Cossacks Anthology

Well, shucks. I all ready purchased the entire series on Steam, but at the very least I can tout its virtues... Cossacks is a very good old-time RTS. Anyone who has played any of the Age of Empire games should be right at home with the economic factors of the game, but raising an appropriately massive and diverse army is the real challenge. Each nation feels quite different in how they are played, and warfare changes drastically in the 18th century, requiring totally new strategies. As for difficulty... yes, the campaign is grueling, and usually requires careful management of limited resources. I recommend you play the game via the "Back to War" update. This includes a far superior tutorial to the original game that goes over the many technologies in depth, as well as the crucial aspects of the game, and also includes new nations and missions! Great game, this.

The mechanics of the game may seem rather primitive by today's standards. The campaigns are tough and the Tutorial due to some bug is incompleteable(is that a word?). However, the music is good, the sound effects (especially of the long range cannons) is incredible. And the graphcs, OMG, the graphics, are like 17th century paintings of the various European cities come to life!!! And then of course, its fun to set the long range cannons off to blow them up!!! Very popular in its day in Europe- more so than in the states- A unique and beautiful game!

The Cossacks Anthology series is a really great series involving quite huge battles over a potentially huge map (Up to 4x normal size makes for a truly large battle zone). Persistent resources, very cheap infantry units to very expensive but incredibly powerful warships. When playing a random map I'd definitely suggest a map type that supports water simply for the great naval battles you can have. Graphics look fine too; besides once you send, for instance, 5000 men all in formation, or even loosely, across the map, it's quite impressive the engine can handle it. Also, on the subject of population size, not only can you personally support up to 8000 troops, your enemies can too. As such, several of my games consist of a total of 45.000 troops at once active on the map, up to the potential 54.000 (7x8k) that the game will support. The sound is great as well, aforementioned naval battles but also cannon salvos sound great. Warships can even fire constantly, cycling through the many cannons they contain. Definitely suggesting to purchase as the price is quite low and the value you get in return is quite a good deal.

I used to play table-top Napoleonic wargames with miniatures; so when Cossacks first came out years ago I bought it and had a lot of fun with it. Basically it is table-top wargaming brought to the PC with decent animations and sounds etc. The AI is pretty basic but relentless. You will have to learn how to properly organise and field your forces if you want to win. Overall a decent RTS; and if you like the historical period this game is definitely worth getting.