Cossacks and Cossacks2

[Mount Suribachi]

Was just browsing through PC Gamer this morning and came across a Demo for Cossacks2. Now I never played the original cossacks and I'm wondering if I missed out on a good game.

The review of Cossacks2 said that it cut down on the resource management of the original, which was a good thing. Now I agree. So was Cossacks just another resource gathering RTS click-fest, or is there more too it than that?

Sadly my current PC won't handle Cossacks2, but there was a copy of the original game for a princely £6 in the supermarket. Is it worth getting for someone like me who loves TW style strategy gaming, or is it just C&C meets Napolean?

Thanks

[Browning]

Was just browsing through PC Gamer this morning and came across a Demo for Cossacks2. Now I never played the original cossacks and I'm wondering if I missed out on a good game.

The review of Cossacks2 said that it cut down on the resource management of the original, which was a good thing. Now I agree. So was Cossacks just another resource gathering RTS click-fest, or is there more too it than that?

Sadly my current PC won't handle Cossacks2, but there was a copy of the original game for a princely £6 in the supermarket. Is it worth getting for someone like me who loves TW style strategy gaming, or is it just C&C meets Napolean?

Thanks

I think it is just C&C meets Napoleon, IMHO (I played Cossacks: Back To War). It is not bad, it is very pretty and fun at the beginning, but it gets repetitive after a while - well, I played SP only, where the strategy for every nation looks the same: who gathers gazillions of gold fast enough to build a fleet of Lineships first, he wins. The built-in differences between nations were close to invisible to me, other than in graphics.

You may try a demo version and see if you like it.

[lars573]

Cossacks 1 is a little more than a standard RTS click fest. Most RTS games don't require you to have an army of 2000 men, formed into units of 120 or 90 to compete with the AI. Most RTS games don't need you to have food in your resource pile to pay up keep on your units, so that they won't drop dead (litterally). Most RTS games if you run out of gold your army and navy won't mutiny. In Cossacks 1 all these things happen. The game has a global population of 8000 units, that is 8000 men can be on screen at once. Of the games 6 resources (food, wood, stone, gold, metal, coal) only 2 are gathered in a standard RTS way, you build a drop off point and you send your peasants to gather them. Food you get from farms that re-plant themselfs automatically. The other 3 come from mines that you build on a gold/metal/coal patch on the map. That are stocked with peasants to mine them. But if you had to call it CnC meets something, CnC meets Gustav-Adolf or Frederick the great would be more apt. i have some screens of a skirmish game I had with men as the Polish, an AI buddy as the Ukrainians vs the Swedes.

My Polish army right wing


Polish right wing


The Swedes


Ukrainian allies


Swedes march to war (under bombarment from my cannons)


My winged hussars clean up what left of the Swedes after a nice shooting match/melee

Also don't get the original Cossacks game get the stand alone second x-pack Art of War. They made many improvements with the 2 x-packs.

[Browning]

Wow, that are nice screenies. Was it in MP?

In SP, all I needed to keep any hard opponent at the bay was 10 cannons on each frontier. Of course, this requires a healthy economy.

[Drisos]

I have Cossacks: European Wars and Cossacks: The Art of War.

Especially The art of war is a great game, even in SP, i lately played it again for a few days.

I prefer STW, but that's not working at the moment. . .

[Randal]

It's a fun game, not much like C&C, not much like Total War either. It's more of an Age of Empires clone, but on a larger scale. I didn't buy it when it came out, but nowadays you can get a copy for a few bucks, which is worth it. It does get a bit repetitive, especially compared to Total War games, but it's a nice diversion. And winged hussars are very cool.

Browning: Do you have the Art of War expansion? The expansion restricts cannons to 5 per artillery depot. Which won't stop you from building a lot if you really want to, but with the exponentially increasing costs for extra depots, that's tougher than it seems. The expansion also has the option to disable cannons altogether, which sometimes makes for more interesting gameplay in my opinion, as the cannon are a bit powerful in the basic game.

[lars573]

Wow, that are nice screenies. Was it in MP?

In SP, all I needed to keep any hard opponent at the bay was 10 cannons on each frontier. Of course, this requires a healthy economy.

No that was with the AI. If you have 1 hour of peace time you get a good sized army thrown your way when it's over.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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I have Cossacks: EW and liked it. It's more fun than any C&C or AoE lookalike. However, it's extremely hard and resource management had a great share in that!

In 2 they decreased RM, added a TW-like turn-based strategic level, but unfortunately took out good stuff too (like ships/naval warfare, except in missions iirc). Also, judging from early screenies, they are just too Aladdinish with the historical value of the graphics, especially about the Oriental factions/places.

When I have a new puter, I may consider ebaying a copy.
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[TheSilverKnight]

where did you find the demo? I did a search and I can't find it

[Efrem]

Cossacks 2 is on sale in perth, haven't checked in local stores now I'm back in sydney, but it should be here, and I shoudl be getting it.

[doc_bean]

There is a Cossacks2 demo available for download now.

[doc_bean]

It doesn't seem to work on my PC, it asked me to alter something in my bios, but it still doesn't work after I did that

[TheSilverKnight]

There is a Cossacks2 demo available for download now.

Where did you download the demo?