Gamers will need to deal with fractured kingdoms and a number of powerful rivals and invasion forces

Sep 18, 2014 06:48 GMT  ·  By

The team at Paradox Development Studios is getting ready to launch yet another expansion for Crusader Kings II, called Charlemagne, which will focus on the powerful leader that managed to forge the first powerful kingdom of the early Middle Ages.

The first full development diary for the title offers more details about the changes that are introduced by the new 769 start date and the way the political situation all over Europe is represented in the grand strategy experience.

Tobias Bodlund, a scripter on the Crusader Kings II team, states, “We've added a bunch of new cultures to the game. A few of these could arguably have been present in The Old Gods already, but going back to 769 we felt we really needed to shake up the map to properly represent the changing cultural landscape of the Early Middle Ages.”

More options for gamers

Crusader Kings II fans will be able to choose to play as a Visigoth ruler belonging to the Iberian culture group, and the provinces they control will tend to evolve into Castilian, Catalan or Andalusian depending on game interactions.

The old Suebi Germans are also present in the same region, and to the north, Crusader Kings II – Charlemagne will include the Franks, who are initially Latinized Germans.

The developers add, “Other new cultures you will find are Saxons, Lombards, Picts and Somali. Also, there are no Russians yet, but instead various East Slavic peoples such as the Ilmenians, Severians and Volhynians. We've revisited cultural dynamics in some other places as well. For example, the emergence of Norman culture is now somewhat more likely than before.”

The Old Norse religion in Crusader Kings II is now known as German and there’s a full blown Ibadi faith, with an entirely new Pagan set of beliefs based around the Sun God Zun, located somewhere in modern day Afghanistan.

The Jews are also present in Semien in Ethiopia.

Changes to existing cultures and empires

Charlemagne for Crusader Kings II also makes the Vikings more focused on internal matters for the first few decades and aims to simulate the First Iconoclasm period in the life of the Byzantine Empire, which the player can continue to enforce or can abandon.

The Abbasid dynasty might be the superpower of the era, with territory stretching from the Indus to Magreb, but their actual power is to convince their vassals to actually follow their lead.

The Kingdom of the Franks, on which the expansion is focused, will see Charlemagne and Carloman each ruling half of the empire, with a claim on the title of the other to stimulate their rivalry.

Crusader Kings II – Charlemagne Images (3 Images)

Visigoth situation
Eastern viewByzantine power
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