The Ancient Art of War

The Ancient Art of War (1984)

by Evryware, Brøderbund Software
Genres:Strategy, Real Time Strategy (RTS)
Themes:Historical, Warfare
Game modes:Single player
Story: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. 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.Show more
user avatarAdded by @Mailanka
Vote to bring this game to GOG and help preserve it.
180
Trailers and screenshots
Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot
Stories about this game (6)
What’s your memory of The Ancient Art of War?Share your favorite moments and see what others remember about this game.
user avatar@placeholder

Make sure to follow our Guidelines when adding new Stories.

If not sure what to write:
  • What made this game unforgettable?
  • Who did you play this game with?
  • What made it fun or challenging?
  • Why do you want this game on GOG?
user avatar@Mailankauser avatar@Mailanka
January 30, 2025
I played this as wee thing on a Tandy in the late 1980s. When my dad looks for games from the classic DOS era, it's Civ I, Sword of the Samurai, and the Art of War. It was, sort of, a pioneer of the RTS genre, in that you created your plan and both forces charged at one another in real time. Great fun! The moment I saw this on the Dreamlist, I had to vote for it. I'd love to get it for my father as a present.
One of the first games I played on my first PC (286/16MHz processor and 1MB of RAM). I still launch the game today emulated in a browser. Its simplicity, with basic rules, is similar to the game of Go: just a few rules, but still challenging!
user avatar@Torchiestuser avatar@Torchiest
February 02, 2025
This is one of my earliest PC gaming memories. I remember being horrible at it as a little kid lol. But I was fascinated by the rock-paper-scissor style combat system, the various enemy leaders, and the wisdom of Sun Tzu peppered throughout the game. Really quite a bit ahead of its time, and probably the first true RTS, predating Dune by nearly a decade.
I can't believe this is not number one on the list! Such a classic, spent years trying to beat each scenario against different generals. I also can't believe I need 160 chars.
Ah, to attack archers in a castle with nothing but foot soldiers... oops. I loved playing this on a friend's computer in 1985... If GOG takes this on, I will buy it!
It was the first game that I played. My Dad bought it for me and it allowed anyone to set a strategy and watch tactical combat. Honestly, it is the only RTS that I enjoyed and nothing else quite measures up to it.
Those games also need your vote!
Black & White
Black & WhitePlay the role of a deity in a land where the surroundings are yours to shape and its people are yours to lord over. Be an evil, malevolent god and the natives will worship you with fear in their eyes. Play as a kind, benevolent god and they will worship you with love in their hearts. Your actions decide whether you create a heaven or hell for your worshipers. Then select a creature from the land to act as your representative in the world. Raise it to gigantic proportions and teach it to do your bidding--whether the animal grows into an evil colossus of mass destruction or a kind and gentle giant is up to you. Progress through the game's rich storyline performing powerful miracles to battle other deities and become the world's supreme god.
Top
Open world
Sandbox
Top
Open world
Sandbox
106 080
366
Black & White 2
Black & White 2In the game, the player takes the role of a god called from the void (nothingness) to help those who invoked them. However, the player is not an omnipotent style god, but rather a god who rises and falls with his believers and the player must help develop their nature according to their good or evil desires. The player also has a creature, their physical representation in the world, which takes the form of an anthropomorphic ape, lion, wolf, turtle, cow, or tiger. Its physical manifestation can grow to an immense size, and adopt a good or evil persona separate of the player's. They develop their character as the player rewards or punishes their actions. In addition to the god simulation and city-building elements introduced in the original Black & White, Black & White 2 also features elements of real-time strategy gameplay, with the addition of controllable warfare and fighting units.
Top
Action
Fantasy
Comedy
Sandbox
Top
Action
Fantasy
Comedy
Sandbox
88 033
118
Command & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection
Command & Conquer: The Ultimate CollectionAre you ready for the ultimate real-time strategy experience? Gather resources, build your base, and create the most powerful armies in the world before engaging the enemy in all-out war. Fight as the Global Defense Initiative or the Brotherhood of Nod as they clash over the rare mineral Tiberium in the classic original series. Challenge the red menace in an alternate universe in Red Alert, then step into the near future with Generals as China and the United States battle the Global Liberation Army, a terrorist organization hell-bent on bringing the world to its knees. However you play, you’ll enjoy limitless hours of RTS Command & Conquer gaming with 10 base games and 7 in-depth expansion packs. Note: GameSpy ended all hosted game services in 2014, which affects the online multiplayer aspect of one or more games in the collection. Learn more about this in our FAQ. Game Features: Engage in intense, strategic battles. Make the most of every move as you order soldiers, vehicles, and aircraft across large maps filled with enemies, traps, and mission-critical resources. Move single troops, select small groups, or issue a unified attack order to all allies as you work to defeat the opponent. Collect, create, conquer. Success in battle requires more than just a keen battle strategy. Fight for control as you struggle to collect the resources necessary to build new bases, troops, and weaponry, all while keeping the enemy at bay. Command and Conquer everything. Explore the wide range of Command & Conquer games and fight every war from both sides! Rediscover the epic conflicts across two decades of gameplay. Take a first-person view of the C&C universe through Command & Conquer: Renegade – the series’ one and only first-person shooter – or start playing from the very beginning and enjoy the frenetic style of combat, immersive strategy and campy banter that launched a generation of strategy warfare games.
Top
Action
Warfare
Science fiction
Sandbox
Top
Action
Warfare
Science fiction
Sandbox
83 270
213
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earthThe players control the heroes or villians from the famous Lord of The Rings movies. With a hero characters similar to the Warcraft series you control both the armies and all the unique heroes. The game follows the movies very closely and even got scenes from the films appear in game. Not only does the game contain a giant campaign where you play through the journey of the ring as the good side, the game also features an evil campaign where as the players play as the evil forces of Middle Earth. With multiple diffrent races from all over Middle Earth, a giant spell tree to customize your game and a unique basebuilding layout the game was great for its time.
Top
Fantasy
Warfare
Top
Fantasy
Warfare
60 648
236
StarCraft
StarCraftStarCraft is a strategic game set in a Galaxy far away on multiple planets. Its style and balance between the three antagonistic species it features is unique and appealed to millions.
Top
Warfare
Science fiction
Top
Warfare
Science fiction
46 591
36
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
Warcraft III: Reign of ChaosWarcraft 3: Reign of Chaos is an RTS made by Blizzard Entertainment. Take control of either the Humans, the Orcs, the Night Elves or the Undead, all with different unit types and heroes with unique abilities.Play the story driven single player campaign, go online to play default- or custom maps against people around the world or create your own maps with the map creation tool.
Top
Fantasy
Warfare
Top
Fantasy
Warfare
45 685
57
Age of Empires
Age of EmpiresAge of Empires (AoE) is a history-based real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft. The game uses the Genie, a 2D sprite-based game engine. The game allows the user to act as the leader of an ancient civilization by advancing it through four ages (the Stone, Tool, Bronze, and Iron Ages), gaining access to new and improved units with each advance.
Top
Historical
Warfare
Top
Historical
Warfare
45 222
23
Dune
DuneDune is a 1992 video game, based upon Frank Herbert's science fiction novel of the same name. Developed by Cryo Interactive, is the first of the Dune computer games. Dune blended adventure with economic and military strategy, and is considered by many the most immersive Dune computer game. Loosely following the story of the novel, the game casts the player as Paul Atreides, with the ultimate goal of driving the Harkonnen from Planet Dune, while managing spice extraction, military, and later, ecology through the native Fremen tribes. As the player progresses, his troops are equipped with weapons from "crysknives" to atomics, tap into Paul's latent psychic powers, and get acquainted with such characters from the book as Chani and Liet-Kynes.
Top
Science fiction
Top
Science fiction
43 370
57
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Warcraft II: Tides of DarknessWarcraft II: Tides of Darkness is a Strategy video game published by Blizzard Entertainment released on 1995 for MS-DOS. Warcraft 2 is a successor of the popular Warcraft real-time strategy game. The game contains many improvements over the previous version in graphics, sounds and playability. The Multiplayer was also greatly improved allowing up to 8 players in the marvelous multiplayer skirmish.
Fantasy
Fantasy
42 038
17
Dune 2000
Dune 2000Real-time strategy taking place in Frank Herbert's "Dune" universe. The game is a remake of a classic RTS game "Dune 2". Player can play as a commander of one of three different factions: Harkonnen, Atreides or Ordos. Do you like the feeling you get when you have won over someone? If it was something that we had really worked hard, then the fell of victory is something precious and incalculable. The game Dune 2000 could help in giving your competitive spirit a new edge. It is an updated version of the Dune II. In this game the player would have to fight for an interesting thing; the control of the spices in the galaxy. The spices control could make you the most powerful there. The player has to choose to be one of the three houses first: Atreides, Harkonnen, or Ordos. Each house has its own vice and virtue and the right selection could give the player right start to the game but he could learn as well as, later in the game with time. Once you choose a side, you to win the King’s challenge of producing the most amount of spice. It won’t be as easy as it sounds. For getting the control of the spices, the player has to fight over the other two houses by all means. Dune 2000 is done with enough of stunt and live-in scenes to pep up the theme and there is a soothing sound score to add to the overall theme. It’s a game based on the Dune series book of Frank Herbert and gives the player a real pleasure of both combat and competition.
Action
Science fiction
Action
Science fiction
36 999
46