Paradox Studio Thread

[JJLiautaud]

Would be realistic since Diplomats were the positions you placed the Failsons of the Aristocracy.

Not always no one would call Metternich Tallyrand or Castleriegh a failson, it's mainly an American thing given that we have a 1200 mile moat between us and Europe.

 

[God of Nothing]

i have crushed the moon and cross so thoroughly nearly ever major christian realm has splintered from heretic revolts

my game crashed, so it might be time to move on
was fun while it lasted

 

[Computer God Autism]

Not always no one would call Metternich Tallyrand or Castleriegh a failson, it's mainly an American thing given that we have a 1200 mile moat between us and Europe.

It also wasn't a purely aristocratic position either. Missionaries often doubled as diplomats in East Asia and North America while successful merchants could also leverage their connections.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/paradox-respond-to-the-accusation-that-they-fix-games-with-paid-dlc-we-try-to-find-a-middle-ground

https://archive.ph/lB8l9

Paradox respond to the accusation that they fix games with paid DLC - "we try to find a middle ground"​

Victoria 3 launching without proper warfare was a "fail", acknowledges deputy CEO

News by Edwin Evans-Thirlwell News Editor
Published on Oct. 11, 2024
57 comments
Follow Crusader Kings III
Fire up the Steam page for Stellaris, one of my favourite space sims, and you will see 28 pieces of DLC, ranging from free character portraits to £35 expansion passes that span a bunch of species and story packs. Stablemate Europa Universalis 4 has 37 DLC packs under its banner, while Cities Skylines is streets ahead with a whopping 62. Paradox Interactive have long built their core game business around putative forever-projects that trail an enormous mantle of paid expansions. It's seemingly this, as much as their institutional expertise with 4X, that justifies their commitment to grand strategy games, whose worlds and systems can be fleshed out for literal decades.
One drawback of this approach is that Paradox may at least appear to be deliberately withholding features in order to sell expansions down the road. It's certainly a fair conclusion to make when said DLC expansions are later folded back into the base game, which implies that they should have been there to start with. Pretty much every Paradox game I know of has a vociferous group of players who accuse the company of releasing games that must be "fixed with paid DLC". This is especially true of sequels, which inevitably look skinny and malnourished next to their much-expanded and updated predecessors. At the company's Media Day last week, I asked deputy CEO Mathias Lilja how exactly the company assign resources between main game and DLC development, and how they address the perception of "fixing with DLC" - especially given their more recent experiments with subscription models, which arguably bake in the practice of holding material back.
Lilja began by making what struck me as a slightly unhelpful comparison with painting, designed, I think, to illustrate that game development is a messy, open-ended process. "I think that's one of the things that we're trying to do - to address that [perception]," he said. "The reason that our business is sustainable is that we launch a game, that is good enough. But, like a painting - when is a painting done? When you stop painting it, I guess. Game development is quite a lot the same."
More intelligibly, Lilja suggested that Paradox's developers have long had a kind of unspoken agreement with dedicated players that they will build a business around DLC without taking the piss. "That's the deal we have with our fans - we will continue to develop these games as long as you play it, and we can sell DLC. That's our sustainable business, and that's how we get these games that live for - [in the case of] Europa Universalis 4, it's about 10 years now. It's now called Early Access, but we did that earlier and we didn't call it that. We developed as far as we thought would [make for] a good game. And if we have fans that want it, they will play it, and then we can continue to build on it."
If you already bought them, well, uhh
Lilja thinks that "expectations are higher" today with regard to how much goes into the base game - a continuation of sentiments from earlier in the interview about how "accepting" players are that technical problems will be fixed after launch. But he still thinks Paradox are walking the line well enough. "If you look at Crusader Kings 3, it was a really solid game at launch and it now has DLC," he said. "But we also offer another subscription model, so people can come in and at least try content without having to invest as heavily. And some stay in the subscription model, some convert to DLC, when they've had a chance to feel around. So we try to find ways for people to not have to say 'yes, all in' or 'no, never' but to find a middle ground."
Lilja also shared a little about how exactly Paradox first-party divide their resources between developing for the base game and for post-release expansions, including some thoughts on when and where the developers may have gotten the ratio wrong. "We build games of systems - it's a system of systems, that's mostly what our games are," he said. "Not all systems are created equal. So the question is, what systems are core to this game. The experience of Hearts of Iron 4 - what is the most important system to have fully fleshed-out to make it a good game, that has to be there? But maybe we don't do everything because again, we would never be done."
"When we fail, it looks something like Victoria 3," he went on. "People wanted more warfare. It existed in the game, but it was barebones - you could go to war, but maybe that was not the [focus]. So you had other things, diplomacy, economics, building your country, whatever. But people wanted the warfare. So there we maybe missed it a bit. Maybe we should have focused on that, because that was part of the fantasy that people wanted in this game." Paradox are still "catching up" with Victoria 3, he added.
What does this division of labour and resources translate to in hard numbers, I asked? How do Paradox allocate time between the launch game and post-release development? It's obviously quite a broad question - different projects have different ins and outs, and Lilja didn't give me a very granular answer. But he did estimate that, right now, a Paradox grand strategy game might take around five years to make, versus around a year for a larger paid expansion.
Home in a thousand strange places
"Five years to make, depending on the length of the concept phase, which can be quite long as well, and then a DLC takes maybe a year," he said. "So it could be five to one, for the base game versus the first big DLC expansion. We can do smaller content, but it's very clear that people prefer the bigger DLCs. That's what people like - the smaller content pieces are maybe nice to have, but it's the bigger pieces."
The picture is always shifting, however. Echoing other industry executives, Lilja observed that development costs have gone up dramatically over the past decade. "Generally speaking, the requirements on games, have grown over time," he noted. "People get accustomed to a certain standard, I guess. And they expect that or better. So team sizes over time have grown quite a lot. I think generally that is also part of the problem, right now in the games industry, that teams are huge. Our teams aren't huge, but they're way bigger now than they were a couple of years ago, or 10 years ago. It's a big difference."
Paradox's team sizes have expanded partly because they want their grand strategy games to reach players who might find grand strategy absolutely impenetrable. "We want our games to be more accessible, so we need to focus more on that than just the core features - we need to build out around these things," Lilja said. "But it also means that every piece of content we make becomes more expensive."
The unspoken context here, of course, is that Paradox have been doing a lot of cost-cutting over the past two years, closing studios, cancelling games and laying people off. This seemingly has less to do with the publisher's tentpole grand strategy business than with their outside bets on new genres, such as XCOM-style turn-based tactics games and life sims. But Paradox's grand strategy forever-games haven't all escaped the guillotine: the publishers stopped supporting updates for Nimble Giant's unfortunately titled Star Trek: Infinite the year after launch.
I spoke to Paradox's chief creative officer Henrik Fåhraeus after my chat with Lilja. He had less patience for the charge of "fixing games with DLC", arguing that Paradox have a decent track record for overhauling and adding to their games at no further cost. "That's the negative way of looking at it," he told me. "This game will live for a long time and even if I don't buy anything, it's going to keep getting better, right? That's what we're after."
Fåhraeus did caveat that Paradox have gotten a little "lost" recently with regard to their paid DLC strategy. But he also told me that you can't please everyone. "Since this is subjective, there will always be people who think that every game is incomplete, when we release it, and that it needs more of something," he said. "So there's no getting around that, but what we can do is do our utmost to ensure that it feels like a really good game, that the quality is high and that it meets player expectations. What do players expect? Quality."
This news piece is the fourth in what I would have branded the Paradox Files, if the conversations were slightly juicier, or if I had slightly less shame. Elsewhen at the same event, Lilja aired his current expectations for the much-delayed and shuffled-around Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, which increasingly feels like it should be called something else. He and Fåhraeus also talked about what went wrong with Life By You, and why they're still keen to publish a Paradox life sim.

​

 

[Super Hans v2]

@Rome's rightful successor because I can't quote.

As much as we piss and moan, expecting a decade of constant development without paid DLC is idiotic. Balance and general fixes are inevitably going to be a part of that. I think that Paradox has done a decent job on their legacy games on bundling in the need to have stuff like Common Sense.

Not to say that Vic 3 or their other recent games were acceptable; those were shit as a baseline and they expected niggercattle to get the DLC to fix obvious problems.

 

[Midwit]

Not to say that Vic 3 or their other recent games were acceptable; those were shit as a baseline and they expected niggercattle to get the DLC to fix obvious problems.

CS2 still doesn't have an asset importer, apparently they have a bunch of mods ready to go but can't release them because the importer isn't ready.

 

[LovisXVI]

@Rome's rightful successor because I can't quote.

As much as we piss and moan, expecting a decade of constant development without paid DLC is idiotic. Balance and general fixes are inevitably going to be a part of that. I think that Paradox has done a decent job on their legacy games on bundling in the need to have stuff like Common Sense.

Not to say that Vic 3 or their other recent games were acceptable; those were shit as a baseline and they expected niggercattle to get the DLC to fix obvious problems.

The alternative for other niche simulator style games would be the yearly model which I hate way more. That sort of model would kill the modding scene dead, which is a major part of the community. While it makes me tear my hair out whenever I have to compatch my mods, it is still preferable to having to playing catch up with a different game.

 

[NvII iS 8ulLt f0R 88C]

New dev diaries

German historical content dev diary hoi4 Gotterdammerung

Tinto Talks # 33

>mfw when they made Hitler more Hitlery because Hitler wasn't Hitlery enough

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Looking good Mein Führer

 

[Joe Dough 68]

Looks... off

 

[thefreshmaker]

Any y'all play Grand Tactician/Ultimate General/Civil War 2/other AGEOD and grand strategy stuff?

 

[Computer God Autism]

View attachment 6538561
Any y'all play Grand Tactician/Ultimate General/Civil War 2/other AGEOD and grand strategy stuff?

I tried to get into AGEOD but got filtered. It's a grog game by grog standards, but half of it is just the controls and UI.

I've played Ultimate General CV and enjoyed it, but it's not a good strategy game. Tactical victories have no meaningful strategic consequences; as the Confederates I could manage better than a 5:1 casualty ratio at Sharpsburg while being outnumbered and the war will just proceed as it did historically up until Cold Harbor when we attack D.C. There's no meaningful western theater (you have a few battles but don't have to manage or shift troops/generals between them) and tactical victories just produce better tactical rewards. Even Kessen 1 was better than this and that was half-movie. I also find it funny that Darthmod made his own series out of anger at being mistreated by CA and it's even less moddable than the infamously inflexible modern total war.

Bought Grand Tactician when it first came out but set it aside after a few hours and figured I'd return when it was a bit more polished. As far as I'm aware they never really gave it proper polishing; I was impressed with the ambition of the game and it has a lot of what UGCV should have had, and they're still working on it so I'll revisit it at a later date.

 

[Slap47]

View attachment 6538561
Any y'all play Grand Tactician/Ultimate General/Civil War 2/other AGEOD and grand strategy stuff?

Ultimate General is fun, but it gets boring when you figure out all of the cheesing strategies. Which kinda sucks because the highest difficulty is basically designed around using all of the cheese.

Perhaps I was filtered by AGEOD games, but I genuinely cannot get into them. Most of these games drop you right into the action managing hundreds of units and provinces and the tutorials are dogshit. I think the UIs may suck as well, but that could just be me coping.

 

[Snekposter]

Ultimate General is fun, but it gets boring when you figure out all of the cheesing strategies. Which kinda sucks because the highest difficulty is basically designed around using all of the cheese.

What sucks is that there's nothing else quite like it or Grand Tactician. The US Civil War was a massive paradigm shift in not just how war was conducted, but also the weapons that were used. You have smoothbore muskets and artillery at the start and tight infantry lines of the typical centuries-old combat at the start, and at the end you've got rifled artillery firing impact-fused explosive shells and a shocking amount of repeating rifles, not just among the cavalry but even foot soldiers, forcing increasingly dispersed formations. Private purchases were a thing, too, and a bunch of soldiers used their reenlistment bonuses to buy better weapons than the standard-issue rifled muskets. There's also shit like ironclads, railway logistics and troop transport, the telegraph allowing for unprecedented control and communication over long distances, trench warfare...

 

[Computer God Autism]

What sucks is that there's nothing else quite like it or Grand Tactician. The US Civil War was a massive paradigm shift in not just how war was conducted, but also the weapons that were used. You have smoothbore muskets and artillery at the start and tight infantry lines of the typical centuries-old combat at the start, and at the end you've got rifled artillery firing impact-fused explosive shells and a shocking amount of repeating rifles, not just among the cavalry but even foot soldiers, forcing increasingly dispersed formations. Private purchases were a thing, too, and a bunch of soldiers used their reenlistment bonuses to buy better weapons than the standard-issue rifled muskets. There's also shit like ironclads, railway logistics and troop transport, the telegraph allowing for unprecedented control and communication over long distances, trench warfare...

Yeah the only major game I know that even covers a conflict in a similar timeframe is Fall of the Samurai for Shogun 2. I don't think there have been any strategy games made about the Crimean, Austro-Prussian or Franco-Prussian wars either.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Yeah the only major game I know that even covers a conflict in a similar timeframe is Fall of the Samurai for Shogun 2. I don't think there have been any strategy games made about the Crimean, Austro-Prussian or Franco-Prussian wars either.

There have been but they are deeply autistic token games

 

[East_Clintwood]

Small features dev diary for HoI4 is out, and has some interesting bits.

Most important change they're making is something they call AI force concentration. Basically, instead of the current system where the AI will spread it's units out essentially equally across the entire frontline, before trying to push everywhere, it will instead take it's best units, form them into a force and push for specific objectives like supply hubs, ports, VPs etc. Allegedly it will also be smart enough to stop and try something else if the push fails, instead of endlessly grinding themselves to death. Some aspects will also be moddable, which could be GOATed for stuff like Expert AI.

Transport planes are now a tech line with increasing longer range, cool I guess?

Forts are no longer max lvl 10 everywhere by default. Instead it will be limited (currently between 3-5) by the type of province, with a couple of techs to increase level. According to dev reply can also be modified on the country + state level to allow for shit like Maginot/Sudeten fortlines. Will be interesting to see how this interacts with the new Stronghold Network special project as well.*

*Actually turns out it's not that interesting and stronghold network just gives +2 fort levels and some fort construction speed.

Another change I really like, military high command no longer absolutely fucks your max CP as you hire more. Instead you'll start with a lower base CP cap and adding people will actually increase it. This makes infinitely more sense IMO since the entire point of fleshing out your high command should be to make command and control of your forces easier, not harder.

Dams are in (we already knew this since other diaries mentioned shit like the Dambusters). Will only be constructable through focuses and provide some sort of bonus to the owning province:

Their main effect is that they boost the state they are in, making it easier and better to invest in industry there.

Immune to normal strat bombing but vulnerable to the new Raid system.

Landmarks are now a thing on map. Each will provide some small buff to the original owner (example given in dev reply was 5% stability), can be captured to deny bonus to enemy but will not add bonus to conqueror. Hooray I guess?

Minor tweaks to the province/state UI to try and make stuff a bit clearer

Area defence command got some minor QOL improvements. Instead of having all possible options selected it will instead default to none (since everyone basically unchecks everything that isn't ports anyway). Supply guard will no longer try to protect hubs and all railways, but instead hubs and railway junctions. Also two new options added, guarding borders and guarding special facilities. Actually kinda interested to see how border one works.

Last and perhaps most importantly of all, the 3D model for cav units has been updated so now there's some new horse colours instead of just brown.

 

[thefreshmaker]

Will be interesting to see how this interacts with the new Stronghold Network special project as well.*

*Actually turns out it's not that interesting and stronghold network just gives +2 fort levels and some fort construction speed.

"Will be interesting to see [insert DLC feature']"

* "Actually turns out it's not that interesting and you paid $30 for some spreadsheet modifiers"

Rinse and repeat for every feature.

Dams are in (we already knew this since other diaries mentioned shit like the Dambusters). Will only be constructable through focuses and provide some sort of bonus to the owning province:
Immune to normal strat bombing but vulnerable to the new Raid system.

I'm really liking how every update we do nothing to the complexity of mechanics and just increase complexity of the spreadsheets. It's almost like they saw nu Total War taking the worst parts of PDX games and then decided to copy that.

There is no dam, there is no dam-buster, there is no raid "system" - there's a button you press which activates a waiting puzzle which check marks the box to add +10% construction speed which activates the button for the other player which activates a waiting puzzle which cancels the bonus originally given. There is no testudo, there is only a button which adds +100% defense to ranged and -50% defense to melee.

I understand that these games are fundamentally spreadsheets, but the joy comes from the organic interactions and skill the spreadsheet simulation gives - the current development mindset appears to think that window dressing and waiting around to change a -10% to +10% is good gameplay, rather than allowing the player to find combinations naturally that work.

 

[Übertroon]

I absolutely loathe how much the industrial tree rework for Germany is just someone having read Wages of Destruction and just swsllowing the narrative.
Sure thing buddy, that jewish art and gold teeth really was necessary for the Germans to pump out tanks.

 

[foreman 89]

I absolutely loathe how much the industrial tree rework for Germany is just someone having read Wages of Destruction and just swsllowing the narrative.
Sure thing buddy, that jewish art and gold teeth really was necessary for the Germans to pump out tanks.

The inefficiency of the Nazi economy and their theft of Jewish assets is a fact and should be modelled,