- Joined
- Nov 22, 2020
Paradox Studio Thread
- Thread starter Payday
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2022
Didn't want to bump the city sim thread since no one has responded to since my last post it but me but C:S2 is a big problem--70% of the players already packed up by mid-November, most of the major improvements are by unofficial mods which will probably get fucked when Paradox introduces the official mod launcher, and some cuck deleted his mods because of "toxicity" (seems that he's a complete simp for CO).
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2019
Does this surprise anyone though?
C:S2 runs so bad that even one of my normie consoomer acquaintance who usually guzzles these goyslop and gushes about it complained about the shitty performance. And he was the kind that put in 1000 hours into the first game.
He's already moved on to other city builders, so lol, good luck Paradox.
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2021
It's funny to see Paradox basically get handed the keys to the castle of the city builder genre after Sim City failed and then do the same thing themselves in the first sequel to Cities; Skylines not even a decade later.
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2022
Paradox has decided to grace us with some EU4 updates, specifically a price and DLC bundle update.
Tl;Dr:
Starter Pack (US$89.96) → now Starter Edition (US$49.99)
[NEW] Prestige Collection (US$89.95)
Ultimate Bundle (US$425.36) → Ultimate Bundle (US$319.30)
Now in theory this is pretty good, but in practice it is still eye-watering expensive and hard to justify not just using the monthly pass if you really want to fund the studio. I really feel like at this point they should just sit down and do a comb over the entire game and code for a sort of "soft reboot" and release it again with all the DLC included for like 80US$ already. Would be less kafkaesque.
Tl;Dr:
Starter Pack (US$89.96) → now Starter Edition (US$49.99)
[NEW] Prestige Collection (US$89.95)
Ultimate Bundle (US$425.36) → Ultimate Bundle (US$319.30)
Now in theory this is pretty good, but in practice it is still eye-watering expensive and hard to justify not just using the monthly pass if you really want to fund the studio. I really feel like at this point they should just sit down and do a comb over the entire game and code for a sort of "soft reboot" and release it again with all the DLC included for like 80US$ already. Would be less kafkaesque.
Mr.Miyagi
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2022
I'm tempted to agree, but I'm also terrified of having Tinto go back and touch older code and systems for fear of them either breaking things or "updating" them for "balance", and getting the equivalent of that infamous restoration of the portrait of Jesus. I could maybe see them doing something like "EU4: Grand Finale Edition" when they announce EU5 or something, but I'm not sure Johan could ever pass up having all those DLCs sold separately for more cash.
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2020
Ideally if they were to do that, it should have 2 main objectives: Increased modability and improved performance. CK3 is insanely fast when compared to CK2, and I would love for EU4 to have its engine upgraded to a similar level so that I can play shit like M&T or Voltaire's Nightmare at a reasonable speed.
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- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
They already did that once and gave everyone everything up and including including Common Sense for free. It says a lot that they've stacked shit so high since then we're already discussing the necessity of another mass bundling and update.
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2023
I use another "Ultimate Bundle" and it's called CreamAPI
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2017
CK3 runs insanely fast compared to CK2 because CK3 has all the depth of a child's wading pool
- Joined
- May 14, 2019
I miss the days when Paradox pretended to have a shred of culture and named DLCs things like "Leviathan" and "Common Sense" instead of "Emperor" and "Cradle of Civilization." When they were all named after texts, most of them from the same time period.
- Joined
- May 14, 2019
You talk about normies, I had occasion to be surveying (this was related to work) a room full of people on possible games to use as part of a college curriculum. Only the men had worthwhile answers, and of them most mentioned Cities: Skylines. Normalfaggiest game to ever fag.
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2022
GUESS WHAT YOU NIGGERS?
IT'S THAT SPECIAL TIME OF YEAR
THAT SPECIAL CHRISTMAS TIME OF YEAR
so wake the FUCK up everybody ITS CHRISTMAS
and you know what that means! a new GRAND CAMAPAIGN.
so get yourself something tasty to drink (I recommend Mt. Dew) and get cozy!
We've got CK3 and EU4 down so far.
IT'S THAT SPECIAL TIME OF YEAR
THAT SPECIAL CHRISTMAS TIME OF YEAR
so wake the FUCK up everybody ITS CHRISTMAS
and you know what that means! a new GRAND CAMAPAIGN.
so get yourself something tasty to drink (I recommend Mt. Dew) and get cozy!
We've got CK3 and EU4 down so far.
- Joined
- May 14, 2019
How did mercenaries operate for most of history?
I got to pondering the nature of mercenaries. Sometime back I was autistposting about the different types of military service (in reference to Victoria 3), that with some level of abstraction soldiers can be thought of as voluntary or conscripted (and that conscription for life, as with janissaries, strelets and mamluks, or for a limited term) and their units can be raised on permanent (standing army) or temporary (mobilization) basis. And I said how a really badass Victorian/Cold War/contemporary game would reflect the meaningful differences between the three by tying it into a political system that ties into the diplomatic system, because your pool of volunteers (especially for mobilization-only units) could be made to depend on how the public feels about your wars and how they feel about your wars can be different for different demographics, and even to have potential for foreign recruitment as well (think Abraham Lincoln Brigade, for example).
I also very much like the idea of it being possible to have army units that can be mobilized and demobilized, basically "mothballing" an army, so you can actually choose what kind of conscript army you want to raise, how much of it to raise, but also to be able to organize it all in advance, even having a preset that you can flip a switch (or even from a menu of presets) so you just plan your mobilization in advance.
Anyways, as it goes with mercenaries, the whole concept of a mercenary is mighty vague. A soldier for hire, of course, but what does that really mean? Mercenaries can be temporary, but so can they be permanent (Varangian Guard). They can be foreign or they can be domestic. They can even be coerced, seeing as armies of the Thirty Years War frequently impressed civilians into their forces. And at the end of the day, every peacetime soldier is a soldier for hire, even if they have other motivation too.
What I see the mercenary as really is a contractor. That, at the scale of a Paradox game, their defining characteristic is that they preexist as units and are hired on without being "your" units. And that's how CK2, Imperator: Rome, and I think now EU4 operate, though EU4 used to have them as just "money instead of manpower" units.
So how did these things operate? I have no clue. Paradox games depict them sitting on their asses as huge raised armies until someone calls them to service. Did they really do that? It seems like that would be horribly ineffective in unpredictable world markets, and they'd be a huge liability for any ruler to let them sit around in their land. I would think that maybe what mercenary companies really did was they'd have a core of officers, bosses, that were more or less on retainer, maybe not that formal but definitely reliable to each other to be available, and the mercenary company would, if not mobilized, go on a big recruiting campaign. But I have no idea how, in an organizational sense, this stuff was done, maybe my guess is completely wrong.
In my imagination, there'd be supply and demand for mercenaries. The more of an armaments industry a place has, the more young-skewed its population structure, the more its institutions restrict options for social mobility or even normal life outside of raiding, the more fucked up and devastated the society is, the more recruitable men there should be. Then, the companies would have two types of reputation. A reputation for its men of being a worthwhile "employer" - that it has an excellent revenue to casualty ratio - and a reputation to the AI nations for being a winner, perhaps effecting a sort of reservation wage. So successful companies expand by being able to mobilize more men when they need to and also are more expensive. During a mobilization of mercenaries it should be possible to engage in a bidding war for the mercenaries. Did that happen, historically? I would think that mercenaries would have held out to see who was going to offer better terms.
Then, lastly, there ought to be a way to bribe an army to defect. That may be the single most interesting feature of the mercenary, the way they could break empires on a flip (like Manzikert), but it can't happen in a Paradox game. It'd be like a reputation hit to the company and require a much bigger lead than bidding for the initial contract, but would be a possibility.
I got to pondering the nature of mercenaries. Sometime back I was autistposting about the different types of military service (in reference to Victoria 3), that with some level of abstraction soldiers can be thought of as voluntary or conscripted (and that conscription for life, as with janissaries, strelets and mamluks, or for a limited term) and their units can be raised on permanent (standing army) or temporary (mobilization) basis. And I said how a really badass Victorian/Cold War/contemporary game would reflect the meaningful differences between the three by tying it into a political system that ties into the diplomatic system, because your pool of volunteers (especially for mobilization-only units) could be made to depend on how the public feels about your wars and how they feel about your wars can be different for different demographics, and even to have potential for foreign recruitment as well (think Abraham Lincoln Brigade, for example).
I also very much like the idea of it being possible to have army units that can be mobilized and demobilized, basically "mothballing" an army, so you can actually choose what kind of conscript army you want to raise, how much of it to raise, but also to be able to organize it all in advance, even having a preset that you can flip a switch (or even from a menu of presets) so you just plan your mobilization in advance.
Anyways, as it goes with mercenaries, the whole concept of a mercenary is mighty vague. A soldier for hire, of course, but what does that really mean? Mercenaries can be temporary, but so can they be permanent (Varangian Guard). They can be foreign or they can be domestic. They can even be coerced, seeing as armies of the Thirty Years War frequently impressed civilians into their forces. And at the end of the day, every peacetime soldier is a soldier for hire, even if they have other motivation too.
What I see the mercenary as really is a contractor. That, at the scale of a Paradox game, their defining characteristic is that they preexist as units and are hired on without being "your" units. And that's how CK2, Imperator: Rome, and I think now EU4 operate, though EU4 used to have them as just "money instead of manpower" units.
So how did these things operate? I have no clue. Paradox games depict them sitting on their asses as huge raised armies until someone calls them to service. Did they really do that? It seems like that would be horribly ineffective in unpredictable world markets, and they'd be a huge liability for any ruler to let them sit around in their land. I would think that maybe what mercenary companies really did was they'd have a core of officers, bosses, that were more or less on retainer, maybe not that formal but definitely reliable to each other to be available, and the mercenary company would, if not mobilized, go on a big recruiting campaign. But I have no idea how, in an organizational sense, this stuff was done, maybe my guess is completely wrong.
In my imagination, there'd be supply and demand for mercenaries. The more of an armaments industry a place has, the more young-skewed its population structure, the more its institutions restrict options for social mobility or even normal life outside of raiding, the more fucked up and devastated the society is, the more recruitable men there should be. Then, the companies would have two types of reputation. A reputation for its men of being a worthwhile "employer" - that it has an excellent revenue to casualty ratio - and a reputation to the AI nations for being a winner, perhaps effecting a sort of reservation wage. So successful companies expand by being able to mobilize more men when they need to and also are more expensive. During a mobilization of mercenaries it should be possible to engage in a bidding war for the mercenaries. Did that happen, historically? I would think that mercenaries would have held out to see who was going to offer better terms.
Then, lastly, there ought to be a way to bribe an army to defect. That may be the single most interesting feature of the mercenary, the way they could break empires on a flip (like Manzikert), but it can't happen in a Paradox game. It'd be like a reputation hit to the company and require a much bigger lead than bidding for the initial contract, but would be a possibility.
- Joined
- May 14, 2019
So apparently Medieval mercenaries just looted/shook down cities if they couldn't find an employer.
That could actually be a good Crusader Kings feature. The mercenaries always have an on-map presence like in Imperator, and if unemployed for too long they start raiding anything in their path.
I still maintain that it should be possible to bribe enemy mercenaries.
That could actually be a good Crusader Kings feature. The mercenaries always have an on-map presence like in Imperator, and if unemployed for too long they start raiding anything in their path.
I still maintain that it should be possible to bribe enemy mercenaries.
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2022
Vic 2 (Not 3, 3 isn't good enough for the grand campaign)
HoI4
In other news, Paradox decided to increase the price of the monthly subscriptions:
Not only is the price going up, they are also gonna remove the option to buy 6 months at once, only 1 and 3 months allowed.
As someone who uses the pass, I will be dropping them and using the software some users recommended here on the thread instead. I am willing to pay a subscription, but not these prices and methods.
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2022
Raising the price just when I was getting comfortable with the idea is a good way to make me hate it.
It used to be I had all CK2 and EU4 DLC, and HOI4 only had a few DLC, so I felt like... Well, who gives a shit?
But now they've added so much to EU4, Stellaris is massive, and HOI4 has a shit ton as well, I was finally thinking it was reasonable to maybe throw a few bucks to play Stellaris or HOI4 for a few months because I have the base games but not the DLC.
It's not that I think 7 bucks a month is outrageous, but at least for me, they picked a really bad time, because I was just starting to think it was a good deal.
Now I don't think that and I won't use it.
WonderWino
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
Why am I not surprised.. Explains why they stopped development on the first one. It'll be badly optimized shit and they'll resell all the dlcs
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
This actually looks like shit. The 2D vector style fitted the game far better. I would have preferred them to keep it (kind of like doom sprites) and just make the buildings themselves 3d with basic geometry.
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2022
I love(d) PA. Followed all the dev videos when it was in EA, and was so sad to see it gobbled up by Paradox of all people.
Shame to see them turn it into some ugly mobile game looking thing they'll sell for $60 and the nickle and dime for tons of DLC.