Cossacks: The Art of War Add-on

For the average net game you will spend around an hour slaving away & building a base, producing troops etc before you go to war. Now you will work as hard as you like to build an army to discover your opponent will dwarf you in size & economy through entering cheat commands. This takes no skill & demoralises anyone looking for a good game. Especailly since this version will keep a record of your wins & losses & assign you a rank accordingly.

I found this cheat option a self destructive attribute to a game that is undoubtedly the finest RTS to date, however it's net game capacity in my opinion is now pretty pointless. After all, why bother to play any game & really try hard when your opponent would cheat to win & you couldn't even tell until you watch a replay? After a while it becomes disheartening & irritating & eventually puts you off the game abit.

So if you play net games, make sure you know the person you're playing. If you don't, you'll probably lose time after time which will probably lead you to the same conclusions I have drawn.

In short, the finest RTS is here, but the point of whole game has been defaced by it's own creators. Now where's the point in that!

This game improved on all the things that I loved about Cossacks. You can still control 1000's of units, the single player is still sublime and the multiplayer rocks! The only thing that I disliked about the original Cossacks (the fact that you could 'steal' buildings, cannons, etc) has now also been fixed so that you can choose whether you want this mode on or off. There is also new units, new single player missions to complete, 2 new nations, better multiplayer, a map editor and the fact that you can now actually have computers in multiplayer, which I thought was something that was lacking from the original. You can also start multiplayer games with a complete army which I thing is going to be a good feature. Also the replay value of this game is brilliant. I will never get bored of playing this game, due to the map editor and mission editor and the fact that you can have up to 8000 units at a time!

All in all i thing that this add-on is well worth the money.

It builds beautifully on the strong foundations laid down by the original. New and fantastic units (including Nelson's "Victory"!) are a real bonus. Some well-needed random map generating options (for single AND multiplayer) are included, and there's a new custom map generator. I love the fact that you can ally with computer players now, and change their skill level etc. The AI still does some pretty weird things: During one game, the computer ended up patrolling a smallish area with about 900 Grenadiers. They didn't do anything else for the entire game. Small quirks aside, the AI has generally improved. Although, for some reason I'm finding it easier to beat. Maybe I've got better. And maybe I should get out more. But I just can't - because I've got Cossacks. If you enjoyed the original, you really must buy this.