THE HOLY WAR
IN DEVELOPMENT
The Order, the Defence Force and the Desert Riders all want the same sand and the oil under it. Each has its own nine units, its own ten buildings and a special power of its own — and no two of them fight alike. Written by hand in 65816 assembly.
Nine units, ten buildings and one special power each — none of them shared. Play any of the three: there is no villain here, only three armies with different strengths. Pick one to see its roster.
Slow to build, dear to pay for and very hard to kill. The Order digs in behind stone walls and castle towers, mends its soldiers in the hospital and in the field, and breaks a siege with the heaviest tank in the desert.
Few units, each of them dear, most of them out-reaching their rivals. The Defence Force sees first, shoots first, mines the approaches and shoots enemy shells out of the air.
Cheap, quick and everywhere at once. The Riders have no tanks and no power plants: they have camels, rocket buggies, tunnels under the sand, nets that hide a base, and the men to shut yours down.
For half a minute every unit of the Order moves faster: the whole line charges.
A foot soldier in mail. Slow, but he takes more hits than any other rifleman.
Light artillery on foot: his mortar lobs shells four tiles.
Never fires a shot. He heals the wounded soldiers around him.
Walks into an enemy building and takes it over.
Mounted, and the fastest of the Order. He charges into close combat.
An armoured wagon with a machine gun. It runs infantry down.
The heaviest tank in the desert, slow and sure.
Siege artillery with six tiles of reach, built to bring buildings down.
Hauls the oil from the fields to the oil press.
Pick a spot on the map: the bombs come down on it and on everything beside it.
His rifle out-ranges the other armies' riflemen by a tile.
A rocket team with five tiles of reach against vehicles.
Six tiles of reach and deadly to soldiers. Against armour he is no use.
Walks into an enemy building and takes it over.
Flies over water, rocks and walls and sees far. It carries no weapon.
Thick armour and a blade: it drives straight over infantry.
A long gun on fast tracks: four tiles of reach.
Self-propelled artillery with six tiles of reach.
Hauls the oil from the fields to the supply depot.
A storm over the enemy: his units crawl, and their guns reach a tile less.
Cheap, and trained in two seconds. They come in crowds.
A rocket launcher on his shoulder, for vehicles.
Strips the wrecks left on the battlefield: a second income.
Slips into an enemy building and shuts it down for a while.
The fastest scout in the desert.
A pickup truck with a machine gun on the back.
The Riders' answer to the tank: fast, rockets, a thin skin.
Rocket artillery with six tiles of reach.
Carries the oil in cans, on foot. The Riders have no tankers.
Build a base, bring in the oil, raise an army, find the others before they find you.
Tankers carry the oil from the fields to your refinery and go back for more. The Desert Riders send workers with cans instead. Lose them and the money stops.
Skirmish against one computer army or two — every army for itself, or the two of them allied against you — at easy, normal or hard. Each computer army plays its own style.
The Crusade, the Airstrike, the Sandstorm: each army's power charges while you fight. Use it when it counts — the computer uses its own.
The map is dark until you have been there. A bell tower, an intel centre or a minaret gives you the radar: the whole map in the corner of the screen.
An engineer walks into an enemy building and it is yours. The Riders' saboteur shuts one down instead, and their scavengers strip the wrecks for credits.
Stone and mud walls close a road. The Defence Force's mines wait under the sand. The Riders go in at one cave and come out of another — and hide a base under nets.
No end and no mercy: the enemy comes in waves and every wave is bigger. The game keeps your best time.
All by mouse, like the classics: drag a box, click to move or attack, groups on Control-1 to 9, rally flags for new units, three save slots.
320 by 200 pixels, 16 colours, as the Apple IIgs shows them. Each army brings its own sidebar: limestone and red, steel and blue, leather and green. Click one for a closer look.
Sand, roads, palms, rock, water and oil. Every map has room for three bases — and the map editor makes more.
Every note is synthesized on the Apple IIgs's Ensoniq chip: lute, qanun, reed flute, zurna and hand drums on seven voices. These are recordings of the game itself.
The title tune plays on the title and through the menus. In a battle the other seven take turns, starting with your army's own; Control-T shows the tune's name.
Paint sand, roads, water, palms, rocks and oil. Set out your base, then the bases of the first and the second computer army, and place their units. Name the map, save it, and it shows up in the skirmish list.
An overview shows the whole map at once, and a saved map can be loaded again to keep working on it.
No engine, no compiler. The game is built on the engine of Conquer GS 2, taken apart and put together again for three sides.
Every routine written by hand for the IIgs's 16-bit processor and assembled with Merlin 32.
Units, buildings and map tiles become machine code that draws them, and only the cells that changed are drawn again: close to 60 frames a second in a battle.
Three complete sets of units and buildings do not fit in 2 MB. The game asks for an Apple IIgs with 4 MB.
Units and buildings of all three sides, each finding its own way round rocks, water and walls on maps of 64 by 48 tiles.
Seven voices on ten of the Ensoniq's oscillators, with envelopes, vibrato, trills and grace notes. The other 22 play the sound effects.
The computer builds and attacks by its army's own plan: heavy and patient, long-ranged, or fast and many.
About ninety scripts play the game in the MAME emulator after every change and check what happens.
The game, its three armies, sixteen maps, the music and the map editor boot from a single 3.5-inch ProDOS disk.
As it would have stood on the shelf.
A picture of a box: the game will come as a disk image.
Everything on this page is from the game as it is now, and may still change.