User interface | The Basics Cossacks 3 Guide
Last update: 17 October 2016
Kossacks 3 is a very dynamic game, which often requires making quick decisions. You have to know the interface well in order to be able to accordingly react to changing circumstances on the battlefield. Below, you'll find a detailed description of the interface, along with the introduction of all the displayed options and parameters of your town. You can also learn useful keyboard shortcuts that will allow better control over the units.
Game screen
1 - Three types of information are displayed here. First, next to the house icon, there's a number telling you how big your population is / what is the limit for this value. The next icon represents idle villagers - click here to select a villager who isn't doing any job. Then, there's the information about unused mines - if there are still vacant villager slots in a mine, you will see that here.
2 - That's your resources. Starting from the right: wood, food, stone, gold, iron, and coal. Hovering the mouse over these icons will produce a more detailed information. The numbers in brackets tell you how many people are working with the given resource. If the gold number is red, it means that you spend more than you produce, for example on the army upkeep.
3 - Game menu - you'll find different options here: graphics, sound, etc.
4 - Unit information panel. Orders or upgrades / recruitment queue / technologies to buy.
5 - minimap and player score.
Key shortcuts
Unit and building groupping: CTRL + a number from 0 to 9.
DELETE - you can terminate your units and buildings. It can be used as scorched earth tactic: if the enemy is sure to capture your buildings/units you can destroy them, and deny the opponent loot.
When you have units selected you can use the following keys:
S - Hold ground. They unit won't move even if in danger. Use that when you want to keep your riflemen in one place.
C - At ease. The units will stay in one place until attacked. Usually they fight until the enemy is killed. The units don't return to their original position.
A - Move and attack. The units will move the place you select and will engage every enemy they meet on their way. It's useful during big battles, when you want, for example, your hussars to just charge and start fighting. Contrary to just selecting a target by clicking a mouse, this order will make every soldier to find an opponent - otherwise the whole unit can attack a single opponent.
E i D - Attack on/off. Decide whether the units should attack. Useful if you don't have a lot iron and coal, and you want to save for later for other troops, or if you don't want to kill enemy's villagers.
F - Replenish formation.
G - Guard. The unit will guard the given building/unit.
J,K,L - formation: line/column/square.
By holding SHIFT you can set a path for your troops to follow.
If you have some troops selected, hold shift and left mouse to add more units to the selection.
Double clicking a unit, clicking a unit while holding CTRL, or selecting a unit and pressing Z selects all units of the same kind. Combine this with holding SHIFT to instantly add more units to selection.
CTRL + A will select every unit on the map. You can select units that you're looking for from the window in the lower left coner.
When you're managing units recruitment: left click adds a unit to queue, and right click subtracts a unit from cueue. If you hold SHIFT, you will add/subtract fife units at a time. Holding CTRL will set the recruitment to unlimited mode: units will be recruited until you run out of resources or hit population limit.