Playing the Charlemagne expansion.

The idea — play as the mighty Byzantine Empire from the new start date with the Charlemagne expansion, right through to the end of the CK2 time frame (1440 AD) and then onto EU4 and the final date of 1821, using the conversion DLC.

Why Byzantium? Well why the fuck not.

One of the joys of paradox’s ‘stupid map games’ (as my girlfriend calls them) is the possibility to experience alternate history. The big ‘What Ifs’.

What if Byzantium had recovered from the Muslim conquests and built on it’s gains, in the style of a new Justinian or Augustus and kept it’s thousand year old empire going, strengthening enough to counter the fourth crusade & Venice, or the onslaught of the Sultanate of Rum and the later Ottomans?

Would they have played a similar role to the Ottomans in early modern Europe? Would they have controlled the trade routes to the east and out-competed their Western European neighbours in India or even the New World?

And, since it’s CK2, what if the Emperor in Constantinople was the son of the devil or a really good charioteer?

But I get ahead of myself. In the begining is the…

START — 769 AD

439 Years since the founding of Constantinople.

The Empire is not what it was in the days of Justinian I — decades of costly war with the age old enemy Persia left us tired and the emergence of the Arab nomads from their desert home, took us by surprise. We lost much but fared better than the Persians — who now follow the same faith as their conquerors and are wholly subservient to them.

The Caliphate rules Christian lands once ruled by Christian Caesars or Ancient Greek generals, from the pillars of Hercules to the river Indus. Lands that should once again be Greek and follow the true faith.

To our west are the many barbarian hordes led by the the perfidious bishop of Rome. To the north the Bulgars that Boris bashed and further north still pagans in their woods and on their horses.

The Abbasids are too powerful to take on straight away, so we must turn our gaze to other areas in order to become strong enough to destroy our enemies and reclaims Constantine’s empire. NAY, ALEXANDER’S!!