Wesnoth. Olothontor already blogged about this yesterday, but on a different note. He seemed to mainly be venting on the shortcomings of the Knalgan Alliance (aka Dwarves). I'm going to talk about winning and losing, zones of control, income, rushing... basically, strategy as a whole.

This is title Part One for a pretty good reason; I don't intend to finish in this post, and hope to have at least two or three Wesnoth-related articles up within the near future. I'm going to try and cover strategy (macro), tactics (micro), faction choice, dealing with unfavorable outcomes, blitzkreig-style attack, economics, and the art of misdirection. A lot of those tie into each other: the last one is short-term tactical work, the two before it are strategic ideas, and so on. So, let's start at the beginning.

Before You Get Started...

This article draws from three main sources:

1. My experience
2. Sun Tzu's The Art of War
3. The Wesnoth game manual (found here)

Tzu's work only applies in some areas; a lot of his writing deals with winning without fighting, something you obviously can't do in Wesnoth. The Wesnoth Manual devotes a third of itself to playing successfully in the "Strategy and Tips" section (here's the English one), and it's a very good idea to read up on this before you go any further. The concepts of Zone of Control, time of day, and unit cycling are critical.

The Beginning: Strategy vs Tactics

Those two words, "strategy" and "tactic," are used interchangeably in a lot of places. But it's important to know the difference between them and how to apply each.

Strategy is a long-term, overall plan. Think big: campaigns, routes, territory.

Tactics are the zoomed-in versions of a strategy: you deal on the individual unit level instead of army level. Tiles come into play instead of zones of forest or field.

So what does this all mean? Those two concepts leave you with a simple task: think on two levels. You have to consider the overall strategy of the map, as well as the individual battles you are facing. Let's start with the strategic aspect of that.

Map-Level Thinking

When you first start a game, it's a good idea to look around the map and get a feel for the place. Here's one that I'll use in this post (no, not real; just sketched it up):

As you might correctly assume, the blue stuff's a river, brown's a road, the green things are forest, spikes are mountains, and bumps are hills.

So, there's a map, you've gotten a good look at it. What traits does it have? First off, there are two main paths of attack per team, and three areas they need to defend as well. The obvious route, applicable for both, is the central road that leads through the forest and river. It's probably going to be the site of most of the action. But what about that discontinuity between the attack/defense paths?

Therein lies the rub. Let's talk from the southern castle's point of view. Straight north, towards and across the river, is a flat plain past the mountains. Taking a right after the river, you have a nearly-straight shot to the opposing leader. That's attack route #2. There will be resistance here, which means the possibility of a counterattack, so you have to defend it as well. But what's to your castle's right? The same thing. Due to the hills and forests in the way, it's not really a good avenue of attack for your army. As pointed out above, though, it's a great way to sneak around the main armies at the road. And that's your third defense zone.

What You Take Away From That

Map's been observed, and you've figured out some key positions. What does that leave you with?

Well, for starters, you now have a basic understanding of where to send your troops, and how much. The bulk should go to the center to hold of off enemies headed up the road (if there aren't any, then just head for the castle, of course!). About 25 or 30 percent of your army should probably go for the flank via the northern route. The rest, at least early in the game, should be sent to the east to stand guard on the hills in case your opponent has the same idea.

Now it's time to deal with the engagements you're sending units to.

Units & Tiles

Two parts to this area: the strategic aspect and the tactical one.

Strategy of Tiles

Whether you are attacking or defending, the tiles your units stand on are the most important thing there is. All units get their defense rating (the opponent's miss chance) from the tile they stand on. A single unit at a choke point can't be killed if he can't get hit, and the way you help that process along is to choose favorable locations for your battles.

In the map above, there's a forest that the road passes through. The team that arrives there first is clearly going to have the advantage, because most units gain a significant bonus by standing in forests, generally around the same as being on a village (even more for elves: 70%!). That team also ends up with a great place to attack from: the troops coming for them will either be in a river (very low defense) or in the field (low/average defense).

And as I also suggested above, when defending the outside passes, troops should take to the hills. This is especially important for Dwarves, Orcs, and Goblins, all of which gain significant bonuses on them. Attacking from the plains against such a unit will never end well without some kind of artificial boost (marksmanship, magic, and so on)

Tiles In Regards To Tactics

Now that the basic unit positioning is set, it's time for the tile-level approach. Starting at the forest, one should consider the obvious: high-health and/or high-attack units should stand on the forest tiles, while their backup/cycling units should hold the plains and tiles behind them. No unit should really be in the river; that's a 20% defense zone for most units. Let the attackers take the lower ground, and make them give you an advantage.

Notice that to the northwest and southeast of the river there are hills that form a sort of path towards the outside passes; this presents an opportunity for the attacker. By skirting the river on those hills and heading towards the passes, a unit does two things:

1. Siphons reinforcements towards the pass (or at least appears to; misdirection will be covered in Part Two), which will make the opponent rethink his unit placement and relocate troops from some other front.
2. Extends a zone of control over the surrounding river tiles. The net result is that if the forest team moves units from the path, they will have to pass through the river area, and this ZOC locks them down in a low-defense area.

If the pass-bound troops break through the hills and do, somehow, manage to head for the opposing castle, they now have a prime position to attack from. The injured units behind the main line at the road are exposed to them, for starters, giving easy kills and XP. Those units could also move to the mountains and hills that gate the road, which allows any outbound units from the castle to easily be ambushed and dispatched.

Conclusion

That's it for Part One. It doesn't seem complete because, well, it isn't. Some things are still up in the air, and I wasn't quite sure what I was going to write about until I started typing. Part Two will hopefully be up soon to cover lines & cycling in more detail, along with distractions & misdirective engagements (see also: clever uses for ZOC).