The Seven Years War: Frederick's Gamble (7YW:FG) is a wonderful wargame based on the innovative and still ever popular card driven game engine from Designer Mark McLaughlin: The Napoleonic Wars (TNW). If you’re familiar with TNW or its successor games, Wellington and/or Kutuzov; you’ll have little difficulty getting into enjoying this debut Game Design effort by Greg Ticer with game Development by Fred Schachter. The game’s title stems from Frederick the Great, King of Prussia’s 1756 land grab of the independent central European State of Saxony, right on his arch-rival Imperial Austria’s doorstep. Frederick “gambled” he could get away with this annexation without triggering a general European War. He failed, and when Austria was joined by its Ally France (Imperial Camp) and then Prussia's Ally Britain (Coalition Camp) entered the fray with its mainland interests in Hanover/Hesse, that European War expanded into one of history’s first Global Conflicts. To reflect the global nature of this conflagration, 7YW:FG has “mini-maps” off to the side of the main European theatre: one for North America and two areas of the Indian sub-continent. These maps use a point-to-point map of “Duchies” similar to TNW. An abstract “Naval Control Track” accommodates the war on the waters so players can concentrate on the exciting action ashore. There are aspects of the game cards and rules which make this very much an Eighteenth Century, rather than TNW Nineteenth Century, gaming experience. Mark McLaughlin is the original game system designer (The Napoleonic Wars) Greg Ticer is the designer of The Seven Years War: Frederick's Gamble Fred Schachter is the game developer/editor for The Seven Years War: Frederick's Gamble