The scenario has variable lenght depending on the fortunes on the field. There is a level of victory to obtain for the Piedmont/French player to win, failure to do this means victory to the austrian player. Force losses on both sides and loss/capture of key cities will tilt the balance to a lower or higher morale, a lower or higher supply and reinforcements as well as the rallying of cities (Florence, Modena, Parma, Milano etc.) on either side. The Fortresses of the Quadrilatero also are worth significant Victory points.
When reaching a certain level of victory or after some time, sides will ask for a cease-fire as neither sie was committed to total war. (it is the 19th centruy after all).
Why can't the earth be flat?
Why are we limited with the number of place names in TOAW?!
Ok, I designed the map at a low scale, 2.5Km/Hex and centered it on the lake of Garda region. (The Austrian Quadrilatero - where most of the decisive battles might be happening) This means that distortion starts to happen as one moves away from that point. Distortion definitely happens in the Italo-French Alps, in the South part of the map (Tuscany) and the Eastern parts (modern slovenia). If one wants to use this map for other scenarios with more focus on these parts, it should be well advised to modify some parts of it.
The maps contains the limited railroads of the time and most of the town and villages of north italy. These are much less spread out than today.
The Italian Risorgimento, or movement for unification of Italy happened after years of political unrest from upper-classes that wanted to follow the dream of liberty and independence taht came from France with Napoleon's conquests. After Napoleon's defeat. The Italian peninsula was given back to its former rulers. During the 1848 revolutions, while austrians were busy with their hungarian revolution, the city of Milano rose to request more liberties, soon followed by Venice. Similar insurrestions happened in Sicily, Rome, Naples, Florence to ask for more freedoms, and actually not to unite Italy. The kingdom of Piemonte and Sardegna seized the opportunity for a land grab and declared war to its ally, Austria, to "help" the milan insurrection (while crushing the one in Genova). however the Austrians, under gen.Radetsky managed to soundly beat the Piedmontese at Custoza in 1848 and at Novara in 1849 (and then crush the Milan, Venice and other revolts). The inept king of Piemonte Sardegna, Carlo Alberto, abdicated to his even more inept son, Vittorio Emanuele II. In the decade that followed, the Piemonse Minister Cavour managed to brillantly forge an alliance with France's Napoléon III, who dreamed of military campaigns and prestigious victories for France to emulate his uncle. After participating in the Crimean War in 1854, the Piedmontese minister Cavour felt that in 1859 it was the right time to cause war with Austria and to seize the opportunity for another attempt at grabbing the rich regions of Lombardia and Veneto.
This time, with France's strong army offsetting the inept piemontese commanders and weak forces, and with victories at Magenta and Solferino, it was negotiated victory with Lombardia having to join Piemonte. Soon after that rigged elections in Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, Modena and Parma made these regions join the newly created kingdom of Italy.
In the 1859 campaign, the Austrians are at an early advantage, with much more numerous and better forces than the piemontese. They also have the advantage of short lines of communications to their fortified cities and depôts in the strong "quadrilatero" fortresses of Mantova, Verona, Legnago and Peschiera. The Austrian Army is well trained, well equipped and well balanced. It has hower toguard a long border and possible insurrections. To it's commander, Gyulai, who turned out to be an incompetent strategist, the options were to attack before the French arrived, but lenghten his lines of communications or wait for the attack of the combined piemontese and french armies. He did and was beaten at Magenta, Palestro, San Fermo and Montebello. He then retreated (and was relieved of his command) to the "quadrilatero" fortresses, where the austrians regrouped. While they advanced again, the main austrian force found itself, by mere chance, a few miles in front of the main French forces, hence the bloody frontal Solferino battle.
The piemontese had, as usual, incompetent commanders and outgunned, outnumbered, outdated forces. Only Garibaldi's irregulars can cause some troubles to the austrians until the french arrive.
The French, have a very powerful "Armee d'Italie" with the first use of railways to mobilise, and the first use of the latest Rifled guns, with more precision and longer range. The French doctrine was also of powerfull dashing baionet charges. However the french had a very centralised command under Napoleon III in personal command.
