Thread 2157998

Got any tips for a newbie? I'm playing Back to War, btw.

>>2157998 (OP)
Been awhile but what I remember merc archers from consulate are really good for taking out buildings, ships are fantastic firesupport, it's absolutely worth upgrading one unit you'd want to spam and putting them in formations and static defences and turtling won't cut it if he spams howitzers and such.

>>2157998 (OP)
The gunpowder upgrades in the academy are to be done after you fully upgrade your shooters in barracks or stables. This also applies to every percentage upgrade, you do them after flat stat upgrades. Big armies are king. Formation movement is somewhat wonky. Don't get caught out attacking multibarreled artillery with unarmored units, howitzers with massed units or cannons with anything when they're loaded with grapeshot. Capturing enemy peasants is good because building costs aren't tied between nations and you get free cheap housing.
Concerning nations, Algeria is the cheap bumrush faction, while Turkey is a bit more competitive after early game. Russia and Poland are solid in early and midgame, while Prussia, Denmark and to a lesser extent Bavaria dominate late. Austria is the most balanced of western factions due to a bunch of unique units, while Switzerland is a somewhat unorthodox one. Ukraine is the most unorthodox faction period because of their uncapturable peasants, lack of stone walls and the most damaging ranged infantry and melee cavalry units in the game. Get the second stone upgrade and sell your stone on the market ASAP. Your units will not fire if you lack iron or coal, lack of food will kill your population and once you run out of gold your formations will disband, and your mercenaries and ships of the line will rebel. Drummers have the highest field of view so you can use them as scouts until you get the balloon.

>>2158037
Quick correction, Saxony is good in late game too.

>>2157998 (OP)
Pay attention to upgrade costs. There's a number of extremely cheap food production upgrades you should get early on to kickstart your economy. The wood gathering upgrade is nice too, as are unit upgrades with low gold cost.
A second town hall is still reasonably cheap, gives lots of housing space and lets you put down some mines faster.
AI often sucks at protecting its base properly. Send a small cavalry squad on a tournee of least defended spots and marvel at how everything catches fire.

>>2157998 (OP)
>any tips?
Have fun! =D

>>2157998 (OP)
train more units

Just do like the Russian Ground Forces:
1. Recruit hundreds upon hundreds of the cheapest unit there is
2. Send it all against the enemy base before it can even develop its army
3. Enjoy the complete destruction as the base defenses are overdriven by your army

>>2158814
How important is formation?

i liked the concept of having to capture Villages to get resources in Cossacks, moving a bit away from the AoE-style economy. Unfortunately it was executed horribly and the scale of that games battles also feel wrong. Wasted potential.

>>2158852
in cossacks 2*
godfuckingdammit

>>2158822
Formation? LOL, you just throw the whole thing on the enemy's base and that's it.

>>2158822
I remember pikemen get +9 in armor if they're in formation and stay still. Of course a motionless pikeman is of dubious interest in the age of muskets and cannonballs.

>>2158814
based and algeriapilled

>>2157998 (OP)
Start out with pikemen and never stop making them. Make formations out of them. 18 c. pikemen train very fast, they are the perfect cannon fodder.
Research the first upgrade on your mines ASAP, starting with gold. If you plan on a longer game, consider the later upgrades too.
Once you have an academy, research that tech which makes your wheat fields last longer.
If you have water access, make fishing ships, but not too many, as they clump up.
If you play as a euro nation, the best bet is to advance into the 18th century and make 18.c dragoons as your main damage unit. They deal 91 damage fully upgraded.
AI will make groups of merc grenadiers and archers that will target your mines.
Frigates are the best warship, but they build very slowly. You need to research a tech in the academy to speed it up, but it requires a lot of stone.
To siege the enemy base, make a lot of mortars. They are good against buildings, and their impacts cause splinters that kill nearby units.
Check out the mod "Imperia." It gives the game a much needed rebalancing, adds Napoleonic units, and a proper AI.

Might as well ask here
I never played Cossacks before, is 3 worth buying or should I start with the older ones?

>>2159016
Its basically a remaster of the first game branded as sequel because remastering wasn't a popular term yet when it come out, although i think campaigns from addons for the first game and also some new campaigns can be purchased as a dlc for 3, not sure. As a third game, it sucks ass, but as a remaster i think its pgood

>>2157998 (OP)
The campaign is completely broken. I tried multiple times and it simply has game-breaking, frustrating bugs, which prevent you from finishing it.

Was there a fan patch you needed to install?

Remembered a couple more:
Merc dragoons increase in price for each unit, unlike other mercenaries. This is in addition to requiring gold for upkeep.
Sword infantry (muslim Light Infantry, Austrian Roundshiers and Swiss Landsknechts) can stunlock units in melee and get free kills that way. They'll likely still lose in a big fight but if you combine them with your own pikemen you'll get an advantage.
>>2159075
There's no campaign remakes from C1, unfortunately. All campaigns are brand new, which isn't that bad to be honest. Also you're right. It's pretty much just a 3D remaster of C1 with a couple new bells and whistles and some bugfixes and rebalances compared to the first game.
>>2159016
You can get it on sale, don't think it's worth buying for a full price, since it's been abandoned for a while now.
>>2159358
What type of problems in which campaigns? I was able to finish them even with the Imperia mod.

>>2159016
3 fucking sucks. It's just an inferior 3D version of Cossacks 1.

Try American Conquest. For me, that's the best possible version of this game.

>>2160900
>American Conquest

i heard theres a quite detailed napoleonic mod, is it any good?

>>2161121
That's for online battles. Only the chinese Gold Edition mod is playable in single player from my experience.

>>2158037
I only picked Prussia and spammed those bayonet guys. They are trained incredibly fast and once you filled the entire screen with them you send them to the enemy base, attacking everything on their way.

>>2162082
Are you sure? I think the new version that came out this year has SP support.
https://www.moddb.com/mods/european-warfare-napoleonica

>>2160900
what makes it inferior?

can anyone explain to me how the market cheese works exactly? I used to play this game vanilla but watching some of the pros they're only farming stones and woods, not even ever collecting food or upgrade mines.

Also I've seen people building a storage house and setting it on fire after completing building. What purpose does this serve?

>>2162579
his retardness

>>2162579
nostalgia. most cossacks games suck

>>2163685
Wrong.
>>2163106
>market cheese
You mostly trade stone and wood because you can get efficiency upgrades for both in the academy, they're more readily available than mined resources and they're mostly needed for buildings which you will sooner or later cap out on because of the prices increases. The way cheese works is first you artificially inflate the price of good you want to end up selling by buying it on the market first to increase the price and then selling your stock afterwards. So for example, you want to sell a bunch of stone, but the course is kinda shit. So first you buy some stone with gold, and then sell your entire stone stock for a better price. This doesn't work in C2 btw because the exchange rates are fixed.
>storage
You need a storage to build a market, so you plop the first one down wherever to make the market available and then burn it and replace it with optimised ones (since the peasants bring resources to a certain part of a storage).

I am still looking forward for Cossacks 2 remaster.

>>2158037
Does Mod1 change the balance of certain factions in a big way with the new units? Most curious about Russia and Sweden since they get a ton of late game troops in the mod

>>2166443
It does rebalance them, so not everyone's the same now, however the baseline is still somewhere in the ballpark of original game.

Пpoщe зaдaть вoпpoc, ecли чтo тo нe пoнятнo. Acпeктoв игpы oчeнь мнoгo...

A sequel to Gex's EW has released:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/european-warfare-2-the-age-of-reason

>>2157998 (OP)
The most important tip
>This is the game where 500 units is like the basic shit needed to fund your economy, not the top limit of recruitment; you will NEVER have enough units to fight
Rule of thumb stuff
>Unless you play as Ukrainians, use mercenary cossacks to ride the ass of anyone, all the time; Ukis have them in regular, non-merc version, which is superb raider
>Every mine you take out from enemy puts a serious dent on their economy, because they will have to rebuild all the costly upgrades AND wait until the debris clears first
>This game is NOT balanced in any way, certain nations are just plain stronger than others or have stronger units than others
>Bayonets are OP as fuck, even without upgrades, don't be afraid to do bayonet charges
>When in doubt, organ gun is your friend
>If your nation has pikemen in 17th century and they carry armour, NEVER stop recruiting them
>Prussia, Denmark, Ukraine, France and Saxony are all OP as fuck; Poland, Russia, England. Austria and Turks are very strong if you know what you are doing; everyone else is a filler

Also:
Polish campaign best campaign. This shit is on fire, and the first mission of it is fucking fantastic, almost like you are playing completely different genre.

>>2158822
Formations are only worth for two types of units:
Heavy cavalry and (non-Polish) 17th century pikemen.
Everything else works best as a mob of units.
American Conquest made formations pretty much mandatory, but in Cossacks they are a gimmick for 90% of units.

>>2157998 (OP)
If you don't have at the very least three windmills with 50 peasants working each, you are playing the game wrong.

Is it just me or is it really that 18th century pikemen are absolutely awful? The lack in armor makes them completely useless against every gun bearing unit.

>>2181524
They're not meant to fight rifleman but counter melee cavalry.

>>2162579
It looks like shit and plays like shit. It's a 3D game trying to copy+paste its predecessor's 2D isometric experience. It was extremely disappointing to play as a fan of the original games.

>>2157998 (OP)
>Cossacks 2 remaster.
Danmark (Danish) 18th Century Musketeers with full upgrades and 118 damage per single shot if upgraded right.
Just choose Denmark, rush 18th century and spam their 18th century Musketeers. They're the ultimate troops. OP shooting damage, grenades against buildings, and they can even deal some melee damage too, although worthless.
If you need some support for them, build OP ships.
To not lose in the min-max skirmishes you produce the 18th century Dragoons in the Stables while spamming Musketeers. Dragoons are tough and quick enough to support against most strategies.

>>2181524
They're also cheap as dirt and quick to train. Now what's up with French 18th century dragoons?

>>2181536
The graphics sucked ass and nations weren't made as unique as they should have. I did somewhat enjoy the fixed product once they finally pulled their heads out of their asses and fixed 15-year old (at the time) exploits and oversights. It really just was a wasted opportunity, although I don't think there was any way to retain the spirit of the series while adding new mechanics.
>>2181586
They build about twice as fast and are somewhat cheaper, I think? Basically you just don't let them get in front of your other troops so they don't get raped due to a small HP pool.

Is there any good source for in-dept documentation on the different fractions? I played it a long time ago and besides not regulariy playing all fractions but rather often picking my favourites, I also didn't pay much attention to details back then.

I know there are two wikis, one focusing on Cossacks 3 and one universal but not very good.

>>2182358
3 has Pirate Mike's guides on Steam, which are pretty good and up-to-date, except that he didn't make any for Hungary and Ukraine.
1 doesn't really have any centralized sources anymore, I think, but there's some guides on cossacksworld and cossacks-game (latter is in Russian and only accessible through the wayback machine now):
http://cossacksworld.ucoz.co.uk/
https://web.archive.org/web/20250301115020/http://cossacks-game.ru/

>>2182372
thanks. The first one is indeed better than anything I found so far.

Maybe I will give this game another shot during weekend. Anyone got experience how it's running on wine?

>>2182612
The new fan 1.52 patch is free and the dev is on Linux, so it should be working fine there.

>>2183707
Thanks! I did not know about this. Does the classic version include all the content, campaigns, and scenarios from the previous expansions and the base version, or do I need to download the updated version?

>>2183763
It doesn't, at least right now. It's being updated though, so maybe it'll be put in there.

>>2157998 (OP)
Imperia mod is great, try that, see if it works on your machine, adds 19th century stuff. Otherwise the game is fairly straightforward, build up until you win, then win. Imperia does make formations more useful though, keep that in mind.

Runs like ass on wine. Too busy to work on this right now. There are definitely people who got it to run though.

>>2181524
>Spam unit is weak
Big surprise!

>>2188018
It's not even that bad, their melee damage output is very high, given they attack about twice as fast as most 17th century pikemen.
>>2185989
It also makes melee units much more relevant because of nerfs to shooting (slower reloads, higher shot power on paper, but the units are less accurate, addition of friendly fire).

>>2188018
they're not even useful spam units. when the enemy sends them in masses they barely even land a single hit, especially when your using artillery. My armies consist only of riflemen and occasionally cavalry. The cavalry is fast enough to dance around the pikemen horde and take on the enemies riflemen while the pikemen get slaughtered from a distance. The only reason to spam them is if you have nearly unlimited resources and need quickly to buff your numbers while all your 18th cent. baracks, stables and diplomacy centers are running non-stop and the 17h cent. baracks becomes pretty much useless, since 18th cent. riflemen are superior in every aspect.

The only real use for pikemen is to leave them scattered in your base to prevent enemy cavalry raids but then there's no need to spam them.

Why don't they remake Napoleonic Wars - the best and most unique game in the series.

>>2190719
They are LITERAL cannon fodder. That's all they are suppose to do
>B-but 17th century pikemen are better
And take 8 times as much to produce a single one. By the time you get a single regiment, you will have eight of 18th century ones, and the enemy artillery can be still overwhelmed and thye can still force musketeers to engage in melee, rather than firing.
You are forgetting one important element: this is a game for thousands of units, not hundreds. So quality is secondary consideration to the basic question: do I have clear numerical superiority or a fodder that I can sacrifice?

>>2178544
>Polish campaign best campaign
I stole that shit for TTRPG campaign. The first mission alone provides fodder for a small campaign, but the campaign as a whole is just a growing escalation. Best domain-tier RPG material ever.

>>2162579
C3 potential
>AC morale and hit-chance, along with garrisons
>C2 range and fire concentration
>New, superior engine, which could add unit collision for cavalry
>All the possible QoL changes that a new game can have

Actual C3
>C1 ported 1:1 in new engine that can't handle the sheer scale of Cossacks unit count
>Not a signle feature of AC or C2 adopted
>Shit-tier music
>Horrendous campaigns

C3 is easily the biggest disappointment in RTS in my life. There was SO MUCH potential and such easy, evolutionary way of handling it... and they did fuck-all.
And then it became a DLC-fest, with spamming overpriced DLCs for very blatant cash grab

>>2191073
Garrisons sucked ass, 3's campaigns were OK, if a bit uneven. The Spanish one was good, at least.
>>2178544
Wasn't the last mission fairly straightforward? You rescue your peasants from the auxiliary enemy with a limited force and then build a base to fight the main enemy's base 1v1.

>>2191062
>By the time you get a single regiment, you will have eight of 18th century ones

Even If they train fast, they still clog up the 18th century building cue. Meanwhile the 17th century baracks lie fallow most of the time.

>>2191245
You know you should set 17th century pikemen training to infinite... right? You never actually stopped making them, right?

How do you even get that high of population numbers anyway? I remember I ended up with a town hall costing like 1.5 million stone and wood and still never reached a point with only a few thousands population.

It's been a long time since I played the game but I roughly recall you could set up about ten of each type of building which increases your population:

10x town hall = 10x 100 = 1000
10x barracks = 10x 150 = 1500
10x barracks 18th = 10x 250 = 2500

That's a total of 5k. Sure you can get a few more but I really don't see how you can double or triple the numbers unless you capture enemy peasants which ist more of a late game thing either way where the population numbers aren't important anymore.

>>2185989
There's not a lot of competition, but Awar is the greatest modder for Cossacks. And then he did it again for C3 (twice). Shame the game engine is ass.

>>2192646
Three words for you:
Capture.
Enemy.
Also, build fucking houses, they have minimal price hike. Venetian real power is the tiny footprint of their homes, allowing to reach with ease 10k pop by the time your enemies struggle to break 3, and then outpace things economcically
Either way, if by 30 minutes you don't have maxed-out gold mine with max peasants inside, you are doing something terribly wrong
Workers.

>>2191245
18th century barracks has two finctions: pump up whatever your special from that century or just shit out fuckload of pikemen pronto if you are some moron who plays faction without a 18th century special yet has the option to advance to that age

>>2193626
whenever I play with 30+ PT I rush the economy built and by the end of the PT all mines, all technology upgrades, all unit upgrades are already completed and from then on it's only pumping out units.
However, during the time I don't spam units since it slowers the upgrades, so I usually only queue slow training units like winged hussars.
Spamming fast training units is a waste of ressources at this point of the game in my opinion. If you have 6+ 18th century barracks and start building pikemen right at the end of the PT, the time it takes for the enemy arny to get to you is enough already outnumber them upon their arrival.

>>2195583
>Spamming fast training units is a waste of ressources
>t. actual clueless newfag
Those units cost you nothing, and can reliably overwhelm enemy.
Just ask me how I know you never played any rush game of C1, not to mention as Algiers

>>2196011
I was speaking of preset PT. If you're using the same rush strats regardless of PT, I'd say you're the clueless newfag.

>>2157998 (OP)
stick to the pike and rifle tactic. When meeting an enemy army pay make sure your riflemen's line of sight is unobstructed but protect the flanks in case the enemy cavalry swoops in. Riflemen get better at melee in the 18th c. because bayonettes, but still try to have strong anti-cavalry units nearby and some melees if the enemy tries to rush forward onto your riflemen. Research a lot and often. Artillery is useful, but cannons not so much. I'd stick to howitzers unless you are targetting enemy towers, which can be a problem.

>>2196427
WTF what country gets riflemen in Cossacks?

>>2196417
Nta, but if you consider cannon fodder useless in this game, then you are a bottom tier faggot who gets ass-raped with mercs, except not in 3 minutes, but three hours in

>>2196417
Also:
If you weren't ass-raped by archers at least once, you didn't saw shit.