"Do you not feel, through a kind of instinctive intuition that cannot be analyzed but that is certain, that the ground is shaking once again in Europe? Do you not feel—how shall I call it?—that a revolutionary wind is blowing?"
– Alexis de Tocqueville, Souvenir (January, 1848)
33 years after the Congress of Vienna, Continental Europe still lives under the reactionary system designed by the Austrian Prince Metternich, the dominant figure of the age. Outside of England and France, absolute monarchy is the norm - and even in the latter, Louis-Philippe, the “bourgeois king”, is busy rolling back the people’s hard-fought liberties.
In the east, the empires of the “Holy Alliance”, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, enforce ruthless repression against progressive ideas - whether nationalist, republican, democratic, liberal, or socialist. But the time is ripe for revolution, and the conflagration of 1848 will shake this old system to its core in a whirlwind of insurrection and new ideas. “People’s wars” will rage.
1848: Springtime of Nations is a 2-player CDG depicting the unprecedented wave of revolutionary activity that swept across Europe in the titular year of 1848. Based on the hit area control system pioneered by GMT’s 1989: Dawn of Freedom, and Twilight Struggle, it pits the forces of “the Revolution” against those of the “Counterrevolution” in a struggle to decide the future of Europe, and the world.
The Revolutionary player controls the various insurgent and progressive movements trying to usher in a new order, while the Counter-Revolutionary player leads the forces of reaction aiming to preserve the status quo. They will fight over and across the empires and nations of Europe, attempting to suppress their enemy’s influence and extend their own through a combination of political and military force - all the while navigating myriad historical events of the time.
