Seven Years War: Releases End of October

[Asid]

Update to version 1.098
20 February -

Layout:
- new commander pictures by Peter Lebek
- improved winter campaign textures and vegetation
- replaced campaign division sprites

Fixed bugs:
- improved campaign game stability regarding crashes due to VRAM usage
- regimental commander now can use his rally orders
- removed floor of zero victory points, can now go negative
- fixed disappearing GUI or crashes after besieging divisions had to retreat due to low moral
- corrected church elevations in battles
- fixed never ending repairs

Others:
- enemy armies are now surrendering if they are beaten and no home provinces are left

[Hofstadter]

I love the new sprites, it was a bit hard to see the unit types before at first glance, also the memory crashes have gone down.


I know I said I would make an economy tutorial but my other gaming projects and uni are taking up so much time. Im still wrapping my head around some of the concepts, anything with numbers take a while for me to grasp

[sandman2575]

Your videos are a big help, Hofstadter. Hope you'll keep them up for 7 Years War.

Honestly, I think Keppelmueller would be better served at this point taking a (brief) break from the game updates to think about what he can do to help folks figure out this incredibly daunting game he has produced. All the graphics improvements and bug fixes don't mean much when it's so difficult for new players even to break into this game.

Don't mean to sound ungrateful - K has obviously been doing a ton of work to improve the game. But I honestly don't have the sense that *anyone* besides K understands how to play the main campaign, or how the economy is supposed to work. The tutorials as they are now just aren't enough -- as I've said, they show lots about 'what' you can do, but don't explain anything about 'why' you should do any of it, what the larger goals the player should be aiming for, and how your economy plays into it.

7 Years War right now reminds me of a first generation Paradox game. Overall that's a compliment in my book. But this reminds me a little of the original Europa Universalis / Victoria / Crusader Kings -- where there's a ton going on under the hood, but the game left most of it opaque and hidden, and hence confusing. Pdox hadn't learned yet the huge importance in games of this complexity of detailed, context-sensitive tooltips and useful 'warning' indicators when you were leaving something important undone or incorrectly done.

Problem is, 7 Years War strikes me as even deeper and more complex than games like the original Europa Universalis...

[Hofstadter]

Well to Olivers credit he does have the warning indicators in game. One of the most useful was that one of my companies was taking a heavy loss or something to that effect. A thing he could implement is a context menu. My idea would be to have a question mark in the top corner. When you click that little boxes highlight around sections of the ui and a pop up box would hover as long as the mouse is over it, saying what this button does and a basic two or three line over what it does, with a manual reference for more detail.

He clearly cares about his game being accessible, which is why he upgraded the ui with the bigger font and vasty improved battle interface, so im sure being patience is what we need for his work.

[keppelmueller]

what do you think about the following?

adding optional question marks next to buttons and statistics, if mouse over additional info is shown, eg.: use tax increase to ... which has negative impact on ...

[Hofstadter]

Yeah, thats pretty much what I am getting at, the implementation isnt that big of a deal.

Also can I ask what is the state of scripted events. I went to record a video for Austria, sat all my soliders at the border and waited for the 29th of August, that is the date the Prussians invaded saxony and kicked off the war with the austrians to start their offensive to regain silesia, but the prussians never invaded.

[keppelmueller]

the historic events are not only triggered by date but also by special constellations like nation a needs to be allied with nation b. so if an event like the change of alliances is chosen the other way the following events may not happen historically acurate. sometimes only a small change in diplomatic relations may cause an event not to happen. but maybe i should stay closer to history. what scenario did you play? road to war or evening of war?

[Hofstadter]

It was the Austrian campaign, started on the first of August 1756

[sandman2575]

what do you think about the following?

adding optional question marks next to buttons and statistics, if mouse over additional info is shown, eg.: use tax increase to ... which has negative impact on ...

Hi Keppelmueller -- just my opinion of course -- but I don't think this is the way to go. I think what's "ideally" needed (and it may just take too much effort to be worth programming, I freely admit) is something more like the dynamic / context sensitive tooltips you get in Paradox games. The latest generation Pdox games -- Europa Universalis IV, Crusader Kings II -- have refined this to the point high art  ;) so I'm not suggesting it's something that can easily be copied -- especially since you are a one-man crew! But I think it gives a template of what to aim for.

I personally find generic "Help" tooltips... not all that helpful. In other words, tooltips that are just 'static' boilerplate information about how to do something, and it sounds to me like this is what you are proposing. Anyone who has ever played a grand strategy game beginning with Civilization knows in a general sense what the pros and cons of raising taxes are.

K, have you played Pdox's Victoria II? If not, I think it might be interesting to you just from a game developer perspective. Victoria II has a fairly intricate commodities economy like Seven Years War. But Vicky II does a pretty good job of making clear -- via dynamic tooltips -- what the commodities are used for, market fluctuations, and so forth. I feel like this is what's missing right now from Seven Years War. Especially in the economic area -- the game needs to do more -- provide clearer information -- about how the different parts of the economy fit together.

A tall order, I admit. 

[keppelmueller]

ok thx sandman, if you take a look at the current tooltips which are also triggered by special events (eg lack of resource, high jobless rate etc). what exactly are you missing here? should i take more focus on economics or is there a lack of systematics?

[sandman2575]

Was able to spend a little more time with this last night, and I have to say it worries me that I still don't feel like I've made any progress in penetrating the game's strategic / economic layer.

Unfortunately a lot of the icons, in the city view or really in any informational window, are quite small and really hard to make out what they stand for. For me, having more tool tips in this area would be a big help. Essentially, I think it would be helpful to have tooltips for *every* icon in the game. Not hugely detailed tooltips for these things, just "what this symbol means" tooltips. The player shouldn't have to wonder, "Now what does this thing stand for, exactly?" There's unfortunately still too much of that in the game -- too many things that are just puzzling as to their meaning. 

[Philippe]

A roughly contemporary view of the Americas seen through European eyes.

Rameau rocks! (And the singer who does the funky chicken and walks like an Egyptian about two minutes into the clip is seriously hot).

[JasonPratt]

....was... was that stage anime??

And the singer who does the funky chicken and walks like an Egyptian about two minutes into the clip is seriously hot.

Speaking as the straightest man alive, I can only assume you were talking about the guy, who was admittedly impressive in a Woodelf King kind of way.

[Philippe]

That was the William Christie production of Les Indes Galantes. 

Patricia Petibon is not the greatest singer in the world, though she's very, very good.  But she completely upstages everyone else in this piece with her comic acting.  Her secret weapon is the way she uses her eyes.

[magnus]

At first, I thought I was having a flashback.

Then it started bring back memories of Mumenchanze? It was a troupe who had ads on TV in the seventies. They were dressed in black and had antlers made out of coat hangers with toilet paper rolls stuck on them.

Back to the video, they are very good at what they do, what the hell it is I have no idea.