Cossacks 2: Napoleonic wars review and screenshots

**Kraxis** · 05-24-2005, 14:39

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.

**Nelson** · 05-24-2005, 16:25

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?

**lars573** · 05-24-2005, 16:26

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.

**Kraxis** · 05-24-2005, 23:18

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.

**Leet Eriksson** · 05-24-2005, 23:44

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.

**Yun Dog** · 05-25-2005, 03:23

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

**lars573** · 05-25-2005, 04:04

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.

**frogbeastegg** · 05-25-2005, 09:19

Alright, you have my interest. I shall try the demo

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.

**lars573** · 05-25-2005, 03:41

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.