Paradox Interactive Games Thread

[Kyng]

This is easily my favourite Paradox grand strategy game: I have 900+ hours on it on my Steam account. I have had some fun with some of the other Paradox games too (especially EU4 and Stellaris) - but, after a while, I tend to feel like I'm manipulating spreadsheets rather than ruling over a vast empire. I think it's the character-driven gameplay that sets CK2 apart from these: it offers a combination of strategy game, RPG, and alternate history simulator which fits my personal tastes like a glove.

My only real criticism of CK2 - and the reason why I've been playing less of it lately - is that it's starting to feel somewhat bloated. It's accumulated about 15 major DLCs (plus countless minor and cosmetic DLCs), many of which have introduced new mechanics - and, while many of these changes have been positive, I think it's reached the point of having too many features for one game. For example, there are a lot of law/government options that I never touch because I'm able to do well with them on the default setting.   

Still, don't let this put you off getting the game. The core experience remains excellent: personally, I'd still take a past-its-prime CK2 over at least 90% of other games out there. And, besides, it's not like the DLCs are mandatory. (Well, you could argue that Legacy of Rome kind of is, because retinues are basically a core part of the game now - but, other than that, I'd only recommend getting the DLCs if the base game takes you in like it did with me, and leaves you wanting more!)

[dead0man]

I hope you can do direct military control of allies in HOI4.

usually not, but sometimes (rarely) your lesser allies will let you control all their dudes, but not normally.  I'm not good enough or smart enough to know if you can force this.  Perhaps you could use the control prompt somehow.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I hate the hours on Steam thing. For instance when I downloaded Victoria Revolutions, and it said 0 hours played, it hurt. Considering I played the hell out of that game from 2005 on-wards off of the CD installation version.


Anyway I took advantage of this offer and acquired Crusader Kings II. I played the tutorial scenario as Leon. Things got dicey about midway through as my training wheels guided invasion of the islands turned into an invasion of my homeland and at the same time my wife gave birth to a daughter and died during the childbirth. So much for merging my kindgom with Aragon.

But things got better, I hired mercs and destroyed the invading Army, conquered the islands, married a Hungarian princess and had two sons (only then realizing that having a second one is not a good thing), and then married that first born daughter of the dead Aragon princess to the future King of France, which she seemed to hate me for.

Also I killed one of the brothers and inherited Castile, but then I realized that upon the death of the current monarch, Leon goes to the older son and Castile to the younger one. I love this succession dynamic and I wish it was like this in EU IV, but it will take some getting use to.

That being said, I wish a lot of features from Paradox games were available in different ones.

Last year, I basically wrote a forum post on steam detailing what my ideal Vicky 3 game is:
1. HOI 4 Army Command and Control (perhaps unlocked late in game with Great Wars or something)
2. Cabinet system from HOI 2
3. More indepth political actions
4. Ability to entice the upper house with bribes, land, threats, murder etc (b/c the idea that an absolute Monarch is stymied by a bunch of nobles seems rather ridiculous considering historical examples of strong willing monarchs "having their way" one way or another). It would work similar to the estates in EU IV.
5. Land Policy being more then just a reform selection like in Vicky 2. This was a critical issues in many 19th century countries and it should have range of impacts on the economy.

[dead0man]

The splitting of your lands among your various sons can be frustrating.  It's often pretty easy to just declare war on the younger son right away as he usually gets the lesser counties and duchies.  Sometimes (I think if they are really weak) they will accept a Vassilization (sp?) right away, but rarely.  Just don't spend a lot of coin upgrading your sh**t in the counties you will be losing, especially as your charterer gets older.

I'm still figuring the game out though, so my advice might not be on point.  I wish it was easier to.....get to know your court.  I want to be more emotionally involved in the game, but it's kind of hard to.  Sometimes it happens organically in the game, but not as often as it should and I'm pretty sure it's more my fault than the game.

[1978 New Wave skinny trousers]

The splitting of your lands among your various sons can be frustrating.  It's often pretty easy to just declare war on the younger son right away as he usually gets the lesser counties and duchies.  Sometimes (I think if they are really weak) they will accept a Vassilization (sp?) right away, but rarely.  Just don't spend a lot of coin upgrading your sh**t in the counties you will be losing, especially as your charterer gets older.

I'm still figuring the game out though, so my advice might not be on point.  I wish it was easier to.....get to know your court.  I want to be more emotionally involved in the game, but it's kind of hard to.  Sometimes it happens organically in the game, but not as often as it should and I'm pretty sure it's more my fault than the game.

Your succession law is probably gavelkind. To prevent your inheritance from being divided, change it to primogeniture, which will make your oldest son inherit all of your land. To change succession law, all of your vassals have to have a positive opinion of you, so give them honorary titles and/or send them gifts of gold. This is what I did, but later I had to change the succession law again, this time to elective monarchy, as my character had no children, meaning that my inheritance would've gone to a different family and my dynasty would've died out. I ended up getting my sister elected monarch instead.

[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)

*I bought Hearts of Iron 1 & 2 and the original Victoria + Revolutions in stores when they first came out and spent several hundred hours playing each when I was younger that's not recorded here


also I'm changing the title, I don't want anyone to mistakenly get their hopes up thinking the free CK2 offer is still available

[Bacon King]

The splitting of your lands among your various sons can be frustrating.  It's often pretty easy to just declare war on the younger son right away as he usually gets the lesser counties and duchies.  Sometimes (I think if they are really weak) they will accept a Vassilization (sp?) right away, but rarely.  Just don't spend a lot of coin upgrading your sh**t in the counties you will be losing, especially as your charterer gets older.

A very underappreciated strategy is to adopt seniority succession if primogeniture is out of reach. Primogeniture is only available after the third Legalism tech but seniority is always available if your religion/culture/govt type allows it. Your holdings all stay together and your heir will always be a member of your dynasty. Also if other branches of your family also hold their own titles, seniority succession makes it very easy to combine their land with yours

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this is just my personal experience but the game became so much more immersive when it clicked for me just how important character traits are. They aren't just stat modifiers, they determine entirely how every AI character acts (and it's all surprisingly intuitive, too)

a few examples: a brave and ambitious vassal will be the one leading the faction to overthrow you.  An envious and greedy council member will be the one who steals money from you. A trusting, content wife will almost never catch you cheating on her. A gregarious and gluttonous drunkard will definitely be the guy who accidentally tells everyone about your secret assassination plot.

A character's particular combination of traits lets you know their entire personality. Once I realized that, individual characters stood out so much more for me and I even started to notice emergent storytelling

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

50+ hours of playing time so far, and the single biggest thing that annoys me the most is devilkind succession.

[dead0man]

this is just my personal experience but the game became so much more immersive when it clicked for me just how important character traits are. They aren't just stat modifiers, they determine entirely how every AI character acts (and it's all surprisingly intuitive, too)

a few examples: a brave and ambitious vassal will be the one leading the faction to overthrow you.  An envious and greedy council member will be the one who steals money from you. A trusting, content wife will almost never catch you cheating on her. A gregarious and gluttonous drunkard will definitely be the guy who accidentally tells everyone about your secret assassination plot.

A character's particular combination of traits lets you know their entire personality. Once I realized that, individual characters stood out so much more for me and I even started to notice emergent storytelling

The German in me just wants to see the numbers and it's keeping me from fully enjoying the game and it's frustrating to see that and not be able to get passed it.  I'm trying and I really want to enjoy the game.  It presses a lot of my buttons and some that have never been pressed before in a video game.

I suspect the "openness" of it is throwing me off my ...ahem...game too.  Is it even possible to "take over the world" in a Civ kind of way?  I suppose it has to be.  I have a hard time getting out of Ireland.  Hell, I don't even know if there is a proper end

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

im going to show a map of my empire in Victoria 2 game soon

I thought you were banned from the Vicky 2 server.

[GoTfan]

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)

*I bought Hearts of Iron 1 & 2 and the original Victoria + Revolutions in stores when they first came out and spent several hundred hours playing each when I was younger that's not recorded here


also I'm changing the title, I don't want anyone to mistakenly get their hopes up thinking the free CK2 offer is still available

Just make sure you have Historical AI turned on in HOI4. Otherwise things get really screwy.

That said, there are some pretty nifty mods for it. I'm partial to Road to 56 and Kaiserreich myself.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Has anyone dared to play as Byzantium and restore Rome? You are going to need to ally and get high relations with Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and maybe the Mamlukes. You are going to need all the help you can get as the Ottoman will curbstomp you 1 v 1. You start the game with only 3 provinces. What annoys me to death is when Hungary and Poland rival each other and go to war which ruins everything.

[The Dowager Mod]

Crusader Kings 2: 19 minutes.
EU2 well over 800 hours before steam 
EU3: 2 hours.
EU4: 776 hours.
HOI2: 265 hours.
HOI3: 95 hours.
HOI4: 4 hours.
Vicky1: About 100 hours before steam.
Vicky2: 222 hours.

[GoTfan]

Has anyone dared to play as Byzantium and restore Rome? You are going to need to ally and get high relations with Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and maybe the Mamlukes. You are going to need all the help you can get as the Ottoman will curbstomp you 1 v 1. You start the game with only 3 provinces. What annoys me to death is when Hungary and Poland rival each other and go to war which ruins everything.

Tried it.

I'm not so masochistic as to try it again.

On a side note, playing as the UK in HOI4 is ihlarious for me at the moment. France has all but surrendered and I'm surrounded at Dunkirk.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Has anyone dared to play as Byzantium and restore Rome? You are going to need to ally and get high relations with Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and maybe the Mamlukes. You are going to need all the help you can get as the Ottoman will curbstomp you 1 v 1. You start the game with only 3 provinces. What annoys me to death is when Hungary and Poland rival each other and go to war which ruins everything.

I did in EU II, where it is much harder because the game doesn't scale very well and most small nations are insolvent and can't support any size military force without repeated bankruptcies.


By the time I was done, inflation was like 1000% and my diplomacy screen read "We are despised throughout the known world", because it is impossible to fabricate claims in EU II. THerefore you eat a hit for lacking a Casus Belli every time you go to work with Ottomans, Mamelukes etc. It also hits your badboy score, which is the basis for that reading. The lower your score, the harder to obtain good relations. At the lowest possible score, the relations always default to -200.

[diptheriadan]

Gavelkind's starting to piss me off. I keep trying to divide up my land in a specific way to ensure that my four sons get equal land and that the land they get is best for them, but it keeps changing sh**t automatically.

[Bacon King]

Is it even possible to "take over the world" in a Civ kind of way?

check out this ironman Byzantium game I've been playing on-and-off for a few months now - I've accomplished all this in a mere 150 years! Still another five centuries left before the game ends so I have plenty of time to conquer the rest of the world

(right click and open in new tab to see bigger pictures)


My marriage politics were so lucky, with Charlemagne's great-grandson and sole remaining heir a member of my dynasty




I took the necessary steps to inherit all those kingdoms from him




my empire, 864




my empire, 906




my RESTORED ROMAN EMPIRE, 923




religious map




cultural map




lots of merchant republic vassals = $$$$$$$

[wxtransit]

Poland ftw

[dead0man]

Is it even possible to "take over the world" in a Civ kind of way?

check out this ironman Byzantium game I've been playing on-and-off for a few months now - I've accomplished all this in a mere 150 years! Still another five centuries left before the game ends so I have plenty of time to conquer the rest of the world



religious map

that's all very impressive, it's hard for me to get past Wales.   What's the deal with </Sienfeld> the Iconoclast bit?  I'm guessing cool new options like this become available if you're in control of Rome?

[Bacon King]

that's all very impressive, it's hard for me to get past Wales.   What's the deal with </Sienfeld> the Iconoclast bit?  I'm guessing cool new options like this become available if you're in control of Rome?

it's an Orthodox heresy in-game (here's the wiki article about the irl Byzantine Iconoclasm) in the earliest start date the Emperor is Iconoclast but usually converts back to vanilla Orthodoxy fairly quickly since most of his lands and vassals are still Orthodox. In this run I remained Iconoclast so I could get a lot of mileage out of the religious title revocation law (e.g. I could freely steal titles from all my vassals who were still Orthodox)

[dead0man]

ahhh...earliest start date as in 866 (or whatever the earliest DLC lets your start) or the Vanilla 1066 earliest start date?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I just downloaded the original Victoria, and I have no idea what is going on. How did 12 year old me figure out EU3 but I can't get this at 22?

[Badger]

Many, many hours spent on EU2 (yeah, that's right), and 3, plus CK 1 and 2. Have EU4, but drawn by other games (almost all Total War series except Rome and--until the price drops--Warhammer, plus Mount and Blade) to spend hardly any time at all on it.

OK, I'll say it and earn the wrath of NC Yankee and others here: I should be gaga over Victoria, but the economic and political management all seems so...random and disconnected from my actions.

There, I said it (but would love to be converted).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I tried my first Ironman game in Poland. Poland seemed like a good choice because it was relatively large and powerful but not too big to be unweildly like the Holy Roman and Byzantine Empires, and close to some pagan counties to allow for expansion and holy wars. Started out pretty well, I took over a few pagan counties in the Baltics, wiped out one pagan county and started the Christenization. The problem was when my King died in one of the battles in Lithuania. His child son took over, and immediately all sorts of claims were forced against me from pagans, Holy Roman Empire counts, and his cousin who tried to usurp the throne...successfully and took over ruling a rump Poland. After this and his loss of title I took over as his sister, who was married to a Danish prince, but still held the title of Duchess of some area in Poland and was a vassal. Alas she died in childbirth to a daughter, thus ending the dynasty and the game.

Anyone played as those Miaphysite kingdoms in East Africa? Seems interesting and a unique game, how does that go?

[7,052,770]

Anyone played as those Miaphysite kingdoms in East Africa? Seems interesting and a unique game, how does that go?

I've dabbled a little bit but never could get into it. I had a lot more fun in my Yemen game taking them over and converting them to Islam - originally my characters were Shia, but Sunnis grew too powerful and I just converted to go along with that.