Cossacks 2: Napoleonic wars review and screenshots

Well it got my copy of Cossacks 2 last week. After 5 days of delays it got to my local EB. It took a bit longer than average to load the game onto my system, but it installed with no errors. Performance wise it runs very well on my set, and considering that my PC just barely scraps into the minimum sytem requirements it's a friggin miracles it runs at all. ~;) The graphics are 2D/3D hybrid, but unlike Rise of Nations the 3D bits of the maps are the ground and flora, the buildings and troops are sprites. There are 6 nations in the game, the UK, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Egypt.

The gameplay is very similar to the other games in the series (Cossacks 1 and American conquest) you train soldiers officers/stanard bearers/drummer and make regiments/squadrons of them. They come in 3 sizes 120 for regular infantry, 45 for cavalry, and 15 for specailists. The combat is both slow and fast. What I mean is that it takes your troops a while to get into the fight but the actual engagements between your armies don't last long. The winner of an engagement is who ever can inflict the most casualties the fastest wins. Why is this so you ask, answer the morale system. Just shooting at a regiment drains morale. Killing someone, which considering the wepaons involved at long ranges can by more by fluke than willful action, drains more morale. Hitting flanks and the rear is a bigger morale hit. Heavy cavalry also has a automatic, and large, morale drain when they charge. Also there is a fatigue system it only applies when marching off roads, when is reaches 0 then morale starts to drain. Marching via roads happens when you put a regiment into column they will seek out a road and go. Infantry tactics usually consist of matching you foot units to where ever the enemy is advancing or likely to forming a line (3 ranks deep) and waiting. Then you time when you fire you muskets, you can also pick which rank fires and when. My personal tactic is to fire a whole 120 gun volley if the unit coming at me is green or low quality, if there better troops or cavalry I fire the first and middle rank and hold the 3rd in reserve. There is also attack and defense bonues when your foot units go into hold ground mode. This mode only applies for line and square formations not column. You can tell the regiment is in hold ground because the first/outside rank kneels. This gives an attack bouns of +3 and a defense bonus of +40. Regular infantry come in 3 types, musketeers (average melle and ranged attack), light infantry (low melee and high ranged attack), and grenediers (high melee average ranged attack plus grenades). Specialist infantry are skirmishers and combat engineers. Skirmihers are the sharpshooters, they can move overland anywhere and not lose fatigue. Also they reload slowly and have a very strong ranged attack, with weak melee. Combat engineers and weak in the shooting and stabbing their strength is that they build field works (which I'll get into later) and blowing up buildings. They blow up a building by placing a powder charge on it Cavalry in several types of light medium and heavy units. The typical unit are hussars, mounted chasseurs, light dragoons, dragoons, heavy dragoons, ulhans, and curiasseurs, mamlukes, and Cossacks. As well as guard type cavalry.

Cavalry like infantry have thre foramtions, wedge, column, and line. Wedge is for charging, when in that mode cav. gallops everywhere and burns threw fatigue. Column is for marching and line is for using your dragoons like mounted infantry (at least that's what I do). Light cavalry (hussars, mounted cahsseurs, light dragoons, ulhans, Don cossacks, Egyptian light cav.) are best used for raiding the enemies economy and charging the flanks and rear. Heavy cavalry (heavy dragoons, dragoons, curiasseurs, mamlukes, black sea Cossacks) can charge the enemy from the front if they are experienced enough. When green it is best to stick to the flanks.Also all cavalry units have firearms, save ulhans. The weapons are carbine muskets (dragoons, mounted chasseurs, Egyptian bedouins, Don Cossacks), blunderbuss (hussars) , and pistols (curiasseurs, black sea Cossacks, egyptian mamlukes and light cavalry).

Artillery has 4 types. Light cannons, which are short range and not quite as devastating. Heavy cannons, long range and uber attacking power. Howitzers, medium range best for attacking buildings. There are also rocket carts available only to Britain, whic fire insanely fast for artillery. But hitting anything with them is more of a happy accident, but they are murder on morale. The last bit of artillery are the limbers. They are a team of 4 horse that you can hitch a gun up to and ahve it move much faster around the map.

The economy of the game is unique. The only resources that you set your peasants to gather are wood and stone. The other 4 food, gold, metal, and coal you get from villiages around every map. You capture them by killing the town militia that is there. Then the villiagers start gather resources for you. When about 1000 or so units of food or what have you are ammased they load it up on a pack horse and send it off to your town center or storehouse, which ever is closer. This is where light cavalry raiding comes in, if you kill the pack train you cut off the enemies resource flow.

Major bugs are, the game has a tendncy to CTD while playing Russia. When unhitching a gun from a limber the gun can shoot half way across the map. Also on my PC when displaying lots of peasants or unformed infantry the frame rate dropped.

Now for the screenshots, these are taken from skirmish games of me as Britain vs the AI as France and Egypt.
https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Brit2.jpg
British musketeers in a hold groun line. Also this musketter unit has enough XP to have been promoted to guards.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Brit7.jpg
Highlanders, the British light infantry.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Brit4.jpg
British grenediers, also guards.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Brit5.jpg
British Riflemen, they are unique to the UK and have a slight range advantage over other nations skirmishers.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Brit6.jpg
British combat engineers called Sappers. You can see the buildingd they can construct here. Going left to right in the top row blockhouse (a building that fires musket volleys at the enemy), tower (provides cannon fire with upgrades to increase the ROF), Kronwerks (1 cannon trains musketeers), fort (2 cannons trains light infantry), and fortress (3-5 cannons trains grenediers and is freakin huge).

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Brit3.jpg
British cavalry, light dragoons are in the dark blue jackets in the fore ground. Hussars are in light blue on the top left, and heavy dragoons are in the red coats and the helmets.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...573/Brit10.jpg
British rocket cart in action. The red shilloutte on the ground is the firing radius the cursor is where they are aiming, which they rarely hit. ~;) You can also see the top corner of a Kronwerks on the right.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Brit1.jpg
Limber with heavy cannon attached.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Brit8.jpg
Sappers building a Kronwerks.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Brit9.jpg
A resource villiage with the town guard selected.

Excellent review Lars! How does the game compare to Totalwar? And more importantly how is the A.I.?
:charge: :charge:

I've yet to beat the AI.

What Mounted Light Dragoons having such a powerful ranged attack? If it is not short then I don't know what. I mean carbines were rather crap compared to the rather crap that was a musket.
A British formation of light cavalry managed to charge a French formation a bit larger than themselves (of about equal experience and ability) who stood their ground to release a volley of carbinefire. About 200 were involved on both sides. The Britisj suffered in total 6 losses, and we must counght at least 1 of them was suffered in the melee. Hardly impressive carbinefire.

But besides that it actually looks rather promising to me. Might get it at some point.

Some of the noticable bugs:

Artillery still has a few glitches here and there, and some bugs.

When playing Russia the game freezes completely, i have to alt-tab and close it via task manager.

Also the british rocket cart refuses to fire after using the limber, which is rather annoying.

However i still play this game, Lars gives it a fair and balanced review. Its a rather good game if you can habituate with the bugs and glitches ~;p

On another note, they say another patch will come soon, lets hope they fix the annoying bugs in this game.

I played the demo of it
For me it took a while to adjust.
Its real nice, great fun to play.

Originally Posted by Rom:
Excellent review Lars! How does the game compare to Totalwar? And more importantly how is the A.I.?
:charge: :charge:

The AI is challenging. For my own part it takes at least an hour to even get close to beating it. The game has some qualities in common with TW, the single player consists of conquering europe and Egypt. You build up the provinces over turns, and get resources and special stuff. Also the combat is unit of 100 guys vs units of 100 guys like TW. Unlike TW when a regiment routes it loses all it's experience. Hell when they runs it breaks formation them runs. Unlike 70% of RTS games Cossacks isn't about building the biggest force the quickest and rolling over the enemy. In fact if you tried that your army would be thrown back in short order. To boil it down green soldiers=routing soldiers, if you send them on an offensive. Running an enemy position needs eperienced troops.

Originally Posted by Kraxis:
What Mounted Light Dragoons having such a powerful ranged attack? If it is not short then I don't know what. I mean carbines were rather crap compared to the rather crap that was a musket.
A British formation of light cavalry managed to charge a French formation a bit larger than themselves (of about equal experience and ability) who stood their ground to release a volley of carbinefire. About 200 were involved on both sides. The Britisj suffered in total 6 losses, and we must counght at least 1 of them was suffered in the melee. Hardly impressive carbinefire.

But besides that it actually looks rather promising to me. Might get it at some point.

Cavalry firearms have very short range. Carbines have about half the range of an infantry musket. Blunderbusses and pistols have less maximum range than carbines in that order. The best use of cavalry firearms is to charge melle for a bit then loose a volley at point blank range.

Something I forgot to mention about artillery. You can drive off the gunners, then capture the gun itself. Arty gunners have 0 morale. If they come under fire they leg it quick.

I have some some skirmish screens of the Austrian unit line up ready to go. Also I'll try and get a screen of the single player campagin map, and unit firing ranges.

Time for some Austrian screenshots. I'll start with the infantry.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/lars573/Aus1.jpg
Austrian landwehr, Austria is onw of the 3 nations with a trainable militia unit. The other 2 empires (France and Russia) have them too.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/lars573/Aus2.jpg
Austrian fusiliers guards holding a line.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/lars573/Aus3.jpg
Austria's light infantry, boards men. But IMO a better name would be borderers or their german name Grenzers.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/lars573/Aus4.jpg
Austrian grenediers

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/lars573/Aus5.jpg
Austrian skirmishers, Chasseurs. Except for British riflemen all skirmishers are called Chasseurs.

Let me guess, the militia has very low morale and need lots of attention. Line infantry is fair enough (füsilier in this case right?), grenadiers and light infantry have good morale and should be able to take more losses than others before breaking?

I agree Grenzers would be better.

Are the units also differently able in accuracy? Should be so.

hey, I was thinking about getting this Is it an RTS or does it have strategy?
how are the battles? can you pause and give commands or is it just a mass chaos clickfest like some RTS"S

It's alot like the TW games as far as combat goes.

Kraxis, good guesss. ~;) Militia units can't really stand in a battle line but they are effective for taking villiages. Also that yellow bar with red stripes across it is the unit morale meter. The red stripes indicate how many times the yellow bar can be drained before the unit will break. As for the base morale is goes grenediers, line, light/skirmishers, militia. As for range differnece I'm not really sure about light infantry but skirmishers have much higher range than line troops.

thepipe, as far as I know you can pause to give orders. But I've never had occasion to use it. The battles don't move fast enough to need to pause and give orders most of the time.


Here are the rest of the screenshots I have ready. Austrian cavalry and cannons.
https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/lars573/Aus6.jpg
Austrian Ulhans, these are the Polish lancers of the game.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/lars573/Aus7.jpg
Austrian Cuirassiers.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/lars573/Aus8.jpg
Austrian Hussars.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/lars573/Aus9.jpg
Austria is the only other European nation save Britian to have heavy and light dragoons. These are the light Dragoons.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Aus10.jpg
Austrian heavy Dragoons.

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y2...s573/Aus11.jpg
Austrian heavy cannon

All the cavalry seems to have rather weak attack in melee, especially the Uhlans and the Cuirasiers.

But I'm surprised that the lights and skirmishers are so weak in morale, they were after all a sort of elite unit in the army.

Originally Posted by Kraxis:
But I'm surprised that the lights and skirmishers are so weak in morale, they were after all a sort of elite unit in the army.

I am too. The devs must assume assume that "light" denotes "less". This in turn implies a superficial understanding of the period. During the War for Independence, the Continental Light Infantry were the American shock troops.

Can units volley through one another without friendly casualties?

The way the game works is that if you desire elite units you make them your own self. Any unit from what I have seen can get the guard tag (read elite). I actually had a guard heavy cannon once.

Yes of course experience would make a unit stronger, but the armies of the times tended to get the strongest and tallest men in the Grenadier units and the most accurate and those in best shape into the light units (out of these the skirmishers were taken most often). Those two types of infantry got more exhaustive and better training than the line soldiers as they were supposed to do special tasks in battle as well as fight in the line, at least that was the intended use when they were formed, with time they 'just' became better soldiers. So they should start with better morale and effectiveness, but most importantly morale.

Explain that Guard status. Is it visible? I have noticed that experience grants chevrons in the unit picture, is the Guard status similarly shown?
Now that we are talking about it... 1st Militia Guards... Can't let that go without a smile. :gring:

Yes you get flashing stars above the units icon, this indicates its a guard unit.

They become killing machines with gaurd status, but its very hard to get a unit to get gaurd status.

Lars,
Great wrap up, cheers

so heres the rub

Im looking at buying a napoleonic wargame

Imperial Glory? or Cossacks2

I was all set to get imperial glory from the screenies in the PC gamer, but hearing some negative things in other threads, and Cossacks is looking surprisingly better than I gave it cred.

Opinions most welcome

Im desperate for this Napoleonic fetish to be sated, I dont want to buy a box thats going to taste like ashes in my mouth

Not that hard you just have to be careful with them. That said some units accumelate XP and by extention morale faster than others. Grenediers and ulhans collect XP the fastest from what I've seen. Besides I've only given stills to get a better idea of how the morale works you have to the game in action. The morale system Cossacks 2 has in place is every bit a complex as the total war one. You can have mass routes, but when one regiment stands and repells an attack all the units around it are inspired. Having guard units around is inspiring to the line troops. When a unit in C2 is promoted to guards it's like (in STW terms) they morph from yari samurai to warrior monks.

Originally Posted by Yunus Dogus:
Lars,
Great wrap up, cheers

so heres the rub

Im looking at buying a napoleonic wargame

Imperial Glory? or Cossacks2

I was all set to get imperial glory from the screenies in the PC gamer, but hearing some negative things in other threads, and Cossacks is looking surprisingly better than I gave it cred.

Opinions most welcome

Im desperate for this Napoleonic fetish to be sated, I dont want to buy a box thats going to taste like ashes in my mouth

Here are the minimum and recommended sytem requirements

Minimal:
OS: Win98/ME/2000/XP
CPU: 1500 MHz
RAM: 512 MB
Video: 64 MB, directX 8.1 compatible
Sound: DirectX 8.1 compatible
DirectX 8.1 or higher
CD-Rom: 12x CD-ROM
2GB HDD

Recommended:
OS: Win98/ME/2000/XP
CPU: 2400 MHz
RAM: 768 MB
Video: 128 MB, directX 8.1 compatible
Sound: DirectX 8.1 compatible
DirectX 9.0c or higher
CD-Rom: 12x CD-ROM
2GB HDD
I don't have Imperial glory yet, I might get it when it hits the bargin/used bin. But from the comment I've read it's much more like TW than Cossacks is. The campagin game is great the AI is clever and hard to beat. But the real time battles blow. IG has no morale, you can't retreat from a melee. A melee lasts until one unit is gone totally. To break it down IG great campagin game weak battles, C2 weak campagin game good battles. I can't and won't deny though that C2 has some major bugs. The out of box 1.0 version has long load times, and when playing as Russia in skirmish game it will crash to desktop. With the 1.1 patch a lot of battle for europe and multiplayer issues were fixed but skirmish was buggered up but good. For me a skirmish in 1.1 will crash the game after about 30 minutes.

Alright, you have my interest. I shall try the demo :gring: It's not a time period I'm interested in, and I'm leery of the series because I found American Conquest to be very inferior to the original Cossacks. The original Cossacks is one of few RTS type games I've enjoyed since STW came along and put me right off the AOE clones/decendents. But this sounds as though it has some chance of interesting a frog.

Just a warning to you guys who buy Cossacks 2, don't install the latest patch, it makes the game unplayable. ~;p best wait for a newer patch they promised which is less broken.

On another note, the egyptian skirmisher is known as a Taureg, and has incredibly high melee damage for a skirmisher, you also can put them in units of 30 men (unlike chasseurs or riflemen). I'd like to put up screens of the egyptian and russian units sometimes in the near future if anyone wants to see them.

Edit: Photobucket resizes my screens apparently, any other place to upload larger images?

Sure... show 'em.
But really isn't a strong melee skirmisher a bit counterproductive? They are few so even if they are good they will lose to a normal unit.

Actually tauregs if used well, can cause a lot of damage, they can route a unit of fusiliers/light infantry single handedly, but the only way to do that is to exhuast the enemy units volley before charging in. Needs a bit of micromanagment and a forest for that ~;p

Tuaregs are best however in having them shoot and charge the rear of an enemy formation while having another unit (ie Yataghans who are melee) pin them, also another use for skirmishers (not tuaregs only) is to pull enemy units by firing at them and retreating, especially useful when you have enemy units in stand ground formation.

Use http://www.imageshack.us/

What's so bad about the new patch?

Well I could imagine that they would be great for flanking and rear attacks with their superior mobility, but wouldn't they get trampled by cavalry?

Originally Posted by Fuct:
Use http://www.imageshack.us/

What's so bad about the new patch?

It broke skirmish mode. Now when you try a skirmish game it will lock up the game so bad you have to alt+tab or ctrl+alt+delete out of the game to close it. It made multiplayer and the battle for europe campagin work smother though.

Edit, Faisal all the screens I put in this thread are hosted on photobucket.

The new patch is prone to crashing, especially when playing Egypt or Russia, also the campaign doesn't seem to work (for me at least) and sometimes my prussian battle for europe campaign crashes. skirmish also has some graphical glitches, and a weird glitch where one of the enemy unit turns on its own army ~;p

Originally Posted by Kraxis:
Well I could imagine that they would be great for flanking and rear attacks with their superior mobility, but wouldn't they get trampled by cavalry?

Cavalry are rather tough, skirmishers will most certainly get wasted really fast. Best way to fight off cavalry is bring your own cavalry with you, or have foot units in square formation, grenadiers and fusiliers are good at this, egyptians don't have grenadiers or fusiliers so their best bet is Yataghans, but its a rather crap unit to begin with, though i'd rather use mamelukes.

Oh and Lars black sea cossacks carry a rifle, not a pistol. I think they are the best heavy cavalry in the game next to the prussian mounted guard and egyptian mameluke (it gets 3rd place for the crappy double shot pistol).

EDIT: i tried photobucket, but it would resize the image. The image becomes pretty small and rather crap, my resolution is 1280x1024 when playing cossacks 2, and most screens are at 3.7 megs when i take them ~;p

What you do is convert them from bitmaps (which are huge) to JPEGS. You do this by loading the screenie into paint. They go file, save as. Give the screen a name or don't then go to the save as type pull down. By default it will say 24-bitmap change that to JPEG via the pull down menu and save. Now when photobucket resizes your uploads they won't lose much quality.

Ah thanks a load lars ~:)

here are the egypt pics as i promised (i'll put up the russians and prussians later on). well kinda unit pics ~;p

Tauregs, they have the strongest attack in the game, 2 of them are seen here routing a unit of musketeers:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...il/screen5.jpg

Light cavalry just recently raided a village and routing another unit of musketeers, Light Cavalry use pistols, which have terrible range, but it allows them to shoot twice, good when you charge them and order them to shoot:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v.../screen012.jpg

Janissaries, Archers and Yataghans:

Janissaries are the light infantry of Egypt:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...il/screen0.jpg

Archers are Egypts "grenadier" seeing as how they are the only foot unit thats able to destroy buildings (besides artillery), they also have a decent melee attack, but their low health makes them not that great in hand to hand.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/screen07.jpg

Yataghans are one of the 2 melee only units in the game, the other one is the Homeguard for russia, both are pretty similiar in stats and functions:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/screen01.jpg

Bedouins preparing to raid a village, they are the only egyptian cavalry that carry a carbine rifle:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/screen03.jpg

Mamelukes, one of the three best heavy cavalry in the game, only preceded by Mounted Guards and Black Sea Cossacks, they also use double-shot pistol like the light cavalry:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/screen04.jpg

Thats about it for egypts combat units. I'll try and get me Russian or Prussian unit screens soon.

What really bug me about Egyptian archers are that they can only use column formation.

I think its becuase they use arrows, they do not lose their lethality with range, so its kinda pointless to put them in different formations. Oh yeah and they are tireless, so you can rapidly deploy them anywhere.

Must say that the Egyptians look interesting. Different units and style... Like it... Like it a lot.

Anyway, I take it that the number just below the picture means the HP. So I wonder why you would consider the archers so weak while the Tuaregs are even weaker.

The number below the picture in the unit card is their morale level. HP doesn't really enter into the game much.

yeah as lars said, its the morale, you'll notice a small tab in the units picture called info, if you click it, it displays the units stats and some historical snippets.

The tuaregs HP is 100, compared to the archers hp which is 60.

I just fixed my C2 game today and found that The green bar on the left is their HP level.

I tried Cossacks 2, but couldnt make it through the tutorials. As far as I can tell, this is a standard RTS- collect stuff, build houses, build armies. Attack. Lots of clicking. Lots of micromanagement of trivial stuff. Do I really need to decide where the barracks goes while busy defending my town? Planting charges to destroy a blockhouse was a nightmare!

Some of the combat elements were good but so far as Napoleanic TW goes, I'll have to wait.

This one gets a 3/5.

EDIT: uninstalled it

I'm currently downloading the demo for it (65%, nearly there!) and if it meets my incredibly high standards of approval (wow, they have big cannons! I must buy this game!) then i'll get it.

Originally Posted by SpencerH:
I tried Cossacks 2, but couldnt make it through the tutorials. As far as I can tell, this is a standard RTS- collect stuff, build houses, build armies. Attack. Lots of clicking. Lots of micromanagement of trivial stuff. Do I really need to decide where the barracks goes while busy defending my town? Planting charges to destroy a blockhouse was a nightmare!

Some of the combat elements were good but so far as Napoleanic TW goes, I'll have to wait.

This one gets a 3/5.

EDIT: uninstalled it

Meh, tutorials suck it's a rule. I haven't played a game yet where the tutorial didn't blow. You should've jumped off the deep end right into a skirmish game and gotten your ass handed to you once or twice by the AI. When I got C1 that's what happened to me. Train 100 peasants and put 50 on to both wood and stone gathering then trian 480 musketmen to make 4 units send 2 to capture more resource villages (2 of each kind is best) and the other 2 protect your town and you need little in the way of micromanagement.

Originally Posted by lars573:
Meh, tutorials suck it's a rule. I haven't played a game yet where the tutorial didn't blow. You should've jumped off the deep end right into a skirmish game and gotten your ass handed to you once or twice by the AI. When I got C1 that's what happened to me.

I tried to enter the campaign and was forced to do the tutorial. I agree that games and tutorials can be substantially different. In this case though, the flavour of the game came through. It's a standard RTS. The only reason the AI would've beaten me is because (as with most RTS) I would've spent too much time trying to use the unwieldy system to control so many units while maintaining production.

Originally Posted by lars573:
Train 100 peasants and put 50 on to both wood and stone gathering then trian 480 musketmen to make 4 units send 2 to capture more resource villages (2 of each kind is best) and the other 2 protect your town and you need little in the way of micromanagement.

If thats the case then why bother with the whole peasant/gathering portion of the game. I was hoping to re-fight the napoleonic wars, not worry about how much iron my peasants had mined or whether and where to build a blockhouse.

RoN is miles beyond this game.

Don't be rediculous, If you'd waited and actually played a skirmish game you would see how off the mark your comments are.

You capture a villiage and it automattically makes resources... How the hell is that micro managment????????

There are reality only 2 resources you gather in typical sense and all you have to do for them is through 50 on a resource and leave them there for the rest of the game, Doesn't sound like micromanagemnt to me.

90% of Cossacks 2 is spent manouvering forces for battle, 8% building things which is a simple click and ignore it then after. 2% is spent making sure your resources aren't gonna run out on you, in which case there isn't much you can do as the process is so streamlined.

Originally Posted by SpencerH:
I tried to enter the campaign and was forced to do the tutorial. I agree that games and tutorials can be substantially different. In this case though, the flavour of the game came through. It's a standard RTS. The only reason the AI would've beaten me is because (as with most RTS) I would've spent too much time trying to use the unwieldy system to control so many units while maintaining production.

First off there is no campagin just the tutorial. The single player is the battle for europe mode. Skirmish is the best way to learn the ins and outs of the game. Second it's not a standard RTS. But Efrem already said how.

Originally Posted by SpencerH:
If thats the case then why bother with the whole peasant/gathering portion of the game. I was hoping to re-fight the napoleonic wars, not worry about how much iron my peasants had mined or whether and where to build a blockhouse.

RoN is miles beyond this game.

Which after you get your economy set you can. And believe me in the right cercumstances a blockhouse is a god send.

I have tried the demo and I have to say that I like the feeling of the game (which is a lot since generaly I dont like RTS games too much, last ones I played were AOE, the very first, and warcraft I and II). Also I have to agree with Laars and Efrem that the resource gathering is different, more logical and simplified, even though I would have got rid of the stone and wood gathering part of it, IMO it adds nothing to the game.

I very much like the fact that there is fatigue, morale, limited ammo, considerable reload time, etc. Also unit experience and position (flanking, rear attack) are also very important which is an other good thing.

However, I think that there is one major weakness of the game, perhaps not surprisingly the AI. While head on it can be challanging and sometimes even outright impossible to beat, it becomes helpless when it comes to protect its rear and its resources. In the skrimish battle I conquered the AI villages one by one with a single battalion of fusiliers and the AI did nothing! It kept throwing his units against my prepared defenses without sending a single unit to protect its resources! Of course the predictable outcome is that it ended up boxed up in the upper right corner of the map around its barrack with dozen of useless, out of ammo battalions.

If the AI behaviour is the same in game (and why should it be different?) then IMO the SP part of the game is close to useless, despite of the more or less realistic and highly welcomed morale, fatigue, ammo system.

Originally Posted by Efrem:
Don't be rediculous, If you'd waited and actually played a skirmish game you would see how off the mark your comments are.

You capture a villiage and it automattically makes resources... How the hell is that micro managment????????

There are reality only 2 resources you gather in typical sense and all you have to do for them is through 50 on a resource and leave them there for the rest of the game, Doesn't sound like micromanagemnt to me.

90% of Cossacks 2 is spent manouvering forces for battle, 8% building things which is a simple click and ignore it then after. 2% is spent making sure your resources aren't gonna run out on you, in which case there isn't much you can do as the process is so streamlined.

If I have to tell workers where to go, what to build, what to gather, etc then its micromanagment. If workers are set and forget then whats the point of including them? Either way, managing resource gathering is a critical component of a typical RTS. From previous comments, I didnt expect this game to be a typical RTS (and it is).

Originally Posted by lars573:
First off there is no campagin just the tutorial. The single player is the battle for europe mode. Skirmish is the best way to learn the ins and outs of the game.

Since I've uninstalled it I cant check for error. Are you telling me that the first "button" on the main screen wasnt "campaign" or "european campaign" etc?

Originally Posted by lars573:
Second it's not a standard RTS. But Efrem already said how.

What Efrem said in no way changes that what I played is a standard RTS. The fact that it has more complex combat components such as morale and fatigue in no way changes that. So long as you have to manage resources in 'real time' that will be the most important component to victory i.e you have to build fast while disrupting the AI's ability to build- it's standard RTS strategy.

Originally Posted by lars573:
Which after you get your economy set you can. And believe me in the right cercumstances a blockhouse is a god send.

So is building towers and castles in AoE2.

Originally Posted by SpencerH:
Since I've uninstalled it I cant check for error. Are you telling me that the first "button" on the main screen wasnt "campaign" or "european campaign" etc?

Not having a screen of the main menu handy it goes,

Campagin -the tutorials
battle for europe -not sure if this is the actual title or not but this is the single player game
battle/save load -this is the skirmish game and where you play the historical battles like Austerlitz, Jenna, Ulm and others.
Multiplayer
options

If you really don't like more standard RTS style then try the battles or the european conquest mode. But since you uninstalled then I'm just talking to hear myself talk. :dizzy2: The battles are like the one off battles from RTW except they have video clips of re-enactors and art to give the battle set up.

Originally Posted by :
What Efrem said in no way changes that what I played is a standard RTS. The fact that it has more complex combat components such as morale and fatigue in no way changes that. So long as you have to manage resources in 'real time' that will be the most important component to victory i.e you have to build fast while disrupting the AI's ability to build- it's standard RTS strategy.

But thats not the stratagy!!!!!!!

Its not how quickly you build Its how you use your units with flanking and stuff. Cossacks 2 is absoultly nothing like a standard RTS. The Economy is basically non existant FFS.

Originally Posted by :
So long as you have to manage resources in 'real time' that will be the most important component to victory

IT BLOODY WELL ISN'T. The most important component of victory in C2 is how you manage your units in battle.

Efrem, calm down dear, it's only a comment. No need to get all worked up over a game. Anyway, i downloaded the demo, and it's soooo fun!! I just about managed to get through the tutorial without going mad, but only had one question. Why did Officer Ferguson have an american accent when he was british? Apart from that, a damn fun game. I went into the Dangerous Neighbours map, and found out that you have to be quick in this game, as it quickly became a large free for all in a village outside of my town. Me and the enemy just kept pouring men into the giant meatgrinder that was supposed to be a battle. It went on like that for about half an hour, before i broke through enemy lines and started kicking butt.

That has to do with the who made it. CDV the publisher is German and the developer GSC gameworld is Ukrainian. In cossacks 1 the peasants responded in Ukrainian, in American conquest they said nothing at all. In C2 they broke down and got a few Germans who speak north american English to do the voice overs for the English version.

Can anyone give me a link where i can get that demo please ? I'd like to give that game a shot...

http://cossacks.heavengames.com/

Beings you warneds though it's about 450 odd megs. The second news post under patch release.

thanks lars !

I bought Cossacks II yesterday and I am impressed. I admit I have not played much else beside S:TW(MI) and M:TW(VI) in the past -- just some silly shooters and build & be done games that my kids managed to wrangle in the supermarket. Age of Empires was boring at first sight, Alexander was better and Stronghold 2 with its wry humour and attention to historical detail looks appealing but is tactically weak.

Cossacks II finally looks good enough to warrant some late night and early morning adult attention. The tutorial was very easy and clear, the interfaces are efficient, and historical detail is respected where it is most necessary: in the right 'feel' of late 18th and early 19th century line tactics. The first time I marched a column of grognards up a mountain pass and put them in Hold Ground formation, I was delighted to see some of them veer off into a nearby farm to forage, take a leak or tickle the local peasant girls.

The tactical handling of a single squadron feels good: I love the dynamics of marching and maneuvering, finding the right position, angle and time to bring my muskets to bear, minding morale whilst charging or reloading under enemy fire, the contrast between the slow, methodical movement of infantry and quicksilver cavalry charges.

The range of gun and musket fire could have been a bit longer, and the impact a little less, so as to make for more drawn-out engagements. Cavalry is a tad too fast, but I love the way they run through enemy lines once these have been sufficiently thinned. I will try my hand at larger formations later today or during the weekend. Austerlitz most likely, since we have just celebrated its 200th anniversary.

Resource management is integral to the game, yet quite simple and easy to handle as long as you don't lose track of it. That's elementary logistics for you; it was part and parcel of all maneuvers, and one of the reasons why Napoleon conquered most of Europe was that he was a past master at it. Logistics could have been restricted to an abstract (for instance a separate control panel), but the developers have chosen to integrate it visually by introducing mills, peasants and pack horses. This serves to lend it a certian realism, in the sense that you have to build, gather resources and set up supply routes whilst chipping away at those of the enemy.

As Efrem wrote above, you can put 100 peasants to work at the start of the game and let your conquests of neighbouring enemy villages take care of any future shortages. However if the enemy conquers your assets, you're done for, basically, because you run out of food and shot. Welcome to the world of actions and consequences.

Now I have a question for those who already play the game: what is the best support and discussion forum for Cossacks II?

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
Now I have a question for those who already play the game: what is the best support and discussion forum for Cossacks II?

The best discussion forum, IMO, is the official forum run by CDV/GSC. Here's the link, Almighty Red Inquisitor...

http://www.cdv-board.de/english/foru...php?forumid=58

Here you go. Enjoy! :ave:

Originally Posted by TheSilverKnight:
The best discussion forum, IMO, is the official forum run by CDV/GSC. Here's the link, Almighty Red Inquisitor...

http://www.cdv-board.de/english/foru...php?forumid=58

Here you go. Enjoy! :ave:

Thank you, dear Brother TheSilverKnight. The cdv-board is a far cry from TosaInu's pleasure garden, but we will have to make do.
:bow:

I received this for Christmas and look forward to putting it through it's paces. Judging from the tutorial the morale works better then I expected.

Originally Posted by Nelson:
I received this for Christmas and look forward to putting it through it's paces. Judging from the tutorial the morale works better then I expected.

Let's discuss this game as we go along, Nelson, and see what we can learn together. The Cossacks II forums are horrible (rockxor level) and not nearly as informative as I had hoped, there is little in the way of guides and strategic or tactical pointers. So I fear we are left to our own devices, my friend.

Yesterday I had the honour of leading His Imperial Majesty's troops against the French usurper in some Polish swamp. The Russian peasant hordes were a bit of a disappointment. They are armed with spears and practically useless in a unit to unit fight, unless the enemy unit's barrels are empty, it has been decimated by shot once or twice and its morale is low. The peasants are best used as a buffer between ranged units. Once the enemy has unloaded into the peasant unit and scattered it, one's own ranged unit can march up and fire at close range. Works wonders, and the surviving peasants have something to tell their grandchildren.

Fortunately His Majesty has decent musketeers as well as some excellent cavalry that enabled me to destroy the enemy's fiersome heavy artillery behind the lines. Sheer numbers then carried the day, havoc was wrought upon the remaining enemy squares.

Afterwards I played a skirmish titled 'Opposition Forces' which I found is good training for beginners like myself. I played the French against the Prussians in a very longdrawn campaign for the possession of villages and mills. Sadly, in the end I ran out of coal for no apparent reason and my units were able to fire only half-volleys. It turns out that I should have occupied a certain neighbouring village with attendant coal mine, instead of recklessly leaving it in enemy possession for most of the fight.

My conclusions so far:

1. The morale system of Cossacks II is a beaut. The morale of units depends on an initial bonus, battle experience, numbers lost, numbers of enemy killed, type of formation, time of sustained formation, number of empty or loaded barrels in the unit, position vis-a-vis enemy units, etcetera. After a while you can handle it intuitively, you don't have to calculate and look up any statistical tables to find out what is going on before your very eyes.

2. Logistics is a nice part of this game because its requirements change in the course of a campaign. In the beginning of a campaign when lots of new buildings must be established, wood and stone are in high demand. Later on, when a sustained offensive on enemy territory is required to secure victory, gold and coal are of the essence. As long as you mind your resources everything will run smoothly. No hiccups and bugs so far.

Keep me posted, Nelson! :bow:

You should both realize that it's next to impossible to get any where without cheating for resources. Not much just enough to get yourself going in the first 10 minutes.

And each nation has an undefined difficulty level both for playing against and as. For beginners like you, Adrian and Nelson, you should be fighting Egypt. In my experience the difficulty in facing AI armies from lowest to highest, Egypt, Russia, Austria, Britain, Prussia, France. For playing the easiest-hardest goes almost in reverse, France, Britain, Prussia, Austria, Russia, Egypt. Egypt is so easy to face and hard to play because they have no morale boosting flag bearers. And their units have low in-born morale.

Originally Posted by lars573:
You should both realize that it's next to impossible to get any where without cheating for resources. Not much just enough to get yourself going in the first 10 minutes.

Thank you, Lars573. I will try to play without cheating first. Please accept that I hold nothing personal against you, it is just that I have seen too many cheating players become sloppy and missing out on the real fun. You could be right and I will fess up if and when I cheat.

Originally Posted by lars573:
For beginners like you, Adrian and Nelson, you should be fighting Egypt. In my experience the difficulty in facing AI armies from lowest to highest, Egypt, Russia, Austria, Britain, Prussia, France. For playing the easiest-hardest goes almost in reverse, France, Britain, Prussia, Austria, Russia, Egypt.

Excellent advice. I have not started a campaign, but if I do, I will try my hand at France first.
Thanks again. :bow:

I've had the game for a while and I got to say that I find it really enjoyable.
I don't quite agree with the poster that said the Egyptians are that hard to play as I've actually managed to win quite alot when playing as the Egyptians. the archers are pretty useful for cover fire. Janissaries are a decent line infantry, they have less morale and worse close combat stats than most others musket infantry but they are better shots, supported by warriors with yataghan(or you might say the janissaries support them) who have more hp and are hard to shoot you should be able to beat most enemies. Their artillery is similar to most others and is good for bombarding enemies and thus forcing them to attack or retreat. As said earlier their cavalry units are good and should be used the same way as normal cavalry flanking and protecting flanks.

I mean hard as in learning curve. The Egyptians have a very different tech tree and as I said low morale. Once you get into the game and learn it's ins and outs they aren't that hard. Also Jannisaries are light infantry, that what the blue background on the unit card means. All that means is they have low melee and higher shot damage. Warriors with yataghan (which is a Muslim broad sword by the looks of it) are the Egyptian militia unit, denoted by their white background on their unit card.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
Thank you, Lars573. I will try to play without cheating first. Please accept that I hold nothing personal against you, it is just that I have seen too many cheating players become sloppy and missing out on the real fun. You could be right and I will fess up if and when I cheat.

I only cheat to amass enough cash to build my tech tree buildings, and get enough troops to take resources villiages. And I only do it because skirmish doesn't have an option to start with more resources, and the AI cheats hard.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
Excellent advice. I have not started a campaign, but if I do, I will try my hand at France first.
Thanks again.

I only mean't in the battles. In the battle for europe mode no one faction has a distinct advantage over the others. All the generals/national leaders start out at the same level (lieutenant) but different provinces generate resourcs at different rates per turn.

http://home.tiscali.be/mertense/images/grenadier.gif

Happy New Year!!

Originally Posted by Randarkmaan:
I've had the game for a while and I got to say that I find it really enjoyable.

So we have another Cossacks II enthusiast on the forum. Great! I have another couple of questions, hang on.

Me likey too. Even after a few days I have not reached the familiar 'aha'-moment where I realise the game mechanics are actually straight-forward, bordering on stupid, and I can easily beat the machine. Part of the explanation is that I have not yet tried a fullfledged campaign or the battle for Europe, of course. Could you lads give me any cues as to the AI's strengths and weaknesses? It looks good up to this point.

Another nice aspect is the incredible love of detail that went into the graphic scripts. There is a huge variety of scripted creatures and movements on your screen and I discover new ones all the time. The CII tactical map is populated by peasants and burghers going about their respective businesses, packhorses plodding up and down dirt roads, militias discharging their training blanks into the wheat fields. Another thing I like is that soldiers in less disciplined units go awol all the time in the local farms and inns, etcetera.

And just look at the detailed scripts they made for disbanded troops. After a unit has been scattered in a fight, most of its troops trudge back to their barracks in small groups and along different roads; others hang about in nearby woods and villages, and in the end (after an hour of sustained fighting) you will see spontaneous minor engagements all over your tactical map, where small units between one and ten soldiers of varying composition take on equally small bands of enemies near a village or bridge.

The sounds are great too. When you march a column of grenadiers through a village, the mundane village sounds of whirring mills and cackling chickens is gradually drowned by the sound of boots thrashing the road in unison. It wakes up my inner fascist every time ...

Question 1
Could you or Lars573 tell me whether a 'scorched earth' tactic works in this game? I mean, every village has a natural number of inhabitants: peasants, mill workers and militia. If you kill the entire population of a village -- because it is near the enemy barracks and you don't want them to have it -- does that population 'recover' from this blatant war crime or not? I have noticed that after you kill their militia it respawns at the village inn, but does this happen in a depopulated village too?

Question 2
How do you and Lars573 handle simultaneous engagements on different parts of the map? I have to use 'Pause' even in Normal Mode (remember I am a beginner) and switch from one scene to the next, but once you have three or even four separate engagements going on at the same time it is impossible to provide 'leadership'. When you give your units on battlefield 1 the necessary orders, you have to stay with them even if only for ten seconds to see how the orders play out with regard to the enemy's movements. During those ten seconds, the enemy may make a major move on battlefield 2, march up to your lines and fire a lethal volley into your unit while it stands idle for lack of orders. At some point I decided to leave units on one battlefield in defensive squares at some distance from the enemy, with a stand-by firing order in case the enemy would approach unseen by me. Does anyone have a better system?

Originally Posted by Lars573:
I only cheat to amass enough cash to build my tech tree buildings, and get enough troops to take resources villiages. And I only do it because skirmish doesn't have an option to start with more resources, and the AI cheats hard.

I also started out thinking that the AI cheats hard, but I am not sure. Maybe it 'hoards' resources during the game and trades them massively for coal and bullion in the endgame. If the AI can do that, so can a human player. Instead of stopping peasant spawning at about 100 as Efrem advised (see his comments elsewhere in the thread) I decided to assign more and more of them to wood and stone, and then swapped these for bullion, coal and iron in the market place. No more shortages of troops or shot befell AdrianII.

Originally Posted by Lars573:
I only mean't in the battles. In the battle for europe mode no one faction has a distinct advantage over the others.

I see. I will get back to you once I get there.
:bow:

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
So we have another Cossacks II enthusiast on the forum. Great! I have another couple of questions, hang on.

Me likey too. Even after a few days I have not reached the familiar 'aha'-moment where I realise the game mechanics are actually straight-forward, bordering on stupid, and I can easily beat the machine. Part of the explanation is that I have not yet tried a fullfledged campaign or the battle for Europe, of course. Could you lads give me any cues as to the AI's strengths and weaknesses? It looks good up to this point.

Another nice aspect is the incredible love of detail that went into the graphic scripts. There is a huge variety of scripted creatures and movements on your screen and I discover new ones all the time. The CII tactical map is populated by peasants and burghers going about their respective businesses, packhorses plodding up and down dirt roads, militias discharging their training blanks into the wheat fields. Another thing I like is that soldiers in less disciplined units go awol all the time in the local farms and inns, etcetera.

And just look at the detailed scripts they made for disbanded troops. After a unit has been scattered in a fight, most of its troops trudge back to their barracks in small groups and along different roads; others hang about in nearby woods and villages, and in the end (after an hour of sustained fighting) you will see spontaneous minor engagements all over your tactical map, where small units between one and ten soldiers of varying composition take on equally small bands of enemies near a village or bridge.

The sounds are great too. When you march a column of grenadiers through a village, the mundane village sounds of whirring mills and cackling chickens is gradually drowned by the sound of boots thrashing the road in unison. It wakes up my inner fascist every time ...

Pack horse can be killed and the enemy denied those resources. The battle for europe can be seen as the place where C2 shines. My most shining victory was in battle for europe. I was invading a Prussian province as the French. Battles in BFE (battle for europe) are kind of like TW battles, you only have the troops you recruited on the campagin map. So I only had an infantry brigade (4 infantry regiments) supported by 2 light cavalry squadrons and I faced 2:1 odds in favor of Prussia. So I took a page from General MacAurthers book, "hit em where they aint". I took their coal mines (coal is used for making gun powder). I sent in the cavalry to take the villages and usd the infantry to block counter attacks. Thankfully the Prussia positions were west of the coal mines and I had a chance. But after I had taken all the coal mine I faced all the Prussians coming down on me. I lost 3 of my infnatry units and 1 cavalry squadron. As I braced for my imminent distruction the Prussians ran out of shot and retreated. I won because they left the field. :sweatdrop:

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
Question 1
Could you or Lars573 tell me whether a 'scorched earth' tactic works in this game? I mean, every village has a natural number of inhabitants: peasants, mill workers and militia. If you kill the entire population of a village -- because it is near the enemy barracks and you don't want them to have it -- does that population 'recover' from this blatant war crime or not? I have noticed that after you kill their militia it respawns at the village inn, but does this happen in a depopulated village too?

Scorched earth is not really possible. While you could send skirmishers (British Riflemen Chassurs for the other Europeans and Turaegs for Egypt) to snipe the enemy villagers or some might get killed in the cross fire while taking the village after that you can't kill them. In fact you have no control over what they do at all. The most you could do is march on an enemies village, take it, but not hold it. After you take a village all the peasants flee then slowly return. By taking but not holding the enemies villages you hamper their economy (as it takes several minutes for an captured village to get back to full productivity). I would use light cavalry for these raids (Hussars light Dragoons and Ulhans). 2 squadrons preferably. They are fast enough to zip in take the village and be gone before and infantry regiment has been dispatched.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
Question 2
How do you and Lars573 handle simultaneous engagements on different parts of the map? I have to use 'Pause' even in Normal Mode (remember I am a beginner) and switch from one scene to the next, but once you have three or even four separate engagements going on at the same time it is impossible to provide 'leadership'. When you give your units on battlefield 1 the necessary orders, you have to stay with them even if only for ten seconds to see how the orders play out with regard to the enemy's movements. During those ten seconds, the enemy may make a major move on battlefield 2, march up to your lines and fire a lethal volley into your unit while it stands idle for lack of orders. At some point I decided to leave units on one battlefield in defensive squares at some distance from the enemy, with a stand-by firing order in case the enemy would approach unseen by me. Does anyone have a better system?

Pause is about the best way, but the enemy will not try to open more than 2 fronts. They will alternatge between 3-4 alternate attack routes but not use more than 2 at a time. You protect these other areas with field fortifications. Block houses, towers, kronwerks, forts, and fortresses are all for this task. Use these to funnel the enemy into one area where you mass your army. Classic territorial denial. But keep some forces near fortifications just in case. I'm a natural turtle in an RTS game, defense is my speciality.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
I also started out thinking that the AI cheats hard, but I am not sure. Maybe it 'hoards' resources during the game and trades them massively for coal and bullion in the endgame. If the AI can do that, so can a human player. Instead of stopping peasant spawning at about 100 as Efrem advised (see his comments elsewhere in the thread) I decided to assign more and more of them to wood and stone, and then swapped these for bullion, coal and iron in the market place. No more shortages of troops or shot befell AdrianII.I see. I will get back to you once I get there.
:bow:

If trading works for you then use it. I cheat because that works for me. :bow:

Originally Posted by Lars573:
The Battle for Europe can be seen as the place where C2 shines. My most shining victory was in battle for europe. (..) As I braced for my imminent distruction the Prussians ran out of shot and retreated. I won because they left the field. :sweatdrop:

Heh, sounds like a harrowing experience, somewhat akin to some of my battles in S:TW and M:TW.

Hats off for your clear thinking. Though one thing I don't get is why your Prussians did not trade wood, food or stone for coal. I just played a beta-version of my France vs Prussia skirmish, trying to improve on everything I did wrong the first time round. Went like a dream. I conquered five enemy villages and got myself like 45.000 food units, so I could trade food for coal and iron anytime. I built two TH and two stabled and kept pumping out Grenadiers and Mounted Dragoons so fast, Heinz didn't know what hit him. I made Sappers, too, and had them build and destroy stuff all the time to get the hang of it. And I developed my own tactic for Grenadiers. I put three squadrons one behind the other, the most experienced/highest moral squad first because it will take the most hits. I then have them march in waves at the enemy, one squadron moving up as the others are loading. Between your rifles and your grenades, each squadron has ample occasion to do maximum damage. As soon as it is done, the next squadron marches up and blows even bigger holes in the enemy's line and morale. Three or four such waves take care of anything they can possibly throw at you.

Originally Posted by Lars573:
Scorched earth is not really possible. (..) The most you could do is march on an enemies village, take it, but not hold it.

I understand. You would have to kill off all the peasants and mill workers before you defeat the militia, and the machine will not allow you to do that.

Originally Posted by Lars573:
I would use light cavalry for these raids (Hussars light Dragoons and Ulhans). 2 squadrons preferably. They are fast enough to zip in take the village and be gone before and infantry regiment has been dispatched.

So you can actually divert enemy squadrons in this fashion? Excellent!

Originally Posted by Lars573:
Pause is about the best way, but the enemy will not try to open more than 2 fronts.

Aha, so having three (and even, for a brief spell, four) simultaneous fronts was my own doing, and not CDV's.

Originally Posted by Lars573:
Block houses, towers, kronwerks, forts, and fortresses are all for this task. Use these to funnel the enemy into one area where you mass your army. Classic territorial denial.

Speaking of which, how effective is a blockhouse/tower in stopping enemy advances. Can a tower block one enemy squad indefinitely? Two, maybe three? Can it block all sorts of squads or only inexperienced ones?

Originally Posted by Lars573:
I'm a natural turtle in an RTS game, defense is my speciality.

I am also a natural turtle, but doing all sorts of agressive sports (scrimmage, some boxing, rugby, chess) has taught me to overcome this natural tendency and look for opportunities and risky combinations. My first inkling in my first skirmish was to erect all buildings in my home town, but then I slapped myself on the wrist and said: nope, put them in forward locations, as far up as you can.

C2 keeps me dreaming, too. Imagine in a couple of years we could have ourselves an RTS that combines C2 tactics with TW elements such as 3D graphics, an integrated campaign map and multiple battles in different fronts per turn.
I would barricade myself in my study for entire weekends. :sweatdrop: :laugh4:

Thanks again for your elaborate comments, Lars573.

Not as good as you'd think really. Plus no modding support and no real community or developer support.

Loads of bugs too.

Oh yes, and everyone just bundles into one spot and there is no penalty for this, which ruins it all.

And MP doesn't work.

Originally Posted by BDC:
Not as good as you'd think really. Plus no modding support and no real community or developer support. Loads of bugs too. Oh yes, and everyone just bundles into one spot and there is no penalty for this, which ruins it all. And MP doesn't work.

Exactly what game are you talking about, BDC?

I find the road system annoying, but other than that it is a great sequel.

Originally Posted by Templar Knight:
I find the road system annoying, but other than that it is a great sequel.

Whoda thunk his Lordship is a devoted Cossack as well? Pray tell me, Duart, how does one invest buildings with troops in this game? I have read somewhere that you can take over enemy buildings, but I have no clue as to how.

Am I chasing the proverbial scarlet clupeida? :embarassed:

I dont think you can, other than forts, I believe they took out the garrison civilian buildings feature. However I havent played it for sometime so I may be wrong. ~:)

Originally Posted by Templar Knight:
I dont think you can, other than forts, I believe they took out the garrison civilian buildings feature. However I havent played it for sometime so I may be wrong. ~:)

Maybe someone from a Cossacks forum strayed into a Cossacks II forum and set that red herring swimming.

It might be possible. I haven't visited them for a while, I might pop in tonight...

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
Heh, sounds like a harrowing experience, somewhat akin to some of my battles in S:TW and M:TW.

Don't doubt it. BFE reminds me a good deal of TW battles.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
Hats off for your clear thinking. Though one thing I don't get is why your Prussians did not trade wood, food or stone for coal. I just played a beta-version of my France vs Prussia skirmish, trying to improve on everything I did wrong the first time round. Went like a dream. I conquered five enemy villages and got myself like 45.000 food units, so I could trade food for coal and iron anytime. I built two TH and two stabled and kept pumping out Grenadiers and Mounted Dragoons so fast, Heinz didn't know what hit him. I made Sappers, too, and had them build and destroy stuff all the time to get the hang of it. And I developed my own tactic for Grenadiers. I put three squadrons one behind the other, the most experienced/highest moral squad first because it will take the most hits. I then have them march in waves at the enemy, one squadron moving up as the others are loading. Between your rifles and your grenades, each squadron has ample occasion to do maximum damage. As soon as it is done, the next squadron marches up and blows even bigger holes in the enemy's line and morale. Three or four such waves take care of anything they can possibly throw at you.

My tendency is to keep about 50-100 reserve infantry-men to the rear of my front line regiments. Lets me fill holes quickly. With out having to retreat them to a village to replenish numbers. If you put an infantry unit in a resource village they will replace losses over time. But in BFE that's not always possible. As you don't get regular skirmish/multiplayer resource collection. The Prussians may not have had a market to trade with, just villages.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
I understand. You would have to kill off all the peasants and mill workers before you defeat the militia, and the machine will not allow you to do that.

Yes essentially. But as I said capturing a village removes all the workers.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
So you can actually divert enemy squadrons in this fashion? Excellent!

Very much so. If you take an enemy village the AI will make efforts to retake it. And it's very stubborn.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
Aha, so having three (and even, for a brief spell, four) simultaneous fronts was my own doing, and not CDV's.

Sort of, the AI will determine all the acess points into your base (the victory condition is the destuction of all town centers). Then they will probe all of them periodically and if they find a soft point throw their entire assault wave at it. The aim is to force you to spread yourself too thin.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
Speaking of which, how effective is a blockhouse/tower in stopping enemy advances. Can a tower block one enemy squad indefinitely? Two, maybe three? Can it block all sorts of squads or only inexperienced ones?

A tower isn't very effective on it's own. My preferance is 2 block houses side by each with a tower lightly beind. Blockhouses fire musket volleys in very quick succession. They can decimate an infantry regiment in seconds and send them fleeing. An infantry regiment between two blockhouses is like meat in a grinder.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
I am also a natural turtle, but doing all sorts of agressive sports (scrimmage, some boxing, rugby, chess) has taught me to overcome this natural tendency and look for opportunities and risky combinations. My first inkling in my first skirmish was to erect all buildings in my home town, but then I slapped myself on the wrist and said: nope, put them in forward locations, as far up as you can.

C2 keeps me dreaming, too. Imagine in a couple of years we could have ourselves an RTS that combines C2 tactics with TW elements such as 3D graphics, an integrated campaign map and multiple battles in different fronts per turn.
I would barricade myself in my study for entire weekends.

Thanks again for your elaborate comments, Lars573.

I make 2 sets of training buildings. My first inside my base, the second further afield. There is a mod right now for operation flashpoint that is set in the napoleonic era it makes squadrons of cavalry and infantry companies vehicles that you, an officer, "drives". All in very nice if 3 years old 3D graphics.

Originally Posted by AdrianII:
Whoda thunk his Lordship is a devoted Cossack as well? Pray tell me, Duart, how does one invest buildings with troops in this game? I have read somewhere that you can take over enemy buildings, but I have no clue as to how.

Am I chasing the proverbial scarlet clupeida?

Originally Posted by Templar Knight:
I dont think you can, other than forts, I believe they took out the garrison civilian buildings feature. However I havent played it for sometime so I may be wrng.

You can capture buildings, except training buildings. But the second you do it's HP drop to half and it sets on fire. You need to repair anyone you want to keep with combat engineers. And while you can't garrison civilian buildings like Town centers or houses, you can garrison forts and their ilke.

mmm this got me back into cossacks...

Great game! That Coal thingy that happened to your enemy happened to me last night and directly after I'd just won a huge battle that would have won me the map. :(

Originally Posted by Efrem:
mmm this got me back into cossacks...

Great game! That Coal thingy that happened to your enemy happened to me last night and directly after I'd just won a huge battle that would have won me the map. :(

Heh, it's early days and I have not done a BFE yet, but I think I'm falling in love with the game. I will report back to your field quarters when I have something substantial to report, gentlemen.
:bow:

Originally Posted by lars573:
There is a mod right now for operation flashpoint that is set in the napoleonic era it makes squadrons of cavalry and infantry companies vehicles that you, an officer, "drives".

That sounds a little weird, but kind of ingenious too. I haven't come across it at my usual haunts- do you happen to know where it might be found?

Not really sure but I could check.

Is this the one Lars?

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bi...ST;f=4;t=47446

Might be I'd have to see more shots. I saw units of a hundred men.

Templar Knight, that is a great link! In ten minutes there I found a bunch of promising mods and the fix for a problem I was having with the game. Awesome! (Note to self: check the official forum stupid.)

lars573: that probably was the Nap mod you were thinking of, but anyway no need for checking on my behalf- now I have got more than enough to be going on with...~;)