I've been playing Cossacks for a couple of years and was eagerly awaiting part
2. Once that was out I was rather disappointed. It was not what expected to say
the least, so I kept playing Cossacks 1. I had no problems with the games'
difficulty level, but I heard many of people that did. So, I deceided to make a
FAQ on the general strategy behind the game. It is a great game so it would be
sad to see it collect dust in someone attic because the don't know how to play
the game properly. This guide is written for random maps but can be used for
historical maps/campaign maps.|
BTW sorry abou tha bad liines everywhere |
So, here it is. Hope it helps!
GAMEGUIDE
The resource model is somewhat different than in other games of its time, say
Age of Empires II and such. Most games have less forms of resources, simplifing
gameplay is usually the reason to choice for this option. Having 6 resources to
manage may seem like a daunting task, but it this quite doable once you know
how. Its mostly good prioritizing; which is most important when and do I need
it or is having a certain resource only a plus? So lets go through the "big 6".
Wood - This is gathered by your peasants by cutting down trees and bringing it
to the storehouse. Wood is mainly used for building structures and ships. The
low tier building use quite a bit of the stuff so having some on hand is pretty
important.
Stone - Stone is gathered by peasant by hacking it from piles of rocks (which
lay all around the map) and returning it to the store house. Stone is mostly
used for building structures. The further you climb up the tech tree, the more
stone buildings require.
Food - Food is gather by peasants by cutting full-grown grain and returning it
to the mill. This is the MOST IMPORTANT RESOURCE. Aside from the fact that you
need to recruit peasants, infantry and such, it is also need to keep those
units alive. Every unit has an certain upkeep in food and if they don't have
food they will die of famine (hunger!). On top of that you need it to create
your huge armies, so you want plenty of it.
Gold - Gold is mined by peasants in mines, it does not have to be brought
anywhere, its just added to your total. Gold is pretty much the most widely
used resource and as such the second most important resource. Its used for
buildings, training units, upgrades for everything, you name it. You should
have a good income of the stuff because you will need it troughout the game.
Iron - Iron is mined by peasants in mines, it does not have to be brought
anywhere, its just added to your total. Iron is used for a verity, the most
important of which would probably be firing your muskets and cannons. (what did
you think bullets were made of?) It is also need to train soldiers, build
cannons and loads of research.
Coal - Coal is mined by peasants in mines, it does not have to be brought
anywhere, its just added to your total. Coal is also used to fire your weapons.
Aside from that its also used as much of the research and for training some of
your soldiers. Hence, its pretty important.
It all starts by building a town. It is important to know how to do this,
because it can make or break you. You always start with 18 peasants, which are
your peon-units. These are the MOST important units in the game and will be
needed in numbers. But before you start blindly building away, you want to
consider how you want to set up shop. First thing you want to do is build a
mill, since food is a absolute must. After you finish building the mill, you
let them build a storehouse near trees and rocks. Don't forget to click on the
mill and push on the grain icon. This will plant grain at the spots which it
missed first time around. (it only costs 5 gold) The grain will need time to
grow before you can reap it. Build a town hall, ones its finished you grain
should be almost ready to be reaped. Send 15 peasants to the grainfield, the
other 3 to cut lumber near the storehouse and start training peasants in the
town hall. 16 will do for now (5 lumberjacks, 6 stone query men and 5 builders)
and research "improving grain crops treatment". (+140% harvesting)
With the builders you need to construct a blacksmith. Once this is finished you
need to research "manufacturing agricultural equipment" which increases your
grainfields capacity by 100%. The blacksmith also allows mines, which are
needed to gain coal, iron and gold. You should start training more peasant to
start building mines. You'll need 5 peasants per mine, so should start building
quite a few. The 5 builder peasants should construct the other building that
became available to you: the 17th century barracks. The barracks will allow you
to train spearmen, musketmen and such. If they are finished with building the
barracks, you should construct academy. This will allow you to train officers
and musicians. Research "Carry out field melioration" (+200% field capacity),
"cultivate new cultures of wheat" (+20% faster harvesting) and "cultivate new
cultures of wheat" (+15% faster harvesting). Now train 15 peasants and build an
extra mill. You can now start building an army. You will soon reach your
maximum number of units, but instead of making houses build an extra town hall.
Now your set expand in the far map, further construct your city and have a army
to protect your territory.
Something to know:
+------------------------+
|Peasant Important |
|hot-key list |
+------------------------+
|Key|Building |
+------------------------+
| C |Town hall |
| Y |Mill |
| T |Store house |
| B |Blacksmith (17th C) |
| K |Blacksmith (18th C) |
| N |Mine |
+------------------------+
Big armies is what Cossacks is all about. Technically you can have a army of
4000 men. I say technically because you need peons to support them.
Understanding how armies work is very important. Cossacks, like many other
strategy games, work with a rock-paper-scissors system; every unit has
strengths and weaknesses. For you to win a battle you need to play on your
strength and minimize your weakness and your opponent will try to do the same.
Rock-paper-scissors model:
--------->Artillery---------
| | |
| | |
| V |
| ---> Musket---- |
| | | |
| | | |
| | V |
-->Cavalry Spear<----
^ |
| |
---------------
NOTE: The fact that for example musketmen are vulnerable for cavalry doesn't
mean they are useless. If they fire a couple of good volleys in a group of
cavalry it will certainly cause damage.
So now you have a general idea on how on what will work certain types of units,
it is important to know how you can handle units properly. First of, you need
to know how to create formations. This quite easy; you'll need a number of the
same units, a musician (mostly drummers) and a officer. Select the whole lot
and press on the officer icon, than on the icon of the units you want join
together and finally the formation you want them in. Formation have to be
certain size, you can't just make a formation of a random number of units. (15,
36, 72, 96, 120 or 196 units) Now that you have a formation of units you can
change its facing by holding the right mouse button and dragging it towards the
way you want it to face, than release the button. You'll be using infantry
mostly and controlling them is important.
Advanced tactics will be talked about later on in the FAQ.
Now that we have the basics under control, we can go on with the advanced
stuff. You have a thriving city but its far from finished. You'll want to
advance to the 18th century as fast as you can. (if you didn't chose a faction
which can't) You should have some soldiers to at your borders to protect them.
First thing, build an second barracks so you can build formation more quickly.
Now make sure you have enough soldiers guarding your territory and make them
stand ground for the defensive bonus.
Now there is a couple of things you should build so you can advance on the tech
tree. First thing is a church, which enables you to build priests (which heal
wounds), a unit I find rather useless since most enemy volley kill some of your
units outright. The second thing you'll need is market place, which lets you
buy resources that you lack for resources that you have an excess of. This very
handy if you want to buy upgrades/build buildings which you lack the resource
for. Since you usually have one or two resources in excess this is extremely
helpful.
After that is finished, you'll want a stable. You want to build this purely
because its required for the "18th century"-upgrade. You want to get your
cavalry from the next building your going to build: the diplomatic centre. This
is because training cavalry takes quite a long time per unit and the diplomatic
centre spits them out instantly. The most usefull cavalry can only be trained
there anyway (except for ukrainians); the cossack. Now build a artillery depot.
This building gives you excess to large guns and is the final step to the "18
century" upgrade. Look at what you need (its pretty expensive) and research it.
Meanwhile research the "raise builders' salary" at the academy.
Now your in the 18th century build 10 extra peasants and send the full group of
15 to build a 18th century barracks. Ones its finished your base is pretty much
done. You might want a some towers around your city for defensive purposes,
especially if your near a big body of water, since the computer often does
build ships at this stage of the game.
Congrats, your base is done!
Upgrading is a important factor in the game. If you do not upgrade your faction
properly, the opponent gets a serious upperhand, which obviously isn't in your
best interest. But than the question becomes; what are good upgrades? Now, that
is something worth explaining. I made priority list per aspect of the game.
Food production:
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Name |location |effect |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Improve grain crops |Mill |+140% carrying capacity |
|treatment | |for peasants |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Manufacture agricultural |Blacksmith |+100% field capacity |
|equipment | | |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Cultivate new cultures of |Academy |+20% faster harvesting |
|wheat | | |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Carry out field malioration|Academy |No field depleation |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Cultivate new cultures of |Academy |+15% faster harvesting |
|Rye | | |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Raise agriculturalists' |Academy |+10% faster harvesting |
|salary | | |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Improve grain crops storage|Mill |+120% carring capacity |
| | |for peasants |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
Musketmen upgrades:
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Name |location |effect |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Design wheel lock |Academy |+35% faster rate of fire |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Improve firearms: rifled |Academy |+10% fire power |
|barrel | | |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Research granular gunpowder |Academy |+15% fire power |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Design flintlock |Academy |-50% cost of firing |
| | |muskets |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Research new sulfur |Academy |+20% fire power |
|rectification methods | | |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Research new nitre |Academy |+30% fire power |
|rectification methods | | |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Design paper cardridge |Academy |+35% faster rate of fire |
|and iron ramrod | | |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Conduct a practice shoot |17C. Barracks|Increases fire power by |
| | |X%* |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
*: X is dependant on faction and unit
Artillery upgrades:
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Name |location |effect |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Design more durable gun |Academy |+150% durability of |
|carriage: Gribovalle system| |artillity |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Research new sighting |Academy |+35% accuracy |
|device for artillery | | |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Design new barrel types: |Academy |+10% range |
|Unicorn, Carronade | | |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
|Develop mathematics |Academy |+35% accuracy |
+---------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
The best part of the game: waging war! You obviously have some troops at hand
and should expand your army as much as possible. The core of your army should
always be musketmen. In the 17th century you should just pump out musketmen in
groups of at least 72 men. These guys HATE cavalry and rightfully so; they are
not exactly great in close combat and as such get ripped apart by cavalry. The
best thing you can do is screen them of with spearmen. If you have 72 musketmen
screen them with 36 spearmen and put both in line formation. This will make it
hard for cavalry to out-flank you. Make both groups stand ground; this will
keep both groups in place and enhances the defensive capabilities.
You want cannons with you to add some extra punch to your army. These require
some serious management though. There are two ways to deploy them. You can
deploy them in front of your line, because if you deploy behind your line,
you'll kill your own men. You have got to take care of your cannons. They will
kill loads of enemies but they are fragile and vulnerable for cavalry. You want
to keep an eye out for charges on your artillery. When cavalry comes in for the
kill reposition them behind your lines. (and stop firing them!) Either the
cavalry will try to reteat (and get shot up heavily) or the charge in the
pikemen to die a bloody death. (figure 1)
The other way you can deploy them is on a hill, with your troops at the foot of
the hill. Now your cannons don't need to be in front of your lines because they
will fire over your troops. This is the ideal way to deploy them. Cannons also
gain extra range from a higher position. (figure 2) The only way to make this
situation better is to have a enemy army trying to come through a choke point.
Choke points + Cannons = deathtrap!
FIGURE 1:
/\
Facing
+---++---++---+
| C || C || C |
+---++---++---+
+--------------------------++--------------------------+
| P || P |
+--------------------------++--------------------------+
+--------------------------++--------------------------+
| || |
| M || M |
+--------------------------++--------------------------+
FIGURE 2:
/\
Facing
+--------------------------++--------------------------+
| P || P |
+--------------------------++--------------------------+
+--------------------------++--------------------------+
| || |
| M || M |
+--------------------------++--------------------------+
/////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
//////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
//////////////+---++---++---+\\\\\\\\\\\\
//////////////| C || C || C |\\\\\\\\\\\\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\+---++---++---+////////////
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////////////
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////////////
Legend:
///\\\ = Hill
P = 36/72 Pikemen
M = 72/120 Musketmen
C = 1 Cannon
You also need some cavalry of your own. Cavalry has two purposes: flanking and
knocking out cannons. Flanking is a good way to rack up some kills. As I
adviced before; hire Cossacks. They are very fast and quite deadly. The only
problem is that the are lightly armor, but that should not be a big problem
when flanking. Try to get them around the enemy line, which with its great
speed is a very exceptable task and ram them in the back of musketmen. The will
drop like flies and thats the genral idea. Cossacks are also good for charging
cannons. They are there in mere seconds and will destroy them even quicker.
Obviously cannons are high on your priority list of things to knock out.
Ones you hit 18th century something changes. Musketmen become good close combat
fighters, so pikemen become less important. Its often better to have just
musketmen, cannons and cavalry. They still get slayed by cannons in rapid
fashion, though. The general tactics for them stay the same, stand and fire
(preferable stand ground status).
Cannons are great, but far from the best siege tool. If you want to lay waste
to a town you should go for mortars. The have very long range; out-shooting
defensive towers. The great thing about mortars is, when you hit a building,
bricks and pieces of wood fly around. This will make repairing buildings a
hazardous task to say the least. Now if your this far, you should have the game
pretty much won.
FAQ made by -
BestOut3321
FRED56
BlogOut Studios
