1821
The Congress of Vienna has spoken; the world is yours to redraw.
It places the player at the helm of a world reshaped by the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, where the great European powers are locked in a fragile balance of power while the Americas teeter between colonial rule and revolutionary independence.
- Game
- Europa Universalis IV
- Developer
- Paradox Development Studio
- Publisher
- Paradox Interactive
- Type
- Alternate start date / scenario
- Era
- Post-Napoleonic, early 19th century
Lore & Background
France, stripped of its satellite kingdoms, watches the restored Bourbon monarchy struggle to reassert prestige. Austria and Russia, the architects of the Vienna settlement, police the old order through the Holy Alliance, while Prussia consolidates its Rhineland gains and Britain looks outward to an empire that spans every ocean. The Ottoman Sultan still commands vast territories, though the Greek question and the Balkan frontiers are already sources of friction. Across the Atlantic, the story is one of rupture. Spain's hold on its American viceroyalties is fraying under the weight of revolutionary armies, while Portugal's crown has moved its seat to Rio de Janeiro, making Brazil a de facto equal partner in the empire. The United States, young and restless, presses westward. Europa Universalis IV treats this moment as a legitimate starting point, loading the full diplomatic, military, and colonial infrastructure of the late game so that a player can steer any nation through the unification wars, the age of reform, and the first stirrings of industrialization without replaying two centuries of prior history.
In Their Own Story
The candle gutters on the desk in the Viennese ministry. Outside, the snow of a January night muffles the cobbles, and the carriages of the ambassadors have long since rolled away. You set down the dispatch from Madrid—the viceroy's ink is still wet, the words desperate—and pick up the second letter, from Rio, bearing the seal of a queen who has not returned to Lisbon in a decade. Two empires, one ocean between them, and a century of consequence balanced on the decision you make before the candle burns to a stub. It is, for this one evening, entirely yours.
Reader's Guide
The map reflects the post-Vienna settlement: France under the restored Bourbons, the German Confederation in place, the Italian peninsula still fragmented, the Ottoman Empire holding its Balkan and Anatolian provinces, and the British Empire at its territorial peak. In the Americas, Spain still nominally controls much of the continent, but independence movements are well advanced. Portugal's capital sits in Rio de Janeiro, and Brazil operates with near-sovereign autonomy. The United States stretches to the Mississippi and beyond. Key player decisions revolve around the balance-of-power system: choosing whether to uphold or break the Holy Alliance, managing colonial unrest in the Americas, and positioning for the great unification contests (Germany, Italy) that will define the next fifty years. Players can back revolutionary movements, suppress them, or let them run their course. The Greek question and the Ottoman frontier offer a persistent diplomatic and military challenge. The scenario diverges wherever the player's interventions alter the historical sequence, but the default progression tracks the actual outcomes: independent Latin American republics, a unified Germany under Prussian leadership, and the eventual eclipse of the old dynastic order by industrial nation-states.
More in Scenarios & Historical Events
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