It was April 24, 2001 when GSC Game World released Cossacks: European Wars. The name alone takes us back in time, to the dawn of the new millennium, when the RTS formula of Age of Empires was on the crest of the wave and PC players drooled behind large spaces of land in isometric view, hundreds and hundreds of units. to black out the screen and AI with more bugs than a Bethesda title of your choice. It was the time of Cossacks and Stronghold… and sadly, in many, too many ways, Cossacks 3 was petrified in that distant past.
Let's be clear: Cossacks 3 is not a new chapter in the saga like Cossacks 2: Napoleonic Wars was. It is admittedly a remake of the first title, although the "3" may be misleading, in a new graphic format (the only 3 is that of 3D compared to the 2001 title) and with the possibility of playing it in HD, but with no significant new additions to the original formula. A similar operation to that carried out for Age of Empires II HD in 2013, but we cannot say that the results are as positive. So is this a title to ignore? Of course not and if you are willing to compromise, especially in terms of time, Cossacks 3 can give you endless hours of gameplay.
Quantity, quantity and more quantity
If you are expecting a frenetic game like Warcraft, where every click is vital and must be calibrated, do not approach the Cossacks series, especially not Cossacks 3: we are faced with a slow and staid game, firmly anchored to the most common dynamics and choices at the origin of the genre, which could therefore not take root on that public accustomed to the innovations and developments brought to the RTS genre by titles such as Total War or Paradox Interactive productions. Cossacks 3 takes the player on the land and sea battle changes of Europe of the 30th and 12th centuries in five different Campaigns and particularly curated from the historical point of view: we will be able to relive the main battles of the XNUMX Years War and the English Revolution, take part in the bloody rivalry between the Holy Roman Empire and the looming threat of the Ottoman Empire, or side with one of the factions involved in the struggle for maritime supremacy in the Mediterranean. The completion of all missions of each campaign will take several hours, but the offline experience is also implemented a "Random Map" mode in which it will be possible to face up to six computer opponents at the head of one of the XNUMX available factions. Cossacks 3 also features a multiplayer mode for games up to a maximum of 8 players that will take place in procedurally generated maps, and to further increase the considerable amount of content of this title ranging from both the editor tool and the support guaranteed by GSC Game World to the modders community: it is hoped that the Ukrainian house will keep its word better than Bethesda, and if this happens to possible official expansions of the game, additional quality content - maps, units, factions - produced by the community itself could be added
Each game can be safely divided into three phases: "Accumulation of Resources", "Expansion" and "Battle". The first two, of course, will be instrumental for the success of the third, especially considering that Cossacks, as a trademark, has always favored pitched battles to isolated clashes. This aspect has been further expanded, with the possibility of including thousands of units on the screen, albeit with its flaws, which we will talk about later. Returning to the first two phases, these will require the player a not insignificant investment of time: while the recruitment of units is rather quick, although the lack of options to recruit maniples instead of single units is felt in the later stages of the game, the construction of the buildings could not drag on any longer. We recommend that you always assign the maximum number of builders to each building, especially the more advanced ones, but again many of the more than 40 buildings available will take several minutes to complete. This choice, made by GSC in order to perpetuate the overall feel of the first chapter of the series, will certainly please historical fans and those who appreciate games on the line of Age of Empires, but it could easily push away players that are greener and of new leverage: for them , Cossacks 3 offers three game speeds, which are however not perfectly balanced. By bringing the game to the highest speed, in fact, the construction of buildings will still be slow, especially when compared to the speed with which the troops move and fight.
Alla Pugna… if possible
Cossacks has always been synonymous with pitched battles and Cossacks 3 does not go out of business, alternating improvements with rather counterintuitive and annoying choices: deployments of hundreds and thousands of units are a much more common occurrence than isolated clashes between a few handfuls of men, at least once past the early stages of the game. The battles, however, will not be decided so much by the number of men brought to the field, as by their quality, by the formations and specializations of the handpieces and, in part, by the ability to adapt to the evolution of the battle. Let's say in part not to quote Sun Tzu and his maxim of "winning the fight before you even get on the battlefield", but because the game's AI is, to put it mildly, rather deficient. At levels to make the counterpart of many similar Skynet games appear. Enemy armies will often launch into suicidal and uncoordinated attacks, so much so that once you have a reasonable number of fights on your resume predicting AI tactics and actions will become child's play and it will be difficult to miss victory, unless do not face overwhelming numbers of enemies. The organization of armies itself conflicts with the capabilities of the CPU and AI: although the game allows you to deploy thousands of units at the same time, the orders will have to be given handpiece by handpiece, inevitably going to destroy the starting lines. Added to this is a visible difficulty of the AI in managing the movements of the numerous units on the screen, resulting in portions of the array capable of backing off or changing direction randomly. There are also no essential elements of the interface, such as the health bar of the individual handpieces, which affect the overall tactical depth of the title, which at the same time presents interesting solutions, such as effective offensive and defensive possibilities based on the morphology of the terrain and different times. charging for the different units.
A look back at the past decade… or maybe not
The graphic style proposed by Cossacks 3 appears cured at first glance, perhaps a little retro, another aspect of the game that focuses on nostalgia of the early 2000s. But only at first glance: the textures of the buildings and units are yes made with good detail and resultsThere are two strengths of the visual sector, together with the open field views, but once you zoom in on the particular, the lack of care comes to the surface. The vegetation and the natural elements, despite the reverberation of the ships on the water, are reminiscent of games such as the first Imperium Civitas: great success yes, but from the distant 2006. We cannot know if all this is due to inexperience in the development phase, or to the budget problems that led GSC to dissolve in 2011 and then rise again in the last days of 2014, but given the average quality of the other fundamental aspects of the game, we do not feel like completely acquitting GSC Game World. The sound sector is instead very respectable, with different soundtracks for each faction that recall the cultural heritage of each and the normal variations during the battle phases.
