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Cossacks: Back to War

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Cossacks: Back to War
Cossacks: Back to War cover
Developers
GSC Game World
Publishers
cdv Software Entertainment
Release dates
Windows November 20, 2002
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres RTS
Themes Europe
Series Cossacks
Cossacks: Back to War on HowLongToBeat
Cossacks: Back to War on MobyGames
Cossacks: Back to War on Wikipedia
Cossacks
Cossacks: European Wars 2000
Cossacks: The Art of War 2002
Cossacks: Back to War 2002
Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars 2005
Cossacks II: Battle for Europe 2006
Cossacks 3 2016

Warnings

GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Cossacks: Back to War is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view and isometric RTS game in the Cossacks series.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SecuROM 4 DRM.
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Includes Cossacks: European Wars and The Art of War expansion.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows

Monetization

Type Notes
Expansion pack The expansion pack includes campaign missions from the two prior titles.
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Campaign Expansion Includes campaign missions from Cossacks: European Wars and The Art of War. Steam only.
Windows

Essential improvements

Patches

  • The official patch for the Russian release (1.36) can be found here.

Mods

Cossacks Revamp 2017 by Ereb

Slew of fixes and revamped code from a reverse-engineered version of the source code.
Allows for easy online multiplayer.
Supports windowed and borderless windowed modes.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/4850/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\*.sav[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/4850/pfx/[Note 2]
Profile data is stored in <path-to-game>\Players.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Options menu
Options menu

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music and SFX
Surround sound
Subtitles
No speech
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
Retail and Steam only.
German
Retail and Steam only.
Russian
Retail and Steam only.
Spanish
Retail only.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
6 Versus
Online play
6 Versus
GameSpy services have been shut down;[1] see GameSpy for workarounds.

Connection types

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP 2300-2400, 47624
UDP 2300-2400
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

Issues fixed

Crash on startup/blank screen/unusable menu

Fix 1
This is the unofficial yet modern fix.
  1. Rename or remove <path-to-game>\Video directory from the install directory.
  2. Download latest version of cnc-ddraw by CnCNet.
  3. Extract it into <path-to-game>.
  4. Set dmcr.exe to run as administrator.
Fix 2[2]
This is the official, yet dated fix. No longer works on Windows 8.1, 10 or above.[citation needed] The issue is said to do with the modern graphics cards.
  1. Rename or remove <path-to-game>\Video directory from the install directory.
  2. Download cs-dd-patch.exe.
  3. Go through the patch process. It should drop ddraw.dll into the game directory.
  4. Start the game

Game running too fast/slow

Running too fast[3]
Cossacks: Back to War features a unique engine timing system. While the game's speed is still dependant on the CPU clock, like many older titles, they offer a flexible speed setting in the options menu to enable the user to tweak the speed.
To make the game more bearable, make sure to:
  • Go to the game settings.
  • Choose "Slow Mode"
  • Decrease the "Game speed" by approximately 10%.
  • Save the settings and go play the game.
If the game is still fast, grab ACClock or CPUGrab.[4][5] If the game reverts back to fast mode, press Ctrl+D in-game.
Alternatively, use Cossacks Revamp 2017

Multiplayer Alternative

Alternative Solution to Multiplayer[6]
Whilst Game-spy is no longer available for the game, a community made server alternative for the GSCgameworld.net server option is available.
  1. Go to cossacks-server.net
  2. Follow instructions depending on what version of the game you have
Steam Version
  1. Download internet.zip from cossacks-server.net
  2. Extract the zip file to <path-to-game>\bin
Other Version
  1. Open the file <path-to-game>\bin\internet\ggwdc.ini with a text editor. I recommend Notepad++.
  2. Comment out the ggwdserver_addr gms.2gw.net line in the file by placing a '#' hash in front of it.
  3. Underneath the line you just commented out, add the line ggwdserver_addr play.cossacks-server.net
  4. Save the edited file and launch Cossacks: Back to War, use the 'GSC-game.net Internet Game' option in the multiplayer menu and enter a username.

Crashing when changing game speed/scroll speed

Fix Crashing when changing game speed / scroll speed in multiplayer
  1. Go to <path-to-game> and find dmcr.exe
  2. Right click dmcr.exe and click Properties > Compatibility
  3. Check the 'Run this program in compatibility mode for:' option and select 'Windows XP (Service Pack 2)' in the drop down.

Other information

API

Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Multiplayer GameSpy

System requirements

Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 95, 98, NT 4.0 SP4, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 233 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 500 MB
Video card (GPU) 1 MB of VRAM
DirectX 7.0 compatible


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/4850/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (4850) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References