Paul Kreutzer - 04:43am Nov 15, 2000 PST (#1786 of 1792)
What led humanity to turn its back on millennia of evolution to live like ants?

"Charlemagne" is an intriguing game that seems unjustly neglected in
reviews and player comments. Certainly, operational-strategic games on
"Dark Ages Europe" are rare enough anywhere. The obscurity of the era,
in popular and gaming consciousness, makes it likely that "Charlemagne"
is bound to be not just the definitive game, but the only game, treating
this era at this level. Fortunately for gamers, the game itself has
charm and considerable depth, a reward to the gamer seeking a change
from more heavy pounding in the Ukraine.

The map is a straightforward, parchment-like depiction of 8th cenury
western and central Europe, highlighted by airbrushed mountain terrain
and castle sillouettes depicting cities. Units show combat strength and
operations points with appropriate medieval soldier images; strategem
chits add variety and period color to enable players to achieve their
ends. Provinicial boundaries are outlined in different colors. The
provinces, or tribal zones, depict a Europe that existed only briefly
during the "Carolingian Century" of the late Dark Ages--and unfamiliar
to wargamers used to centuries' worth of European wargame maps defined
by the Rhine boundary, France and Germany, and the Austrian empire.

"Charlemagne" reveals a compelling, nearly alien Europe, one centered on
a Rhine that was not a war zone but a heartland--the province of
"Austrasia"--stretching from Fulda in the east to Verdun in the west,
linked by the Rhine-Main confluence instead of divided by it. The
marchlands of war in this game are north-central Italy (Lombardy),
Saxony and the Emirate of Cordoba. Because of the nature of the game in
pitting a shifting "tribal" coalition against the unifying Carolingian
empire, the military-political geography shifts from turn to turn,
partly by chance and partly by player efforts to influence neutral
tribal zones.

Players on either side need to pay attention to their goals and the
clock. In FtF and a few solo plays, I've noted the tendency to emphasize
"military" operations--army bashing, Burg-building, dueling for the
Alpine passes--at the expense of "religous conversion" and "vassalage"
(bringing provinces under control) operations. But victory points for
the Carolingian player depend heavily on not just seeing off the hordes,
but on 2-3 turns worth of effort and patient "strategems" to bring a
province firmly under control--after all, that is what Charlemagne did.

There's only one "campaign" scenario--unfortunate for "learning
games"--and a few rules ambiguities which I hope to raise here soon for
S&T. Overall however I enjoy "Charlemagne" as one of my "trinity" of
late-90s S&T games (the others are Fall of Rome and Germania) and would
welcome comments, variants and other games applying this system.


Joseph Miranda - 10:15am Nov 15, 2000 PST (#1787 of 1792)

Thanks for the comments on Charlemagne. We are using the same system for
Xenophon (203), Belisarius (209), and Marlborough (to deal with the
multiple political units in 18th century Europe).

We did a couple more scenarios in MOVES magazine for Charlemagne to
cover his successors, although we had to have some special rules to
account for differences.

Errata for Charlemagne is at: http://home.earthlink.net/~jamiranda/errata1.html

Joe Youst did a good job on the Charlemagne map, making it look like a
page from an old atlas.