Cossacks: Back to War

Cossacks: Back to War is old-school real-time strategy in the grand army sense: lots of units, gathered resources, and battles that turn into a mass of formations and fire. By our assessment, its main draw is scale, because it wants huge historical fights rather than tight hero control. The price of that scale is an older, busier style of play, with more economy management and more attention to formations than modern streamlined strategy games usually ask for. In practice it can feel exacting and generous at once: exacting because you need to keep production and movement in order, generous because the game lets large armies actually look large. Compared with newer RTS games it is less polished and more old-fashioned, but that is also part of its identity. Cossacks: Back to War is for players who want a classic battlefield with numbers that matter, and its ceiling comes from how much they can tolerate an older interface and pace.