The Age of Men is over.
The Time of Gigaknight has come.
The Vatican City, 1146 AD, and 90 years into a game ofCrusader Kings III.
It is time, once again, to choose a new Pope.
Once, this would have been a gathering seething with the ambitions of powerful men.
They are all that is left.
Without a word, each of the defeated clerics step forwards to rummage in a velvet sack.
Tokens rattle beneath their hands.
Most of these men will live another year.
But after the prayers subside, a lone sob continues to echo in the chamber.
These are the tears of Pope Leo XXXVI, who has drawn the black token.
And he weeps, for he will soon meet his God.
The wasteland of ash and bones beneath their boots was called France, once.
But is England now.
Everywhere becomes England, in the end.
His shoulders rise like sea-cliffs from the mass of soldiery around him.
He raises a hand.
Fingers like the truncheons of serjeants flick together with a snap that is more like a thud.
He is the latest victim of Gigaknight Excelsior, the most powerful entity ever to draw breath.
Iveenjoyed the Northern Lords DLC, certainly.
But this weekend, I did not feel like doing something creative and interesting.
The result was Gigaknight Excelsior, the Maximum King, and he was everything I dreamed he might be.
But thats when the feasting came in.
Largely, this meant bursting Popes.
In CK3, anyone is free to start a plot to assassinate anyone else.
The bigger a plots target is, however, the smaller the chances of success.
If Gigaknight wanted anyone dead, they died.
Even if Gigaknights plans were revealed, he did not care.
Nothing could save his victims, once he had willed their end.
Just to be clear, too, this wasn’t me being edgily anti-Christian.
*Yes, I know, it was the Quinquiral Palace at the time.
I dont know, because Ive not got that far yet.
I suspect Gigaknight will live some way into his second century, but even he must die eventually.
And what will happen then will befascinating.
