Age of Empires II: Joan of Arc, Vaucouleurs to Rouen

Age of Empires II opens with Joan in a French army camp at Vaucouleurs, asking a band of soldiers to take her to the Dauphin. The game is following the record here: in 1428 Joan petitioned the garrison commander, Robert de Baudricourt, for an escort to Chinon, and eventually won his agreement. On 23 February 1429 she rode out with six companions through the Porte de France, which served as both castle gate and town gate. The gate still stands, its present remains dating from a 1733 restoration, and a medieval festival is held there each 23 February.

Visitor guidance: The Porte de France stands in the town; a medieval festival is held here each 23 February.

The opening journey ends at Chinon, where the Dauphin holds court in a royal fortress. The game sends Joan through hostile country to reach the Dauphin's castle, and the real journey ended here too: she arrived on 6 March 1429 and was lodged in the Tour du Coudray while Charles's councillors had her cross-examined at Poitiers. Charles VII used Chinon as his residence between 1427 and 1450, when Touraine was almost all the territory left to him. The royal lodgings, roofless for two centuries, now have a mock 15th-century interior; the castle is a museum and a major tourist attraction.

Visitor guidance: The royal fortress is a major tourist attraction with a museum; the Tour du Coudray and the restored royal lodgings can be visited.

The Orléans scenario is the campaign's centrepiece: Joan's army frees the city from the English. The real Joan prayed in Orléans Cathedral while the siege was running, was wounded by an arrow at les Tourelles on 7 May 1429, and saw the English abandon the city the next day. The cathedral she knew was badly damaged by Huguenots in 1568 and rebuilt over two centuries. Its five-aisled nave is one of the widest in France, and ten 19th-century stained-glass windows retell her story. The cathedral is still the city's, a national monument since 1862.

Visitor guidance: The cathedral is a national historic monument; ten 19th-century windows retell Joan's story.

The third scenario moves the war down the Loire, and Patay is where the campaign and the record part company. The campaign lists Patay among the cities Joan frees; in fact she was not at the battle, having stayed with the main body while La Hire and Jean Poton de Xaintrailles led the vanguard. On 18 June 1429 the French caught the retreating English near the village and destroyed them, losing about a hundred men to more than two thousand English dead. The victory opened the march to Reims. The battlefield lies around the village of Patay.

Location precision: The battle was fought near the village; the exact ground is not marked, so the pin sits on Patay.

The Reims scenario is the campaign's cleanest match with the record. Joan's army took the city in 1429 and Charles VII was crowned in the cathedral on 17 July. Reims had been the traditional coronation church of the French kings, and the campaign follows the army there. Two statues of Joan now stand at the cathedral, one outside and one within, and the building, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991, receives about a million visitors a year.

Visitor guidance: The cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and receives about a million visitors a year; look for the two Joan statues.

The Paris scenario takes the army to the walls, and the record is blunt about what happened there. On 8 September 1429 the French attacked the Porte Saint-Honoré; Joan was wounded by a crossbow bolt in the thigh, and after four hours Charles VII called off the assault. Paris stayed in English hands. The gate is gone, but a plaque at 161–163 rue Saint-Honoré marks where Joan fell, and the site of the medieval gate is now Place André-Malraux. The campaign calls it betrayal; the sources record a failed assault.

Visitor guidance: The gate is gone; a plaque at 161–163 rue Saint-Honoré marks where Joan was wounded.

The campaign follows Joan to Compiègne, where she is captured. On 23 May 1430 the defenders sortied against the Burgundians at Margny; the attack failed, the rearguard was cut off, and Joan stayed with it, carrying her banner. She surrendered to Lionel, Bastard of Vendôme. The town gate closed before the rearguard could get back inside, and historians still argue whether that was caution or betrayal by Guillaume de Flavy. The skirmish ground lay at Margny, northeast of Compiègne.

Location precision: The skirmish took place outside the walls at Margny; the pin marks Margny-lès-Compiègne.

The campaign ends with a martyrdom. Its final scenario is called 'A Perfect Martyr', and the story closes with Joan burned at the stake before her comrades attack the English at Castillon to avenge her. The real ending came at Rouen, where she was tried from January 1431 and burned in the Vieux-Marché on 30 May. The square is now the Place du Vieux-Marché, with the modern Church of St Joan of Arc at its centre; the building is shaped to suggest an upturned Viking boat and a fish. A cross was ordered to be erected on the site of the execution.

Visitor guidance: The Place du Vieux-Marché is in the old town; the modern Church of St Joan of Arc stands at its centre.