Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars (PC) - Review

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High:

• Strong AI
• Good Interesting GAmeplay
  

Low:

• Mediocre campaign
• Hard for some users
• Bugs (At time of Printing)
  

You have to admire the bravery/stupidity of soldiers during the Napoleonic era. Two armies would line up neatly on either side of a battlefield, then march towards each other until within rifle-range. Then they unload their single rifle shot into the enemy ranks, followed by a bayonet charge.

But throughout all that, they maintain a strict line and formation, presenting an easy target for enemy guns. If I had 300 French rifles aimed at my chest, I think I would be justified in at least diving to the ground for cover. But these fellows stood resolutely in line, maintaining strict order and discipline even if it killed them. Which it frequently did.

This is the kind of warfare you are going to be playing in Cossacks II, which is the sequel to the complex real-time strategy game Cossacks. Cossacks II brings the same concepts of large unit combat and complex resource management to the Napoleonic era. It's not a real-time strategy game for everybody, and certainly has its shortcomings, but there is enough positive and unique aspects to make it worth considering.

You can choose to lead any of six nations throughout a campaign for European military dominance. The path to riches involves harvesting resources to sustain your army, diplomatic negotiations to aid your cause, and military might to crush the enemy. As the game progresses, you can also upgrade units and buildings, erect defenses, and train bigger, and better troops.

The morale system is probably the most attractive feature of Cossacks II, and also one of the most important elements of the game. A small group of well-positioned and acutely led soldiers can defeat a disorganized army twice its size with ease. Throwing out your troops in great quantity is not the way to win the game; you will need strategic consideration as well as a clear understanding of how your soldiers' minds work.

For instance, your men will start fleeing the second their division starts getting wiped out in great numbers. So the trick is to attack the enemy in short, sharp bursts to eradicate their morale, and with minimal loss to yourself. Using cavalry for lightning assaults to the flanks and rear is a devastatingly effective tactic to use.

Formations are also an important key to success, ensuring your men don't get tired out over long distances, and also using offensive and defensive formations to counter certain enemy attacks. Setting your soldiers into a square would easily withstand a cavalry attack, but would be quite useless against another infantry division.

And the rifles, ah the rifles. Forget the semi-automatic killing machines of today; these rifles were wildly inaccurate, fired only one bullet per round, and took nearly a minute to reload. Knowing when and where to use your rifles is one of the things that will determine how quickly you win or lose a battle.

As your troops win battles, they grow in experience and confidence. A group that has undergone many successful fights will be harder, tougher, and better fighters. Thus this adds more tactical nuances to the game, as you don't want to waste your experienced fighters in enemy gunfire, so you need to find ways to bring them into battle when the enemy has already used their one round of rifle fire.

In traditional Cossacks style, the unit cap is ridiculously high, allowing up 64,000 units on-screen at any one time. This makes for some spectacular battles and some scenes of unbelievable carnage, men being slaughtered in the thousands every single second. Naturally you have to house all these units though, so keep building dwellings at a hefty pace.

The problem is, with so many things to hold your attention at the same time, it can be hard to effectively manage both the military and economic sides of the game. There is no less than six different types of resources, all of which are necessary to the successful running of an army. Don't harvest enough food for instance. There will be a famine with your troops dropping to the ground like flies.

The fog of war hides enemies from view until just before they attack you; which demands immediate attention. This leaves sporadic gaps to, issue orders to your peasants, upgrade units, and see to unit production. This results in badly managed economies, and hundreds of troops dying because you forgot to press some button or another.

The single-player campaign is story driven, it's not a bad story, but the unmistakably gravelly-toned American doing the voice acting really diminishes the believability of the story. Also there is no logic in the campaigns length and difficulty from level to level It could be an interesting way to keep you on your toes if done right. In this instance, it seems to make the game play feel un-uniform and incomplete, like it needs polishing.

Luckily, that's not all the single-player game has to offer. In addition to the usual skirmish mode (which can also be played online), and a set of maps based on real battles, there's a mode called battle for Europe, which you can plan campaigns and move troops around in a large-scale, turn-based way. It takes place on a map of the whole of Europe - when an invasion happens, you play a shorter, simplified version of the real-time game to determine the outcome.

Multiplayer offers some interesting modes, including Land War. This lets players from all over the world battle it out for parcels of national territory on a map of Europe. Simply choose a nation to attack and you're matched up against a comparable opponent based on you and your opponent's ranks are. If you win the battle, you win a small piece of that nation for your country. Multiply this by hundreds of matches, and eventually a group of players can try and conquer a nation whole. Also, Multiplayer offers some traditional skirmish battles, which you can play in a head-to-head game or in teams. Playing in a team can be fun, especially since you can offload some of the workload to your teammate; one can handle production and building while the other manages the armies. However, the large skirmish games can take a very, very long time to resolve, especially if both sides manage to build up defenses and large armies.

Some historical problems arise from the limited game play options, one of the notable examples would be, when Nelson's navy defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar, which prevented an invasion of England. But there is no naval play in the game, so this real event does not take place in the game, to solve this the developer "assumes" troops can float over the seas. For a combat oriented real-time strategy game like this it has little effect on the game play, but history buffs might take notice.

The graphics engine has been polished and fine tuned nicely and makes a great atmosphere for war. Though the graphics are far from innovative, the artwork really pulls the game together. The lack of a 3D graphics engine will turn some people away, but the almost life like painting quality brings the game to life in a realistic yet tasteful way.

Thanks to the pace and generally strong AI, Cossacks 2 puts up a stiff challenge to even the most experienced player. It is nice to see a game to take a new approach to real-time strategy combined with its hybrid turn based play in battle for Europe. All hard core strategy players should have this title in there collection. With some of the limits in game play and the mediocre campaign, this title isn't for everyone. But if you are a history buff or a hardcore strategy player, this title will keep you on your toes.

Reviewed By:EG Admin Reviewed On: Sun, 15 May 2005 22:33:25

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