Paradox Studio Thread

[Computer God Autism]

Stellaris 1.0, for all its flaws, had SOVL. All its options were massively imbalanced, but it's clear they were aiming for fun and wacky ideas. My first warp gate empire was hilarious and having to constantly bat against warp and hyperdrive capable empires was engaging.

They just threw it all away with 2.0 and I think it's a worse game for it, even if it needed a hefty dose of number tweaking.

I disagree. Stellaris 1.0 was an mostly empty game that only really had an early game and one big lategame war and no clear design philosophy beyond just doing a bunch of popular sci-fi tropes poorly.

I understand why some people prefer having the choice of/the warpdrive to the hyperdrive, but the design assumptions that making the hyperdrives the default travelling method brought was necessary to make the gameplay strategically interesting in my opinion.

 

[TrinityReformed]

but the design assumptions that making the hyperdrives the default travelling method brought was necessary to make the gameplay strategically interesting in my opinion.

Maybe, but other than creating choke points, that's about it. I was more interested in the rp aspect, and while the added content helped initially, now it feels too bloated, imo. I dropped it around when they released espionage.

 

[Snekposter]

Maybe, but other than creating choke points, that's about it. I was more interested in the rp aspect, and while the added content helped initially, now it feels too bloated, imo. I dropped it around when they released espionage.

I think what pisses me off the most is that they just straight up removed the code for the other FTL options so modders couldn't bring them back.

And they they made so many things such as sensors about lane connections, so you can see through a wormhole but you can't see a system next to yours that's five lanes separate. With trade routes getting axed now would be the perfect time to start swapping things like sensors over to distance instead of lanes.

 

[Zertes]

Paradox hiring a trooned out Pink Panzer who is a radical leftist really shows why they deserve to go out of business:

 

[Chickenpolar]

Paradox hiring a trooned out Pink Panzer who is a radical leftist really shows why they deserve to go out of business:

Makes me wish Johan had started a new company to make a EU clone instead of staying at Paradox. Not that he doesn't screw stuff up (Imperator at launch) but at least he doesn't put current day Marxist shit in everything like the rest of Paradox.

 

[Blackstar]

Makes me wish Johan had started a new company to make a EU clone instead of staying at Paradox.

Well, he has formed a separate studio (Paradox Tinto) and had them work on EU4 for a couple years while he started prototyping EU5/Project Caesar in 2020. It's still paradox but it's not the same studio as the fags on CK3 and Vic 3 and he also has repeatedly mocked and shit on those two across the Tinto Talks forum

 

[RA-5C Vigilante]

Paradox hiring a trooned out Pink Panzer who is a radical leftist really shows why they deserve to go out of business:
View attachment 7131435

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You can't make this shit up. What a trainwreck of a company.

 

[LovisXVI]

Paradox hiring a trooned out Pink Panzer who is a radical leftist really shows why they deserve to go out of business:
View attachment 7131435

View attachment 7131456

Expect CK3 to run worse, be excessively verbose, needlessly edgy and buggy as shit in the near future because everything Pink Troonzer has ever had his grubby mitts on has had all those qualities and then some. Godherja SUCKS.

 

[Blackstar]

New feedback TT on the changes made to diplomacy and warfare, it also included the first paper map mode close up:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-56-26th-of-march-2025.1733172/?prdxDevPosts=1

 

[LovisXVI]

New feedback TT on the changes made to diplomacy and warfare, it also included the first paper map mode close up:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-56-26th-of-march-2025.1733172/?prdxDevPosts=1

View attachment 7139633

Was really glad for the logistic systems, will both make moving through territory more interesting and considered, but also actually playing defensive by cutting off armies from supply will hopefully be viable.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

It will force the player to actually try and conduct campaigns instead of wars, planning for the seasons and weather and such.

 

[los pepes]

Was really glad for the logistic systems, will both make moving through territory more interesting and considered, but also actually playing defensive by cutting off armies from supply will hopefully be viable.

As always it comes down to how tarded the ai is. If it doesnt protect its supply lines or attack yours then it might as well not exist.

 

[RA-5C Vigilante]

It will force the player to actually try and conduct campaigns instead of wars, planning for the seasons and weather and such.

Which means the AI will be broken either in being terrified of losing anything and turtles endlessly, or is retarded and moves troops out even when they would lose large parts of it to Winter conditions or into hostile areas that are unsecured.
And in the vein of "realism" the player is forced to obey the designers rule and make it miserable to play.
Hooray.

 

[crowabunga]

Stellaris ship weapons will soon have moddable on_hit effects:

New parameters for weapons:

on_hit: apply effects to target on hit. Scope = ship (target), from = ship (shooter)

If this works like I think it will then the modding implications of this are tremendous.

For example, it may be possible to implement a targeted boarding system by creating a very short range slow firing weapon that deals no damage, and on "hit" executes a script comparing each vessels' and their owner empires' attributes, using that to establish chance of success, and on success then transfers the target vessel to the attacking vessel's fleet.

There was no good way to do that under the old, simplistic weapons system. This could be the shot of adrenaline Stellaris modding needs to make Stellaris space combat actually interesting and more flavorful than rock-paper-scissors.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

It lets you make disruptions, radiation weapons that kill the crew, EMP weapons that fuck the electronics, and more.

 

[Scale Smerch]

Every time I swear I'm finished with Stellaris Paradox reels me back in. On the one hand can finally make a half-faithful Yuuzhan Vong stand-in with these changes, on the other the biological ascension path update should unlock a proper space age Draka run. And the game might actually run decently in the late game if the planets further align.

 

[crowabunga]

I can't stop ruminating on all the potential for the on_hit effect: kamikaze weapons; a dimensional displacer that forces retreats of enemy vessels; "cast from life" superweapons that damage the attacking ship's hull (would have to settle for on_hit as a rough proxy for firing); life leech weapons; superweapons that scope to all inhabited planets in the ship's current system and inflict devastation; maybe even a "Nothing personnel kid" attack that teleports the attacking ship on successful hit.

 

[Blackstar]

On the topic of modding I can't wait to see what will be cooked up by modders with EU5. The most obvious one will be a Victorian era mod since it will be a better Victoria game than Vic 3.

 

[LovisXVI]

On the topic of modding I can't wait to see what will be cooked up by modders with EU5. The most obvious one will be a Victorian era mod since it will be a better Victoria game than Vic 3.

I have been theory crafting some stuff, could remake Imperator/Imperium Universalis in EU5, give the world the game Johan intended.

 

[Kane Lives]

I can't stop ruminating on all the potential for the on_hit effect: kamikaze weapons; a dimensional displacer that forces retreats of enemy vessels; "cast from life" superweapons that damage the attacking ship's hull (would have to settle for on_hit as a rough proxy for firing); life leech weapons; superweapons that scope to all inhabited planets in the ship's current system and inflict devastation; maybe even a "Nothing personnel kid" attack that teleports the attacking ship on successful hit.

Won't lie, sounds like a recipe to have the game crawl to a halt in a few ingame years, rather than a few decades as it does now.