Two hundred years after the Napoleonic Wars raged across Europe, CDV and Russian developer GSC Game World are preparing to revisit the era with the newest entry in the Cossacks series of Napoleonic real-time strategy games. The first three Cossacks titles all debuted in 2002, and they let you take control of one of the major powers of the era and battle it out on a huge real-time battlefield. Those games were met with success, as CDV claims that they sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide. Now, with Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars, the series is looking to get a graphical and gameplay upgrade.
The first three Cossacks games were all real-time strategy games. But the big new feature in Cossacks II is the Battle for Europe, a turn-based strategy component that is not unlike the kind seen in Creative Assembly’s early Total War games. In the Battle for Europe campaign mode, the game will alternate between a turn-based strategic layer, where you’ll move armies across a map of Europe and manage your provinces, and the regular real-time strategy layer, where you will resolve battles. The two layers are interconnected. If you invade a province with a powerful army, you’ll increase your chances in battle. Win the battle, and you’ll seize control of that province, giving you more resources as well as a more experienced army…
