Paradox Interactive Games Thread

[Bacon King]

I got into the mid-1700s and had everything from the Rockies to Appalachians, down to around Arkansas-latitude, and then Portugal and the Dutch declared war on me. I lost big battles even with 2x numerical superiority, and it all fell apart. I guess I was too far behind technologically?

So far, I like the game OK, but it hasn't grabbed me like CK2 does. I'm going to keep playing and see if something clicks.

1. Yes, military technology is probably the single most important factor in combat

2. If you managed to somehow enjoy a game as a North American tribe (literally the worst gameplay experience anywhere on the map) I'm sure you'll be thoroughly grabbed once you choose a reasonable start that actually allows you to do more than a small fraction of the game's features (you just did the EU4 equivalent of starting as, like, the Emir of Socotra)

3. Play as the Ottomans. They're a juggernaut but not in an overwhelming way. They have the versatility to expand in any direction with any sort of playstyle. Try out different game systems and such at your own pace. Their missions point you in general directions if you're looking for direction but you are free to ignore them and try out whatever you want to.

The best reasons the Ottomans are so great for new players is that they are "robust" enough to allow you to survive and make a comeback, even if you don't discover an essential part of gameplay until you're already a century into the game.

[Bacon King]

People who play Hoi4 without Kaiserreich are the weakest race

That being said Hoi4 feels like a supply simulator sometimes compared to Hoi3

For all the Victoria 2 lovers in this thread, you better not be playing with Vanilla

HPM and HFM (PDM I find meh beyond the vastly improved Great War mechanic) both make the game vastly better depending on what youre looking for.  I wish I understood CWE better, because I can only play the cracked version of East V West so much until I get sad it was cancelled.

Wheres my Cold War Grand Strategy game paradox

You played the leaked version of East vs West and you didn't hate it?

You think literally anything feels more like a supply simulator than HoI 3?

I don't usually say this but wow your opinions are bad

(Kaiserreich is great tho)

what help do you need with CWE i love that mod

[Bacon King]

SALE SALE SALE

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/paradox-bundle-2019

donate $1 or more to charity and you get Crusader Kings 2 as well as three other cool games

donate $6 or more and you get Europa Universalis 4 and CK2's The Old Gods DLC

donate $12 or more and get EU4's El Dorado DLC and several other cool games

[Bacon King]

SALE SALE SALE

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/paradox-bundle-2019

donate $1 or more to charity and you get Crusader Kings 2 as well as three other cool games

donate $6 or more and you get Europa Universalis 4 and CK2's The Old Gods DLC

donate $12 or more and get EU4's El Dorado DLC and several other cool games

I have always wanted to get EUIV but was waiting to do so until I had a more powerful computer for it. I don't want to pass this up though.

Do you think a dual core processor with an AMD HD7770 is powerful enough to handle it decently? I recall one of them recommending a 4 core, but maybe that was HOI4.

I don't think you'll have any problem at all and you don't need a quad core. I'm not very good at computer hardware stuff but if I'm doing this benchmark comparison thing correctly then it looks like your computer is over twice as powerful as EU4's recommended system requirements

[Bacon King]

New sale!

[Bacon King]

but that naval system almost makes me want to go back to a previous version.

I've owned HOI4 for two years and still haven't gotten around to playing it so I can't give you any specific advice, but before you roll back your game version I'd suggest you check the Steam Workshop (and maybe the official forums too). When any paradox game has an unpopular/controversial change, there will inevitably be a half dozen mods that remove/undo the bad change while keeping everything else from the new update

[Bacon King]

Lots of people are very hostile at Imperator Rome but honestly the game is pretty fun. People are mad it's not "as good" as other paradox titles but they aren't taking into account the other games have years of ongoing development + DLCs on top of the original base game. Every game since EU4 I've bought on release day (not counting HOI games) and this is by far the best experience I've had in a version 1.0.0 paradox game

[Bacon King]

Have you heard about the "Iron Century"?

The most fun I've had in the vanilla game in years, so many great starts all over the map. These days I mostly play total conversion mods like Game of Thrones, Elder Kings, Winter Kings, etc, because while I love the game I reached a point where the base game wasn't really interesting enough for me anymore. This new Iron Century bookmark though is so good I'm honestly amazed it's free

[Bacon King]

Have you heard about the "Iron Century"?

The most fun I've had in the vanilla game in years, so many great starts all over the map. These days I mostly play total conversion mods like Game of Thrones, Elder Kings, Winter Kings, etc, because while I love the game I reached a point where the base game wasn't really interesting enough for me anymore. This new Iron Century bookmark though is so good I'm honestly amazed it's free

What's your favorite start in it?

I do appreciate how balanced of a starting map it is.

So far my favorite start has been as the Duke of Paris

[Bacon King]

I forgot the wife had bought it already, so I've been playing hers with the Steam share thing, but you're probably right.

How different is Civ 6 from Civ 5, actually? I do like Civ 5 and my only experience with 6 is watching a few youtube videos but from what I have seen it looks... incredibly similar to 5. Much more so than 5 was to 4, 4 was to 3, and 3 was to 2 (I never played civ 1, before my time, so I can't speak to it)

[Bacon King]

~5,000 hours of Civ 4

I just got back from vacation, the first "comfort" game I played when I got home was Civ4.

It looks like I'm on the same page as both of you.  Civ 4 definitely hits the sweet spot for me where I can play it for countless hours to when I'm seeking an enjoyable and familiar experience. The third game definitely has the biggest nostalgia factor for me, and while I do revisit it every now and then (61 hours played since I added it to Steam in 2013) I can't put up with it for too long just because it lacks so many basic quality of life features found in all of the later games

The most frustrating example of for me is that I have to keep track of the population growth of every city to note the happiness level IMMEDIATELY whenever anywhere grows in size, because the game gives you absolutely zero warning before your cities experience unrest, so you have to micromanage EVERYTHING so your cities aren't sitting completely useless every time they grow.

Four hits the sweet spot, mixing nostalgia/familiarity with reasonable anti-frustration features. Honestly the only thing I really wish Civ IV had was a hexagonal map, that was easily the best change 5 did

Not that 5 isn't good, I do enjoy it occasionally, but it's just not really a "comfort" game for me

[Bacon King]

Anyone seen this?

https://twitter.com/armenia/status/1029296342500298754?s=19

Official Twitter account for the Republic of Armenia.

Yes! They also tweeted about the release of the Iron Century patch

[Bacon King]

I've owned this game since release but in all those years I've never actually attempted to do a world conquest or even to play 100% optimally with a goal of long term uninterrupted expansion. I decided to finally play a game where I went all-out, and started playing shortly after the most recent patch, playing here and there as time permits. I plan to go all the way to 1453 because I've never actually gotten the achievement for playing a game from this start date all the way to the end.

I started as Charlemagne in 769. I just reached my seventh ruler, just over 150 years into the game, and since it's kind of a milestone I thought I'd share my progress so far!


_{(all images are screenshots taken by me and their use here is entirely aboveboard)}


Current political map (right click and open in a new tab to see a bigger image)





And religious map:





THIS unexpected event happened just before I quit for the night, which is how Catholicism spread just like the rains down in Africa




Here's the history of my top-level title, the Empire of Francia, showing how long each of my characters reigned

[Bacon King]

Also here's a big chonker of an image showing each of my rulers. I literally just began playing as Frederic and honestly his stats are AMAZING but honestly this entire sequence of rulers has been great

(right click and open in a new tab to see it)

[Bacon King]

Also if anyone has any questions about how to play super-optimally like this, please ask! I have accumulated so much knowledge about this game that I can share

[Bacon King]

Nice! Islam can be really fun in CK2, when you're done with this game I'd recommend trying out some of the game-recommended Muslim starts

Here are some tips:

The law for religious revocation can be very useful - but only revoke the titles of Christians who have no chance of going into rebellion instead of giving you their titles, unless you can handle a revolt (if you can defeat a revolt, though, it will be very useful to provoke someone into rebellion, because when you win they're your prisoner and you can instantly revoke all their titles instead of waiting weeks for them to respond to every individual request)

Wherever possible, add Muslim vassal kings between you and Christian dukes (and Muslim vassal dukes between you and Christian counts, but I don't see many direct vassal counts there). Basically you'll be offloading some of the angry heathen vassals onto some loyal Muslim vassals who will love you for giving them the new title(s)

The key to quick conversion of your realm (provinces and characters) is to do ensure there are as many layers of same-religion vassals as possible. Remember, every landed character ranked Count or higher has a Court Chaplain they will use to convert in a province. So the ideal scenario is to have a single count for each county so every province is the demesne of a ruler trying to convert it, and then every single one of those counts has a duke above them and a king above that, who both can convert provinces of their vassals in addition to their own demesne -- and your vassal kings/dukes can convert their own vassals below them

Also, vassals with higher stewardship will convert their provinces faster (this also applies to cultural conversion)

edit: oh of course there's the "request conversion" decision too, you might need to give someone a gift before they like you enough to do it though

[Bacon King]

I wonder if you can be Hindu/Eastern Religion in Europe

yes! with the ruler designer you can start as someone of any religion anywhere, but there are many other ways to change religion to anything you want. The easiest way is to use whatever means available to get a wife/concubine of the faith you want, then take the character option to convert to her religion

[Bacon King]

To be able to play as him when Luis died, though, I needed to get the Sword of Islam DLC, which I subsequently purchased. Therefore, when Luis died, a Muslim was sitting on the throne of the Holy Roman Empire.

Btw in case you didn't know, since it's your first time playing as a Muslim: you now have the Iqta government type which is the Muslim equivalent to feudalism but has some key differences. To see all the details, hover over the "government type" symbol just to the right of the religion symbol on your character page (for you it's the symbol of the Quran with a red bookmark, in front of a green circle. It's just to the right of the Sunni star and crescent symbol).

The biggest difference is that you can now directly control temple holdings (e.g. churches/mosques/whatever) just like you can already have castles. They usually give you more taxes than castle baronies and also gives you a lot of piety

[Bacon King]

this is hands down the BEST DEAL for CK2 that will EVER exist. if you want to buy the game or any DLC or whatever, you have one week remaining here:

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/crusader-kings-2-bundle

pay ONE DOLLAR and you get the base game + five important DLC

pay $11 and you get another five DLC in addition to the above

pay just $15 dollars and you get Crusader Kings 2 and ALL FIFTEEN MAIN CONTENT DLC

this is literally THE ENTIRE SERIES for cheaper than a single DLC + the money goes to charity too

[Bacon King]

if you're reading this, no matter who you are, you should seriously at least spend the $1 for the game and the rest of the first tier stuff. Given that you post on dave leip's election atlas forum you are statistically very likely to enjoy the game. And if you do like it, then seriously go for tier three because a chance to buy all of this for so cheap is probably never going to happen again

[Bacon King]

if you're reading this, no matter who you are, you should seriously at least spend the $1 for the game and the rest of the first tier stuff. Given that you post on dave leip's election atlas forum you are statistically very likely to enjoy the game. And if you do like it, then seriously go for tier three because a chance to buy all of this for so cheap is probably never going to happen again

Hello, can you please point me in the direction of which CKII to buy? I've searched the name and I don't seem to see a complete package for $15 or a single game for $1. FTR I'm checking on Steam--not sure if there's a different site you're referring to.

It's not on the Steam store, it's a Humble Bundle, which I linked right here

this is hands down the BEST DEAL for CK2 that will EVER exist. if you want to buy the game or any DLC or whatever, you have one week remaining here:

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/crusader-kings-2-bundle

When you make the purchase/donation, it will give you keys that you then enter into Steam and the game will be added to your account there

also when you donate you get to decide how much of the money goes to the website, how much goes to the game's developers, and how much goes to the charity (and you can pick from literally hundreds of charities) which I think is a really nice touch

[Bacon King]

also, to make sure I'm communicating it clearly: when you buy the bundle(s) and get the game keys, this is where you go to register them on Steam

[Bacon King]

Has anyone played the newest patch of Imperator? It claims to have fixed most of the problems the game had at launch but there were a LOT of problems to be fixing. Just wondering how different the game is now

[Bacon King]

I haven't gotten Imperator yet, but I got Stellaris (a 4x grand strategy game set in space) a couple months ago and had a lot of fun.

For those who have CK2, I also highly recommend the After the End Fanfork, which is set in a post-apocalyptic United States and has new and semi-plausible religions, including an "Americanist" religion that worships the Founding Fathers.

YES! I love AtE and the Fanfork not only lives up to the bar Ofaloaf set with the initial project (so glad he got hired by Paradox btw), IMO they've managed to make it even better

other good "total conversion" CK2 mods I like to play:

A Game of Thrones (based on the ASOIAF books)
Elder Kings (based on The Elder Scrolls games)
Western Europe 410-962: The Winter Kings (based on the King Arthur mythos and expanded to include all of Britain, France + more)

there's also Warcraft: Guardians of Azeroth, while I've only played it a few times it seems really fun and I've been meaning to go back to it. It's based on World of Warcraft, which I've never played, so I have no idea what's going on but I still enjoyed it

There are several others I love but for most it's been a long time since they updated so there's no point sharing them right now

[Bacon King]

Everyone: it seems clear imo that Victoria 3 will be the next game to be announced. Wiz has been working on some unnamed "secret project" for half a year now, and he's the dev who loves Victoria 2 so much he worked for free during the studio's winter vacation to put out the newest patch for Victoria 2, years after work on the game stopped