Sometimes I think that along comes a great looking game I just can’t wait to play, then wham! Talk about getting slapped in the face! I can’t believe that a visually pleasing game could be so exasperating! Cossacks II has a playing style that is extremely difficult to control and buildings so out of whack that my nerves were on edge before I gave up.
Where to begin? I guess the premise would be that of a general during the Napoleonic Era, using the style of combat prevalent during that period of time. You command individual troops, cavalry, artillery, and frigates. You capture towns and their resources. You build the necessary structures so you can conquer the world. You do everything that a typical RTS game does, but only to insane extremes!
Let’s see what good things I can convey to you, the reader, about this game. It has great visuals, the soldiers are very detailed, and the time period is pretty nifty. Ok, ok! Let’s look at what the game has to offer, I guess. The campaign games give you a pretty good idea of the tactical play that Cossacks offers. You create troops that can march in column formation, line formation for frontal fighting, or box formation for defense, and even shoot by rank of soldiers. Troops require an officer, flag bearer, and drummer to complete a formation. Once enough individual soldiers are gathered you can do a one click operation that forms your rabble into a cohesive force. The same goes for your cavalry, sappers, artillery, and frigates.
Notice I haven’t said how many I need to create to form a troop? To form one single line troop you need one hundred twenty individual soldiers, one officer, one drummer, and the flag bearer. Otherwise, you just have rabble that haphazardly obey your commands. This applies to foot soldiers only as cavalry have a different amount. The same goes for artillery. You have to be careful about how many to create since food drives the forces. This means you must take over food stocks quickly so you can build more soldiers. You must also gather other resources since they are important in building construction and forming different troop types.
Villages are controlled by militia, so you must wipe them out and take over the town center to control the village. Once you have done this, the controlled village will automatically create militia to guard the village, which is one less worry. We have sappers that can blow up buildings, towers and block houses for defending what you have taken. Artillery performs from the light end to howitzer type, shooting over buildings if need be. The Battle for Europe end is more strategic in nature involving diplomacy and grand movement between countries. We have LAN play as well as multiplayer capabilities that include a ranking system.
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Now for the bad stuff, which I will try to keep clean. First, this is a RTS game when it should have been a strategy, turn-based game. As a RTS game, it’s too difficult to manage all the different soldiers, and resource gathering could be removed in its current state. This game would be strong in a turn by turn basis with villages being overrun, instead of circling around due to their obstruction of terrain. Resource gathering could be more indirect by controlling mines, fields, and woods. Soldiers could be created as one single group instead of individually waiting for the required number, then gathering together to form a force.
Buildings are way oversized causing more of an obstruction to movement and formation. They also block large swaths of line of sight. This makes it impossible to come into direct contact as you have to move large concentrations around these obstructions just to get a clear view or to form a line. If your troops break, they run all over the place and then head back to the barracks and hang around there untill you refill the ranks with new recruits. This creates large periods of time when you have to wait for things to settle down before you can reform everyone again.
The instruction book said they tried to make this as easy as possible. If you feel that this is as easy as possible then you haven’t played better RTS games. I finally called it quits after the sixth restart and didn’t bother to even try the strategic end. This doesn’t mean I didn’t understand what I was doing, it meant that too much was going on in the wrong direction to keep it in check! If you feel this is the game for you, then by all means head out to your favorite computer store. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Father of two, now grown children.What are my kind of games? Strategy, RTS, RPG, Fantasy, Science Fiction, and online games such as Dark Age of Camelot and Asheron's Call. Of my dislikes I would say puzzle games such as Myth, FPS type games such as Doom. Also simulation type games, and games that are just plain bad.
My knowledge of the industry mostly evolves around beta testing games, such as Earth & Beyond from EA, Saga of Ryzom, and companies like MSN and Acolade. Self taught web design is another interest I have. Family life is entertaining at times. It also can get weird as well, after you have been married 31 years.
