Cossacks professional competition

The game was released in March 2001 and became quite popularFact|date=June 2007. Initially, players used the GameSpy server, which was the only server available at the time. That was the early era of Cossacks; there were no professional players at that time. In February 2002 was released. It was an expansion pack for the original, including bug fixes and an improved GameSpy Server. Now the rankings of all gamers who had 1.35 version(Back to War) were available.
In the table below there are GameSpy rankings and points needed to get them.

On the server only the games which lasted for 9 or more minutes were rated, but some of the short games were rated as well. After the Art of War release, many players became more professional. They spent a lot of time playing 1x1 and in teams 2x2, or 3x3. Those expert players began to develop better tactics. "Rushing" and "camping" tactics became very popular.

In the October 2002 was released. Most played version 1.29(Art of War) of the game until 2004, then most of them began to play Back to War. With the release of Back to War new server(GSC) was added. Below is the table that shows the rankings and points needed to get them. The rankings/points are quite similar to GS server.

In 2003 the professional arena grew bigger. Players began to create clans, although many players played without belonging to one. Some clans were strong in only different types of game - some were strong on millions-resourse options, some on thousands-resourse, some on normal-resourse. Then most players played with so called powernations - Denmark, Prussia, Bavary, and Saxony. England and Ukraine are also considered to be powernations sometimes.

Tournaments

In overall, Cossacks was not so popular as StarCraft, but it is still popular, and has players around the world. There were some LAN tournaments for Cossacks, but mostly tournaments are played via Internet. In spring 2004 there was a tournament in Moscow, Russia, in Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. In spring 2005 there was also a tournament in Dnipropetrovsk, and in summer 2005 in Odessa.

In 2005, the first CCT (Cossacks Clan Tournament) was played. The tournament was made up of 4 top clans at the time: [EiS] , [KGR] , [EL] and [CKE] . The tournament ended with EiS winning the tournament, EL coming second, followed by KGR and finally CKE. The second CCT was played in 2006 between [EiS] , [EL] , [KGR] and [BoB] . EiS was able to defend their title and remain #1, however this time KGR managed to come in second, EL in third and BoB in fourth.

In 2006 KM| Spr!te had an idea to create the Cossacks World Cup. With the help of [KGR] Hitman, they organized it and collected 32 of the best players to play it. In 2007 the Second Cossacks World Cup was played also via Internet. The Cossacks World Cup was played in millions-resourse option only.

In early January 2007 [EL] challenged [EiS] , and managed to beat the #1 team. This was the first time EiS lost a clan war. The third and final CCT was held in the summer of 2007 and initially had five clans participating: EiS, KGR, EL, RoC and WIL. WIL and RoC were later dropped, and the three top clans remained. KGR finished #1, EL #2 and EiS #3.