Paradox Studio Thread

[JJLiautaud]

Hey, you know what would be a good way to include royal forests and such? As part of a Robin Hood DLC with flavor and mechanics related to hunting, poaching, conflict over rights of land use between gentry and peasants, banditry, wood management (this would require navies to make sense), deeper peasant revolts, playable peasant republics. In other words, have mechanics about ruling AND role-playing flavor (gasp).

Also, the new EU4 DLC being named "Domination" just really shows how far they've fallen (all the old DLCs used to be thematically named after famous historical books).

That would require effort and we all know that's not going to happen.

 

[Blackstar]

That would require effort and we all know that's not going to happen.

Why put in effort when the modders can do it instead?

 

[JJLiautaud]

Why put in effort when the modders can do it instead?

There are some things modders can't fix or add like efficient mechanics but they can very easily add all the flavor event they want, so paradox is once again being fucking retarded.

 

[The Ghost of Kviv]

Yeah. Thank goodness it was Cities Skylines 2 instead of yet another damn DLC. They were milking that dry.
The lack of gameplay footage, or really any info at all, is odd for a game that is supposedly going to come out this year though.

Quite a surprise. They better include TPME, and the mods by that Russian dude that lets me add lane markings, change building entry/exit nodes, etc.

 

[Acres of Clams]

Quite a surprise. They better include TPME, and the mods by that Russian dude that lets me add lane markings, change building entry/exit nodes, etc.

If they don't have the full slate of mods for autistic builders integrated in the game on day one that will be a boneheaded missed opportunity.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Maybe they'll add some actual city management/ lose conditions in CS2....or more than likely it'll just be another colorful sandbox. Oh, and maybe more realistic textures, not shiny plastic stuff.

 

[Thiletonomics]

So the rumored Life Simulation Game, since Rod Humble joined Paradox, will be a thing:

I do hope that the game will be mod-friendly, like how Cities Skylines and The Sims games are.

 

[Radola Gajda]

New EU dlc. We have new Ottoman buffs, Hurray . Nerfs to starting position of Muscowy. Great now we will never see AI Russia form. So there will never be anything to stop that piss colour ottoblob from devouring half of Europe

 

[Snekposter]

New EU dlc. We have new Ottoman buffs, Hurray . Nerfs to starting position of Muscowy. Great now we will never see AI Russia form. So there will never be anything to stop that piss colour ottoblob from devouring half of Europe

The devs fucking love the Ottomans as some notorious final boss or something, not the eventual Sick Man of Europe it wound up descending into.

 

[Agarathium1066]

New EU dlc. We have new Ottoman buffs, Hurray . Nerfs to starting position of Muscowy. Great now we will never see AI Russia form. So there will never be anything to stop that piss colour ottoblob from devouring half of Europe

I gave up on EU a long time ago but weren't they already a pretty strong nation to begin with, have troops that are superior or as good as european counterparts at about the same time and can easily dodge most of their historical pitfalls and all that jazz?

They already made them piss easy in Vic 3 as well because apparently you can just gently push the decaying infrastructure, culture, and religion to the side by just being mildly persistent. Ignore that all historical attempts to modernize ended with a large faction flipping their lid and deposing their royalty.

 

[JJLiautaud]

I gave up on EU a long time ago but weren't they already a pretty strong nation to begin with, have troops that are superior or as good as european counterparts at about the same time and can easily dodge most of their historical pitfalls and all that jazz?

They already made them piss easy in Vic 3 as well because apparently you can just gently push the decaying infrastructure, culture, and religion to the side by just being mildly persistent. Ignore that all historical attempts to modernize ended with a large faction flipping their lid and deposing their royalty.

Also ignore all those genocides the Turks did as a direct consequence of the Turks modernizing because well they're brown and as we all know brown people are basically children who are incapable of wrong.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Maybe they'll add some actual city management/ lose conditions in CS2....or more than likely it'll just be another colorful sandbox. Oh, and maybe more realistic textures, not shiny plastic stuff.

I'm not optimistic, partly because of the achievement list.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

I'm not optimistic, partly because of the achievement list.

The only notable ones I see are the city tile ones. Probably just going to be smaller tiles now. A shame. Just another sandbox "sim" to cater to the redditors.

 

[Midwit]

Paradox just wants to make a Fantasy roleplaying game and, unfortunately, CK3 is being turned into that instead of being the Medieval European GSG that the fans actually want. Tying your character directly to the map instead of being Schrodinger's Leige is a massive improvement and something I didn't know I was missing until it was fixed, it's just a shame it's being added to support a glorified event pack rather than something that's actually interesting.

REPUBLICS WHEN PARADOX???

 

[Mr.Miyagi]

Is CK3 still going to have you able to summon your army at the ass end of your empire at the drop of a hat, though? I'm still mixed on that change from CK2. Yeah, it's less micromanagement and all, and the time does seem to change a bit depending on distance, but it still feels strange being able to set a gathering point and just have every soldier across the land show up there in a couple weeks, rather than your realm's size and shape actually affecting logistics. Having a large kingdom in 2 and seeing your masses of levies march to gather in a county felt good.

 

[Midwit]

Is CK3 still going to have you able to summon your army at the ass end of your empire at the drop of a hat, though?

Almost certainly. Paradox wants to simplify the game as much as possible on the GSG side of things and, quite franky, if they could get away with turning all the game's strategy elements into schemes and events they'd do so in a heartbeat. I'm certain that Victoria 3's absolute dumpster fire of a war system was a prototype they were planning on retrofitting into CK3 to allow the players to focus on the "real game" of looking at your economy screen or choosing your next sceme depending on the title in question.

 

[Knud Lavard]

Hey, you know what would be a good way to include royal forests and such? As part of a Robin Hood DLC with flavor and mechanics related to hunting, poaching, conflict over rights of land use between gentry and peasants, banditry, wood management (this would require navies to make sense), deeper peasant revolts, playable peasant republics. In other words, have mechanics about ruling AND role-playing flavor (gasp).

Land-use and conflicts between the estates just isn't sexy enough to sell. Sure, stuff like this might've appealed to enough people in the past to turn Paradox into a AAA-studio from its humble beginnings - but Johan needs more sangria, so we need that Game of Thrones money!

Tying your character directly to the map instead of being Schrodingers Leige is a massive improvement and something I didn't know I was missing until it was fixed, it's just a shame it's being added to support a glorified event pack rather than something that's actually interesting.

I noticed it after the umpteenth time my spouse gave birth to a child while I had spent the last three years campaigning. No "but I was away, wasn't I?", just fully biological children. I remember putting off wars/raids in CKII until after I had an heir, but I guess CKIII rulers just send a pigeon back with some royal batter.

(...) it still feels strange being able to set a gathering point and just have every soldier across the land show up there in a couple weeks, rather than your realm's size and shape actually affecting logistics. Having a large kingdom in 2 and seeing your masses of levies march to gather in a county felt good.

It was such a seemingly small thing, but it really was decisive in a lot of wars. Your power base was geographically relevant, and uprisings could be won by having the right lords in them, rather than just the ones with the biggest number. Italian revolts in the HRE in CKII were good examples of this.

As for the new CKIII DLC, all I can say is that, were this was a DLC for a built-up CKIII, I would welcome it openly. But sadly, CKIII isn't a built-up game. Because this is CKIII and not CKII, tournaments are going to be a one-size-fits-all affair. The events and writing won't fit- and be restricted to high/late medieval western Europe, but rather have to be generic/ahistorical enough to fit most of the old world from 867-1453. At least, it seems very likely to me that they'll have one large event pool that's made to fit all cultures and ages, rather than several smaller ones specific to certain regions. So instead of having specific events clearly set in Western/Central European tournaments, Turko-Persian chovkans, pagan war rehearsals, """unrecognized""" scrums etc. etc., the events and writing will have to be generic enough to cover the old world from 867-1453. In 932, Samis will be using quintains to train horseback jousting while Tibetans are tying women's handkerchiefs around their arms as part of courtly love dedications. At the same time, having two dozen knights die in your 14th century French Mêlée will not make the Church think any less of you.

Another large issue is that there simply isn't enough of a mechanical foundation for any of this to be impactful, as others in the thread have mentioned. Paradox writes that it would be wise for a new ruler to tour his realm, which makes sense. But all this boils down to is +X opinion, +X prestige, -X gold.
If they wanted a new mechanic that ties into the themes of this DLC, why not introduce 'intra-realm power projection'. Instead of the Holy Roman Emperor going to Italy to get +X opinion with the Duke of Milan, he's instead showing his lordship over the region and its people. It could be a bog-standard -100 to 100 counter, with an equilibrium based on a number of factors. Loyal vassal of your culture and religion who likes you and holds lands of your culture and religion right next to your capital? High point of equilibrium. Covetous vassal of a wholly foreign people following a hostile religion on another continent? Low point of equilibrium. The further above this equilibrium you are, representing that the obligations you're placing on your vassals are greater than what you can enforce, the more penalties you'd get - they're more likely to support pretenders or foreign lieges, they'll provide fewer taxes and levies, they're more likely to oppose you in events.
A mechanic like this could mean that an absolutist iron fist isn't the desired solution for all rulers, and that granting privileges and curtailing obligations could actually help your realm.
You would tolerate lowering crown authority as a child Emperor, as it would require you to project less power. Your vassals holding lands in Latvia during the Northern Crusades won't be held to the same obligations as the ones in Frankenland. You would actually consider the Royal Court petitions of your vassals if you needed to show domain over their lands. It would just be nice to have problems that can't be solved with opinion, nails that can't be hammered in with gold or prestige.

Furthermore, I simply cannot see why tournaments necessitate a 3D interface. There are going to be 4-6 regional variants, which will be identical within those regions. Like with Royal Court, it will be a pretty spectacle the first few times you see it - but at least in the Royal Court, the same courts had different peoples sitting on the throne. The tourney grounds of Thetford, Tours, Torino, and Toledo will likely all look identical. If 3D art and environments are constantly flouted as being expensive and time-consuming to make, then why is this precious resource being used on an unnecesary stuff like this? Why is the front-and-centre 3D asset of a DLC focused on tournaments an interface, and not the extravagant armour that defined their spectacle? Imagine if, instead of the 2-4 tournament helmets they'll serve up, they used their 3D workforce on making a large host of vibrant tournament armour. You could even be ambitious and have modular tournament helmets, with a few different variations for the helmet itself, a few different variations for the crest, and a few different variations for a potential veil. With just four different variations of each, combinatorics give you 64 'unique' helmets, which means that the iconic extravagance and opulence of tournament armours isn't depicted as "two guys in identical armour doing the same pose opposite one another", as will be the case.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Knud's post brings up a point that many monarchs in this period were peripatetic, would wander around a country with a mobile capital. Or, really, there was no such thing as a capital, there was merely large cities that were major hubs and there was wherever court was currently being held.

I don't have faith in Paradox to anything meaningful with it but one thing that CK2 did do awkwardly was that it never had a really grounded sense of where characters were physically (in their own court? in your court? on campaign?), events could just fire off without the character having to be somewhere.

3D models were always an awful idea because they'd just make it harder for modders to put out new content, especially total conversions. They also remove the option for deliberately stylized graphics like artistic portraits.

 

[God of Nothing]

Knud's post brings up a point that many monarchs in this period were peripatetic, would wander around a country with a mobile capital. Or, really, there was no such thing as a capital, there was merely large cities that were major hubs and there was wherever court was currently being held.

I don't have faith in Paradox to anything meaningful with it but one thing that CK2 did do awkwardly was that it never had a really grounded sense of where characters were physically (in their own court? in your court? on campaign?), events could just fire off without the character having to be somewhere.

3D models were always an awful idea because they'd just make it harder for modders to put out new content, especially total conversions. They also remove the option for deliberately stylized graphics like artistic portraits.

I always picture it as your waifu tagging along to keep you company during wars.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Why is paradox spending so much effort on shit youre going to barely see, and not stiff like mechanics republics and getting the Byzantines to work or more in depth church politics.