Trackmania Nations Forever (e.g. via Steam) -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj2u2OrZ2vI
|
| - Starcraft Brood War - though I have not tested it via the
| battlenet.exe, played it when it still was payware.
|
| - Gemcraft Labyrinth - played it when flash was a thing, but
| now it is again, e.g. on Armorgames
|
| And, I got games like Portal 1 & 2, Outer Wilds, Osmos,
| Manifold Garden, Planet Crafter and many more for under ten,
| some for under five Euros each when they were on special offer
| on Steam. I once got Just Cause 3 for three Euros.
| philip-b wrote:
| I heard about this game many many times due to software
| developers showcasing it as an example of a good libre videogame.
| However, I don't know a single person who played it and I have
| never seen anyone recommending it for its gameplay.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| i played it, its fine, its a solid game. Easily can lose
| several hours in a session and probably played over 40 in
| total. Its enjoyable to play through due to the upgrading
| mechanics and wanting to see all the potential evolutions. That
| said, I'm not always a huge fan of the level design as you're
| often encouraged to play into negative fights (e.g. the timing
| for meeting the enemy aligns with their daytime bonuses) which
| forces you to play a bit more defensively than I'd like.
| azrazalea wrote:
| It is a relatively simple formula that is very combat heavy
| with extremely simple economy. The campaigns are excellent
| though and as long as the true randomness of attacks/defense
| doesn't drive you crazy it is a lot of fun. Very challenging
| and has real strategic and tactical depth as well as pretty
| well balanced.
|
| I personally never did multiplayer but last I checked the
| multiplayer community was pretty healthy.
| bitwank wrote:
| That's absurd. It is the only game I've ever played other than
| chess. Maybe it's not popular with FPS gamers, but a lot of
| people don't like FPS.
| steveharing1 wrote:
| Open Source Games are really underrated Gems
| helle253 wrote:
| Fond memories, playing this throughout my youth :')
| dhbradshaw wrote:
| My kids and I have been playing this for about 20 years. It's
| worked on Linux, Mac and Windows and has never stopped working.
|
| In the meantime so many other favorite games have disappeared or
| become obsolete.
|
| There's no absolute reason great games can't be as immortal as
| chess. Maybe Wesnoth can be.
| steviedotboston wrote:
| I remember playing this a lot back in the Ubuntu 6 days.
| rdevilla wrote:
| I loved this game playing on an Arch Thinkpad in university with
| budget graphics capability.
|
| The best part is being able to pin locations on the map for your
| teammates, so we were able to plot the adventures and
| battlegrounds of a goated unit by naming the pins "Ronant's
| Triumph," "Ronant's Revenge," "Ronant's Folly," and ultimately
| "Ronant's Last Stand." Great times with a few beers and the lads.
|
| RIP Ronant, Wesnoth will never see another hero of your like
| again.
| shevy-java wrote:
| What is pretty cool is how long-living the project has been. I
| have seen many open source games die over the last 2 decades;
| some were quite cool. So wesnoth staying alive is pretty epic in
| itself.
| midzer wrote:
| There is even an Android build since this year
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.wesnoth.Wesnoth/
| pferde wrote:
| I tried it on my tablet last month, and it's pretty unplayable.
| The touchscreen input needs a lot of work, half the time it
| does something completely wrong and random, like selecting a
| tile halfway across the screen from where you touched.
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(page generated 2026-04-06 23:00 UTC)