Battle for Westnoth - Review

I've finally got through a couple solid matches of westnoth and some of the campaign. I also messed around with the add-ons and the online multiplayer which turned out to be very nice. So here is my unrequested opinion of the game:

The game makes decent use of both tactical and strategical aspects. With the alternation of day and night affecting the strength of units (chaotic units like the undead become stronger at night, lawful units like knights and dragons become stronger as the day progresses, neutral stays the same throughout) in combination with a dmg reduction and dmg vulnerability system create a very puzzling tactical setup. This is reinforced by the variety of units available, and they do their best to even make basic units from race to race differ in style of use (Ex: the dwarven gunner has a 1 shot heavy hitting gun while the elven archer has a multitude of attacks that over all hit for less, more chance of hitting vs higher dmg, etc). The strategic aspect of important terrain and effective advancement of troops is also great, with the RNG in the mix you can't make a sure chess like play, granted, this can lead to some very unlucky or overly lucky situations, but I think the compromise is worth it to get rid of sure win (+ good play makes chance usually less of a tiebreaker, but not to the point where the chance is negligible).

Being community made, the detail, composition and especially the campaigns are great. You could play single player for weeks worth of straight gameplay with the hundreds of scenarios, map packs and expansion bits that are included in the game and able to be taken off the add on download list for free. Very versatile (They even have a spaceship fight mod).

So my general opinion as far as the game goes: 8.5 / 9 out of 10

Complaints : Pacing of the fights can get out of funk some times leaving odd gaps in multi-player mode that just waste time , bleh.
Leveling units is fairly difficult to do considering any quickly leveld up units have to risk a lot of time and usually get mobbed moments after they reach their new form (they get full health after a level up, still they get mobbed fast). I know you can edit leveling speed, but I just think that when you are attacked you should get 2 xp per attack instead of 1, it would make a difference. It's no fun having a large lineup of level 3 units that never get to see the light of day in non campaign settings.

While balanced overall and the day and night system is nice, in multiplayer it can be quite the hassle to co-ordinate a strike that doesn't get screwed up and inefficient.