Good Historical Strategy, and the Paradox games

[Mr Happy]

Okay, so I am looking for some recommendations on a good historical strategy game. Turn based or realtime, don't care. I haven't played that many, so feel free to state the "obvious" ones.

Also, in my valiant search elsewhere, I have been recommended the Paradox games because of their "attention to detail, historical accuracy, and complexity," specifically Europa Universalis III, Hearts of Iron II, and Victoria. Sounds pretty cool, but I would love to hear some opinions on them and which one is best, etc.

That is all.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Captain Obvious to the rescue.

Shogun Total War

Maybe not as historical but still.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Have you played any at all...?

Without something to go off, it is hard to recommend. I have been playing these things for many years, so I don't mind going fairly hardkore with these games.

I would suggest starting low level and seeing if you enjoy them first. Perhaps something like Civilisation 4, the new Colonisation game, or, if you must have a Paradox game, try Hearts of Iron 2 gold or whatever the one is that contains the expansions as well. EU3 is good, but only with the expansions included. Both of those are not too hard to get into. EU2 is actually an excellent simple game too and is worth a look. With Paradox games, patches are a must. Don't forget.

If you like turn based strategy lite, but with big real time 3D battles, try one of the Total War games. Shogun and Medieval 1 can be bastards to get going on a new system, but they are the best imho. If you need to try a newer one, I would go for Rome over MTW2, as it has superior mods, and more detailed/different factions to play.

I will leave it at that. Anything too hardkore might only frustrate you. If you find the games I suggested lacking in detail, then you can think of the next level.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Apart from the obvious ones I recommend you the following:

Take Command 2nd Manassas

Take Command 2nd Manassas has gorgeous, realistic battles with uncompromising attention detail. It's not so graphically advanced as the TW series, but for an indy title it looks great, and the gameplay is putting anything from CA to shame. I am no more interested in TW since I have played TC2M.

Ageod's American Civil War and Wars in America

I prefer the Ageod system to Paradox games because it is strictly turn based, and Ageod have much better graphics. They are probably on par as far as longevity goes, though I admit I have personally never seen anything as large as the grand campaign in ACW.

Then there is also Forge of Freedom by Matrix games, a very large and very ambitious Civil War game which lets you play out every battle. But I haven't played it yet. The right kind of game when you're unemployed I guess.

I didn't like the rt mechanics in HoI, but if you're into that you might also have a look at the re-releases of Close Combat (see cavemans thread) as well as the Panther games titles (Conquest of the Agean and Battles for the Bulge).

And if I hadn't played it I would give Shogun Total War a whirl, everything after it was shite.

 

[sqeecoo]

HoI2 is by far the deepest, best, and most complex strategy game I've played. Civ4 and Alpha Centauri follow.

 

[Monocause]

You can get Rome:Total War and install Europa Barbarorum mod on top of it. It's wonderful. Be warned, however, that you need a decent rig to run it properly; it's very CPU and RAM intensive.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Apart from the obvious ones I recommend you the following:

Take Command 2nd Manassas

Take Command 2nd Manassas has gorgeous, realistic battles with uncompromising attention detail. It's not so graphically advanced as the TW series, but for an indy title it looks great, and the gameplay is putting anything from CA to shame. I am no more interested in TW since I have played TC2M.

Ageod's American Civil War and Wars in America

I prefer the Ageod system to Paradox games because it is strictly turn based, and Ageod have much better graphics. They are probably on par as far as longevity goes, though I admit I have personally never seen anything as large as the grand campaign in ACW.

Then there is also Forge of Freedom by Matrix games, a very large and very ambitious Civil War game which lets you play out every battle. But I haven't played it yet. The right kind of game when you're unemployed I guess.

I didn't like the rt mechanics in HoI, but if you're into that you might also have a look at the re-releases of Close Combat (see cavemans thread) as well as the Panther games titles (Conquest of the Agean and Battles for the Bulge).

And if I hadn't played it I would give Shogun Total War a whirl, everything after it was shite.

Haha, you might throw him in the deep end with those games, though I agree with you regarding the Close Combat and the Panther games. The Panther games are deep but have a simple and easy UI. Excellent games that are easy to learn, hard to master.

 

[Robot]

Paradox: They're pretty decent games. HoI2 is the simplest to start with. Europa Universalis 2 is great but a bit harder to get into. Victoria is the most complex, and I'm not sure it's worth it. Personally, I think EU2 should be a decent bet. Never really got into mods for EU3, but the vanilla game isn't as good as EU2.

Total War: MTW1 is the best. It has issues with newer video cards, though. RTW is playable with mods.The Europa Barbarorum mod is not only far more historically accurate, it's also way better in general. MTW2 is unplayable without mods (horrible AI, mostly), and even with mods doesn't touch the first one. Never really got into Shogun, as I liked MTW better.

 

[Mr Happy]

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Have you played any at all...?

Ah, excellent question! It is pretty much limited to Rome: Total War with associated mods. While the battles are nice looking, and the historical detail is nice in the mods (Europa Barbarorum was very well done), I think I am looking for something a little more "heavy" in terms of strategy gameplay. I don't really care about graphical quality and am willing to work with a learning curve to some degree, but something that requires a huge amount of time to enjoy might not be something my life can work with right now.

Global Explorer: would Take Command or one of the Ageod games be better to start with? Both look nice.

Robot: what about EU2 is better than EU3?

Also, apparently there is a EU: Rome which is the most recent in the series. This any good?

 

[Monocause]

Also, apparently there is a EU: Rome which is the most recent in the series. This any good?

I heard it's not. My brother played Rome a lot and had major gripes with it. To sum it all up, it was just boring and the least historical of all the EU titles. It also had some serious bugs, but these might've been fixed with the patches, so I won't use bandwith to recall and post them.

 

[LCJr.]

You can get the original Europa Universalis off Gamers Gate for $1. Can't lose at that price.

Slitherine's games might be a good place to start. Legion Gold, Chariots of War and Spartan/Gates of Troy. They're on the light side with a decent mix of combat, city building and research. Each one was an improvement over the previous, pity they seem to have abandoned Legion 2. You should be able to find demos for all of them.

Not a hardcore historical game but Knights of Honor is worth a look.

To elaborate on what Robot said Shogun and Medieval Total War won't run on Nvidia 8000 series or higher.

 

[Robot]

Robot: what about EU2 is better than EU3?

My (subjective) gripes:
-In the third your armies (even if they completely outclass the opponent) won't destroy an enemy army outright and it seems to usually degenerate to chasing your enemies around before finally killing them.
-EU3 misses out on the cool historical events of the second. I guess EU3 is less determined, but the events never really railroaded you too much and I welcomed the accuracy and flavour they brought.
-Non-European gameplay isn't great in either, but it's especially bad in EU3.
-EU2 seems to progress better in terms of rival countries not ballooning to ridiculous sizes.

Other than that, not much is gained in the third one. It doesn't even look as good.

Disclaimer: There's one or two expansions for EU3 that might change some of this. Don't know, never tried.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Global Explorer: would Take Command or one of the Ageod games be better to start with? Both look nice.

That's purely a matter of taste mate, cause they are completely different games. Concerning learning curve both are on the high end of the spectrum.

Maybe TC2M is easier to get into, offers 3D graphics as well as intuitive tactics, very athmospheric as well. The instincts trained in TW are actually very useful here, but everything is more realistic and slow paced.

Ageod is more strategic with it's grand campaign, and can keep you busy for a very long time. I usually play ACW only if I have some days off, cause it takes hours until you're really into a campaign (you need to digest a lot of information first), but if you can take the workload the gameplay is really outstanding. Not every one's cup of tea for sure, but imo the best strategy game I played since STW.

I suggest to get the playable demos for both, and see how far you get. From the two Ageod games I would start with WiA which is less complex for a beginner and has nicer graphics.

Haha, you might throw him in the deep end with those games, though I agree with you regarding the Close Combat and the Panther games. The Panther games are deep but have a simple and easy UI. Excellent games that are easy to learn, hard to master.

@Blackadder: I assume he wants something more hardcore, and that he wouldn't be posting here if he were after some cheap RTS shit.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Robot: what about EU2 is better than EU3?

My (subjective) gripes:
-In the third your armies (even if they completely outclass the opponent) won't destroy an enemy army outright and it seems to usually degenerate to chasing your enemies around before finally killing them.
-EU3 misses out on the cool historical events of the second. I guess EU3 is less determined, but the events never really railroaded you too much and I welcomed the accuracy and flavour they brought.
-Non-European gameplay isn't great in either, but it's especially bad in EU3.
-EU2 seems to progress better in terms of rival countries not ballooning to ridiculous sizes.

Other than that, not much is gained in the third one. It doesn't even look as good.

Disclaimer: There's one or two expansions for EU3 that might change some of this. Don't know, never tried.

Well, with the expansions, there's some chance that the opposing army gets destroyed outright, but I don't have a clue on how it actually works, since I have had it happen only to me. Maybe it's something the AI does well, I don't know. It still pretty much sucks.

The expansions add more events, national decisions and all kinds of other stuff, so that at least the nations aren't all the same. I say it's an OK system.

Non-european gameplay, well, I'd say anything east of Timurid Empire is pretty much worthless.

It still looks horrible, and isn't much good as a single-player game due to pretty bad AI. As a multiplayer game, it could be fun. But take Victoria over it any day, and don't forget Revolutions.

 

[Erzherzog]

I second the Paradox recommendation. Be sure to get the expansion to any of the core games since they fix the major issues.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Victoria is quite unique gaming experience, combining political, economical and industrial simulation. But the learning curve is hellish for it - being that it's easily the most complex game Paradox ever made. Hoi2 with both addons is easier to get into, though that doesn't mean it's simplistic.

And you can't pass The Operational Art of War if you can stand hexes. Part 3 combines all the goodness of earlier parts and makes it better. Fight battles from American Civil War up to Hypothethical 2020 wars and everything in between. There's also a strong community in there.

 

[LCJr.]

Victoria is quite unique gaming experience, combining political, economical and industrial simulation. But the learning curve is hellish for it - being that it's easily the most complex game Paradox ever made.

My experience was just the opposite, I've never had an easier time with a Paradox game. Felt like I was playing a Paradox style sequel to SSI's Imperialism.

 

[dagorkan]

HoI2 is horribly broken even with all the rip-off expansions. Paradox is a horrible company. Victoria is probably the most interesting. Though not as bad as HoI2 avoid Europa Unversalis. Crusader Kings is pretty bad too unless you get the huge events mod available on their forums

Get Birth of America 2 (by some French company - is that AGEOD?) or Norm Koger's Operational Art of War III which has all sorts of scenarios for it covering from the 19th century to Gulf War, platoon level to corps level combat. Or for some Fantasy thing the Fantasy General remake that came out a year or so ago, which was covered by TC... or even the original.

KOEI's old English games are quite good. The best I think is RotK 3, based on the wars between kingdoms in Ancient China, which is abandonware.

By the way, are there any modern games like "Fields of Glory"? It's a very old game which was real-time simulating the five or six linked battles of Napoleon's invasion of Belgium, where you could play France, England or Prussia. The great thing I remember it for (apart from the amazing in-game encyclopedia) was that you could delegate command of different corps to historical officers with their own personalities and strategies. I remember once giving the entire cavalry wing over to, I think, Marechal Ney while I was bombarding the enemy to discover he'd done a maneuver and charged at the enemy flank - something that happened historically. Wasn't part of my strategy and the rest of the battle involved trying to extricate them, it turned my crushing victory into a moderate (pyrrhic) victory.

 

[JarlFrank]

Not a hardcore historical game but Knights of Honor is worth a look.

Yep, it's like a mix between Total War games and Paradox games. I loved it when it came out. Has some difficulty-increasing mods, too.

 

[oscar]

HoI2 is horribly broken even with all the rip-off expansions.

Really? I love it. Do you mean it's unbalanced, or there's something majorly wrong with the combat? I'd be intrested in hearing a negative view of HoI2. I don't think I've heard one before.

 

[entertainer]

HoI2 is horribly broken even with all the rip-off expansions.

Really? I love it. Do you mean it's unbalanced, or there's something majorly wrong with the combat? I'd be intrested in hearing a negative view of HoI2. I don't think I've heard one before.

Just for the lulz:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/hea ... s;continue

 

[dagorkan]

HoI2 is horribly broken even with all the rip-off expansions.

Really? I love it. Do you mean it's unbalanced, or there's something majorly wrong with the combat? I'd be intrested in hearing a negative view of HoI2. I don't think I've heard one before.

Unbalanced, stupid AI (if you can call it genuine AI at all) the real-time aspect which sucks (half your time is taken up with speeding up/slowing/pausing the game, and messing with the map rather than making decisions), and there are 'ping-pong' battles (Paradox trademark?). Look at the balance, in 90% of scenarios you can calculate that militia units with no attachments are the most cost-effective way to build your army, anything else is throwing money/IC away. If you are one of the countries which is different the one strategy will be something else, and anything else will be stupid. Armor pretty much sucks and there's no reason to get it for most nations.

In terms of combat mechanics, it completely contradicts most of the agreed upon laws of war simulation, so it's not realistic either. Eg, the more advanced you become the greater the death-rate, whereas every study has demonstrated the opposite - the effect of increased firepower is to reduce your own casualties. So early on you have long, drawn-out battles that last forever and by the end the casualty/reinforcement rate is insane, and manpower (check out Germany/Japan's starting manpower, another example of Paradox idea of 'balance') is what counts (opposite of historical reality) - this is why despite scripting all the AI decisions the late game is so messed up.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I still remember my Mongolian world conquest in HoI 1. Only cavalry divisions were used, and it was an earlier version but still. Good times.

I didn't mind HoI 2. I prefer other games personally, it would still be good to rip out some of the mechanics of HoI2 and put them in, say, Making history. Damn, might as well link to that as well, great game.

http://www.making-history.com/hq/

 

[AlanC9]

Unbalanced, stupid AI (if you can call it genuine AI at all) the real-time aspect which sucks (half your time is taken up with speeding up/slowing/pausing the game, and messing with the map rather than making decisions)

Huh? It's that hard to pause and unpause?

I agree that the unit stats in the vanilla release are poor. I wouldn't play without one of the major mods, like C.O.R.E. or TRP.

As for casualties, I haven't seen vanilla produce significant casualties at any tech levels. Just organization losses.

 

[Higher Game]

The best Paradox experience is EU2 with the AGCEEP mod. This "mod" for the most part just adds historical events for the Middle East, Orient, Africa, and so on. It makes non-European gameplay far better.

I recommend EU2 AGCEEP as a good Muslim country. Combat is a crapshoot outside of deserts/plains, which makes the Middle East such a nice spot. You build up with cavalry in the early game, and by the midgame there's less of a luck element in combat, so that's the time to invade Europe. :twisted: