Musketeers...Take aim!

Genre: RTS
Developed by: GSC Game World
Published by: CDV

It might surprise you, dear reader, we are going to review a game from 2000. But this has a good reason: this game slipped away from everyone's attention and that is a real shame as you will see. When people first told me I had to get this game, I was a bit sceptical about it. Knowing it was the first game from a Ukrainian company didn't boost my confidence very much, but on the other hand I realised Il-2 Sturmovik was also an East-European game (Russia) and that game is a success. So I put my prejudices aside and hoped for the best. The interface didn't promise very much. An classic style interface with its regular buttons but now I knew why they had named the game Cossacks: On the right is a famous (for you art lovers out there only ;-) ) painting which depicts the Cossacks in the 17th -18th century writing a letter to the Turkish sultan.

Again you have three different options for single player: A single mission, a campaign and a random game (skirmish). The missions are generally well scripted and even at Easy I had to replay them to finish them. I'm not gonna bore you with telling you what a campaign and a random game is (being a EP reader, you should know that by now) but directly go over to what interests us most: gameplay !

One thing becomes immediately obvious: This game is definitely inspired by Microsoft's bestseller Age of Empires. Yes, you have peasants (villagers) to build all buildings and to extract resources. Yes, there are barracks, stables, mills(farms),… You might think that's plagiourism but the difference - I'd rather say improvements- openly distinct the game from AoE. One of the drawbacks of AoE was the population limit. An army of 20 swordsmen and 3 cannons was huge and almost invincible. GSC effectively countered this by setting the population limit from somewhere around 250 to 8000 (!). Yes, lady and gentlemen, this game features giant slaughters J . An army of 300 pikemen and 15 cannons is not strange at all and you'll definitely lose half of them at any assault. Another original idea of GSC is implementing the formations. With respectively 36/72/120/192 pikemen and one officer and one musician you can form one formation. You can put your formation into three different types of formations. A good old phalanx formation, a line formation and a square formation with some space inside to protect vital units. Making formations is essential to win the game. It has been proven a formation of 192 pikemen will overwin 450 pikemen who aren't in formation. You can also make a formation of musketeers. If you are in major problems you can hire expensive mercenaries to come toe the rescue. These are 'built' in the diplomatic centre but cost gold to make AND to maintain them. So when you run out of gold these mercenaries will revolt against you. Similarly your cannons, towers and fleet requires iron and coal to shoot. Thus it's foolish to start an attack with only 500 coal in your reserves. You can always buy resources at the market but you can be sure it won't be a bargain at all.

Nevertheless economy is a very important factor in your struggle for domination. Unlike in AoE 2 , resources are infinite. You don't have to worry about mines that are exhausted or rebuilding farms again. The only thing that slowly disappears is wood but there's always enough to support you economy. In your academy you can do over twenty upgrades for both your economy and your army. These are not small upgrades but some of them really can make a difference. An upgrade to make shipbuilding 10 times faster can bring victory or what do you think about 35% more accurate cannons or 400% more efficient stonecutters. You can understand these upgrades are expensive but worth saving for.

You have 16 different nations in Cossacks which you can roughly devide into three civilisations: Eastern ( Russia and Ukraine ), Arabian (Algeria and Turkey) and Western (all the rest). Not only has each nation its proper unique unit (or almost each) but resources required for upgrades is different as well. What is less important but quite original is, is that the building of every nation is inspired by some real building. For example: the Cathedral of the Netherlands is inspired by the Westerkerk in Amsterdam and so on.

Graphics itself aren't very special.. Not appalling but not outstanding either. Of course this has to do with the fact the engine uses 8-bit colours. That sounds outdated but you wouldn't tell if we hadn't told you so and graphics are not that important in an RTS, I think
Sound is quite good with both environmental audio as effect audio up to 64 channels.

EP sez:

Cossacks is an addicting game that has a lot to offer and puts AoE 2 in the shadow on every level.

Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 7.5
Sound: 8.5
Addictiveness: 9.5

Overall: 86%

© 2002 Erwin's Pages
Paul "Spetsnaz" Praet

Links

> Cossacks: A second opinion by Reaper
> Cossacks Official Site