Eastern Wars

The Age

A century of sabres and gunpowder

In the seventeenth century the lands of today's Ukraine were a frontier between three powers. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth held the river valleys and the towns. The Ottoman Empire and its vassal, the Crimean Khanate, held the shore of the Black Sea and raided north every summer. Between them, below the rapids of the Dnipro, lived the Zaporozhian Cossacks — warriors, sailors and farmers who answered to a hetman of their own choosing.

For fifty years the Cossacks fought the Sultan beside the King. Then, in 1648, they turned on the King. Bohdan Khmelnytsky's rising began with a few thousand men at the Sich and grew into a war that destroyed three Crown armies in a single year, founded a Cossack state, and drew in the Khan, the Tsar, the Swedes and at last the Sultan himself.

It was a war of the open steppe and the river crossing, of wagon forts chained together in the field, of winged hussars charging home and musket volleys from behind a rampart of carts. Eastern Wars puts you in command of it.

The Zaporozhian Host

Elected hetmans, registered regiments and the free Sich below the rapids. Masters of the wagon fort and the musket.

The Commonwealth

King, Senate and a proud nobility, with the finest heavy cavalry in Europe: the winged hussars.

The Ottoman Empire

The Sultan's janissaries and sipahis, and guns heavier than anyone else's. Its border ran along the Dniester.

The Crimean Khanate

The Khan's horde: swift, fickle allies who decided more than one battle by leaving it.

Chronicle of the wars

In the campaignThe wider age

Beside the King, against the Sultan

1620
Cecora
An Ottoman army destroys the Crown's on the Prut. Grand Hetman Żółkiewski falls; among the captives is a young Cossack officer, Bohdan Khmelnytsky.
1621
Khotyn
Petro Sahaidachny's Cossacks stand with the Commonwealth's army on the Dniester and hold their camp for a month against Sultan Osman II. The Sultan turns back.
1638
The golden peace
The last of the early risings is crushed. The Registered Host is cut down, the Sich is garrisoned, and the frontier falls quiet for ten years.

Khmelnytsky's War

1648
The rising
Khmelnytsky is elected hetman at the Sich and allies with Tuhai Bey's Tatars. In May he destroys two Crown armies at Zhovti Vody and Korsun; in September a third flees at Pyliavtsi. Lviv and Zamość are besieged before winter.
1649
Zbarazh and Zboriv
Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki holds Zbarazh behind his earthworks for six weeks. The king marches to relieve him and is caught crossing the Strypa at Zboriv. A treaty follows, and with it a Cossack state.
1651
Berestechko
The largest battle of the century. The Khan's horde abandons the field and the Cossack camp breaks out across the marsh. In the autumn the war comes to Bila Tserkva.
1652
Batih
On a hill above the Southern Buh, Hetman Kalinowski's army is surrounded and annihilated.
1653
Zhvanets
The armies face each other above the Dniester through the autumn, until the Khan makes his own peace with the King.
1654
Pereiaslav
The hetman places the Hetmanate under the protection of the Tsar of Muscovy. The war widens.
1655
Okhmativ
In a killing January frost the Crown and its new Tatar allies fight the Cossacks and Muscovites around their wagon fort for days on end.
1657
The hetman dies
Bohdan Khmelnytsky dies at Chyhyryn in August. The decades of civil war that follow are remembered as the Ruin.

The Ruin and the Crescent

1672
Kamianets
Sultan Mehmed IV takes Kamianets-Podilskyi, the strongest fortress of Podolia, and makes Podolia an Ottoman province.
1673
Khotyn again
Grand Hetman Jan Sobieski storms the Ottoman camp at Khotyn. A year later he is king.
1678
Chyhyryn
After two great sieges, Chyhyryn, the old capital of the hetmans, falls to the Ottomans in ruins.
1683
Vienna
Jan III Sobieski's winged hussars break the Ottoman siege of Vienna. The Crescent's tide in Europe begins to turn.

The Campaign

Twelve battles of Khmelnytsky's war

From the camp on the Zhovta in the spring of 1648 to the frozen field of Okhmativ, the campaign follows the hetman's war battle by battle. Your army marches on between them: the fallen stay fallen, and the survivors carry their losses and their experience into the next field.

April–May 1648
Zhovti Vody
Stefan Potocki's vanguard has dug in on a rise by the Zhovta, the ford at its back, while Tuhai Bey's Tatars ride round the camp. Take it.

26 May 1648
Korsun
The Crown hetmans' army marches in tabor through the hills. At the head of the wooded Krutyi Bairak the road turns under your guns.

September 1648
Pyliavtsi
A new Crown army under three regimentarzes faces your camp across the marshy Ikva, with one dam between you.

October 1648
Lviv
The Crown has dug in on the slope below the High Castle: two trenches of shot and guns, hussars waiting at either end.

November 1648
Zamość
The strongest fortress in the Commonwealth, bastions all round. Bring up the guns and breach the walls.

July 1649
Zbarazh
Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki's army waits behind earthworks and a palisade. Breach it and break them.

15–16 August 1649
Zboriv
The king's army is caught at the crossing of the Strypa, half over the bridges, half still on the west bank.

28–30 June 1651
Berestechko
Your camp with the marsh at its back, the Khan's horde on your flank. The greatest battle of the age.

September 1651
Bila Tserkva
The Crown and the Lithuanians march on the town. Hold it and its castle hill.

1–2 June 1652
Batih
Hetman Kalinowski's army sits in its camp on Batih hill, above the Southern Buh.

Autumn 1653
Zhvanets
The king's army in the fields above the Dniester. The Khan's horde rides with you — for now.

January 1655
Okhmativ
A killing frost. The Crown and its new Tatar allies catch your army in the open by its wagon fort.

A second campaign

The Crown's War, 1648–1655

Fight the same war from the other side of the rampart. Hold Potocki's camp at Zhovti Vody, lead the hetmans' column through Korsun, keep Wiśniowiecki's earthworks at Zbarazh and command the royal army at Berestechko.

Zhovti VodyKorsunZbarazhZborivBerestechkoOkhmativ

On the march: The Ottoman Frontier · The Khan's Ride · The Muscovite March · The Northern Expedition

Trailers

See them take the field

The Nations

Three powers, one steppe

Each nation fights its own way, with its own regiments, its own banners and its own voices.

The Zaporozhian Host

Cossack Hetmanate

Registered Cossacks and Sich shooters who fight from behind chained wagons, pike Cossacks, dragoons and scouts, the Chern levy that rose with the hetman, and Tuhai Bey's Tatar horse riding alongside. Few guns, but nobody holds a tabor like them.

Campaign: Khmelnytsky's War · Skirmish

Cossack Infantry
Chern Levy
Registered Cossacks
Pike Cossacks
Sich Shooters
Cossack Dragoons
Tatar Heavy Cavalry
Tatar Light Cavalry
Cossack Artillery
Zaporozhian Scouts
Tabor Wagons
Bohdan Khmelnytsky
Cossack Field Engineers
Mobile Wagon Camp

The Crown and the Grand Duchy

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

Winged hussars who break any line they reach, pancerni and reiters, haiduk infantry, German mercenary shot and pike, Lisowczycy raiders and the Crown's field guns. A rich army, and a proud one.

Campaign: The Crown's War · Skirmish

Haiduk Infantry
Mercenary Pikemen
German Mercenary Shot
Registered Cossacks (Crown)
Dragoons
Lisowczycy
Pancerni
Winged Hussars
Commonwealth Field Guns
Crown Tabor
Regimentarz's Retinue
Reiters
Pospolite Ruszenie

The Sublime Porte and the Khan

Ottoman Empire

Janissaries with their long muskets, sipahi heavy horse, reckless deli, azaps and sekban, Crimean Tatar riders, mortars and the heaviest guns on the field.

Skirmish now · campaign The Ottoman Frontier in the making

Azaps
Janissaries
Crimean Tatars
Deli
Sipahi
Ottoman Heavy Guns
Wagon Laager
Serdar's Retinue
Sekban Musketeers
Humbaracı Mortars
Lağımcı Siege Engineers

The regiments

Every regiment is drawn as a block of painted men whose width is its frontage and whose depth is its ranks. Its chief has a face, and a voice.

Registered Cossacks

Infantry

Registered musketeers who stand in line and fire by volley.

Pike Cossacks

Infantry

Braced pikes: the wall that horsemen break on.

Tabor Wagons

Wagons

Chained wagons that become a fort, firing on every side.

Cossack Artillery

Artillery

Light field guns whose roundshot ploughs through the ranks.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Commander

The hetman's mounted guard: rallies the regiments around him and charges.

How it plays

A hetman with a spyglass, not a sergeant with a whistle

You don't move soldiers one by one. You choose where the line stands, which hill the guns own and when the hussars commit — and whether the wavering levy on your left can hold for ten more seconds.

Terrain is a weapon

Height and slope feed straight into range, accuracy, speed, charge power and morale. Take the ridge first and you will feel it. Rivers are crossed at the ford or the bridge, or not at all.

Morale is the real health bar

Battles are decided by regiments breaking, not by the last man falling. Hit a shaken unit in the flank and it is gone in seconds; rally your own before the rout spreads.

Regiments answer back

Every regiment acknowledges orders, curses the marsh, panics under cannon fire and cheers when the enemy runs, voiced in Ukrainian, Polish, Turkish and Crimean Tatar.

Wagon forts and sieges

Chain the wagons into a tabor and fight from behind it. Man the trenches, storm palisades, and bring the guns up to breach a fortress wall.

A campaign that remembers

Between battles your army carries its losses, its veterans and its commanders forward. Every colonel has a face, and a wounded one when his regiment bleeds.