# Battle for Wesnoth

39 Hacker News commenters recommended Battle for Wesnoth and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 10 years (5 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free, open-source turn-based hex strategy game with deep tactics and long campaigns; critics say combat luck and XP rules can frustrate.

## Why people recommend it

- Long-lived, well-loved open-source project (4 comments): "I still think it's the best Open Source game I've ever played." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47669860)) "it's one of my favorite OSS projects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47665682)) "how long-living the project has been" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47666875))
- Runs well on modest, cross-platform hardware (3 comments): "I loved this game playing on an Arch Thinkpad in university with budget graphics capability." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47666647)) "It's worked on Linux, Mac and Windows and has never stopped working." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47665956)) "Battle for Wesnoth can run on <4 GB." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48178325))
- Tactical depth and situational strategy (3 comments): "There's a whole short-term pain/long-term gain tradeoff to risking healers that adds more strategy to the campaign." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47665286)) "Wesnoth is great if you like games where you have to create and exploit situational advantages." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50233323)) "I personally found this to be a big part of the tactical and strategic challenge" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47665580))
- Strong campaigns and scenario maps (2 comments): "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." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47665704)) "I always thought the "single map" or "scenario maps" of Wesnoth were excellent" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47670563))

## What people warn about

- Combat luck can decide outcomes (2 comments): "At the more difficult levels it is really easy to get to a point where your strategy relies on a high probability event" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47674170)) "i want to have fun, not some pseudo random roll the bones simulator" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47670304))
- XP-per-kill and healing rules (2 comments): "This is a problem with the XP-per-kill system." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47666908)) "healing doesn't give XP to the healing units" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47664954))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Sid Meier's Civilization](https://hackerapproved.com/p/civilization.md): 25 recommend
- [Sid Meier's Civilization III](https://hackerapproved.com/p/civilization-iii.md): 20 recommend
- [Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri](https://hackerapproved.com/p/alpha-centauri.md): 16 recommend
- [Heroes of Might and Magic III](https://hackerapproved.com/p/heroes-of-might-and-magic-iii.md): 16 recommend
- [Civilization IV](https://hackerapproved.com/p/civilization-iv.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Battle for Wesnoth", https://hackerapproved.com/p/battle-for-wesnoth/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).