Paradox Interactive Games Thread

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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.)

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.

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.

When I briefly tried HOI4 and had trouble figuring it out I remember trying to see about Turkey. It seems like it would have interesting options as a powerful country but also neutral...ever done something like that?

[Alben Barkley]

When I briefly tried HOI4 and had trouble figuring it out I remember trying to see about Turkey. It seems like it would have interesting options as a powerful country but also neutral...ever done something like that?

I have done Kemalist Turkey aligned with the Allies as well as restored the Ottoman Empire. It's pretty fun, but the country has a pretty complex focus tree and lots of issues you have to take care of.

Anyway, here's Putin's wet dream. Tsarist empire restored. Baltics, Finland, and Sweden annexed along with other parts of Eastern Europe and Japan. Germany and Czechia puppeted.

[Alben Barkley]

It's beautiful!

[7,052,770]

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...

[Alben Barkley]

One of my most satisfying games ever. US with Marines is now SUPER OP, thanks to the insane buffs they get with the new Special Forces branch in the Arms Against Tyranny DLC. You can max out the Marines branch easily before even going to war as the US by simply exercising your Navy (you have infinite oil and a large Navy as the US), and train dozens of stacked Marine divisions. These absolutely wreck Germany, not only useful in the initial invasion but also throughout due to the rivers. I landed effortlessly and they completely melted away. I had them on the ropes before Japan even attacked, and the entire European Axis completely defeated before 1941 was over. Also the Germans never attacked the Soviet Union, so I was able to completely annex Germany (and eventually release them as my puppet). No East/West Germany!

Japan themselves never took the Philippines, and Britain/France managed to take them out before I even got there. Probably because Germany was wrecked so quickly. Then I turned my attention to Comrade Stalin, and he ultimately melted away almost as easily as Germany did. (I just had to go past the Urals because you can't have collaboration governments as a democracy.)

Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, and Stalin all crushed in one game by 1943. The map was set right to the way it was at the start of the game, except Poland absorbed some of Germany, which was set to its modern borders.

[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

[Sirius_]

Paradox is my favorite mobile game dev

[Blue3]

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.

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

Paradox is my favorite mobile game dev

Was this pic taken 5secs before it blew up?

[Sirius_]

Paradox is my favorite mobile game dev

Was this pic taken 5secs before it blew up?

It actually runs flawlessly

[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)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I finally completed a 100 year game of Victoria 3!

I played as Dai Nam (Vietnam). I started at first just focusing on integrating and eventually annexing Cambodia, I also invaded and seized North Borneo. Then I turned to democraticizing. I got elections at almost exactly 1900 and expanded to become a constitutional monarchy by the end, albeit one in turmoil, later game is way more complicated and so much went wrong. I accumulated a ton of debt and had to get bailed out by Belgium (they never requested their obligation on me) but most interesting was probably late 19th century when I backed the Dutch East Indies rebelling against the Netherlands who were in a trade union with the UK. They won and won independence...only to then disintegrate into a ton of small countries.

Also France became communist, and tried expanding communism with their colonial empire. However this only lasted about 15 years, then they were defeated in another revolution.

In the end Dai Nam was a mostly democratic country with a strong women's suffrage movement, #33 in overall power (it starts in the high 40s), although competing radical movements and revolution threats over universal suffrage. I tried passing it and had to back down, only for the universal suffrage movement itself to turn radical and revolutionary. But 1936 came before a civil war. I didn't complete the Egalitarian goals, but it was a good road map especially for a first full century play through.

[7,052,770]

I've been trying to get "A Servant No More," which requires you to become an Emperor as the Duke of Galilee in the 867 start. He's a eunuch, so no marriages.

I've had a good shot several times but haven't gotten it yet. What I'm thinking is that I'll join the satanists and do Dark Healing to get rid of the eunuch trait, break away from the Abbasids and swear fealty to the Byzantines, falsely confess and try to get myself elected Byzantine Emperor.

I had all of that lined up, but then got the clubfoot trait from Satanism, which then made me ineligible for the emperor again. Ugh.

[lfromnj]

Paradox is my favorite mobile game dev

Was this pic taken 5secs before it blew up?

Steam deck is pretty decent although the cpu isn't that great. Should still run although the bigger issue is controls.

[7,052,770]

I was able to get it done with some luck. I did a few things differently this time:
--Took Jerusalem by conquest ASAP in order to give a big county and access to a bunch of holy sites
--Joined the Satanists, but only focused on accumulating Dark Power so that I could get to level 3 and do a bunch of Dark Healing on myself
--Joined an independence faction that was already over 100%
--Switched to Orthodox once independent and formed the kingdom of Jerusalem
--Once I healed Eunuch with Dark Healing, left the satanists
--Fabricated a claim on a random Serbian county that bordered the Byzantine Empire
--Swore fealty to Byzantine Emperor once I conquered it
--Got myself appointed commander, which made me a candidate
--Accumulated enough money to buy favors from all the electors
--Waited for the Emperor to die and was elected

The question is whether I can also use this save to grab another achievement. Maybe "Smash the Patriarchy"

[lfromnj]

If anyone has vic2 , you should try out Project Alice. Its an open source version that was recently released. It requires the base game as of right now but it massively speeds it up. The first year takes me 60 seconds with no mods in the base game and 6 seconds with PA !.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If anyone has vic2 , you should try out Project Alice. Its an open source version that was recently released. It requires the base game as of right now but it massively speeds it up. The first year takes me 60 seconds with no mods in the base game and 6 seconds with PA !.

60 days a second? Seems like you might miss some key stuff that way.

[lfromnj]

If anyone has vic2 , you should try out Project Alice. Its an open source version that was recently released. It requires the base game as of right now but it massively speeds it up. The first year takes me 60 seconds with no mods in the base game and 6 seconds with PA !.

60 days a second? Seems like you might miss some key stuff that way.

Obviously. The thing is the later game like all paradox games is slower so obviously it should be faster now. The second thing is vic2 mods slow down the game a lot as well. It should boost up that as well . Finally the last thing thats cool is as far as I understand project alicr as it is open source will allow editing of base game mechanics. Most mods generally are just extra map provinces, stat changes and scripted events.

[Alben Barkley]

My guide for Democratic Historical UK, my favorite path for my favorite country:

1. Build a supply hub and railway in North Africa near the Italian border.

2. Build Civilian Factories in England until late 1938-early 1939, then switch to Mils.

3. Hire the Army Offense Expert and your choice of Naval/Aviation Experts to gain experience.

4. Create a heavily armored light tank with high reliability.

5. Group up your Navy and exercise it on and off, research Marines, and max out the Marines Special Forces branch.

6. Make an infantry division of 8 inf, 1 art, and 1 light tank of 21 width. Make a marine division corresponding to it. Use support ART, AA, ENG, calvary recon, and if you want (but not necessary) field hospitals. Use the Superior Firepower doctrine with integrated support.

7. Request forces from all your puppets/colonies. Put them all in Africa along the Italian borders. Put your good troops (which should all be "Space Marines" by now) along a fallback line in Northern France between Dunkirk and Luxembourg.

8. Guarantee Poland. Go to war when Germany declares.

9.Drive the Italians out of Africa.

10. After Africa is yours, put the colonial troops on the Italian/French border, and strike with your Space Marines against Germany in the North.

11. Germany will melt and capitulate, especially if you have fighters/CAS. Clean up the rest of the Axis and puppet/liberate/annex what you want.

12. Now it's time to take on Japan. Request military access from China and the warlords, put your armies in China, and drive them off the mainland.

13. Use your marines and large navy to easily naval inade and capitulate Japan.

14. Congratulations, you won. MacArthur's "The Guns Are Silent" speech should start playing.

Just did this myself and it's as satisfying as ever. I have it down to a science now. Let me know if you have any questions about playing UK, or USSR for that matter. I've put countless hours into both and can easily guide you to victory as either one.

[7,052,770]

Just got another CK2 achievement, "What Could Have Been" for "Start a Random World with all possible settings set to 'Random' and play for 200 years."

And it ... was the least fun I've ever had one of these games. First of all, I didn't ever really learn the characteristics of any of the religions. Second, the world was full of "adventurers," so that multiple times a year an army of like 2,500 would be rampaging through my kingdom, meaning I constantly had to raise levies to fight them. And they were of a religion with human sacrifice, so if they sacked a holding, they might capture my family members and burn them. So even though I was just running at 5x speed near the end to go for the achievement, I was constantly slowing down to fight the invaders. Really annoying.

[Alben Barkley]

So what do you say folks? Should I go for Moscow? Or is there nothing I can do?



For context, I defeated Britain as Napoleonic France, then built up for the Germans, planning to wait to attack when they attacked the Soviets. It didn't quite work out that way, because I puppeted Ethiopia when I took out Britain, so when Mussolini went for it again, I was suddenly at war with the Axis. But it wasn't too long after that when Germany launched Barbarossa, leading me -- a Napoleonic Empire -- to join the Comintern. Together we took out Germany, which I annexed along with all their conquered European possessions. But the Soviets puppeted Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and annexed Greece and Libya. Clearly my people are tired of war -- only 2% war support -- but I do have a war goal on the Soviets, who I could backstab. I've done it before, long ago, but this looks like a bigger challenge this time. Decisions decisions...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I got the women's suffrage achievement! And did in 1897! It was on my current game which is my longest as a great power, as the Netherlands, which starts out a bit rough because the Netherlands has no source of iron (as I've learned, just take Benin in Africa, plenty of iron and coal there), and I've set up multiple African colonies. It's admittedly a fairly easy country for it because the Netherlands is already pretty democratic even when the game starts, it also has just one step below universal suffrage and free speech and assembly rights and all that.

Just looked it up and the Netherlands in reality passed women's suffrage in 1917, so I beat it there!

[Alben Barkley]

Bing Chilling! I think I just earned 1 billion social credit!