King of the World #21: Charlemagne

Round 0: The Dark Ages (1000 A.D.)
Round 1: Peace, Land, and Specialists (1000-1170 A.D.)
Round 2: Border Wars (1170-1400 A.D.)
Round 3: History's Greatest Monster (1400-1550 A.D.)
Round 4: Finishing the Job (1550-1665 A.D.)

Welcome, one and all! The King of the World series sticks to Earth-based scenarios, going for greater verisimilitude at the expense of the exploration phase of the game. In this game, we continue our foray into new setups with the Earth 1000 A.D. scenario. I'd meant to boot this one up with Justinian of the Byzantines, but I slipped up and ended up in central Europe as everyone's favorite creepy uncle, Charlemagne:



And, honestly, after seeing what a sorry shape he's in, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the old chap. With your help, I want to bootstrap this guy and rule the world! It'll be a challenge, but I think we're up to it.

Here's a look at our, ahem, "empire:"



They were right about us being neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. Three middling cities surrounded on all sides by bigger and better neighbors. Rome controls the Apostolic Palace, and we have some basic infrastructure, but that's about it.

So you know what they say: If you don't have great cities, take someone else's. So how's our army looking?



... Not great. 10 total land-based military units? With (at least) 3 earmarked for garrison duty? Eesh. We have our work cut out for us.

We're at least doing well enough on the tech front:



We wasted some beakers on Divine Right, but whatev

So what do you all think?

Neal, don't you think it's better if you play it on epic? I could adjust the save for you if you want.

Hmm.... Sure thing. Make it so.

There you go. I edited the scenario file and changed the turn number. I think this save will work.

Hmm.... I did a quick experiment, and the "next turn" is 1010 in both my original save and your "Epic" save. So while that might stretch out the number of turns, I think it might also mess up the years. So either way, I'm thinking maybe I should ride this one out on Normal speed. I appreciate the effort, and maybe my next E1000 game might be done on Epic, but for now, I kinda want to see the scenario play out "as intended."

Alright then.

It's CHUCK!

This is going to be interesting, considering you're surrounded on all sides with your bestest buds in the world. A fire sale on Arabian land is going to start PDQ, though, which should make things interesting. Maybe head down to north Africa and see what you can grab there?

Anyway, I'm a fan if you can't tell, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with ol' Chuck and his miserable little landsknechtitykrispies.

Take the barb cities (though it wouldn't surprise me if Visegrad eventually flipped to Byzantines anyway) and wipe Ragnar out, your starting knights and crossbows should be able to handle both without much trouble. Then maybe take out Arabia, or let everyone be busy with them and go grab the Americas? I only played this scenario as France and Japan, but France's starting position is near-identical to HRE and it was incredibly easy game even on immortal, FWIW.

You might just want to start building up to take all of Europe. I know you're backstabbing your bestest friends in the whole world, but we all know that if you can make all your Europe yours, you've got the game by the balls. If you're sharing a fragmented Europe, well... not so much.

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Jaaboo said:

You might just want to start building up to take all of Europe. I know you're backstabbing your bestest friends in the whole world, but we all know that if you can make all your Europe yours, you've got the game by the balls. If you're sharing a fragmented Europe, well... not so much.

Click to expand...

My thoughts tend along these lines as well. Europe is such good land, and when you're hemmed in by other nations the only way to new lands is through theirs.

DT

My kingdom for some resource bubbles!

Here's the world map with cultural borders:Instead of attacking best buds, is it feasible to mount a naval invasion of Arabia?

About the map...

Chuckles! Yaay ... what happens when its time for Germany to pop up?

@Oz_Man: yes.

I would say: go north.
Dantzig and vikings seems nice targets

given your 3rd place in point, you must have somethings other don't have. As it can't be cities or armies, could you present the science trading table and eventually, wonder you may possess?

i recommend taking danzig, syracuse (fast, for other european powers might target it too) and take/raze the viking city north of bremen. and beware of them byzantines. visegraqd is almost certainly lost to them already...

So I did a little digging and found some... oddities. First off, we have Machinery and Engineering, but we don't have Metal Casting. Secondly, we have Knights without Horses and Monasteries without Meditation. Anyway, all of the Crusader pressure seems to be (obviously) on Jerusalem, but Cairo has the oh-so-precious Pyramids, so I'm thinking a push there will be better served than a one in three or four shot for a few shrines. And a bunch of ancient Wonders (like, oh, the Great Library) are as yet unclaimed, so we have the possible makings of a powerful Specialist economy here. So what do you all think? Research-wise, I'm thinking Civil Service makes the most sense, as that'll open up options in both military and the economy...

Oh, and here's a resource map:

I'd make the move for Cairo. The dogpile for Hierusalem will just lower the odds of you taking it, so Cairo is yours. As for the oddities, my solution is fix them in WB. But whatever floats your boat. Some wonder spamming in Rome might be nice too.