Europa Universalis IV

I understood Hearts of Iron 2 fairly well at age 13 after about 10 minutes of play. Won the first game as Germany pretty easily.

Sure the finer mechanics and behind-the-scenes might take a little longer to understand but Paradox games are straightforward and easy-to-grasp by turn-based/4X/grand strategy genre standards.

 

I couldn't figure why I wasn't getting clerks in Vicky 2. So I fired up the tutorial to see if there was anything basic I was missing. Turns out I already knew how to push buttons and read, so it was no help.

Turned to the wiki and find out there is a minimum literacy to get clerks.

 

Are there any codex strategy inclined Aussies in Sydney that could attend Pox meeting at 7th August? http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-Australia&s=d0ad77deecd9719b353d346987df841c

 

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...ersalis-IV&s=15354918d57414b17b7eb0b301ee522a

 

I never bothered with HOI, but it sounds like you've picked the pre-nerf EU 3 France and just couldn't go wrong to me.

 

If you didn't get the memo, people aren't asking for tutorials about the trivial stuff that you like to babble about (randomly clicking and moving stuff around). It's precisely because PSD only covers the trivial stuff in their tutorials/manuals that people complain. They might as well save their time and not produce them at all.

I remember my C64 simulator/war games coming with a printed manual, of several hundred pages, sometimes even two. That was in 1990. Steel Panther. Operational Art of War. Combat Mission. I've never heard anyone complain about them coming with manuals (and/or tutorial missions). What was wrong with them at that time, that should suddenly be nowadays ?

Cool story, bro. I won my first game of chess at 8, against my uncle. Two years later, I played in a club at regional level. What's your point ? Should I also mention that I played piano at Chrismas ? I am not here to compare e-peens with you (like you're the first to bring up that weak counter to make up for the lack of decent manuals in PSD games).

I started playing HoI3 soon after its release (vanilla). I used theater levels effectively when people were still struggling with that concept on the forums, thanks to my prior experience with HoI2 and other war-games. I would have liked to find serious/in-depth info about supply management, air and naval operations, etc., elsewhere than on a Wiki and forums fed and managed by the users of the game. It's easy to win the game against a largely incompetent AI, even if you don't understand half of what you're doing. It's a whole another matter if you go against a human player, or if you wish to be perfectionist like me, and master the intrisics. That's where a good manual from an official source makes a difference, hmm, no, actually becomes essential.

Bottomline is, I am getting sick of Paradox apologists. In a way, they sound no different than people that keep trying to convince me that DA2/Skyrim is good for what it is. If you can deem yourself satisfied by mediocre standards, I will not.

Does PSD make games worth playing ? Yes, definitely, most of them are even unique and brillant in their genre.

Can PSD do better (with how they manage their manuals/tutorials) ? Yes, and they should.

 

I see what you're saying, but we have the internet now. It is FAR easier to google a problem or check the forums than start up some Pdox tutorial or even leaf through a manual these days. Odds are extremely high that somebody has figured it out before 99% of users. Would I complain if they had a robust tutorial and shipped the game with a manual that explained every detail? No, that would be great, but when that doesn't happen I really can't be bothered about it either, because trial/error and good folks on the internet solve it faster for me.

 

Maybe Paradox should simply hire someone to write gameplay wikis instead of leaving it to the fans?

 

They should have the wiki in game like the Civilopedia.

 

For some reason, this thread reminds me of the same kind of argument I've had with retards people about Obsidian's early practices in matters of delivering buggy games (see NWN2, but not only).

QA is such an insignificant concept, plus it's expensive. Bugs would be fixed in time anyway, just google for a work-around or wait for players to patch the game, etc.

And I was wrong, it wasn't 1990, it was even earlier :



Life used to be good.

 

Theres currently a stream up over on twitch with Q&A via chat, showing off the EU4/CK2 Converter, it'll most likely be up there as a VoD aswell.

http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

First Part: http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/b/438261345
Q&A starts at about ~53:00. Amazing stuff.

 

well i dont bother much whatever they do, i just learn the game on my own, like i used to do back in the C64 days with pirated games (you are not the only one that walked those hard streets, karmabro.), never failed me yet.

if i need help on some detail, fine i'll look it up on the 'net, otherwise i'll check the control setup to see what keys are set to what action.

 

If anyone, YOU must remember the times where reading the manual short before calling it a day provided for as much joy as playing the game itself during the afternoon.

I knew nothing about submarines, about battle-ships, about modern jets and Cessna's (thanks Chuck!), about Viet-nam or World War 2, etc., etc., before playing these many games (EDIT: and reading their manuals).

Paradox is missing a huge opportunity here.

Googling stuff is just so insipid in comparison, not to mention unreliable.

 

Wow, actual Roman Empire in EU4 with proper flags and its own ideas is gonna be crazy as all get-out. History going off the wheels like whoa.

 

If one group will always stay consistent in their shenanigans it's the Romanboo crowd.

 

If anything, the inclusion of Best Rome means Paradox averted disaster, nay, the apocalypse. In a more cost effective way than the new Black Isle could ever hope to, no less.

 

To be fair, the converter just seems all sorts of strange. I don't think they intend it as a serious thing, considering stuff like converting 850 Old Gods save games into 1441 EU starts. Plus, as much as I like the idea of actual Roman Empire, gameplay wise it's just garbage. The only thing that makes Byzantium interesting in terms of actually playing it is that it is at a disadvantage. Start with tons of territory, and it's pure tedium. LARPing can only keep things fun for so long when there is zero challenge.

Just realized: converter could bring Aztec "Empire" into Europe. Guess aboriginophiles may finally have something fun to toy with.

 

It's still something to spice up the replayability of both CK2 and EU3.

 

Its really only a limitation set by the starting date of EU4 I think. You could play 600 years worth of CK2 to form your empire, then convert it when CK2 ends to sow havoc all over the rest of the world for another ~500 years. You can form a giant blob until Mr. Genghis arrives, convert and start playing as the mongol khan himself to raid your old empire. You can basically create an alternate history yourself, at any point of the game. Seeing how it comes freely by simply pre-ordering EU4, I just cant complain.

 

I'd say that is where a manual becomes useless. The game's tooltips are (almost) always up to date and describe everything if you look hard enough. Written word less so.

I mean stuff like this:

Click the pop screen, click on the high-detail view for your workers. It will flat out say that you get some huge malus to clerk promotion if the literacy is less than 40% or whatever. And while you look around that screen you'll probably learn a half-dozen other things to improve the way you play. I know I did. Stupid wiki said that 2% clergy was enough, but if you take 5 mins to look at that screen you'll see that 4% is optimal for literacy gain. Lo an behold, I go for 4% clergy and even shit-tarded Arabs and Asians can have 100% literacy around the 80s and 90s.

There's really startlingly little information in Paradox games that isn't described somewhere. Most of the hidden information is highly-specific data that you wouldn't have in a manual anyway. Like needing to take Patron of Art as non-western nations in EU3 to westernize quickly, you'd never find that in a manual unless they exhaustively listed every event in the game, which would be A. completely ridiculous to the point that no one would read it, and B. entirely inaccurate within a few months of patches or an expansion.

 

The game itself tells you that 2% clergymen is ideal when you mouse over the tech box at the top

Edit: this is for making tech points, more clergymen will education your populace faster

 

Yeah, this is an example of how you can learn everything from the in-game tooltips while guides, wikis and manuals all are at various levels of inaccuracy. The wiki I read stated that encouraging clergy above 2% was useless, when in fact it's one of the most important things in the game for almost all nations

EDIT: kpi-th post.

 

That would actually be a damn good idea. I've never had trouble jumping into a Paradox game and learning as I go, but for some people it is an issue. Plus the Civilopedia was generally well organized and even good to read when you're familiar with much of the concepts.

I'm actually really surprised they haven't done this.



Aaaaaand I've gotta finish off my Brittania (Lead by Norse Scots) game before EUIV comes out so I can save transfer. Granted, from what I gather you can transfer at any date, but I'd like to be genuine about it.

 

The converter could be lots of fun. Build a massive Rome in CK, convert, then load up as some Asian/African/New World country, and start preparing to just try to survive against Rome. Would make for one hell of a challenge if the AI can keep it together.