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Congress of Vienna (CoV) is a diplomatic strategy card driven game. It is based on Churchill and is the third game after Churchill and Pericles in GMT’s “Great Statesmen” series. It allows players to become the main characters of the dramatic, titanic struggle between the struggling Napoleonic Empire and the coalition of Russia, Austria, and Great Britain (with their Prussian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish allies).
The game starts after Napoleon’s disastrous 1812 retreat from Moscow, covering the decisive years of 1813 and 1814. The abstract game map involves a strategic theatre portraying Europe from the Iberian Peninsula to the boundaries of Poland and Prussia. It also includes the secondary front of Italy, an area for depicting maritime warfare and the British/American War of 1812. This game has been created to be played as both a diplomatic and strategic military conflict without losing the taste of the Napoleonic era’s great battles. All tables necessary for gameplay are printed on the game board. Congress of Vienna reproduces the spirit of Churchill in the mechanics and organization of its rules, diplomatic display, and its military map.
The game ends if:
any Major Power solely has 80 VP or more at the end of any game turn.
Napoleon surrenders during a turn.
this is the last turn of a scenario.
—description from the publisher
TDG: Congress of Vienna
- The game successfully blends diplomacy and military strategy.
- The system of moving issues up and down diplomacy tracks and the counter-play is fun.
- The interaction between the diplomacy, government, and military phases is well done.
- Appreciates the effort to capture history.
- The game is too rulesy and could be more streamlined.
- Many smaller tracks feel unnecessary.
- The rulebook is not very helpful, especially for exceptions and special rules.
- It's a bear to teach.
- Various powers in Europe during the Congress of Vienna
- Europe during the Congress of Vienna from 1814 to 1815
- Churchill
- Pericles
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- area influence — Issues are moved along diplomacy tracks, with players trying to get them to the end of their track to claim them.
- Card Play — Players select cards to play in the diplomacy phase, with the number on the card determining the winner. Cards can also provide advantages in the war phase.
- combat resolution — Combat involves army size, card-based modifiers (DRM), and dice rolls to determine outcomes and casualties.
- Resource Management — Players collect resources like money in the government phase.
- Set Collection — Players aim to collect issues on their diplomacy track by the end of the game.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This game is rulesy.
- I felt like if the game had, as I say, been a little more streamlined, a little more accessible, this could have been a much better game in my opinion.
- I feel like it's just it's just too ruy. There's too many little things.
- This is a game that I liked. I wanted to like more than I did.
- I'd rather play a Churchill.
References (from this video)
- not broad enough for the category
- historical
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It's called Schllock. It's pretty good.
- I love Habitats.
- You're making a you have a movie theater and you're making like Bem movie posters to draw people into your theater and uh Yeah. It's pretty neat.
- It's like a poker game where you're trying to predict who wins the wins the hand.
- I had for our quiz today, I had I even showed the three frigin stripes. I'm like, that was way too easy.
- The scammers have figured out a way around my anti-scammers work.
- It's like an arms race.
- It's like, you know, like you you know what you want. You have expressed it. But but when it was like the the fourth and fifth time that he brought it up in the thing trying to get people to to ban behind him that that was that was the you know I I I understood shooting his shot, you know, saying saying what he wanted out of his out of his board game so he could have a really awkward game night.
- It's like, Oh, I want to play X. Well, I've got X. I can bring it. And so, it has matches.
- The thing I couldn't figure out was I finally got it to figure out how to go to the geek and like if your game is like, 'What the hell is this game?' You can click on it, it'll go to the geek, it'll do a search for Ghost Tower.