Introduction by Congress of Vienna (CoV)’s Editor, Fred Schachter – To familiarize the InsideGMT audience of what designer Frank Esparrago accomplished with his fun and exciting Congress of Vienna game, now a GMT P-500 offering which has “Made the Cut” (thank you patrons, thank you so very much!); previous InsideGMT articles presented “Designer’s Notes”, “Game as History: An Historical Introduction to the Congress of Vienna Period (CoV)”, “Meet the Statesmen of Congress of Vienna”, and “Congress of Vienna Goes Electric with VASSAL”. Now we present an example of how the rules and game components come together in this series entitled “Congress of Vienna Detailed Sequence of Play”. Use this link to access copies of the preceding-referenced articles: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-850-congress-of-vienna.aspx .

This series is based on a four player “across the Atlantic” VASSAL game narrated by game designer Frank Esparrago: two players were in Spain and two located in the USA. It will hopefully provide readers insight as to how enjoyable, thought-provoking, and entertaining Congress of Vienna is! The first episode of this piece took readers through this example turn’s initial set-up with Parts 2 & 3 conveying a recapitulation of the game’s Diplomacy and Government Phases… where much Skype-supported “wheeling and dealing”, imprecations, and the gnashing of teeth  with Major Power positioning occurred.

Kindly note the following text and ensuing increments of this article series are, with some editing, eventually intended as content for the game’s Playbook. As such, there will be ready reference to the Rulebook to explain related detail as needed. For now, kindly accept our apologies for having the rules behind this example of play remaining mostly implicit. However, any quotes from the latest rules are indicated by italics.

Note: If you would like to view any of the below images in a larger size, you can click on the image and it will point you to the full image file.

With that, we resume this narrative of a Congress of Vienna example game turn as of its War Phase. This will take the remaining two parts of this five-part series, this first segment to cover preparations for the actual battles to come. Furthermore, to better explain the reasons why players conducted themselves as they did and provide related design notes; we feature remarks along those lines by Enrique Trigueros, our game observer. Hopefully, this new feature, introduced with Part 3 of 5, will be of continued help. There’s a lot of game action to describe, so no more prattling on by me! Take it away Frank!

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The Situation at Commencement of the War Phase

In the previous article, Part 3 of 5, we introduced the Government Phase… predecessor to the War Phase. The initial situation of the Military Map, at the begining of the War Phase, is shown below by Figure 1 with the players’ card hands shown by Figure 2.

As Jesús (France), Dick (Russia), Jim (Britain), and Marina (Austria) are experienced Congress of Vienna players, after an intense Diplomacy Phase, with exception of Jim’s Reinforcement card, all have only their nation’s military/combat/battle cards remaining in their respective hands. Marina’s two military cards are useless for this game phase since she cannot participate in the Military Operation sequence of the War Phase while Austria is at peace [1].

The War Phase “it is always started by the player sitting to the left of the Diplomacy phase winner and continuing in clockwise order until arriving at the military operations and battle sequence”.

Therefore, as Austria won the Diplomacy Phase, in this game, the War Phase starts with, Jesús, our French player.

Reinforcement and Replacements

The rulebook indicates “on each pair turn there is a replacement … In the turn record track on the game board this event is indicated with a red R, as a reminder”; in the Military Map the “Light blue circle indicates British fleet. The triangle symbols indicate military units and its background color the nationality of these replacements”, for this reason, in this turn there are no routine reinforcements or replacements since this is game turn 1. Next turn will see arrival of routine reinforcements/replacements.

Consequently, for this turn, Reinforcement can only be received if a player has the game’s single Reinforcement card (# 41): “now is the opportunity to play (and receive) the reinforcements indicated in this card”.

Jim, who retained that card for this very purpose, plays it and receives one more military unit. He decides to place a British fleet in the London Box rather than a ground military unit since the bottom of this card, under its light red background, allows the option… “The British player can choose between British, Spanish, Portuguese Mil. or Fleet ”.       

Distribution of Military Units and Fleets

After Reinforcements and Replacements, the Distribution of Military Units and Fleets Step begins; when the movement of military units and fleets on the board is realized. The sequence will be France, Russia, Britain and finally Austria.

FRANCE: Our French player makes his moves: firstly, the military unit located in Hanover is sent to the Army of Elbe (and placed in the box corresponding to that Army). The four units located in Paris “can stay in this space or be sent to any French army”: Jesús decides to send three units to the weak Army of Elbe to help defend Prussia (this important space grants him an additional card and causes loss of 1 VP to the Russian player while it remains French-controlled).

With these moves, France’s Army of Elbe now has a more formidable appearing 6 military units (it initially started with but two). However, this strategy will likely precipitate a withdrawal (or annihilation) of the Grande Armée if it is attacked and remains in Poland!

The remaining French unit in Paris is converted into US militia since the rules indicate that “each turn, the French player may exchange a maximum of one military unit obtained by the French recruitment issue by a unit of American militia that is placed in ‘War of 1812 ‘box”. 

RUSSIA: Having seen France’s movements, Dick (Russian player) decides to send his meager recruitment of two units (one Prussian and one Russian) to the Northern Army (the counterpart of the French Army of Elbe). A repercussion of the Diplomatic Phase is now being felt. Dicksaurus, a terrific nickname for Dick, the reasons why he’s so dubbed is described by this article’s Part 1 of 5, bemoans the absence of a greater number of Russian reinforcements. They’d have come in handy for the coming battles.

BRITAIN: Jim (British player) begins distribution of his military units and fleets; he has two fleets and a military unit in the London Box. The Maestro considers the eight military units (Spanish, Portuguese and British) in the Army of Portugal sufficient to defeat the French Army of Spain; since he will add to that strength the battle cards of Morillo and especially the remarkably powerful Wellington. Consequently, all Britain’s reinforcements are moved into the War of 1812 Box, that is to say, to America.

There, the coming USA offensive can cost him many VPs if only his initial setup unit confronted the threat (a single fleet) and was defeated or eliminated. However, Britain now has 3 fleets and a military unit to confront the USA; closely equivalent in strength to those owned by the Americans (5 US Militia). With such parity, the battle cards of each side, their military support markers, and the hazards of fate (aka the dice) shall decide the result.

AUSTRIA: The Austrian player then moves her 2 military units, one each to the Army of Bohemia and the empty shell of the Army of Italy (both units are placed in the respective boxes for each Army). With this, Marina commences the long path of building Austria’s Armies to “fighting strength”.

Placing Military Support Markers

Again Jesús (French player) goes first. He places his three military support markers as follows: the first to the Army of Elbe, the second to the War of 1812 Box, and the third to Spain, to help France’s Army of Spain defend against the upcoming British Army of Portugal’s attack.

Dick (Russian player) gives his one and only military support marker to the Russian/Prussian Northern Army. 

Next, Jim (British player) places his military support markers. Both are initially located in London. The Maestro dispatches one to his Army of Portugal and the other to the War of 1812 Box. Although Jim considers one support marker may not be needed for Spain and it could have been put to better use in America, the rules prevent that by indicating that only “one military support marker can be placed in any of your own army’s or boxes with your military unit (even without military operation marker)”.

To finish, Marina (Austrian player) does nothing since she did not acquire any military support marker (since she is not at war).

See Figure 3 for the position of the different armies, military operations markers, military units and military support markers just before commencement of Strategic Movement.

Strategic Movement

 “Each player can move up to a maximum of two military units and/or fleets between the different player’s armies or boxes”. FRANCE: The French player takes his only unit from the Army of Naples to the Army of Elbe (the rules allow an Army to be left an empty shell without any military units). Jesús thinks that the British fleets and military units assigned by Jim to the most urgent fronts of Spain and the War of 1812 Box allows this Front to be weakened. He also withdraws a military unit from the Army of Spain (a risky bet) and sends it to the Army of Elbe.

Now Jesús uses Berthier’s card (# 53B) which allows: “If the French player saves this card until War phase, he can move 2 additional units by Strategic movement”. The situation only justifies moving one of the two possible units. Jesús therefore decides to send the French military unit located in the Mediterranean Army to the Army of Elbe; the French bid for victory against Dicksaurus’ Northern Army has gone up enormously!

RUSSIA: To continue Strategic Movement, Dick (Russian player) makes a “mirror” move and displaces a military unit from the Army of Silesia into the now threatened Northern Army.  But is it enough? France’s Army of Elbe now outnumbers the Northern Army 9 units to 6!

BRITAIN: The British player decides to move only one British military unit from Iberia’s Eastern Army to the Army of Portugal. Jim believes this makes his coming attack against France’s Army of Spain even more powerful. Besides, the single Spanish unit now constituting the Eastern Army is safe… at least for now.

AUSTRIA: Marina, the Austrian player, decides not to move any unit.

In Figure 4 we show the position of the armies and military support markers, just before starting the last and decisive step of the War Phase: military operations and battles!

In the next and final article of this “Detailed Sequence of Play”, we will describe in detail the military operations (and battles) which the three combatant players: France, Russia, and Britain, have orchestrated with their actions to this point of the game.

These will include military confrontations on:

• The Central European Front: where the Army of Silesia, predictably under command of the famed, aged, but still dangerous Kutuzov, should expel the French from Poland into Germany.
• The Northern Front: a tough confrontation bodes for Berlin between Blücher’s Russian/Prussian Army and the hastily reconstituted and now powerful French Army of Elbe.
• In Spain: here the French Army of Spain is going to face the powerful Coalition British-led Army of Portugal commanded by Wellington (which is going to come as a surprise to the French player, remember, the contents of each player’s card hand is kept secret from the other players) who intends to defeat and drive the hated invaders out of Iberia in the incoming months (turns in CoV).
• The War of 1812 Box: finally, the supreme American effort to invade and conquer Canada will be attempted with Britain seeking to repel it with hastily assembled British forces (Canadian militia supported by the powerful British Navy).

Wow! Plenty of game action and Victory Points to be earned (and lost)! We hope you will stay with us through conclusion of this illustrated narrative of Congress of Vienna’s game turn one.

Footnotes

[1] One of the design premises of this game, as in Churchill, is the design being intended as interactive and that no player endures a lot of time without activity. However, Austria at peace is an occasion when a player lacks activity during a part of the War Phase. Perhaps this fact will precipitate Austria’s entry into the war!?!

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Congress of Vienna Detailed Sequence of Play – The Initial Phase (Part 1 of 5)

Congress of Vienna Detailed Sequence of Play – The Diplomacy Phase (Part 2 of 5)

Congress of Vienna Detailed Sequence of Play – The Diplomacy Phase Concluded and Government Phase (Part 3 of 5)