Paradox Studio Thread
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Bobbobson
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2020
Johan on the levy changes. It seems it wasn't a mistake, they just didn't think it through. Patch coming tomorrow with levies slightly weaker than 1.04. His reasoning seems fine but the whole system sounds like it's still WIP.
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2024
I wish it went up to 117, you could have a gamerule where Christianity is always destined to rise (If you believe the divine aspects of it) or where it rises only if Judaea/Jerusalem is controlled by a foreign non-Jewish power.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
Honestly, on the eve of the DLC coming out I can see no reason to be excited for it, bar stuff being added. The only people that would be excited for it are the biggest Paradox shills who are excited to hand out money for focus trees.
Coal is going to be in the base game (like fuel) and that exists to stop snowballing (it will prob still be quite easy to get 400-500 actions as historical Russia before Barb). I don't really have much to say about that. Bar, if I wanted to really play with resources I'd play Black Ice.
There's also a new doctrine system but ehhh (it's just changing everything into sub branches instead of a linear path). I mean, yay you won't be able to rush the entire doctrine as the US before going to war with mastery? But even still, it's like: why does this cost so much?
I mean, the faction mechanics added seem to be useless slop. Granted, pretty much every additional thing added to HOI4 is a waste of time and bloat. Like fine, some people do like the designers for Ships (oh wait, it's in the base game now) Tanks and Planes - even though they are essentially just added micro and most players will use the same designs over and over. The same thing with MIOs which are just something set at the start. It's all a bunch of useless micro, and Paradox recognized this to the extent where you can just load MIO and designer presets. Oh, and raids. The only time anyone uses raids is for Nukes; and even then it's a waste of time to use nukes unless you're just aiming to destroy airfields to wipe out planes.
The only thing of any added use for every game (funnily enough) is spy agencies. Purely because of how they can be used to get and counter planning bonuses. Oh, and for Colab governments. I do also sometimes use them for naval blueprints (passively) as the Soviets so I can have ships (but that's personal to me).
The market can have some uses, but even then it's ehh. Just an easy source of IC at the start of the game.
And I am not interested in the new focus trees, I doubt most people are. I am someone who never really goes a-historical. But even then, why would anyone pay for Paradox to make focus trees when mods will do that anyways, for free?
Oh, and included in the DLC are three new special projects:
- Submarine Carriers
- Support Ships
- Escort carriers
Plus, Submarine Carriers seem to be just a waste of time as they'll act like normal submarines in battle (and I can already add floatplanes to subs).
Research Facilities and their consequences have been a disaster for HOI4
Oh, and there's also how features clearly meant for the main DLC were taken out of it because of the backlash to both Trials of Allegiance and Graveyard of Empires and given to the south east asia dlc so that people don't complain about "just focus trees". The South East Asia DLC also barely has any countries added (You're repaying for Australia for people that actually bought the DLCs, and there's stuff for Siam and the Dutch East Indies. - It's actually funny how Paradox calls it Indonesia on the steam page, even though they keep Siam).
Really though, China should be considered as just one country where the sub-ideologies are all present as other countries. Hence, communist path being communist China and so forth. As such, you're basically paying for three focus trees (Japan, China and the Philippines). At least with Waking the Tiger, you had a-historical Germany thrown in and other content related to general traits (still micro but still). This is forcing people to buy focus trees again, where the Philippines is the only new addition and that's only good for Filipino nationalists.
Sure, there's precedent of Paradox making their games free, but the money with the games are made from DLC. Looking at CK2, the DLC was far, far more expensive and the point was to get people to pay for the dlcs over time (or subscribe to the DLC thing). This is the complete opposite to CK2 where the point is to get people to rebuy the DLCs
It's also funny how you're paying for modded content.
Like, in the past it was somewhat more passable to buy the DLCs but now? No, I'll just stick to the free content added (hell I'll probably revert versions).
I want whatever Paradox is smoking.
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2024
I spend more time disabling dlc mechanics then actually using them in modding. They add too much bloat and don't mesh well with mod mechanics. I also dislike pay walling content behind dlc, especially when you can just mod in identical mechanics.
I am also convinced they kill performance, but I don't have solid proof for that.
- Joined
- May 25, 2024
Well they add AI calculations to taking a decision or not, so the more just things generally the AI must consider, the more it needs to run.
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2021
HOI4 is one of Paradox's most popular games, I think they will do whatever it takes to keep the gravy train rolling. By the end of its life as a title I won't be surprised if is insanely bloated with the systems the AI struggles to use that players will also have issues with unless they play a major country.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
Oh they will, especially because Gotter made a lot of things much more difficult to get because of having to build facilities. Think Radar for example, you had to build a specific building for that. Now, Rader is very important for a lot of things such as sub detection. Don't have rader, you're shipping is going to be fucked. Meaning, you had to build a research facility as Japan for that role. Want flamethrower tanks? Another building. Think about getting super battleships? Another building for navy. Oh, and you need to make sure you get the breakthrough points.
Oh, and don't have any scientists? That's more pp to spend in the early game!
It's especially more apparent when a lot of the actual naval stuff really shouldn't need research facilities. Looking at Super Battleships, you could say that you would need the facility to design the larger more powerful guns. Turns out you don't, as the guns are unlocked with the first Battleship gun tech (with guns 2 for heavy ships). It is literally just being used to design the base ship, which is why? Especially because it is arbitrary. Like, destroyers to battleships and CVs are fine, but not super battleships? Both modern battleships and modern CVs exist in the same light (each costing 2 break through mind you) but no one would actually get them. Oh, and Cruiser, Fleet and Nuclear submarines need the special facilities but normie subs don't for whatever reason (even though the first 2 are just bigger subs). Don't even get me started on torpedo cruisers. Like why?
Really, the mechanic basically existed to make it possible to get certain ships locked behind focus trees.
Now, I'm not saying that things should be given freely, what I am instead stating is that the entire concept of research facilities is just an awful mechanic Paradox is pushing for. Same with the entire raid mechanic.
Case in point, these achievements which all 4 are really easy to get but require engaging with these awful mechanics:
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
Any reason you would pick 117? Christianity was still very minor, heavily persecuted, and wasn't even recognized by Rome. Even in 200 it was followed by less than 1% of the empire. If Christianity was going to be an endgame situation I would end the game in 300 at the absolute earliest.
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2024
It was the height of Rome's territorial extent, and would gel well with Christianity as an early game crisis that causes huge unrest, mainly hits to stability because of Christians refusing to sacrifice to your nation's gods where persecutions result in you regaining stability but increased spread of Christianity, fits well since when Imperator starts Judaism is the only monotheistic religion, if you're Jewish it can also lower stability because of the claim that Jesus if the messiah and the lack of adherence to rabbinical laws. Bonus points for events determining the church's early history based on RNG allowing Christianity to become more pacifistic or militarist. Also I think estimatong the number of adherents to a religion in ancient times to be a fool's errand when we don't even know if there are emperors we've lost to history because of being damnatio memoriae'd.
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2024
This is something that's been proposed, but that we don't have any real solid data on. Rodney Stark, whose work I greatly respect and who most of the commonly cited numbers are based on, used a model of exponential growth to calculate the demographic rise of Christianity; in his model, Christianity jumps from 220,000 in 200 AD to 1,170,000 in 250 AD to 7,500,000 in 300 AD (about 0.35% to 2% to 12% of the Roman Empire's population), out of the commonly estimated 60 million population of the Empire across 100 to 400 AD (I personally do not think this number is reliable either, but lacking alternatives it's what we have).
The problem is that Stark's model uses absolute numbers, not proportion of the population - so if the model the numbers are based on kept going it would have eventually resulted in about 110% of the population of the Empire being Christian by 370 AD. This isn't to say Stark's model isn't useful, but it shouldn't be taken as gospel either.
The other problem with measuring the spread of Christianity in pre-Constantine Rome is how urbanization is calculated; the wildly varying numbers you can see really comes down to at what threshold a town is considered urban for the purposes of whoever is counting it. So many of the models proposing a fifth or a fourth of the Roman population being urbanized are really just counting frontier towns that had a population of about 5000 (for reference, this is the bottom of the estimates for the population of Roman Paris). This is important for estimating the rise of Christianity for two reasons; 1): most of the major cities of the Empire were in the east, which also contained the most populous provinces and 2): Christianity was both disproportionately present in Roman urban life and far more pronounced in the eastern provinces.
Personally, I think the Christian proportion of the pre-Constantine Empire is generally a bit higher than traditionally estimated. In addition to the above-mentioned lopsided proportion of the Roman population being in Christianity's proving grounds, it is also that Christians grew as a swiftly enough religious community to warrant distinct consideration by the Roman authorities. Christians were exempted from the Fiscus Iudaicus in 98 A.D, and Suetonius, writing as Hadrian's secretary in the Twelve Caesars, considered them a religion and the Jews a gens. There are also disputed claims that Osroene adopted Christianity in the latter part of the 2nd century, which, if the case, would have been unlikely if Christianity was a miniscule proportion of the Syrian population.
- Joined
- May 25, 2024
I'd also say that what even was a Christian and how you might even define it in the pre-Chalcedon council period is a worthwhile discussion to have. It is entirely possible that what the Romans and contemporary Christians would define as a Christian would not pass muster now under any of the standing creeds beyond believing in Jesus as a divine or semi-divine figure. I would wager that the proportion of people who adhered to some Christian cultic activity is probably higher, but Christian exclusivists to be on the lower end.
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2021
The only new mechanic I dislike for this DLC round is the faction overhaul. That one is undeniably bloat and very likely made as the central mechanic to underpin the DLC (much like experimental research was for Gotterdaemmerung) since Paradox always needs something to pretend like these releases aren't just dressed up focus tree packs. Similar to the command structure updates, just bite the bullet already Paradox and realize HOI3 had the ideal model for that. EU5 is evidence enough complexity isn't that big a killer for the modern audience.
As for the other free stuff don't mind the naval changes from a larp perspective, but per usual these days really only feels like them playing around the edges to give the impression of doing something; naval is still an enigmatic death ball game where meta mono fleets will continue dominating, and the AI will continue sucking on rocks when it even comes to that. Coal is a nice addition at least, and should be moddable to also affect supply.
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2023
I thought that it was very odd that they cut it off there and not try to model the collapse to Rome as well. It’s just an exercise in map painting mostly and I don’t find that too fun unless there’s a challenge.
Dammit, I didn’t know they were adding another resource. This is exactly what they did in Stellaris when they added Alloys. If they think there’s an issue with resources then they should try to balance it, but instead they add another speedbunp for majors and a massive pain in the ass for minors.
HOI4 resources need some serious work, but I don’t think this is it. I’ve always thought that they should act like a stockpile rather than a continuous flow. If you’re playing as a country that is going to be cut off from trade (Germany) you should be able to stockpile resources for the future. It would even give players a reason to use the raid mechanic whereby you get a chance to bomb another countries stockpiles.
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2024
I don't mind games with short timespans. Nobunaga's Ambition is one of my favorite strategy series and most of the games have a timeline only covering the 1540s-1600s. My concern is proper simulation. Imperator is not designed to simulate the stagnation, contraction or collapse of empires from anything other than another (rising) empire. Stretching it to cover a new period would mean it would do it a disservice and removes potential depth from the period it is already trying to simulate. We saw this when CK2 pushed the date back to Charlemagne and the difficulties EU4 had at simulating anything after a hundred and fifty years.
Imperator's biggest mechanical weakness, and the thing that kept me from enjoying it the most, was its inability to represent any real-anti snowballing mechanics. Roman expansion wasn't a constant slope, it had periods with sharp very sharp curves - and it wasn't preordained either.
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2023
That was my big problem as well (I’ve only recently played it for the first time). Nothing stops Rome from flattening everyone without a pause.
The Aggressive Expansion ticker was supposed to stop this I think, but the malus was so small it effectively did nothing. The biggest hit from AE was diplomatic and that doesn’t mean a thing if you’re going expansionist.
There are things I liked about the game but it felt very half baked, more of a proof of concept that a full experience.
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2024
Can you elaborate on this further? Specifically CK2.
- Joined
- May 25, 2024
The Frankish kingdom was not feudal by any measure, and in fact, feudalism wasn't a "thing" (as much as it could be "a thing") in Western Europe until the 11th century.
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2024
CK2 was designed to represent a high-late medieval Europe with its simulation being loosely based on a simplification of Capetian feudalism (I'm autistic, I know). Feudal norms and religious divisions have already largely solidified, and while the simulations aren't too deep, a 1066 to 1453 campaign will usually result in a world that resembles history with a few butterflies, with the only real exceptions being the ahistorical resilience of Islamic dynasties and the Greeks.
CK2 already stretched itself by going back to 867, but 769 really shows the limitations of a system designed to model the state of the world three centuries later. Stuff such as the fracturing of Chalcedonian Christianity, the problem of the two Emperors, the synthesis and retention of Germanic cultures with the Latin-speaking populations they ruled over, a single realm being subdivided into the jurisdiction of many kings, the lack of clearly defined succession laws so that kings might either inherit or be elected to their position, etc. is all represented but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone saying it's simulated well. When I think about the time and effort that went into the Old Gods and Charlemagne, I wonder how much of the effort that was put into stuff like that couldn't have been spent on adding in stuff like appanages and cadet branches and theocracies with their dynastic nepotism and a generally better simulation of 1066-1453.
This isn't to say that CK2 is a bad game by any stretch. It was second after Vic 2 to me and is still more fun than any game Paradox released afterwards until EU5. It's just that when I look at it I see so much more that could have been done - stuff that mods like CK2+ and HIP try to do but are hobbled by the limitations of what can be done by modding - and I get even more frustrated when I look at CK3 as I see some stuff in it that were things people wanted from CK2 that's married to a really shitty sequel.
God of Nothing
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2016
those don't collapse after their first historical ruler for you?