Introduction by Congress of Vienna (CoV)’s Editor, Fred Schachter – To familiarize the InsideGMT audience of what designer Frank Esparrago created with his fun and exciting Congress of Vienna game, now a GMT P-500 offering; previous InsideGMT articles of “Designer’s Notes”, “Game as History: An Historical Introduction to the Congress of Vienna Period (CoV)” as well as a four part series entitled: “Meet the Statesmen of Congress of Vienna” were published.

Use this link to access copies of these articles: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-850-congress-of-vienna.aspx

Now we present a “walk through”, albeit something of a “teaser”, of how Congress of Vienna has been converted into electronic form, specifically VASSAL, to enable players, without geographic constraint, to have a grand time experiencing all this wonderful game has to offer.

Should this article strike a responsive chord of interest, the CoV Team is seeking additional play testers using the VASSAL medium. If interested in joining this effort, kindly contact game developer Dick Sauer at sauerrj@aol.com to learn more.

For those trying to “fill in the blanks” regarding rules and game play from what this article shares; more Congress of Vienna content is forthcoming! Specifically, an InsideGMT article series providing a detailed example of a game’s set-up and turn’s play (using VASSAL: courtesy of the talented Joel Toppen).

Here is “Congress of Vienna Goes Electric”: starting with “Game Set-Up” of course…

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.

The first screen of CoV’s VASSAL Module allows choice of whether the game is to be conducted with players connected online or for an off-line contest by single player or group using VASSAL in lieu of a physical game. We have not presented an image of this screen for this InsideGMT article. During play testing to date, one of the team unlocks the game and the rest of the players connect with set guidelines via Skype! 

The next two screens, which are shown below, are mandatory to get a game underway (that is, they always appear and must be answered properly to commence play). The first screen allows you to choose the CoV scenario you want to play. The first option is the Full Campaign 1813-1814 (10 turns). The other scenarios offered by the menu are shorter, with less turns and different at start historical set-ups (see Figure 1).

Once this screen is responded to, the following screen appears to allow choice of side to play. It also facilitates selecting the option of choosing a two or three player game. The last listed option is a solo game, in which you handle all four Major Powers; although the rules for playing this way are still only outlined at this time! (see Figure 2).

When VASSAL is open after a scenario and player(s) are chosen; the main window appears (see below figure 3)!

At the top of the screen are different buttons identifying the game’s virtual components: two red and green buttons are located to the top left (surrounded with a blue rectangle in the image). Both allow you to select an additional card each turn to the player indicated on the Environment Table. (This and all other screens are an achievement of impressive creativity and VASSAL programming virtuosity by the talented Joel Toppen!  Thank you and bravo Joel!)

The next button allows you to draw the Initial Event Card with which each turn begins. It’s indicated by a red rectangle. Immediately to its right, in a green rectangle in the screen image, is the button directing you to the Character & Event Card Deck (the main driver of this game). Further to the right are the four buttons that open the hand of cards for each Major Power’s player (Austria, Britain, France and Russia). Of course, these buttons can only be activated by the owning player (except for two/three player games and the solo game). These four buttons are placed inside an orange rectangle.

The Chart folder (surrounded by violet rectangle) contains various player aids such as

Bots, Detailed Sequence of Play, Battle’s DRM, etc. Further to the right are the electronic dice that keep the game “alive”, and for which we had never before used in other VASSAL games: a true technological marvel it seems to us (although a player frustrated by bad luck can’t throw these dice out an open window)! On the right there are other less important buttons which allow us to receive Handicap cards (optional rule) or remove personages that may die during the game: e.g. Kutuzov.

The main VASSAL window of Congress of Vienna has many components which initially did not readily fit on a regular screen (without overly reducing scale/legibility). Yet Joel succeeded in accommodating them!  Perhaps the most important is the Diplomacy Display, which is surrounded by a red rectangle.  This is where the 30 Issues (diplomatic, military, economic and political), the foundational basis of the Diplomacy and Government Phases; are located at the beginning of each turn if they’re available and not on a Major Power’s Track.

There is a brown track (starts at 0 and ends at 79) to accrue the VPs of each Major Power (indicated by a green arrow). It runs to 79VP since achieving 80VP is an Automatic Victory. The Military Map is where, during the War Phase, each Army’s movement takes place and upon which battles will be fought on each of the different Fronts (including America for the War of 1812). A following image features this map where we will explain some of its components. CoV is a certainly a diplomatic game; but it is also a wargame!

On the right of the screen there’s a vertical scroll to block the diplomatic part and enable the entire Military Map to be focused on. Additionally, two close vertical tracks (orange and light blue) allow the Powers to record their Military losses (cubes) during a battle.

The Figure 4 screen shot below contains two key windows inside a main display. It shows the Initial Event Cards Window on the left (which opens by clicking on the appropriate button). In the right window one can see the front and back of CoV’s cards. In the upper left side of each screen, magnifying glass icons allow you to enlarge or reduce the scale of these card images. The labels and arrows pointing to these windows are brown (Character/Personage & Event) or green color (a turn’s Initial Event).

The above Character & Event window presents two cards: “Fouché” (# 33), which is a Character/Personage card, and the “Debating card” (# 48), an Event card: both are placed in a common deck for all players to potentially access during a game.

When moving the vertical scroll, a complete view of the Military Map becomes accessible (see figure 5). On this map are located the different Army Blocks that occupy some of the spaces constituting Battle Fronts.  These Fronts, which converge on Paris, are identified by a capital letter from A to G. In the above image, the British Army of Portugal is portrayed by a red block (with a red arrow in the lower left corner of the screen pointing to it). This British Army begins in the Track C space of Portugal.

The Military Units, wooden cubes in the physical game, belonging to this Army are indicated in the Army of Portugal Box (by another red arrow).  This shows four British Military Units (red), two Portuguese (dark red) and two Spanish (yellow) cubes comprising that Army: a respectable force of eight cubes (approximately 160,000 men)! The number in the lower right corner of the Army Box is its maximum allowed size of ten cubes.

The French Force Pool (including North American light blue Military Units of the USA) is located at the top of the screen (indicated by an arrow and blue text). Further to the right, the Negotiation Table is situated (a square with rounded edges and light green color). This is where negotiation of most of the Issues begins in CoV (an arrow and orange text indicates it in the image). Further to the right are British markers (Military Support and Resources – depicted by gold bars) that the British player can use in this game when a quantity is noted beneath the symbol (text and dark green arrow).

In the center of this VASSAL screen image is the Turn record track where the Turn Marker is located (now placed at the game’s first turn: March-April 1813). It is indicated by a black and orange rectangle. The Austrian Track (light beige background) has been highlighted with a violet rectangle in the figure. Further to the right is the British Track (although it has not been indicated in any way).

The screen’s middle of the lower part (surrounded by a blue rectangle) are three important diplomatic Issues record tracks: on the left is the Future Government of France Track with the black pawn, in the center is the Pax Britannica Track with the red pawn, and on the right is the double track (green and light red) for the Absolutism / Liberalism Record Track (green and red pawns). Pawns indicate the current status of these Issues.

The preceding hopefully provides an overview, a “lay of the land”, of how Congress of Vienna is electronically depicted through VASSAL.

A description of how this tool can be used to facilitate play is forthcoming via the preceding referenced upcoming InsideGMT article series detailing how a turn of the game is conducted. Readers’ patience awaiting it is appreciated.

During the interim, please feel free to pose questions and/or provide feedback via the space InsideGMT provides for this purpose at this article’s conclusion. Thanks for your interest!

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