What IF: The French had Won 7-Years War?

[Anthropoid]

So I'm playing BoA. Great game!! Looking forward to getting all my fun out of it, then trying WIA as well.

Anyway, playing as French in the 1755-1763 campaign, and realizing what a challenge it must have been for the French, I asked myself: what if the French had not lost the French & Indian War?

Hailing originally from Missouri, where there are place names like Bonne Femme Creek, St. Louis, and Bonne Terre, etc., it really is fascinating for me to contemplate that: had that conflict turned out differently, I might well be speaking French as my native language!

I reckon a lot of you guys are far more expert on this time period than me, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

So what IF the French had not lost that war?
Was it just inconceivable that they could not lose?
Could they have actually "won?" What would it have taken if they had won?

Supposing they did win, what aspects of subsequent history would you imagine would have played out differently both in the short and long-terms?

And just for the record: I'm a bit of a Francophile, I speak a bit, and comprehend more than I speak. My wife went to High School in Paris, and I hope we might be able to retire to France (else northern California, which is effectively the same thing right!?).

[Anthropoid]

I'm surprised you guys are so disinterested in this topic

We're having a great discussion when I posted this same question over at the Paradox general discussion forums.

I'd post a link, but I guess it might be not allowed? Here is a quote of my latest post over there

@Dewirix: what I gather (and I wish I knew some good books to read to learn more) is that until 1759 the French and British navies were competing to be the dominant force, with each enjoying certain relative strengths and weaknesses. This to me means it would be an absolutely FASCINATING period to be broadly modeled in a strategic and opertional (if not also tactical) level game.

Are you listening PI Devs / planners!?

ADDIT: just one more comment here to highlight how fascinating this period was. Here we have what has been called the first Global Conflict, with the Great Powers in Europe jostling for advantage and France and Britain and their allies taking shots at one another's overseas holdings. These colonies and territories were not inconsequential either in the short term or long-term, but as someone already noted, some were quite lucrative, if not strategically important. From our modern day standpoint, with telecommunications, rapid fleet deployment, air transport, etc., this doesn't seem that amazing. But when you put this globally sprawled out contest into the perspective of a world with no electicity, a world in which a message from the monarch in Europe might take a month or even TWO to make it to a commander in the colonies (or for that matter might get lost in a gale, OR! intercepted and captured by an enemy) . . . Wow. Talk about white-knuckle strategy game elements. It seems to me that these Empires were operating right at the edge of their effective envelopes, and thus leaving a lot of the actual outcomes to impromptu decisions, or just plan luck (like a NNW gale blowing up versus NOT blowing up as in the Quiberon outcome). There are many fascinating dynamics that could be great in a game if modeled with innovative elements.

There are SO MANY WWII strategy games out . . . I'd just like to advocate that the great strategy/wargame makers like Paradox consider focusing on some other periods.

EU is a great game for the broad sweep of western history, but I don't think it really does this specifc period justice by being sufficiently focused on the idioscynratic elements of the period.

[tagwyn]

What if the Goobies had won the war? Any books on this?

[Anthropoid]

What if the Goobies had won the war? Any books on this?

Who the heck are the Goobies?

[Rafiki]

Anthropoid, meet tagwyn. tagwyn, be nice.