Paradox Interactive Games Thread

[GoTfan]

Should I buy Victoria 2 in the future?

I can't say much (haven't played it in detail) but it definitely looks more complicated than the others.

[Continential]

Should I buy Victoria 2 in the future?

I can't say much (haven't played it in detail) but it definitely looks more complicated than the others.

How complicated is it?

[Ye We Can]

Can someone explain to me how not to be bad at stellaris

[GoTfan]

Can someone explain to me how not to be bad at stellaris

[Woody]

I decided to check out EU4, and after some months of playing I can with confidence say that this game sucks. I started out as Muscovy, wanted to completely annex Novgorod in one sweep, however, warscore prohibits you from doing sh**t, so you have to wait like 40 years to take over an arctic wasteland because of truces. converting foreign religions is next to impossible, and it takes a butload of money too. Playing as a Western-Central European nation is also annoying, especially when you take a province from the HRE (inb4 100k stacks of coalitons against you). The navy aspect of the game is boring (What's the point of barques anyways?), trade is confusing, you always get bad heirs, you can't get claims on overseas territory, it takes over a hundred years to embrace a new institution, culture conversion is a useless feature, sieges take too long and it completely decimates your manpower, and before you say I should use use mercenaries, they're expensive and they use up much of my economy, colonies are useless and take up to much money, AI allies are braindead when it comes to helping you in a war, and the most ANNOYING problem I have with this game is that when the enemy AI goes to war with you they carpet siege you with a dozen of 2k-1k stacks and proceed to penetrate your provinces, which in turn slaughters your warscore, and you get a ton of war exhaustion, this forces me to chase their units around my lands, which keep in mind is hard since the AI will just proceed to run away from your army and just not be confronted. Also, the Ottomans are OP.

And don't get me started on their DLC pitch, the developers are money hungry. Tell me, why are people buying these games?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I decided to check out EU4, and after some months of playing I can with confidence say that this game sucks. I started out as Muscovy, wanted to completely annex Novgorod in one sweep, however, warscore prohibits you from doing sh**t, so you have to wait like 40 years to take over an arctic wasteland because of truces. converting foreign religions is next to impossible, and it takes a butload of money too. Playing as a Western-Central European nation is also annoying, especially when you take a province from the HRE (inb4 100k stacks of coalitons against you). The navy aspect of the game is boring (What's the point of barques anyways?), trade is confusing, you always get bad heirs, you can't get claims on overseas territory, it takes over a hundred years to embrace a new institution, culture conversion is a useless feature, sieges take too long and it completely decimates your manpower, and before you say I should use use mercenaries, they're expensive and they use up much of my economy, colonies are useless and take up to much money, AI allies are braindead when it comes to helping you in a war, and the most ANNOYING problem I have with this game is that when the enemy AI goes to war with you they carpet siege you with a dozen of 2k-1k stacks and proceed to penetrate your provinces, which in turn slaughters your warscore, and you get a ton of war exhaustion, this forces me to chase their units around my lands, which keep in mind is hard since the AI will just proceed to run away from your army and just not be confronted. Also, the Ottomans are OP.

And don't get me started on their DLC pitch, the developers are money hungry. Tell me, why are people buying these games?

I have the same level of frustration with Victoria II. Their international crisis thing causes the same thing, and you do amazingly well, but then look and find out your war score is sh**t because Russia is overrun and occupied, which means you end up losing part of your territory instead.

Victoria Revolutions and EU II are far more playable in that sense, though allies are just as brain dead.

HOI 4 did bring out one rather good feature and that was the AI helping you maintain a front and keep it balanced. I have long said that if Victoria III every happens, this feature needs to be part of it towards the end, possibly with the ability to unlock it in the military tech tree. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Paradox has often struggled from one extreme to the other. Either you have to occupy territory through grinding seiges and thus consquests that Napoleon did in ten years, take hundreds to pull off. Or you have a massive battle and that settles it all right there. In history you had both transpire and the the only one that has done somewhat well with some kind of balance is CK II.

[Canis]

Should I buy Victoria 2 in the future?

I can't say much (haven't played it in detail) but it definitely looks more complicated than the others.

How complicated is it?

Pretty complicated but if you watch a few tutorials you can get a grip of it pretty easily anyone want to do multiplayer vic2 game?

[7,052,770]

I decided to check out EU4, and after some months of playing I can with confidence say that this game sucks. I started out as Muscovy, wanted to completely annex Novgorod in one sweep, however, warscore prohibits you from doing sh**t, so you have to wait like 40 years to take over an arctic wasteland because of truces. converting foreign religions is next to impossible, and it takes a butload of money too. Playing as a Western-Central European nation is also annoying, especially when you take a province from the HRE (inb4 100k stacks of coalitons against you). The navy aspect of the game is boring (What's the point of barques anyways?), trade is confusing, you always get bad heirs, you can't get claims on overseas territory, it takes over a hundred years to embrace a new institution, culture conversion is a useless feature, sieges take too long and it completely decimates your manpower, and before you say I should use use mercenaries, they're expensive and they use up much of my economy, colonies are useless and take up to much money, AI allies are braindead when it comes to helping you in a war, and the most ANNOYING problem I have with this game is that when the enemy AI goes to war with you they carpet siege you with a dozen of 2k-1k stacks and proceed to hying these games?

While I haven't played that many hours of EU4, it definitely didn't grab me like CK2 did. I would recommend trying that one.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If you want to play CK II, watch Arumba's Tutorial Series on Ireland. Very helpful.  CK II is a game about characters, not countries.

You are often able to accomplish more from marrying someone and murdering their brother/father than through war.


Also there are three DLC's that will make it more playable and I got all three for like $20.

Sons of Abraham - Lets you do the borrow money from the Jews/expel the Jews gimmick that Arumba uses a lot. I have not had to use it, but if you are in a bind and need mercs to bail you out, I guess it is an option. Remember though always, always ALWAYS PAY YOUR MERCS!
Way of Life - Helps you better mold and shape your character
Legacy of Rome - Ambitions let you further improve your character stats and you can get retinues.

Retinues are expensive but help skew the power dynamic in your favor against the factions that pop up.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Speaking of CK II, I recently (spread out over a couple weeks) played through a game as William The Conqueror. I did this back in early 2018 before I got the DLCs mentioned above and did miserably at managing the vassals after I conquered England. It is not hard to actually conquer England even if the Norwegians get it first, the problem is holding it since you have a bunch of Saxon vassals and they all hate you. You need to bury them, one way or another. Either by creating Ducal titles for Norman allies or literally burying them six feat under.

This time has gone much better, though I did make one tactical error and that was landing my heir, which hindered my ability to do match maker with my grandchildren and cost me a chance at Scotland via Marry/murder. I did notice a lot of historical names in the court as lowborn courtiers (Mowbray, Mortimer, etc) so I made them Dukes trying to get them as close to their historical lands as possible just for kicks. One of the ahistorical daughters I had after the Conquest, had become "friends" with a lowborn boy, so I betrothed them, tutored the boy into a military man and made him Duke of Lancaster. Sadly he died at like 36. She was one of the younger daughters and something of a favorite with great stats. I married older ones to the King of France and a Kievan Revolt leader that succeeded in forming Ruthenia, but they both died at like 22/23 years of age, though both had managed to have sons first.

I hate to jinx it but for some reason in this play through William is like Superman, its almost 1100, he is over 70 and still kicking. Kind of makes me mad because I was expecting him to die by like 1092 at the latest and my backup after I screwed up with the hair being landed was simply to wait until I became King Robert and then have free reign to marry his son to who I please. I am also going to be disappointed because I would have had the chance to make him Emperor of Britannia had I realized I had 30 years plus after 1066.

I wanted to try merging the lines of Wessex and Normandy like IRL, but I was not able to because one of those pesky Saxon nobles married them first. But I did marry Duke Robert to one of Harold Godwin's daughters. I have also murdered most all of his other children and someone murdered the older daughter around 1091 before I could. That leaves three unmarried sons all chillin Meath, Ireland and all of them are getting older with no sign of reproducing but just to be safe I have started fabricating on Meath.

I actually had more trouble from the Danish Estrids. A host army triggered and I nearly screwed that up trying to defeat it at sea but managed to raise the levies and get enough into London. The idiot dropped a 2.5k stack on London when I had 8k sitting there. I took my eyes of France though and I got notification of a defeat, where the Host destroyed a scattered 200 levy in Normandy. Apparently the rest went after Rouen, so I crossed the channel and massacred them.

I actually achieved my first ever steam achievement, "Exalted Among Men", on this play through, emphasizing the fact that most of my Paradox experience is on older games that were on CD.

[Woody]

Any toughts on Imperator: Rome?

[Continential]

Any toughts on Imperator: Rome?

It seems like CK2 but combat focused.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Any toughts on Imperator: Rome?

It seems like CK2 but combat focused.

That sounds interesting, though honestly the intrigue elements would also go well with a Rome based game.

[Bacon King]

Lots of people are very hostile at Imperator Rome but honestly the game is pretty fun. People are mad it's not "as good" as other paradox titles but they aren't taking into account the other games have years of ongoing development + DLCs on top of the original base game. Every game since EU4 I've bought on release day (not counting HOI games) and this is by far the best experience I've had in a version 1.0.0 paradox game

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Lots of people are very hostile at Imperator Rome but honestly the game is pretty fun. People are mad it's not "as good" as other paradox titles but they aren't taking into account the other games have years of ongoing development + DLCs on top of the original base game. Every game since EU4 I've bought on release day (not counting HOI games) and this is by far the best experience I've had in a version 1.0.0 paradox game

Have you heard about the "Iron Century"?

It's a new bookmark and free update starting in 936 (first 10th century start) and the starting map has been revealed. Surprisingly and shockingly balanced!

[The Free North]

Lots of people are very hostile at Imperator Rome but honestly the game is pretty fun. People are mad it's not "as good" as other paradox titles but they aren't taking into account the other games have years of ongoing development + DLCs on top of the original base game. Every game since EU4 I've bought on release day (not counting HOI games) and this is by far the best experience I've had in a version 1.0.0 paradox game

Have you heard about the "Iron Century"?

It's a new bookmark and free update starting in 936 (first 10th century start) and the starting map has been revealed. Surprisingly and shockingly balanced!

Not having the Abbasid's so dominant is fantastic and the century was a fascinating one for the Kievan Rus' as well.


If you actually play CK2, my opinion of you has gone up significantly. It really is the best Paradox game.

[Bacon King]

Have you heard about the "Iron Century"?

The most fun I've had in the vanilla game in years, so many great starts all over the map. These days I mostly play total conversion mods like Game of Thrones, Elder Kings, Winter Kings, etc, because while I love the game I reached a point where the base game wasn't really interesting enough for me anymore. This new Iron Century bookmark though is so good I'm honestly amazed it's free

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Have you heard about the "Iron Century"?

The most fun I've had in the vanilla game in years, so many great starts all over the map. These days I mostly play total conversion mods like Game of Thrones, Elder Kings, Winter Kings, etc, because while I love the game I reached a point where the base game wasn't really interesting enough for me anymore. This new Iron Century bookmark though is so good I'm honestly amazed it's free

What's your favorite start in it?

I do appreciate how balanced of a starting map it is.

[dead0man]

say a fella wanted to get Civ 6 during the Steam Summer Sale, any suggestions to him as to which way to purchase it.  Seems there are three options.
1.Base game=$15
2.Digital Deluxe (base game+the 1st 6 exp civs....Australia,Khmer,Nubians,Persians,Poland and Vikings)=$20
3.Gold Edition (all of the above + Rise and Fall DLC)=$30

The other DLC, Gathering Storm, is 25% off at $30 as well.



Several things to consider.  I probably will never play the civ specific scenarios.  I've traditionally played heavily modded versions of this kind of game, so are the mods good and easy to do and which expansions and DLCs do I need to get "the best" mods?  I still play Civ4 more than any other single game.  I own Civ 5, but just the base game, never really got into it.  The wife has Civ6 already so I've played it some and it does seem more fun than 5, so I'm not too concerned I won't like it...ok, maybe a little.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

I personally disliked Imperator Rome

[Badger]

E3 had a sneak preview of paradox game I believe coming in 2020 called city of sin. It's a gangster Sam with some XCOM like combat inyx. Sounds great! Most gangster Sims have just sucked. Back in the day Gangland was good, except it was literally too buggy to work properly past several turns.

[Bacon King]

Have you heard about the "Iron Century"?

The most fun I've had in the vanilla game in years, so many great starts all over the map. These days I mostly play total conversion mods like Game of Thrones, Elder Kings, Winter Kings, etc, because while I love the game I reached a point where the base game wasn't really interesting enough for me anymore. This new Iron Century bookmark though is so good I'm honestly amazed it's free

What's your favorite start in it?

I do appreciate how balanced of a starting map it is.

So far my favorite start has been as the Duke of Paris

[Cokeland Saxton]

say a fella wanted to get Civ 6 during the Steam Summer Sale, any suggestions to him as to which way to purchase it.  Seems there are three options.
1.Base game=$15
2.Digital Deluxe (base game+the 1st 6 exp civs....Australia,Khmer,Nubians,Persians,Poland and Vikings)=$20
3.Gold Edition (all of the above + Rise and Fall DLC)=$30

The other DLC, Gathering Storm, is 25% off at $30 as well.



Several things to consider.  I probably will never play the civ specific scenarios.  I've traditionally played heavily modded versions of this kind of game, so are the mods good and easy to do and which expansions and DLCs do I need to get "the best" mods?  I still play Civ4 more than any other single game.  I own Civ 5, but just the base game, never really got into it.  The wife has Civ6 already so I've played it some and it does seem more fun than 5, so I'm not too concerned I won't like it...ok, maybe a little.

Civ 6 isn't worth it

[dead0man]

I forgot the wife had bought it already, so I've been playing hers with the Steam share thing, but you're probably right.