Your favorite excel-sheet masquerading as a video-game? Paradox thread

[Iron]

I've been playing Paradox titles since EU3 : Chronicles came out. I managed to bungle my way through Hearts of Iron 3 Arsenal of Democracy and sink my teeth into Victoria 2. Then the new generation of Paradox titles came out, the DLC-loving type, and I bought in. Three of my most played games are Paradox titles, can you guess which one? Victoria 2, EU4 and Stellaris.

Crusader Kings 3 is coming out soon, and I've noticed a nice increase in quality. It doesn't look like excel spread-sheets anymore. The role-playing experience feels tighter and I like the direction they're going in, despite the oncoming DLC onslaught.

Do you know Paradox's titles, or the ones they publish? Which ones are your favorites?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Excel-masquerading-as-game always makes me think of Diablo.

 

[Agema]

I've been playing Paradox titles since EU3 : Chronicles came out. I managed to bungle my way through Hearts of Iron 3 Arsenal of Democracy and sink my teeth into Victoria 2. Then the new generation of Paradox titles came out, the DLC-loving type, and I bought in. Three of my most played games are Paradox titles, can you guess which one? Victoria 2, EU4 and Stellaris.

Crusader Kings 3 is coming out soon, and I've noticed a nice increase in quality. It doesn't look like excel spread-sheets anymore. The role-playing experience feels tighter and I like the direction they're going in, despite the oncoming DLC onslaught.

Do you know Paradox's titles, or the ones they publish? Which ones are your favorites?

I liked EU3 back in the day, but never played EU4.
I sort of liked Stellaris, but broadly I think I liked it less the more they colossally revamped it.
Played Crusader Kings 2, enjoyed, but didn't stick with that much. It did however provide one of, if not perhaps the top, of my favourite gaming stories.

I will probably not buy many more, because of their incredibly stupid and annoying DLC policy.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

What, no mention of EVE Online? I mean, for years it's been a spreadsheet simulator with a pretty space-themed background.

 

[SckizoBoy]

I'm a huge Total War fan, and since most of the TW content creators also play a bit of Paradox games, I thought, OK, why not, they should be right up my alley and I do like me a bit of 4X/grand strategy/RTS.

But sadly not. For the life of me, I can't get into any of them. At all.

Their content release policy doesn't sit well with me either, so even when Imperator: Rome was announced, I was not excited. Turns out it was not a particularly good (rather, well received) game, so, glad I gave it a miss.

 

[Trunkage]

I'm just a pleb. I've gone as far as Xcom and Total War

 

[Chupathingy]

Hearts of Iron IV and Stellaris are the only ones I've played a decent amount and I like both equally for very different reasons.

I started playing EU4 recently and like what I've played so far.

 

[Neuromancer]

I've been playing Paradox games since the original CK. The one that I really got into was Vicky 2 after expansions landed to make it playable. Vicky 2 remains my favourite Paradox game, even if it's a mess in every single way. The sheer audacity of trying to simulate a global economy during the rise of industry and the tumultuous period leading up to WW1 is more than commendable.

That being said, the Paradox game that I have spent the most time into is EU4. The DLC scheme has honestly overstayed its welcome, but that doesn't change the fact that EU4 is one of the most content-packed games out there. There's an extreme amount of things to do and try out. It's probably why I have over 1500 hours in it.

I'll be honest, I have not enjoyed anything released after EU4. HoI4's only saving throw is Kaiserreich, and that's a mod. The base game is dry and boring. The expansions have managed to make it ever more obtuse (seriously, to figure out how the naval mechanics work with Man the Guns was a nightmare, and La Resistance's occupation mechanics make occupation a tiring busywork.) I do like the Spanish Civil War mechanics, though. They are much more fun than the solution every other country with new focuses has, which is just an oversaturation of their tree with more buttons to press every 70 days while you do nothing but wait for the previous one to finish.

Stellaris is okay, I guess. I had fun with it on release, but by Utopia I had already gotten bored of it. And though the new DLC do seem to add interesting things, I am not interested in spending a full game's price worth just to catch up on DLC.

Imperator: Rome is a massive blunder. It's just so boring. On release everything was tied to mana management, and that was already pretty bad, but I don't feel the mechanics really make it any better. Re-learning it was a bit of a hussle, and I can't say it's kept me engaged. I got about a hundred years into a Rome campaign before dropping it and not bothering again.

CK3 seems like a return to form, but I remain cautious. Paradox has burned through enough of my goodwill with their past games and their DLC policy. If they continue to have the same DLC plans with their other releases, then I don't think I will be buying the game, as DLC upkeep between their games gets pretty expensive.

 

[Agema]

CK3 seems like a return to form, but I remain cautious. Paradox has burned through enough of my goodwill with their past games...

That's how I felt about Total War. When Shogun arrived all those many years ago, I thought "Wow!": the game I'd been waiting for for years. However, I am at heart a strategy / wargamer and the mass market money in Total War was always going to be shallowness, gimmickry and inanity, so that's what it chose and it and I parted ways. I loved the idea of an EU3-type game with a tactical battlefield option - not necessarily TW style real time, turn based would do. But it effectively requires two games to be made for the price of one, so no wonder hardly anyone's tried it.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Drathnoxis]

I'm pretty sure I remember hearing about an RPG or something made in Microsoft Excel, but I don't remember the name and I never played it. I think I might have heard about it on Extra Credits, back when they were on the Escapist.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Honestly, I kind of like them all. Yes, even IR (although IR is probably the closest I've come to not enjoying a Paradox game).

Generally, I find I prefer the Henrik Fåhraeus games (CK2, Stellaris) to the Johan Andersson games (Victoria 2, EU4, IR). The former are these weird monsters which rely on emergent storytelling to overcome unbalanced mechanics, and that to me is what's really exciting about grand strategy. I'm really looking forward to CK3, even though I won't be able to play it for a while because I need to write my thesis by December and I know it's going to screw that up if I buy it.

HOI4 is kind of in its own category in that, while I really like it, what keeps me coming back to it is modding. The base game is okay, but modding turns it into the kind of weird janky pseudo-roleplaying experience I really enjoy. If you own HOI4 and haven't tried Kaiserreich, for example, you really should.

 

[Iron]

I'm a huge Total War fan, and since most of the TW content creators also play a bit of Paradox games, I thought, OK, why not, they should be right up my alley and I do like me a bit of 4X/grand strategy/RTS.

But sadly not. For the life of me, I can't get into any of them. At all.

Their content release policy doesn't sit well with me either, so even when Imperator: Rome was announced, I was not excited. Turns out it was not a particularly good (rather, well received) game, so, glad I gave it a miss.

Imperator Rome was a stillbirth, unfortunately. I love TW, I used to play Rome all the time when I was a kid. Warhammer 2 grew on me, I enjoyed the asymmetrical warfare.

By time spent in game Hearts of Iron II was probably the all time high for me (and also the first Paradox game I played), but in the current line-up EU4 is the workhorse. It has the most hours played, despite being the game I purchased last. As far as any game can be a "perfect" game, EU4 is probably the best iteration of Paradox's formula yet, but that mostly has to do with the other games dropping the ball in some way.

CK2 is often way too obtuse and convoluted. You want to conquer one province from your neighbor to avoid border gore? Either start a long-winded process of marrying families together or hope the RNG gods favor you as you hope you can fabricate a claim before dying of boredom. CK2 has some really high highs, but more often then not I find myself mired in the tedium of setting up those highs by grinding out unrewarding minor systems like gifting every single moron (one by one, with 6 clicks each time) that might support my assassination plot or running the game on ultra fast so that I can skip 3 years to get enough passive approval for the Pope to grant me a crusade.

HoI4 is a mess of seemingly interesting systems that never quite mesh into an interesting whole. Add to that that the automation systems meant to alleviate micromanagement works terribly (ie. the Battle Planner) and that each DLC has just added more and more stuff to micromanage, often without clear gains in playability, and you've got a game I want to like but most often just throw my hands up at in frustration. The icing on that cake is how poorly balanced most systems are, so that you can either go realistic and get shafted or make something wildly unhistorical and absolutely counter-intuitive (in real life, armored formations became smaller as the war dragged on because they were found to be unwieldy, in game the best you can do is a 40 width "division" that's actually a German Panzer Korps in terms of men and equipment) and just steamroll because the AI can't stop you.

Stellaris is fun. At least until you get to the middle game. I take great pleasure in the early games exploration and expansion phase and the many events and stories you encounter there. Once you get into the Space Politics of the mid-game, it is not so fun anymore. Stellaris is also in a position similar to HoI4 were many systems simply don't work very well and still doesn't despite overhauls and long balancing processes. Pop growth is the most obvious but it has such a huge snowball effect on the rest of the game that it often impairs the ability to play into the late game.

I don't think CK2 is about conquest or nice borders. The focus is family - elevating the family, not the character you choose to play. All around you the world keeps moving forward, driven by RNJesus, and your goal is whatever you choose, similar to real life.

 

[Agema]

I don't think CK2 is about conquest or nice borders. The focus is family - elevating the family, not the character you choose to play. All around you the world keeps moving forward, driven by RNJesus, and your goal is whatever you choose, similar to real life.

My favourite anecdote was when I was running a successful dynasty, then got this message through that my 60-year-old emperor's son and heir had died. Hey, no biggie, let's go check the family page, see who's next. Turns out both his kids, the grandchildren, died in their teenage years (I didn't get a notification of them dying because I'd handed him a duchy to play with). The other son of my emperor was a non-starter because I married him off matrilineally in the hopes of inheriting a kingdom, and his wife's locked him in an oubliette. Okay, the emperor's younger brother... shit, he's in his fifties and had a childless marriage. My dynasty is screwed.

So, I did the only thing I could think of. Couldn't find a "divorce" option, so I took out a plot to assassinate the wife and empress. Once successful, I scooted through the continent's women to find the most fertile, nymphomaniac teenager I could, which turned out to be a Spanish courtier of barely noble birth. I imagine she must have been both overjoyed and horrified - in the former case for becoming empress and in the latter for being saddled with a 61-year-old husband. Nevertheless she popped out two daughters in the three years before hubby snuffed it, and my dynasty was saved. The elder daughter then went on to reign for over 70 years, during which time her empire recaptured Jerusalem, Rome and Alexandria, and forced the re-union of the church such that Catholicism became a mere heresy against the one, true, Orthodox Church.

 

[Iron]

My favourite anecdote was when I was running a successful dynasty, then got this message through that my 60-year-old emperor's son and heir had died. Hey, no biggie, let's go check the family page, see who's next. Turns out both his kids, the grandchildren, died in their teenage years (I didn't get a notification of them dying because I'd handed him a duchy to play with). The other son of my emperor was a non-starter because I married him off matrilineally in the hopes of inheriting a kingdom, and his wife's locked him in an oubliette. Okay, the emperor's younger brother... shit, he's in his fifties and had a childless marriage. My dynasty is screwed.

So, I did the only thing I could think of. Couldn't find a "divorce" option, so I took out a plot to assassinate the wife and empress. Once successful, I scooted through the continent's women to find the most fertile, nymphomaniac teenager I could, which turned out to be a Spanish courtier of barely noble birth. I imagine she must have been both overjoyed and horrified - in the former case for becoming empress and in the latter for being saddled with a 61-year-old husband. Nevertheless she popped out two daughters in the three years before hubby snuffed it, and my dynasty was saved. The elder daughter then went on to reign for over 70 years, during which time her empire recaptured Jerusalem, Rome and Alexandria, and forced the re-union of the church such that Catholicism became a mere heresy against the one, true, Orthodox Church.

Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well, playing as the TRUE scion of Rome.

 

[Gordon_4]

My favourite anecdote was when I was running a successful dynasty, then got this message through that my 60-year-old emperor's son and heir had died. Hey, no biggie, let's go check the family page, see who's next. Turns out both his kids, the grandchildren, died in their teenage years (I didn't get a notification of them dying because I'd handed him a duchy to play with). The other son of my emperor was a non-starter because I married him off matrilineally in the hopes of inheriting a kingdom, and his wife's locked him in an oubliette. Okay, the emperor's younger brother... shit, he's in his fifties and had a childless marriage. My dynasty is screwed.

So, I did the only thing I could think of. Couldn't find a "divorce" option, so I took out a plot to assassinate the wife and empress. Once successful, I scooted through the continent's women to find the most fertile, nymphomaniac teenager I could, which turned out to be a Spanish courtier of barely noble birth. I imagine she must have been both overjoyed and horrified - in the former case for becoming empress and in the latter for being saddled with a 61-year-old husband. Nevertheless she popped out two daughters in the three years before hubby snuffed it, and my dynasty was saved. The elder daughter then went on to reign for over 70 years, during which time her empire recaptured Jerusalem, Rome and Alexandria, and forced the re-union of the church such that Catholicism became a mere heresy against the one, true, Orthodox Church.

Man, that would make a fun TV show.

 

[Agema]

Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well, playing as the TRUE scion of Rome.

Absolutely. Cover the map in imperial purple.

Restoring the Roman Empire is the best and most fun thing that EU is useful for, too. A very difficult and intense 5-10 years to recover Greece, then a tough 20 or so for Anatolia, after that you're fine, and should be able to expand more gently whilst massaging out the inflationary and reputation aches from such rapid expansion, with Rome doable by 1500.

 

[meiam]

I tried a bit of CK3 and I feel like it's one step forward one step backward. Or maybe it's more that it seems to really dislike my play style. I like to start really small and slowly build up. In CK2 I usually start as a small, one county tribal lord at earliest start date and build up to emperor. In CK3 that's quite the pain in the ass, tribal are stuck at the worse version of partition (gavelking) and there's no way to avoid that, this really suck as you either constantly lose most of your territory or have to really limit the number of kid you have (potentially killing them). Well just leave tribal asap, right? Well no, leaving tribal takes forever as you can only do so if you research all the technology of tribal era, which takes about 200 years to do...

The game also lack stuff to actively do during peace time. CK2 had societies, artifacts/treasure to collect, bloodline to establish and great work to build as nice money sink. CK3 doesn't have any of that so you're kinda just twiddling your thumbs. You can build your dynasty legacy which is nice, but it's very passive with almost no way to directly contribute to it, you just want to have as many living member of your dynasty alive and in good position.

But the new lifestyle system is very nice and the overall RP opportunities are greatly expanded. I think it'll take one or two good expansions focused on improving/adding basic system to really pass CK2 (I really hope they don't waste some of the first expansion on enlarging the map, it's massive at this point and the improvement from making it bigger would minuscule).

 

[deleted20220709]

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[meiam]

I though alternate selection rule were even worse, since different title can end up going to different people anyway because every title is voted on individually and they won't necessarily share elector. Personally I don't really mind losing bigger title, I just want to keep my counties consistent, cause otherwise it's really hard to justify spending gold to upgrade them when you never know if you'll still have them in 10 years. So maybe if there was some selection rule that would make sure I'd keep every counties so long as it's within my old ruler domain limit I'd be okay with that.

I might start trying to just arrest the crappy kid and force them to take vow (if it's even allowed), I'd rather not use the disinherit children since I really want to keep the renown for upgrading the dynasty. I do like that sinister is now the most disirable trait since it's the only way to actively kill children (I don't think you can give them scurvy by sending them out at sea for awhile anymore).