Cossacks: European Wars

aka: European's Wars: Warlord's Style, Kozacy: Europejskie Boje
Moby ID: 4937

Description official descriptions

Cossacks European Wars is a real time strategy (RTS) wargame based in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Emphasis is placed on historical accuracy, and an excellent manual and on disc manual accompanies the game.

Using a fixed isometric view, you build towns and fortresses and deploy your troops and cavalry in the usual RTS manner. There is resource management in the form of chopping wood, fishing and mining.

Although entitled Cossacks... the game actually allows you to play under the flag of a wide range of European nations. Each having its own building designs, separate troops and specialist troops and weapons.

Naval battles are included as are invasions via ships across oceans and wide rivers.

There is a method of grouping and controlling your troops in the fixed formations common to the period depicted. Up to 8,000 individual units can be active on screen, so the scale of battles is immense.

Single player, set campaigns, random maps and Multiplayer supported.

Spellings

  • ŠšŠ°Š·Š°ŠŗŠø: Š•Š²Ń€Š¾ŠæŠµŠ¹ŃŠŗŠøŠµ Š’Š¾Š¹Š½Ń‹ - Russian spelling
  • å“„čØ克ļ¼šę¬§ę“²ęˆ˜äŗ‰ - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

15 People

Producer
Chief Programmer
Tools Programmer
Chief Artist
Artists
Historical Advisor
Mission Design
Sound Engineer
SE Composer
Project Manager
Leader QA-Team
Tester
General Manager

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 34 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 21 ratings with 4 reviews)

Almost real! Mass anarchy of battle clashes. A combination of Age of Empires and Shogun:Total War.

The Good
Now this a chaotic game! If you think Age of Empires is a great game, this game makes it look like mud down the drain (though you may disagree after you read my review on the bad stuff of this game). If your looking for a never-ending war game, this is probably the closest thing.

Each nation (more than 15) has they're unique units and specialities (like AOE but more diverse), more than 300 different technologies.

I'll compare this game with Age of Empires (AOE) to tell you what makes this game a great buy:

  1. Mass battles. Ever seen more than 100 units battling each other? Try 8000 units. Mass blood, mass everything.
  2. Totally realistic. Some die hard, some die quickly. This game is a total violation of human rights! These are the realistic features of the game: a. Geography strategy: Yes, the higher the terrain, the longer you climb and further your guns and cannons can shoot. b. Impassible terrain: Some areas where you just can't pass, because of the geographic terrain. Very useful in war tactics. c. Cannons: Cannons are ever so usefull, and they kill a lotta guys too. Experience the grapeshot cannonball (mass death), Multi-barred cannon (first form of an automatic machine gun), Howitser: close range bombardment and the building basher: the Mortar. d. No ones perfect, but some are: Yes, it's not just about hitpoints, there are lucky shots (one shot one kill), and bad misses (especially cannons). e. Realistic economy: Well, almost. The prices of the market are also affected by time besides supply and demand. And they tell you what commodities are a profit or a loss. f. Food! Yes, they go down. Unlike AOE, your soldiers actually eat. Gotta get those farms working. g. Maintanence: Yep, walls need stone maintation, cannons and ships always need gold. Uh, don't know if that's realistic or not though. e. Ruins. After a building is bombarded to 0, it takes a while for the ground to clear. Irritating but logical. f. Splinters and cannon fire: Big cannons cause a lotta destruction. Try standing beside a building that's being bombarded and live through it. And don't try standing in front of a firing cannon, if the cannonball doesn't get you, the explosive force will. g. Generals and drummers: You need these guys to create formations. Logical enough.

  3. No end of resources! Yes, no more running out of gold.

  4. Mass unit communication: Although it needs a lotta fixing, you can mass command your units.
  5. Mercenaries: Yes, you can hire foreign troops. They cost a lotta a gold, and are weaker than you home-made troops, but are so fast to create. Oh, and they need annual pay or else they will rebel!
  6. No more making homes! The irritating part in AOE, is you need a lotta houses for your troops. Barracks and town halls have a lotta space.
  7. Expensive buildings. The next building you make is more expensive than the last building. Very wise.
  8. Massive unit level. I have reached the limit, but it seems to be a combination number between you and your enemies. But they don't say the number limit though (8000 maybe?).
  9. Active repairmen: Your peasants thankfully after repairing one damaged wall, fix the next and so one. Unlike AOE.

There's a whole more, but I can't seen to recall. Sorry.



The Bad
The game testers MESSED UP BIG TIME on this game. If we're talking about user friendly, you still can't beat AOE.

For a strategy game, this is a very IRRITATING game. Thank you for that sudden burst of emotion.

It's very hard to control your units: They can't seem to walk a straight line between A to B. They like taking detours and sightseeing. This stupidicy by one of your units can provoke the a whole battlion to attack when your outnumbered. Word of advise: Don't higher tourists in your army. This game proves that point.

Your units have a very active imagination: a too high artificial intelligence when you don't want them to do squat. I wish they'd just sit still. AOE still wins in this are on the "defend" (or guard?) command. Where they attack and approaching enemy and go back to their destined guard post.

Personally comment for the makers of the game: If you can't make it better, DON'T MAKE IT WORSE. Thank you.

The formations are very bad. Unlike AOE, formations can only be made by single unit types per 16 units: 16, 32, 64 etc.

You peasants can be captured, if not guarded by your troops. Probably realistic, but very irritating. Especially if they're reparing walls.

Oh, I just found out you cannot tell your TOWERS TO STOP FIRING. Why is this a problem? It is when they keep blowing up your wooden walls, thus letting the enemy in. Great job by the makers of the game in making this worse than AOE.

Word of warning, your units move like snails. A grandpa could walk faster with one leg as far as I am concerned. Although there are some units that specialize in fast movement, the "reinforcement" strategy may require a lot of praying to actually succed.

The Bottom Line
Here's my grade for the game:

Difficulty: A+ Warning only for experienced gameplayers. Oh, I only played the highest level of difficulty by the way. Easy and normal are for novices..hahaha Why I gave A+, despite the irritating AI, the hardest levels still give you a fighting change, doesn't actually mean you can win, but a fighting chance nevertheless. And campaigns (well most of them) are not just your easy going usual AOE types, they are actually quite challenging.

Graphics: B Not bad. A little more detailed in depth and colour.

Artificial Intelligence: D- Probably a little dramatic, but your emotions will agree when you find out everyone is going and doing this you didn't tell them to.

User Friendly: D Not enough short cuts, not enough creative actions. This is by comparing to AOE by the way and other strategic games. You would at least expect something new, but it didn't.

Historical background, manuals and stuff: D The manual stunk big time to my opinion. Not enough details on history and units. Most historical games I've played have complete details about the background and more. In cossacks, it seems they just needed a formal excuse to put something in writing.

Should you get this game: B Yeah, why not. I still consider it a good playable game with a LOT of gaming hours.

Windows · by Indra was here (20756) · 2002

A rip-off of WarCraft, wargamers keep off, WarCraft players, keep off.

The Good
Wow, a real manual, more than 200 pages long! You flip through it and the article on the 18th-century Polish cavalry catches your eye: Winged Hussars. Perhaps you have never heard of them, but my grandfather's seven-volume encyclopedia, printed in 1900, had them. With the two tall curved poles stuck in the back of their armour, adorned all the way up with feathers, they looked a splendid cross between a mounted samurai with his twin hatazao fluttering in the wind and a noble Indian warrior crowned in eagle feathers. Those "special feathered wings" says the manual, "protected his back from sabre blows." Splendid. We are going to learn something about warfare of the the 17th and 18th centuries, this is going to be deeply interesting.

Install the game, fire it up, pick "Campaign". The first three campaigns are tutorials. Wonderful.

The first tutorial teaches you the basics. How to select units, give them their marching orders, and so on. It is all very familiar, if you have played WarCraft (who hasn't?). The next two are more of the same, only much less interactive. You just click from one screen on to the next, which gives you advice without you being able to test it by selecting units, giving them orders and whatever. But you have been given sensible advice, like how advantageous it is to have your artillery on high ground. Oh, this is going to be good! So you are keen to start. Start!



The Bad
Pick the first scenario: Bermuda. You are an English captain, sent there to establish a colony.

The screen lights up, showing three frigates and a "ferry" (their word) and about 20 peasants landed on shore. Oh, and this message too:

"You have landed on the north-eastern island. Unfortunately, it is lean in resources and too small to start a colony here. You should replenish your food and water supplies and continue your quest."

Stupid me, believing the message, sent my peasants looking for food and water. All they found was trees to fell, but nowhere to store the timber, for want of a town hall. And you cannot build one, because you need stone for that and you have none and there is none on the island. So you go exploring. North, and you meet pirates who promptly dispatch you to oblivion. South, and meet a Dutch-colonized island whose cannons and towers sink your pitiful fleet. Start again. Start again, and play carefully, as if this were WarCraft. That gets you to wipe out the pirates (and lose two frigates), but still no island worth settling on, and you get warned that there are more pirates around.

No hope with your depleted forces. Reload, and try south instead, towards the Dutch settlement. Soon a message: "There's a Dutch yacht ahead! Hey, they're fleeing! It's no good, they'll be going to fetch help! We should sink them or get out of here!"

What would you do? Follow the advice and sink the yacht? Good luck to you! A yacht (from the Dutch jagd, "hunt") is a very fast ship, much faster than a frigate. You're wasting your time and your cannon balls, while the Dutch cannons on shore are shooting at you and scoring hits. Glub... glub... glub... good bye, captain, see you in Hell. Reload. Forget about chasing the yacht, remember good old WarCraft tactics, and take out the cannons and the towers... er... glub... glub... glub... good bye captain, see you in Hell.

Oh, all right, never mind, let's try something else.

There you are, you and a score of peasants in the middle of nowhere, with some food, timber, gold, and stone in stock. You set your peasants to build a town hall, then to chop wood, then... hey! the amount of food is going down at an alarming rate! You remember how, in the tutorial, you were shown how to send peasants to harvest wheat, but there are no wheat fields about. Uh? What to do? You remember WarCraft, and frantically try to get a peasant to build a farm. But "farm" is not on the menu. In despair, you pick "mill". They build a mill, and, lo and behold and deep relief... wow! wheat starts growing around it! Er... why wasn't that in the tutorial? Bit fundamental if you ask me (or is it hidden away somewhere in the 200-page manual? Well, I looked for it, but I gave up at page 41). Oh anyway, you wipe the sweat off your brow: "Wow, I've made it to square one, let's keep on playing now!" Then a squad of hostile pikemen turns up out of nowhere and claims your settlement. End of game.

You start again, and this time you are careful to build barracks (you need a blacksmith first, though, and that was not in the tutorial either). And... suddenly you remember your aborted Bermudan stint, the "ferry" carrying the peasants. It had oars, oars poking out of its sides. It plain English, it was a galley. When did the British Navy ever send a galley across the Atlantic pretty please?

The pretence at historical accuracy is a sorry farce.

Next you think of the mill. Why in deep hell and high heaven do you need to build a mill, and it was a windmill too, for wheat to grow in the fields?

The logic of the game is a sorry farce too.

And then, you go back to the manual, and, page 119, you read: "Archers. These fighters were armed with bows and arrows [thank you, I'd never have known] ... snip... These savage [what?] warriors terrified enemies through their brutality [what??] and rapidity. However, like all irregular armies [uh???], their lack of discipline made them unreliable in a battle." My blood boiled there. Haven't the miserable sods, responsible for this parody of a game, heard of Agincourt? Who lacked discipline if not the French knights? Who showed splendid discipline and courage if not the English longbowmen?

Indeed, this game is nothing but an abysmal parody of true war games.

The Bottom Line
Stick with WarCraft, at least they've got a sense of humour, they don't take themselves seriously, and they are not gamer-hostile.

Windows · by Jacques Guy (52) · 2004

A total misfire (boom boom)

The Good
This game is Age of Empires through and through. Therefore any veteran of that game will instinctively know how to play it before theyā€™ve even got it out the box. This isnā€™t bad by definition (see Bad section) as it is a very solid and popular system.

Finally buildings seem to be correctly proportioned to soldiers, and as a nice touch stone buildings can no longer be knocked down with fists and swords. Much besieging involves slaying the townā€™s occupants and capturing the buildings, which makes a welcome change.

Of course the main selling point of this game is that it is Age of Empiresā€¦ but bigger! Much MUCH bigger in fact. Although the game quotes thousands of units youā€™re more likely to field several hundred, but the sight is still one for sore eyes.

The ship design and animations are simply gorgeous, and the water isnā€™t bad either- although the shorelines tend to be a bit too rounded for my eyes.

I really like the little painting of cossacks on the front of the box, but it's not an original for the game. So poo.

Thatā€™s actually all I can say.

The Bad
Allow me to overuse food as a metaphor for this game. I absolutely adore rib-eye steak, yet Iā€™m pretty indifferent to cornflakes. If someone were to offer me a single perfectly made steak Iā€™d be enthralled. If someone were to offer me a kitchen full of cornflakes Iā€™d be less than amused. Itā€™d be unwieldy and impractical, particularly as cornflakes are designed to be eaten in a small quantity anyway.

What am I trying to explain? This game is literally Age of Empires with an artificially boosted unit count, and it just doesnā€™t work. You have the ability to group your throng of men into proper units, which is actually the only way theyā€™re at all effective. Yet (and Iā€™m not sure if this was just me) I could never group units into the large squads Iā€™m presented with in the scenarios. Also units seem to decay over time, simply becoming a mass of men for you to reorganise. Which was pernickety to begin with. Also I never figured out how to organise cavalry into squads, again making them useless.

Oh and how do you train those hundreds and hundreds of men? You click. Forever. This is made even worse as you have to train a specific number in order to make a squad. The sequel introduced a training toggle (e.g. click to train units indefinitely) but why not simply have you train whole squads at a time? You often find yourself with a ton of superfluous men standing around waiting for three more to enlist and allow them to make a whole team.

This aspect is amplified by the presence of mercenaries, who you often find yourself relying on as theyā€™re dirt-cheap and train almost instantly, whilst proper units (particularly cavalry) take frikkin decades to appear. But theyā€™re completely useless. Iā€™d amassed a hoard of mercenary cavalry that literally filled the screen. I sent them off careening towards the enemy, synchronised sabres flailing. And they all died almost instantly. Rubbish. Grenadiers can be hired there as well, but I never could get them to use anything but bayonets. Bayoniers maybe?

This ā€œbigger is betterā€ ideology is applied to the research tree as well. Now I appreciate that the time period was one of great technological achievements and progress, but that isnā€™t what youā€™re doing here. You pick from a stupendously vast list of researches, each of which improve something in an unnoticeably tiny way. Itā€™s not clear if any of them have any affect on the game, but you just learn them anyway. Why not have the age advancements cover all of these improvements?

By far and away the most glaring problem with cloning Age of Empires is that the gameā€™s setting simply doesnā€™t fit. Every battle you turn up with a bunch of peasants and build a small town in order to raise an army and defeat the other nearby recently raised town. But the wars of the time were fought between established towns and countries. No army in the English Civil War built an entire new town before attacking! Even Age of Empires III corrects this with its colonial setting, the previous two being set in times of settlement and expansion.

Cossacks seems to use the same A.I as Age as well, especially evident in skirmishes. The enemy has a habit of sending this constant stream of weak soldiers at you. It really loves its gangs of Mortars, which are hilarious as they literally fall apart or are captured if an opposing unit comes anywhere near them.

Something Iā€™ve become attached to following the swish and sparkly games we have nowadays are pixels. The pixelated characters of Age of Empires, and particularly Red Alert 2, lend them this gritty, rough-edged look thatā€™s hard to achieve with 3D graphics (check out Command and Conquer Generals).

However Cossacks has this horrible plastic look to it. Units look like mannequins and move like Autons. Battle animations are hilarious, pikemen look like they're raking the lawn. Worst of all the scenery is this flat monotonous green, undulating and yet homogenised like the never-ending football pitch of Naboo. Indeed the whole environment looks like a Subbuteo mat.

The game even fails technically. You neednā€™t worry that your huge army fills up the entire screen, thus rendering it a pain in the proverbials to select. As soon as they come up to an obstacle, or particularly when they engage the enemy, the whole lot condenses into a single model. Iā€™m not sure if thereā€™s a technical term for this but every unit has an insubstantial quality to them. Make a hole big enough for one man to fit and a whole army can squeeze through like an octopus. The grand sweep of military formations splodges into one lamely animated soldier. Arg!

Also I have yet to find any evidence that archers of the time period dressed as clowns, or were even used at all for that matter.


The Bottom Line
This is an ugly lame duck of a game that has a bizarre cult following, possibly owing to the uniqueness of the setting. I honestly have nothing to recommend about it. Actually I would rather eat an entire room full of cornflakes- or maybe just play Age of Empires.

Windows · by Curlymcdom (44) · 2008

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Cover art

The box features a part of Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks painting by Ilya Repin (1891).

Sales

  • As of 2005, Cossacks and its two add-ons have sold 2.5 million copies.
  • In 2001, Cossacks: European Wars won the Gold-Award from the German VUD (Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland - Entertainment Software Association Germany) for selling more then 100,000 (but less then 200,000) units in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Awards

  • Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland
    • 2001 - Gold Award (more information in the "Sales" paragraph)

Information also contributed by Luis Silva and Xoleras

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Related Sites +

  • Cossacks Heaven
    Superb resource for all Cossacks fans, downloads, news etc.
  • Official website
    Official website
  • The Ultimate Cossacks Gaming Reference
    A superb resource site for multiplayer strategies, tips and more compiled by SavvyPlayer. The site's most impressive feature is its Battle Simulator, which allows you to pit two armies of different units together and gives you accurate feedback on which will win.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 4937
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Felix.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, phlux, JRK, Maw, Stratege, Patrick Bregger, PavelDAS.

Game added September 3, 2001. Last modified March 20, 2024.