Thursday, December 1, 2016

The Seven Years War (1756-1763) - Pomeranian War

The Seven Years War continues to be an obscure war gaming delicacy.





The latest DLC from independent developer Oliver Keppelmüller brings Sweden as a playable nation.

After much improvements through patching, this war game brings grognardy bits from Total War, Scourge of War, Europa Universalis into an strategic, operational and tactical war game about the first global conflict. Not an easy task, but the design talents of Mr. Keppelmüller appear to be endless.



The game now has a manual, which helps to understand the economic facet of the game. Managing the economy is actually not that difficult, but it can be left to the AI.




It is rather unfortunate that the game still suffers from interface issues, like the dim highlighting of active buttons, the size of the icons and the non-obvious ways to aggregate the high volume of information coming from your cities.

And -this is just a matter of personal preference- the tactical battlefields are so dark and somber ...

Cheers,



8 comments:

  1. I came really close to buying this game during the Steam sale but decided against it at the last moment. Now I am regretting it...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. See the bundle that offers all content with slightly reduced price:
      http://store.steampowered.com/bundle/1826/

      Delete
  2. I tried this game after last DLC and it was both intriguing and depressing experience. I enjoyed the battles (well, battle), but camaign gameplay was laggy, interface rather unfriendly and it CTD'ed quite often. I would even buy it to support the creator if not for those CTD's. I don't have money to just give away I'm afraid.

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  3. I also had many CTDs in campaign, but it was fixed a week or two before this Swede DLC, also more FPS on camp map. Did you try lately?

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  4. I'll give it one more go if I'll get a chance. If those issues are fixed then it might even be fun to play.
    How is the AI in campaign?

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  5. Replies
    1. Campaign AI plays by same rules as player, ie. does not cheat like in most titles. It also does not make a difference between human player and other AI. The Pomerania DLC patch also introduced 3 levels of aggression for the AI.

      AI invades, reinforces neighbours and allies and attacked provinces, concentrates forces to counter a strong enemy force, sets and acts according to meeting points (player can ask ally to move forces to a location, AI does the same to its allies etc.) and does naval battle and amphibious attacks. I personally have played the game so much that it's hard to tell how challenging the current AI is for a new player, as the AI has been improved much during the last year. If compared to Total War AI from Napoleon etc. it's more active.

      Delete
  6. Thanks very much Zipuli. What's most reassuring is that this game is still being improved.

    ReplyDelete