I think this was a feature of Cossacks II
It was, now it's better - you can point your troops in any direction, Cossacks 2 had 16 directions, I think (probably because of the sprites).
Is Ukraine still in the game, does it get unique peasants and is it unable to advance to the 18th century as well?
EDIT: Minor nitpicky stuff but I'm bothered by the fact that the cannons don't have any gunners. Or is that just the cannons from the tutorial?
Ukraine is in the game, it has unique peasants and is unable to advance to the 18 century. None of the cannons have gunners, which is strange because Cossacks 2 had them, though I strongly believe this is intentional.
The devs really did their best to replicate the original, I've performed several tests and all the peculiarities are still there. For example: the order in which you research the gunpowder techs (+10% shot power, +20% etc.) and upgrades affects the final strength of a shooting unit. I have tested this on a 18th cenutry dragoon. If you max out the upgrades at the stable, then research the techs in the 'highest percentage first' order, you get 91 shot power. If you max out the upgrades, then use the reverse order for the techs, you get 89 shot power. If you research the techs first (highest first), and finish with the upgrades at the stable, you get 63.
Either they reused the code form the original (which imo they did, because why would you implement upgrades like that?), or went that extra fucking mile to implement every fucking little detail that makes the original Cossacks what it is.
What they have added are some UI elements such as tooltips, which give a brief description of units/buildings and their prerequisites. You can also track the number of peasants you have working on a particular resource, it even subtracts the number if you have any upkeep (only works for gold).
Apart from that, the only other and perhaps most obvious change is the game engine. It looks quite nice, perhaps a bit dark and cartoony (the former could be the result of graphical settings with which I haven't yet experimented). I think that the original had a clearer look. The new engine does affect gameplay: the trees are now solid 3d objects and thus obstacles, making marching units through forests a bit of a pain. None of the units turn on the spot anymore, they seem to have some momentum, which makes cheesy hit and run tactics less effective, but still usable.
I could go on about other nitpicky stuff, but I lack the autism to do so.
Oh, the game runs decently enough, though I have encountered a few lag spikes in thick battles. Mind you I have an old Core2duo setup and the game is fresh off the press.
TL;DR: Cossacks 3 = Cossacks 1 + grafix, it's p. good.