Constantinople—the once-grand Nova Roma of the Eastern Roman Empire—is now home to Adam Dundas’ small, beleaguered occupation army. Every few months an Ottoman force appears outside the Theodosian Walls, intent on sieging the city. The English garrison dutifully marches out and repels the attackers, but attrition, desertion and disease are taking a heavy toll. In November of 1464, 4,400 English knights and infantry occupied the city; by January of 1465, only 3,300 remain…

An exhausted England rejoices at the Treaty of Toulouse and the end of the Hundred Years War. Church bells exult the great victory, and John Neville earns the sobriquet “Hammer of the French”. Finally, England’s Norman rights are confirmed…

Regular readers will know I have a fondness for history, so it’s no surprise that I like computer games that allow the player to take a historical situation and try to reproduce the flow of history, or alter its outcome.

One of my favourite games in this genre was Europa Universalis II, which lets the player select one of two-hundred-odd nations across the globe, and shepherd its military, diplomatic, financial, technological, colonial, religious and philosophical development from 1419 to 1820…