The Seven Years War (1756-1763) - Game and Strategy Tutorials

Playable are the 5 main warring nations (Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia) out of a total of 13 countries. Every nation has its individual advantages based on historic strengths. Beside longterm campaigns like "The road to war" or "On the eve of war" country specific scenarios can be played, e.g. "The miracle of House Brandenburg". Huge historic battles put the player in place of the great generals: The battles of Kolin, Rossbach, Leuthen, Minden, Kunersdorf and Torgau have been created based on historic terrain and army setup.

Build up the economy of your nation to grant supply of your armies and your people. Build mines or farms on the campaign map near resource fields to harvest special resources. Traders in the local province transport resources and goods from companies to local markets, other cities or other companies. As the traders are state run, their profit is added to your income sheet, shown in the city menu. The higher the profit margin of the product compared to the market price, the higher is the probability of delivery. The more products are offered the lower the price is quoted. A product chain has to be set up: e.g. plant wheat in your farms which is transported to a mill, the produced flour is brought to a craft producer where it is transformed to bread which is used for supplying your armies, fleets and cities. Sea trading fields include fish, spice (southern Atlantic) and sugar (western Atlantic). Sea trading fields can be harvested by your trade fleets. Traders and fleets always will focus on the highest profit margin in relation to the transport distance although you can set the priority of each good, trading field and native goods. Trade and supply priorities can be set in the city menu. To use import or export markets just negotiate trade treaties with other nations. Map resources are shown on the campaign map and can be used only once: use a hunting lodge to harvest furs, farms to harvest cotton, tobacco and sugar and mines to harvest loam, iron ore and coal.

Cities are the center of the provincial economies. There, goods are sold and bought by local traders. To set priority of supplies just use the priority bars in the priority menu. Supply and delivery is a product of profit margins, distance and defined supply priority. Move your mouse over the products shown below to gain further information about production, demand, price and needed pregoods. You have to manage the mood of your population. Increasing tax rates increases unhappiness, as well as high corruption, high jobless rates, spreaded religion and language, low health and low income. To improve these features you can construct city buildings, build provincial buildings (reduces jobless rate), add garrisons (reduces unhappiness) or increase product offer to lower prices (increases people's income). Luxory goods like furs, sugar and spice give a special boost to happiness. The happier the population the higher the growth of the town which then increases your available recruits. Every factor has impact on other factors. E. g. if people's income is very low they are spending less on goods, prices are falling, corporates earn less and last but not least they are forced to enscript into the army. Every city represents diplomacy/victory points depending on the size and earnings, which can be used for offerings in peace treaties or diplomatic actions. The capital is marked golden on the campaign map and has a higher weighting on victory points.

Units can be recruited in cities if at least field camps are constructed and the necessary recruits are available. Each unit needs resources for setup, depending on the type of arms and an officer (if a brigade or division is newly formed you will need 3 officers: a colonel for a regiment, a general for a brigade and a field marshal for a division). To increase the numbers of recruits you can order forced recruitments which increases the unhappiness or hire mercenaries in foreign nearby provinces which has negative diplomatic impact. Just click on the garrison bars to open the recruiting menu. Some units can only be recruited in limited numbers, some in special provinces. Native units can only be recruited in provinces where allied natives are situated. The maximum recruitable native units depend on the strength of the clan, they cost nothing except firearms but are only usable for skirmish actions in battle. If recruiting time has passed the unit is available in the garrison place in the local city. There it can be transfered to nearby divisions by drag and drop in the division hierarchy. To create a new division simply drag and drop a garrisoned regiment on the soldier symbol at the left. By clicking on the division hierarchy button the regiments can be added to or removed from a brigade or division. The regiment can there be named or its weapons can be replaced. Every weapon has its special impact on movability, fire range, fire accuracy and fire strength. Weapons can only be replaced in city range when this kind of weapon is on stock. After chosing a division on the campaign map it can be moved by RMC. Fastmarch can be ordered at the cost of morale. Order maneuvers to increase the experience of your troops at the cost of morale and ammo. Every division has to be supplied with food, ammo and soldiers through the local supply depot in the city menu. Supply trains can supply the local or nearby provinces. Supply lines can be cut by enemy division (if order intercept trains is activated), so cover your supply lines if advancing on enemy territory. To reduce supply usage in enemy territory you can order plunder and looting which causes damage to the local buildings, increases unhappiness in the local province and pushes a lot of new illing recruits to the enemy ranks. In the colonies you may only move smaller armies as the supply capacity is very limited. If you wish to transport armies over the sea just right click on the target destination and the army is automaticaly shipped in if a fleet has enough capacity. Alternatively you can click on the ship in order button. After fighting a battle your divisions may have casualties to replace which are slowly added via supply trains. Some wounded may come back to action, depending on the local health situation.

If you move your divisions to an enemy city or fort a siege starts, but only if a city defense building with stationed garrison exists or the fort is occupied by enemy troops. To win a siege you have to crack the defender's morale by starting all out attacks or using demoralizing artillery and grenade fire. A siege can also be won by starving out the enemy which makes only sense if the food stocks have already been low. Winning a siege by an all out attack will only succed if you are close enough to the fort so that the defense artillery suffers less casualties. You can build trenches and artillery positions to improve your chances. Allocate available regiments to building crews, trenches or artillery positions. At the larger distance your artillery will only fire rounds, at close distance it may fire grenades which suffers severe damage. The defender may focus its fire on the pioneers which slows the building process, on the attacker's artillery which suppresses artillery fire and on the attacker's infantry which suffers casualties. The longer the artillery fire lasts the higher is the damage at the city buildings. If your troops are strong enough you may offer the besieged enemy to withdraw his troops and hand over the city or fort.

Fleets are used to protect the own naval trading routes or to cut enemy trading and supply routes. Ships can be build in local harbours and can then be assigned to new or existing fleets if the fleet is located near the harbour. Adding ships to fleets need recruits, supply and ammo. If you like to create a new fleet just LMC at the <New fleet> button. An officer needs to be assigned, the higher his rank the more ships he may command. Move your fleet by RMC on the campaign map, multiple waypoints may be set by RMC further. To cancel all waypoints just press the <Stop> button. If the <patrol> button is activated the fleet repeats all further set waypoints. If the ships supply stocks are exhausted the fleet automatically returns to the nearest harbour with the highest resources in stock. A ship battle starts if two fleets are approaching within their action radius and is solved automatically depending on the ship types, technolgies and doctrines. To intercept enemy fleets or trade fleets simply activate the “intercept” button. The transported goods of captured trading fleets are taken over to the attacking fleet and are automatically sold at the next harbour stop.

Officers are necessary for setting up regiments (colonel), brigades (general), divisions (field marshal) and fleets (admirals). Every commander gains experience through maneuvers, policies or battle honours. They are recruited in officer academies in local cities. If they are allocated the first time they adopt the branch of arms of the unit they are allocated to. If you want to change the branch of arms (e.g. from navy to infantry) the commander looses all or parts of his experience. The higher the experience of the commander, the lower are the deserting rates and the more rally commands are available in battle. To promote commanders to reach higher hierarchy levels they have to have enough experience. Once promoted they can be leader of higher unit levels but loose experience.

In the finance menu all revenues and costs are shown for the current and the last quarters. Coin debasements can be made to add to your treasury at the cost of unhappiness and higher prices in your nation, which again leads to lower people's income and lower tax revenues. Issuing war loans may help in short term but they are due in some years and you will have to pay interest. The better your financial situation and the lower the issued debt, the higher your rating will be which has therefore a positive effect on the next coupons you have to pay. If you are not able to redeem a war loan you may decide to declare bancruptcy which stresses your diplomatic relations to other countries. If your finances go negative you cannot pay your armies which leads to demotivation and higher desertion rates.

A huge set of statistic menues is available to help keeping the overview of your nation. In the country comparison you can take a look at how your nation does compared to your opponents. In the company menu you have a brief overview of your companies, your production and your industry earnings. The goods statistics shows all the produced and demanded goods of your nation, the army and fleet statistic shows your units and military data.

Native clans are spreaded all over the map ranging from clans like Natchez in Louisiana to the Samen in Sweden. The population of the individual clans is continously mounting which adds to the strength of the clan. You can also trade goods with clans to improve relations. Traded weapons increase the strength of the clan, traded horses the activity range. If a clan is allied with a European nation this nation can set an enemy of the clan. Then, nearby supply routes are attacked depending on the range and strength of the clan. Second the allied European nation can recruit native units in the province where the clan is situated which cost nothing except the firearms resource. The higher the strength of the clan, the more units can be recruited. Alcohol can be delivered to increase relations at the cost of health and growth. Pox epidemics can be spreaded to reduce the strength of the clan at the cost of negative relations to the clan and European nations. Clans can also be attacked by RMC on the campaign map if a division is chosen.

Technologies are seperated in 5 technology groups. You can research production technologies, new buildings, logistics improvements, new weapons, navy tactics and units. To research LMC on the test glass in the technology short overview on the bottom left of the screen. Advanced technologies need one or more pre-technologies to be researched first which is shown by moving the cursor over the technology picture. You can improve the speed of research by constructing or upgrading educational buildings in your cities.

Policies are used to navigate your nation into a special direction. They can be set in the policy short overview on the bottom left of the screen. Every policy has a special advantage and a certain disadvantage which accelerates the development of your nation in one direction but slows in an other direction. Once a policy is chosen it can only be changed or cancelled by a new petition about 3 months later.

The diplomacy menu can be shown by clicking on a foreign flag in the diplomacy short overview on the bottom left of the screen. Green flag borders mark allies, white neutrals and red enemies. The same colors can be shown on the campaign map borders (blue borders are own provinces). Diplomacy works by buying or selling means through diplomacy points (in peacetime) or victory points (in wartime). You can switch the "trade" direction by LMC on the red/green arrow. The higher the available points are, the more actions can be set. Good relations are shown green while bad relations are marked red. Points at or below zero means diplomatic relations are exhausted and war is declared. Diplomacy points can also be earned or spent through the more of 30 embedded historical events where you can choose to go the historical or the alternative way. Every diplomatic actions has also some impact on nearby allies or enemies. Diplomatic actions include: technology exchange, prisoner exchange, subsidy payments and province exchanges. You can also negotiate or cancel one or two sided trade agreements, wayrights or joint military actions. Joint military actions can only be chosen with allied nations: therefore LMC on the campaign map. If the meeting point is near allied positions your ally will move troops into this range which costs diplomacy points depending on the duration of the action.

When selecting divisions in campaign mode you can see an action radius. The range of the radius is defined by the type of troops contained. Simple Cavalry divisions are very fast and have a wide action radius which makes it favorable to cut enemy supply lines. If the action radius of two hostile divisions is overlapping a battle starts. This battle can be solved automatically or played in a zoomed in mode. There you can move your divisions by using the advantages and disadvantages of the terrain and occupy strategic goals like cities, bridges, hills and buildings. The battle is won if the enemy morale cracks. You can move your chosen single regiments by RMC on the map (hold and move RMC to define a path) or whole brigades or divisions by choosing the brigade or division symbol and RMC on the map (every RMC defines a new waypoint for each included regiment). The orientation can be set by holding RMC and turning around. Available orders include barricade building (improves defense values at the cost of movability), fastmarch (costs morale and increases fatigue), play fife and drum music (increases morale of nearby friendly units, decreases morale of nearby enemy units), stop (clears all waypoints), fire order (switches range fire/close combat), ammunition switch (plain shots, shrapnells, canister), advance (slow advancing while firing), fallback (slow falling back while firing). If order delay is activated, new orders will take a few minutes to be executed, depending on the distance to the brigade and division commander. If unpredictable behaviour is activated, low morale units will behave irrational depending on the commander's experience. They will attack in moments when it is too dangerous or retreat even before the enemy attack reaches the line. If an enemy artillery crew was routed the artillery can be occupied by choosing an own unit and RMC on the left battery. The old regiment is then split in two. To rally a routed regiment the commanders may give rally orders, the amount of rally orders depends on the commander's experience. If fog of war is activated your units can only spot and fire at enemy units in their view radius, so place your regiments on top of hills to increase the viewport or use cavalry units to scout the terrain or occupy hills in front. Espacially artillery units have a higher fire than spot range. Cities, forrests and fields cover units until the enemy is close by.

Provincial buildings can be build on your own terrain. Decide between lumber mills (have to be placed near forrest), farms (keep an eye on potential map resources), mines (have to be placed near map resources), hunting lodges (have to be placed near fur map resources) and craft producers (should be build near cities to reduce the transport duration). You can adjust the utilization through increasing the staff. Depending on the jobless rate in the local province staff can be build up very fast or very slow. The longer your personel produces the same product the more experienced they will become and the better the production output will be. Choose the production by clicking on the first storage places, the needed pregoods are automatically set and delivered (depending on the provincial supply priority which can be set in the city menu). Change the price of the product to increase the pickup priority by a local trader. Take into account to produce building goods like timber, bricks and possibly iron first as every building needs building materials. Second try to improve your food production and third try to build up your weapons industry.

Winter months range from early December to late March. During this winter season military operations should be layed down if possible as desertion rates are rising while divisions are moving. Furthermore production and demand is affected. Agricultural production is limited and the demand for some products like furs rises. One Russian scenario has the goal to overwinter a large troop contingent in East Prussia, so these troops have to be placed there until the start of the winter season.

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