The State of PC Games: Paradox's 2011 Lineup

[HobbesMkii]

clipped for space

You like a badly designed interface? Don't get me wrong, I love sandbox style strategy games, but I think that an attractive and useful UI is something that most Paradox games fail at and might be a big reason that so many people in this thread refer to them as "niche games."

Compare a game like Crusader Kings with the interfaces of more popular strategy games like Starcraft 2 and Civ, and I think you'll understand that's the major difference between selling 5 million copies and 500k. Paradox guys kept using the word "accessible" in the presentations so it's definitely something that they are considering as well.

Yes, I like that Crusader Kings features a static map of Europe plus 2d representations of my nobles. If I want beautifully designed interfaces, I'll boot up my XBox. But at this point, I've played enough games that offer easy-to-use and beautiful graphics while also providing shallow gameplay. I also love Dwarf Fortress, for instance. You can't find an uglier game with a more unfriendly UI. But the depth of your ability, the strength of the model is just amazing. As for the rest of the CK UI, it can get complicated, but again, I find that to be part of the attraction of Paradox's grand strategy titles. It's going to get complicated, it's going to get complicated really, really quickly. Most strategy games attacking the country level pare down management into simple systems like "taxes go up, people get angry; taxes go down, people get happy" but that's simply not what's going to happen in a Paradox title. In Crusader Kings for example, it's not how much you tax, but how much you tax which section of your people. You can afford to piss off the clergy if you don't mind angering the Pope. Is it always easy to find every option for country management in CK? Not really; that could use a tune-up. But other than that, the reason I love Paradox games more than StarCraft and Civ (and don't get me wrong, I enjoy those games a lot) is that things aren't as simple as "collect money, spend money, build units/building. Rinse, repeat." Honestly, comparing those two games to Paradox's stable of games is a mistake. They're in the same general genre, but Paradox is modeling a complex economic, social, political, diplomatic, and military model of governing countries. No other game is quite like it. I can show you a ton of RTS games that do what StarCraft does, only worse. I can show you very few RTS games that offer the depth found in a Paradox game.

 

[Greg Tito]

clipped for space

You like a badly designed interface? Don't get me wrong, I love sandbox style strategy games, but I think that an attractive and useful UI is something that most Paradox games fail at and might be a big reason that so many people in this thread refer to them as "niche games."

Compare a game like Crusader Kings with the interfaces of more popular strategy games like Starcraft 2 and Civ, and I think you'll understand that's the major difference between selling 5 million copies and 500k. Paradox guys kept using the word "accessible" in the presentations so it's definitely something that they are considering as well.

Yes, I like that Crusader Kings features a static map of Europe plus 2d representations of my nobles. If I want beautifully designed interfaces, I'll boot up my XBox. But at this point, I've played enough games that offer easy-to-use and beautiful graphics while also providing shallow gameplay. I also love Dwarf Fortress, for instance. You can't find an uglier game with a more unfriendly UI. But the depth of your ability, the strength of the model is just amazing. As for the rest of the CK UI, it can get complicated, but again, I find that to be part of the attraction of Paradox's grand strategy titles. It's going to get complicated, it's going to get complicated really, really quickly. Most strategy games attacking the country level pare down management into simple systems like "taxes go up, people get angry; taxes go down, people get happy" but that's simply not what's going to happen in a Paradox title. In Crusader Kings for example, it's not how much you tax, but how much you tax which section of your people. You can afford to piss off the clergy if you don't mind angering the Pope. Is it always easy to find every option for country management in CK? Not really; that could use a tune-up. But other than that, the reason I love Paradox games more than StarCraft and Civ (and don't get me wrong, I enjoy those games a lot) is that things aren't as simple as "collect money, spend money, build units/building. Rinse, repeat." Honestly, comparing those two games to Paradox's stable of games is a mistake. They're in the same general genre, but Paradox is modeling a complex economic, social, political, diplomatic, and military model of governing countries. No other game is quite like it. I can show you a ton of RTS games that do what StarCraft does, only worse. I can show you very few RTS games that offer the depth found in a Paradox game.

For the record, I complete agree with you. But as I was discussing with Troy Goodfellow and Rob Zacny in last week's Three Moves Ahead, I don't think that having all of that freedom precludes having a well-designed interface. Many of the designers of Paradox games might admit that they are more concerned with the numbers and simulationism of their game, as they well should be and thats what's sets them apart, but I think that more and more of them are realizing that having a sleek interface, or at least one that people are not turned off by, will allow their games to find a bigger audience. And as a fan and proponent of strategy games, that's what I want more than anything. For these games to no longer be "niche."

 

[DTWolfwood]

Most curious about the space game. and of course M&B.

There just isn't enough space based games

Sword of the Stars is pretty damn good and worth checking out.

One of their more unique features is that each race doesn't use the same FTL technology, so they all expand, play and to a lesser extent fight very differently. For example, the humans travel the fastest, but they can only travel down specific subspace lanes between planets. Where as the Hivers have no traditional FTL and must slowly trudge between new worlds at sublight speed, but once they reach a world they set up instantaneous gates to travel through. This also makes their gate ships prime targets in combat.

Couple this with a very robust custom ship creation and gameplay that lands itself comfortably between Sins of the Solar Empire and more exhaustive grand strategy games, and it all comes together to make for one enjoyable space strategy game.

wooo ok you've peaked my interest. then again any mention of Sins of a Solar Empire will get me there XD

 

[thiosk]

Galactic Empire

Galactic Civilizations? I DON"T KNOW WHAT THIS EMPIRE IS HALP