Paradox Studio Thread

[Max Free]

>Age of Wonders 4

Have known and liked the entire series through my younger years. While beeing flawed, it always scratched my occasional fantasy itch.
Planetfall was the last game I have and ever will preorder, because of how much I was disappointed from it. I didn't even bothered with the DLC, even tough I bought it with the Season Pass.
From what I was able to gather from the trailers and dev dairies, I absolutely pass AoW4. Which is a shame, because Triumph was the last game Studio from the good old days I still kinda adored. It hardly is now what it was starting out as. I'm not surprised the Stellaris-people are pleased with it, because they are obviously going for the much more profitable 4X-hoppers, who seem to play every game that falls into this genre, but they will soon learn that Stellaris, and others, are much deeper games than this.

 

[Blackstar]

Update on the OpenVic2 project, it's got a map now.

 

[Male Idiot]

AoW seems less strategically deep than stellaris but more tactical hex turn based battles, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It is mediocre but does what it does consistently. Not worth a load of money, definately worth a torrent.

Just something to play if you don't want to be always on your toes. It doesn't require the deep attention and super long matches like others of its kind. There is a relaxing charm to it, where you put your self made ruler through conquering and such.

The character sex and other options confused me for a good 20 minutes, and they clearly tacked it on, as many options will horribly clip between clothes, beards and hair.


An item bazaar would be useful, and I wish heroes would not restart from scratch regarding to their levels and items. The upkeep could be a bit more easy to asses, and claims are a bit nebulous.

I did like the magic tomes, alignments and it does feel really replayable, with an average match lasting 2-4 days how much you play.

 

[East_Clintwood]

Played some AoW4 during the downtime. Only had two actual crashes but they were pretty serious. One was so bad it somehow crashed my entire PC, and the other fucked something up in my ongoing game so it thought I'd used a cheat, which meant I got 0 pantheon exp when I finished. Other fun errors were the time it wouldn't let me save my custom ruler, and the time it wouldn't let me save my game at all.
Otherwise the game itself seems fun enough, and I also appreciate the slightly quicker nature of runs compared to stellaris that usually takes me a couple of days per game because i tend to play a bit slow.

Also I have to recant my post no the previous page, and Imperator longer deserves the most random patch in the world award. Don't get me wrong it's still fucking wild that a dev randomly decided to take it upon themselves to fix shit for modders, it's just less wild than CA randomly deciding to patch outh ingame chat from the now 14 year old Empire:Total War, which apparently also happened lol.

 

[OutInTheRain]

I played some AOW4 during the break. I hadn't had any crashes or issues with it so far. I'm enjoying it, it's fun, kind of breezy for the most part. I've only played a couple matches to completion so far, but it does seem that the races are more of an aesthetic choice than anything else. With a lack of real race specific units. Like you had in the earlier ones.

I still do enjoy the earlier ones more than the current crop though.

 

[Blackstar]

Update on the open source Victoria 2 project, it has gotten Paradox's blessing, they just had to drop the 2 from its name

 

[Knud Lavard]

Interesting new CKIII mod just came across my desk, which lets you play out battles in Total War Attila, and then export the results to CKIII. Marrying Paradox-style campaigns with Total War-style battles has been an 'if I had a billion dollars' dream of a lot of people, me included.
A similar mod was released some years ago, which let you play out battles in Mount and Blade Bannerlord, and then export the results to CKIII. The thing that kept me from trying it was that it used vanilla Bannerlord factions and items. So a 13th-century battle between the Norwegians and the English would instead look like turn-of-the-millenium Kievan Rus duking it out with the Gauls of Vercingetorix - and a heavy horseman in the 9th century and 15th century would be identical in terms of both role and equipment. The Total War mod looks to be remedying these problem by using units from the excellent Age of Charlemagne expansion as well as the also excellent Medieval Kingdoms 1212AD mod. The end result seems to be that an army in 932 is period accurate and wholly different from how it will look and function in 1187. Once more work is put in, the 14th-century and 15th-century unit rosters from Medieval Kingdoms 1212AD will also be in.
I haven't touched CKIII in some months, but this mod may be the gas station dick pills I need to cure my 'headaches'. Going to keep tabs on it for sure.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Interesting new CKIII mod just came across my desk, which lets you play out battles in Total War Attila, and then export the results to CKIII. Marrying Paradox-style campaigns with Total War-style battles has been an 'if I had a billion dollars' dream of a lot of people, me included.
A similar mod was released some years ago, which let you play out battles in Mount and Blade Bannerlord, and then export the results to CKIII. The thing that kept me from trying it was that it used vanilla Bannerlord factions and items. So a 13th-century battle between the Norwegians and the English would instead look like turn-of-the-millenium Kievan Rus duking it out with the Gauls of Vercingetorix - and a heavy horseman in the 9th century and 15th century would be identical in terms of both role and equipment. The Total War mod looks to be remedying these problem by using units from the excellent Age of Charlemagne expansion as well as the also excellent Medieval Kingdoms 1212AD mod. The end result seems to be that an army in 932 is period accurate and wholly different from how it will look and function in 1187. Once more work is put in, the 14th-century and 15th-century unit rosters from Medieval Kingdoms 1212AD will also be in.
I haven't touched CKIII in some months, but this mod may be the gas station dick pills I need to cure my 'headaches'. Going to keep tabs on it for sure.

Sounds like a huge pain in the ass but worth doing for certain extremely important battles, the player's equivalent of things like a Manzikert or Stamford Bridge. Never really felt like CK2 has those, though.

 

[HeyYou]

Interesting new CKIII mod just came across my desk, which lets you play out battles in Total War Attila, and then export the results to CKIII. Marrying Paradox-style campaigns with Total War-style battles has been an 'if I had a billion dollars' dream of a lot of people, me included.
A similar mod was released some years ago, which let you play out battles in Mount and Blade Bannerlord, and then export the results to CKIII. The thing that kept me from trying it was that it used vanilla Bannerlord factions and items. So a 13th-century battle between the Norwegians and the English would instead look like turn-of-the-millenium Kievan Rus duking it out with the Gauls of Vercingetorix - and a heavy horseman in the 9th century and 15th century would be identical in terms of both role and equipment. The Total War mod looks to be remedying these problem by using units from the excellent Age of Charlemagne expansion as well as the also excellent Medieval Kingdoms 1212AD mod. The end result seems to be that an army in 932 is period accurate and wholly different from how it will look and function in 1187. Once more work is put in, the 14th-century and 15th-century unit rosters from Medieval Kingdoms 1212AD will also be in.
I haven't touched CKIII in some months, but this mod may be the gas station dick pills I need to cure my 'headaches'. Going to keep tabs on it for sure.

Unless you want your game to run like shit I wouldn't recommend it. Total War Attila already has performance issues, then you add the Medieval mod with performace issues and running an entire other game on top of that and I can't see you having any fun. Probably should have just done Medieval 2 instead, even potatoes can run that game.

 

[Mr.Miyagi]

So version 1.3 and the Voice of the People expansion immersion pack came out for Victoria 3 today. The DLC that had exclusive pre-order content. Any poor soul spend their time trying it out? Does anyone this side of Reddit even care about Vic3 at this point? I haven't bothered touching it since launch.

 

[Snekposter]

So version 1.3 and the Voice of the People expansion immersion pack came out for Victoria 3 today. The DLC that had exclusive pre-order content. Any poor soul spend their time trying it out? Does anyone this side of Reddit even care about Vic3 at this point? I haven't bothered touching it since launch.

Oh hey, thanks for reminding me. Why people actually bother to buy this sort of stuff boggles my mind.

 

[Knud Lavard]

Unless you want your game to run like shit I wouldn't recommend it. Total War Attila already has performance issues, then you add the Medieval mod with performace issues and running an entire other game on top of that and I can't see you having any fun. Probably should have just done Medieval 2 instead, even potatoes can run that game.

I wouldn't sign it off so easily, as CKIII is effectively killed off during the Total War battles. As for the choice of TW-game, using Medieval 2 as a base ends up being a much poorer choice.
Even with Stainless Steel installed you'd have a fraction of the units Medieval Kingdoms 1212 provides. SS sees France as one nation with less than a dozen Area of Recruitment (regional) units, whereas MK1212 has manifold functional and visual differences between France proper, Brittany, Toulouse, Provence, Bourgogne, and so on. It's the same for Italy, Iberia, the Baltics, the Near East, Tartaria, and to a lesser extent the HRE, Russia, and Arabia - all regions which are largely treated as the same in SS. The differences provided by MK1212 are only perpetuated further as the 14th and 15th centuries change combat roles and provide new unique units.
Aside from more variety in already-established regions, MK1212 gives you Volga Muslims, Turkomans, as well as Balkan- and Caucasian nations. In SS, Croatia, Serbia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria are just a mix of Hungarian and Byzantine units, with maybe a dozen unique troops between them. MK1212 gives them full and unique rosters. I played some Serbo-Byzantine battles versus a Croatian-Hungarian-Austrian alliance based on a CK3 campaign in MK1212 a few years ago, and the clash in army doctrines based on troop roles made them really fun. And even if you disregard all of this, M2- and SS lacks units for pre-1066 gameplay, unlike Attila.

Sounds like a huge pain in the ass but worth doing for certain extremely important battles, the player's equivalent of things like a Manzikert or Stamford Bridge. Never really felt like CK2 has those, though.

It definitely depends on how invested you are in a campaign and how much time you have. Using something like this gives you improved overall CKIII-gameplay, but enjoyable TW-battles are just as important in my book. From Shogun 2 and onwards, you rarely had battles that weren't full stack(s) versus full stack(s) - I personally find small-scale battles just as fun, especially when they end up robbing an opponent of essential troops during a big important battle. Having poorer-quality units to pad out your numbers, by virtue of levies, also removes the '20 killpigs versus 20 killpigs' syndrome of recent TW-games. Unit replenishment in CKIII being given out like candy at Halloween might lessen the importance of non-megabattles though.

 

[Mr.Miyagi]

Oh hey, thanks for reminding me. Why people actually bother to buy this sort of stuff boggles my mind.

I was bored earlier and thought about torrenting it to give it a shot, but it sounded so dull that it didn't even seem worth the effort.

In other news, there's a demo for a new grand strategy game called Great Houses of Calderia, which is very heavily inspired by Crusader Kings, with the whole concept of following a dynasty through politics and warfare. The scope seems a lot smaller and the focus is more on managing a settlement and using your family members to handle diplomatic visits and trade and such. It's very unfinished (and it's going to launch in early access), so if anyone tries it out don't expect much, but I appreciate more attempts at the CK style, even if it does have some Finnish jank to it right now. Played it for a little bit, not much, but it seems like an interesting prototype.
(I initially misread the title as Calradia and thought it was some kind of Mount and Blade spinoff.)

 

[Snekposter]

I was bored earlier and thought about torrenting it to give it a shot, but it sounded so dull that it didn't even seem worth the effort.

I mean, its a boring as fuck "numbers go up" game, which is great for when I want to shut my brain off and zone the fuck out. Certainly not paying Paradox of all people for that privilege, though.

 

[Bobbobson]

So I bit the bullet and gave the VotP and of course it's a complete waste of time.

The agitators are basically get ideology x in your country button. They are so powerful they can get reforms past without any support from population. I think the sole reason why Paradox came up with them is to have retards posting on Reddit "I've made Napoleon a Chinese emperor" for the 100th time.

French content is basically a middle finger to people complaining that there is no flavor in the game. The events they added is just "fill the bar and click the button to chose one of three outcomes."

Paradox doesn't seem to have any clue what they want to do with the game. One of the biggest points about the game they promoted before the release were their economic and pop simulations. The reason for not having scripted historical events like American Civil War was that they wanted them to emerge organically through these simulations. So now that the first dlc comes out, how do its features interact with their systems? Fuck all. Agitators are so powerful, they let you bypass any pop desires to achieve the reforms you want faster and easier. Just summon a guy with ideology you want and let him reform the country. And for the French content you basically get a scripted event that let's you choose the option you want regardless of political or economic situation in your country.

People before the release of Vic3 were predicting that the game will be somewhat decent after 10ish dlcs. I would even be fine with that. As a map game junkie I need my fix. After this one I don't think the game will live this long. They've announced a season pass with one more big expansion and some art dlc. The only scenario I see them releasing any more dlcs is out of sheer spite towards people who pointed out problems with the game from the first leaks and dev diaries. The major expansion dealing with diplomacy is scheduled for Q1 2024. How do they expect to keep any interest in the game that's left until then with what they have to offer at the moment? Also since the focus of the expansion will be diplomacy, they don't even plan to address shitty warfare until another year.

 

[Mr.Miyagi]

After this one I don't think the game will live this long. They've announced a season pass with one more big expansion and some art dlc. The only scenario I see them releasing any more dlcs is out of sheer spite towards people who pointed out problems with the game from the first leaks and dev diaries. The major expansion dealing with diplomacy is scheduled for Q1 2024. How do they expect to keep any interest in the game that's left until then with what they have to offer at the moment? Also since the focus of the expansion will be diplomacy, they don't even plan to address shitty warfare until another year.

On one hand, I wouldn't be too shocked if at the end of 2024 or so they announced the end ala Imperator. But at the same time, given just how much of a meme this game was, all the hype, I imagine there's enough people willing to throw money for every DLC regardless of how well made it is or whether it helps the game itself. When I saw that expansion pass timeline, though, it did seem very barebones.

 

[Blackstar]

People are shitting on it in the steam reviews

 

[Snekposter]

On one hand, I wouldn't be too shocked if at the end of 2024 or so they announced the end ala Imperator. But at the same time, given just how much of a meme this game was, all the hype, I imagine there's enough people willing to throw money for every DLC regardless of how well made it is or whether it helps the game itself. When I saw that expansion pass timeline, though, it did seem very barebones.

I'm not so certain. This appeals to neither the autistic map painter crowd nor the reddit memelords. Its like TW Troy in that regard where it tries to split the difference but does fuck-all. Who the hell is the audience? Reddit memelords will play something else that requires less industrial and economic planning and the autists haven't been engaged at all.

 

[hawkisnight]

Voice of the people is one of the dlcs included in season pass, right? Looking at the features it seems like a dlc they had to 'get it over with' since they obligated to make it. It seems so lazy. They did it several of these "immersion packs" for eu4(like rule britannia) but people are mostly pretty happy with them since they like the base game and they usually added some nice features and new mission trees which are fun to complete. Stellaris immersion packs are cool to since they not only add new graphics but also whole event chains with cool rewards, new starts, new civics, sometimes new planets and overall new fresh to play the game. Stellaris now is a bloated mess to me but I was seriously addicted to it at one point. Victoria 3 journal entries are so abysmal in comparison. Agitators sound just bad since the internal politics are so uninteresting and annoying already.

EDIT: I also had to laugh at "sphere of influence" expansion. Something that should be in the game from the beginning is planed for fucking MARCH next year You would think the major first major expansion would focus on something controversial like I don't know: warfare? If it's anything like Victoria 2 "minigame" it's going to be pretty funny reading paradox forums/reddit. I absolutely hate it and ignore it where I can in Vic2. The idea itself is very nice on paper but execution is unfun. I don't think the game has that much time left.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

You know what pisses me off?
In HOI4, it conflates casualties and deaths (and doesn't reflect civilians deaths by strategic bombing, of course), and because of this your casualties will be tiny and then suddenly jump massively if a unit gets encircled. From a purely informative point of view I might be interested in seeing a measure of where my resources are being bled, but from an enjoying-the-story-I'm-creating standpoint that's useless.

But, add on to that, it has no way of telling you when and where those casualties were inflicted, like to say about a specific battle.

I have no idea what it would take to make something like this work, but I want a system where you can break down casualties by state and month, by battleplanner offensive, dynamically identify "battles" by some AI criteria, or go back into a timelapse of what happened and select the range and provinces to include so you can use your judgment to determine what to you is a battle. With the last two, the issue there is that in frontline warfare, there's a difference between an event that has some coherent story to it, like D-Day or the Battle of the Bulge or the Battle of Stalingrad, but not one that an AI would necessarily be able to appreciate.

People used to write cool AARs and Let's Plays - back when Let's Plays were a written, not visual, medium - of games where they basically novelized the game. There was a masterful one of San Andreas on Something Awful. Paradox had some decent ones. This kind of functionality would be useful for stuff like that, but I don't know as people even care about that stuff anymore. Seems to me like 99% of Paradox YouTube is Isorrowproductions being unfunny while doing le epic meme runs.