I'm playing a campaign, War of Independence. The first mission, Tartar Wars I start out with a group of musketeers. I moved north a bit and another small group joined me, giving me 40 total. On my way to my objective I get swamped by hoards of enemy cavalry. After half a dozen tries i was able to get past them with 19 men left. I had to guard a friendly general and keep him from getting killed. Again, wave after wave of enemy cavalry swamp my men, and friendly allies, and kill the general or all my men. A dozen tries and I manage to keep him alive, with only two men left! He tells me to follow him to a safer place, enemy cavalry everywhere in large groups. Repeated tries and I finally get to safety. He gives me a small village to control and tells me to get ready for the next attack. Before I can even sort out my peasants and get them to work huge blobs of enemy cavalry swamp my positions, capture all the buildings and kill everyone. I can't play this, its just impossible. Is there a difficulty setting I'm missing?

Actually it isn't impossible. You just need to do some tactics. At the beginning you shouldn't go north, because those Serdiuks will join to the Poles, so you won't be able to rescue your men from the Poles. (After you survived the Turkish attacks in that small village in the north the Poles make prisoners from your Serdiuks and you will have to rescue them)

Here is a walkthrough for it:
http://cossacks.heavengames.com/academy/walkthroughs/ukraine1.shtml

Thanks, I did find that walk through. One mistake I made was not closing the gates after I took over that village. So I managed to hold off their cavalry attacks and keep the walls up, now I just need to deal with those grenadiers. My problem is I just don't react fast enough, I find it difficult to manage my forces under pressure. I'm used to RTS games that let you pause and issue orders, then unpause.

Here are some tips for saving time:
- You can use Rally Points at the Cossacks' House, you set it on the hill and the new Serdiuks will go there automatcally, so you don't he to tell them again and again to go there.
- As in other RTS games, you can give hotkeys to units or buildings with Ctrl+Number and you just press the Number to appoint at them. You can give hotkey to Cossacks' Houses.
- You can order more units in biuldings if you press Shift when you order them, you will add +5 in the queue.