Reviving the How to Play series

[monochromatic]

Even given my recent lack of time to contribute to this fantastic game, I would still love to continue this project. Apparently this project died shortly after I started it back in 2010, and much of the people I was working with don't seem to be around anymore. In any case, it's time to get back to writing!

My view on this has changed from before (see below for the original post), so I'll briefly explain. In short, there are many ways to play each particular faction, and there will always be opposing views on specificities on unit roles as well as the general effectiveness of certain unit tactics. I believe the How to Play series could eventually become an effective introduction to multiplayer (especially 1v1), and thus this guide should be aimed at more inexperienced players. Not complete newcomers, however (they should be directed to the Tutorial and The South Guard), but players who understand the basic mechanics and would like to enter Wesnoth's active multiplayer scene. Therefore, I would like to create more general and modular entries rather than specific and detailed analyses of faction matchups—that can be left to the forums!

In light of this, I'm thinking of dropping the old rating system in favor of a hopefully well-written general description of the faction and its strengths and weaknesses. We would still have the faction matchup pages, but re-written into a more objective, basic style rather than the old detailed style.

Ideally, this would end up on the wiki after its finished, but we still have a long way to go.
EDIT: For now, I'm dumping all the written articles onto my wiki userpage, so it's all in one place. You can read the articles there or in this thread.

original post:

Some helpful links: The How to Play series | Guide Index

This thread as of now will be for the discussion of the format and role of the How to Play series. ParadiseCity will take care of organizing the index of the guides as such. He will post a thread soon, if you want your guide to be linked, contact him.

I'll put up the full list of contributors when I can retrieve all the info I lost. And as always, in alphabetical order.
Original Concept and Design: JW
Current Maintainers: elvish_sovereign, ParadiseCity
Contributors: Elvish_Pillager, elvish_sovereign, JW, Huumy, ParadiseCity, nelson, Velensk

Anyways, our main discussion topics:

• Official format for the guide, please let's come up with something and we all stick with it.
• The philosophy behind it, like what's really the role of the guide, and thus how we should write guides in that light. See below.
• Possibly a new title? Discuss.

My idea of the preface or something...kind of like the philosophy as well...comment and make suggestions for improvement:
In a game like Battle for Wesnoth, there is no way any single guide could comprise of a comprehensive list of strategies or such. Everyone one plays the game differently, which is one of the beauties of the game. Thus as a 'strategy guide' it cannot fulfill to describe tactics and/or long-time strategies for each and every player. In fact, it would be foolish to do so.

What is the point of a strategy guide anyway? It is to give possibilities and/or pointers to the player so they can make their decisions with less trouble. Not to dictate what the player should do, but rather to give suggestions as to how to play. Thus, the point of a guide like this is to only give pointers to the reader on the game. Therefore, rather than giving detailed and precise comments on particular aspects of anything, it should give a rough outline of what to do and leave the rest up to the player. This way it can accommodate the different play-styles of each player and yet give pointers on how to play a matchup, for example.

With this in mind, the 'How to Play...' series is intended to be a quick, easy guide to refer to in the midst of a game, for example, to check-up on how you are doing, or if there are any alternate strategies or tactics to use, and not a detailed walkthrough of sorts. Also, this guide is not the work of a single person (although we all greatly respect and admire the work of JW, who started all of this), but the work of many who contributed thoughts and pieces of advice to the guide.

Thank you everyone who contributed to the project, especially JW, who began it all; the always-supportive Wesnoth Community, who helped us all the way; and of course all you readers and players, who inspired us to write this all down.

[Hulavuta]

I can help. With strategy bits.

[Dixie]

Well I think it can be nice, but I don't have much to contribute except my wishing good luck The model is good, and you are somewhat on the right way with your previous How to plays, I think. Anyway, just continue your stuff in the format you like on the forum so people can comment them, and someday you'll have everything you need to compile a full How to play guide.

[monochromatic]

In the original thread, you see that the HtP series is very ambitious; it not only will include faction to faction descriptions as we associate with it today, but lots of general strategies and guides for all of the mainline maps. Plus add-ons (well I won't do that until I finish all the mainline stuff). That's a lot of work.

I was thinking, since I'm being crazy anyway, should I include the walkthroughs of the mainline campaigns as well? I mean, that page is very outdated and needs serious updating. I haven't finished any of the expert level campaigns except for UtBS (well, I almost finished NR and got more than halfway through SotBE), so I will need someone to finish the expert level stuff. Thoughts?

And another thing. Should the prose of the guide be formal, like the other game guides/manuals out there, or should the tone be informal and light, like most of the guide already is? Discuss.

[Hulavuta]

I would always go for informal. It makes the player feel more comfortable, and it's a hell of a lot easier to understand.

maybe you should have walkthroughs of non-mainline campaigns too? These seem to get as many plays (or more) as mainline ones. IftU and Flight to Freedom come to mind.

[monochromatic]

maybe you should have walkthroughs of non-mainline campaigns too? These seem to get as many plays (or more) as mainline ones. IftU and Flight to Freedom come to mind.

Sure. I would say the same with the add-on eras as well. But, first we should finish the mainline, because that is actually shipped with the game.

[Hulavuta]

Hmm, perhaps I should take it upon myself to make a walkthrough for FtF...

[Pentarctagon]

Sure. I would say the same with the add-on eras as well.

just thinking about trying to do this for ageless era made me laugh a little , good luck with this though.

[Dixie]

I would say: concentrate on mainline stuff first. Also: concentrate on juste the factionnal matchups first. When you finish this, if you find yourself asking for more, start the mainline campaigns. When you finish that, and if you're still asking for more, you can probably do any UMC stuff you'd like to But you shouldn't just set yourself all kinds of ambitious goals and spread yourself everywhere, and then halfway through most of the stuff just give up because there's so much, and end with having nothing really completed. Work on one thing at a time. IMHO, method could possibly save your ass there

[monochromatic]

Yeah I know. I'm not the type to spears spreads myself too thin. Heck, I wasn't even sure if we should include campaigns into the guide. But yes, first is the faction matchups, then general faction strategies, and then general MP strategies.

EDIT: wth?

[monochromatic]

Okay, Loyalists stuff in progress. I'm about to place Loyalists vs. Northerners in the wiki, but I have a slight change I want to discuss.

I see a lot arguments about the ratings. Whether B+ fits better than B for Unit A, but Unit B may or may not be more useful, so that should be B+, not B... Anyways, I'm thinking to drop the grading system.

To replace it, what about using stars, like in iTunes? ***** being the most useful and * being the least. I mean, at least for us asian kids, a C is not a good score, while *** represents an average unit. It would be much less complicated, and would represent the units' roles better, rather than having 4 units all in the B area, debating who should be B+, B, and B-, etc. Thoughts?

PS I've tried that in the Loyalists vs. Northerners page. Check it out.

Hmm...no-one is really commenting. I guess I'll need build a better reputation for this? Both on forums and as a player I guess.

[Doin]

If needed, I would like to add to the undead-part, only question, is it immediately on the wiki, or in a RTF-file that we mail/share??

[Huumy]

I started to make my own how to play guide. You can use my stuff too, directly or edited. Cause they kinda have the same layout and I don't mind at all if some1 uses them for good purposes ofc.
If you use my stuff just make sure to make clear what stuff is written by me.

[Sir_Koi]

Hmm...no-one is really commenting. I guess I'll need build a better reputation for this? Both on forums and as a player I guess.

Or you could put links in the first post to each thread (time consuming but helpful to make this a hub thread).

[monochromatic]

@Doin post threads on the forums. That way we can see it and comment on it with some really good players.

@Huumy I see you're working on updating Undead. I think the guide should be all in one format? Don't worry, not only will the respective guides have credits to who wrote them, Huumy you're getting the credit for the layout. This is meant to be a collaborative guide; I'm only a maintainer and contributor. (I consider JW to be the big daddy of all of this )

@Sir_Koi I'll do that. Sounds good.