Rating: 
Summary: Overall: A disappointment.
Review: I greatly enjoyed the Age of Empires series, but I always wished it was based more on actual history rather than a very loose interpretation. I thought Cossacks would be the answer to my hopes. It was billed as the most historically accurate of the build and destroy realtime strategy games. It would achieve this by having a much narrower scope than the Age of Empires games: two hundred years of European history with a focus on Eastern Europe in the 17-18th centuries. Although, the narrow scope may sound limiting, any history buff will recognize that period as a treasure trove of conflicts and wars: the Thirty Years War, Ukranian Revolts, Turkish Invasions, French Wars of Religion, the English Civil War, and so and so on. As a huge history buff, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this game.Cossacks looks impressive: sixteen different nations each with their own seperate building set and most with their own unique units. Also the AI is fairly aggressive especially in the early stages of the game- it's a "rusher." How one raises an army is also much more complex than other realtime strategy games because your units use resouces so if your economy is destroyed then your army will run out of supplies and will then desert. Also the graphics and sound are terrific: pikemen advance in formation, musketeers in line firing and reloading, heavy cavalry charging into battle, your peasants walking through a sea of wheat, and the roar of cannons. However, after numerous playings I grew more and more disappointed with how Cossacks played. First off, despite the individual building sets and unique units, there is little difference between the various nations. Although a handful of nations have some limitations on what technological advances they can access, the vast majority have access to all the same technologies. What made the Age of Empires games so fun was that each nation had its own strengths and weaknesses as to technology. It was the techs that made the nations unique in AOE, and Cossacks sorely lacks this aspect. Also unit balance is completely off kilter: cannons, especially those on naval units, are devastating- destroying entire armies and cities. Cannons should be valuable units, but for the timeframe they should not be trump card to everything. Also the buildings explode when destroyed- its fun to watch, but there have been games where I lost more units to exploding buildings than I did the enemy units. It's very silly. And the AI, which is an aggressive rusher, can be easily countered. Although in some ways it is far superior to AOE's AI, but defending itself is not one of them. I don't how many times I attacked an AI city, systematically destroying it, while not far away a huge AI army just sat motionless not responding to my attack on its precious city The historical campaigns that shipped with the game are a real disappointment, and probably the biggest reason why I stopped playing. Although, they are based on interesting subjects, they played as puzzles (ex: if your units went the wrong way then they would not trigger an event required to win) instead of a strategy game. Some of them played as if you were playing a maze game. Also the game did not come with an editor, which denied players the ability to create their own historical scenarios. Some people may enjoy Cossacks for its complex economic system and its ability to handle thousands of units. However, I eventually grew bored by the sameness of its nations, its puzzle campaigns, the silliness of its battles with cannons blowing hundreds away, and the AI's predictability. Instead of a realtime strategy game with a sharp historical focus on a fascinating and bloody period of history, I got an Age of Empires clone lacking alot of what made those games great.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost, so close, but not quite . . .
Review: Cossacks reproduces the times, technologies and conflicts of 17th and 18th century Europe. You play the "Fredrick the Great" role, building your kingdom's supply base while defending yourself against your neighbors. Winning requires killing or capturing every last one of their peasants, which along the way means killing practically all of their troops, taking their strongpoints, and generally pissing in their beer. From a military strategy gamer point of view, Cossacks is quite a lot better than other games of the same ilk. It reproduces the variety of weapons systems of the time: artillery, and heavy/light cavalry/infantry. And your chances of success are maximized if you follow tactical doctrines of the time: mix weapons systems, apply stronger against weaker, and exploit terrain for both offense and defense. It's comendable the way the game's designers originally intend to present players with a variety of strategic options. Your neighbors/enemies can be weakened by denying them logistical support (you get to take or bomb out their mineral deposits, etc) though they must ultimately be overrun. But, but, but. The game's AI and interface [...stink]. And its design could be improved upon. Without constant supervision your troops and citizens get dazed and confused and you spend half of your life trying to save them from an ugly death. Partly this is AI, but it owes more to the way the game's controls impose truly odd default behavior. (You want your troops to march somewhere and stay there, or once there to defend something and return to where you put them once their attackers are seen off). And even if the interfaces/AI Were cleaned up, I still have issues with the design. The maps are simply too small, the logistics unrealistic, and the combat frankly odd. The presence of mules (and wagons) in some of the game's set pieces leads me to conclude that the designers had much broader ambitions for the logistics part of the game. (And it *really* *really* matters. A military strategy game without logistics is like football without sidelines.) Although the weapons systems are all here, the nature of their inter-relationship is not handled well. Various kinds of troops performed differently against various kinds of enemy. I guarantee that if you gave me & three mates long, pointed sticks we could probably do a better job against even the best cavalry than the armoured heavy infantry in this game manages to, but we would be pretty much stuffed against a ten-year-old with a bows and arrows. All troops are assigned fixed, rather than relative, combat parameters. However, I'm looking forward to the Cossacks: Art of War, which promises bigger maps and the capacity to edit the geography.
Rating: 
Summary: RE=A 12-year old gamer from Darnestown, Maryland, USA
Review: I just wantit to say to tis kid that Cossacks does have a map editor and I am seying this so people dont get comfuse. You just press ALT and holding it press INTRO in the main menu... I been playing this game vefore it came out in the usa and its grate i love this game I am looking fowared to buying the addon ART OF WAR... In my opinion this game is alot more better then Age of empires AOE has 200 unit it does not compare whit COSSACKS 8,000 unitsalso the cannos are much more realistic and if you are buying this kind of game I recomend this game cossacks....
Rating:
Summary: Great Game.
Review: Okay this game is great. Some people say the AI (artificial Inteligence) is lacking, and in some situations that is true, but this game makes up for that in other areas. For instance it's multiplayer is one of the best. You can play people from all over the world. You can play as 16 different empires. Each with their own specific units and buildings. Each of the units and buildings have their own strengths and even different styles. You can have up to 8,000 units on a scree, so if two people are playing they can each have 4,000 units, which is by far better than any other RTS (Real Time Strategy) game on the market. You can upgrade almost all units and buildings, and their are upgrades that will help each task in the game. This game is well worth the money. If you are a fan of AOE (Age Of Empire), Europa Universalis, Settlers, etc. I would definitly buy this game.
Rating:
Summary: its good very good
Review: this is one of the best games i erver played. i find it better then aoe you have more options and its easyer 2 learn the game then aoe. everyone must by this game and play it on the internet.
their is an aad-on cossacks: "art of war" white more option and 2 nation, more units ... . just must have it in your house. their are more then 1000 players on the internet who play this game every day !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Cossacks
Review: Formerly a big AOE fan.... playing cossacks made me favor cossacks more. I actually bacame a hardcore online cossacks gamer. Because, well.. this game has horrible AI. So when i look at this game i just see a fun multiplayer game. Don't look for much else from it.
I have been playing cossacks since july and i know whats going on unlike people that maybe play the demo and feel they can give a full judgement. The gameplay is not at all slow. Infact i once played on a 433. no problems at all. and one of my fav aspects is that it can hold 8000 people on the screen. I've had battles of 3000 troops vs 3000. The speed doesnt change much. As for the emphesis on resourses. yes to some degree. To make more you need more. makes sense you know. I give it 4 stars. It is excellent multi player. but the 1 player was rushed and isnt fun at all. And network play is limited. This game is not at all like AOE so if your looking for a similar game. this isnt it. so its not fair to compare and say cossacks (...)just because you like AOE features more
Rating: 
Summary: Cossacks is a rip off!
Review: Being an Age of Empires junkie, I bought Cossacks thinking it would be similar. I give credit to the designers and people who made the game. Cossacks has gorgeous backgrounds, beautiful buildings, and units, unfortunatly I was disappointed with how it played. The game played very slow and it takes forever to build things. More than anything I was frustrated and recieved no satisfaction from playing it.
Rating: 
Summary: Could be fun...but too much resource management
Review: I bought this game anticipating a very fun and enjoyable experience. How wrong did I turn out to be! This game has great graphics and a wonderful premise but the emphasis is on resource management and that detracts from the game. You have to have resources (food, gold, etc...) to create units but also to MAINTAIN them. So your resources are constantly being drained. The more units you have the faster the resources are drained. The game claims to let you have up to 8,000 units on screen (divided by the # of players) but I can't imagine how bad it would be if you had 500 or so units. The game has wonderful possibilities but this emphasis on resources takes away from what could be an enjoyable game. This game is only for those who have plenty of time (4 or so hours) to spend on a single game. It is too tedious for me to be considered fun. For this reason, I can't recommend this game.
Rating:
Summary: love
Review: this is the best game ive ever herd of or played the demo of.
Rating:
Summary: Cossacks Is Great
Review: Cossacks uses very correct and appropriate uses of the revolutionary times. The buildings and units look great, the game is challenging yet exiting. I mean you could just come around a bend in a river be faced with a million battleships and all you have are ten yachts. Its great how they made it so that hte enemy can do two things attack you or build up a deffence against you. Some people might think that is is just a game were you make an army and attack a country, its not to make an army you need a barracks to make a barracks you need a blacksmith to make a blacksmith you need a town hall, and to move it back, to make an army you need food money iron stone wood all of which yuo have your peasents get. As you can see it is a great game.
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