Cossacks is simply the best thing to ever happen to the PC.
Cossacks is simply the best thing to ever happen to the PC. It is a near perfect game, which surpasses all the strategy games that were around at it's release, and even all around today. It's incredibly much better than Cossacks II, and it's only relative rival is the American Conquest series, but they also seem to fall short gameplay wise.
Cossacks is a game which is highly inspired by the Age of Empires series; but all the attributes that Cossacks borrowed from AoE, were successfully built upon and perfected. The handling of armies up to 8,000 units is perfect, it is so easy to handle, and truly allows a multitude of tactics to be employed.
Each nation is unique, in the way you play it. Some nations are more unique than others, but it does not detract from the game's historical correctness. The armies of Western Europe at the time were exceedingly similar, with only a handful of unique regiments and army classes differentiating them. However, when you move Eastwards, the armies become very different. Ukraine, Russia and Poland are all different from each other and from all the other nations in the game. Turkey and Algeria are also extremely different from the others, but they are somewhat more similar to eachother, but that too is historically realistic, as their tactics are very different, due to Algeria lacking modern soldiers.
Even with the nations being very unique, the game is extremely well balanced. Each nation is capable of defeating another, as long as you make use of their strengths and the opposing nations weaknesses appropriately.
The singleplayer campaigns in Cossacks are great fun, and quite difficult, although the expansion's campaigns may not be as enticing as the original's campaign for Ukrainian independence (I believe this campaign is the centrepiece of the entire game), the Caribbean campaign and so on.
The game even has a random map generator, which will really add to the replayability value, and in many ways, will probably be the main force keeping you glued to the game. The options that you can use are so numerous, it'd be pointless to list them all here. Each option boads for a different type of tactics, and as the nations are so different, as long as you change nation and options, it's virtually impossible to play a game the same way twice, unless you are fixated with one specific tactic.
Multiplayer is also one of the game's strong points, with an online ranking system outdoing all of it's competition. The only other games that can compete with it are Cossacks II, American Conquest and Battlefield 2.
In conclusion, Cossacks truly is an amazing game, which will keep you enthralled for as long as you pleased. I've been playing it ever since the original was first released, and I still consider it the best strategy game available.