“To play Cossacks II you must be a real man,” claims GSC Gameworld’s Oleg Yavorsky as he fires up the latest version of Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars, a build which he claims is 95 per cent complete and so challenging that only a man with iron balls and a thick curly-haired chest could play. Sadly, no such person was available, which is why I’m here – two Chinese stress balls stuck down my pants and red curly hair drawn onto my chest with a biro (the black one ran out of ink) – ready to accept Oleg’s challenge and get to grips with this strategically challenging RTS sequel. It’s suicide surely, but someone’s gotta do it.
“The game’s based around Napoleon’s career, but you can play as any one of six very different nations: France, Russia, Britain, Austria, Prussia and Egypt,” explains Oleg as he starts up the main Battle For Europe campaign. That explained, I choose to play as self-proclaimed military genius and liquorish-obsessed short-arse Napoleon Bonaparte.
BONA TO PICK
You can play the Battle For Europe campaign from two perspectives – a turn-based strategy map and real-time strategic battles – much like Rome: Total War, only far more basic in execution and nowhere near as visually impressive. The strategic map is divided into segments, each one delineating a province of Europe with its own unique strategic and economic strengths, and it’s up to you to sweep across the land like a plague and capture the whole of Europe.
Perhaps the most distinct difference between this campaign and Rome’s is that you only get to command one army, which you must move around the map on a steady course of conquest. Each province that you hold is then defended by a computer-controlled army, which
can be upgraded at a cost.
Having fortified France with a couple of extra garrisons, I set off on the warpath, moving my troops into the iron-rich lands of Austria, planning then to head east into Cossack-infested Russia after stocking up on mittens and woolly hats.
BUT FIRST, AUSTRIA
“We’ve made these battle sections
much more tactical than they were in Cossacks,” says Oleg as I end the turn and the action switches to an isometric real-time view of the battlefield. “We didn’t want to make the game too hardcore though, as some players might find that frustrating. However, we were keen on preserving the realism of battle, as we want to make you feel like a real general who should care for and preserve your troops.”
As this is the start of the campaign, I only have four squads of 120 men to work with, though Oleg assures me that should I show some aptitude and progress further in the campaign, I could be commanding up to 24 squads towards the latter stages of the game. If my maths is right, this means almost 150 men, give or take the odd thousand…
Forming my troops into columns in order to cover the ground quickly – you can also form them up into the combat-effective line formation and the defensively sound but static square formation – I order the men to double-time towards a nearby outpost.
Mustering the kind of snorting mirth that only a Frenchman can fully perfect, I grunt at the pitiful band of militia guarding the outpost and order their immediate execution. A few of my men fall in the ensuing scuffle, but they’re easily replenished thanks to the ability to spawn new troops at any captured outpost. Oleg informs me that each province will be filled with several of these settlements, which can be captured in order to starve the enemy of resources. Right now though, all I’m interested in is picking a fight with some lederhosen-wearing nancies.
THIGH-SLAPPING GRAPESHOT
Austrians. Thousands of them. Standing in columns, their ranks spill out in all directions. I open up with my cannons, the demolition balls carving through the densely packed enemy formations, snapping bone as they skid off the hard earth. My men close in on their forward lines, firing at point-blank range and engulfing the battlefield in a dense fog of musket smoke. Men fall to the ground like leaves in autumn amid agonised cries, each one’s death raising the morale and experience levels of my soldiers.
My men start to reload but are rocked back by an Austrian musket salvo. There’s no time to reload now as the enemy surges forward and engages in hand-to-hand combat. Two of my outnumbered squads, shaken and demoralised by the onslaught, turn and run as my cavalry makes a last-ditch attempt to flank the well-placed Austrian battle lines. However, many of them are protected by dense forests which prevent my horsemen from entering and so they deflect many of my remaining infantry’s musket shots. It’s not long before my men are in full retreat back to France. No surprise there really.
Oleg flashes me a rueful look, roughly at the same time as one of the Chinese stress balls rolls down my leg and across the office floor. I’ve failed. But there was no shame in my defeat, as Cossacks II is shaping up to be a massively challenging strategic war game thanks to its emphasis on real world tactics and epic battles, as well as its clearly steep but seemingly undaunting learning curve.
It’s certainly an RTS to be getting clammy at the pits about, despite its ageing engine, and in a month or two
you’ll be able to find out for yourself if the finished product warrants Oleg’s bold statement about manhood when we run an exclusive review and playable demo of the game. Now where did that damn stress ball go?
INFORMATION ABOUT THIS CONTENT:
Originally posted: computerandvideogames.com (LINK) (ARCHIVED)
Date of publish: 30.03.2005
Author: PC Zone
Language of publish: english