Original Description/Intro: ^ The year is 850. After a period a chaos surrounding the fall of Rome, ^Europe has settled down to a period of several hundred years of relative peace and ^stabillity. All that is about to drastically change. The Vikings have begun a two ^hundred year period of pillaging and conquering that will leave almost no part of ^the West untouched. By the time they finally settled down after converting to ^Christianity they had profoundly changed history. The trouble was, they had great ^difficulty holding onto the areas they conquered, and were unable to use their ^military prowess to forge a large empire. Can you learn from their mistakes? ^ The game has also been just as throughly designed and playtested for the ^human player to be either the Abbasids or the Byzantine Empire. These two advanced ^powers are fighting a holy war over the control of the Mediterranean. The Abbasids are also facing a breakdown in control in the far west of their empire. ^ ^TRY FIRST: The Vikings ^FOR A VERY DIFFERENT KIND OF GAME: The Abbasids or Byzantines ^ALSO A GOOD IDEA: The Hungarians ^IFFY: Franks or Holy Roman Empire ^PLEASE DON'T: The Independents