برچسب: Congress

  • Using “Congress of Vienna” in the Classroom and Reducing Time to Play a CoV “Clash of Armies” Scenario Turn Through a “Warm Start”


    Introduction by Congress of Vienna Assistant Designer/Editor, Fred Schachter – The CoV Team is privileged having in its rank’s educator Tyler Brooks, who with his co-teacher adapted Congress of Vienna for the classroom to teach students so they could experience the challenges of being in a coalition or facing one. The class they created was entitled… “Applied Strategy: Wargaming the Great Captains of History”. This involved non-gamer college level students successfully gaining needed appreciation of our wonderful hobby and using CoV’s four turn “Clash of Armies” Scenario in particular.  Quite the achievement!

    If you’re unfamiliar with Congress of Vienna, there’s a host of material regarding it within GMT’s site: GMT Games – Congress of Vienna, 2nd Printing  Yes, the game’s warm enthusiastic hobby reception has it “Out of Stock”: but CoV’s 2nd Printing, which will include all rule clarifications as of the date of printing, can be P-500 ordered.  All this article’s referenced CoV Optional Historical Rules (OHRs 15.1 – 15.17) can be obtained via this GMT site for the game.  But back to Tyler’s remarkable accomplishment.

    A turn of Congress of Vienna, with experienced players, can average 40-60 minutes each and for Tyler, this amount of classroom time was prohibitive.  He therefore cleverly devised a kind of “House Rule” to dramatically shorten a turn’s playing time by pre-disposing results of its Initial and Diplomacy Phases… those are skipped via a “Warm Start”.  A “Warm Start” begins each turn with Issues won and only Military Cards remaining in each Major Power’s hand.  A “Warm Start” turn begins with Government Phase Resource allocations and then it’s off to the drama, conundrums, fun and excitement of Congress of Vienna’s War Phase whose Armies and military units are all prepositioned on the game map!!

    CoV Designer Frank Esparrago and I had a blast assisting Tyler adopt his Congress of Vienna Clash of Armies Scenario Turn “Warm Start” for the InsideGMT audience.  You’ll find it within an Appendix to Tyler’s intriguing Using “Congress of Vienna” in the Classroom article.

    To skip the article and go direct to the CoV “Turn Warm Start” Instructions & Set-Up Illustrations click here.

    The Concept

    Militaries across the world obsess over how to create better strategists.  With the sudden leaps in artificial intelligence, great powers have even begun attempting to train “synthetic strategists” to either augment or replace human ones. [1]  A debate continues among academics and practitioners over whether great military strategists (as well as wargame designers) can be trained or simply discovered and recruited.  In each of the above cases, wargames serve an integral part in either training strategists (both human and machine) or identifying their strengths and weaknesses. 

    As both a professional strategist and wargamer myself, I’ve been deeply involved in both analytical and educational wargaming; but it’s the latter I’d like to focus on here, and how I’ve used GMT’s “Congress of Vienna” game to instruct professional strategists, emerging senior military leaders, and novice professional wargame designers.

    Literature and Theory Background 

    In “On War,” Carl von Clausewitz defines genius as a “highly developed mental aptitude for a particular occupation.”[2]  He goes on and identifies several human characteristics, the harmonious combination of which produces military genius:

    1. Physically & Morally Courageous
    2. Visionary (coup d’œil)[3]
    3. Determined (courage d’esprit)[4]
    4. Mindful[5]
    5. Ambitious for Fame and Honor
    6. Emotionally Disciplined
    7. Charismatic to inspire esprit de corps[6] in others
    8. Map Literate
    9. Creative & Imaginative
    10. Competent in Statesmanship
    11. Competent in Math & Science

    Combining Clausewitz’s “On War” with the principals of war from Antoine-Henri Jomini, most western strategic theory necessary to train military planners in operational art and strategy can be extrapolated, with allowances made for changes to the character of war since their writings.[7]  And yet while military strategy courses teach about both these theorists; they often neglect to spend any time studying the man from whose genius they were both attempting to derive their methods: Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France. 

    In developing a pilot elective course for this academic year, my co-teacher and I chose to focus on Bonaparte for our choice of related wargames but given that he ultimately abdicated (twice!), it does beg the question from an uninitiated student: “Why do I care what a loser thinks about war winning?”  In response, I point to a medium article by Ethan Arsht where he quantified the “Wins Above Replacement” (WAR) sabermetrics on all western[8] generals’ battle records in Wikipedia which determined Napoleon Bonaparte’s measurement was 23 standard deviations from the mean, while second place Julius Caesar was in the “paltry” ballpark of around 7.[9]  To confirm this astonishing statistic, I had a department mathematician run the numbers, and the result was that Bonaparte (relative to his contemporaries during his own time) was so dominant a commander that there would have to be 10 times the current number of humans who have been born before you’d expect him to exist.[10]  This suggests Napoleon was not only the greatest military commander who ever lived, but quite possibly the greatest who will ever live.[11]

    The omission of Bonaparte from the above referenced professional military education occurs partially because Napoleon never made much of an attempt to explain his methods in writing, but he does provide some insight into how he became a “Great Captain of History”.  He names whom he considers great captains, including himself as the greatest (of course) and then explains that the way to become a great captain is to study the great captains.[12]  Napoleon’s argument is essentially a militarized take on Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” which assumes a “Great Man Theory” of history.  While Napoleon didn’t leave us theoretical writings to study; he did leave us his historical battles and campaigns.

    Wargames’ Educational Potential (with Reference to Congress of Vienna in Particular)

    So, this finally brings me to “Congress of Vienna” and the use of historical wargames, such as CoV, in the classroom as a teaching tool.  Training military leaders with wargames gives them the simulated experience of experiencing many of Clausewitz’s traits of military genius.  Wargames also provide a safe laboratory for students to test their own ideas and interact with history in an engaging manner that synthesizes insight out of a historical narrative, insight that should be generalizable to other, more modern, situations.  But especially for our purposes, this medium allows the student to travel back in time to inhabit the mind of Napoleon and his contemporaries during the critical years of 1813 – 1814, as best as Frank Esparrago and other designers/developers can manage.  I became interested in the game “Congress of Vienna” professionally when, like most other games in my collection, I had a professor ask me to recommend a game to help him teach a niche topic.

    Classroom Application of Congress of Vienna (With a 5th Major Power, Prussia, Added) 

    In August of 2022, the training school for all U.S. Army Strategists asked if I could design a bespoke educational wargame to accompany a presentation of Gordon A. Craig’s famous 1965 lecture, “Problems of Coalition Warfare: The Military Alliance Against Napoleon, 1813-1814.”[13] Given that I was not a historian by trade, and in fact deficient in any in depth knowledge of Napoleon at the time, I dug into the Gordon A. Craig reading with a critical eye and imagined a game much like “Churchill” from Mark Herman’s Great Statesman series to model the “frienemy” aspect of the balance of power within a coalition. 

    Yet I didn’t consider myself equal to the task of creating such a game from scratch at the time.  However, upon further rumination, I vaguely remembered seeing there was another P500 game on GMT game’s website for the Great Statesman series and this one was about Napoleon.  That was encouraging, but I doubted I would be so lucky for it to be about the War of the Sixth Coalition.  In any case, modifying a commercial off the shelf solution for the classroom is almost always a better idea than creating a new game from scratch; so, I went to the GMT Games site and looked up that P500 game about Napoleon.  Huzzah!! It turned out, Congress of Viennawas exactly the game I wanted!  I immediately rectified my error of not being subscribed to GMT’s monthly newsletter. 

    But the tantalizing “Congress of Vienna” game was still in development during August of 2022, without an online rulebook. Therefore, I looked around the internet as best I could and try to piece something together.  What I found on Board Game Geek (BGG) was a wonderful 4-part video by two CoV Team Members doing a full playthrough demo using the then current Vassal prototype of the game.[14]  So naturally, I watched those YouTube videos 4 or 5 times and from them built a PowerPoint Classroom Presentation explaining how to play “Congress of Vienna”. 

    I thought I had most of it figured out (except maybe for the “Congress of Peace” Issue), but I wanted to confirm my understandings.  So, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to reach out and introduce myself to CoV Designer Frank Esparrago via BGG and explain to him what I was trying to accomplish.  I subsequently emailed Frank my draft PowerPoint for feedback to learn if I got anything wrong and was thrilled when he swiftly responded! He offered me the opportunity to playtest the “Congress of Vienna” prototype with him via Vassal.  I was honored to get a chance to work with the development team. [15]    

    The Congress of Vienna game I wanted for the class would differ from the four-player version the CoV Team was developing.  How?  By adding a fifth Major Power: Prussia into the game!  So, Frank, who became enthused about my idea, spent a couple of weekends or so playing and modeling a prototype with me, since the professor had some specific requests for Prussia being its own 5th Major CoV Power, distinct from Russia. 

    To accomplish this, Frank created prototype Prussian cards and modified the Vassal board’s Diplomacy Section to accommodate a 5th National Negotiation Track.  We found adding a 5th Major Power team increased the length of play substantially, so we sped up the game in other areas to To accomplish this, Frank created prototype Prussian cards and modified the Vassal board’s Diplomacy Section to accommodate a 5th National Negotiation Track.  We found adding a 5th Major Power team increased the length of play substantially, so we sped up the game in other areas to make up for that.  One of the approaches, which Frank did not like, but nevertheless helped me achieve the playing time reduction goal, was getting rid of the card trading mechanic and through creating exclusive to each Major Power four “National Decks” (for France, Britain, Austria, and Russia); as in Mark Herman’s “Churchill” instead of using a single shared deck. 

    In retrospect, doing away with the shared deck removes a significant amount of interesting interplay between the Allies, and potentially upsets the balance of the game, not to mention removing some cards’ historical flavor.  We experimented further by having the Prussian and Russian team play with independent National Tracks, but use a shared hand of cards.[16]  However,  it became difficult to make Prussian strategic decisions distinguishable from Russian ones to be worth the extra complexity and time it was asking of the students.[17]  We cut the idea for a Prussian team, along with eliminating the Pax Britanica and Future Government of France Tracks from the classroom version of the game and sought to make even more cuts to speed things up.  We also reduced the number of Negotiation Rounds from 6 to 4 and reduced the number of cards from each Major Power’s hand by 2 to make up for the fewer card play Rounds.  We also made changes to the National Advantages (especially Russia’s) so we could script the Initiative Order (Wager), Initial Situation Cards, and the Initial Environment Table die rolls.  By scripting these starting conditions, we freed up precious minutes for more playtime.

    Now if readers have their interest piqued by the described Five Major Powers Congress of Vienna Game Variant, be heartened! This may eventually be published as a physical game or an InsideGMT article with a link to its associated Vassal Module. But for now, we shall focus on providing an aspect of the Variant we realized applicable to the current Congress of Vienna game: a Warm Start for helping teach the game to new players and adapt it to a classroom’s constraints.   

    Organizing a Congress of Vienna Lesson Plan for the Classroom 

    In consultation with the professor’s learning objectives and with Frank’s advice as CoV’s designer, for the prospective class we chose to play the four turn “Clash of Armies” scenario, which encompasses the Full Campaign Game’s turns 5-8 (per CoV Playbook Section 17.3).   The limiting factor using wargames for educational purposes tends to be fitting the teach and the game into a single class period, 4 hours in this case.  After playtesting the scenario with the professor, the most crucial feedback I received was that the Negotiation Phase of the game, while most interesting, would not make much sense to untrained players until they completed a War Phase.  Therefore, I took the recommendation to create a “Warm Start” for the scenario by starting in medias res of turn 5, scripting the Government Phase in PowerPoint for me to brief to the students and then scripting cards and Issues going into the turn 5 War Phase which allowed them to start the game there.

    Over my years working with educational wargaming, I’ve found that consolidating a scenario and rules brief together into a graphical presentation is often a great multimedia approach to teach a game when combined with a physical copy set up in front of the students.  If comprehensive and tailored to the scenario, such a presentation can serve as a replacement for the rulebook, as well as the short Quick Start Rules Summary, scenario instructions, and Player Aids which CoV provides as references.  Mark Leno, who teaches professional wargame designers and facilitators with me, breaks down a good rules briefing for students into the following format, which I follow for all teaching presentations (and rulebooks)[18]:

    1. Explain the game theme
    2. Explain the game objective (how do you win?)
    3. Briefly explain the game components and key terms
    4. Explain the rules and necessary mechanics in play order
    5. (if needed) Demonstrate any mechanics or special rules
    6. (if needed) Provide additional examples or explanations
    7. Summarize objective, key rules, and common errors
    8. Optional: If time permits, briefly describe common strategies or approaches to play and/or play a practice turn or round

    The above is called the “Full-Teach,” as opposed to a “Partial-Teach” method where we just do steps 1-3, and let the players complain when we reveal new rules as they become relevant.  ‘Partial-Teach” is less boring, but it comes at a price of being blamed for potentially ruining the players’ strategy by not explaining the entire game up front.  “Congress of Vienna” is a complex enough game that with novice gamers, “newbies”, it doesn’t lend itself well to either method; hence the “Warm-Start” approach. 

    You can get away without explaining the Initial Phase, Diplomacy Phase or each of the game’s Issues by starting with the War Phase by explaining to the players “This is what your incompetent ambassadors left you with, now General, go figure out the battles.”   After they see the struggle of operationalizing a policy they were handed by the facilitator, you can then put them in the seat of the ambassador for the Diplomacy Phase of turn 6.  The facilitator then explains the Issues for negotiation and/or debate for the upcoming turn. Then the students can see if they could do better.

    With this variant’s National Decks, the scripted initial situation, only 4 Negotiation Rounds, and the simplified game board eliminating the Pax Britanica and Future Government of France Tracks, I can consistently get a new group of future military strategists through a 30-minute rules teach and 2.5 turns of play in four hours.  During that classroom time, professors leverage the experiential learning from “Congress of Vienna” to discuss not only the friction of coalition warfare, but also the two interpretations of Clausewitz’s Trinity: the people, the government, and the general.  Or respectively: passion, reason, and chance.  “Congress of Vienna” is by far one of the best games (among “Conquest & Consequence” and “Triumph and Tragedy”) at modeling grand strategy. 

    But where “Congress of Vienna” excels is in its exploration of military genius and its effect on the enterprise of statesmanship and warfare.  Over the years, I’ve found that demonstrating an understanding of theoretical concepts, like strategy in complex systems, can only be observed in watching the synthesis through application at a gaming table.  The barrier to entry, however, is teaching students how to play the game.  Game theory and literacy among professional strategists are just as important as reading literacy, because as William North Whitehead put it: “The purpose of thinking is to let the [bad] ideas die instead of you.”

    I still have digital copies of this CoV variant’s “National Deck”, custom cards, and I’ve in fact continued to play the game in the classroom with that mod for years, until I got my official physical copy of the game this year.  Like the 5-player Prussian team variant, the National Decks aren’t fully play tested or balanced for public use, but if there’s interest, there might be a vassal mod made available at some point in the future. 

    Once I got my fresh copy of the published Congress of Vienna game, I couldn’t stand not to play with Terry Leeds’ beautiful cards and game board, so I switched back to the shared deck and card trade mechanics. This included student strategists lacking analysis paralysis by needing to read the extra text on the cards than their professors did during playtesting!  Fred Schachter was kind enough to update my “Warm Start” rules teach to match the full and final rules of the commercially released game and, with Frank’s help, present them here for you to use.  I hope you find these resources helpful in getting this game in front of more students in the classroom, and/or new hobbyists on your local gamers’ table or convention floor.

    Congress of Vienna in the Classroom! The left Photo is of three game participants. The right-side photo is of Dr. Richard Anderson, my co-teacher, facilitating the After-Action Review in class which enlightens students regarding the challenges of Coalition Warfare.

    Turn Warm Starts to Accelerate Game Playing Time of CoV’s “Clash of Armies” Scenario (17.3)

    As indicated above, an aspect of this “Congress of Vienna” game variant, which can be applied to accelerate play of the “Clash of Armies” scenario, is to start a game, or individual turn, with a “Warm Start”.  That is, for this variant, players begin with “Issues Resolution”, Step #2 of the Government Phase (12.0).

    This means skipping a turn’s Initial Phase (10.0) and time-consuming Diplomacy Phase (11.0).  Players begin a turn by determining how to best spend their available Resources to pay for won Issues, gain die roll drm for the Absolutism/Liberalism and/or Pax Britannica Tracks, as well as acquire Military Support markers or VP for Sound Government.  That’s it!  In all other particulars, play the game using Standard Congress of Vienna rules.

    Three Appendixes at this article’s conclusion contain Frank’s design (historical) interpretations of a “Clash of Armies” turn’s Set-Up.  These include, for the Scenario’s Turns 5, 6, 7, and/or 8 each Major Power’s number of available Resources, won Issues (from that turn’s Diplomacy Phase), Victory Point Track marker, Military Map Armies/units placements, and marker locations for the Absolutism/Liberalism, Pax Britannica, and Future Government of France Tracks.  For this scenario’s historical background, please reference: A Historical Introduction to the Congress of Vienna Period (CoV) Part 3 of 4: Europe Aflame (July–December 1813) – InsideGMT


    Author’s Bio

    At the time of this writing, Daniel “Tyler” Brooks is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, serving as an Army Strategist (FA59) and wargame designer in the Department of Strategic Wargaming (DSW) at the United States Army War College (USAWC) in Carlise Barracks, PA,  where he teaches the Army’s “Wargame Designer Course,”  two wargaming electives, and runs bespoke analytical wargames for the Army and Joint Force.  He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Philosophy from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a Master of Arts in International Security from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies (JKSIS) at the University of Denver.  Like Napoleon, Tyler was a field artillery officer before becoming a strategist.  He graduated from the Basic Strategic Arts Program (BSAP) at USAWC in 2017.  The thoughts, opinions, and techniques presented here are solely the views of Tyler Brooks, and does not represent the thoughts, opinions, or policy of the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, or any organization in the U.S. Army War College.  This article is meant to be a discussion of pedogeological techniques using wargames under fair use and does not constitute endorsement of the game “Congress of Vienna” by any U.S. Government organization. 


    Endnotes

    [1] https://mwi.westpoint.edu/strategic-centaurs-harnessing-hybrid-intelligence-for-the-speed-of-ai-enabled-war/

    [2] Chapter 3

    [3] Literally “Stroke of the eye,” which can be interpreted as “Commander’s Vision”, but what he’s describing is more akin to system 1 thinking as described in the book “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman.  This is an ability to mentally visualize conceptually complex situations, accurately and instantaneously in the moment with incomplete information. 

    [4] Literally “Courage of the Spirit” or “Courage of the Mind” which can be interpreted as “Moral Courage”. But Clausewitz [re: “Clausewitz’s wife”] uses the term to mean something in addition to Moral Courage, as he already includes it with physical courage.  Here, he means it as an additional trait that also includes a willingness to not give up in the face of overwhelming odds.  It is a willingness and self-confidence to act on the visualization of coup d’œil in an uncertain environment.

    [5] Meaning, to not miss any important details, and to be aware of everything that is in front of you and be able to distinguish signal from noise in order to see through the “Fog of War.”

    [6] Literally “Spirit of the body” meaning the collective morale of a group to achieve a common goal in the face of hardship.

    [7] I’m ignoring the Eastern thought, for the most part, for my purposes here, so apologies to those interested in Sun Tzu and Mao Zedong.

    [8] Again, sorry Genghis Khan, our Western bias left you and your brilliant generals missing from the data set.

    [9] https://medium.com/data-science/napoleon-was-the-best-general-ever-and-the-math-proves-it-86efed303eeb 

    [10] To be more precise, the odds are astronomically worse than that, because the sample number assumes everyone who has ever been born was also a battlefield general.  The calculations broke the computer as is, so we called it “good enough” for the purpose.

    [11] Ok, this bold claim ignores a lot of factors.  But the point remains it is a safe bet that Napoleon is worth looking at as a premier model for a Great Captain of History.

    [12] In “Napoleon on Napoleon,” edited by Somerset de Chair, Bonaparte explicitly states those captains are: Alexander the Great, Hannibal the Great, Julius Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus the Great, Turenne, Prince Eugene of Savoy, Fredrick the Great, and Napoleon Bonaparte.

    [13] https://www.usafa.edu/app/uploads/Harmon07.pdf This brings you to the entirety of this fascinating piece.

    [14] The Youtube videos have since been removed from BGG, probably because they featured a CoV prototype from before Terry Leeds’ beautiful art was added.

    [15] BTW, game designers and developers, like CoV’s, love it when you ask them about their games.  You’d be surprised how often they will write you back if you are struggling with a problem and need help with a game.

    [16] Taking inspiration from the “Two-Headed Giant” format in “Magic the Gathering”

    [17] We also added a “Deutsche Bund” track and some new Prussian staff cards in the attempt.  I also begged Frank to add “Clausewitz” and “Jomini” cards into the variant, but Frank rightfully pointed out “Clausewitz didn’t play much of a role until Waterloo.  Frank did humor me by making a neutral Jomini card, since his national loyalties caused him to serve multiple roles on different sides in official capacities.  Jomini even played a small role in the Congress itself, and Napoleon identified him by name, declaring Jomini to not be a French spy.  Both the Allies and the French deemed Jomini honorable in his military service throughout the war, despite his changing sides, or recusing himself on occasion throughout the Napoleonic Wars.

    [18] From “How to Teach a Game” by Mark Leno


    APPENDIX 1: “Warm Starts” For CoV Clash of Armies Scenario Turns 5, 6, 7, or 8

    Introduction to “Warm Starts” Appendix by Congress of Vienna Assistant Designer/Editor, Fred Schachter: Game designer Frank Esparrago and I enjoyed editing Tyler’s clever concept of shortening a Congress of Vienna “Clash of Armies” (17.3) scenario’s playing time by starting a turn at its Government Phase.  This eliminates time spent resolving a turn’s Initial Phase (10.0) and Diplomacy Phase (11.0).  It lets player(s) proceed immediately to deciding how to best allocate their Major Power’s Resources and then proceed to the exciting, fun, and dramatic action of a War Phase.  

    This can help newbie Congress of Vienna players learn the game system incrementally and avoid a Diplomacy Phase’s perceived complexities.  It also speeds resolving a CoV game turn when players are pressed for time… although at the price of sacrificing the fun challenges of selecting, negotiating, and debating Issues during a Diplomacy Phase

    Here are general instructions for a “Warm Start” to a “Clash of Armies” Game Turn:

    For all set-ups: As the French Leader, Napoleon, was not used during a turn’s preceding Diplomacy Phase, a free FR Military Operation marker is placed in Paris.  Prior to commencing a game, it is OK to include any or all CoV Optional Historical Rules (OHRs 15.1 – 15.17).

    A “Warm Start” Turn begins with the following predetermined by Major Power: any Initial Environment Table effect(s), Card Hand Size, VPs, Number of available Resources, Issues won during the turn’s Diplomacy Phase, Military Cards, and Military & Diplomacy Sections’ pieces placements.  There is a Table for each “Warm Start” Turn identifying these for set-up purposes.

    Duration & Options: A “Clash of Armies” Scenario can be for its full four turns or less.  Yes, a single turn game, with a Turn 8 “Warm Start”, could be played!

    When selecting a turn to begin a “Clash of Armies” Scenario which will be more than one turn, that is, starting with turns 5, 6, or 7, participants can agree to play the next turn as a regular Congress of Vienna turn with all Phases.  Example: Play a two-turn game with a Warm Start for Turn 7 and then Turn 8 with its Initial Phase (10.0), Diplomacy Phase (11.0) and so on.

    Alternately, every turn of a “Clash of Armies” Scenario can be played with its “Warm Start”.  Furthermore, readers should feel free to “tinker” with a turn’s “Warm Start” Resources, Issues won, Military Cards and pawn/marker placements if there’s a consensus believed to result in a more balanced, challenging, interesting, and/or better game.  Perhaps there’s an enterprising gamer in the GMT audience who’ll devise and share Tyler’s “Warm Start” approach with another Congress of Vienna Scenario?  The goal is to “tickle your gamer fancy” and have fun!

    APPENDIX 2: Adding to the “Warm Starts” variability and re-playability?

    If you want to add more variability to the game, you can deal each player one or two Handicap cards (players decide at the start of a game). Apply the result of each Handicap card at the beginning of the Government Phase, regardless of what the card says. If a drawn Handicap card cannot possibly affect a “Warm Start” game, set it aside and select another than can be applied.  This will add a touch of uncertainty and stimulating re-playability.

    APPENDIX 3: “Warm Starts” Set-Ups for “Clash of Armies” Scenario Turns 5, 6, 7, & 8

    Turn 5, August 1813

    Marker/Pawn Placements: War of 1812: BR 1, Pax Britannica: Castile & Valencia under Coalition Control, Absolutism: Defense of the Faith, Liberalism: Secularism & Confiscation, Future Government of France: Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

    Military Map Piece Placements: See below Turn 5 illustration.

    Government Phase Resource Allocation Reminders: A) Adjust VP markers for the three Peace Congress (12.4.1.1) die rolls. B) If resourcing a won Minor Country and/or Recruitment Issue, add any related Military Unit(s) and adjust the Major Power’s VP Track Marker accordingly. C) Adjust VPs for any Absolutism/Liberalism die roll result.

    IMPORTANT NOTE: If proceeding to a Turn 6 “Warm Start”, carry over this turn 5’s VP’s, Card Hand Size, Pawns (Absolutism, Liberalism, Pax Britannica), War of 1812 Status, and all Military Map positions of Armies on the board (with their units) as well as pieces in each Major Power’s Force Pool.  Otherwise, only use the upcoming turn’s “Warm Start” Table’s indicated Resources, Military Cards available, Won Issues, and drm modifiers to start the next Turn with its Government Phase.

    Turn 6, September 1813

    Marker/Pawn Placements: War of 1812: BR 1, Pax Britannica: Castile & Valencia under Coalition Control, Absolutism: Defense of the Faith, Liberalism: Free Market, Future Government of France: Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

    Military Map Piece Placements: See below Turn 6 illustration. Note that Turn 6’s Replacements have been taken and are now upon the map.

    Government Phase Resource Allocation Reminders: A) If resourcing a won Minor Country and/or Recruitment Issue, add any related Military Unit(s) and adjust the Major Power’s VP Track Marker accordingly. B) Adjust VPs for any Absolutism/Liberalism die roll result.

    IMPORTANT NOTE: If proceeding to a Turn 7 “Warm Start”, carry over this turn 6’s VP’s, Pawns (Absolutism, Liberalism, Pax Britannica), War of 1812 Status, and all Military Map positions of Armies on the board (with their units) as well as pieces in each Major Power’s Force Pool.  Otherwise, only use the upcoming turn’s “Warm Start” Table’s indicated Resources, Military Cards available, Won Issues, and drm modifiers to start the next Turn with its Government Phase.

    Turn 7, October 1813

    Marker/Pawn Placements: War of 1812: BR 1, Pax Britannica: Castile & Valencia under Coalition Control, Absolutism: Monarchies Alliance, Liberalism: Free Market, Future Government of France: Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.  Appropriately place reminder markers for: Track C- Heavy Rains, -2DRM to BR for Gascony + Toulouse & Track A- The Grande Armée is not allowed to Withdraw.

    Military Map Piece Placements: See below Turn 6 illustration. Note that Turn 6’s Replacements have been taken and are now upon the map.

    Government Phase Resource Allocation Reminders: A) If resourcing a won Minor Country and/or Recruitment Issue, add any related Military Unit(s) and adjust the Major Power’s VP Track Marker accordingly. B) Adjust VPs for any Absolutism/Liberalism die roll result.

    IMPORTANT NOTE: If proceeding to a Turn 8 “Warm Start”, carry over this turn 7’s VP’s, Pawns (Absolutism, Liberalism, Pax Britannica), War of 1812 Status, and all Military Map positions of Armies on the board (with their units) as well as pieces in each Major Power’s Force Pool.  Otherwise, only use the upcoming turn’s “Warm Start” Table’s indicated Resources, Military Cards available, Won Issues, and drm modifiers to start the next Turn with its Government Phase.

    Turn 8, November-December 1813

    Marker/Pawn Placements: War of 1812: BR 1, Pax Britannica: Castile & Valencia under Coalition Control, Absolutism: Defense of the Faith, Liberalism: Democracy, Future Government of France: Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

    Military Map Piece Placements: See below Turn 8 illustration. Note that Turn 8’s Replacements have been taken and are now upon the map.

    Government Phase Resource Allocation Reminders: A) If resourcing a won Minor Country Issue add any related Military Unit(s) and adjust the Major Power’s VP Track Marker accordingly. B) Adjust VPs for any Absolutism/Liberalism and/or Peace Congress die roll result. C) If Resourced, adjust VP for the Future Government of France result.

    CONTINUE THE GAME TO TURN 10 (OR TO THE OPTIONAL TURN 11 PER OHR 15.4)?

    If player(s) agree to proceed to a Turn 9 and possibly beyond:

    1. To satisfy curiosity, as of the end of Turn 8, determine a Major Power winner of the “Clash of Armies” (17.3) Scenario.
    2. Then, carry over this turn 8’s VP’s, Pawns (Absolutism, Liberalism, Pax Britannica), War of 1812 Status, and all Military Map positions of Armies on the board (with their units) as well as pieces in each Major Power’s Force Pool.
    3. Start Turn 9 as any regular CoV Game Turn with its Initial Phase (10.0).
    4. YOU ARE NOW PLAYING A CONGRESS OF VIENNA GAME VICTORY DETERMINATION AS PRESENTED BY RULEBOOK SECTION 14.2.

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  • Volunteers Sought to Help Playtest/Develop the Congress of Vienna Vassal Module Mark 2! – InsideGMT


    Introduction by Congress of Vienna Assistant Designer/Editor, Fred Schachter – The currently available Congress of Vienna Vassal Module may be found at Congress of Vienna Goes Electric, 2025 Edition (with VASSAL!)  – InsideGMT

    While this Module certainly works, and works just fine, as many of its users will attest, feedback indicated there is room for improvement… to make electronically playing Congress of Vienna an even better game playing experience!

    The CoV Vassal Team is fortunate to now have the Vassal programming talents of Fredrik Lindner and Mark Benson, who are building upon the current Module developed by Joel Toppen and CoV Designer Frank Esparrago.  It’s my pleasure to here introduce them and their good efforts to the InsideGMT audience.

    However, as there are many within our beloved hobby who prefer a physical game, sitting around a “table of rivals” with all the fun and excitement that entails, your support of Congress of Vienna’s P-500 Second Printing would certainly be appreciated.  To learn more of that offering, as well as access a vast array of Congress of Vienna material, see: GMT Games – Congress of Vienna, 2nd Printing

    With that, matters are now turned over to Mark & Fredrik!


    The CoV Vassal Module Fred above references enabled us to enjoy the game virtually, ensuring us wonderful times playing the current Congress of Vienna Vassal Module, whether as one of the Sixth Coalition’s Major Allied Powers or as the “Corsican Ogre” himself: Napoleon, emperor of the French!  However, we’re inveterate “tinkerers” and, as we gained more experience with the game, could not resist suggesting program enhancements.  Therefore, we reached out to Frank Esparrago and Fred Schachter to volunteer our enthusiasm and computer programming help… not only for our own sakes, but for all those who enjoy via Vassal Frank’s wonderful Congress of Vienna design (inspired by Mark Herman’s Churchill).  

    The core CoV Team meets each weekend with representatives, not all of whom are present every session, from the UK, Sweden, Spain, and various USA locations from the east to west coasts to playtest our Vassal Programming efforts, dubbed CoV Vassal Module Mark 2.  That’s been fine to an extent… but we now need and would greatly appreciate input from more fellow Congress of Vienna gamers before this latest Module can be confidently ready for public release to replace Module Mark 1.

    A number of volunteers have already come forth through a BGG (Board Game Geek) solicitation and it would be grand if more could flock to the CoV Vassal Module Mark 2 playtest volunteer banner from InsideGMT’s audience.

    To that end, those interested in contributing, and hopefully having a blast playing Congress of Vienna with its latest Vassal Module, whether multi-player or solitaire, are urged to respond to: New Vassal Module – Playtesters Wanted (2p/3p/4p/Solo) | BoardGameGeek 

    As something of a teaser, here are selected screen shots from CoV Vassal Module Mark 2.  Thanks in advance to those responding to this solicitation.  Enjoy Congress of Vienna!

    Figure 1: Screen Shot of a Russian card hand. Note the new card trading area. This version duplicates what many gamers do when playing the physical game through automatically organizing cards by Major Power with any neutral card(s) placed on the bottom row flush right.
    Figure 2 The Allied CDGSM Card. Players asked for less graphic clutter and clearer labelling of the cards on display to choose from. We accommodated them. Better?
    Figure 3: The CoV Vassal Module Gameboard Mark 2 as of an underway Game Turn Two’s Diplomacy Phase: Those familiar with Congress of Vienna should be able to deduce what’s occurred thus far by the placement of Issues and pawns upon the board’s Diplomacy Section as well as by the Military Map’s Armies and markers.
    Note the change in orientation which now emulates the physical game as players preferred scrolling between the Diplomacy and Military Map Sections enabling better visibility. Leader card images are now at each Major Power’s Seat (face-up to indicate availability). Pop Ups explain each gameboard component as well as enlarge them for easier reading. Automatic placement capabilities have been introduced in many areas, as a complement to traditional ‘click and drag’ interactions. This, of course, speeds up the pace of play.
    Figure 4: Sequence of Play: This automated chart allows players to easily navigate an entire CoV turn’s sequence of play while at the same time providing direct access to relevant game functions.
    Figure 5: A complete and easy menu for “Scenario Options”: Through which players can access Congress of Vienna’s different scenarios, as well as determine a game’s number of players, Initial Situation & Handicap cards. The Rulebook’s Optional Historical Rules can be locked in for a game. Choices, choices, eh?

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  • Congress of Vienna Goes Electric, 2025 Edition (with VASSAL!)  – InsideGMT


    Introduction by Congress of Vienna Assistant Designer/Editor, Fred Schachter – For those unaware, to familiarize this InsideGMT audience of what designer Frank Esparrago created with his fun and exciting Congress of Vienna game, available via GMT Games; InsideGMT has presented articles including a “Strategies for” series… (think of the old Avalon Hill General magazine’s “Perfect Plan” articles for that legendary company’s “classics”), “Game as History”: An Historical Introduction to the Congress of Vienna Period” as well as a four-part series entitled: “Meet the Statesmen of Congress of Vienna” and a host of other material such as game “After Action Reports”.  

    Use this link to access these articles: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-850-congress-of-vienna.aspx. This site includes a copy of the game’s full Rulebook as well as its shorter Quick Start Rules Summary.  As to the Congress of Vienna Vassal Module, it can be found using this link: Category:GMT Games – Vassal.  Isn’t it wonderful how many GMT games can be computer played using Vassal? 

    For Vassal is a wonderful way to game since it electronically duplicates all a game’s physical components, which in the case of Congress of Vienna, includes gameboard, dice, cards, various counters, pieces, rules and player aids to enable a four-player contest: one for each of the game’s Major Powers: France, Britain, Russia and Austria. 

    Without Vassal, the CoV Team’s efforts could not have been as comprehensive as they were.  Those aforementioned InsideGMT articles could not have been as impactful.  For that, an eternal debt of gratitude is owed to the very talented Joel Toppen, who back in 2020 created the initial foundational Congress of Vienna Vassal Module.  Designer Frank Esparrago, in turn, built and modified it through numerous iterations to ultimately reflect the game’s final Terry Leeds’ published graphics.  Through Vassal, CoV Play Testers could enjoy and contribute to the game from across the United States, Spain, United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic and Asia (Manila, Philippines and Shenzhen, China).  Fun stuff!    

    We now present a “walk through “of how Congress of Vienna was converted into its latest electronic form, specifically VASSAL for the physically published game to enable four players, without geographic constraint, to have a grand time experiencing all this wonderful game has to offer. 

    Furthermore, readers may note that due to the wonderful support of those ordering and hopefully now enjoying Congress of Vienna, the game is currently “OUT OF STOCK” (thank you!  thank you! thank you!). GMT will reintroduce CoV as a P500 Reprint offering within the next few months. You folks know how that system works, eh? For now, the game IS available to learn and play via Vassal.  Have fun!

    Here is Congress of Vienna Goes Electric 2025 Edition: starting with its “Game Set-Up” of course… so take it away Frank! 

    Note: If you would like to view any of the following screen illustrations (Figures) in a larger size, you can click on the image.  

    The first screen of CoV’s Vassal Module allows the choice of whether the game is to be conducted with players connected on-line or for an off-line contest by a single player or group using Vassal in lieu of the physical Congress of Vienna game.  During CoV’s on-line play testing, one of the team would unlock the game and the other players would connect with it using the team’s established Skype guidelines! 

    The next two screens, Figures 1 and 2 shown below, are mandatory to get a game underway (that is, they always appear and must be properly responded to before commencing play). The first screen allows you to choose the desired CoV Scenario. The first option is the Full Campaign Game 1813-1814 (for a maximum of 10 turns). The other menu-offered scenarios are shorter, with less turns and different historical set-ups, etc. (see Figure 1). 

    Figure 1.- Congress of Vienna Vassal Scenario Selection Setup: The screen above allows choice of a scenario to play. Details concerning each scenario, such as its victory conditions and any special rules, are within the game’s Playbook Section 17. An “Add Your Scenario?” is a “Sandbox” option still under development for subsequent release. It is not shown within the above Figure 1. The CoV Team has this feature bookmarked as a pending “work-in-progress”.

    Once this prompt is responded to, the following screen allows choosing sides (see Figure 2). It also facilitates selecting the option of a two or three player game. The final option is for playing Congress of Vienna solitaire (“Solo”), in which you manage all four Major Powers (per Playbook Sections 19-23). To fully experience the game’s solitaire offerings, you’ll need the large two-side printed Allied and French Bots which are included in the physical game.  

    Figure 2.- Congress of Vienna Vassal choosing side: This second screen of our CoV Module allows you to choose the number of players that will start the game. It is possible to play a game with a single player controlling two powers in a 3-players game, or a game with only two sides (e.g. the Allies of the Coalition against Napoleonic Imperial France). Finally, you can play a Solo game using either of the printed French or Allied Bots included with the physical Congress of Vienna game.

    When Vassal remains open after a scenario and player(s) by their respective Major Powers are selected; the Module’s Main Window of the entire gameboard appears (see Figure 3)!  

    Figure 3.- Congress of Vienna Vassal Main Window: We used Terry Leeds’s beautiful, yet wonderfully functional, game board graphics, but had to adapt them to a computer screen. As Terry’s design is meant to be viewed from a four-player zenithal position when placed upon a gaming table, it was converted to a single-player front-facing image for a computer screen viewing. To accomplish this, we altered the direction of the Military Map’s facing by rotating it 90º. We also added an area, on the screen’s far right, for trading cards. This was needed since in games with physical boards and cards, cards are traded between players face down without passing them through the game board! A nice elegant solution, eh?

    At this screen’s top are different buttons identifying CoV game components: two red and green buttons are located to its top left (surrounded with a dark blue rectangle). Both allow you to select an additional national card each turn to the player winning the Initial Environment Table’s turn start result (This is an achievement of creativity and Vassal programming virtuosity by the talented Joel Toppen!   Bravo and thanks Joel!).  

    Thereafter, this button allows you to draw the Initial Event Card through which each turn begins and to its right is the Character & Event Card Deck (both surrounded by a red rectangle in Figure 3). This last button directs you to the main driver of this Vassal game. Immediately to the right of this button are four buttons that open the hand of cards for each Major Power Player (Austria, Britain, France, and Russia).  Once a game is underway, these buttons can only be activated by the player who owns that Major Power. This requires privacy (except for a two/ three player contest or a Solo game). We put these four buttons inside an orange rectangle in Figure 3 above.  

    The Chart Folder button contains different player aids such as Congress of Vienna’s Detailed Sequence of Play, Battle DRM, Campaign Game VP Chart, Rules, etc…. Further to the right are the two electronic dice (surrounded by a dark red rectangle) which keep the game “alive” and for which we never used for other Vassal games.   

    This is a true technological marvel it seems to us (although a player frustrated by bad luck can’t throw these dice out an open window or smash one with a hammer to teach the other[s] a lesson… yes, such reactions are within the actual experience of some CoV Team members: readers may have other bad die rolling stories to share)!  

    To their right are other less important buttons allowing receipt of optional Handicap Cards or to remove Characters who may die during a game (this surrounded by a light green rectangle). In between these are the buttons and charts that facilitate electronic play for 2-players (see the following Figure 4 below).  

    On the left side of the screen top is the Clean Button. This activates the Vassal screen’s clearing of game components at the end of each turn.  It returns all markers and cards to their respective locations ready for use next turn. This is a clear, valuable, and appreciated advantage over physical face-to-face games as it eliminates potentially disastrous gameboard upset risk from pets and/or small children on the loose! 

    Finally, there’s the Help option located in the screen’s upper left corner (surrounded by a light green rectangle). This option opens a PDF file player aid (CoV Vassal Notes) which explains in detail the buttons and options of this Vassal Module for players through text and explanatory screen images. A new player is strongly encouraged to check out this PDF document once the Module is loaded, for it contains “How to” details beyond what this article encompasses.  

    The main window of the Congress of Vienna Vassal Module has components which do not fit on a screen without overly reducing their scale and legibility. Perhaps the most important feature is the Diplomacy Display (surrounded. by a red rectangle).  This is where the game’s 30 Issue Markers (diplomatic, military, economic and political), intrinsic to the game’s Diplomacy and Government Phases; are located at the beginning of each turn if available for player selection by not being initially placed on a Major Power’s Track or the Negotiating Table.  

    Figure 4.- Congress of Vienna’s Vassal Handicap Cards & Dead Characters Window: You can see the Handicap cards deck on the left. In the screen’s center are discarded Handicap cards. Although optional, these cards allow you to add more variability to games and/or are used to achieve balance between players with less experience with the game versus one or more CoV knowledgeable opponents. It’s nice having this “balance the playing field” capability, eh? On the right is the last card permanently removed from the game. In this example, it is the aging Kutuzov who has just died at the end of turn 1 (through an unfortunate die roll of 2 which precipitated his early demise!).

    At the bottom of Figure 3, flush left, there is a light brown Track (starting at 0 and ending at 80) to tabulate each Major Power’s VPs (indicated by a text box and light blue arrow). The Military Map (highlighted by a yellow rectangle) is where, during the War Phase, each army’s movement takes place and upon which battles are fought on the map’s different Fronts (A-G, including America’s War of 1812, depicted by a box rather than a Front of multiple spaces). The following Figure 7 features this map and explains some of its attributes. Congress of Vienna is certainly a game of diplomacy; but it is also a wargame! 

    On the bottom right of the Vassal screen is a vertical/horizontal scroll feature to block out the screen’s Diplomatic Section.  This enables viewing, without distraction, solely the entire Military Map. This comes in handy when resolving the Congress of Vienna War Phase. Additionally, two adjacent horizontal Tracks (orange for the Allies and light blue for France) allow Major Powers to record Military unit losses (cubes) during a battle via the DRM Battle Tracks.

    The screen’s right side is the Diplomacy Area (surrounded by a light blue rectangle). This is where the Diplomacy and Government Phases take place. There you’ll find the Negotiation Table, each Major Power’s National Track radiating from it, Diplomacy Round Tracker with the Turn Record and other game features. Also, each gameboard corner includes one of the four National Force Pools and other markers. Finally, the rightmost section of the Vassal screen contains the Card Trading Area where 2 players place cards to be traded between them during a Diplomacy Phase Round (this Card Trading Area does not exist on the physical board as players directly trade their cards without placing them on the board!). 

    We present in Figures 5 and 6, two key windows within the main window. Figure 5 below shows the Initial Event Card Window (this opens by clicking the appropriate button). In that window you can see the front and back of these cards. On the upper left screen side, the magnifying glass icons allow you to enlarge or reduce the magnification of these cards per viewing preference. The Figure 5 screen’s label, outline, and arrow are red in color.  

    Figure 5.- Congress of Vienna Vassal’s Initial Event Cards Window: As an example, you can see how the menu’s “Execute” option is used to open Initial Situation card A-2 for May 1813. This card’s instructions referencing additional player cards, Issues, and other markers are appropriately and automatically placed with this instruction in the players’ hands and upon the gameboard. The preceding turn’s card A-1, for March-April 1813, is to the screen’s right.

    In Figure 6, we show the Character & Event Game Cards Window. This window opens in the same manner as the previous one. Presented, as an example, are two cards: “Fouché” (#11) which is a CHARACTER CARD and a “Debating card” (#60) which is an Event card. Both are drawn from the same common deck for all players. 

    Figure 6.- Congress of Vienna’s Vassal Character & Event Game Cards Window: On the left is the Game Card Deck from which cards are drawn to constitute the players’ respective Card Hands. These cards are used and discarded during the Diplomacy and War Phases. This Draw Deck is to the left. In the middle are placed Debate Event card #60 as well as Character card #11, Fouche. Both are drawn from that deck as examples.

    Returning to Figure 5, if you click an Initial Event Card’s “Execute” option (which opens through a right mouse button click), all the card’s instructions are automatically completed… as if accomplished by a player MANUALLY! Designated cards go into the players’ hands, Issues placed upon the appropriate National Tracks/ Negotiation Table, additional units and Resources placed in each Military Map capital space or in the correct National Resource Stacks. Neat, eh?

    When you move the vertical and horizontal scroll and use the magnifying glass to expand the screen, you gain a complete single-screen view of the Military Map (see Figure 7). On this map are located the different Army Blocks that occupy their spaces.  These spaces constitute Battle Fronts, also known as Tracks. These are identified by a capital letter from A to G. In the below image, Track C’s British Army of Portugal is portrayed by a red block (a red arrow whose tip is in the lower left corner of the screen). This British Army begins turn 1 of a Congress of Vienna Campaign Game in the space of Portugal.  

    Figure 7’s Military Map Features’ ExamplesMilitary units (which are wooden cubes in the physical game are also simply referred to as “units”), belonging to the British Army of Portugal are indicated within the Army of Portugal Box through a red double arrow and rectangles at the screen’s lower left corner. This Box indicates this Army’s Campaign Game Turn 1 strength as four British (red), two Portuguese (dark red) and two Spanish (yellow) units: this is a respectable force of eight cubes representing approximately 160,000 soldiers! The number in the upper center of the Army Box is its maximum allowed size of ten units.  Its adversary, Track C’s French Army of Spain, located in the Leon space, contains six. 

    Figure 7.- Congress of Vienna Vassal’s Main Military Map Window: The explanations of this figure’s contents are found in the preceding paragraphs. To avoid need to rotate the screen, which would have been unavoidable by fully duplicating the published Congress of Vienna gameboard, we had to rotate the Military Map 90º clockwise and horizontally place the two DRM Battle Tracks at the bottom of the screen. Note the DRM Battle Tracks’ two pawns, orange for the Allies and blue for France. These are placed in their respective “zero” spaces, poised for use in resolving a game’s next battle. This orientation altered Terry Leeds’ graphic design for physical game play functionality through enabling easier visual use of the Vassal Screen on a computer.

    The British Force Pool portrays available British, Portuguese and Spanish units, as well as cylindrical British Fleets.  It is located at the lower right corner of the Figure 7 screen (indicated by a light violet arrow, rectangle and text). Additionally, the British player’s markers, which include Military Support, Resources, and Character Bonus Reminders, are displayed near this Force Pool Box. Furthermore, this Force Pool example contains an empty space where unbuilt Portuguese units are placed (as of turn 1, both are included in the Army of Portugal Box). 

    In Figure 8, we show an enlarged Window of the gameboard’s Diplomacy Area. At its center is the Negotiation Table (a square with rounded edges and yellow color border highlighting).  This is where most Issues begin in CoV game and from which the negotiations and ensuing debates of a turn move them. This is the part of the board where, as a player, you will spend most of your time during the Diplomacy Phase’s negotiations and debates.  It is also where, during the Government Phase, you’ll allocate your Resources on those Issues most vital to implementing your grand strategy for Congress of Vienna victory!  

    Figure 8.- Congress of Vienna Vassal Diplomacy Area’s Main Window: The explanation of this figure’s salient features is found in the paragraphs below. This image has been enlarged with Vassal’s magnifying glass function to show in greater detail the different elements of this key gameboard area.

    At the upper mid-left of this Vassal screen image is the Turn Record Track (surrounded by an orange rectangle).  This is where the Turn Marker is located. It is a black and orange marker with an hourglass symbol placed for a CoV Campaign Game’s first turn on its March-April 1813 space.                                                                              

    The Austrian National Track has been highlighted with a white rectangle in Figure 8. The nearby yellow pawn, which is a much larger gold pawn in the physical game, is used to designate the Major Power winner of an Initial Phase’s “Wager”.  This pawn is subsequently shifted during a turn to designate its Diplomacy Phase winner.  The winner goes last each Phase, so in this example, with the pawn by the Austrian Track, France would go first in clockwise order. The British Track is located beneath the Austrian Track.  

    Surrounded by colored rectangles are four important Record Tracks, each with a pawn to indicate its latest game status. On the right-side center of the Figure 8 is shown the Future Government of France Track, within has a dark blue pawn. This pawn is moved by its diplomatic Issue being won and financed with a Resource. 

    On the upper center of the image are the double Tracks (green and light red) of the Absolutism / Liberalism Record Tracks with their green and red pawns.  A successful pawn movement, in addition to a Resource expenditure, requires a successful die roll result of 4 or more to trigger its Track space’s indicated VP effect(s).  See Rulebook Section 12.4.5 for related details such as potential die roll result modifiers. 

    The Pax Britannica Track, with its red purple pawn at the bottom of screen, does not require a related Issue to be won for its pawn’s advancement, thereby winning Britain the entered space’s victory points.  Instead, the pawn advances if the British player fulfills the next Track space’s prerequisite(s) and rolls a die result of 4 or more.  That die roll may be modified per the Pax Britannica Track’s rule 12.4.11. 

    Finally, with Figure 9, we show a sample of the Allied side’s window used for Congress of Vienna’s Solitaire Game. Playbook Sections 19 through 23 describe the game’s solitaire play options.  The Solitaire French side’s window is similar! 

    Figure 9.- Congress of Vienna Vassal’s Allied CDGSM (Card Driven Game Solitaire Method) Window: You can see the usual five cards in the standard CDGSM Playmat (A to E positions) at the top with four additional decks at screen’s the bottom. In this example, it includes the PUMC Deck (Potentially Usable Military Card) where only the #31 KUTUZOV card has been placed thus far. In the bottom row’s center is Draw Deck C with 17 cards remaining available and, to its right, is the Leader Deck, where the Coalition’s Leader Cards of Czar Alexander for Russia, Austria’s Metternich, and Britain’s Castlereagh are initially placed. Finally, in the bottom row’s upper right side, the Transitory Deck has the face up cards for placing as PUMC as face down in draw deck if not PUMC, just after the Wager.

    Hopefully, the preceding encourages you to give Congress of Vienna’s Vassal Module a try with two, three, or a full roster of four players around a fun and friendly gaming table and/or versus its solitaire system. 

    Concluding Remarks by Congress of Vienna Assistant Designer/Editor, Fred SchachterThe preceding provides an overview, a “lay of the land” if you would, of how Congress of Vienna is electronically depicted using VASSAL. To reiterate, CoV’s Vassal Module may be downloaded via: Category:GMT Games – Vassal

    For a “How to Play CoV Solo” video, with its associated InsideGMT article, kindly reference: Background for the How to Play Congress of Vienna Solitaire Video | Inside GMT blog. Do note that Congress of Vienna’s two-side printed French and Allied Bots are provided with the physical game. 

     Others are here invited to provide CoV videos of their own regarding the game so we may all continue our Congress of Vienna journeys either directly or vicariously.  Hopefully, CoV’s Vassal Module, as well as the physical game, facilitates such creativity.  

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


    Congress of Vienna VASSAL Module

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