From: Steven Bucey Subject: Charlemange, S&T #189 Frankly, Something had to be done It's the late Eighth Century Europe. The Western Roman Empire is just a memory. On all sides, barbarian such as the Norse, Saxons, Avars, and Muslims threaten the pathetic remnants of civilization. Soon, all of Western Europe may be overrun. This was the situation Charles, son of Pepin, found when he assumed the Frankish throne in 771 AD. Eventually he would be crowned "Emperor Augustus" by Pope Leo III and be known to history as Charles the Great, or Charlemange. Charlemange was designed by Joseph Miranda and published by Decision Games in S&T #189. It covers the wars Charlemange pursued to unify Western Europe. For almost 35 years he was constantly at war with the various peoples living around the peripheral of Western Europe. He showed himself a master of all forms of military, economic and political maneuvering, managing armies with a skill not seen since the last Roman legions four centuries before. The game tries to cover all these aspects. One player controls the Frankish Empire, while the other "Chaos" player represents the shifting and changing groups of peoples at war with the empire. Each turn, random events may make some nations active and hostile to the Empire, while others may become neutral. Both players may try to actively persuade neutral or enemy nations to change sides. In fact, simple occupation of an area is not enough to conquer it. Instead, political operations must be performed to covert it. The turn sequence is as follows, for each player. Random events may change the status of various nations or present the players with other beneficial or annoying events. The player then draws one or more Stratagem markers which can be used to conduct various types of political and cultural occurrences or aid combat. Next is the Vassalage phase, where the player may attempt to change the neutral or hostile status of a nation (and the other player may try to prevent this). The player next collects taxes for "Burgs" which he occupies, which can be used to purchase mercenary units, build more Burgs or "Civilization" centers, remove pillage markers, and even buy more stratagem markers. Then areas the player controls may levy new troops loyal to that side. Finally, the player gets to conduct operations with his troops, and then lastly he checks their provisioning states. Unit types consist of 5-20,000 men and camp followers in weak and slow militia, fast but weak nomad hordes, warrior arrays, fast and strong field armies, and even fleets. Because of the time scale (each turn is 5 years), units exert a zone of control into adjacent hexes, and fleets and land units may even attack each other under certain circumstances. It is possible to put up to 10 units in a hex (which is 50 km across), but usually you put only one to three because of the need to provision the units past the forage limits of the hex. Each unit has its home area printed on it, which has a significant affect on game play since nations which change sides may put neutral or enemy units in inconvenient places and the Chaos player may not stack units from different nations. Vassalage is the act of trying to bring neutral or enemy regions under control -- simple occupation and destruction of enemy forces is not enough. The phasing player must have at least one Vassalage stratagem, and the more the better, especially as the other player can counter the attempt. Success may change the target nation from hostile to neutral or even allied, but failure gives the other player a stratagem marker. Operations (of which Vassalage is not one) allow the player to move his forces about and conduct combat, pillage and even religious conversions (Christian, Muslim or Pagan). Combat is a part of movement. A Force can move, fight, convert, or pillage as much as its operation points allow. A typical unit has 12 plus die 6 operation points, though a leader doubles the die roll and Charlemange triples the die roll. Charlemange with a stack of Field armies (with 18 OP) could have up to 36 operation points! Combat cost 3 OP, pillage 2, religious conversion 4, and movement though clear terrain cost 1, so a fast force with a leader can accomplish a lot. Each stack must conduct operations separately. Thus, you can't move a stack up next to a enemy stack and attack with any units already in that hex. Since new units must be placed no more than one per hex, that makes concentrating difficult, particularly since new units must be placed in their home areas. Combat is very simple. You move your stack next to the target stack and make the attack (spending the OP). A simple Odds ratio is computed and the die rolled, with results varying from attacker eliminated to defender eliminated. A leader doubles the combat strength of a stack, and Charlemange triples it! Terrain and Burgs also double the defending stacks strength though modifiers are "added", not multiplied (so a stack with a leader in a burg is x3, not x4. Stratagems also can influence combat. Wining gains the winner one or two stratagems. The defending force sometimes can withdraw, if it is faster than the fasting attacking unit, and combat does not always destroy the entire attacking or defending stack, which may instead have to retreat. Leaders, except for Charlemange, are obtained as stratagems. When drawn, they can be placed immediately anywhere on the map, so a successful battle or an opposite's botched conversion, vassalage or pillage attempt can produce a leader in just the right (or wrong) place. Pillage is an operation, but strangely, it is not automatic. Success depends upon the strength of the force, and may give the other player a stratagem marker even if not successful. Religious conversion is also not automatic, and also may give the other player stratagem markers. Victory is entirely dependent upon how well the Empire player does. He has to control regions (which, remember, is done through vassalage, not occupation), occupy non-pillaged Burgs or Civilization markers, convert regions to Christianity (he losses points for regions converted to Muslim or Pagan), and he loses points if Charlemange is killed. At our last CABS meeting Derek Croxton and I punched the counters out and got half way through the game before the Witching Hour. We both probably made a lot of mistakes -- I, as the Empire, concentrated to much on destroying enemy units and not enough on converting areas, while Derek also concentrated to much on combat and not enough on pillage and destruction, which seems to be the best Chaos player's option. The map is beautiful, but gets cluttered from the set up and stays that way. Units are named for their home region and are set up and recruited that way, so sorting them is a problem. To add to this, each unit is purple on one side to show Empire control and green on the other to show Chaos control, but there is no way to show neutral units, so the game suggest rotating them. Myself, I'll try to find some spare markers. There is a lot of die rolling for random events and conversion attempts, maybe to much so. Even so, I found it a fun game and would like to play it again. Steve -- --------------------------------------- The Columbus Area Boardgaming Society web site: http://web.jadeinc.com/spqr Happiness comes in packages marked, "Batteries not included."