Ambush at Sorinor is a follow up to Mindcraft's excellent 1992 strategy game Siege. Taking place in the same Tolkien-esque fantasy world, Ambush at Sorinor improves on many of the strengths-and exaggerates some of the weaknesses-of the earlier game.
Ambush at Sorinor (hereafter AoS) is set in a medieval fantasy world populated by humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, undead minions, and other staples of high fantasy. Throughout the game, the player will lead a mercenary company through various battles throughout the game realm. It is a game of tactical warfare like its predecessor, but unlike Siege, AoS makes for battles beyond the confines of attacking or defending fortifications.
In fact, battles throughout the game will take place in a wide variety of settings, from forests to highways to swamplands, allowing for a greater variety of tactics to be employed than in the previous game. The tactical situations in the different scenarios are also more varied than in Siege. Some call for set-piece battles in the open, while others (true to the game title) allow for ambush and guerilla warfare tactics.
The player can opt to be either the attacker or defender, and the tactical portion is played from a top down respective. Just like battles in Siege, the player can adjust the flow of time and even pause the game to allow time for scrolling around the battlefield and giving orders to various
units. Giving orders is a simple matter of dragging a selection box over the units you want to command, selecting the appropriate orders icons, and designating targets. Various zoom and information displays allow the player to track the overall course of the battle rather easily.
Unlike Siege, AoS allows for an actual coherent campaign, rather than simple stand-alone scenarios. Various battles across different maps are strung together in the campaign mode, allowing for the outcome of one battle to affect the outcome of the next, although this influence is rather limited to how many and what type of resources the player will have in each scenario. There is little if any scenario branching that I found while playing. Still, after playing Siege again and again (17 years later, its still one of my favorites), it is nice have this sort of gameplay take place in a larger context within the same game world.
Players in AoS gather warriors by purchasing them in true mercenary fashion, rather than simply recruiting them from a barracks.
Successful missions mean more gold and hence more recruitment options. Most of the same units seen in Siege and Dogs of War are present here and available for recruitment, including infantry, archers, cavalry, heavy artillery, and magic users. Somewhat unrealistically, in my opinion, players can recruit armies composed of various races together without issue. So elves can fight alongside orcs and the undead can fight alongside noble humans. It would have seemed more true to the game setting to have some sort of limitation to the types of units that could fight together, but it is really a minor issue.
A much bigger issue is the poor AI of the attackers and defenders. It was limited in Siege but still effective, as the tactical options for that game played to its strengths and limited its weakness. In AoS, however, the weaknesses inherent in the AI show through more glaringly. Regardless of the tactical situation, the AI just follows the same strategy in each case of forming units and throwing them against the nearest enemy in line to their objective. Once the player gets a feel for this, it is a pretty simple matter to counter their strategy. It does not ruin gameplay, but it seriously diminishes the challenge the game offers.
This game is a must have for anyone who enjoyed Siege and Dogs of War. For anyone else interested in RTS gaming without the resources management issues or simply in fun fantasy-themed war games, this may also be an enjoyable diversion. However, for those looking for a great deal of tactical depth, this game is probably not the ticket.
