| Ancient Art of War | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Evryware |
| Publisher(s) | Broderbund |
| Platform(s) | Apple IIe, Macintosh, MS-DOS[1] |
| Release date(s) | 1984 |
| Genre(s) | Real-time strategy Real-time tactics |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
The Ancient Art of War is a computer game developed by Evryware and published by Broderbund in 1984. In retrospect, it is generally recognized as one of the first real-time strategy or real-time tactics games.
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A battlefield simulation, the game's title comes from the classic strategy text The Art of War written by Sun Tzu around 400 B.C.
The objective of the game is to win a series of battles using four types of troops: Knights, Archers, Barbarians, and Spies. All four types are unmounted.
It uses the simple "Rock-Paper-Scissors" type of unit balance typical of the genre. Knights beat Barbarians in melee; Barbarians have the advantage over Archers; and Archers have the advantage over Knights, in addition to being effective at defending against attempts to storm a fort. Spies did not fight, but had twice the range of any other unit type in terms of lifting the fog of war.
At the start of the game, the player is able to select from a list of campaigns to play. The campaigns include both skirmishes and "capture the flag(s)" type missions, while the terrain layout and initial starting units provided a variety of strategic options for game play. Advanced rule sets such as Training New Units and Supply Line Lengths allow for more customization. The player can also select from among several Artificial Intelligence opponents represented by various historical figures such as Geronimo and Napoleon. Sun Tzu represents the most difficult level. These settings affected both AI behavior, as well as certain properties such as the speed at which enemy units moved through difficult terrain.
There is no element of the economic management (mining, gathering or construction) which is a common feature of later real-time strategy games.
Each mission takes place on a map containing forts, towns, terrain features (bridges, mountains, forests, etc.), and squads. Squads can consist of up to 14 units, made up of any combination of the four types. A squad moves at the speed of its slowest unit (Barbarians are faster than Archers, which are faster than Knights), so a squad of all Barbarians would move faster than a mixed squad. This is important in "The Race For The Flag", a mostly non-combat scenario where the player must race against a numerically far superior force to capture a flag.
Squads that lose units have to make do until another squad can be merged with them. In many campaigns, squads with less than 14 units can receive random reinforcements by waiting at a fort.
When two enemy squads meet on the battlefield, they are frozen in an encounter while time continues to pass. If they are left by themselves, then after a delay, the computer will automatically determine the outcome of the battle. Alternately, the player can choose to "Zoom" into the battle to resolve it immediately, gaining limited command of the soldiers in battle. It may be advantageous to leave squads in an encounter while others squads run past the enemy squad so engaged. Formations can be chosen to take advantage of a squad's particular makeup. For example, all of a squad's Archers can be placed in the rear while the Barbarians form a line in the front. The game supported per-type orders during battle, so one could alternately place archers upfront with a gap; put knights within the gap; order the archers to fire while the knights hold; then order the archers to fall back while the knights attacked. One could not order individual soldiers, however.
Formations only affected the tactical battles; only whole squads were ever represented on the strategic map, not individual soldiers.
A number of factors influence the outcome of a battle, and elevate the game beyond a simple Rock-Paper-Scissors strategy. Hunger, distance, terrain, and morale all affect the squads' effectiveness. Care has to be taken when marching troops full speed, or across a series of mountains, to prevent them from arriving at a battle too fatigued to fight. In addition, even the winning side in a battle suffered a slight reduction in the squad's readiness. Troops in very poor condition would fight poorly, might retreat without being ordered to do so, and would even potentially surrender outright if also significantly outnumbered. Hunger was modeled through an abstract 'supply' value per squad; villages and/or forts would slowly replenish the supplys of nearby friendly squads. A squad that was out of supply would lose condition and might be readily be destroyed by what would otherwise be an inferior force.
The game allows players to create their own maps, formations, and missions.
The map editor provided a fixed palette of identically-sized tiles with a variety of terrain features, with which one could make a rectangular map (only). There was no random-map generator. The severity of certain terrain features, such as whether moving through mountains was merely slow or potentially deadly, was controlled at game time with options, not a property of the map itself.
The formation editor allowed the player to configure templates of how to arrange particular squads according to the three combat troop types; there was a fixed number of slots for formation which could then be chosen in-game.
The missions consisted the positioning and composition of squads on both sides; their initial condition and supply levels; the location of flags; the default opponent; and the mission briefing. Flags and squads had to belong to one side or the other, as is always true during the game. The flags were one property that could be somewhat randomized; if either side did not have at least one flag assigned to them in a specific location, they would receive a single randomly located flag each time the mission was played.
A review in Computer Gaming World, although frustrated with the lack of artillery and overall post-gunpowder units in campaign creation, was still particularly well liked by the editor. The Ancient Art of War was praised as a great wargame, although it was not intended to be billed as such.[2]
Although the ZX Spectrum game Stonkers was published a year earlier, The Ancient Art of War is generally recognized as one of the first real-time strategy or real-time tactics games, a genre which become hugely popular a decade later with Dune II and Warcraft. Those later games added an element of economic management, with mining or gathering, as well as construction and base management, to the purely military.
It spawned two sequels, the naval-themed The Ancient Art of War at Sea and the World War I game The Ancient Art of War in the Skies.