I play Settlers 7 all the time, it's a time-killer/filler for me.
yesterday afternoon, out of nowhere, I got this error message when I tried to start a game.
"Attempting to restore network connection. The game will resume once the connection has been re-established. Please wait. To save your game, go to the menu. No progression will be lost."

It has been like this ever since.

I am on a Windows 10 PC and I haven't changed anything recently.

I've logged a ticket with Ubisoft support but I might as well have logged it with Santa Claus for all the response I've had.