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amazon Crusader Kings II Charlemagne reviews
Charlemagne is the ninth expansion of the Crusader Kings II series. This impressive figure shows us the amount of content that is extremely massive as well as the level of durability that the series has gained three years after its release date.
In this return, the game continues to follow the old formula from The Old Gods. That gives Charlemagne great potential to reap the success and sympathy of the community of players – what The Old Gods has done very well.
Besides, just looking at the name of the expansion version this time, it is not difficult for players to guess the main character of the whole version: the character of Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire that he was born.
So what’s new inside this version? And are the new improvements worth it as it has the potential to be the second The Old Gods in this game line?
This is the formula that Paradox has mentioned making the success of The Old Gods: Timeline means new context and of course the game settings will also change, the replay value of the game. The game will be pushed a lot higher.
Moreover, this new timeline coincides with the prosperity milestone of the Early Middle Ages, very suitable for players to dominate a primitive country of Western Europe, lead troops to conquer and expand a realm that is not hindered by any major power.
This has been hindered quite a bit in previous versions because the Holy Roman Empire has spoken in the middle of the map and every action of the player has to be careful. To increase diversity for this period, the developer introduced a new territorial structure: Tribes. This makes sense because most of the small countries at that time were aggressive Barbarians.
Tribes are the primitive form of Cities, Castles, and tribal buildings are very sketchy and consume Fame instead of Gold and Silver to build, thereby encouraging players to increase their conquest penalty for finding more Fame.
Maneuvering war in these Tribe countries is also a little different when the player mobilizes troops in each Tribe, instead of just asking the vassals to “donate” like in Feudal countries. Charlemagne also has a valuable improvement for small lords, the first time the game allows independent lords to establish their kingdom in the hands of any three Princes, and the Lords can ascend the throne if available in any three countries.
Players also have the right to choose their own National Brand. This feature is really interesting, not only does it shorten a lot of time to accomplish big goals, but it also gives players many options to edit the country/empire to their liking. Which is your country, you have the right!
And in this new context, the Holy Roman Empire was just an idea, or rather, a “dream” of the Catholic Church. This intangible general created a difficult purpose for most of the Western European States and the German Tribes at that time: the birth and throne of the Holy Roman Empire.
The political context also implicitly turned Western Europe into a fierce battlefield with Charlemagne holding a great advantage, besides countries like Lombardy, Bavaria, Byzantine ready to fight, not to mention the Tribes. Saxon, Bohemia, and Poland will not give in.
So no matter which country the player chooses during this period, the challenges in that Big Game will bring an extremely exciting and new experience compared to previous versions.
From the trivial events of the conflict between the Karling brothers, to the more significant events of Charlemagne’s conquest such as the King of Lombardy domination of the Pope, the height of conflict with the Saxons, the aggression of the Spanish Islamic State,… All are detailed by the developer in this version.
In addition to the plot of Charlemagne and its satellite characters, this upgrade also offers several new features to aid in court management. The first is the Chronicles system. This is a book that records all the events that the player has experienced during the game screen. This feature is a good way for players to control and store the storyline they are experiencing.
Next is the new set of interface to choose the game screen, simplifying the selection of the game screen, helping new players or players who have not caught up with the development of this series, can easily choose the game screen and multiplier suit.
The new climate system is also a plus point for Charlemagne this time, it more or less affects military campaigns, forcing players to calculate the appropriate time before deciding to start.
DUAL BALANCE
It seems that the developer ‘s favoritism seems to be too dreadful when the company is so strong in its early stage, in history, this institution has met a lot of difficulties to prevent them from making a living.
The developer has also tried to create historic “barriers” by creating a limit to how many vassals can possess, in addition to increasing the frequency of shallow revolts. Not only did these changes have little effect, given the strong military and financial potential of the Holy Roman Empire, it also caused discomfort for players when they had to manage additional features function, the fact is useless.
On the other hand, in smaller countries, the perpetual insurrection plus the limitations of the new vassal system (as mentioned above), will significantly hamper the development and economy of the player. The Northern States of Europe and the precursors of Great Britain were the ones most affected by these changes.
Besides, the player is no longer allowed to hire assassins to perform assassination missions as before. These conspiracies are only carried out by meticulous plans with a large number of participants, making assassination very time-consuming and difficult to execute, but in return the mastermind will not cost money as before.
This inadvertently makes the player’s wealth devalue more or less. Especially in the countries of the Tribe, when the construction of works is mostly based on Fame, sometimes Money is just for “watching for fun”.
