Military Tuesday : 1848
1848 is a wargame sponsored by the Hungarian Ministry of Education and released by Hussar Games as a free download in 2006.
The game is set during the violent era of the Hungarian Independence War of 1848-49. 1848 was a year of revolutions. Most of the uprisings were crushed quickly, but Hungary was an exception. While Austria was occupied in dealing with the independence movements in Italy, Hungary used the time to train and deploy a competent army.. The newly created Honved Army suffered some set-backs in 1848, but in the 1849 spring counter-attack, the whole country was liberated. Victory was sweet but short for Hungary – in the summer of 1849 the Tsar of Russia intervened with 200,000 troops. In history, this force could not be stopped. Can you change history?
I actually downloaded this game back then but didn’t have time to seriously play it. Here’s my (three years late) impressions of this game after completing the tutorial and a brief foray in the Transylvania campaign.
The game includes a detailed tutorial scenario which should teach players the basics of this operational-level wargame very quickly. Kudos to the developers for producing the excellent in-game tutorial that does not require players to refer to the manual while playing each turn. In my opinion, 1848 serves as a good introduction to players new to wargames – the graphics are appealing and there’s no need to (overly) worry about supply and logistics or orders of battles. Most critical factors are abstracted as simple numbers which eliminates scary stuff like formulas or combat resolution tables although the nitty-gritty statistics and supply mechanics are explained in the manual if you’re so inclined.
One thing which I felt the tutorial taught but did not emphasize its importance strong enough was the need to detach cavalry regiments for battlefield reconnaissance. I learned this the hard way when I sent my forces blindly in the direction of the enemy during an actual campaign with fog-of-war turned on 
I don’t know about the effectiveness of simulating interest in military history via wargames but I wonder if a similiarly-sponsored wargame on the Battle for Malaya and Singapore could interest local students in the what-if scenarios of repelling or containing the Japanese invasion of the peninsula in WWII.
Download 1848 or visit Hussar Games’ official site.
MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
People’s Tactics
The Complete Wargames Handbook PDF
WinSPWW2 & WinSPMBT
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