Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Grand Strategy Have you played Total War and/or Paradox games?

What series have you played?

  • I've played at least one Total War game.

    Votes: 17 11.6%
  • I've played at least one Paradox game.

    Votes: 6 4.1%
  • I've played both Total War and Paradox games.

    Votes: 120 82.2%
  • I've played neither.

    Votes: 3 2.1%

  • Total voters
    146

Forest Dweller

Smoking Dicks
Joined
Oct 29, 2008
Messages
12,196
Curious to see these stats. I have a hunch, but we'll see. By Paradox game, I'm referring to Paradox Development Studio, which makes the EU, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, and Victoria series; not the publisher.
 

catfood

AGAIN
Joined
Aug 28, 2008
Messages
9,314
Location
Nirvana for mice
aaf.png
 

Xamenos

Magister
Patron
Joined
Feb 4, 2020
Messages
1,256
Pathfinder: Wrath
Curious to see these stats. I have a hunch, but we'll see. By Paradox game, I'm referring to Paradox Development Studio, which makes the EU, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, and Victoria series; not the publisher.
Yes. Unfortunately, both companies stopped making good games about a decade ago, give or take a few years.
 

Citizen

Guest
Played both, didn't like the paradox series (i tried ck and eu3) I can see what codex like in them (unlimited larp-potential), just not my cup of tea
 

Catacombs

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
5,928
Total War: Rome, Rome II, Empire
Paradox: CK2, EU4, HOI4, Stellaris, Vicky 2

I've been around the block.
 

Jvegi

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 16, 2012
Messages
5,065
Played the first Medieval and it was great. Tried to get into Medieval 2 and Rome, but I just couldn't.
 

Tavar

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Jun 6, 2020
Messages
1,046
Location
Germany
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
I've only played the first Medieval and wasn't overly impressed. It was enjoyable, but the battles failed to capture my interest, mainly due to the bad AI. After that experience, I had no interest in other parts of the series. The Paradox games could be interesting, but I hate their DLC policy, hence I've no plans for checking them out.
 

kris

Arcane
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
8,835
Location
Lulea, Sweden
Curious to see these stats. I have a hunch, but we'll see. By Paradox game, I'm referring to Paradox Development Studio, which makes the EU, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, and Victoria series; not the publisher.

Posting in the strategy forum you can expect most to say they played at least one from each of these developers.

I kind of given up on Paradox, who used to be my favourite developer. Instead of play way to much TW:Warhammer now.
 
Last edited:

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,675
Played a lot of both. They have a thing in common - their newer releases can only be enjoyed through large amounts of mods.
 

Xamenos

Magister
Patron
Joined
Feb 4, 2020
Messages
1,256
Pathfinder: Wrath
Played a lot of both. They have a thing in common - their newer releases can only be enjoyed through large amounts of mods.
I would genuinely like some recommendations here. For Paradox games, at least. I haven't found any mod that made me enjoy them nearly as much as I used to.
 

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,647
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
All the Total War games until Shogun 2.

Didnt touch any of the new CINEMATIC shit ones Total Warhammer or Rome 2.

Paradoxx, tried Victoria 2 a bit and EU3 but that's it
 

Forest Dweller

Smoking Dicks
Joined
Oct 29, 2008
Messages
12,196
Curious to see these stats. I have a hunch, but we'll see. By Paradox game, I'm referring to Paradox Development Studio, which makes the EU, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, and Victoria series; not the publisher.

Posting in the strategy forum you can expect most to say they played at lease one from each of these developers.
Good point. Move to General RPG? :troll:

Infinitron
 
Last edited:

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
Patron
Joined
Nov 23, 2014
Messages
16,153
Location
At large
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
TW: Shogun, Medieval, Medieval: Viking Invasion, Rome, Rome: Barbarian Invasion, Shogun 2, Rome 2, Attila, Warhammer, Warhammer 2

Paradox: EUII, HoI, HoI2, EU3 (a little), Hoi3 (a little), Darkest Hour, Victoria, Victoria 2/Heart of Darkness/A house divided, Sengoku (a little), CKII (Game of Thrones mod a lot), EUIV, HoI4 (about 10 hours).

Just listing some of these warms the heart.
 

Wyatt_Derp

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
3,062
Location
Okie Land
Most of the older titles from both, which are mostly great. A few years ago both started cranking out junk, and from what I've seen haven't stopped since.
 

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
Patron
Joined
Nov 23, 2014
Messages
16,153
Location
At large
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Take it from me, this is the ultimate monocled TW experience. Instituting a Pacificatio Regionis policy in Taras for the first time, in Europa Barbarorum II (for Medieval II Total War Kingdoms), in a windowed 1920x1200 resolution:

he3Exvm.jpg


Just reading the introduction to the short history article that is the building description will make the average TW player's head spin:

The history of Roman attitudes towards conquest and conquered territory is complex - between the earliest days of the Republican period and the height of the Augustan period the methods of annexation and administration in newly defeated regions changed considerably.

I can feel my virtus levels increasing just by typing this text.
 

nobre

Cipher
Joined
Apr 27, 2016
Messages
674
Location
Pays-Bas
Total War: Played Shogun Total War, MTW, RTW, MTW2. MTW is the best base game for single player purposes, while RTW has the best mods. Got completely burned out on anything TW though a few years ago so I won't be playing the newer titles, or replay older ones.

Paradox: Played HoI 2 and 3, Viccy 1 and 2, EU 2 and 3, and currently playing CK (no CK2, might play it one day.) In general I would say that Europa engine games are way better than the Clausewitz engine games.

Also played For the Glory, Darkest Hour and Arsenal of Democracy, which are basically improvements of Europa engine Paradox games.
 

TemplarGR

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
Joined
May 30, 2013
Messages
5,815
Location
Cradle of Western Civilization
I used to be a hardcore, HARDcore Total war player since the first Medieval. The last Total War game i truly enjoyed was Empire, in my opinion the BEST Total war game, although i won't analyze the whys here. After Napoleon (a rather mediocre standalone expansion to Empire), CA lost their touch. They doubled down on graphics and decided to simplify combat to the point of making it almost 100% Arcade. They never solved the original issues that have plagued the series since its inception, mainly the GARBAGE AI and their abysmal release date QA. Shogun 2 was garbage but for some weird reason i will never understand people regard it as the best. It had many issues and it was quite frankly boring. Rome 2 and Attila, meh. Rome 1 with BI was leagues better. Warhammer is a casual game and the rest are unimportant. I have installed Three Kingdoms and i don't want to play it because it sucks. Waste of hard drive space.

The thing with modern Total War is that the games take centuries to load, and adding to that the multiple battles that are very simple and boring yet you have to do them because : a) The autoresolve is shit and b) campaign map is so simple that if you don't play the actual battles, what is the fucking point of playing the game? The battles are the only worthwhile thing in Total War. So you end up grinding boring battles after loading screen to loading screen and both campaign map and battle AI are unfullfilling trash. You waste hundrends of hours to end a campaign that takes no IQ to win. Waste of fucking time.

Paradox on the other hand, has different issues altogether. One of the main problems with their games is that their interface is trash, and they don't fucking care about usability at all. It is like they expect their games to feel like UNPAID LABOR instead of entertainment, so they don't waste their time polishing the turds. They don't make decent tutorials or ingame encyclopedias either. I mean, why bother? They know you will waste 10-20 hour of watching Youtube tutorials that will be obsolete a few patches down the line when they decide to rework the whole game and you will have to re-watch another set of 10-20 hour tutorials, so why bother, am i right? They don't offer any cool visuals like battles, up until Imperator the fonts were a chore to read in anything higher than 720p, and their games are full of endgame bugs because QA is an uknown concept in Sweden. And let's not get started on their DLC policies....

Truth be told, both are SHIT. The only reason CA and Paradox make money is because they essentially have no competition. The moment a proper competitor arrives, they are going the way of Interplay.
 

Maggot

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 31, 2016
Messages
1,243
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire
Take it from me, this is the ultimate monocled TW experience. Instituting a Pacificatio Regionis policy in Taras for the first time, in Europa Barbarorum II (for Medieval II Total War Kingdoms), in a windowed 1920x1200 resolution:

he3Exvm.jpg


Just reading the introduction to the short history article that is the building description will make the average TW player's head spin:

The history of Roman attitudes towards conquest and conquered territory is complex - between the earliest days of the Republican period and the height of the Augustan period the methods of annexation and administration in newly defeated regions changed considerably.

I can feel my virtus levels increasing just by typing this text.
And then you get into a battle and the AI shits itself.
 

Serious_Business

Best Poster on the Codex
Joined
Aug 21, 2007
Messages
3,909
Location
Frown Town
Used to play TW games in the days of Rome and Medieval 2, then I actually transitioned to Pdox games for a long while. I had a big interest in history back then ; it was probably what attracted me to those games more than the gameplay in itself. TW games seemed too simple, and eventually Pdox games seemed to come down to a horrid map painting dynamic. I haven't really kept updated on Pdox games except CK2 which always was different ; I know EU4 became something interesting through the years, but back then I actually preferred the old script dynamic of EU2 (I thought it was more historically accurate). I actually recently got back in TW through Warhammer 2 - I don't care much more about history (because I'm now anti-hegelian, yes, quite right) and I do think the Warhammer setting is good fun, plus with all the dlcs it has enough variety to be a very dynamic experience, if not "complex" by any stretch. The thing is with these two game series is that they are building a dubious dlc model which of course has been criticized all over the place, but if you're a fan of the games and have the money this kind of development is very interesting - to keep building on a game for years is something that can potentially generate products which would never be possible in a single dev cycle. Not going to defend it by any means, but I do think it opens up certain doors for creative ideas ; of course most of the time it is used as a milk cow, but there you go, gotta get that milk baby.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom