The battles are very cool because they do carry this 19th Century style of fighting. There are no automatic weapons, or any futuristic weapons in this game, simply what was used to fight when Napoleon surveyed the battlefield. Send your musketeers in and watch as your men stand in a line and fire at each other. Yeah, we think it’s crazy today, but this is how they fought back in time, and Cossacks II captures that aspect perfectly. It makes it a strategy also. If you fire on your enemy at the wrong time… then you better hope you hit some of them before you have to run away. Due to the long re-load times of soldiers in this era it’s imperative you pick the correct times you fire at your enemy, and attempt to flank among other things.
Another new thing to the Cossacks series is the idea of morale. If your troops are standing in formation and begin to see their comrades get shot and fall to their knees, then in real life you expect your soldiers to run, right? Well in the original Cossacks this is something we did not see. Soldiers would stand and fight, even if being obliterated, and decimated. Cossacks II gets this right. Real soldiers have morale, and if I see my fellow comrades getting shot down at a rapid rate, your initial instinct is to retreat. Finally, a game that seems to capture a battle perfectly, and the war feeling of soldiers in this time period greatly.
Cossacks II is a very fun game. It’s driven by a solid engine, the same one that made Cossacks one of the best RTS games of it’s time. While the age may show around the edges, the developers have introduced new ideas to keep Cossacks II a very good game. Fighting in the 19th century looks boring on the outside, but deep down in the game fighting in the 19th century was about honor, and it is a lot more strategic than one would have thought. Cossacks II captures everything about our past in Europe, this is a game for any fan of RTS games.
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CDV B-
A solid game that builds on the already solid Cossacks engine. Fans of modern RTS games may be disappointed to find that Cossacks II is not all about the flashy graphics, but more about the game play. Cossacks gamers will enjoy more of the same, good quality fighting.
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