Paradox Interactive Games Thread

[Bacon King]

I've been trying to survive as one of the small Zoroaster nations for a while know but cant get around the damn Abbassids. Hopefully Ck3 is delayed slightly so I can restore the truth faith to the near east before having to jump to the new game.

I am currently working on a Zun game where I started as Haesteinn in 867, prepared invasion of Persia, and then switched over. I think the same strategy would work for Zoroastrian and put you in a much better position. Also, the Norse culture will let you raid while to get your religion's Moral Authority up and lower the Sunni (or Buddhist, Hindu, etc.) MA.

Oh man, I love Zunism and I love playing as Haestein but I never thought of combining the two - I will have to try this!

[Bacon King]

CK3 release in 12 days get hype. Taking a trip basically until then so I'll be excited to dive in as soon as I return

[Bacon King]

I've never played nomads

Honestly me neither. I do want to go back and do a CK2 nomad game some day, but CK3 is such an improvement I really can't see myself downgrading any time soon

[Bacon King]

I've been getting back into Stellaris, lately, and it's genuinely very good now (especially with the right mods). Does anyone know if Imperator Rome is good yet?

[Bacon King]

Well I'm straight-up hooked on CK3 now, sunk dozens of hours into it and can't get enough. It's officially replaced Civ as my favorite strategy game.

Everyone says it's the most accessible Paradox game, but now that I've got the hang of it (more or less, there's still stuff I'm discovering in this game), which one should I try next? EU4 looks natural as it's basically a continuation of CK in terms of the time period, but is it the best next step in terms of gameplay?

What particular elements of the gameplay do you like most about CK3? While all Paradox grand strategy games have a lot of things in common, each one has its own unique areas of focus.

Honestly with the latest Imperator patch every one of the "current" games is good (Victoria 2 is my favorite but it also has by far the harshest learning curve) so you'll probably enjoy whichever one you pick. Still though you'll probably have the easiest time picking up a game that expounds more on your favorite things from CK3

For example if you really love the way CK3 focuses so much on specific characters and their interpersonal relationships, EU4 might be a bit of a jarring change for you because all of that stuff is much more abstracted. Your ruler for example is just a name and three stats that range from 0 to 6; royal marriages are just a diplomatic agreement that doesn't involve actual characters at all. It's still a very fun game and includes a lot of things CK3 doesn't, but the change in scope might be difficult to adjust to if that was your favorite part of CK3

[Bacon King]

On the other hand, I’m really nervous to see what post-CKII paradox (which moved from hardish simulation to ‘lol, spend mana and do what you want’) will do to their best game.

I have total confidence Victoria 3 will be excellent because it's the brainchild of Martin Anward, aka "Wiz", who is by far the most talented developer at Paradox. He's been working on Vicky 3 as his "secret project" for iirc two years, but before that his designated role at the company seemed to be damage control. He jumped from game to game, taking the helm as Lead Dev for a broken/unpopular title -- so he could fix it and turn it into something great. For example he's the reason Stellaris is good now. I'm very excited to see what he can do properly designing his own title from the beginning, and for once not forced to work within the confines of something that's already been released.

I was reading his Let's Plays and playing his mods for years before he was even hired, so in general I'm just a huge fan of the guy. IIRC Victoria 2 is his favorite PDX title, too, so I trust his judgement on how to make its replacement.

[Bacon King]

I definitely don't play it as much as I do CK2 —there’s some cool new features, but CK2 just has so much more content. CK3 just gets a little boring and repetitive. I’m sure after approximately $300 in DLC CK3 will catch up, but as is...

I agree with this, especially because for most of my favorite mods the CK2 version still surpasses the CK3 version. Even though the latter game gives modders a far greater degree of control, there just hasn't been enough time for most mod developers to really use all the new tools at their disposal (especially considering that in the last year, a lot of CK2 mod teams are/were focused on creating a highly polished "final update" to leave behind before fully making the jump to CK3).

Still though I do want to give CK3 credit for having so much content available at launch. While it lacks a lot of the bells and whistles added by later CK2 DLC, CK3 includes FAR more content than base CK2 did! With the full map available, all religions playable, meaningful council mechanics, a retinue-style system for standing troops, and a greatly expanded lifestyle system, the third game was released with most features added by early DLC and free updates of its predecessor.

By my count we already have the important stuff from 7 of the 11 DLC released in Crusader King II's first four years -- e.g. Sword of Islam, Legacy of Rome, Old Gods, Sons of Abraham, Rajas of India, Way of Life, and Conclave. So the only early content we're missing is: Sunset Invasion (lol), The Republic, Charlemagne, and Horse Lords. Hate for the Aztec invasion was nigh universal and the 769 start date was never popular (I was probably its only fan). That leaves us with two DLC dedicated to specific government forms (republic and nomadic) which we will probably see added to CK3 at some point.

Of course, not everything from those seven DLC made it into CKIII. I imagine we're going to see more Flavor Packs to fill in the gaps there, much like how Northern Lords has done with Old Gods. I imagine CK3+DLC will fully overtake CK2+DLC by late 2023

[Bacon King]

My latest Ireland playthrough is going quite well...Scotland and Ireland in de facto permanent personal union (thank you Tanistry), the nobles are contented, I have over 1300 troops from my capital county alone, I am making almost +8 gold a turn, and the Scottish lords are in no position to oppose me.
I would vassalize most of the rest of Ireland but that would mean more nobility to contend with...My main concern is keeping my realm as large as I can sustainably control...

which start date did you go with Tim?

[Bacon King]

my steam game time

Crusader Kings II: 863 hours
Europa Universalis IV: 843 hours
Victoria II: 428 hours
Europa Universalis III: 363 hours
Victoria: Revolutions 79 hours*
Stellaris: 74 hours
Darkest Hour: 39 hours
Arsenal of Democracy: 7 hours
Hearts of Iron IV: 0 hours (I bought it at the Steam Winter sale but haven't tried it yet)

current game time, two and a half years later:

Crusader Kings II: 2,600 hours (+1,737)
Europa Universalis IV: 1,690 (+847)
Victoria II: 579 (+161)
Stellaris: 511 (+437)
Europa Universalis III: 363 (n/c)
Crusader Kings III: 231 (new)
Victoria Revolutions: 79 (n/c)
Darkest Hour: 50 (+11)
Imperator Rome: 8 (new)
Arsenal of Democracy: 7 (n/c)
Hearts of Iron IV: 0 (n/c)

[Bacon King]

I bought it but have not yet had a chance to play it -- will post here to share my experience with it

[Bacon King]

i am so pumped for Vicky 3 y'all i already preordered it

[Bacon King]

current game time, two and a half years later:

Crusader Kings II: 2,600 hours (+1,737)
Europa Universalis IV: 1,690 (+847)
Victoria II: 579 (+161)
Stellaris: 511 (+437)
Europa Universalis III: 363 (n/c)
Crusader Kings III: 231 (new)
Victoria Revolutions: 79 (n/c)
Darkest Hour: 50 (+11)
Imperator Rome: 8 (new)
Arsenal of Democracy: 7 (n/c)
Hearts of Iron IV: 0 (n/c)

Total Steam gameplay time as compared to 18 months ago, not including games I haven't played since then

Europa Universalis IV: 3,190 hours (+1,500)
Crusader Kings II: 2,745 (+145)
Victoria II: 590 (+11)
Stellaris: 563 (+52)
Crusader Kings III: 501 (+270)
Victoria 3: 66 (new)

Since my last update I've become completely obsessed with the EU4 Anbennar mod and it's honestly so great, totally blows vanilla EU4 out of the water

The vast majority of those CK3 hours were spent in the Elder Kings 2 mod though I've also recently been enjoying the Game of Thrones mod's open beta

despite its mixed reception I actually really like Vicky 3 even if it is a bit rough around the edges but honestly every paradox game is like that at first. If I didn't have a job or a social life to limit my time spent gaming, I'd probably have put 500 hours into Victoria 3 by now

(actually realistically speaking if I had another 500 hours to waste sitting around playing paradox games, I'd end up spending >400 of them playing even more Anbennar lol)

I still haven't played HoI 4, although I know I'd really enjoy it if I could find the time, especially with how many excellent mods exist for it. I bought most of the game's DLC during a recent Steam sale so I should probably start actually playing the game soon so I can at least pretend that purchase was remotely justified lol

[Bacon King]

Actually does anyone have any beginner advice for HOI4 they are willing to offer? Like what's the most important stuff to keep track of? What are some common noob traps to avoid? Who are the best nations for beginners?

As you can see in my previous post I'm familiar all the other modern paradox games so feel free to frame your explanations by compare/contrasting with similar mechanics in any of those you might be familiar with.

In middle school I spent hundreds of hours playing the first Hearts of Iron game (once upon a time I even created a terrible AAR on the official paradox forums lmao) and spent even more time playing HOI2 in high school and college. There's probably a lot of general gameplay concepts I'll recognize and be familiar with once I start playing 4 but I have no idea what they might be

[Bacon King]

thanks for all the advice!! decided to wait and play until the next steam sale to buy all the DLC i was missing, so after doing that two weeks ago I finally have a few days off work so I'll be jumping into it this weekend

[Bacon King]

I played loads of CK2 to distract from world events. Screenshots and descriptions of what I played will be forthcoming.

I've been playing a LOT of CK3, specifically the Elder Kings 2 mod (based on the Elder Scrolls games)

also in the middle of a Jadd campaign in the EU4 Anbennar mod

[Bacon King]

regarding EU4: I can't even imagine picking it up now for the first time. I've been playing the game for a full decade, accumulating upwards of 3,000 hours of playtime, yet STILL periodically find myself learning new things about the game. Nothing huge, mind you, mostly edge cases where two niche mechanics interact in an unexpected way - but sometimes even a minor/secondary impact of a core gameplay element (for example i literally only just discovered the size of your spy network in a country reduces the INITIAL "Aggressive Expansion" penalty formed in that country by your actions elsewhere.)

And that's not even getting into the tons of gameplay DLC, which I've mostly if not entirely kept up with (kind of an exception here when i was younger and had less discretionary spending. I couldn't afford to buy DLC on release and would instead spend birthday + christmas money during the Steam Winter Sale to catch up at a discount). Like I'd genuinely have no idea what DLC to recommend as "must buy" at this point, and honestly the $5/month subscription option is the only sane option for any new player getting into EU4 for the first time. Of course the worst problem with the DLC isn't even it's sheer volume!

Say what you will about the way Paradox handles DLC but contrary to most complaints their DLC policy has actually gotten MUCH better since they began developing their current generation of games. Because it's such an old game, EU4 uniquely still carries this burden.

These days Paradox does a good job at keeping their DLC, for lack of a better word, "self-contained" and focused entirely on adding new things, accompanied by free patches updating core gameplay. That distinction was not always so clear and many early EU4 DLCs were focused on 'expanding core gameplay' in ways they would absolutely not get away with doing today. The worst offenders are "Rights of Man", "Art of War", and "Wealth of Nations" for being entitely themed on fleshing out the basic gameplay experience (rulers, combat, and economy respectively) but every patch of the first four/five years contains at least one feature that SHOULD be free content (now that development is finally base game and i THINK estates are as well, the worst offender here is paywalling the extremely useful Diplomacy Macro-Builder behind the entirely unrelated Mandate of Heaven DLC. Like i literally cannot fathom playing the game without its convenience)





All that said though EU4 is still fun. It's the best all-round experience if you like paradox games but aren't particularly interested in the unique gameplay focus of their other grand strategy titles (war management in Hearts of Iron, industrial economy focus of Victoria, individual/personality focus of Crusader Kings, and Stellaris is a 4X space game so it's kind of its own thing).

Europa Universalis is very much the "generalist" line of Paradox games that takes the common elements and themes of their other gsg titles,  "make your side stronger and bigger to paint the map in your color" and elevates THAT into the central gameplay focus. honestly they pull it off really well, too.

If that sounds appealing to you, AND if you're already experienced with other Paradox games (especially when it comes to approaching the inevitable learning curves they all share: navigating complicated interfaces, determining the mechanics that ACTUALLY matter and what stuff you can safely ignore until you figure out what's going on, recognizing when/how/where these games provide feedback on the consequences of your actions, recognizing when you're missing something and knowing how to go about finding it) then consider getting EU4 on sale and spending $5 for a month of the "all DLC subscription" thing to try it out and see if it's something you'll enjoy. For reference even with all its feature bloat the game's learning curve is more gentle than Victoria 2.

If that sounds interesting to you but you aren't very experienced with other Paradox games, then first welcome to the thread, second you should wait for EU5's inevitable release in a few years and for now get a game like Crusader Kings 3 or Hearts of Iron 4 - popular titles in the CURRENT generation of Paradox Interactive's grand strategy games. One of the biggest and most remarkable characteristics of the current generation is they are MUCH more accessible for first-time players. EU4 is the last remaining currently-active game of the previous generation and therefore is notoriously impenetrable in the way ALL Paradox games used to be

[Bacon King]

Crusader Kings III and Europa Universalis IV have a big sale on Steam right now!

the base game of EU4 is 70% off and almost all DLC is 50% off! (Lions of the North released last year is only 30% off, the two released this year are still full price)

CK3 base game is 50% off, most DLC either 30% or 20% off - again only the newest two are still full price (Legacy of Persia, Wards & Wardens)

I just noticed these sales now when buying their new DLC so I'm not sure how long it's been going on or how long it's gonna last

great opportunity to pick up CK3 for anyone, and if you're an EU4 player it's a good opportunity to pick up any older DLC you might have missed




if you're interested in buying EU4 in the year of our lord 2023: don't buy any DLC. the only sane economical choice is the $5/month subscription for 100% DLC access - just pay for one month at a time without automatic renewal so you aren't getting charged whenever you stop playing the game

that said though the base game is only $12 right now which is by far the best deal for EU4 I've ever seen so if you are interested in checking the game out now's the time

[Bacon King]

also a word of advice for anyone trying to decide on any sort of Paradox DLC purchase: never trust the Steam user scores, in the vast majority of cases they have no correlation with the actual quality of the DLC itself. Vote brigading for stupid reasons is a perennial hobby for a certain segment of the community

[Bacon King]

MORE SALES!

the previous sales are over - this time it's Stellaris and Victoria 3 available on the cheap

first off Victoria 3 is free to play for the next two days! try it before you buy it, this weekend only. Everyone is saying the game is finally good now and the new 1.5 update finally brings it up to par. Don't take my word for it though, play it for free this weekend and see for yourself lol

if you like it and want to keep playing after the free weekend ends, you can currently buy the base game at a 50% discount. V3 only has two gameplay DLCs; the brand new one is at full price (which is only $6 tho so not bad) and the other one is 40% off.

Meanwhile Stellaris is a whopping 70% off right now and the discounts for its DLC are structured like in the EU4 sale. Most have a 50% discount, and the scale of the discount decreases based on how recently it was released: from 50% to 30% to 20%, and those released in 2023 are still at full price

Just like I said above with the other sale, this is a great opportunity to check out Stellaris and Victoria 3 if you're thinking about buying it - especially the latter, which you can play literally for free throughout the weekend. Also a great opportunity for existing Stelllaris players to pick up any DLC they've missed

[Bacon King]

also even if you've never tried a game by paradox or any other grand strategy game I'd still recommend taking a look at Victoria 3 right now when you can play it for free

the Victoria series is objectively the most Atlas Forum games that have ever existed

[Bacon King]

I always enjoy trying to 100% on Steam achievements, but I'm just not sure it's worth it for CK2.

I just got "By Jupiter!" for reforming the Hellenic faith, which I got as Bulgaria. I invited the 1 Hellenic character to court, had him as the court tutor to turn my heirs Greek and Hellenic. From there, I was able to get 3 holy sites and reform the faith, but it probably took around 6 hours of gaming to get there. I have 63 achievements to go...

The problem I had with achievement-hunting in CK2 is that (for me at least) when playing on ironman, after maybe 200 or 300 years of gameplay, my save file would often be like "Achievements are no longer valid" for no discernable reason. It happened often enough that i had to trash several very promising runs towards very challenging achievements until eventually I just gave up on them entirely

I think it was an issue with desyncing from steam's servers? I'm not entirely sure, maybe the problem was my intrrnet connection at the time, but i never had the problem with other Paradox games so I did most of my achievement-hunting on EU4 instead

if it WAS just my old internet connection i suppose i could try my hand at them again?

honestly though these days I'm so spoiled by the anti-frustration features added in CK3. I love the way your levies automatically gather in one location rather than spawning in across the breadth of your entire realm (especially when playing as someone like the Byzantines, where tediously micromanaging boat travel for all your soldiers was the only real way to assemble everyone for war because otherwise they'd spend years walking (or well you could also rely heavily on retinues + mercenaries so you can move them all into position BEFORE the war, and that's what i usually ended up doing, but it's not possible in the early game and not sufficient for fighting near-peer wars))

also i love how most mods are achievement compatible in CK3 now

[Bacon King]

First time really digging into alt-history mods in HOI4. In this case, Kaiserreich. Only played the US Civil War in that mod before (yes, I made the South rise again under Huey Long). This time I reclaimed France from the commies, starting with just French colonies like Algeria and ultimately taking back the mainland. As you can see, at great expense to my limited manpower however. Hopefully I can rebuild and reintegrate/core the rest of France now, before taking on the Germans to reclaim Alsace-Lorraine and avenge the first Weltkrieg.

oh man i LOVED Kaiserreich in Darkest Hour (one of Paradox's licensed fangames built on top of HOI2) and honestly most of my motivation to actually eventually genuinely play HOI4 for real is to enjoy that setting again

I long for the sydnicalist revolution!

I've also heard a lot of good things about another alt-history mod called TNO but i don't know anything about it except "a certain segment of its fanbase has meme-induced brainrot" (direct quote from a friend, i have no idea what they meant)

Also I've seen Taureor on Youtube play other cool mods I want to try, including one based on My Little Pony of all things

[Bacon King]

I think I've finally figured out Victoria 3 mostly. I'm kind of expanding and dominating South America now as New Granada (basically modern day Colombia.)

Hell yeah! I'm glad you've figured it out and are enjoying it.

I've never considered Hawaii as a possible tutorial nation, I'll have to remember that when others ask in the future

It's funny how in a short last game starting as Central America and ending up as El Salvador after everywhere seceded I destroyed El Salvador's economy just by leaving subsidies on for a paper mill. What happened is the paper mill kept hiring and producing more and more paper which was now basically worthless because of the subsidies, meaning it took up all the lumber produced in the country, this increased the price of tools which meant they were now unaffordable for farms, and thus a grain shortage which impacted livestock farms too. Once I figured out the problem and turned off the subsidy it was basically too little too late, about 15% of my population had fled and I couldn't staff my buildings anymore. Lesson learned.

I honestly love moments like this, when you're trying to understand why a problem is happening and suddenly realize it's an unexpected but entirely realistic consequence of your own actions

[Bacon King]

Who else feels a George RR Martin & Paradox collaboration would create an epic Game of Thrones game? It could be set in the expansion of Valyria, he battles of the kingdoms right before Aegon and his conquest, the battles among the Free Cities, the Dothraki against Sarnor and others, etc.

an official collab would be amazing but the last thing George needs is even MORE distractions from writing lol

The next best thing is this legendary CK2 mod, if you are unfamiliar with it! It includes everything you mentioned and much much more (though if you want to play as the Valyrian Freehold you'll also need the official submods for earlier in the timeline)


The CK3 version of the mod also looks very promising although it is still in beta and has a long way to go before it lives up to its predecessor (currently includes just Westeros. only has two bookmarks: Robert's Rebellion and Robert's Coronation. Does not yet include dragons, the others, or magic in any form. all that said though the map is GORGEOUS)

[Bacon King]

One complaint about Victoria 3...if you lose a civil war that's it, game over. It's not like Crusader Kings where you can at least continue as a rump state or vassal.

My Sokoto game came to an abrupt end all because some jackass who wanted to reinstate serfdom showed up and agitated for it to a revolutionary movement.

I feel like there should definitely be a mod that prevents a revolution from causing a game over, like that seems like a thing that should very obviously exist, but surprisingly i can't seem to find one