The Ancient Art of War 2
Getting Started
In The Ancient Art of War 2, you give orders to squads of men to accomplish a goal and win the game. You will have to overcome enemy squads and terrain to reach your goal. The enemy also has a goal. The game is over if the enemy makes his goal first.
Select "Play Game" at the title screen to start. You will see a list of campaigns on the left and missions on the right. Each campaign holds several missions.
You can also select your opponent. Crazy Ivan wasn't the brightest commander that ever lived but he is a good choice to "practice" a mission. When you've beaten Ivan, select Sun Tzu for a real challenge. A different strategy may be needed to win against Sun Tzu. Some campaigns or missions may only be available for one opponent. For example the tutorials can only be played when Crazy Ivan is your opponent.
Select a campaign to see the missions in that campaign. The missions are color coded:
- Green : normal difficulty
- Yellow : hard
- Red : very hard
Select a mission to play it.
The Tutorials campaign has several missions that will help you learn The Ancient Art of War. It is recommended that you play each tutorial in order.
When a mission starts, a short description of the mission will be displayed. Among other things, the description will explain the goal of the mission. Also, you will see four bars at the bottom of the description. These bars indicate the following settings for this mission:
- Water Danger: How dangerous it is to cross water. If the bar is minimum then it is completely safe to cross. If at maximum, all of the men in your squad will die before the squad can cross. Swamp is considered water when crossing.
- Mountain Danger: Same consequences as the Water Danger setting but applied to mountains.
- Recuperation: How fast squads regain their condition when stopped in a village, city or castle. When at maximum, squads gain full condition almost immediately. When at minimum, your squads will take a long time to regain their strength.
- Recruits: How fast squads gain men when in a castle.
Next to the bars is the difficulty level: Normal - Hard - Very Hard. All missions can be won but some are harder than others.
You lose a mission if you can't complete the mission's goal or if you lose all of your men or if the enemy reaches his goal. Some missions require that you complete the mission with at least a certain number of men.
If one of your squads comes in contact with an enemy squad, they will fight until one squad no longer has any men. The outcome of a battle is determined by the number of men on each side, the condition of the men on each side, the terrain that they are on and a little chance. Chance may cause a weak squad to occasionally defeat a stronger squad. When two squads are fighting, more squads can join in on the battle. You cannot stop a fight once it has started.
How To Play
Tap any squad to select it and see its condition and size at the bottom center of the screen and give it orders. The selected squad has a yellow tint.
The "Orders" button will appear at the bottom of the screen when you select one of your squads that isn't fighting. Tap the Orders button to see the available orders for that squad. The "Next" button will also appear if the selected squad is near other squads. Tap the Next button to select another squad that is close to the selected squad.
There are two ways to move your squads. Usually, the best way is to drag it to move it. If the squad is very close to other squads, either tap the squad or use the Next button to select the squad that you want to move then Tap the Orders button. Learn more about squads.
Terrain influences squad movement. The various terrain types can be used to your advantage. Learn more about terrain.
Most missions have a variety of items including flags, gold and crowns which might be required to complete a mission. Learn more about items.
A mission editor is available that will let you create your own missions and submit them to us for publication. Learn more about the mission editor.