War Hospitalputs you in charge of treating soldiers pulled from the trenches of the First World War. With only a small team of overworked but dedicated medics, nurses, and doctors, you need to save as many lives as possible while maintaining the well-bveing and morale of your staff.

Managing the game’s minutiae can be a real balancing act, and first-time players might find the nearby cemetery filling up fast. Here’s everything you need to know about running a successful hospital, along with some tips for saving more patients than you lose.

11 patients are spread among three surgeons at the CCS in War Hospital

Casualty Clearing Station

The building that you’re likely to visit the most is theCasualty Clearing Station, located between the Operating Ward and the Cemetery. This is where patients areassigned to doctors for treatment.A patient’s condition will deteriorate over time, and if they aren’t treated they will eventually die.

Patients can still be brought to the Casualty Clearing Station even if there aren’t enough beds. Patients who don’t have a bedcannot be treated by nursesand will deteriorate faster as a result.

the player checks the progress of all current procedures at the Operating Ward in War Hospital

To assign a patient to a doctor,drag their card into that doctor’s queue.Doctors will treat patients one at a time, in order from left to right on their queue. Use the information on the patients' cards to decide on the order in which they should be treated.

Once you’ve researchedAmputation ToolsandOxygen Inhalation, you can use them to speed up Surgery and Chemical procedures, respectively. Right-clicking a patient’s card in the CCS will mark or unmark them for Amputation or Oxygen. These procedurescost half the normal resourcesand aretwice as fast, but the patientmust be released from military serviceat the end of their rehabilitation.

Major Wells decides the fate of several recovered patients at the Rehabilitation Center in War Hospital

Operation Risk

If you don’t believe a patient can be saved, or if you don’t have enough resources or manpower and can’t treat everyone, you canmove one or more patients to the Denied folder at the bottom-right corner of the screen.Patients in the Denied folder will not be treated by nurses and their condition will rapidly decline. You can take a patient back out of the Denied folder at any time.

The hospital always suffers a loss of Morale when a patient dies, but the penalty is smallest for Denied patients.

German soldiers attack the Allied trenches in War Hospital

Operating Ward

The Operating Ward is thelarge converted churchat the center of the hospital map. This is where patients are taken to be seen by doctors. At the beginning of the game,only the Surgery Wing, where patients with a red diagnosis icon are treated, is available. You’ll have to buildTraumaandChemicalwings in order to successfully treat other patients.

The first doctor you hire for each specialization is free, but will still take a few hours to arrive by train.

Medics assigned to the Casualty Clearing Station willbring patients to the Operating Ward, and then to theRehabilitation Centeronce the procedure is complete. If a patient dies during their treatment, medics assigned to the Cemetery will remove their bodies for burial. If no medics are currently working,thenno patients will be moved!

Occasionally, an exclamation mark will appear over the Operating Ward and over the icon of a patient currently under operation. This means that aSimplification or Complicationhas arisen in their procedure that requires you to make a decision. Progress on their treatment will stop until you make a decision, but the operating doctor willcontinue to lose stamina, so be sure to resolve these as soon as they happen.

Patients that die in the Operating Ward or the Casualty Clearing Station will continue to take up a bed until they’re removed by Medics,unless you have the Morgue upgrade.

Rehabilitation Center

If a patient’s treatment is successful, they’ll be brought to the Rehabilitation Center. They’ll stay there for a length of time determined by the severity of their initial injury and the invasiveness of their treatment. The number and skill of attending nurses can reduce this time. When a patient’s rehab timer reaches zero, you can discharge them from the hospital.

Patients will only make progress toward rehabilitation while one or more nurses are on duty at the rehab center; if no nurses are present, all patients' countdowns stop.

Placing a patient’s card in the files on the desk determineswhere they’ll be sentupon discharge:

Most of the soldiers you discharge will be sent to the Trenches or to HQ. As a patient heals, theymay gain more Combat Powerthan was initially indicated on their card.Chevrons outlined in red rather than black have apotential to refillduring the soldier’s rehabilitation; it might be worth keeping them in the Pending file and making a final decision when they’re fully recovered.

If the Trenches don’t have enough soldiers to repel an enemy attack (i.e., the battle icon on the timeline is red), then the defensive line will be overrun and the hospital forced to evacuate, causing a game over.

Advance Dressing Station

Whenever a battle occurs in the Trenches, several soldiers will require medical attention - usually dozens at a time. Once built, the Advance Dressing Station allows assigned medics toenter the Trenches and pull out the wounded.Wounded soldiers remain at the Advance Dressing Station until another medic comes to pick them up and bring them to CCS. It’slocated well north of the main area, so medics take extra time to travel there!

Patients at the ADS don’t have access to nurse treatment and will worsen over time. There isn’t anything you can do for them until they reach the Casualty Clearing Station, so try to clear all your queues as quickly as possible!

Mastering the flow of patients from one building to another while managing your staff’s workload is the key to success in War Hospital!