A good friend recently lent me a pair of single-player board games. I give my opinion on one of them, "Charlemagne, Master of Europe", as well as a short strategy guide for anyone looking to prevail in this fun and difficult game.

Before leaving for the Berlinale, this friend with whom I frequently play historical war games lent me a pair of solo board games with a historical flavor published by Hollandspiele. These games are produced in small batches, which does not prevent them from having a very neat appearance and impeccable production. So, in the last few weeks, I tried to complete the game “Charlemagne, Master of Europe”. I still haven't gotten there, but I've at least gained a good enough understanding to give my thoughts about it.

Game presentation and critique

This game depicts the reign of Charlemagne, from the gradual establishment of his power in Central and Western Europe to his coronation as Emperor of the West. His battles and conflicts against the peoples and kingdoms of Europe, such as the Britons, Avars, Saxons or Lombards, are represented, including all the dynamics of the establishment of power at that time: repression, diplomacy, pitched battle, siege, religion, foreign powers and forced conversion.

Unfortunately, despite its resolutely historical setting, there is no contextual information scattered throughout the game, apart from the few paragraphs in the manual. As a result, as an educational tool, this game is not very interesting, unlike games like Votes for Women or The Shores of Tripoli from Fort Circle Games. It is a shame, because this kind of detail adds to the depth of a game, explicitly transforming the mechanics into abstractions for a certain reality. In a way, you must already know the history of Charlemagne's reign to fully appreciate what each of the mechanics represents.

The game takes place on a map of Europe, dividing the continent into colored regions corresponding to a certain level of difficulty and some specific mechanics. Each region is subdivided into zones on which you'll apply most of the game's actions. You have to keep track of different global resources such as money, military forces and victory points, in addition to placing a few units or constructions that remain on the map. Victory points are acquired through certain specific events that represent the progression of Charlemagne's historical reign or the quantity of constructions on the map. A certain level of resources must be maintained at the end of each turn, otherwise you lose the game without further ado. In the first attempts, it is normal, although a little frustrating, to lose because you forgot to monitor one of these crucial resources!

On this side, the game could have avoided this problem by representing the resource objectives with historical facts to be accomplished before such or such a turn, rather than by a number of victory points. Indeed, the events and the constructions adding victory points each turn and the exponential progression of the requirements for these points is therefore only an intermediary, an abstraction, for the continuous accomplishment, with a certain frequency, of the actions representing the course of history like the construction of churches, the establishment of marches, the pacification of regions or the coronation as king of the Lombards or emperor.

The placement of the opposing units on the map is done according to a mechanic of friendly, unfriendly and hostile cups, which represent the diplomatic evolution of the various factions towards Charlemagne's empire. Each action changes the composition of the cups and one must randomly draw pieces from the hostile cup to represent the reaction on the ground to the actions of the Carolingian empire. For example, the Eastern Roman Empire starts in the friendly cup, but gradually moves to the hostile cup, until a random action causes friction and then, eventually, a truce with the Byzantines must be negotiated with the help of the Pope of Rome. Similarly, barbarians remain resolutely in the hostile cup until the construction of a church moves them to the friendly cup.

Overall, the rules are relatively simple, but the provided cheat sheet, which is still four pages long, is oddly organized to make it easy to follow. Some important parts of the rules like battles are even absent, an annoying omission, since this is one of the most complex and important mechanics. The setup is done by following a well thought out procedure, but very susceptible to chance, two games can be radically different as long as one was lucky or not at this stage.

This is also one of the main criticisms that can be made of this game: it is very sensitive to chance, in the setup certainly, but especially in the use of its single die (an 8-sided die). Almost all actions involve a die roll. However, the difficulty of the rolls almost always comes down to a coin toss or worse. It is possible, by selecting judicious actions, to put the odds on your side, but certain mechanics, such as battles or sieges, crucial and complementary mechanics, necessarily involve rolling a certain number of dice. One, therefore, cannot escape the tyranny of a bad roll or a sequence of bad rolls... It is unfortunate because an otherwise excellent game can be ruined by pure bad luck. The game becomes too random, in my opinion, since two games or two battles that are practically identical can have very different outcomes, as long as the dice are on one's side or not.

A simple way to improve this aspect of the game could have been to introduce a dice reroll mechanic or conditions to add dices to the rolls. To make the battles less frustrating, a retreat mechanic, without automatic defeat, or taking into account injuries for our units could have been implemented, especially considering that the opposing units do indeed have an intermediate state representing the injury.

I really enjoyed my different attempts to complete this game, despite its few flaws. In a way, the difficulty of the game and its unforgiving aspect of chance is perhaps a clumsy, but quite effective, way to increase the difficulty enough to guarantee good replayability. If I ever manage to win, I will update this article.

Setting up the game takes about fifteen minutes when you get used to it. The games, on the other hand, and whatever the box says, probably last closer to three hours than the hour and a half announced on the box.

Strategy guide

Here are my strategy tips, based on my notes and experiences from the few games I've played:

• Before the end of the first turn: capture Lombardy by battle to obtain the iron crown of the king of the Lombards;
• Use or promote level 3 scaras as soon as possible, even if it means continuing to do battles until it is successful;
• Always buy as many military units as possible in the levy phase to anticipate the army strength requirements to come (reserve your money if necessary);
• If a region does not have a church, build one as soon as possible and complete it on the next turn (can be done from any region, not just the same one);
• Use the "Siege" action against the barbarian leaders, these are usually strength one or two, rarely three. This is probably the only way to keep control of the barbarian territories without attempting difficult battles;
• Preferably only do battles against easy territories like blue ones, especially when the dead pool space has a lot of units or an end of turn token.