Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne Review

Experienced Crusader Kings 2 players will be familiar with the concept of ‘newbie Ireland’. Because Ireland in the early middle ages was both fractured and largely isolated from the greater struggles of Central Europe, it’s always been the best place to learn the ropes in CK2. While playing as an Irish count teaches you the essentials of Kingdom-building and the complex relationships between vassals, counts and dukes, however, playing as Charlemagne – in the new expansion cleverly titled Charlemagne - introduces you to the frequently messy business of running your own Empire.

Charlemagne, or Karl as he’s known at the time of the game’s new start point in 769AD, begins in such a powerful position that even fairly new players shouldn’t have to much trouble keeping their affairs in order. It certainly helps that there’s a bunch of interesting and mostly beneficial story events that guide you through the defining stages of the great man’s life. One basically gives you a free Casus Belli (just cause for war) against Italy, which once conquered allows the birth of the Holy Roman Empire, the Goliath of medieval Europe which will go on to cause stress-related illness for any minor King unfortunate enough to reside close to its borders.

King Bulpagar Chudsmudge 'The Fat'. I should probably grow up

As interesting as these story events are, they never radically change the way you play. Most don’t actually offer you distinct choices, instead fleshing out Karl’s story and putting a bit more shape to the flow of history. Digging in deeper to a particular character is a nice concept in the ever-changing, historical world of Crusader Kings 2, but it’s hardly a feature you can hang an entire expansion around. After all, no matter how much of a badass your warrior-king is, he’s not going to last that long with medieval Europe’s rather cavalier approach to healthcare. No matter how many leeches they insert into him. Luckily, Charlemagne packs a few other interesting new features in as well.

A major change that I really like is the ability to forge your own unique Kingdoms and Empires, without requiring de jure lands. Once you’ve secured enough land you can simply claim it as your kingdom, which allows you far more control in matters of succession – pagans have to divide their titles between their sons on succession, but if you can create a kingdom your eldest will be able to stop your holdings from dissolving entirely when your king dies. There are restrictions, as there should be; lands you claims won’t become de jure pieces of your realm for a hundred years, so if you lose your land you can’t immediately grab it back with a handy casus belli. Still, it’s a very useful and incredibly fun new tool.

Charlemagne story events are a bit too passive for my liking, and don't really offer anything new

Vice-royalties are a neat new way of pruning potentially dangerous elements from your empire. Emperor-tier characters can give out these temporary titles to their subjects, granting them power over an area of governorship until their death, at which point the lands go back to the ruler. It stops troublesome families from getting too much power, but you need to be fairly advanced down the tech tree to unlock the option. They won’t come into play in a meaningful way until the late game. In other news there’s a few neat new option for customising your culture, which in turn can lead to interesting decisions. I reverted my holdings and my capital to what is now the modern-day Netherlands, and was able to switch my cultural focus over to Dutch. Causing everyone to hate me. Cultural conquest is another neat barometer to measure your skill in CK2, so more variety there is welcome.

My biggest gripe with Charlemagne is that the new time period messes a lot with the pacing of the game. The Franks and Lombards swiftly morph into the HRE unless the AI does something remarkably moronic, and this stability in Europe and the East, where the Arabian Empire is just mind-bogglingly huge, tends to result in a static game state with a small selection of tremendously powerful Kingdoms and Empires. Basically the expansion seems to encourage a stable world rather too quickly, and as a result money and technology increase almost exponentially. This will probably be fixed in a post-release patch, but as it is now after a few years the world settles into a not particularly interesting lull.

Cultures aren't as key in CK2 as they are in other games, but Charlemagne adds a few new options and events to shake them up. As well as numerous new cultures like the Visigoths and Suebi

That said you can still mess things up for everybody with a few well-timed assassinations and fabricated claims, and in general the additions in Charlemagne make for a more varied and interesting game. It’s odd, actually, that the best elements don’t have all that much to do with the man himself. One hundred years more history to play with is nice, but not something that Crusader Kings 2 with its gazillion hours of gameplay really needed, and playing as Charlemagne is too easy to be truly satisfying. The tremendous power of the Frankish empires also unbalances the game a little too much in the early stages.

One final warning; Charlemagne is a little buggy. I didn’t suffer any real, game-breaking issues, but there were a couple of crashes when I was trying to create new holdings, and I noticed a few odd quirks with the new elective gavel kind succession law, including de jure kingdoms popping up out of nowhere upon my faction ruler’s death. These will presumably be fixed in fairly short order by Paradox, as similar problems with Rajas of India were, but it’s something to be aware of.