-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Paradox Grand Strategy - Thread of Fighting WW2 as Bithynia
- Thread starter Walshicus
- Start date
I can already see someone modding that in for 90% of characters with an option to call crusades on the 10% that allow border gore.
How comparable/detailed is it compared to ck2?
Glad they are finally introducing some of the better mechanics from CK2 into EU, should make the game even more interesting. Guess I should join a new mp-game to check it out!
You don't get to kill your ruler or your heir, that's for sure. But they can get traits every 10 years (or following a great battle for example) and when the ruler dies the consort takes over the regency. And you can disinherit the heir if it's that bad for a penalty of -50 prestige. Still digging for the rest.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
A billion dislikes already, yep.
I can understand it, they probably don't have too many critical features for the upcoming DLC they can really extricate fairly for free users. Like other things they've talked about in the past were wanting to improve the AI for the pacific theatre... if that wasn't free there would be equal or greater meltdowns probably. At least the Blitz being given to the AI will make it more functional for free users, we can already create encirclements manually as players and that will even the playing field.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Shh, nobody remembers that the old model was
1) Base game is broken and only gets a couple of minor patches
2) Buy a whole expansion or get nothing
3) Fuck you
hobblygobbly
Member
Wow I am loving the Rights of Man expansion, it's completely changed the dynamic of the game with the ruler traits/personalities due to how it directly affects how the AI behaves. It's a lot more organic and you can make sense of why countries are going to war, their strategic goals in the region, etc from ruler's point of view from the personalities, and who it's formed allies with, etc. It becomes even more potent when it combines with the new diplo actions from Great Powers (creating some really interesting large scale wars). I've seen a lot of people talking about it basically bringing "world wars" to the game but I haven't experienced such large wars yet. Intervention by Great Powers is creating some really good gameplay.
Edit: Also the AI is way smarter now with defence, especially with besieging/defending forts. I guess that's due to the fort changes in general.
Edit: Also the AI is way smarter now with defence, especially with besieging/defending forts. I guess that's due to the fort changes in general.
Poodlestrike
Banned
How's the new tech system? Easily my most-desired feature.
I wonder if they'll ever expand it to parallel institutions. It's a bit railroad-y to have one "correct" order of things and suffer if you don't want to upgrade to global trade or whatever.
Huh, so it brings elements of Victoria 2 as well as CK2, then? I really liked how Great Powers were implemented in Vic2.
Hyperactivity
Banned
I've heard nothing but good things about Right of Man. Definitely going to have to let myself get it soon, but if I get it right now I feel like all my time will be spent solely on it
hobblygobbly
Member
Yep pretty much and works fairly well in creating a more dynamic game, the overhauled tech group system has also aided this because it doesn't always mean certain countries will be crippled. The only weird thing about the Great Power system right now which might be a little oversight/bug which is easily fixed is that say, Ming, who doesn't know about all of Europe at an early date can intervene in a war where it may not know all of the belligerents on either side, but a few. I think you should know all of them before you can intervene.
Speaking of Vicky 2, one of the QA guys at PDX (Da9l) over last 2-3 weeks has been streaming on twitch the game because he's trying to learn it with help from others, maybe I'm reading too much into it but makes me think they might be working on an expansion or Vicky 3.
A late reply (and I guess there was a sale and now it's over?). Any ways I'd recommend Common Sense and The Cossacks. Common Sense got an update due to 1.18's tech group overhaul with Institutions, it enables you to gain points towards having a presence of the oldest non-embraced institution in the province when you increase development on it.
For example this was useful for me as Muscovy/Russia when Colonialism came about. It was taking a long time for it to reach me, so I increased development in one of my provinces with each increase giving me more and more points until it was fully present in that province. It takes at most 2000 monarch points to do that, so yes it is expensive but can be very worth it if you want to even get ahead of other countries or falling really behind in it. After it was present in my one province I was able to embrace it fully.
This is only possible with the Common Sense DLC because the provincial development system comes from that expansion.
The reason I recommend The Cossacks is mostly because I like the features that come with it and I make use of them all the time, such as the favours system, designating provinces foreign provinces as interest (AI does the same), culture conversion changes, the Estates system, spy networks that I think reduce your tech penalty if the target has higher tech than you (I think it's in this expansion or it may have been the patch).
Also worth noting that with Mare Nastrum you get fort siege benefits against an enemy assuming you have a spy network on that enemy.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
They've mentioned they're working on 3 new projects, and it's highly likely that at least one of them is a new Victoria. The fans have been clamouring for it, it's the only mainline Paradox series that hasn't had a NuParadox Perpetual DLC edition released, and Vicky 2 got a new patch at the end of last year.
A new Victoria would be interesting.
Victoria 2 was close to impenetrable for me, some mechanics baffled me completely, but the last few Paradox games have felt a bit less complex and obscure, so I'm interested to see what will happen with it.
I'm still holding out hope for a Cold War/Modern Era grand strategy game. They could go in some interesting directions with that.
Vicky 3 would be delightful too.
The interface is pretty trash and the popups are annoying, but the underlying mechanics are pretty amazing. Separating your whole population out into as many different groups as applicable with different beliefs, needs and jobs is pretty genius. This added to a functional global economy simulates social mobility, strife and revolutions.
Not to mention the amazing global conflict system that forces even the biggest blobs into action or risk their status.
So my first "real" paradox game is HOI4 (i have others in my library, only never really played them. And I really enjoy it. My question is: how easy is it to get into the other games? Are the mechanics comparable? I found HOI4 relatively easy to get into (I tried CK2 and failed a couple of times) and really love it.
Just watch someone play it a bit to get the general idea. All the mechanics are there in tooltips (or the ledger) and just go fiddle around with it a bit.
The Great Powers system is amazing. Really brings forth the complex network of alliances that dragged Europe into WW1. Vic2 might be my fav Paradox game (or maybe it's CK2).
And it can very well happen over some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.
Hyperactivity
Banned
Victoria looks like a really awesome series to get into, I would just need a lot of time to dedicate to it at first to overcome the initial hurdle, so I'd probably wait for a some holiday when I'm free.
Tag-teaming is the best hidden Paradox feature. I'm really happy it works across games and hasn't been "fixed" yet.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
HoI4 DLC announced:
Together For Victory. commonwealth focused expansion.
Today's DD was Canada's national focus tree. Looks extremely thorough.
They also announced that the expansion pass will be covering 3 DLC expansions instead of 2 because the first one wasn't as meaty as they'd originally planned.
Together For Victory. commonwealth focused expansion.
Today's DD was Canada's national focus tree. Looks extremely thorough.
They also announced that the expansion pass will be covering 3 DLC expansions instead of 2 because the first one wasn't as meaty as they'd originally planned.
Wait, so it's a limited expansion pass? Paradox gonna Paradox.
Basileus777
Member
This is where I hate Paradox's DLC model. It's one thing to heap small expansions on an already good product, it's another when you have something fundamentally flawed and have to buy a bunch of expensive DLCs to get something decent years later.
MonorailCat
Member
What? 3 > 2. So its an expanded expansion pass. Not limited.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Did you think you would get possibly 3-4 years of content dlcs, 2 per year valued between 15-25 dollars each for such a modest price
The deal was always quite explicit, the expansion pass was for the first two expansions. It was announced and advertised on the store page that way. Podcat has stated that with HoI4 they want to move away from "micro DLCs" where every expansion comes with like one or two crappy minor packs too, so the content that would normally go into those (except probably licenced song packs, which I imagine will still exist separately) will be bundled into the main expansions now. They will probably categorize them further into expansion pass 1, expansion pass 2... etc to simplify buying them for new players.
The new DLC model also comes with lots of free features alongside every major DLC pack. EU4 and CK2 are not even remotely the same game they were at launch even if you never bought a single DLC pack. HoI4 is going to be the same way. Things like AI improvements and UI tweaks are coming for everybody, not just those that buy the expansions. Further, they typically give some of the major mechanical overhauls for free, in situations when it's not easy to maintain two separate versions of the game. Like they can't just completely scrap the air war for something new in a DLC, then not also change it for the base game.
If you bought HoI4 day 1, normal edition with no fancy stuff, you're going to get constant updates for the next 3 years. You won't get all of the features that the DLCs come with, but you WILL be getting a steadily improving game.
If you bought HoI3 day 1, you got a fucked game that was unstable in addition to being obtuse and unusable, you got a few stability patches and then you were up shit creek. You didn't keep getting updates for years, you had to buy the expansions because that's just how the old model worked. Even after 3 expansion packs and 4 years of patches, it's still a fucked game with a glitchy supply system, a major lack of explanation as to how half the techs work, bugged statistics like "Air defence" that don't do anything in the game, braindead AI that is easy to stomp for any skilled player and does dumb things all the time... etc.
The HoI series has always been rough. HoI4 is off to a rocky start because of some design choices, but I really do think it's going to turn out well.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Yes and no. It is, to this day, still highly flawed. At the same time I think it might be one of the games that diverged from the previous entries in the series the most in it's 1.0 incarnation. Really feels so different from HoI3 on every level.
I launched Operation Sealion with ten divisions and won WW2 in 1939. As Fascist Netherlands.
There's a few problems with HOI4.
But to be fair, there's a really good base there. The production and logistics side of the game is really strong and easy to use. If they can fix the AI and stop the division spam so that El Salvador doesn't have 50 divisions, then I think it'll be great.
Oh for sure. They made a grand strategy game set in WW2 rather than a war game. I just personally think that was a smart move as Paradox is more equipped to deliver a good grand strategy game.
I also really think HOI3 was not very good. Even with the expansions. It was cumbersome and micro-heavy. So them going the other way with it is okay in my book.
The AI is still lacking, and I think the air / naval stuff needs an overhaul. But in terms of "let me pretend to be Churchill and take over Eurasia," it's a blast.
Well, nice to them to explain it, just a bit confusing in the context of most games having expansion passes for all the expansions.Did you think you would get possibly 3-4 years of content dlcs, 2 per year valued between 15-25 dollars each for such a modest price
The deal was always quite explicit, the expansion pass was for the first two expansions. It was announced and advertised on the store page that way. Podcat has stated that with HoI4 they want to move away from "micro DLCs" where every expansion comes with like one or two crappy minor packs too, so the content that would normally go into those (except probably licenced song packs, which I imagine will still exist separately) will be bundled into the main expansions now. They will probably categorize them further into expansion pass 1, expansion pass 2... etc to simplify buying them for new players.
They should really understand that they need to build up good will first, make the game really good and then nickel and dime everyone.
hobblygobbly
Member
What I miss from HoI 3 is the logistics/supply system. I want that level of strategy back since I find it to be very important to the overall strategy, it's important on how well and easily you can mobilise and move equipment, supply it, etc, and how that influences battle strategy/front lines and theaters. The way it is implemented now in HoI 4 is way too abstracted for my liking such as how the supply network works. I get that a lot of people disliked the tedium of the micro managing of supply/logistics in the past but I am sure there is middle ground and most of it came down to bad UI resulting in the tedium.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
It's labeled "Expansion Pass #1", so while if you just heard that there was some kind of expansion pass you may not realise, I don't think people who bought it were confused or misled.
The reality of the pdox model is that as soon as they come back from the post-launch holiday, they start working on expansions straight away, but it depends on what exactly is borked. Currently it's AI problems, and they did improve in several ways over the last few patches, but 95% of the dev team can't work on AI. They're working on focus trees and artwork and music and UI elements and other things for the most part. It doesn't make much sense to have them all idle for months and months while they wait for SteelVolt to fix some problematic aspect of the AI's behavior.
It looks bad, no argument, but I don't think anybody is losing or missing out on anything by having everyone keep working. Looking at it objectively, we're still getting AI improvements for free, there will still be free features with the patch, and they've stated their #1 priority for AI development in the next patch is the War in the Pacific. Thank god, because that is currently the only part of the game I would truly agree is "Broken" (not just the forum rage version of broken where broken means "not working how I hoped it would before the game came out") - AI Japan NEVER invades America, and AI America NEVER invades Japan, or even starts island hopping effectively. Other than that, they need to fix intermittent front abandonment and make them put up a bit more of a fight.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
EU4 is like driving a car, Civilization V/VI is like playing with a toy car. You'll be fine.
Vinter
Member
After some time with CK2, I decided to try to finally learn EU4 better.
Of course I fucked up right out of the gate with going for colonization without really reading up on it. So now I am locked in a on-off war with Burgundy and friends for Calais. I have tried to be non-aggressive with England, since all I did in CK was war. Game is really good so far though. I just need to get better.
Of course I fucked up right out of the gate with going for colonization without really reading up on it. So now I am locked in a on-off war with Burgundy and friends for Calais. I have tried to be non-aggressive with England, since all I did in CK was war. Game is really good so far though. I just need to get better.