Paradox Games: They finally did it

[Undead Dragon King]

The good people at Paradox have finally fulfilled a dream of their fanbase: they have made an official converter for two of their games! It's for porting over the Crusader Kings II world into their upcoming Europa Universalis IV!

The catch: It is only done through a preorder offer.

I was on the fence about getting EU IV for a long time. But when presented with an opportunity to take my Latin Empire from the crusading era all the way through the ages of exploration and enlightenment, I immediately jumped at the chance and pre-ordered.

So now, for discussion: Will this revelation change anyone's mind about getting EU IV, like it did mine? And if so, or you already pre-ordered, what trajectory will you take your CKII kingdom in EU IV, now that the whole world is your playground?

 

[JonB]

I am pretty excited to take the most trashy, horrid, worthless CKII kingdoms all the way to complete world conquest.

(Sidebar: Soliciting suggestions for worst, most difficult CKII starter.)

This "combined game" should finally give us all the chance to do it. It'll only take 40+ hours of my life.

 

[endnuen]

Holy..! For real?
Even more happy for my peorder now.
Now all that lacks is an ironman mode in ck2.

 

[Undead Dragon King]

(Sidebar: Soliciting suggestions for worst, most difficult CKII starter.)

Try the Petty Kingdom of Northumbria in 867 AD. Can you beat back the giant horde of angry Norsemen on your doorstep at the outset? And then unify the British Isles under your Anglo-Saxon Rule? Then turn Britannia into a major European power for the rest of the Middle Ages heading into 1444?

Or, even if you prefer a 1066 start, I'd still pick Harold Godwinson of Anglo-Saxon England! Even if you miraculously are able to fight off both the Norwegians and the Normans, you'll still have a boatload of angry vassals and troublesome sons on your hands, which will lead to some classic CKII experiences.

That's my suggestion. Or you could also try playing one of the Baltic Pagan (Romuva) tribes. They're insanely tough in both 867 and 1066.

 

[MammothBlade]

Awesome. This will be fun as long as I can find a faction that doesn't get overpowered by the end of the game, or perhaps as an entire world conquest easy start.

I'm going to pass on pre-ordering EUIV, but I hope that this is available as DLC.

 

[Gennadios]

I get the impression that quite a few people are hesitant to pre-order EU in general. Is the series taking some bold new direction that nobody's particularly happy with?

I mostly play the Hearts of Iron series, so unless there's an opportunity to import earlier eras into the world wars I'd rather stick with the Total Wars.

 

[Alssadar]

That's pretty swell. Although I'm not going to get EU IV as I'm broke, as well as having content trait.
From my understadning, as it is only a preorder bonus, it does seem to hamper people like me who might buy the game in the future (at its cheaper cost), but I got EU 3 for free a couple months ago (legally, it was gamefly) and I'm fine with that.

Just saying, when I was opening this forum, I thought you were going to say that an update to the Clausewitz engine included Paradox finally making a good tutorial.

 

[The Madman]

Welp, there goes even more of my time. Should be interesting to see how this is implemented though, especially seeing as in Crusader Kings 2 it's perfectly possible to conquer the UK and turn it into a bastion of Norse mythology or crush Islam and Christiany both in the middle east under a Zoroastrian empire of old.

 

[The Apple BOOM]

I think this is the perfect time to ask. As an avid Civilization player (4 mainly and a little 3), would I be interested in these series? I've been told Civilization is a grand strategy light, so would I be 'graduating' to these titles, or are they something else entirely?

 

[WouldYouKindly]

As an aside, I'm not sure if it's just me, but do all rulers lose their minds and start hearing voices when they get old in CKII?

I like the idea. The ability to continue on a successful empire for hundreds more years sounds like exactly the kind of thing you should do with a grand strategy game.

 

[Entitled]

I think this is the perfect time to ask. As an avid Civilization player (4 mainly and a little 3), would I be interested in these series? I've been told Civilization is a grand strategy light, so would I be 'graduating' to these titles, or are they something else entirely?

They are the same basic genre in the most general sense, that in both cases you are watching a map from above, and clicking on menus and little soldier figures to make your borders expand into the enemy's borders.

The Paradox series are primarily defined by their historical.... well, not exactly "accuracy", but definitely at least an intent to approximate the political conditions and all existent entites of thheir respective historical eras.

Crusader Kings II is about feudal dynastic politics. It's basically Game of Thrones meets The Sims. You are the head of a dynasty, for example, let?s say you are Guilhem de Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine, a vassal of the French King, Philippe I Capet. Your primary goal could be either to usurp the title of the french kingdom from the Capets through a plot, or to start a rebellion for independence of the southern Kingdom of Aquitaine ruled alone by the Poitou dynasty. Meanwhile, you have to keep your own occitan counts and barons in check, so they won?t likewise rebel against you, and you will have to find appropriate marriages for your children, possibly so they might inherit further lands.

Europa Universalis is your default grand strategy game, where you play as a nation state, in accordance with the early modern era's formation of the sovereign state seprating from the concept of the sovereign ruler. For example if you click on Spain, then basically *you are Spain*, go ahead and try to dominate Portugal, don?t get conquered by France, and colonize the new world before others. Take care of international diplomacy, and don?t get a bad reputation.

In both games, there is an important emphasis on international law and diplomacy, wether it is the informal community Christendom and your personal reationship with other noblemen, or the early modern bureocratic diplomacy of treaties and reputations. You have to provide am acceptable Casus Belli for your wars, or everyone will hate you and you will end up like so many tyrants before you, who started conquering Europe indiscriminately, and somehow ended up marching on Russia in the winter.

 

[Abomination]

(Sidebar: Soliciting suggestions for worst, most difficult CKII starter.)

Try the Petty Kingdom of Northumbria in 867 AD. Can you beat back the giant horde of angry Norsemen on your doorstep at the outset? And then unify the British Isles under your Anglo-Saxon Rule? Then turn Britannia into a major European power for the rest of the Middle Ages heading into 1444?

Or, even if you prefer a 1066 start, I'd still pick Harold Godwinson of Anglo-Saxon England! Even if you miraculously are able to fight off both the Norwegians and the Normans, you'll still have a boatload of angry vassals and troublesome sons on your hands, which will lead to some classic CKII experiences.

That's my suggestion. Or you could also try playing one of the Baltic Pagan (Romuva) tribes. They're insanely tough in both 867 and 1066.

Fuck that, I'm taking my reformed Norse faith of the Empire of Scandanavia that started from the humble independent tribe of Agder that grew into the Petty Kingdom of Vestlandet and eventually into the Kingdom of Norway.

I fear EU-IV won't have the function to handle reformed Norse Faith mechanics.

 

[Abulurd_H]

Thank you for bringing these games to my attention. I am a fan of long winded, tedious strategy games and this looks exactly like my cup of tea. Civ V was just not cutting it.

Paradox just got another sale via Steam

So how does the converter work? It takes the empire you have built in kings and turns all your territories into one big nation state for the EU game?

 

[Undead Dragon King]

(Sidebar: Soliciting suggestions for worst, most difficult CKII starter.)

Try the Petty Kingdom of Northumbria in 867 AD. Can you beat back the giant horde of angry Norsemen on your doorstep at the outset? And then unify the British Isles under your Anglo-Saxon Rule? Then turn Britannia into a major European power for the rest of the Middle Ages heading into 1444?

Or, even if you prefer a 1066 start, I'd still pick Harold Godwinson of Anglo-Saxon England! Even if you miraculously are able to fight off both the Norwegians and the Normans, you'll still have a boatload of angry vassals and troublesome sons on your hands, which will lead to some classic CKII experiences.

That's my suggestion. Or you could also try playing one of the Baltic Pagan (Romuva) tribes. They're insanely tough in both 867 and 1066.

Fuck that, I'm taking my reformed Norse faith of the Empire of Scandanavia that started from the humble independent tribe of Agder that grew into the Petty Kingdom of Vestlandet and eventually into the Kingdom of Norway.

I fear EU-IV won't have the function to handle reformed Norse Faith mechanics.

The suggestions I made were in response to his asking for the hardest start in CKII. Those were the hardest starts that came to mind for me.

 

[Abomination]

(Sidebar: Soliciting suggestions for worst, most difficult CKII starter.)

Try the Petty Kingdom of Northumbria in 867 AD. Can you beat back the giant horde of angry Norsemen on your doorstep at the outset? And then unify the British Isles under your Anglo-Saxon Rule? Then turn Britannia into a major European power for the rest of the Middle Ages heading into 1444?

Or, even if you prefer a 1066 start, I'd still pick Harold Godwinson of Anglo-Saxon England! Even if you miraculously are able to fight off both the Norwegians and the Normans, you'll still have a boatload of angry vassals and troublesome sons on your hands, which will lead to some classic CKII experiences.

That's my suggestion. Or you could also try playing one of the Baltic Pagan (Romuva) tribes. They're insanely tough in both 867 and 1066.

Fuck that, I'm taking my reformed Norse faith of the Empire of Scandanavia that started from the humble independent tribe of Agder that grew into the Petty Kingdom of Vestlandet and eventually into the Kingdom of Norway.

I fear EU-IV won't have the function to handle reformed Norse Faith mechanics.

The suggestions I made were in response to his asking for the hardest start in CKII. Those were the hardest starts that came to mind for me.

Oh, my bad.

What of West Africa? I guess the advantage down there is while you've got nowhere to go apart from straight into Morocco you mostly go ignored.

 

[endnuen]

(Sidebar: Soliciting suggestions for worst, most difficult CKII starter.)

Try the Petty Kingdom of Northumbria in 867 AD. Can you beat back the giant horde of angry Norsemen on your doorstep at the outset? And then unify the British Isles under your Anglo-Saxon Rule? Then turn Britannia into a major European power for the rest of the Middle Ages heading into 1444?

Or, even if you prefer a 1066 start, I'd still pick Harold Godwinson of Anglo-Saxon England! Even if you miraculously are able to fight off both the Norwegians and the Normans, you'll still have a boatload of angry vassals and troublesome sons on your hands, which will lead to some classic CKII experiences.

That's my suggestion. Or you could also try playing one of the Baltic Pagan (Romuva) tribes. They're insanely tough in both 867 and 1066.

Fuck that, I'm taking my reformed Norse faith of the Empire of Scandanavia that started from the humble independent tribe of Agder that grew into the Petty Kingdom of Vestlandet and eventually into the Kingdom of Norway.

I fear EU-IV won't have the function to handle reformed Norse Faith mechanics.

The suggestions I made were in response to his asking for the hardest start in CKII. Those were the hardest starts that came to mind for me.

Oh, my bad.

What of West Africa? I guess the advantage down there is while you've got nowhere to go apart from straight into Morocco you mostly go ignored.

Uyyamad to the north, Big angry muslim blob.

@Wombat; it is entirely possible to have Aztecs in Europe with the converter. Also special NIs for an remade Roman Empire.