Emperor Guiges III of Francia, 1449-1453 AD

The Last Emperor.

Time for the final lineage check!

I look a bit more trim than recent emperors, which makes sense considering they died of obesity and gout. Let’s try to keep up with the Peloton this time.

The vassals are uppity per usual in succession times, so I hire a few malcontents on the council and let the gold flow freely. It would be annoying to end the game in a civil war, but it’s been known to happen. I also hand off the kingdom of Jerusalem to my son and heir Valeran.

How is the empire looking, in these its final days?

Not bad. Again, I could spend time chiseling away all over to push back those borders here and there, but let us be content and beat our swords into plowshares etc.

I spend a nice long idyll attending and hosting feasts, calling a fruitful hunt, naming babies and dutifully paying off discontented vassals as they raise their insolent hands for bribes. My daughter Hodierne comes of age, and I notice she’s betrothed to a relative. I break up that nonsense and marry her to a nice guy with no genetics in common named Ábel Komitopulov.

And sure enough, once all the feasts and hunts and babies and marriages are cleared away, it’s time to call it a Day.

Kind of an anticlimax really! Crusader Kings III is famously abrupt when the game time runs out, not even throwing up an interesting stats or summary screen for the long epoch of gameplay. Still, I can suss out a few interesting tidbits from the lineage. For example, I fought in 254 wars throughout the de Thouars dynasty, with Empress Agnès the most warlike at 39 wars all by herself. She was also the second-longest-serving ruler, after only King Sigismond I, who reigned for 63 years.

At the end of the game there were 2,953 living de Thouars, spread over 108 houses. Pretty impressive considering the whole thing started with a single dude, humble Count Geoffroy de Thouars.

So now what? Game over! Go home! Another season of Royal Dispatch is possible, as the game has added expansions since this cycle began. But I also want to figure out a way to make the late game more compelling to read about, so may dive into the weirder mods and mission-driven playthrough styles I’ve been reading about.

Now go touch grass!