Battle for Wesnoth News

Just in time for Christmas, we're releasing two patches, one regular and one to the beta channel! The former includes mostly small changes and bugfixes, while the latter includes more significant developments. Chief among those is Apple Silicon support! Note this is only available on the beta channel release, and (especially given how new the platform is), we would appreciate reports of any issues Mac players have with this new patch.

Happy (late) Hanukkah, and Merry (early) Christmas!

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• Fix potential crashes when working with installed add-ons that have a corrupted _info.cfg file.
  

• Descent into Darkness:
  • S11: fix low probability case of enemy being unreachable
    
  • S11: recall ghosts if available and ensure the player gets one level 2 ghost.
    

• Eastern Invasion:
  • S03: fix the initial keep being blocked at the start
    

• Updated translations: British English, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Turkish
  

• Fixed formatting of hyperlinks when the same URL appears more than once in a block of text
  

• Fixed a rare issue on Windows that could result in wesnoth.exe sticking around waiting for console input after encountering an error despite not being launched with the `--wconsole` option.
  
• Removed documentation for network proxy-related command line options previously removed in version 1.13.1 along with libana.
  

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• Fix potential crashes when working with installed add-ons that have a corrupted _info.cfg file.
  
• Improved license information prompt for uploads.
  

• Fixed inability to write files (including the server configuration file) on Windows.
  
• Dropped plain text passphrase migration, unused in production since version 1.12.7 and 1.13.0 (issue #5080).
  
• Uploading add-ons with versions not greater than the latest uploaded version is no longer allowed (issue #5079).
  
• Implemented optional server information query used by connecting clients.
  

• Dead Water
  • Reduce campaign difficulty
    

• Eastern Invasion:
  • Tweak campaign difficulty
    
  • S03: fix the initial keep being blocked at the start
    

• Heir to the Throne
  • Tweak campaign difficulty
    

• The Hammer of Thursagan
  • Reduce campaign difficulty
    

• The South Guard
  • Reduce campaign difficulty
    

• Added `/roll N` command to multiplayer games and game lobbies which produces a publicly visible random integer number ranged from 1 to N inclusively (issue #5221, PR #5326).
  

• SDL_Image 2.0.2 or later is now required (was 2.0.0).
  

• Updated translations: British English, Czech, Italian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Turkish
  

• Undead variations for Falcon, Giant Rat, serpents, and Gorer/Tusklet
  

• Minor streamlining on the Game Version and Add-ons Manager dialogs.
  
• Text labels now use the hyperlink mouse cursor while hovering links.
  
• Link awareness is now configured on a per-instance basis for labels/scroll labels instead of globally in their definition.
  

• Add a overwrite_specials option for weapon special abilities to allow the effect of the ability to take precedence over the effect of any identical weapon special.
  

• Fixed several possible crashes in wmllint
  
• Screenshots now default to JPG instead of PNG
  
• Fixed screenshot popup sometimes using the wrong path when trying to open the screenshot after saving
  

• Added basic command line options.
  
• Add-on validation status responses can now be translated by the client.
  
• Fixed an issue where incremental downloads would always transmit a delta for updating from the very earliest available version of an add-on to the very latest, instead of using the current and target versions specified by the client.
  
• Incremental downloads are no longer allowed to cheat the download counts.
  

• It is now possible to install previous versions of an add-on if present and not expired on the server.
  

• A Tale of Two Brothers:
  • S02: Changed the antagonists' motive and dialogue to sound more believable
    

• Secrets of the Ancients:
  • Revisions to Bone Captain
    
  • Scenario 2 uses new Iron Fence terrain, in preparation for potential map revisions.
    
  • While the two leaders are separated, only the currently active one learns new zombie types.
    

• Sceptre of Fire:
  • Scenario 2p5: increased the turn limit by 1 and enhanced victory filter conditions
    
  • Scenario 4: fixed a bug that prevented resources from spawning and added some small flavor adjustments
    
  • Some revisions/bugfixes to Scenario 9 "Caverns of Flame"
    

• During allies' turns, use orb colors to show which ones can still move (issue #1424). Also enabled for allied AI sides in singleplayer.
  

• New barrier terrain: Iron Fence (`^Eqf`) - similar layout to the existing wooden fence
  

• Updated translations: British English, Catalan, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil)
  

• Decreased Icemonax's advancement XP requirement from 26 to 25 to match other dead-end L0 units.
  
• Portrait and animation graphics for some of the new Wesnoth Fauna
  
• Balancing:
  • Dune Rider xp changed from 42 to 47.
    
  • Sunderer line defense on hills changed from 60% to 50%.
    
  • Scorcher gold cost changed from 23 to 25.
    
  • Dragoon gold cost changed from 27 to 28.
    
  • Elvish Rider gold cost changed from 32 to 28.
    

• Added the installable/upgradable version selection to the add-ons manager via a dropdown list
  
• Fixed formatting of hyperlinks when the same URL appears more than once in a block of text
  

• Fixed a rare issue on Windows that could result in wesnoth.exe sticking around waiting for console input after encountering an error despite not being launched with the `--wconsole` option.
  
• Fixed a potential crash when drawing many images on the story screens.
  
• Fixed the schema's list of attributes supported by IntroWML.
  
• Fixed and renamed IntroWML's `[image]resize_with_background=yes` to keep images proportional to the background.
  
• Fixed precise log timestamps missing a space between the timestamp and the log severity label.
  
• Improve the in-game help's topic about orbs, add crowns and ellipses.
  
• Removed documentation for network proxy-related command line options previously removed in version 1.13.1 along with libana.
  

Note this patch is only available to beta channel players.

• Implemented support for incremental add-on downloads and uploads (issue #5046, PR #5038).
  

• The server configuration no longer contains the add-ons list/metadata (PR #5038):
  • Metadata is now stored in individual `data//addon.cfg` files (PR #5038).
    
  • Full add-on packs are now stored as `data//full_pack_.gz` files instead of `data/`.
    
  • Hash indexes of full add-on packs are stored as `data//full_pack_.hash.gz`.
    

• Implemented support for incremental add-on downloads and uploads (issue #5046, PR #5038):
  • Incremental update packs are stored as `data//.gz`files.
    
  • Incremental update packs are allowed to be sent by clients in `[upload]` and may be asked from the server in `[request_campaign]`.
    
  • The server can generate an incremental update pack while servicing `[upload]` if the client doesn't send one (e.g. old clients).
    

• Previous versions of add-ons are stored on the server for a limited amount of time alongside update packs for older versions (30 days by default) (PR #5038).
  

• Updated translations: British English, Czech, French, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil)
  
• The font-handling now checks which glyphs are in each font, instead of using a list hardcoded in WML.
  • A bug in the removed code treated the first font containing U+4E00 as having the whole CJK Unified Ideographs block.
    
  • Fixes a bug where many Chinese characters were invisible if DroidSansJapanese was loaded before DroidSansFallbackFull (issue #5194).
    

• Changing the language immediately updates the order of the fonts, instead of waiting for the next restart (issue #5194).
  

• Implement new GUI2 widget userdata for working with custom dialogs.
  
• Renamed wesnoth.show_dialog to gui.show_dialog. The preshow and postshow now take a single parameter - a widget userdata.
  
• All other dialog functions (such as wesnoth.get_dialog_value and wesnoth.set_dialog_value) are now deprecated.
  

• Delay Advancements modification:
  • The Delay Advancements modification allows changing how advancements are handled. With this enabled, units that previously would have advanced on another player's turn will instead not advance until it is again their side's turn. The benefit of this is that units will also not pick an advancement at random if they have multiple.
    

• When building wesnothd with database support enabled, Boost 1.66 is now the minimum required version.
  

• New wall variation: Overgrown stone walls ('Xof')
  

• Added Tusker line - Gorer and Tusklet (by TSI 2009)
  
• Revised Falcon and Elder Falcon sprites
  
• New units:
  • Swamp Lizard (crocodile)
    
  • Cave Bear
    
  • Icemonax
    
  • Giant Stoat
    
  • Fire Ant
    

• Balancing:
  • Cost of Giant Rat changed from 6 to 5.
    
  • Cost of Giant Scorpling changed from 13 to 12.
    
  • Cost of Fire Guardian changed from 19 to 11.
    
  • Cost of Giant Mudcrawler changed from 16 to 11.
    
  • Cost of Giant Scorpion changed from 22 to 16.
    
  • Cost of Wolf changed from 17 to 15.
    
  • Cost of Chocobone changed from 38 to 28.
    
  • Cost of Cuttle Fish changed from 40 to 36.
    
  • Cost of Great Wolf changed from 30 to 21.
    
  • Cost of Gryphon changed from 40 to 29.
    
  • Cost of Water Serpent changed from 26 to 23.
    
  • Cost of Direwolf changed from 36 to 33.
    
  • Cost of Sea Serpent changed from 40 to 55.
    
  • Cost of Wild Wyvern changed from 54 to 75.
    
  • Cost of Wyvern Rider changed from 80 to 102.
    

• Fix a bug with [set_variables][join] failing on boolean (yes/no) values
  

• Removed font-analysis utils: codecomp codeextract codeglyphs codelist
  
• [harm_unit] now calculates liminal damage by using the 1.15 algorithm
  

• Add-on titles and descriptions translated to the current language are used when available. The original English title is displayed in the UI and considered for search purposes in addition to translations.
  

• Made it possible to provide translations for add-on titles and descriptions at upload time in the .pbl (PR #4993). Only clients running 1.14.14/1.15.4 or later can read the translated values.
  

• Updated translations: British English, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Esperanto, French, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Turkish
  

• 5p - The Wilderlands:
  • Player 5’s units are sorted when cycling through them with the »n« key.
    
  • Map tweaks (changes to some castles & villages, the northern river and embellishments)
    

• Do not list nameless abilities in the Abilities and Ability Upgrades lists in unit descriptions in Help (issue #3060).
  
• Fixed disabled buttons using the pressed highlight color.
  

• Made wmllint recognize [remove_time_area] in order to avoid spurious warnings about unit ids.
  
• Files created by the scenario editor include a boilerplate warning about hand-editing them.
  

• The South Guard:
  • S6b: Fixed enemy units triggering their own ambush events.
    

• Updated translations: Chinese (Traditional), French, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian
  

• Fixed OOS issues caused by select events triggered during events (issue #4946).
  

• Fixed a major memory leak in the display code affecting all graphics operations, dating back to version 1.13.13.
  
• Include graphics settings and the list of installed add-ons in the Game Version dialog's clipboard report and the command line --report output.