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MUCH BETTER THAN AGE OF EMPIRES 2

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: October 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game after a friend recommended it to me, claiming it is, "What Age of Empires 2 should have been. I gave it five stars, even though there are several cons about it.

As for the pros, there is everything printed on the back of the box, such as 8,000 units on a single battlefield, which you are probably familiar with from the other reviews. I personally think that the campaigns on Cossacks are much better than the AOK campaigns; there are more realistic, more difficult, and last for a very long time. The artificial intelligence is great. The computer players actually have some strategy, and you, the human player, can't just march up to the enemy and conquer them as in AOK, but has to have some strategy. It is much more realistic than AOK. People actually eat, for one thing.

One con is that people don't follow orders very well. You order them to attack one unit, and they attack another unit in another direction. Next, you can't destroy guarded seige weapons unless you destroy the huge formations of pikemen and heavy riders surrounding them. Also, there is no map editor. Despite these cons, I would highly recommend any real time strategy lover to get this game.

Multiplayer Review

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: August 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Cossacks European Wars
Is a Real time stragy game, simular to Age of empires.
Takes place in the 17th and 18th centuries, and has units, that appear to be from the end of the medievil times and beging of american civil war.
I was personally most impressed by this game. The size of the game play area [maps] is HUGE. Creating units in this game is fairly cheap, and quick [as they should be] Buildings are the opposite, however this works out simply becuase of the Buildings durability, wow do they take a pounding.
To give you an idea, a peasent has 50 health, where as a building may have something in the area of 25000 health.
A nice addition to this game, other then the fact that you can build 8000 units...
Is if you build the same type of building example a barraks that building becomes more expensive each time u build a new one, it seems almost expotential. Which I like, it makes it that much more difficult to be over powered.
I will also add that this game isn't bassed as much on maintaining your economy as Age of empires is... In age of empires, you have to back and watch your farm's, tree cutters etc.... however in Cossacks, once you've put a unit to work your set, and you can focuz on the battle.
In battle formation's are key, if your not carefull you can lose many many units... but at the same time, if your orginized, and attack with skill you can wipe out your enemies, using the same type of units and being outnumbered, simply by attack'n with stragy.
One last addition, logisitics come into play in this game. For example, when u start with a few units, you'll noitce your food resource is slowly being leeched, and or depleted. This I like, the idea that your units are eating are hungry, and thus places a strane on your resources, each unit does this. If you where to run out of a food, a famine strikes, and your units slowly beging to die. Thus keeping a good income in food is always good. Usually doing this has no problem. Continuing from this, your build'ings and walls do the same, Although I did not notice this as much, but maintaining your walls requires some stone over time. Your military Units, also like to be paid, they will draw from your gold fund over time, if you run out of gold, some units will desert you. More over, your ranged units, your musket[rifles] units every shot take some coal and iron, which makes sence it requires iron for each bullet, and coal to shoot the bullet.

I really like these ideas, simply because, you can now lay siege to your enemies town/base/castle/fort. You can take a scout just in the outer range of your enemies base, watch them shoot at the scout, using resource's, and simply have the scout dodge the shot, its a cannon ball u can see it coming, and u can dodge it.
When I played mulitplayer with 2 friends, 3 of us Free for all. It was most impressive, so see a formation of cannons, musket's and pikeman to protect the muskets, setup so it is very difficult to defeat. however with the correct meathods can be defeated.

A surprising hit

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: June 18, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I was first doubtful about this game. I played the demo and I am very impressed. The graphics and sound is outstanding. I was a fan of AOE and this game is simaliar to AOE but has better gameplay and you need to actually use strategy when launching an offensive. After playing the demo I am ordering the game today. I have read that the game has some bugs, but I did not encounter any during the demo. Also I was very impressed with the AI. If your not careful the computer will turn the tides of war on you. If you like strategy war games then try the demo. If you don't want to spend all day downloading the demo, the July 2001 issue of Maximum PC has it on disc.

One of the best RTS games there is...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: May 05, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I haven't even had this game for a week and already I love it. True, it loads slowly (leading me to open it twice, resulting in a lock-up when you exit) but you can spend that time reading the extensive, encyclopedia-like manul. The only bug I've noticed is that when ever you start the map editor (which is nearly impossible to do, seeing as it is a beta version and is in German) and then try to play, youc't tell your men t attack. So don't use the map editor, there's plenty else to do. First of all, the graphics are great, sort of like those of an upgraded TZAR. The random maps are great fun (not to difficult, especially on easy) as are te campaigns, which are extremely hard do to a lack of adjutable difficulty levels for the campaigns. The 16 civs are all quite different, and each require different strategies. It hs tons of realism: your food constantly depletes, and your men start dying if you run out, and all gunpowder units use up coal and iron in every shot. The units are great, all with advantages and disadvantages, even if these be as subtle as extra protection against cannonballs or low cost. Forget generic unit names: the European designers came up with Strelets (Russia), Sich Cossacks, Hetmans, and Serdiuks (Ukraine), Roundshiers, Pandurs, and Croats (Austria) and many more. The combat is extremely tactical: whereas in AoE one unit always beats another, this game changes that-elevation, upgrades, and even ambushes(hiding units behind trees) are all possible. It's amazing to watch three musketeers draw a hoard of enemy cavalry into a valley, where your remaining three hundred men then open fire. You can lead raids with fast cavalry, capturing buildings, burning them, and enslaving enemy peasants (except those of Ukraine.) I have tons more to say, but I'm afraid I'm running out of room. YOU MUST BUY THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Disappointed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: May 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This is definetely the most overhyped game I have ever purchased. While the game has several good points, including excellent graphics and challeging AI the actual game play is extremely frustrating and simply not much fun in single player mode (I've not tried multi at all and won't be bothering after my initial exdperience). In the week I've had it I've had multiple problems with it suddenly crashing. Unfortunately that is the least irritating problem. The tutorial was pathetically bad and the written documentation is a joke. Yes, there are 196 pages of it, but could the pages get any smaller (4" by 6") and most is used up detailing various unit types. The basic concepts of the game are poorly explained and it took hours of play to catch on to how things work. Also, the technology "trees" are nearly illegible due to the small format. Plus those "trees" are more like shrubs. Sure, there are hundreds of upgrades to make, but most are the same attack and defense upgrades done over and over again with each type of unit. National differences do not really seem to matter very much either. Once you get into the actual play the problems continue. Units do not reliably move to the locations you order them to in a fair number of cases. Naval units hanging up on coast lines is a frequent problem. I found managing battles be more frustrating than fun due to a number of problems with the interface that made it hard to identify units and give orders once you were engaged. The "campaigns" provided seem devoid of strategy and instead revolve around mastering tricks to pass each stage. The "scenarios" weren't much better, but revolved more arround mass production of units and carnage rather than any real strategic effort. One of a very select list of games I wish I had never bought.

mm

A Must Get.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 14
Date: April 18, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I must admit, the demo is impressive. First, I recommend you get the demo, it's at ... , just copy and paste the address. Be sure to get the version 1.02, because you don't need the current patch. I'd start the download in the morning, and leave your computer on through the day, because the demo takes a lot of time, but trust me, it's worth it.

Ok, now about the game. If you play any Age of Empire game or demo, you'll have no trouble with the controlls. The game spans the 16th-18th centurys (1600s-1800s) and looks historicly accurate. In the demo you only get a random map with Spain, but it's real fun. In the demo you start out in the 17h century and are able to progress to the 18th, but you must have several buildings and 12500 gold, 500 iron, and 20000 food (I'm not sure about them, but it's close.)In the 17th century don't waste time and resources on Musketters, but on Pikemen. There attack and defense and be upgraded six times each, and you'll need to. But when you get to the 18th work with Musketeers from the Barracks Two and from the Academy have the Muskteers cost half as much. Oh, yes, set it on easy mode, I can't even beat it yet.

Almost as good as Age Of Empires

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: September 27, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The building, units, development of resorces and gameplay is essentially the same as AOE. The interface is confusing and difficult to manage (right/left click). The graphics are slightly better than AOE and the game is slow compared to AOE.

Plus:
Great campaigns.
Large scale armies (much larger than AOE).
Better resources management.

Cons:
Not as good nor fluid as AOE.
Game is not as addictive as AOE or C&C or Starcraft.

Overall: if you like the historical period and want to play with units of that time, this is a good game. Otherwise it's just AOE stuck in the 17th century.

Love this game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: October 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Can't say enough good about this game...it blows Age of Empires away. Nothing like watching a pike formation march into your grapeshot. :) I can't wait for the updated version!

Waiting for the add-on

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: January 13, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is pretty good, but it lacks the polish of AOK. I agree with the criticisms of the campaigns that other reviwers have noted below: there's too many missions where you have no village and command a small number of soldiers to wander the board aimlessly until you figure out what you're supposed to do. The AOK folks just made a better mix of missions: some where you start with an army, others where you have to build up an economy ...more like a mix between a random map and a single mission. For a game that supposedly emphasizes the economy more than other games of this genre do, I found this surprising.

Ships are too powerful, towers too weak. There are other more minor balancing issues. The random map feature (which in my mind is 90% of the playing fun of these games) is good enough to make it worth buying. Like AOK, you can choose maps that force land or sea conflict. The demo of the add on already shows significant, needed improvements in the random map.

I really like AOK and continue to play it and the expansion. Cossacks is enough like the AOK-style that you can easily pick it up, but different enough that's it's not really a knock-off. I think it's worth the money, and the add-on looks like it fixes at least the some of the problems noted in these reviews.

A game that commands.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: October 18, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This is a historically based military game, and it is about as accurate as most computer games come to being historically accurate. However, that is just a side note in comparison to the range of commands and realistic structure of the military. Officers, pipers, drummers, etc. are all needed to form an effective military machine to defend, attack, or make a last stand. Although some might argue there is not enough range in units to be used, and they might be right, especially pertaining to foot soldiers. Problem being there wasn't a whole lot of difference in the foot soldiers during this time period, you had your pike and musketeers and that's about it (for foot soldiers).
Multiplayer has but one flaw; there is no way to add additional computer players. Strategy first has posted message that an expansion will be coming out and this option will be added.
One other major plus to this game is that it is virtually bug free, there was no need for a patch, and there was no crashing. Its always nice to be able to play a great game without any problems and stop when you want.
The game is very enjoyable, and offers much replayibilty on the basis that you can attack and defend a different way each time, this game is worth the money.

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