Not quite there... in fact, its no where near.
The first thing that hits you when you load Cossacks up and start playing is the graphics engine, it looks around four or five years old and is completely 2D, and this is most probably not the best way of doing an engine in the gaming culture of today which has a sort of saying that goes 'Graphics first, gameplay second' (although I dislike this ethic). Now, despite the fact that the graphics are 2D everything is surprisingly well detailed and animated; you can make out lots of little details on your soldiers uniforms if you look closely enough, and you can even call some of the animations 'realistic'. With that said I let Cossacks II off with a 5 in the graphical department.
Now, gameplay wise the game both plays and feels very different to the original with new features such as 'firing zones', morale and fatigue. Whilst these features are nice and refreshing for the genre they are also a little tricky and hard to understand at first. For example, when you select a squad of infantry and select an enemy squad you have to make a choice between either melee or ranged combat, the latter requiring the enemy to be within either a green, orange or red zone that extends from your soldiers. So, if the enemy is 200 metres away expect them to be in the 'green zone' meaning that your soldiers ranged attacks will barely scratch them, however, if they close in to around 10 metres then they are in 'the red zone' and vulnerable to the full combined fire of your soldiers rifles. Allthough this feature is quite realistic and represents the accuracy of 'old style' weaponry it is also quite easy to 'exploit', especially in online battles (but I won't go into that, as that would be cheating, and as you all should know, 'cheatings is wrong'). The game is also quite repetitive with very similar and 'static' feeling maps, and a dwindling online community that offers too much of a challenge for the new player (and this is very bad as the Singleplayer game against AI gets boring very fast). So, if you can learn the key tactics and strategies of Cossacks quickly enough then you should be able to compete well enough in online matches, however, if you're as skilled (or should I say skilless?) as me then you have NO chance online.
Cossacks II also features a rather bizzare sound mechanic, with every soldier, regardless of nationality sounding like an American. This is both entertaining and annoying as you send French grenadiers into combat with the 'dreaded English' and hear battle reports of "Formation morale has broken! RUN!" in a thick American accent. Now, onto the sounds that actually matter: the sounds of combat! This is where the game truely (and only) shines, the combat sounds like combat (which can't be said for many games), swords and bayonets make a realistic metal clanging sound and gunfire crackles like, well, gunfire. One thing that lets the battle audio down however is the fact that soldiers often die without a sound, which is not too realistic and deducts from what little immersion there is in the game.
Lastly is the stability issues that are sometimes encountered in Cossacks II, the game will occasionally crash or slow down randomly even on my machine which is relatively high end, and the 1.1 patch seemed to cause as many issues as it fixed.
So, as a last word, I give Cossacks II a 'mediocre' rating. If you wish to try the game then feel free to do so as you can pick it up cheap at almost any game shop, and who knows, you may even love it! If you want to 'try before you buy' then their is also a demo available at the official site: http://www.cossacks2.de