DosBox:Ancient Art of War

Status

No sound. Only CGA version has been tested. Performance is no problem. No features requiring a data disk work (creating or playing a custom campaign, editing formations and the hidden save game feature). If you try to enter the campaign editor or select the "(data disk)" campaign you have to reset as no button is mapped to the Q key for Quit. Formation editor not tested. Better avoid the Make Changes menu. Controls are less than obvious and I recommend you first learn the game on a computer with a real keyboard before trying to play on the GP2X. The game at all times lists the keys to use. This is great when you have a keyboard, but of less use on the GP2X.

Controls

Some of the controls correspond to many different game actions. The list contains for each control what keyboard key it is mapped to and then a short description of the most important actions that key can be used for in the game. To make things hopefully a little bit less confusing I have tried to as far as possible use combinations with L for menu control and combinations with R for battle control, but there are some exceptions.

L and Stick up 

- (up in menus; scroll map)

L and Stick down 

+ (down in menus; scroll map)

L and Stick click 

Space (change options in some menus)

L and Stick right 

Enter (done in menus)

L and Stick left 

Esc (cancel in some menus)

L and B 

Y (Yes)

L and X

N (No)

L and Start

T (Time, to change game speed)

Stick

move cursor

Stick click 

I (Information about a unit)

B 

M (Move unit and Mark destination of movement)

X 

C (Cancel unit movement)

A 

E (End, often use to return to game)

Y 

Z (Zoom to a battle)

Select 

F (Formation of unit on map; Forward in battle)

Start 

V (View game information and pause)

Vol- 

D (Detach)

Vol+ 

J (Join)

R and A 

A (Archers; Attack)

R and Y 

K (Knights)

R and B 

B (Barbarians; Backoff)

R and X 

S (Squad; Surrender when on map)

R and Start 

R (Retreat from battle)

R and Select 

F (Forward in battle, same as Select without R)

Special

You might also want to check out The Ancient Art of War Fan Page which has everything you need to know about the game itself.

dosbox.conf

[sdl]
output=surface
mapperfile=./mapper.txt
[dosbox]
machine=cga
memsize=4
[cpu]
core=full
cycles=300
[sblaster]
type=sb1
[gus]
gus=false
[speaker]
pcspeaker=false
[dos]
xms=false
ems=false
[autoexec]
mount C "/mnt/sd/dosbox/aaow"
c:
war.exe

mapper.txt

key_r "key 105 mod2" 
key_a "key 109 mod2" 
key_s "key 112 mod2" 
key_d "key 114" 
key_f "key 106" 
key_j "key 113" 
key_k "key 111 mod2" 
key_z "key 111" 
key_b "key 110 mod2" 
key_n "key 112 mod1" 
key_y "key 110 mod1"
key_m "key 110" 
key_e "key 109" 
key_c "key 112"
key_v "key 105"
key_kp_8 "key 97" 
key_kp_7 "key 98"
key_kp_4 "key 99" 
key_kp_1 "key 100"
key_kp_2 "key 101" 
key_kp_3 "key 102"
key_kp_6 "key 103"
key_kp_9 "key 104" 
key_kp_minus "key 97 mod1" 
key_kp_plus "key 101 mod1" 
key_kp_enter "key 103 mod1"
key_space "key 115 mod1" 
key_esc "key 99 mod1"
key_t "key 105 mod1"
key_i "key 115"
mod_1 "key 107"
mod_2 "key 108"

aaow.gpe

#!/bin/sh
DIRROOT=/mnt/sd/dosbox
DIRGAME=${DIRROOT}/aaow
cd ${DIRGAME}
${DIRROOT}/dosbox -conf ${DIRGAME}/dosbox.conf
cd /usr/gp2x
exec /usr/gp2x/gp2xmenu