Wherein you can read of some of the more recent offerings from the Captive Audience Crowd. So, me and my gaming buddy show up a tad late for one of those marathon New Game playtests Berg holds in the expansive gardens of The Berg Estates. After getting over the heartbreak of not playing Richard's latest (Ed. Pax Romana], the ever-present Fox offered a few titles from the review pile. S&T has been gening more favorable comments on the Internet lately, so when I saw S&T's latest, Charlemagne, I realized I could avoid dicing leftovers for the afternoon. (Is there any truth to the rumor that the only person actually working at Decision is Joe Miranda?) Charlemagne deals with the Frankish Empire during the reign of the first Holy Roman Emperor. There are three sides on the board: those aligned the Franks (the Empire player controls these), those opposed to the Franks (the Tribal player), and the neutrals who are on neither side. This leads to one problem: If the Franks are represented by the purple side of the counter and the Tribes are the light green side, what do you with the neutrals? Three sided counters anyone? Aside from the rather garish choice of counter colors, the hexagonal (not area) map is fine, albeit bland. The object of the Bame is for the Frankish player to gain Victory points by controlling regions and cities (called Burgs). The Frankish player has the big advantage of a central (and generally more stable) power base, with the ability to combine his forces, regardless of nationality. If the Empire is smart, he can put together a couple of big time armies and go stomping on enemy and neutral tribes. With four year turns and some leaders, you can wipe out one of the weaker tribes in with one army. Sounds like a boring slaughter? Remember, this is a Joe Miranda game, so it's not going to be that simple. Just because you've taken over all the Burg in a region doesn't mean you control it, in fact your opponent could Basil get the chance to raise more troops in that territory. The Vassalage phase gives you the opportunity to "persuade" a tribe to join you, or at least be come neutral. Both players can play Vassalage Chits (more on which be low) to influence the attempt, and there are advantages to the player who has troops in all that region's Burgs. One trick for the Tribal Player is to aim a Vassalage attempt at a region that has a lot of armies in the field for the Empire - if they become neutral they go home. Religion can also be used to influence Vassalage. In particular, the Empire player gets a bonus if the region he is persuading is Christian. During movement an army can attempt to convert a region through the use of missionaries. This works similar to Vassalage: each player can put out a number of Missionary chits to influence the die roll. If successful, the player can make the region Christian, Pagan, or Muslim (it's tough converting Muslims). The chits are an integral part of the game. The majority of these are of the Missionary and Vassalage ilk, as discussed above. There are, also, others that will give an advantage in battle (Military Advance and Leaders), a bonus during Vassalage, a peek at the other guy's chits or a free reroll of the die (the Spear of Longinus, my favorite). One way to get these chits is to control Civilization markers (these represent courthouses, ports, cathedrals, etc.; they are in various Burgs at the start, but they can be bought, too). You can also get them if your opponent's attempts at Vassalage or Conversion go poorly, or if you are victorious in battle. The CRT chart deserves mention. Odds are determined by the usual all-my-guys vs. all-your-guys with bonuses for leaders and terrain. However, there's no A2DI or DIRI in this game. Results include: Bloodbath: defender loses all his men, attacker at least as much (you don't want this in a big 1:1 battle); Defender Defeated: defender loses at least half his troops and retreats, attacker gets a chit; and Defender Annihilated: defender loses all his troops, attacker gets two chits. This means a successful attack or defense can give more than a military victory; it can indirectly lead to political gains through the chits. I can tell you one thing, you're going to be tempted to go smack some weak tribe just to get a couple of chits (causing death and destruction just to get some political points. All this represents factors you can, sort of, control. Now for what you can't control: the Random Events Table. Some games seem to have this just so something goofy happens every once in a while, but in Charlemagne it's a little more important. Each player rolls on this table at the beginning of his turn. Sometimes you'll get a plague or disaster or a bumper harvest, but most of the time you'll get possible revolts. What this means is that on any given turn, virtually any tribe on the board may switch sides or become neutral, depending on the die roll. The charts make some tribes more likely to revolt than others, but they all got a chance. So what have we got? The Frankish player is going to be running around the board, gening tribes to his side through military, religious, and political means. At times, he's going to have a big roll of steam and then have a key tribe join the other team. Meanwhile, the Tribal player will be constantly gaining and losing allies. Sometimes he's going to have to lay low and take some lumps. other times he's going to be able to create lots of problems. A very fluid situation that Miranda has done a good job in highlighting while showing the problems Charlemagne faced in unifying Western Europe. My friend and I have had a blast playing this game. We're now in the middle of our second complete go through, and we're shil picking up new tactics. We've also had a couple of the Old Guard at Metropolitan Wargamers peer over at the table and say something like, "You know, I stopped getting S&T a while back, but if they're putting out stuff like this...." Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. 2 #28 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com