Cossacks- Art Of War

[alfredglenstein 0]

Hey all. This is the start of a Cossacks opening for Art of War, describing a Ukraine- based opening. I may change and edit it as time goes on, but here goes...It may very well just be my unique situation, that makes this Cossacks Art of War strategy so irresistable to write- but the reward to be had out of any game is more reaped from your investment in it than its initial surface level impact on the player. Let me say in the open, I here am heavily invested in this game, and this paper is one investment more for which I hopefully reap some further depth of experience that is to be had by the game.This is not to say that there is no limit whatever to the value of this game or the depth of it. Indeed, the computer A.I. even at a Very Hard setting is very beatable and very set on one particular strategy. The game Cossacks is just as much a victim of predictability as many other games. In a situation where several equally logical decisions can be made, or several decisions that are more or less similar even when a particular one is advantageous but the benefit of the others is in the nature of their uniqueness, you will find that the A.I. often has one and only one and never anything besides the one decision of how to engage that scenario. In certain senses this makes the game easier, as when one learns the exact decision the opponent is going to make, it releives them of the effort of preparing for any of their alternative decisions (which is NOT AT ALL EVER a thing to be taken lightly). The dissapointing thing is that so much of the value of a strategic move is not due to the raw tools (the strength of the units) who enact the move- but the circumstances which those units enter. A group of hundreds of pikemen marching straight into cannons will be slaughtered. But it is possible that a small cluster of five Cossacks can run through a town capturing and destroying dozens of buildings and peasants. It is obvious then that so much of an effective strategy, above and beyond the raw power of the units, is to be found in how the units are applied, and this is a realm which the computer player can seem to be totally blind to, which strips us of much value to be had in unpredicatability. It seems to me somewhat fruitless to similarly defang yourself in a conscious effort to not react to what you know the computer will do. In every game you must take full advantage of whatever knowledge you have, and have no sympathy for the enemy under any circumstance. Nonethess difficulty can still be increased, but only in narrow ways- your enemy can send several hundreds of troops to be slaughtered by your cannons instead of several dozen, but the only challenge is that you must build more cannons. But it very well may be necessary to "defang" onself by disabling artillery, using a huge map, disallowing mongolfier, or playing against several very hards who can attack from different directions. But any such handicap must be something that you can totally disable so it can never be used during the game.This naturally forces the most relevant discussion of strategy to be toward multiplayer, though computer players as well will be considered- and the experience victory over the computer (several very hards), and then the brick wall one hits where any further improvement in strategy is so irrelevant because it does so little to affect your already inevitable victory should be considered a point of "graduation" in strategy.This strategy then, to be more spefic, will for the most part focus on a land map (or mediterranean) and for the most part be dealing with Ukraine when discussing strategy, though the ideas here may be expanded for use in Cossacks in general.The economyThe real battle is the battle before the battle- for the supreme economy. Surely a huge economy and no army at all leaves you ruined, or a huge economy and a weak or poorly managed army leaves you ruined. The real strategy though is to avoid needing strategy, to avoid getting into a situation where you and your enemy are so equal that strategy (military maneuvoring, choice of troops to build, etc.) is the deciding arena of the game. A good strategy is one where you are so powerful that you can absorb mistakes made (though no mistake or laziness is EVER encouraged) and still win. Your answer is to your worst cast scenario- and you must make your victory so inevitable that this scenario shows your victory.A short example- Ukraine has the most terrible navy in all of Cossacks. Their most powerful unit is the Galley, and every single nation can build more powerful boats than Ukraine. However, I have been able to control the seas against two very hards with Galleys alone. They were inferior ships- but I had many docks and pumped the gallies out rapidly, and with a superior economy I could afford to build hundreds of them. I think the underlying principles in this example are the ultimate trump cards a player should hold as their first and highest goal. That is a superior economy that is "put in play" which is to say, to get and play this trump card by producing the kind of armies that can only be generated from a kind of an economic advantage, so that you have the very valuable luxury of being able to absorb the finer differences should they occur. Victory is more secure when the worst case scenario is always the one answered for. Out-economizing your opponents is the first and most central objective for the coveted victory.Obviously the peasants are your productive power, and so your goal is to increase the population of the peasants as rapidly as possible and to amass the largest amount of peasants possible. Every battle fought will have been decided before it has happened, one force will have already been stronger. The victory is won not on the battle field, but in the early game by whoever is increasing their peasant population the fastest, ESPECIALLY in the beginning of the game.Opening Plan- 3 Town Centers1. Immediatly upon starting out a large group of peasants should build a town hall as a smaller group goes off to a clearing to build a mill. Your town hall must be built near a wood or stone supply, and under that wood or stone supply, as villegers return their goods to the top halves of buildings. (Obviously both of these, the town center and mill, must be built instantly- you can not go a moment without food and as for your town center, even in you had a crazy strategy that would merit putting of the building of this, it is needed before other buildings can be built, your hands are tied.) When the first town hall is finished, it must be set to build infinity peasants (Ctrl-click.) Doing this saves the time of having to click the damned button over and over again, and it also keeps your food up, only taking a small 100 food at a time to build each individual peasant instead of taking, say, 10000 food when you manually order up a hundred peasants at once. Upgrades and other investments can be made. 2. Right after this town hall, a second must be built right away that also builds infinity peasants. The peasants who built the mill may proceed to build a storehouse, and then be sent off to a gold mine. The newly created peasants must first be sent to get the nearby gold mines (however many are close, don't go looking for them just yet) and then the ones after must be sent to the storehouse to chop wood. (You can and ought to build town centers close to your stone and wood.3. The larger group that created two town halls may then build a blacksmith, barracks, and then a market. ***Immedeately trade off all resources necessary at the market in order to build a third town hall as soon as possible. This specific point in the opening strategy is the blossoming of the trump card. Most opponents will not focus on this. Do this as soon as possible, commit this town center to building infinity peasants as well. After the third town hall, the academy must be built. Investing in these economic upgrades so quickly is to play your hand as strongly as possible so that your opponents can not "make up" this advantage on you by building a town center later.(Which upgrades to get, defending from the rush, a more detailed focus on the barracks and stables, and ideal numbering and grouping schemes to come in the future.)

[alfredglenstein 0]

The exact sequence of buildings is this:1. Townhall2. Mill3. Townhall4. Blacksmith5. Storage Depot6. Barracks7. Market8. Town Hall9. Academy10. Barracks and stables and everything you want.As Ukraine, a Diplomacy Center is fairly important in the beginning to ensure against being rushed, a tactic which always makes this particular nation vulnerable. Even their gunners from the Barracks, the Serduiks, will not be enough. They will not slow the enemy pikemen down, and they'll waste time running away from pikeman when they should be shooting. Serduiks are fantastic shooters though. Even though Ukraine does not have 18th century technology, the Serdiuks can be upgraded to be so powerful that they can hold their own against ANY enemy gunmen until your enemy reaches the 18th century. Even then, their 18th century muskateers or grenadiers must first upgrade before they can be effective against Serdiuks.But if you really can not afford to build a Diplomacy center, it is OK. You may be one of those elitists like myself who is too good for one, who would rather hastily build up their own army rather than waste money on a fake army that just costs a ton of gold. There are other options.Option #1: Build a Palisade wall. I know they are pathetic. Against computers though you are all set. You don't have a better wall as Ukraine, just the stupid wood ones. Even against a human opponent, you can sit behind the fence with your Serduiks and shoot the life out of the enemy. Option #2: Villagers. Employ your villagers. Ukraine is the only country who's villagers can't be captured, and they actually put up a good fight against pikemen!!! If you are facing an early rush it will only be a small group of pikemen anyway. This will be a hurtful sacrifice but you will be able to do it and stay alive and focus on economy.