The Battle for Wesnoth 1.18
Draconic Invasions Update

What’s New in This Update

For Players

Wesnoth’s rendering has been completely overhauled, leading to a significantimprovement in performance with our own tests showing a nearly 60% boost inFPS. This will of course vary depending on the computer you’re using to runWesnoth, but will in all cases result in a much smoother and more consistentexperience across all areas of the game.

All factions in the Default era have gone through major updates to ensurestandard 1v1 games are more balanced and to allow campaigns to use the newvariable recall cost mechanic. Higher level units have also had a variety ofadjustments to better balance the Age of Heroes era as well as survivalscenarios where high level units are common. Level three advancements forthe Saurian Oracle and Saurian Soothsayer have been added and the OrcishNightblade now serves as the default advancement for the Orcish Slayer.

Campaigns

A new campaign,Winds of Fate, has been added to the game! Thisis the first Drake campaign to be included in Wesnoth, showing their fightfor survival and tumultuous return to Wesnoth’s Great Continent as they fleetheir sinking island homes.

Eastern Invasion — the first Loyalist campaign ever added toWesnoth — has been fully remade with far deeper characters and greaterscenario variety augmented by much more dynamic AI opponents. Several loreconflicts with other campaigns have also been resolved.

And lastly, the Quenoth faction in the campaignUnder the BurningSuns has been given an overhaul to make them more interesting — herounits can now gain unique bonuses when advancing while regular units havenew abilities and new weapon effects for their attacks, making this a uniqueexperience among Wesnoth’s campaigns.

Multiplayer

Players can now view a history of their own previously played games and cansearch the history of other players as well by clicking the Match Historybutton in the on-line multiplayer lobby. This shows information on the gameitself, the players in the game, the era used, any modifications enabled,and lets you download the game’s replay to watch for yourself. Additionally,there’s anon-linedashboard available with more general data about games played.

A clear separation has been made for auto-hosted games such as Afterlife vscustom games hosted by other players. Games hosted by players will be in theGeneral Lobby tab, while auto-hosted games will be in the Matchmakingtab. To aid with reporting problematic players or games, the/report command now shows a dialogue where information aboutthe issue can be entered. And to better handle server disconnects due tonetwork issues, Wesnoth will now automatically detect when your connectionis lost and alert you to the problem.

The King of the Hill map has been updated to encourage players to claim thecentre keep — whichever side holds the hill gains significant bonus incomeand the first player to take control will obtain a treasure chest containinga tidy sum.

And, as a cherry on top, the waterfall on Isar’s Cross is now animated.

For Content Creators

Wesnoth now has built-in support for achievements! These achievementsarenot Steam achievements, however because of that they are not limited toa pre-defined set of achievements available only to the base game — add-onscan define their own achievements and can even add additional achievementsto other add-ons or to mainline. For this initial version, achievements arealready implemented for the tutorial campaign,Descent intoDarkness,Eastern Invasion,Liberty, andthe co-op multiplayer mapsDark Forecast,Isle ofMists,A New Land andTeam Survival.

For distributing your add-ons, Wesnoth now allows using your forum user nameand password when uploading. When using this approach, the add-on’spassphrase is instead stored in the encrypted credentials file rather thanplain-text in your_server.pbl, which is more secure, but italso means that if you lose your password you can use the forum’s passwordrecovery to regain access to your add-ons. Additionally, this allowsspecifying other users who are allowed to upload updates to the add-on, foradd-ons which are developed collaboratively by multiple people. Your_server.pbl will also be validated prior to uploading youradd-on, so you will know of any issues before the upload takes place ratherthan afterwards.

The scenario editor has received a major upgrade: instead of only being ableto understand single scenario files, it is now capable of creating theskeleton of a brand new add-on as well as providing a UI for creating therequired_server.pbl. This means it’s now possible to create anadd-on, the add-on’s_server.pbl, its scenarios, and upload theadd-on for others to play, all from within Wesnoth.

The map editor similarly has been given a significant improvement: it’s nowpossible to add cliffs and valleys, which can be used to add quite a bit ofdepth to your maps. Beyond that, there’s been a variety of newterrains and fauna units added from palisade walls, seashell embellishments,and seaweed terrain to fire ants, giant jumping spiders, and rocs.

A wide variety of units have likewise had their sprites improved and hadvarious animations added, primarily Loyalists, Orcs, and Trolls but alsosome Elf and Undead units.

And finally, LuaCATS documentation has been added for nearly all of the Luafunctions that Wesnoth defines, providing auto-complete when typing anddocumentation when hovering over the function. This was written primarilyfor Visual Studio Code, but should work with any editor that has a LuaCATSplug-in.

Contribute

The Battle for Wesnoth is constantly being improved andexpanded upon by a multitude of international volunteers from diversebackgrounds. Since its inception in July 2003, hundreds of people havecontributed to all areas of the game, from mainline content shipped as partof the official releases to hundreds of player-made projects available todownload from our add-ons server. Whether you need help beating a particularscenario or adding a feature to your custom maps,Wesnothboasts a massive community of players and creators always willing to help.

Besides creating your own add-on content, there are many other ways you canhelpWesnoth:

• Contribute code
• Create art forthe main game or for user-madeadd-ons
• Translate thegame into your language
• Produce newmusic tracks and sound effects
• Spread the word aboutWesnoth on social media!

More Info

• Full Change-Log (Englishonly)
• User’sManual
• Official Website (English only)

• Wesnoth 1.16 Release Notes
• Wesnoth 1.14 Release Notes
• Wesnoth 1.12 Release Notes
• Wesnoth 1.10 Release Notes