Cossacks Anthology

I think I never had a game where "You either like it or not" did fit the most. I normally don't play strategy games. I appreciate the genre, but it is not for me. So here we have a game that I like a lot, which you can now take how you'd like. The thing is, the game is actually less in-depth than the counterparts of its time. So what long time investment you can actually get by the game depends on how challenging you make it for yourself - or how much you enjoy the charme of the game and how it plays. Seeing that the AI in this game sadly never reacts in any clever ways besides cheesing the terrain to gain advantage (you can do too, though), the game quickly becomes a run for resources and spamming your army. Yes, you can have formations, and use tactical map environments and units, but this probably matters at most on highest difficulties. Even than, the game starts to lose its technical depth quick. On the other hand: The different styles for countries, their units and music are great. The way upgrades work and you built your "towns" is always a highlight for me. And yes, spamming the enemy with ships and units is kind of amazing for a while. Oh, and yes, the game has naval fights, which are actually quite cool. Again, rather simple, but the foundation is solid to have fun for a round or two. If some stuff would be used more critical, and the enemy would be smarter, this foundation would shine so much more. Generally speaking. The game worked out of the box for me. It has higher resolution and some settings to adjust. Graphics are nice, music is great. Controls work as expected. The game has some minor bugs, but some of them I think even since its first release. Back to War is the last expansion by the way. I've also only played that one. There is a campaign that is... brutal. And free play mode which can be adjusted quite well. For the price, if it seems charming to you, give it a shot. It really has something going for it, even if it is a more simpler game.

If you love Age of Empires, then there's really no reason not to love this. Cossacks took almost everything that was great about Age of Kings and stuck it in a unique 17th/18th century setting, with significant improvements such as the capacity for hundreds of thousands of units and more tactical combat.

These games were my childhood (along with sudden strike). I love them to bits and although graphically dated it still holds its appeal to me today. The biggest problem thus far is that I have yet to get a LAN battle working as the game speed is ridiculously fast due to modern processors. This is not a problem with the single player however. The AI is definitely dated so don't expect the skirmish modes to be very thrilling but the campaigns were painstakingly designed and are very challenging to this day. The game was pretty complex compared to similar games and makes you think about what you are doing, it does take quite a bit of micro management however especially if you prefer not to group your units into formations.

I was a little afraid when I bought this game without looking into the forum first. Many people seem to have some problems to get it running. Mine works fine and it is a blast! It took some time to get used to the high numbers of troops you need and the resource management, but it is totally worth it.

I can't get any of the games to work, even with the .dll fix mentioned by another reviewer. OS: Edition Windows 10 Home, Version 22H2, Build 19045.4894 "dmcr.exe - Application Error The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000022). Click OK to close the application." I'm super sad, as these games belong to my favorite games from childhood. I hope GOG can bring a fix soon.