Grand Strategy Victoria 3

[Heroic Liberator]

Only thing that I don't want is nationally-specific features that make no sense in being restricted like that. Sure, it creates more national specificity in gameplay, but it just ends up being awkward and bloated if EUIV is anything to go by (e.g. shit like only the UK being allowed to pick which colony good spawns in EUIV). As an example in the case of Vicky3, what I don't want to see is a million tag/region specific ideologies while the basic ideologies remain static and few. Just give us more modularity, man.

 

[whydoibother]

Only thing that I don't want is nationally-specific features that make no sense in being restricted like that. Sure, it creates more national specificity in gameplay, but it just ends up being awkward and bloated if EUIV is anything to go by (e.g. shit like only the UK being allowed to pick which colony good spawns in EUIV). As an example in the case of Vicky3, what I don't want to see is a million tag/region specific ideologies while the basic ideologies remain static and few. Just give us more modularity, man.

Good:
>poor people in persia are more likely to buy opium
>rich people in persia are more likely to buy luxury clothes

Bad:
>every textile factory in great britain always procudes 10% more clothing per raw resources input
Literal magic.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm with you, I'm just saying I don't want the difference between France and Ethiopia to be like that between protos and zerg

In many ways, the differences in government are of comparable magnitude to protos vs zerg. Any system designed so abstract as to provide a common set of rules for playing as both European and undeveloped nations, will be too abstract to satisfy the RP requirements.

My vision is that for the player to get really immersed in the historical and social-political context of country X in that time period, the game needs to inform him about the political and social background of the society and also the current agenda.

I've read two 200-odd page books on France during the July Monarchy, and I know that the country was simultaneously exhausted from the Revolution, and repulsed by the Restoration. By the 1830s, the memory of the Empire had faded away just enough for a populist nostalgic air to take hold of the masses. The mood was very much "Today's politicians are all sellouts, if only the Emperor was here, he used to show them all how it's done, let's make France great again!". And my expectation is that with this kind of starting setup, I wouldn't be able to, like, go for "Compulsory schools" and "Multiculturalism" right off the bat.

But the game can't immerse the player and drop him into the political and social realities of Orleanist France at this level of detail, or into those of Nikolai I's Russia. Instead, the game can send me to build glass factories and whatnot. Without a solid amount of reading, so you can larp things in your mind, the game is just too bland on its own.

 

[thesecret1]

They should go away from "play as any country" design and focus on 15-20 nations and stuff as much personalized systems as possible.

Exactly, and this sentiment applies to all of Paradox GSGs. One of the main complaints levied against Imperator and V3 is the lack of flavor (ie. content designed specifically for a given country/region) and each time Paradox comes with a DLC bonanza, they try to sate this demand by flavor packs (which usually suck dick because they tend to be merely cosmetic).

A good example of the flavor-driven approach is Anbennar, which IMO brought Paradox's design approach in EU4 to its natural conclusion - nation-specific systems (usually repurposed from other countries, but in a way that makes them more than just a reskin), entire narratives in the mission trees (oftentimes with branching paths depending on player decisions), and region-specific events, disasters, and mechanics. Anbennar then periodically updates with new nations with mission trees (ie. nations that habe flavor to them) and thus gradually fills out the map with more and more narratives that may or may not come in conflict with each other.

There is an argument to be made about such an approach being railroady, but that's largely due to the implementation of the mission tree (which is by no means the only way to handle it) and easily solvable with things like decisions in DH or V2.

 

[AwesomeButton]

There is an argument to be made about such an approach being railroady, but that's largely due to the implementation of the mission tree (which is by no means the only way to handle it) and easily solvable with things like decisions in DH or V2.

The argument that a game is "irailroaded if there is too much custom content" is a childish one, and one coming from children who neither read their history books, nor have any experience with strategy games. It falls apart in moments, when you ask a couple of simple questions.

1. Is geography also railroaded? Because the map is the same every time, and natural resources are distribured the same every time.
2. Suppose you play 10 games with the same starting state, same country, ending on the same date. How much more "different" was the experience - on game one you finished first with 200 million GDP, and on game ten you finished first with 400 million GDP? Now suppose you played a carefully scripted game and as a result of a decade-long political strategy, you averted tne Franco-Prussian war, or you beat the British to building the Suez canal. Which kind of experience is more memorable and which was more samey - the "railroaded" one or the "sandbox" one.

Dumb kids. Back when there were no casuals in the community, no one was complaining that historical events in EUII would hit on the exact date.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

There is an argument to be made about such an approach being railroady

Even that is not a good argument as otherwise the whole game is railroady, you game the systems no matter if you are Prussia or some 1 region country. You end up playing the same no matter what- the ultimate railroad.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Narrowing the scope is the other option if you want a game to be more historical and scenarios more plausible. Of course nobody does this because having a huge timeframe and "play as any country" is an important selling point for the aforementioned dumb kids.

There is a decent strategic wargame called "To End All Wars". In the beginning it allows you to choose historical and alternate strategic plans and OOB before the start of WW1. It's something I really like as an approach and when the scope is "smaller" - it's "only" WW1 - it's not that much work.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

The longer the chronological length of the game, the worse it is to implement railroading narrative content. Too many historical factors that some handcrafted events by the devs can't account for which in turn makes the experience less immersive (since those events become nonsensical) than a more sandbox-y one without as much nation-specific content. In my opinion, I think that a much better way to make the game feel less samey from playthrough to playthrough is to make the game harder in general and the starting conditions particularly harder to influence. A small tag shouldn't be able to become a great power in most circumstances, a tag with whatever strong IG shouldn't be able to easily uproot it and so on. Have the fun be more about small victories that taken together might lead to a bigger one and that towards the end of the game.

 

[Average Manatee]

Bad:
>every textile factory in great britain always procudes 10% more clothing per raw resources input
Literal magic.

Unfortunately this is what people pay Paradox for, because its the "wow look how much clothing I produce in this min-maxxed youtube video" that sells their games now.