Cossacks is set during the 16th through 18th centuries when the emerging powers of Europe engaged in numerous bloody wars. You will lead one of 16 available nations and fight huge battles which can involve up to 8,000 units.

Cossacks is a classic real-time strategy game that will invoke many comparisons to the Age of Empires games. Town Halls are used to create peasants which in turn are used to gather resources and create more buildings - you know the drill. What separates Cossacks from Age of Empires, though, is scale. With a large variety of available units, 300 possible technological upgrades, and the ability to field armies that number into the thousands, Cossacks certainly operates on a grand scale.

Running a war on this scale requires a lot of resources - not only to create the army, but to keep it in the field as well. In addition to the upfront investment, many units require gold for wages and coal and iron for ammunition in order to continue fighting. If you have not built up a strong economy (which can involve hundreds of peasants on resource gathering duty) before deciding to wage war, you will find your war engine quickly running out of steam.

You can play through several historical campaigns - which will offer a lesson in European history (how much do you know about the Ukrainian war against Poland?), single scenarios modeling famous battles, or in skirmish mode on random maps.

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