Hello fellow gamers!
Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the French Revolution! It shaped the world we live in today, but it was certainly not a ‘walk in the park’! It came at an enormous price: uprisings in the provinces, political infighting in the Convention and foreign invasion. Pressure from the sans culottes, intrigue from the Royalists…
1793: Patriots & Traitors let’s you relive this important historical event as no other game has done before. As a radical, a moderate or conservative, you’re going to attempt to lead the revolution…If you fail, Mme. guillotine awaits!
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Another great blog by the game Designer Jason St. Juste: The political factions in 1793: the more the merrier????
In 1793: Patriots & Traitors the players will be choosing one of the five political parties that played an important role in politics in the turbulent years 1792-1794. Each of them has their own objective…the game therefore has the exciting feature of variable player powers: it gives the players the opportunity to have a specific strength and identity!
Let’s first have a look at the white Royalists who can only become a playable faction in a 5 player game.
Obviously, the white Royalists don’t want anything to do with the revolution. They are not even concerned about the fate of their former monarch Louis XVI! They just want to return to their lands, their mansions, their luxury and their lavish parties…
At the start of the game, the Prussian, Austrian and Sardinian-Piedmontese armies are about to tread the French soil. Later on in the game, if the French revolutionary armies move beyond the French borders, the British, Spanish and Dutch armies will also come into play.
If any of these foreign armies succeed in reaching Paris, the Revolution will be crushed and all the players will have lost the game…leaving the Royalist faction as the only winner. Needless to say, the Royalist player will be working hard to get the armies of the coalition at the gates of Paris, to ‘cook up’ counter-revolution in the provinces, to bribe, assassinate and to block the others whenever and wherever he can.
The yellow Conservative Feuillant player represents the ‘enlighted’ liberal nobles. They will strive to turn France into a stable constitutional monarchy! They want to keep Louis XVI as a monarch but with restricted powers. For the last few years, they have worked actively to bring the Revolution this far and for them it is good as it is! They absolutely loathe the radical street mobs (radical blue and ultra-radical red). Therefore, they will not only want to prevent the radicals from gaining any political power, they will also want to prohibit that too many extreme laws are passed…
The yellow Conservative player will strive to gain the upper hand by the end of the 21st game round (Thermidor 1794) but if he succeeds in saving the Royal Family from the Temple Prison, he will immediately have won the game.
The green moderate Girondins represent the more well-to-do middle class. It is their intention to have control over Republican France by the time game ends after the 21st game round (Thermidor 1794). Although the Girondin player supports a Republic, it will lose victory points if Louis ends up under the guillotine. They would rather see Louis alive, to be used as a valuable pawn in negotiation just in case the war goes bad. The green player is the center party and the most mysterious…willing to support both the conservatives and the radicals in order to boost their own political agenda. Historically, the Girondins were great orators and very influential in the provinces…in 1793: Patriots & Traitors starting a Civil War is one of the ways for them to attempt to gain power!
The blue radical Jacobin player basically has the same objective as the Girondin party: a French Republic and total control by the time the game ends. However, there is one big difference: the radicals will want to send Louis Capet to the guillotine because if they succeed, they will gain extra victory points at the end of the game. In order to prevent a yellow sudden victory, the blue player will find it lucrative to work with the moderate Girondins but the fact that they have the same objective will obstruct a possible alliance throughout the game. Cooperating with the ultra-radical red and the sans-culottes might seem more advantageous, but the Paris mobs have their own agenda…and one that could also lead to a sudden victory!
Like the radical blue, the red ultra-radical Hébertists will try to achieve a French Republic and total control of the government apparatus but in contrast will use extreme measures to achieve this. He represents the hungry lower classes, the rousing populists, the angry rabble and he will not be shy to make use of the ‘National razor’ and extreme laws to achieve his goal. Obviously, in order to gain power, the red player will first have to gain the influence of the Paris street mobs. Once these mobs are able to flex their muscles, they will be able to use popular insurrections to topple the government. Furthermore, the red player can bring the game to an early end: by exterminating the conservative yellow or moderate green player!
Due to their fanaticism, the red Hébertist faction will be shunned by the other players but needless to say, they can come in handy too! Gain the support of the mob, get rid of the monarchy and exterminate the other factions as quickly as possible: that will basically be the goal of the red ultra-radical player!
So which faction in 1793: Patriots & Traitors has your fancy? Let us know in the comments below…
Take care and thanks for your interest in our games! See you in the next blog post,
your Uwe Walentin.
The “1793 – Patriots and Traitors” crowdfunding campaign
was successfully funded!
For those that missed the campaign,
our late pledge manager is still open until 18. February 2024.
