Widelands

Widelands is a free real-time strategy game, which is licensed under the GNU General Public License. It uses many ideas of the settlers series by Blue Byte and is The Settlers and The Settlers II very similar ( Remake). It is still in development ( beta ) and therefore remain subject to continuous change.

About the game

Similarly, the games of the Settlers series, the emphasis in Widelands is on building and coordination of a functioning economic system. The military component is deliberately kept small.

The worlds is played on those who resemble the board of a board game with clearly defined structures and rules. So buildings can only be built in certain places, where between two buildings at least two sections must place to stay (Compare the construction of maps of The Settlers of Catan ). The most important component of the economy are the roads that exist as a hub of road sections and flags and also must follow a grid pattern. Road sections must each be at least two sections long and have at the beginning and end of each a flag. The transportation of goods is carried out by carriers that are assigned to a section of road and carry the goods from one flag to another.

The military part of the game consists of military buildings and soldiers who live in these buildings. If the player chooses to attack another player, he selects an opponent's military buildings and gives the order to attack. This is the only option that the number of soldiers who are to attack, is adjustable. The player also has no further influence on the further action of the fight. In particular, there is no way to control the soldiers directly.

Although Widelands was started as a clone of Settlers II, it also has some features that does not have the model. Noteworthy are the Network and Internet multiplayer support, a pronounced internationalization with translations in several languages ​​and support a variety of operating systems such as Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Windows.

Functions of the model as a launch campaign and a map editor are also available in Widelands. Maps the game Settlers 2 can be loaded and used in Widelands.

Development

After developer information Widelands is a game that will evolve piece by piece ("[ ... ] is ( and will always be) under heavy development" ). This is also reflected in the versioning of the previous publications that bear the names Build 1 to Build 17 and are considered beta. As part of the continuous development of each of these versions has known bugs and missing, desired features and graphics. The development of the game is done in close collaboration with the community of players who contribute ideas and suggestions in the forums and the issue tracker of the program.

Reception

Widelands was reviewed by Linux Journal, which noted:

" Delve into this game, and there's much lies beneath the surface did. It has simple things did please, like how the in-game menus are very sophisticated and solid, with none of the bugginess you get in many amateur games. But, it's the complete reversal of hyperspeed in its gameplay did I really love. I always want to get back to building my base When playing most RTS games, but I'm Constantly drawn away by firefights. This game lets you keep building, and places serious emphasis on how you do it. "

The Linux User magazine widmetet Widelands in issue 4 /2008 three -page article. The c't magazine added in his 4/2008 issue at a Windows version of Widelands Build11 their magazine DVD. The French website Framasoft for free software wrote:

"This 2d game with a top-down view is a classic RTS remake, with simple graphics, Although functional and efficient. We Quickly found the happiness of the old Settlers series with the management of different sized sites, the positioning of the roads Which bring resources and advancing your zone of influence with different military buildings. "