The Ancient Art of War is a computer wargame designed by Dave and Barry Murry of Evryware and published by Broderbund in 1984. It is one of the first real-time strategy or real-time tactics games.
Gameplay
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. in addition to being effective at defending against attempts to storm a fort. Spies do not fight, but they can see enemy units twice as far away as anyone else and are the fastest-moving units in the game.
At the start of the game, the player is able to select from a list of eleven campaigns to play. the location of flags, the default opponent, and the mission briefing, including settings such as how treacherous the terrain is. It was originally released in December 1984
Reception
In 1985 Computer Gaming World praised The Ancient Art of War as a great war game, especially the ability to create custom scenarios, stating that for pre-gunpowder
warfare it "should allow you to recreate most engagements". In 1987 it stated that the game and its sequel "are excellent war games and provide many hours of high grade entertainment". In 1990 the magazine gave the game three out of five stars, and in 1993 two stars. Jerry Pournelle of BYTE named The Ancient Art of War his game of the month for February 1986, reporting that his sons "say (and I confirm from my own experience) is about the best strategic computer war game they've encountered ... Highly recommended". PC Magazine in 1988 called the game "educational and entertaining".
Lisa Stevens reviewed the Macintosh version The Ancient Art of War in White Wolf #28 (Aug./Sept., 1991), rating it a 5 out of 5 and stated that "In summary, The Ancient Art of War is a wargame that even a nonwargamer can't help but like. It provides enough strategy to make it challenging, but enough great graphics to make it exciting. All in all, a great software package."
Macworld inducted the Macintosh version of The Ancient Art of War into the 1986 Macworld Game Hall of Fame in the Best Strategy Game category, ahead of runner-up Balance of Power. Macworld praised the game's clear graphics that made complex movements comprehensible, the movie-style combat scenes, the quality packaging, and the editing tools.
Legacy
The Ancient Art of War is generally recognized as one of the first real-time strategy or real-time tactics games, a genre which became 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.
The Ancient Art of War is cited as a classic example of a video game that uses a rock-paper-scissors design with its three combat units, archer, knight, and barbarian,
GameSpy ranked The Ancient Art of War No. 10 in its greatest PC games of the 1980s.