Are the Cossacks games worth getting?

[balroc]

Currently the entire collection is being offered for $3 on bundle stars. Are these games worth getting? I have windows 7 and am wondering if they will even work? Besides that, how fun are they and how easy to pick up? And which is the 'best'?

[MagneticJerk]

They work on Win7.

As to how fun they are etc, that's a bit difficult to judge. They are certainly unique among RTS-games. No idea what games you are coming from, but generally speaking, Cossacks is a lot more focussed on large-scale gameplay and strategy than other RTS/RTT games. You will have to handle thousands of units (literally), and spend up to an hour of base building to get the economy to support those units.

However, that doesn't mean the battles themselves don't require tactics. Managing your formations is pretty important and you'll always have to keep an eye out for openonings in the enemy lines to exploit.

If you're looking for comparisons, Supreme Commander or AI War: Fleet Command might be somewhat similar, if alone because of the scale. That's really one of the most important aspects setting this game apart from other RTS games. Matches will last between 1 and 4 hours (depending on starting settings and gamestyle) and will contain battles with up to ten-thousands of units.

A downside to that could be that you might have trouble adapting to that playstyle, though if you play the tutorials and start skirmishes against the Easy AI you shouldn't have that much of a problem. The hardest thing about learning to play Cossacks really is to think differently from other RTS games. Also, there's this thread which might help you with that:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/4850/discussions/0/38596747687666314/

At least for the multiplayer/skirmish. The games also have pretty well-designed campaigns/single missions with RPG-ish elements.

As to what game is "the best", I'd say Back to War. It doesn't have any single-player Campaigns (unless you have the Campaign DLC, which adds the Campaigns of the other two games), but the gameplay is most refined. That's to say, there isn't that much of a difference between them, just small but significant changes (think AoE II and AoC if you've played them. They're basically all just expansions off the main game).

All in all, I'd definitely recommend them for 3 bucks.

[Nachash]

The Campaign DLC is included on bundlestar, so you don't need to play with Art of War or European Wars. Check some videos on youtube so you can see if you may be interested.

They work on my Win7 64bit

[Starman]

Great classic game well worth $3 to get the lot* If you have OCD you will love this

[balroc]

so each individual battle can take up to 4 hours? That's awesome

[Nachash]

Originally posted by Balroc:

so each individual battle can take up to 4 hours? That's awesome

Luckily there's a speed-up button, ctrl+d

[MagneticJerk]

Originally posted by Balroc:

so each individual battle can take up to 4 hours? That's awesome

Not battle, match. Though even then it depends on who you're playing against, and what the game settings are. But yeah, me and my friends usually play in a way so that we have matches between 3 and 4 hours, with 1, 2 or sometimes even 3 battles in them (kind of depends on what you call a battle). But, at least the way we play, it usually ends up bein a huge stand-off between two massive lines of infantry, cavalry and artillery ( a few thousand units in total on each side) that can last up to one hour with mainly artillery shelling the enemy lines until an opening is created somewhere, and then all hell breaks lose. Though you won't see that against AI (as it's just gonna be spamming units), and not even necessarily against human players, since you can also play the game in a more "AoE" like style with smaller/shorter battles.

Something to note here is that "matches" and "battles" really can be two different things, at least on large maps. Battles will often take place far away from your city, and the whole game can become a tug of war kinda thing until one side finally gets mortars into the range of the enemy barracks. You might find your entire army being wiped out by the enemy, but at least on large maps it can take him a while to get his army to your city, and since units are created relatively fast, you can build up another one to defend before he captures your city, resulting in another battle. A "Match" would really just be the time spent in a single game, and a "battle" the engagement between two armies.

[DISKARAAA]

dude, this are the best rts games ever, buy it