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

[JarlFrank]

I played most of the TW games: Shogun, Medieval, Rome, Medieval 2, Empire, Napoleon, Rome 2. Haven't tried Warhammer yet and Shogun 2 doesn't like my CPU.

I also played most Paradox games: HoI 2, HoI 3, HoI 4, EU 3, EU 4, Victoria, Victoria 2, Crusader King, Crusader Kings 2.

In the TW games, Rome and Medieval 2 are my favorites due to the extensive amount of mods available for them. I got burned out from playing mods religiously in the early 2010s and always exploiting the AI with abusive tactics that weren't very fun, but recently got back into the games and now refrain from using AI exploits. I quite like Empire, Napoleon and Rome 2 but it's sad that they don't have as many massive total conversions as the older games. I wish the battle AI were better but the TW games are still the only ones out there that combine a strategic world map with tactical real time battles, so there aren't any alternatives. Also play Rome 2 battles in multiplayer against a pal occasionally, which is fun.

In Paradox games, my favorite is CK2. It's the one relying the least on map painting, it's more about dynasty management and fun things can happen. Losing is actually fun because it can result in entertaining new situations. Other Paradox games are reasonably fun too but they don't grab me as much as CK2 or the Total War games because it's just about map painting and warfare is too basic to be interesting.

 

[razvedchiki]

i played the shit out of rome, medieval 2 and their mods. last new total war i enjoyed was shogun 2, played a lot of warhammer 1/2 but really regret the money spent/time.
from paradox i have played europa universalis 3 and stellaris.

total war games really took a nose dive with empire and the new warscape engine which was completely incapable to reenact gunpowder warfare. really hope their games flop and CA closes and a new capable company takes on with a new look the total war games.

 

[spectre]

The Paradox games I tried never really scratched my itch for strategy gaming. I played CK2 the most, though I consider it more of a RPG/LARP game. Took me a while to get into them because the in game tutorials were close to useless and you basically need to watch a bunch of lets-plays to get some idea what to do. I'm planning to try Stellaris at some point in the future, but no rush.

For Total War, I played all of the old ones, lost interest around Empire, picked it up again when Shogun 2 came out, then it took a nose-dive with Rome 2 and I never really bothered with the Warhammer ones. Unless they manage to reinvent the formula somehow and actually focus on the battles and the whole conquering business, rather than endlessly micromanaging useless crap to generate a stream of tiny modifiers (+1% to this, +3% to that, I hate this shit. Give me real numbers), the series is dead to me.

 

[Theodora]

Been obsessed with the ancients since I was a kid, and ended up with Rome Total War as a very odd gift one year. I was terrible at it, but must have spent hundreds of hours on it, and more on Barbarian Invasion. The funniest thing in retrospect was that, since the ancient Egpyptians were my gateway to learning about ancient history, the bronze age units didn't stand out anywhere near as much as they should've to my tween self. I feel lucky that of the few games I had access to, that was one of them. Since I started getting back into games as an adult, catching up on Total War games was a happy priority. It's a real testament to Medieval 2's quality that it's as fun as it is even playing it for the first a decade and a half later.

It's a lovely quirk of modern technology that I get to have my peak childhood nostalgia game on my phone, even if I don't play it all that much:

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It also works on tablets, and while I don't have one, it actually works very well; with that space it's actually a great way to experience RTW rather than a compromise:

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edit: Oh, and they also went the extra mile and enabled the 'nonplayable' factions (like we used to do with descr_strat.txt edits), going as far as to even add maps and descriptions for them. So it's kinda better than vanilla Rome, in the sense that you can play Spain, Thrace, Pontus, Macedonia, Scythia, Armenia, Numidia, and Dacia somewhat by design.

AwesomeButton is absolutely right about Europa Barbarorum, it's an amazing experience and worth buying Medieval 2 for alone if you are interested in the history of the time period. It's really exhaustively researched and aesthetically true to the period in a way CA's aim for "iconic" misses. (If you liked DEI for Rome 2, you kinda owe it to yourself to check out its 'ancestor'.)

Spoiler

I'm relatively new to Paradox, although someone did try to get me into HoI3 back when it was new (with limited success). PDS games make it really hard to not find other strategy games shallow by comparison, but I guess that's the price of entry? Haven't really got around to mods yet because I'm still learning the ins and outs of their base games, but I've already got a huge list to get around to. Really liking the direction of the Bronze Age mod for Imperator. ^^

 

[RNGsus]

Europa Barbarorum makes battles last forever, not sure what the appeal of that is.

 

[Theodora]

Europa Barbarorum makes battles last forever, not sure what the appeal of that is.

It's arguably "too realistic", but the content of the campaign is really impressive.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The campaign turns it into an RPG if you want to put the effort.

 

[Theodora]

The campaign turns it into an RPG if you want to put the effort.

Found a video review captures the essence of what makes Europa Barbarorum II special. I had no idea that they handled the Greek States in such an intricate way.



This guy also made some decent videos looking at a variety of TW mods (the Rome lists are great (and non-overlapping), the Medieval 2 one about what you'd expect.

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He also covered some of the Invasio Barbarorum mod series:

• Restitutor Orbis (Crisis of the Third Century, 260/268/270(!)/285/293 AD starts) — forum, info, previews, beta download
  
• Ruina Romae (410 AD; for reference, BI started in 363 AD, and Attila in 395 AD) — info/download
  
• Ultra Gloriam Romae (434/463(!) AD) — download (bit of a mess)

I'll update this list if he reviews any more of the IB mods. Personally I'm just glad to see Rome and Medieval 2 still get so much love.

 

[Prime Junta]

Rome, Medieval, Shogun, Rome II. Stellaris, although not all that much.

Rome: Total Realism was a fantastic mod. I had definitely the most fun with that one.

It's been a few years though, somehow not into these things all that much anymore.

 

[Theodora]

It's been a few years though, somehow not into these things all that much anymore.

Is it a time thing? With guys and this stuff, it always seems like they retreat into it as an all-consuming hobby as they get older, or they stop playing anything more involved than half an hour of attention.

 

[Prime Junta]

Is it a time thing? With guys and this stuff, it always seems like they retreat into it as an all-consuming hobby as they get older, or they stop playing anything more involved than half an hour of attention.

I'm not sure. It's deffo not a time thing, I've sunk an ungodly amount of hours into Kerbal Space Program for example. I guess interests just shift over time, 15-20 years ago I was super into flight sims but not anymore. Those were giant time sinks too.

 

[JarlFrank]

Is it a time thing? With guys and this stuff, it always seems like they retreat into it as an all-consuming hobby as they get older, or they stop playing anything more involved than half an hour of attention.

I'm not sure. It's deffo not a time thing, I've sunk an ungodly amount of hours into Kerbal Space Program for example. I guess interests just shift over time, 15-20 years ago I was super into flight sims but not anymore. Those were giant time sinks too.

For me it's kinda cyclical. I played Medieval 2 mods until I got burned out about 9 years ago or so. Now I'm getting back into Total War and playing a lot of it.

I guess my genre preferences just shift based on mood.

 

[Theodora]

I guess my genre preferences just shift based on mood.

I kinda get that, I tend to play games in genre binges.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

EB is ok , but for me DLV is the best Medieval2 mod and everything I wanted the Total War franchise to be (except the 3d map). It's a shame it's not maintained for more than ten years already and prone to crashes.

 

[cw8]

Played most of the Total Wars, started off from the first Medieval Total War back in the day, loved it. Favourites in the series include Medieval 2, Warhammer 2, and RTK TW.

Started off playing Hearts of Iron 2 for the Paradox catalogue, moved on HOI3. And got started on Crusader Kings 2. I love HOI but CK2 felt like a living, breathing game, CK2 easily became on of my favourite games of all time. Got into EU3 and EU4 but still preferred CK2, I still preferred medieval and WW2 eras.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Shogun 1, Rome and Medieval 2 of the Total Wars.
EU3 and EU:Rome from Paradox.

I've got no interest what-so-ever towards their newer titles.

 

[Theodora]

EU3 and EU:Rome from Paradox.

What did you think of EU: Rome? I never heard much about it, negative or otherwise; but as I understood it the release version of Imperator: Rome was basically the same game, with a more detailed/historical map (though I:R has diverged massively now with several serious reworks). Would you say it's worth trying?

 

[A horse of course]

/ourguy/ Darren says Imperator gets shittier with each update

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

EU3 and EU:Rome from Paradox.

What did you think of EU: Rome? I never heard much about it, negative or otherwise; but as I understood it the release version of Imperator: Rome was basically the same game, with a more detailed/historical map (though I:R has diverged massively now with several serious reworks). Would you say it's worth trying?

*shrugs*
Both my EU 3 and Rome experiences can be summed as : "I did some ineffective poking around for couple of days and decided to try again sometimes later when I feel like it."
Grand strategies are outside of my comfort zone.

 

[Theodora]

/ourguy/ Darren says Imperator gets shittier with each update

tbh his video was out of date barely days after he published it

 

[downwardspiral]

I used to play a lot of EU1 VIC 1 HOI 1&2 and Medieval Total War 1 as a kid.
Then slowly lost interest in later games roughly 10 years ago.

For TW
Shogun 2 was the last total war I somewhat enjoy while I like the game it has many changes I didn't like
and that change and design philosophy of shogun 2 got inherent by later TW series.
Things like arbitrary limited building slots for settlement.
Generals that has skill trees and points with leveling system for players to min max.

Also it was roughly the time I start to play some tabletop wargames and other modern computer wargames
and started to think about things like scale and representation when I was reading history about ancient warfare.
The battle system in TW didn't really trying to improve on resolution or abstraction for 10 years(20 years now)
It is too basic and lack of immersion if treated as a 1:1 battle system.
But too detailed and still lack of immersion if treated as a 1:3 or bigger scale battle due to how units
like spear with shield/swordsman or spear cav/sword cav are treated as separate units in most cases in TW.
Thus it is impossible to simulate the mixed weapon doctrine in the lower command level.

For example, a pike and shot style combined arms that require smooth cooperation between pike, sword/shield and guns in a single unit is impossible in TW rigid unit system.
And many ancient warfare have similar unit composition that require combined weapons in a smaller scale, similar to how modern units have squad, platoon and company with mixed weapons in the lower unit.

Then there is also the lack of command structure and how tactical maneuver in TW is usually hyper active and efficient as opposite to how simple
the ancient warfare should be. Things like repeat charge, tactical retreat to bait enemy is easy to execute in TW due to no simulation of command efficiency.
It was during that time TW's combat couldn't give me the same immersion when I was first playing it.
So I just couldn't play TW much now.


For PDX, I think I lost interested roughly around EU4. played alot of VIC 2 but then I got introduced to AGEod
games roughly that time.

EDIT:Spelling.

 

[rado907]

Loved the first MTW, it was a revelation. Didn't enjoy the titles that followed. Did play WHTW2 anf it was decent.

Paradox has been releasing incredible games for 20 tears. Loved EU2, HoI1&2 (+mods), and CK1-3. Liked Vicky but never got into it much. Stellaris and HoI4 were all right. EU3&4 feel off. Didn't try the Rome game.

 

[rado907]

For PDX, I think I lost interested roughly around EU4. played alot of VIC 2 but then I got introduced to AGEod
games roughly that time.

What are the AGEod games like? Never tried them.

 

[Please No]

Liked Vicky but never got into it much.

It was their best game, try again and get into it this time. No other Paradox game will do after that.

 

[downwardspiral]

For PDX, I think I lost interested roughly around EU4. played alot of VIC 2 but then I got introduced to AGEod
games roughly that time.

What are the AGEod games like? Never tried them.

Most of their games have more operational layer than grand strategy games.
Things like logistics , a more military orientated grand strategy games.(depends on the theme)
They are usually lean more towards wargame than a grand strategy compare to PDX in most cases
but more grand strategy than most of the traditional wargames(also depends on the theme)
They are well balanced in the center of spectrum between wargame and grand strategy.
They are good when I am too tired to get into specific wargame of specific operation or battle but also want a more immersive grand strategy.
However their engine optimization is not very good.