#congressofvienna — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #congressofvienna, aggregated by home.social.
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Content note: political violence.
The die sent Faces of Vienna to Romania — and to Tudor Vladimirescu: in Vienna during the Congress with no seat at the table, killed seven years later by his own allies on a charge no one ever proved.
I keep this series light. This one I couldn't. A story about betrayal, and how hard it is to say who betrayed whom.
Full essay: https://wanderingpine.games/of-whatever-nation-you-may-be/ -
Content note: political violence.
The die sent Faces of Vienna to Romania — and to Tudor Vladimirescu: in Vienna during the Congress with no seat at the table, killed seven years later by his own allies on a charge no one ever proved.
I keep this series light. This one I couldn't. A story about betrayal, and how hard it is to say who betrayed whom.
Full essay: https://wanderingpine.games/of-whatever-nation-you-may-be/ -
Content note: political violence.
The die sent Faces of Vienna to Romania — and to Tudor Vladimirescu: in Vienna during the Congress with no seat at the table, killed seven years later by his own allies on a charge no one ever proved.
I keep this series light. This one I couldn't. A story about betrayal, and how hard it is to say who betrayed whom.
Full essay: https://wanderingpine.games/of-whatever-nation-you-may-be/ -
Content note: political violence.
The die sent Faces of Vienna to Romania — and to Tudor Vladimirescu: in Vienna during the Congress with no seat at the table, killed seven years later by his own allies on a charge no one ever proved.
I keep this series light. This one I couldn't. A story about betrayal, and how hard it is to say who betrayed whom.
Full essay: https://wanderingpine.games/of-whatever-nation-you-may-be/ -
Content note: political violence.
The die sent Faces of Vienna to Romania — and to Tudor Vladimirescu: in Vienna during the Congress with no seat at the table, killed seven years later by his own allies on a charge no one ever proved.
I keep this series light. This one I couldn't. A story about betrayal, and how hard it is to say who betrayed whom.
Full essay: https://wanderingpine.games/of-whatever-nation-you-may-be/ -
A short reintroduction. I'm designing Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations — a board game about the Congress of Vienna seen from the side history classes tend to skip: salons, gossip, romance, intrigue and social ambition, played through real historical figures. Still in development, and I'm sharing the process openly as it slowly becomes playable.
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A short reintroduction. I'm designing Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations — a board game about the Congress of Vienna seen from the side history classes tend to skip: salons, gossip, romance, intrigue and social ambition, played through real historical figures. Still in development, and I'm sharing the process openly as it slowly becomes playable.
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A short reintroduction. I'm designing Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations — a board game about the Congress of Vienna seen from the side history classes tend to skip: salons, gossip, romance, intrigue and social ambition, played through real historical figures. Still in development, and I'm sharing the process openly as it slowly becomes playable.
-
A short reintroduction. I'm designing Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations — a board game about the Congress of Vienna seen from the side history classes tend to skip: salons, gossip, romance, intrigue and social ambition, played through real historical figures. Still in development, and I'm sharing the process openly as it slowly becomes playable.
-
A short reintroduction. I'm designing Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations — a board game about the Congress of Vienna seen from the side history classes tend to skip: salons, gossip, romance, intrigue and social ambition, played through real historical figures. Still in development, and I'm sharing the process openly as it slowly becomes playable.
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In 1814, Daniello Berlinghieri was travelling to the Congress of Vienna when a storm off Lake Neusiedl forced him into the worst inn of the whole journey — a wretched coachman's tavern, bad bed, bad food.
And yet, he wrote, there was coffee, good cream, and sugar wrapped in parchment: things that, in these parts, are never lacking.
Two centuries on, it still reads like a quiet promise about these lands: the bed may fail you, but the coffee will not. -
In 1814, Daniello Berlinghieri was travelling to the Congress of Vienna when a storm off Lake Neusiedl forced him into the worst inn of the whole journey — a wretched coachman's tavern, bad bed, bad food.
And yet, he wrote, there was coffee, good cream, and sugar wrapped in parchment: things that, in these parts, are never lacking.
Two centuries on, it still reads like a quiet promise about these lands: the bed may fail you, but the coffee will not. -
In 1814, Daniello Berlinghieri was travelling to the Congress of Vienna when a storm off Lake Neusiedl forced him into the worst inn of the whole journey — a wretched coachman's tavern, bad bed, bad food.
And yet, he wrote, there was coffee, good cream, and sugar wrapped in parchment: things that, in these parts, are never lacking.
Two centuries on, it still reads like a quiet promise about these lands: the bed may fail you, but the coffee will not. -
In 1814, Daniello Berlinghieri was travelling to the Congress of Vienna when a storm off Lake Neusiedl forced him into the worst inn of the whole journey — a wretched coachman's tavern, bad bed, bad food.
And yet, he wrote, there was coffee, good cream, and sugar wrapped in parchment: things that, in these parts, are never lacking.
Two centuries on, it still reads like a quiet promise about these lands: the bed may fail you, but the coffee will not. -
In 1814, Daniello Berlinghieri was travelling to the Congress of Vienna when a storm off Lake Neusiedl forced him into the worst inn of the whole journey — a wretched coachman's tavern, bad bed, bad food.
And yet, he wrote, there was coffee, good cream, and sugar wrapped in parchment: things that, in these parts, are never lacking.
Two centuries on, it still reads like a quiet promise about these lands: the bed may fail you, but the coffee will not. -
Travelling to Zamość and around for a few days, so a small photo series begins: at least one image a day, each connected to some strand of 19th-century history — not always the Congress of Vienna, though this corner of Europe was reshaped by it in 1815. Sometimes design research just means going for a walk.
#History #CongressOfVienna #Zamosc #BoardGameDesign -
Travelling to Zamość and around for a few days, so a small photo series begins: at least one image a day, each connected to some strand of 19th-century history — not always the Congress of Vienna, though this corner of Europe was reshaped by it in 1815. Sometimes design research just means going for a walk.
#History #CongressOfVienna #Zamosc #BoardGameDesign -
Travelling to Zamość and around for a few days, so a small photo series begins: at least one image a day, each connected to some strand of 19th-century history — not always the Congress of Vienna, though this corner of Europe was reshaped by it in 1815. Sometimes design research just means going for a walk.
#History #CongressOfVienna #Zamosc #BoardGameDesign -
Travelling to Zamość and around for a few days, so a small photo series begins: at least one image a day, each connected to some strand of 19th-century history — not always the Congress of Vienna, though this corner of Europe was reshaped by it in 1815. Sometimes design research just means going for a walk.
#History #CongressOfVienna #Zamosc #BoardGameDesign -
Travelling to Zamość and around for a few days, so a small photo series begins: at least one image a day, each connected to some strand of 19th-century history — not always the Congress of Vienna, though this corner of Europe was reshaped by it in 1815. Sometimes design research just means going for a walk.
#History #CongressOfVienna #Zamosc #BoardGameDesign -
A coda to the Berlinghieri thread.
After Vienna he returned to Tuscany, and years later became guardian and adoptive father to Giulia — daughter of Anna, to whom he'd written all those letters.
A French writer asked for Giulia's hand — the only proposal he ever made. His name: Henri Beyle. The world knows him as Stendhal.
The polite, firm no came from Berlinghieri. The man missing from every index turned down the author of The Red and the Black.
#CongressOfVienna #History -
A coda to the Berlinghieri thread.
After Vienna he returned to Tuscany, and years later became guardian and adoptive father to Giulia — daughter of Anna, to whom he'd written all those letters.
A French writer asked for Giulia's hand — the only proposal he ever made. His name: Henri Beyle. The world knows him as Stendhal.
The polite, firm no came from Berlinghieri. The man missing from every index turned down the author of The Red and the Black.
#CongressOfVienna #History -
A coda to the Berlinghieri thread.
After Vienna he returned to Tuscany, and years later became guardian and adoptive father to Giulia — daughter of Anna, to whom he'd written all those letters.
A French writer asked for Giulia's hand — the only proposal he ever made. His name: Henri Beyle. The world knows him as Stendhal.
The polite, firm no came from Berlinghieri. The man missing from every index turned down the author of The Red and the Black.
#CongressOfVienna #History -
A coda to the Berlinghieri thread.
After Vienna he returned to Tuscany, and years later became guardian and adoptive father to Giulia — daughter of Anna, to whom he'd written all those letters.
A French writer asked for Giulia's hand — the only proposal he ever made. His name: Henri Beyle. The world knows him as Stendhal.
The polite, firm no came from Berlinghieri. The man missing from every index turned down the author of The Red and the Black.
#CongressOfVienna #History -
A coda to the Berlinghieri thread.
After Vienna he returned to Tuscany, and years later became guardian and adoptive father to Giulia — daughter of Anna, to whom he'd written all those letters.
A French writer asked for Giulia's hand — the only proposal he ever made. His name: Henri Beyle. The world knows him as Stendhal.
The polite, firm no came from Berlinghieri. The man missing from every index turned down the author of The Red and the Black.
#CongressOfVienna #History -
A detail from the Congress of Vienna that upends what we assume about it. We picture the great balls as exclusive. In reality, many of the court balls were open to whoever wanted to come. Some drew more than four thousand people; by some accounts, ten to twelve thousand. Ordinary Viennese mixed freely with the most eminent guests in the city. One English traveller said he'd never seen a grand assembly with less ceremony.
#History #CongressOfVienna -
A detail from the Congress of Vienna that upends what we assume about it. We picture the great balls as exclusive. In reality, many of the court balls were open to whoever wanted to come. Some drew more than four thousand people; by some accounts, ten to twelve thousand. Ordinary Viennese mixed freely with the most eminent guests in the city. One English traveller said he'd never seen a grand assembly with less ceremony.
#History #CongressOfVienna -
A detail from the Congress of Vienna that upends what we assume about it. We picture the great balls as exclusive. In reality, many of the court balls were open to whoever wanted to come. Some drew more than four thousand people; by some accounts, ten to twelve thousand. Ordinary Viennese mixed freely with the most eminent guests in the city. One English traveller said he'd never seen a grand assembly with less ceremony.
#History #CongressOfVienna -
A detail from the Congress of Vienna that upends what we assume about it. We picture the great balls as exclusive. In reality, many of the court balls were open to whoever wanted to come. Some drew more than four thousand people; by some accounts, ten to twelve thousand. Ordinary Viennese mixed freely with the most eminent guests in the city. One English traveller said he'd never seen a grand assembly with less ceremony.
#History #CongressOfVienna -
A detail from the Congress of Vienna that upends what we assume about it. We picture the great balls as exclusive. In reality, many of the court balls were open to whoever wanted to come. Some drew more than four thousand people; by some accounts, ten to twelve thousand. Ordinary Viennese mixed freely with the most eminent guests in the city. One English traveller said he'd never seen a grand assembly with less ceremony.
#History #CongressOfVienna -
A detail from the Congress of Vienna I keep coming back to: the Congress itself barely met. There was no grand plenary session solemnly redrawing the map. Instead there was a soirée almost every night — a dinner, a salon, a card table, hosted somewhere across Vienna. That's where the real business moved: information traded, positions softened, alliances tested over supper. The social calendar wasn't a break from the politics. It was the politics.
#History #CongressOfVienna -
A detail from the Congress of Vienna I keep coming back to: the Congress itself barely met. There was no grand plenary session solemnly redrawing the map. Instead there was a soirée almost every night — a dinner, a salon, a card table, hosted somewhere across Vienna. That's where the real business moved: information traded, positions softened, alliances tested over supper. The social calendar wasn't a break from the politics. It was the politics.
#History #CongressOfVienna -
A detail from the Congress of Vienna I keep coming back to: the Congress itself barely met. There was no grand plenary session solemnly redrawing the map. Instead there was a soirée almost every night — a dinner, a salon, a card table, hosted somewhere across Vienna. That's where the real business moved: information traded, positions softened, alliances tested over supper. The social calendar wasn't a break from the politics. It was the politics.
#History #CongressOfVienna -
A detail from the Congress of Vienna I keep coming back to: the Congress itself barely met. There was no grand plenary session solemnly redrawing the map. Instead there was a soirée almost every night — a dinner, a salon, a card table, hosted somewhere across Vienna. That's where the real business moved: information traded, positions softened, alliances tested over supper. The social calendar wasn't a break from the politics. It was the politics.
#History #CongressOfVienna -
A detail from the Congress of Vienna I keep coming back to: the Congress itself barely met. There was no grand plenary session solemnly redrawing the map. Instead there was a soirée almost every night — a dinner, a salon, a card table, hosted somewhere across Vienna. That's where the real business moved: information traded, positions softened, alliances tested over supper. The social calendar wasn't a break from the politics. It was the politics.
#History #CongressOfVienna -
At the Congress of Vienna, the monarchs nearly stalled on precedence — who enters a room first. Their fix was almost comically plain: go by age, oldest first. As de la Garde tells it, the idea came from Tsar Alexander — the youngest of them, and arguably the most powerful man on the continent. So he arranged to go last through every doorway. Humility, or the confidence of someone who no longer needs the symbolic kind of power, because he holds the real one?
#CongressOfVienna #History -
At the Congress of Vienna, the monarchs nearly stalled on precedence — who enters a room first. Their fix was almost comically plain: go by age, oldest first. As de la Garde tells it, the idea came from Tsar Alexander — the youngest of them, and arguably the most powerful man on the continent. So he arranged to go last through every doorway. Humility, or the confidence of someone who no longer needs the symbolic kind of power, because he holds the real one?
#CongressOfVienna #History -
At the Congress of Vienna, the monarchs nearly stalled on precedence — who enters a room first. Their fix was almost comically plain: go by age, oldest first. As de la Garde tells it, the idea came from Tsar Alexander — the youngest of them, and arguably the most powerful man on the continent. So he arranged to go last through every doorway. Humility, or the confidence of someone who no longer needs the symbolic kind of power, because he holds the real one?
#CongressOfVienna #History -
At the Congress of Vienna, the monarchs nearly stalled on precedence — who enters a room first. Their fix was almost comically plain: go by age, oldest first. As de la Garde tells it, the idea came from Tsar Alexander — the youngest of them, and arguably the most powerful man on the continent. So he arranged to go last through every doorway. Humility, or the confidence of someone who no longer needs the symbolic kind of power, because he holds the real one?
#CongressOfVienna #History -
At the Congress of Vienna, the monarchs nearly stalled on precedence — who enters a room first. Their fix was almost comically plain: go by age, oldest first. As de la Garde tells it, the idea came from Tsar Alexander — the youngest of them, and arguably the most powerful man on the continent. So he arranged to go last through every doorway. Humility, or the confidence of someone who no longer needs the symbolic kind of power, because he holds the real one?
#CongressOfVienna #History -
Something for the Coffee, part two: the Sachertorte. Famous origin — 1832, a 16-year-old apprentice, an improvised dessert for Prince Metternich. Almost certainly a myth built later by the baker's son to sell imperial nostalgia; the man himself placed it in the 1840s, elsewhere. The lesson I keep relearning while designing Vienna 1814: the best food stories are usually the ones someone polished after the fact.
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Something for the Coffee, part two: the Sachertorte. Famous origin — 1832, a 16-year-old apprentice, an improvised dessert for Prince Metternich. Almost certainly a myth built later by the baker's son to sell imperial nostalgia; the man himself placed it in the 1840s, elsewhere. The lesson I keep relearning while designing Vienna 1814: the best food stories are usually the ones someone polished after the fact.
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Something for the Coffee, part two: the Sachertorte. Famous origin — 1832, a 16-year-old apprentice, an improvised dessert for Prince Metternich. Almost certainly a myth built later by the baker's son to sell imperial nostalgia; the man himself placed it in the 1840s, elsewhere. The lesson I keep relearning while designing Vienna 1814: the best food stories are usually the ones someone polished after the fact.
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Something for the Coffee, part two: the Sachertorte. Famous origin — 1832, a 16-year-old apprentice, an improvised dessert for Prince Metternich. Almost certainly a myth built later by the baker's son to sell imperial nostalgia; the man himself placed it in the 1840s, elsewhere. The lesson I keep relearning while designing Vienna 1814: the best food stories are usually the ones someone polished after the fact.
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Something for the Coffee, part two: the Sachertorte. Famous origin — 1832, a 16-year-old apprentice, an improvised dessert for Prince Metternich. Almost certainly a myth built later by the baker's son to sell imperial nostalgia; the man himself placed it in the 1840s, elsewhere. The lesson I keep relearning while designing Vienna 1814: the best food stories are usually the ones someone polished after the fact.
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The next version of Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations is, above all, the result of honest feedback I got at Designer Camp three months ago.
I cut three subsystems and a lot of small rules — still amazed how many "ifs" and "in cases" were hiding in there. Some I'll miss (outfits especially, which may return in another form). Others were just clutter around the core.
This weekend I finished the rewrite: shorter and more focused.
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Then I checked the German original. One word had been inverted: "ungerechnet" meaning "not counting."
The crescents were never inside anything; Gentz simply ate them too.
The Solila itself: a buttery dough swimming in fat, sealed in a kind of pie that steams when opened. Not the Salzburger Nockerl I'd half-talked myself into. I was wrong – and I still don't know what a Solila was. If anyone recognizes it, I'd like to know.
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I am designing Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations — a board game about the Congress of Vienna from the salon side: gossip, romance, intrigue, real historical characters. Still in development, and I am sharing the process here as I go.
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𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘁
Stephansdom from Stock-im-Eisen-Platz, Rudolf von Alt, 1832.
Painted a generation after the Congress, but the square barely changed. This is the Vienna delegates crossed on the way from one salon to the next — cathedral, market, carriages, dogs underfoot. The treaties happened in palaces. The rest of the Congress happened on streets like this one.
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𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗽𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗹
"Each player adds a country bordering the previous one, no repeats. A player who cannot continue is eliminated. All disputes are settled by majority vote."
This is the tiebreaker for turn order. Yes – in a game about redrawing Europe, you settle arguments by reciting Europe.
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Over the next few days I am refining and updating the manual for Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations. It is moving to Markdown – basically plain text – which feels fitting for a game about 1814: pages and pages of pure text, almost like 200 years ago. In a way. :)
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Over the next few days I am refining and updating the manual for Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations. It is moving to Markdown – basically plain text – which feels fitting for a game about 1814: pages and pages of pure text, almost like 200 years ago. In a way. :)
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After Napoleon fell, the portraitist Isabey was broke. Talleyrand helped him — and sent him to paint the Congress of Vienna.
His studio sat next to Café Jüngling in Leopoldstadt, a half-clandestine meeting place where everyone who mattered came to sit for him. He called it "the backdrop of the Congress." His role in the French delegation was never investigated — but you can guess where what he overheard ended up.
A portrait studio as a listening post. -
The last committee space in iteration 3.5 rewards completed political objectives rather than mere arrival — so being first matters far less than having done the work.
This is part of a wider shift in the design: late-game drama should reward earlier investment, not earlier sprinting. Whether the balance lands well is what the next round of playtests is for.
#BoardGameDesign #HistoricalGames #DevDiary #CongressOfVienna
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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀… 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀.
The Congress of Vienna lasted 9 months and reportedly cost Emperor Francis I around 30 million guldens — equivalent to a year of state revenue. Balls, hunts at Schönbrunn, sleigh rides to Laxenburg, masquerades. France lost the war. Talleyrand still managed to enjoy himself enormously.
#CongressOfVienna #Talleyrand #HistoryMemes #TheCongressDances
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Small dev diary: while working out the committee track, I updated the intrigue cards so they now leverage the new action spaces in Vienna. The two systems are starting to talk to each other, which is exactly what I wanted. One step toward iteration 3.5.
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Servants with proxy letters have been in Vienna 1814 for a while — small, useful, and quietly liked by players. An aristocrat hands off a letter, a servant carries an action where they cannot go themselves.
In iteration 3.5, the same mechanic now reaches the committee: a servant with a proxy can move the work forward by one step, opening a higher space the aristocrat may use later that turn.
A small extension of something that already works. -
Committees were a real part of how the Congress of Vienna worked, so my board game has a proper committee track — one I'm still working on. And while building it, "committee" quietly became my favorite English word with three double letters in a row: mm, tt, ee. Do you have a favorite?
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The list is complete and voting is now closed. Six countries are in the hands of the magic die:
1 – Albania 🇦🇱
2 – Kosovo 🇽🇰
3 – Estonia 🇪🇪
4 – Switzerland 🇨🇭
5 – Latvia 🇱🇻
6 – Ukraine 🇺🇦I'll roll most likely this weekend, and then research a real historical person connected to the winning country and the Congress of Vienna. Some of these will be genuine historical gymnastics – which is half the fun.
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𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘁
View of the K. K. Redoutensaal during a Masked Ball, Josef Schütz, 1815.
Painted during the Congress winter itself. The Hofburg redoute halls hosted the season's most famous masked balls — anonymity as social technology, with an orchestra on the balcony and a harlequin somewhere in the crowd. Exactly the kind of room I keep trying to make playable.