Game 369: The Ancient Art of War

Often counted as among the earliest realtime strategy games, The Ancient Art of War is not the first strategy game with a realtime component, nor does it involve all of the RTS gameplay elements codified by Dune II, which as far as I know had not been directly influenced by this.

However, of all the early "proto-RTS" games I am aware of, War has the most modern-styled sensibilities and design, despite its archaic visuals and UI/UX. You, viewing a battlefield map from overhead and detached from any direct control, maneuver your troops with a cursor-based interface to fight the enemy over key points. Different soldier types have distinct combat roles, melee and ranged combat are both represented, terrain affects movement and combat conditions, and individual units have strength, stamina, and supply levels to monitor and manage. All that's missing from the Dune II formula is the base-building and resource collection. Notably, the action occurs at two levels - strategic and tactical - which reminds me strongly of the much later Total War series.

As with Sierra Championship Boxing, Ancient Art of War looks best with CGA composite video, and needs an unofficial branch of DOSBox in order to enable this mode. I am using DOSBox-X and have it configured with cga_composite2 and 300 CPU cycles, and find it runs satisfactorily but it is unclear to me if this is optimal; the palette is a bit funky, and with 300 cycles the action still lags a bit, but if I go much higher then it clearly runs too fast, and yet somehow still lags a bit. There was a 1987 re-release with EGA & VGA support, but as you know I prefer to emulate original versions. If anyone has any emulation advice for this game I'd love to hear it.

Ancient Art of War offers 11 missions in roughly incrementing order of difficulty, each assigned one of eight opposing generals with their own competencies and strategic styles. In all missions, the goal isn't necessarily to destroy the enemy, but to capture flags at fortified locations, while preventing them from taking the flags that belong to you.

The first mission, "The Race for the Flags," turned out in retrospect to be a gimmicky one, and might not have been the best choice to place first in the list. Your opponent is Genghis Khan, noted for skill in navigating difficult terrain and exploiting weak defense points, and to win you must beat his horde to the fort at the north end of the map.

K = knights, A = archers, B = barbarians, M = mixed unit

 

There's no time to waste here, as Khan's horde has a head start. His barbarian unit in the middle-front has full stamina and takes point, marching to the fort by way of the west bridge, unopposed by anything but the terrain, while the rest slow your pursuit down.

This mission seemed impossible at first and I endured several humiliating failures before determining a strategy that had any hope of success. Barbarians are the fastest unit. I have none and must fight my way north, further slowing my units down and draining their stamina already depleted from marching. How could I ever catch up? Trying to outrun Khan's barbarians seemed useless; even if I got around the enemy without fighting, I'd be exhausted from crossing the forest and only able to crawl across the bridge, and by then, Khan's barbarians would be nearly finished crossing the mountains. Intercepting them seemed the only way, but how?

I did win eventually. Narrowly, mind you, and I don't think I could reliably win this mission. But it is indeed possible. You only need one man to reach the fort, and then you win, even if he is the lone survivor.

 

The strategy here is to detach one man from the west archer unit and then push hard through the western passage, fighting north through Khan's units which are more numerous here but weaker. You must keep them away from your commando, who follows the strike force closely without himself engaging or risking capture. Crucially, you must enter the forest to lure the barbarians with an easy kill while your quarterback sneaks through the woods and onto the bridge ahead of the horde. You've got to act fast and efficiently for this to have a chance of working. The "fast march" order is absolutely required here, even though it eats stamina like nothing else.

Khan takes the bait

The three units seen here, archers, knights, and barbarians, have a rock-paper-scissors mechanic, but it isn't a hard rule. Numbers, stamina, and tactics play a role.

• Knights will effortlessly chop through ranks of unarmored barbarians.
• Well-rested archers will pick off clusters of knights, though the tables will turn considerably if/when any of the knights close in. Tired archers don't do so well, and poorly positioned ones may hit their own.
  
• Agile barbarians will suffer a few losses closing in against archers, but not as many as knights, and then it's clobbering time.
  

 

In theory, barbarians (Khan's most plentiful unit) beat archers (my most plentiful unit), but I've found archers to be adequate harassers. Pick a few off, retreat just before they get in range, and repeat indefinitely. This depletes their stamina fast, and quickly makes them ineffective, but even an exhausted archer squad can get a lucky kill or two.

This strategy, combined with dogged persistence and Khan's equally stubborn refusal to not pursue a weakened target, let me clear a path to the forest, and subsequently to keep Khan's hordes off the back of my point man. Still, it was a close call, and took multiple tries.

Once he crosses the bridge, everyone else has the job of delaying Khan's pursuit for as long as possible, and even then you are far from assured victory. The horde is more numerous, the barbarians are faster, and your archer is certain to become exhausted and slow down as he reaches the mountains.

Desperate units guard the bridge as the commando goes over the mountains.

But they can only hold out for so long.

Tired barbarians chase my tired commando, but this time, victory is in reach.

Don't hold your sword like that!

Some observations on the interface:

• There's no convenient way to assess units' strength; you must move the cursor over them one at a time and issue a command to view the ranks.
• A separate command shows stamina, supply levels, and marching speed/direction, though stamina can also be reckoned from the unit's posture.
• A "view" option displays a minimap, but I found it absolutely useless and unreadable.
  
• Time rate is adjustable, and you definitely want it on "slow" while planning and issuing orders. I wish you could select a specific speed with a keyboard command rather than having to cycle through a set of four. Better yet, an "issue orders while paused" option would have been welcome.
• Formations are chosen on the strategic map and can't be changed mid-combat. There is only one logical formation for archer units; placing them all as far back as possible. This is not always their default formation, so change this ASAP.
• Pathfinding is nonexistent. Instead, when issuing march orders, units will follow your cursor's movement path exactly. Be sure move your cursor from the unit to its destination efficiently, and along a sensible path.
• Judging where difficult terrain begins and ends can be tricky, and it's easy to march units too close to the edge and unintentionally slow them down.
• Lastly, the game periodically lags, even with my CPU settings which probably run a bit faster than what was realistic at the time. The more stuff is going on, the more it lags, and the program drops inputs when this happens. This can be quite irritating.
  

Shortly before completing this mission, I had an exchange with Wargaming Scribe, a long time fan of the game, who advised me that the missions Race for the Flags and Contest of the Gods are gimmicky, unfair, unrepresentative of War's overall gameplay, and that I'd be better off skipping them. So of course I did the opposite thing and did Contest of the Gods to get it out of the way.

Surprise! This one's actually quite easy.

More to come. I feel like this game is going to last awhile.