A German alternate history book from 2005 by SF grandmaster Wolfgang Jeschke. Known as Das Cusanus Spiel [sic] in the original, and translated into English since 2013/14.

The titular game is a game Cusanus really invented IOTL: Called ludo globi, it's played on a table onto which concentric circles are painted. You play it with balls the size of an orange and have to throw them so they roll as close to the center as possible. The difficulty lies in the fact that the balls are somewhat irregular, so they don't roll straight but in curves.

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Starting in the year of 2052, Europe is a hellhole or pretty close at least: Global Warming has expanded the deserts, the seas are rising; many refugees try to go to Europe (many Bangladeshis and such in fact have been settled there, either in container cities or their own villages); several fascist movement like the ASEN (“Aryan Sons of the European North”), the Praetorians or the KKK derivate KICOB try to fight them; the French nuclear power plant in Cattenom has blown up and irradiated huge parts of Central Europe, as far as Poland; the EU has crumbled, states like e.g. Bavaria have proclaimed independence, for better or for worse; the terrorist group “Acqua è Vita” protests against the waste of water by drowning millionaires in their swimming pools; and oil has practically run out (although technology isn't dead yet).

In this world, the Italian botanicist Domenica Ligrina is hired for a very special mission…

As a bonus for AH fans, Austria-Hungary (incl. South Tyrol, Friaul and Slovenia) has been resurrected. They have the new Vatican, with the pope sitting in Salzburg now, and war airships named after various Habsburg rulers (and Franz Ferdinand, Prinz Eugen etc.).

• 1460: Nicolaus Cusanus, supported by the pope, founds a new research institute, the Accademia Romana. Which will be lead by scientists like Regiomontanus, Leonardo da Vinci, Giordano Bruno and Kepler in the future.
• 1467: The Accademia has to flee to Milan, where they got support from the Sforza.
• 1478: The gunmaker Corbinian Seeshaupter invents the “Brennkreisel” (burning spinner), a primitive but working engine. Also called a “mechanical slave”.
• 1480: Genoa joins the Italian Alliance between Venice, Milan, Savoy, Florence, Monferrat and Naples.
• 1486: Giovanni Caboto discovers Terranova for Genoa.
• 1492: The Sapienza invents primitive rockets (called “red kite” or “fire gadfly”) which can be used for war.
• 1494: Italian Alliance defeats French invaders under Charles VIII.
• 1512: Michelangelo complains about pollution from burning spinners and burned naphta.
• 1620: Counter-reformation fails.
• 1630: War between Catholics and Protestants ended by peace of Prague.
• 1672: First mechanical calculation engine built.
• 1676: Constantinople reconquered by Christians.
• 1682: Second Holy War: Turks defeated; Aleppo, Damaskus, Jerusalem, Cairo taken.
• 1705: Suez Canal finished.
• 1752: First airship (“Glory of Glasgow”) crosses the Atlantic.
• 1763: First motor airplane, “Skylark of Massachusetts”.
• 1780: New England gains independence, thanks to their Arrow airplanes.
• 1819: Hamburg evacuated because of the storm flood.
• 1825: Seas rising - Gay-Lussac suspects that excessive burning of petroleum is the reason.
• 1845: Breakthrough of electric computers. Ada Lovelace is involved.
• 1871: Maldives flooded.
• 1886: First nuclear power plants built by Thomas Alva Edison.
• 1899: Drought in India, 60 million people become refugees.
• 1906: After the San Francisco earthquake, two Maxwell power plants destroyed. Radiation disease spreads. President of California proclaims national state of emergency.
• 1909: Kaiser Wilhelm proclaims the conquest of the Moon. German empire sends four men to the Moon - but the flight back fails, all of them die.
• 1914: First Paneuropean conference.
• 1918: European unification - and keeping out Third World refugees - decided, Winston Churchill celebrated.
• 1923: German nationalists protesting the European unification beaten down, leaders Hitler and Ludendorff killed.
• 1933: United States of Europe formally founded in Versailles.
• 1936: Generals Francisco Franco and Benito Mussolini retreat from Morocco / southern Italy.
• 1945: Europe's president Charles de Gaulle declares Europe a fortress, an arc that'll carry European culture into the future.

As you can see, the author of this work makes mincemeat out of allohistorical causality, with far too many blatant parallelism reemerging, including the exact same people as in OTL, often in the exact same positions as in OTL, still being born centuries after the PoD. This is highly implausible, especially in a world with such divergent technological progress, including Moon landings in the early 20th century.

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