Paradox Studio Thread

[God of Nothing]

Again, I would rather not fuck my PC up with viruses/malware. I will just wait for sales and pick the DLC's up a few at time. It's just less work and stress for me.

good god, man, at least use a damn resaler

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Also try not talking like a nigger.

That is a cherished, venerable meme.

I think Humankind had a good idea with the evolution through the ages thing but they should have made it so that you chose a base civilisation at the first era and you branched off from there,

CreamAPI is your friend, friend.

I've been too lazy to sit down and map it, but I've had an idea for branching progression like that. Depending on your willingness to bend what counts as a cultural continuity, you more or less start with (for independent civilization/agriculture invention):
Sumerians
Egyptians
Harappans
Chinese
(some proto Andeans)
Olmecs
(some proto Amerindians)
(some Sahelians)
Aryans (for steppe peoples, possibly, and also European civs)

Then the tree just branches off, with some civs having the ability to branch back into the same thing. Like French, for example, can be considered heirs of Gauls (Celtic people), Franks (Germanic people), and Rome (Romantic people). Or Ottomans could conceivably be evolved from nomadic Turks or from Byzantine Greeks. It's completely abstracting away the actual invasions, syncretism and such, but it's a way to have era-appropriate civs and more variety and still feel somewhat controlled instead of "lol my Mayans are Vikings now."

Something like this in full autistic form is probably too convoluted to balance or make fun, but I disagree with the idea that strategy games need to be designed like board games are.

Edit: The biggest problem with this, besides ridiculous complexity and schizophrenic design (actually, implies that you're going with a classic AoE1/2 type of gameplay where differences are subtle, nations largely play similarly except for dedicated nomad civs), is that some trees just have way more options than others... Egyptians kind of terminate badly, for example, whereas Romans explode into almost every European nation and by extension all colonial nations.

I just want a New World colonization 4X with narrow focus (like Old World having narrow focus). Fuck, they could just make it themselves and literally sell it as New World.

 

[Night Crawler]

good god, man, at least use a damn resaler

Why, so I can worry about getting ripped off?

The only two places I would trust are Humble Bundle and GreenManGaming and they often sell them for the same prices Steam does even when they have a sale.

I really don't want to sit around on the phone with call center curry niggers to try and get my money back.

 

[God of Nothing]

Why, so I can worry about getting ripped off?

The only two places I would trust are Humble Bundle and GreenManGaming and they often sell them for the same prices Steam does even when they have a sale.

I really don't want to sit around on the phone with call center curry niggers to try and get my money back.

how god weeps for your misguided soul

 

[Teghern]

No thanks. I would rather not have my PC fucked up with viruses and shit.

I have been acquiring zips of totally legitimate digital merchandise for years now (47 GB this month) and have acquired precisely 0 (zero) malwares, ever. because I am not the kind of retarded who clicks on banner ads and unverified links, it is basic online hygiene shit even literal children manage because fuck paying 100s of £ to some fat sw*des to reward them for mobile-game-ifiying all my favourite franchises.

Another option is to pirate/use a repacker for the whole game instead of using a DLC unlocker. I used Fitgirl which I'm able to use the paradox launcher and steam mods with, but there's also Dodi repacks, which I haven't used so idk if it can also do that but it probably does.

I don't like repackers because I am a paranoid motherfucker but have no actual evidence to back this up, I also don't like fitgirtl because despite having a Y chromone they still come across as an incredibly cliquey highschool girl.
However anything is better than financing current years Paradox's cuckery (remove kebab martyrs, never forget), every dollarydoo on DLC that people give them is a financial endorsement, a sort of communion taking that if there is justice in the world surely taints your soul.

 

[likeacrackado]

I didn't get around to playing it during NextFest, but looking at videos of Millenium, I just can't get over how goddamn ugly it is. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say it looks like a mobile title, every aspect of the UI screams it. The first time I saw combat play out, with the units sliding around and the fucking palisade gate opening and closing when the defenders attack, I just busted out laughing. The gameplay seems serviceable, but I really can't see this thing having enough longevity to justify a season pass and all.

Played a little bit of the demo. I'm not a graphics fag, but its not a big ask for a modern day Civ-like to look as good as Civ 5 or atleast have a moderately interesting artstyle. Overall, nothing particularly caught my eye enough to bother playing the demo passed the first hour much less buying the """"full"""" game and giving Paradox anymore of my money.

 

[Mr.Miyagi]

I'm not a graphics fag, but its not a big ask for a modern day Civ-like to look as good as Civ 5 or atleast have a moderately interesting artstyle.

That's the big thing for me. I don't need it to be photorealistic, or even top-of-the-line graphical fidelity (I went back and played Alpha Centauri and it still holds up well with its style), but while some of the art in the game looks alright, a lot looks very cheap and plasticine. Combined with how everything in the UI is some big fuck-off button, or you're stuck seeing the same animations over and over (like when battle starts), and it just looks like a cheap mobile offering. Some of the videos I watched even had youtube auto-generate the game as being Rise of Kingdoms.
I just have no clue why Paradox would see this studios work and go "Yes, exactly, this is definitely what we need to put our name on as a serious publisher."

 

[Lurking no more]

Edit: The biggest problem with this, besides ridiculous complexity and schizophrenic design (actually, implies that you're going with a classic AoE1/2 type of gameplay where differences are subtle, nations largely play similarly except for dedicated nomad civs), is that some trees just have way more options than others... Egyptians kind of terminate badly, for example, whereas Romans explode into almost every European nation and by extension all colonial nations.

I've though about similar ideas in the past, and I don't think Egypt would be the worst. They could get to Greek through the Ptolemids, and from there to can go Romans and get a ton of options. I think the Sumerians would have it worse off, you get a lot of early options, but then once the Persians invade all their civilizations cease to be independent entities, and unlike the Egyptians, none of their conquerors (at least to my knowledge) ever really claimed to be their successors, outside of the Persians becoming the new 'universal kingdom'. No one wants to be the new Babylon.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I've though about similar ideas in the past, and I don't think Egypt would be the worst. They could get to Greek through the Ptolemids, and from there to can go Romans and get a ton of options. I think the Sumerians would have it worse off, you get a lot of early options, but then once the Persians invade all their civilizations cease to be independent entities, and unlike the Egyptians, none of their conquerors (at least to my knowledge) ever really claimed to be their successors, outside of the Persians becoming the new 'universal kingdom'. No one wants to be the new Babylon.

Saracens/Arabs can be conceived of as a Mesopotamian descendant/adjacent civilization for the Middle Ages. The great Muslim states of the period were generally rooted in either Mesopotamia or Egypt.

Civ doesn’t have to terminate just because it was historically conquered.

Thinking about the Middle East, any Civ that can reach Saracens could justifiably have Moors/straight jump to Spaniards, Portuguese and Italians and by extension their colonial descendants.

 

[Lurking no more]

Saracens/Arabs can be conceived of as a Mesopotamian descendant/adjacent civilization for the Middle Ages. The great Muslim states of the period were generally rooted in either Mesopotamia or Egypt.

Civ doesn’t have to terminate just because it was historically conquered.

Thinking about the Middle East, any Civ that can reach Saracens could justifiably have Moors/straight jump to Spaniards, Portuguese and Italians and by extension their colonial descendants.

They had similar geographic roots, but I don't think they're really descended in the same way as Romans->Spanish or something similar. That'd be like having Cherokee or Iroquois->American, sure Americans inhabitant the same land they did, but there's not much of a cultural connection.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

They had similar geographic roots, but I don't think they're really descended in the same way as Romans->Spanish or something similar. That'd be like having Cherokee or Iroquois->American, sure Americans inhabitant the same land they did, but there's not much of a cultural connection.

It’s the same people, just with a new culture having been imposed on them. Assimilated. It doesn’t work well if it’s limited to just language connections (and both are Semitic).

 

[Lurking no more]

It’s the same people, just with a new culture having been imposed on them. Assimilated. It doesn’t work well if it’s limited to just language connections (and both are Semitic).

It's not about the language, but some sense of cultural connection and legacy. The various post-Roman societies all viewed themselves as a part of Rome's legacy, and in some way attempted to carry it on. To the best of my knowledge (and I'm admittedly not an expert on the Medieval Muslim states), the various Muslim states in the Levant never viewed themselves as the successors to Assyria or Babylon despite holding their former territory, but rather as continuations of Arab or Persian civilization.

 

[WULULULULU]

I don't like repackers because I am a paranoid motherfucker but have no actual evidence to back this up, I also don't like fitgirtl because despite having a Y chromone they still come across as an incredibly cliquey highschool girl.
However anything is better than financing current years Paradox's cuckery (remove kebab martyrs, never forget), every dollarydoo on DLC that people give them is a financial endorsement, a sort of communion taking that if there is justice in the world surely taints your soul.

I'd rather bite the bullet with the fitgirl repacks than deal with wasting money on 10+ DLCs. Though not all games have re-packs so some can't be pirated... yet.

 

[Night Crawler]

how god weeps for your misguided soul

I don't think God really give a shit about how I get my games.

I have been acquiring zips of totally legitimate digital merchandise for years now (47 GB this month) and have acquired precisely 0 (zero) malwares, ever. because I am not the kind of retarded who clicks on banner ads and unverified links, it is basic online hygiene shit even literal children manage because fuck paying 100s of £ to some fat sw*des to reward them for mobile-game-ifiying all my favourite franchises.

I don't like repackers because I am a paranoid motherfucker but have no actual evidence to back this up, I also don't like fitgirtl because despite having a Y chromone they still come across as an incredibly cliquey highschool girl.
However anything is better than financing current years Paradox's cuckery (remove kebab martyrs, never forget), every dollarydoo on DLC that people give them is a financial endorsement, a sort of communion taking that if there is justice in the world surely taints your soul.

Good for you. It's not a big deal to me. I just wait for sales. I'm not about to download sketchy shit from Russia to get a game I can just pick up during a sale.

 

[NvII iS 8ulLt f0R 88C]

Another option is to pirate/use a repacker for the whole game instead of using a DLC unlocker. I used Fitgirl which I'm able to use the paradox launcher and steam mods with, but there's also Dodi repacks, which I haven't used so idk if it can also do that but it probably does.

is there also a software to unfuck the bloat out of the game and make it run like not shit?

 

[thefreshmaker]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the CK3 "Legends of the Dead" DLC yet. Came out yesterday.

It's shit, nothing much you couldn't expect. The paid DLC content is basically nothing, a few bits of content that add maybe five minutes of worthless stat boost items and will be ignored in every other playthrough.

Regarding the free patch, it's a more half-assed version of "Reaper's Due" from CK2, but with half the content added. To be fair, a lot of that content introduced in Reaper's Due was already in CK3 (mainly the Court Physician Title and the various diseases you could contract) but without anything other than RNG to guide them. The "new" plague mechanics are also random RNG, but it just increases who randomly gets Typhus or whatever in certain affected regions to basically 100%. You'll still randomly contract Typhus just as much, if not more, through normal gameplay.

It's actually kind of shocking how little love CK3 is getting. As far as I am aware, it's their most popular, famous, most memed, and most played game on Steam yet the DLC and patch releases are probably half as frequent as HOI4's already glacial pace, and do very little. They're a global company with numerous production studios and subsidiaries, but the development is lower quality, lower speed, and lower ambition than it was in 2009 when they had half an employee on each title.

 

[Chickenpolar]

It's actually kind of shocking how little love CK3 is getting. As far as I am aware, it's their most popular, famous, most memed, and most played game on Steam yet the DLC and patch releases are probably half as frequent as HOI4's already glacial pace, and do very little

Haven't touched the game since the throne room dlC so what the fuck do I know but I think it's the 3D art in CK3.

The character models were a nice improvement on portraits. Everything else is a lot more effort art wise for a company not used to 3d art. The throne room should have been a normal RPG 2D inventory screen which would have been nice and functional.

 

[Mr.Miyagi]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the CK3 "Legends of the Dead" DLC yet. Came out yesterday.

It's shit

I want to say it's shocking just how half-assed the mechanics are, but it's really not surprising. Everything in CK3 feels like it exists just to have more events to click through (events = content!!!), but mechanically don't do anything really interesting or anything that CK2 hadn't already done years ago. It's still a better game than Vicky3, but it's effectively the same issue of the development team not knowing what made the previous game engaging.
Already down to 60% Mixed rating on Steam, of course. But people will still eat it up.

 

[Radola Gajda]

It is starting to look like next EU IV dlc will be last. And sequel will be announced soon (tm).
From dev diaries they released so far they will focus on:
Mexican + South American natives.
Central Asia
Central Europe.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/europa-universalis-iv-development-diary-27th-of-february-roadmap-to-1-37.1625239/

As for potential EU V. There is this.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-2-march-6th-2024.1626415/

They are working on some "secret" project Caesar.
And in this dev diary they mostly talk about how provinces in Caesar will work and more importantly how sea travel will work. There are mentions of sea currents "sea wastelands"and other things.

 

[thefreshmaker]

I want to say it's shocking just how half-assed the mechanics are, but it's really not surprising. Everything in CK3 feels like it exists just to have more events to click through (events = content!!!), but mechanically don't do anything really interesting or anything that CK2 hadn't already done years ago. It's still a better game than Vicky3, but it's effectively the same issue of the development team not knowing what made the previous game engaging.
Already down to 60% Mixed rating on Steam, of course. But people will still eat it up.

This made me have an epiphany for why I find CK3 so frustrating to "play".

Most of Paradox's series consist of having a goal, and then sitting through speed 5 to get to the next task to accomplish that goal, pausing to review, then going back to speed 5.

CK3 you attempt to do that and encounter 50 meaningless A) B) C) D) choices, usually giving -10 gold, +50 stress, -50 opinion, +250 piety. That's fine in isolation, but not when it turns a 5 second wait into several minutes. Especially when a lot of the time it's a chain event, like feasts or hunting. Just cut to the chase and give me all the bonuses or negatives, don't draw it out into a million pop ups the pause the game and then have zero pop ups for important diplomatic events, like calls to war.