Rating: Summary: A game that commands. Review: 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.
Rating: Summary: Someone who knows the time period. Review: This game is great. There is some problems and bugs. One problem you probley will have if you play the computer is Sich Cossacks Raiding your town. This is easily fixed by a dozen or so Pikemen scatterd through the town on stand ground. The other problem I had was its lack of historical accuracy. Poland for instance was a 17th century power-house, but in this game they down grade the units so much its not worth playing. Turkey, Sweden, and Spain is the same situation. While Russia, and Ukraine(Part of Poland at the time) are powerhouses but shouldnt be. But there is an add-on comming out soon which is supposed to fix the problems and add 2 new nations to the game. The game has great strong points though. Unlike AOK your population acctually eats, walls have a stone/wood upkeep. This is a great game where the positave outweighs the negative. A must buy for anyone that is a fan of RTS games.
Rating: Summary: GREAT GAME Review: This game is a great strategy game for any age. It teaches young ones about geography and how gruesome war can be. Personally my son and I love it. Trust me its a great buy!
Rating: Summary: One of the best RTS games there is... Review: 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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating: Summary: Could Have Been Classic Review: I have been playing Cossacks for about a month. At first I was thrilled by the superb graphics andd the number of available upgrades. As I got deeper into the game, small annoyances began to appear and eventually grow into larger annoyances.For example, the ability of a handful of units (like Cossacks), to completely overrun a city which has taken a lot of time for you to build is a real drag. As a matter of fact, the ability of just one enemy unit to just stand next to your buildings and convert them is definitely unrealistic, and greatly takes away from the fun. Add to that the expense of defending what is yours, with either stone or wood walls, makes it that much more difficult to succeed. In addition, if you simply just race against your opponent to try and raid his town so he can't raid yours isn't strategy, it's a race. The game allows little time to think and develop strategy, even after adjusting the game speed. Finally, the upgrades, although numerous, just get repetitive and tedious after a while, with no obviously noticeable results. I found Age of Kings, combined with The Conquerors Expansion, to be much more rewarding, a lot more fun, with many more options and variety, and not "childish" at all. Cossacks: European Wars could have been as good if the gameplay was structured better. Unfortunately, it falls short of its ambitious mark.
Rating: Summary: AOE 3rd rate clone Review: I cannot believe the reviews I am reading about this game! How anybody can rate this piece of you-know-what above a 2 is beyond me, unless the game's marketers and designers are rating it. The game design is obviously a direct copy of Age of Empires. Only not as much fun and with a far-far-far more kludgey user interface. Game design rating: 1 star The sound is atrocious, rating: 1 star Graphics: On a scale of 1-100, give AOE a rating of 90, Kossacks rating: 1 star Fun rating: 1 star. I read through the thick manual when I bought this game and was a little disapointed in the lack of professionalism inside the cover (the cover was great). Then I eagerly installed the game. I lost some enthusiasm during the install since even the installation program was a little amateurish. Then I ran it. It did not run. I tried again. It did not run. Strangely on the third try the thing slowly took off like a old lumbering sea-plane. The opening graphics were ok. Then I played a game. All enthusiasm quickly zeroed out to nil. 20 minutes of painful playing of this game greatly raised my enthusiasm... FOR UNINSTALLING IT! The uninstall worked pretty good and now I have my 500megs of disk space back and am searching through my old dusty cds looking for AOE.
Rating: Summary: MUCH BETTER THAN AGE OF EMPIRES 2 Review: 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.
Rating: Summary: Multiplayer Review Review: 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.
Rating: Summary: Cossacks: Cool Games! Review: About a year back, I got tired of playin AoE II, and then I was looking on the internet and..wow! Cossacks! As I looked at it, it made me want to buy it so I rushed down to the Gamestop and bought it for $30. It was worth it. I rushed home to play it. The campaigns are marvelous, as are the single player missions. After that, in October 2002, I bought Cossacks: The Art of War. With a slew of new missions and two new nations, heck! It's the best buy yet! I made my own scenarios with the editor and had a bunch of fun. Then, came Cossacks: Back to War, and I fell in love. With Mod1 by Baddog already installed, it made the game much more enjoyable with more historical context, now I'm hooked on Cossacks: Back to War, and American Conquest, another cool game! Sounds: 9 Gameplay: 10 Replay-abilty: 10 Variety: 10 Overall: 10 This game is one of the best out there if you're a historical nut, and plus, now, it's only [item price]! So go out there and get it! :-D
Rating: Summary: Age of Empires Rip-Off Review: I know this has probably been said but I decided to say it again. No matter how good this game was on its own I couldn't play it at all without first thinking Age of Empire. Don't get me wrong the missions are unique and challenging(sometimes enormously hard). But I somehow feel like I have played the game before. The game is wonderful and this one had the decked stacked against it from the outset, to bad. My impression-A decent game that could have been a great game
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