If you have never played Cossacks, it is a great RTS similar to Age of Empires but set in Europe. You can play historical European battles and have massive amounts of units. Your peasants work to fund your massive armies and your aim is to destroy the enemy. There was nothing really revolutionary or innovative about the first game, but it was a fun play and definitely explored some unknown areas of history to us (foolish) Americans.
So what is in store for the expansion pack? It doesn’t just add some new units and maps, but a whole slew of new features that makes this expansion pack worthy of a buy if you enjoyed the original.
First off, The Art of War features over 30 new missions, divided up into 5 separate campaigns. Ever want to play as those valiant Austrians or Polish? Well you won’t find a Prussian campaign in Age of Empires. It also adds two new countries to the already varied mix – Denmark and Bavaria. With Denmark, you will be able to utilize the strategic power of the musketeer, a powerful foot soldier.
How good is your history? You will be able to play a few new memorable battles such Rimnik in 1789, and Hohenfriedberg in 1745. Another important addition, although we sometimes take it for granted in RTS games, is a powerful map editor. With a sleek interface, we can’t wait to fully explore the power of the map editor.
Onto the new game play improvements. You can now declare a period of peace in which no fighting takes place, allowing you to build up your economy. These can last as long as 4 hours, and by that time you will have such powerful units that battles are truly amazing. If you don’t feel like building your economy from scratch, there is also the option of having a pre built base so you can start your military training right away. Cossacks : The Art of War has obviously seen some other RTS’s out these days, and added the attack ground and guard features along with better formations to the unit commands list. Finally, you will be able to pause the game and issue orders to your units. This should go nicely when you are playing the game at a light speed setting.
The graphics are also improved with sharp, extremely detailed buildings and units. Yes, they are still 2-d, but the detail easily compensates for the isometric view. Each nation features its own unique architecture, and like before also has unique units.
Overall, Cossacks: The Art of War is shaping up to be a solid expansion pack. Stay tuned to Pregaming.com to see our full review when the final version ships. So grab your musket, and get ready for good ol’ European fighting!
INFORMATION ABOUT THIS CONTENT:
Originally posted: pregaming.com (LINK) (ARCHIVED)
Date of publish: around 16.12.2001
Author: Evan Gorin
Language of publish: english