The Battle for Wesnoth is a free and open-source[a] turn-based strategy video game with a high fantasy setting (similar to J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium), designed by Australian-American[b] developer David White and first released in June 2003.

Different types of attacks (melee and ranged), weapon types (pierce, blade, impact, arcane, cold, and fire), and a day-night cycle (in most maps) that alternately favors lawful and chaotic units, altering the amount of damage a unit deals.

[10][11] A central design philosophy of the game is the KISS principle; for a new idea to be accepted, it should not complicate gameplay.

Developers have stated that the potential for a skirmish to go better or worse than expected adds excitement, replayability and strategic depth to the game.

[13] The Battle for Wesnoth takes place in a world populated by Tolkienesque races such as humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and trolls, as well as Wesnoth-specific races such as dragon-like Drakes, which are creatures distantly related to dragons, but are bipedal, have an organized, albeit warlike, culture, and are only about 10 feet tall.

Campaign stories span the history and geography of the world, but most focus on the eponymous human kingdom of Wesnoth, which suffers frequent invasions of orcish raiders and the undead.

For example, the Imperial Era includes the Roman-influenced Lavinians, the Marauders, and the Wild Elves, featuring completely new unit trees and abilities.

An alternative era, which contains the Islam-influenced faction Khalifate, was integrated (as of January 2014) in the official development line, Wesnoth 1.11.8,[22] tested to become part of the mainline version.

Other campaigns feature different factions, like the dwarves in "The Hammer of Thursagan" or "Northern Rebirth" or "Sceptre of Fire", the loyalist army of Wesnoth in "The South Guard" or "The Eastern Invasion", and undead in "Descent into Darkness" or "Secrets of the Ancients".

Finally, "Under the Burning Suns" is set in the distant future, long after the time of the other campaigns, featuring elves who fight better during the day.

A multiplayer campaign titled "World of Conquest" is added to the game on version 1.16 after previously being an unofficial add-on.

As its name suggests, WML is similar to XML and other markup languages in syntax with tags defining events and sides in a scenario.

[31] David White began development of Wesnoth because he wanted to create a freely available, open source strategy game with very simple rules, but one that had difficult to beat artificial intelligence and that was challenging and fun — a game that was easy to learn but hard to master.

The Wesnoth forums and wiki are used to develop new campaigns, including new unit types and story artwork.

Even when not counting this community content, the list of contributors to the official version of the game as displayed in-game contains over 550 unique entries (May 2010).

Developers of the game also include well-known authors from the free software and open source scene, like the co-founder of the Open Source Initiative and core Linux kernel developer Eric S. Raymond,[34] or Linux kernel programmer Rusty Russell.

[44] The music development team is currently headed by Mattias Westlund and includes some well-known composers like Doug Kaufman and Timothy Pinkham[45] and the game's soundtrack is licensed as free music under the GNU General Public License and rendered in the Ogg Vorbis format.

Khalifate units use no magic, but instead are intended to rely on careful use of terrain and coordinated strikes around dusk or dawn.

[26] Aside of the stand-alone source and binary releases, Wesnoth was previously made available through the Desura digital distribution service.

This development version is rolling subject to further tweaking and polishing, depending on the wesnoth community feedback.

[59] In 2010, RPGFan gave it an 88/100, mentioning that "despite its generous price tag, BfW offers more quality and quantity than almost any commercial title available".