Paradox Studio Thread

[Strelok]

Went back to CK2 for a bit now that the phenomenal CK2+ mod updated, among other smaller things, this latest update removes India. While India was a cool idea in concept, it rarely interactd with Europe or the middle east in actual gameplay, and contributed to lategame slowdown.

The actual features of the mod itself are great though, cadet branch spawning, an internal faction system that can benefit good rules, and downright ruin bad ones, a proper unified christianity and islam before they both had their respective schisms, and many other improvements.

Here's a list of the things it adds, and it's probably not only the best ck2 mod, but the best mod of any paradox game period.

http://www.ckiiwiki.com/CK2Plus

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

Made Deagle Nation in Stellaris, had to use the foxes because there was no wolf race.

Was fun for a while, Admiral Eli became the leader once Commander Striker died and I went to war with some religious aliens that were totes Muslim.

But once the novelty of Race War Van-class battleships wore off I realized damn near everything is either shallow, broken or simply absent (spying? what's that?) and uninstalled.

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

I hope that there's a DLC that puts swarm mechanics into the game. Playing as races like the Zerg or the Tyrannids could be fun.

There actually is a tyranid/zerg/flood style invasion as a Galactic Threat Event. My friend has faced them off in his game. They arrive with numerous 15k stack fleets and had at least one "main" fleet of 24k.

 

[Doctor Druid]

I've finally been able to get into CK2. It took me a while since it is so different than their other games, but now that I have it's fucking addicting.

 

[sugoi-chan]

Pdox has announced their update plan for the next few months. I'm excited.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...llaris-dev-diary-33-the-maiden-voyage.932668/

 

[Locksnap]

But once the novelty of Race War Van-class battleships wore off I realized damn near everything is either shallow, broken or simply absent (spying? what's that?) and uninstalled.

Agreed. Paradox games are never pretty on release, but Stellaris is one of the most broken and buggy I've seen yet. The sheer amount of things that don't work under the hood is pathetic.

 

[Emperor Julian]

Forged a Norse Pagan Empire in Crusader kings who turned the neighboring christian kingdoms princess into a concubine. tempted to try and restore the roman Empire and convert to Norse paganism because a Roman empire which worships Thor sounds rad.

 

[Strelok]

Agreed. Paradox games are never pretty on release, but Stellaris is one of the most broken and buggy I've seen yet. The sheer amount of things that don't work under the hood is pathetic.

Lol you weren't around for the pre CK2 days then. Stellaris has fucking NOTHING on Hoi3.

Speaking of HoI, I may have a bit of a crisis on my hands. the WW1 secnario in Darkest Hour, playing as Austria and... the Ottomans joined the Allies.

I am so very, very, very fucked.

 

[Sable]

So, I played for the first time today.

I couldn't make enough ships with my spaceports to overpower the first guy that came to kill me. Everything else is pretty fun.

 

[KingGeedorah]

Lol you weren't around for the pre CK2 days then. Stellaris has fucking NOTHING on Hoi3.

Speaking of HoI, I may have a bit of a crisis on my hands. the WW1 secnario in Darkest Hour, playing as Austria and... the Ottomans joined the Allies.

I am so very, very, very fucked.

And apparently HoI4 in less then a month.

 

[Strelok]

And apparently HoI4 in less then a month.

I have much better hopes for HoI4 than I did Stellaris. Stellaris I knew going in was quite a gamble, as Paradox had never done that sort of game before, and perhaps I should have trusted my better judgement. HoI IV however, going with my experience with the series itself, looks like it should be a solid addition, that bridges the playability gap between Hoi3's uber micro and Darkest Hour's meaningful macro. The big thing I'm looking forward to there is the focus on alt history divergences, as the big problem HoI has had in the past is the game essentially breaks down if the war takes certain ahistorical turns. The battle planner is something I like too, as it allows the micro of Hoi3 where you want it, while not being as stubborn as Hoi3's automation.

To put it in perspective, let's make a secnario. I am the glorious Fuhrer of the Germans, and am preparing to invade the wicked Soviets. I have a warfront of like 30 provinces wide that I need to put pressure on, but do not have the strength to breakthrough, but I want to keep attacking with it and attritioning anyway. Hoi2, the scenario won't happen, the Soviet front as a whole is maybe 20 provinces to begin with. Hoi3: I can either control every of the 30 divisions manually, painstakingly reacting to hour by hour events, or give the AI control of my army, where no matter what I tell it, it will sit on it's ass because "attacking would be suicide". Yes, yes it would. But I need a bloody distraction. Hoi4's battle planner meanwhile attempts to follow your orders as best it can, without questioning you. If you want to hang yourself with a stupidly designed offensive, the game will be more than willing to reduce the micro you need to hang yourself with.

Having read all the dev diaries and watched several streams, I'm much more confident in Hoi IV. The big problem with Stellaris was lack of content in places, but HoI4, being a ww2 game, you can tell immediatly weather the content needed is there or not, because it's ww2. And I can pretty safely say it is. Unless you live in Germany then enjoy your silouetted Hitler, because apparently even showing a drawing of him is like drawing Muhommad.

 

[KingGeedorah]

I have much better hopes for HoI4 than I did Stellaris. Stellaris I knew going in was quite a gamble, as Paradox had never done that sort of game before, and perhaps I should have trusted my better judgement. HoI IV however, going with my experience with the series itself, looks like it should be a solid addition, that bridges the playability gap between Hoi3's uber micro and Darkest Hour's meaningful macro. The big thing I'm looking forward to there is the focus on alt history divergences, as the big problem HoI has had in the past is the game essentially breaks down if the war takes certain ahistorical turns. The battle planner is something I like too, as it allows the micro of Hoi3 where you want it, while not being as stubborn as Hoi3's automation.

To put it in perspective, let's make a secnario. I am the glorious Fuhrer of the Germans, and am preparing to invade the wicked Soviets. I have a warfront of like 30 provinces wide that I need to put pressure on, but do not have the strength to breakthrough, but I want to keep attacking with it and attritioning anyway. Hoi2, the scenario won't happen, the Soviet front as a whole is maybe 20 provinces to begin with. Hoi3: I can either control every of the 30 divisions manually, painstakingly reacting to hour by hour events, or give the AI control of my army, where no matter what I tell it, it will sit on it's ass because "attacking would be suicide". Yes, yes it would. But I need a bloody distraction. Hoi4's battle planner meanwhile attempts to follow your orders as best it can, without questioning you. If you want to hang yourself with a stupidly designed offensive, the game will be more than willing to reduce the micro you need to hang yourself with.

Having read all the dev diaries and watched several streams, I'm much more confident in Hoi IV. The big problem with Stellaris was lack of content in places, but HoI4, being a ww2 game, you can tell immediatly weather the content needed is there or not, because it's ww2. And I can pretty safely say it is. Unless you live in Germany then enjoy your silouetted Hitler, because apparently even showing a drawing of him is like drawing Muhommad.

Dude you just gave me a serious chubby. I liked HoI3 from the little I played, but I love WW2 and grand strategy. Going to buy on day one I think.

 

[Strelok]

Dude you just gave me a serious chubby. I liked HoI3 from the little I played, but I love WW2 and grand strategy. Going to buy on day one I think.

A good example is their 1 hour stream where they tried to save Poland. They lucked out and only faced the Germans. Skip to 18min in if you only want from war declaration on. He's playing at a far faster speed than I'd feel comfortable doing the level of micro he is though. I'd probably only be on speed 2 at most.

This was a livestream ported to Youtube, so expect lag and framedrops.

Annoyingly supposedly it's already at gold master, but when they knew about when it would be done, decided to release it on D-Day.

 

[Guardian G.I.]

Lol you weren't around for the pre CK2 days then. Stellaris has fucking NOTHING on Hoi3.

Memories of the horrifying bugfest that was Victoria 2 on release still make me shudder. HoI3 was also very bad.

Stellaris is actually one of the best Paradox strategies in terms of playability on release day, even when putting its lethargic AI problems and whatnot into account.

 

[Strelok]

I would be amenable btw to running a Kiwi HOI4 game around release. I'm fairly certain I have the bandwidth to manage it.

 

[Hat]

Would someone with more experience in these games be willing to lend some advice on how to get started in Victoria? The whole interface seems quite complex and the game doesn't really explain anything beyond some of the most basic controls.

 

[Strelok]

Would someone with more experience in these games be willing to lend some advice on how to get started in Victoria? The whole interface seems quite complex and the game doesn't really explain anything beyond some of the most basic controls.

Victoria 1 or 2? And if 2 did you grab both expansions?

 

[Hat]

Victoria 1 or 2?

The original with the expansion.

 

[Caesare]

I been a fan of paradox since I first bought HOI 1 in highschool, got part 2 when that came out, then found out later about EU2, which is more my style and was hooked ever since. My favorites now are EU3 (have yet to get 4) Victoria 2, and my latest favorite, Crusader Kings 2. I always was interested in CK1 but I read so much negativity about it on the Paradox Plaza forum that I never decided to get it, but when I watched a few LPs of Ck2 I knew I must have it.

I haven't had CK2 very long, I'm still playing with my tutorial kingdom of Leon in Northern Spain where they teach you how to assassinate and inherit Castille and Galacia. After that, I was kinda digging the way the game was going, so I stuck with it lol. I kept marrying children into Phillip of France's family, got some territory in the West of France when my French wife died and our son was the heir to her Duchy and eventually discovered that one of my sons was an heir to the throne after Phillip's only son, because all his other kids were female. I successfully assassinated him, my son got control of France independent of my rule, then I assassinated my own son since my King was in his 80s at this point and crippled, maimed, bedridden, every affliction you could think of, so I died soon after and my grandson inherited both France and Spain, which at this point included the Kingdoms of Portugal, Galacia, Castille, Navarre, part of Aragon(I'm still trying to get those basterd but they hate me so much they refuse any of my marriage proposals lol. I basically kicked all the Moslems out of the Iberian Peninsula besides 2 small Sultanates in the South of Iberia. I also have few possessions in North Africa just south of Gibraltar. I'm loving this game. Haven't been playing lately, got back into SimCity 4 again. I have to go back to SimCity 4 every couple years, its like Chrono Trigger, I get a hankering to play it about once every couple of years.

 

[Strelok]

The original with the expansion.

Oh absolutly no idea then, other than make sure to attack the darkies for that sweet sweet Congolese rubber.