PARADOX: time to go TALL?

[Silva]

Let's have an honest conversation here...

EU became was always* a clown world map painter. Fact. CK is good but tainted by CYOA. Vic2 = magnum opus/the only way to fly, and I:R is Vic2 retardo handicapped little bro. It seems obvious that, if the formula is to evolve and spawn actually decent historical simulations ( Vic3? Cold War? etc), they need to develop games with sound peacetime mechanics. Vic2 was the only one to have it at a level to truly carry the gameplay. CK and I:R scratched that itch but ultimately felt lacking. They need to go tall or go bust.

If EU5 is another moronic "I painted Europe green with Aztecz" fantasy they may as well die now.

Agree?

*thanks @Ol' Willy .

 

[Fedora Master]

It's time for Paradox to pack up, go home and stop making games.
At this point ANYONE ELSE is better equipped to make Grand Strat stuff.

 

[Axioms]

The real problem is that CK2 is their casual fan game. It is perfectly placed to go hard on D/I/P mechanics but they just refuse...

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

That's what all the random events and politics in the CK series are for.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

It seems obvious to me that, if the formula is to evolve and spawn actually decent historical simulations ( Vic3? Cold War? etc), they need to develop games with sound peacetime mechanics. Vic2 was the only one to have it at a level to truly carry the gameplay. CK and I:R scratched that itch but ultimately felt lacking. They need to go tall or go bust. If EU5 is another moronic fantasy "I painted Europe green with Aztecz" they may as well die now.

It's been a decade since Paradox possessed the capability to even attempt a serious historical simulation, and the volition is also lacking as they're quite content to fleece their customers with mountains of paid DLC while gameplay deteriorates further.

 

[mondblut]

In a strategy game, "peace" is prep time for the next conquest.

 

[Joggerino]

Vic2 as an example of good tall mechanics? The only way I can see is playing some new world nation and cheesing the game to get as many immigrants as possible. Other then that the whole game is about colonizing for resources, having millions of africans and asians feeding your factories.

 

[Luka-boy]

Is the Kingcomrade option saying it's time for Paradox to go under?

 

[Axioms]

Vic2 as an example of good tall mechanics? The only way I can see is playing some new world nation and cheesing the game to get as many immigrants as possible. Other then that the whole game is about colonizing for resources, having millions of africans and asians feeding your factories.

I modded the game to make all of India potential colonies. With more resource diversity. Good times.

 

[Silva]

Vic2 as an example of good tall mechanics? The only way I can see is playing some new world nation and cheesing the game to get as many immigrants as possible. Other then that the whole game is about colonizing for resources, having millions of africans and asians feeding your factories.

Sure that's a valid way to play, even an optimal one, but Vic2 is the only game that allows ignoring map painting altogether and still have a good, engrossing time due to it's peacetime mechanical depth.

But the important question is: what people want from Pdox games, just fantasy painters for eternity? There's a lot of potential themes these games could tackle, specially politics-focused ones (Contemporary? Cold War? Banana republics? Dune? GoT? actual Tribal/Roman/Greek politics?) but as long as they keep spawning fantasy painters - and people continue giving them money for it - that's all they'll do forever.

 

[Silva]

Jugashvili , as a fellow appreciator of quality booty I want your wise slav opinion on the matter.

 

[Ravielsk]

The problem is that peace time mechanics or really any mechanic that can be described as "tall" requires a competent AI and to have competent AI you need to have a good idea what the game is going to be from start to finish. You cannot overhaul whole systems and mechanics or add new ones that are functionally disconnected from the rest of the game. Otherwise you would need to rewrite the AI with every single patch to keep up with the changes.
All of this is perfectly doable but not possible with PDX and their DLC model. You cannot keep pushing out endless stream of DLC content when you have a game with a set design end goal. Sure you can squeeze in a couple but there is a limit to how many you can do before you are just breaking the game. PDX would instead have to make a new game every couple of years instead of milking their old titles for almost a decade.

So yes PDX should make more tall mechanics but to do that with any measure of success they would have to overhaul their business model or at least have some game be excluded from the current one they have.

 

[Silva]

Ravielsk , would a smaller scope make that achievable? Specially an assymetric one where the AI don't need to manage entire countries?

I.e: "Cuba the Game" where the map is just one country and focus would be on pop, trade and politics/espionage?
Or "Gaza the game" with just 2 sides, HAMAS vs jews?
Or "Brazil the game" Lula vs Bolsonaro, Thief vs Retardo? (could be the first comedy Pdox game, where the goal is to fuck up the country through bankrupcy or genocide)

 

[Fedora Master]

That's not the point of GRAND fucking STRATEGY.

 

[Silva]

But it's the point of a HISTORIC fucking SIMULATION.

 

[Nirvash]

They can force more variety on ck by making a more elaborate quest system for your character, like "dude want to become a strong warrior/a saint/a king of land x/to fuck all the vassal wifes/have 10 landed children and stuff", painting the map is the most meh way to play ck, they need to enforce some form of roleplay.

But eu... eu is THE paint the map game.

 

[Joggerino]

So what strategy games provide good/fun tall style gameplay?

 

[Silva]

So what strategy games provide good/fun tall style gameplay?

Purebread:

- SMAC (vs AI)
- Endless Legend
- Vicky2
- Civ5 (? never played but hear it's the only redeeming feature)

Hybrids:

- KoDP
- CK2

 

[Ol' Willy]

I played EUIII a lot, and there's literally nothing to do in the peacetime. So, it surely didn't start with EUIV

 

[IDtenT]

Vic2 as an example of good tall mechanics? The only way I can see is playing some new world nation and cheesing the game to get as many immigrants as possible. Other then that the whole game is about colonizing for resources, having millions of africans and asians feeding your factories.

But new world is where the fun is, which is why Vic3 needs multiple start dates to track important world wide events.

 

[IDtenT]

- Civ5 (? never played but hear it's the only redeeming feature)

I found Civ 5 very war gamey. Civ 3/4 on the other hand having a non-combat victory was my normal goto.

 

[Silva]

I can trust your word on Civ5, but Civ3 is totally a city-spamming "aggressively expand or die" piece of shit. Well, except if some DLC changed the game back then.

 

[Joggerino]

So what strategy games provide good/fun tall style gameplay?

Purebread:

- SMAC (vs AI)
- Endless Legend
- Vicky2
- Civ5 (? never played but hear it's the only redeeming feature)

Hybrids:

- KoDP
- CK2

Yeah, you can easily win with one city in civ5. KoDP is king of dragon pass?

 

[Serious_Business]

But it's the point of a HISTORIC fucking SIMULATION.

But what does historic fucking simulation mean? In most grand strategy games, it seems like it essentially means to artifically construct the perspective of a nation state, which forms some kind of unity that opposes other nation states. Western nations tend toward trying to establish Empire, until they realise they can't. So peace happens - nation deal with each other, an equilibrium appears - but on the continual background of war. In a game, empire becomes possible, which is historically unsound. I suppose Victoria was indeed the only game that approached "peace time" matters in a dynamic way - in an economic, modern way. Essentially to make peace more interesting, you need to get away from the very classical notions of political science : sovereignty, laws, monopoly of power. Something else needs to happen, power needs to be represented in a more complex way. The history imposes its limits. I'm not sure if it's possible to do more with it. History is not an endless playground of possibilities. What you can most likely do is focus on certain elements of history in a more precise way. Grand strategy is by definition a very general formula, it doesn't allow to go into particulars. Mostly because, again, it reproduces the perspective of the state. This is actually not historically accurate, but it reproduces the usual perspective on history. All that shit is boring at its core, but you'll still get masses leeching off it, just like they teach the same shit at school, more or less. A lot of Pdox fans are "history fans". This is nice because you can be a fan of history, just like you're a fan of a band. I'm not a fucking fan of history myself. Fuck history, they make bad music.

 

[Silva]

I posit the "grand strategy" label as populatized by Paradox and EU is a marketing ploy to hide the fact their games were devoid of any meaningful, mechanical depth aside from very basic map painting. The fact they gave their "war board" a thin veneer of historicity made everybody at the time value the games more than they were worth it.

"Oh you can command entire countries and huge empires!" (of course you can, when you abstract all their internal management to a number and call it "Development" )

So I admit I'm a bit tired of hearing "grand strategy" as if it was something positive and worthy of praise. I prefer a "small strategy" that has actual meat in it's bones.