Mye, but you can hardly blaim him for that. When he made his mod, none of the tools I have now were available at the time, so he couldn't have done any major changes.

A propo z Angel'em robimy moda przynajmniej coś zaczynamy i jakoś to idzie i bd nowe jednostki w C2

Will you change units statistics, balance, uniforms and positions which should be more realistic and more historicaly accurate ?

What about units strength, scale and formations? Will you implement generals on battlefields which will can increase units morale or even create and command units groups as like mentioned in this thread by me regiments, brigades, divisions ?

I know that EbelAngel try implement few ships into the game and think about buildings scalling, but will there new fortifications ?

What about improvements in artillery? I know it is hard improvement, but may be someone can help there too ?

Will you look for somebody who can help ?

PS
Możemy pisać po polsku, ale czy nie moglibyśmy pisać po angielsku, skoro jesteśmy na anglojęzycznym forum to byłoby to bardziej zrozumiałe dla innych.

Another factor that must be taken in account while interperting these events, is that these further expansions of the original C1 engine must have been relatively cheap to produce with the great majority of the costs being overall implied in the production of new artwork assets, which means the core game code only required slight tweaks and modifications leaving the rest of the GSC production crews with enough free time to start the development of more ambitious projects. So the impressive visuals of games like Stalker started to attract a lot more attention than the timid, RTS-fan focused Cossacks franchise, which probably led GSC to consider its objectives thorougly. By then, Cossacks 2 had already been announced, and as far as it was planned objective-wise, it was clearly a project that was more intended to please the Cossacks fanbase than to create a large mainstream game. They took a lot of risks by keeping a more a conservative look, closer to the original Cossacks, while severely upgrading the C1 engine and drastically altering the core gameplay yet making it resemble the original, and in the eventually it simply didn't pay off. They realized the final production costs would be much higher than the amount of sales could support, so they delayed it indefinitively, as you may remember, and after it, release it in a rather incomplete form mianly because the angry fans wouldn't simply take a "no" for an answer.

And that's what Cossacks 2 is. A buggy incomplete game that in the eventuality of its completion would have been a lot different.

Can we hope for a sequel/remake? Perhaps, but if so expect it to be in full 3D. Reviewers criticized C2 almost exclusively for the datedness of its graphics while letting pass more important flaws, simply because that's how the industry works these days, praising graphics over general gameplay quality. It's pure speculation based only on the looks, just like someone who picks a girl on how good-looking she is, rather than how captivating her personality or wits may be.

So quite honestly, the only hope I see for C2 would be the creation of an engine port, using the original game's graphic assets. This would imply a complete reconstruction of all game features while fixing all the conceptual flaws left behind. Being the gameplay more formation-based than its predecessors, Cossacks 2 mechanics react poorly to the classic RTS economy, almost as if begging to a more warfare-oriented style on the likes of Dawn of War, Company of Heroes or Blitzkrieg, IE, zone control games on which resource management is reduced to minimum and troop recruiting is effected via full squads/formations instead of creating every unit individually on a player-built barracks. Otherwise, might aswell stick to C1 player mods like the well known European Warfare mod by Gex.

Ideally the parameters that would adequate to Cossacks 2 would be something like this:

Buildings
- No peasant units.
- No player-built buildings. All buildings are present on the map and captured.
- Only buildables would be minor battlefield tactical obstacles, like stakes, trenches and so on, all of these handled by sapper teams.

Map
- Map splitted in control zones.
- Each control zone captured earns a certain amount of points to the player
- Player can spend these points on troop squads/formations, that are automatically deployed.
- The objective is to capture all zones or eliminate the enemy player's command center

Gameplay & mechanics (essentially the current C2 mechanics)
- Real time
- Formation based
- Capture & conquer warfare oriented
- No resources other thant the already mentioned "requisition" points.

And this is a very superficial sketch. There are many gameplay features that could be added aswell in order to make troop management a lot easier. Frankly I was hoping c2 would be similar to this from the beginning, but the final result was a far too close from the original Cossacks economy system with a set of poorly translated mechanics. While the village capturing took the emphasis out of manual resource management, the village building system ensured the game remained theorically the same. Obviously this made the game feel disconnected and confusing, adding to the many many engine bugs you're all familiar with.

Excellent post, it's thàt good, that I'm going to read it again

Like I said before, the only solution would be a community made-remake using original game assets. Although such pratice could be legally questionable I don't think CDV or GSC would minimally care about it since it was their choice to abandon C2 so prematurely. So I would like to make a public appeal to all talented programmers and artists who have hacked most of the file formats to gather together and begin planning a remake, if we still wish to salvage something out of C2.

" an irreversible dead end due to lack of compability " . I dont agree either, I have had Cossacks 2 run on XP, on Vista and now on Windows 7. Never had any problems with it. But I'm aware that many do have problems because of 'off -the rack- low end computers and/or versions with f**cking starforce on it. Nothing that cant be helped by the way.

Everything can be fixed, its a just a matter of dedication & time. The true potential of Cossacks 2 lies in its extreme customizability. There is no game out there that has so many ready build in tools to customize the game. none, and I'v seen loads. unfortunately most people arent aware off this. I'v written down some pages on how to to do things, to get started. It should be sufficient to start off from. I could write down many more things, but I presume, if what is written down, isnt enough,then its pointless to even bother.

Though I'm no fan of hacking/cracking, it isnt hard to do. But as long as I'm moderator on the official cdv forums and/or want to continue to receive support/help/tools from gsc, you will not see me publishing any of those. In case they do abandon me, well...then the sky is the limit...

I'v spent the last 6 months fixing many things that should have been done by gsc ( of which none you will find on the site yet). I have implemented the best of Cossacks I in it aswell. And even though I have many inside information on how to get things done, it's still loads of work and time consuming.

So the question is: what are you prepared to do besides talking about it?

Everything else is irrelevant at this point.

Thanks for joining, you make good arguments.

I suppose this means you have access to the source code. Even so I'm not asking for an engine hack, but instead for a re-creation of the current engine features on another one. With the propper tools one could create unpackers that still rely on the original game data to get the engine to work, or so to say, having a blank slate that gets filled according to what information you load on it, be it cossacks 2, alexander or HOAE data, thus forcing the player to at least get their hands on a pirated copy of the game and making sure that those who bought original copies have not wasted their money in vain.

Still, regarding gameplay, I've yet to know your opinion regarding my views, since I also suggested a somewhat controversial reestructuring of the gameplay that I believe to be necessary, though it derives a lot from the original.

As to commenting on your initial posts suggestions, I will, after having carefully thought about them. They are indeed controversial perhaps, but definetely worth time thinking about.