Paradox Interactive Games Thread

[Alben Barkley]

No but seriously I've been playing the Asian/Pacific theater more lately and Japan is pretty broken actually. I always thought they were hard and you had to rely a lot on navy and air with little oil, but not really. I beat the US before I even did the focus to get the Zero.

Here's what I did for this run, my first time really "winning" the game as historical Japan:

1. Immediately start a spy agency and preparing collaboration governments in China.

2. Prepare a naval invasion surrounding Shanghai with Cavalry.

3. Rush the "Marco Polo Bridge Incident" focus.

4. Start the war with China. Launch the invasion, quickly encircle and take Shanghai.

5. Funnel in the decent infantry and the motorized/tanks/rest of the cavalry (make sure you leave an army of the weaker infantry on the border near Beijing but do NOT call in your puppets). Use the "Escalate the War In China" decisions to get rid of the debuffs Marco Polo gives you.

5. After the last escalation decision and the "Ichi Go" decision, you should be able to overrun them with the good infantry and mobile units. Also start attacking in the North near Beijing. Eventually they will just kind of fall apart. You should win by early 1938 at the latest, especially with the collaboration governments.

6. Puppet China, stack war reparations and resource rights to get their factories/resources.

7. Now you've beaten China with just the starting army. Now convert them all to standard good infantry divisions and train enough more to fill out an army group.

8. Get military access from Italy and put your army there. Exercise them. Also get docking rights from Germany. Move your fleet there. Proceed down the focus tree to get war goals on the Philipines/Indies/Malaya/France.

9. When Germany invades Poland, declare war on all EXCEPT the US/Philippines. Also the Dutch East Indies, wait until Germany attacks the Netherlands. Also disband your faction and join the Axis, which with latest versions you can't do until you're fighting a war together with Germany.

10. Push your army into Southern France from the Italian border. Move your planes to support. The goal is to rack up as much war score as possible.

11. After France falls, set up an invasion across the Channel into Southern England. Funnel your army in and they should be overrun pretty easily.

12. Hopefully you should have about half the war score. Use it to puppet/annex everything in Asia/Oceania to create a sphere of influence. Also Canada for the next part. Also take the British navy if you want.

13. Move your army and planes to the border with the Northeastern US. Let German/Italian/etc. troops cover the Western border and Alaska. Once everything's in place, declare war on the US/Philippines. Start rushing down the East Coast and taking their victory points, then cut west. Call your allies in to defend Canada, you'll still get more than enough war score.

14. Do whatever you want in the peace conference. I gave Alaska to my Canadian puppet, annexed Hawaii and the Pacific islands, puppeted Philippines and Puerto Rico and the lower 48.

15. Now if you want you can prepare to tag team the Soviet Union with Germany, but I'll probably call it quits there for this game.

[Alben Barkley]

What if Trotsky managed to overthrow Stalin and still beat the Germans? Completely, as in this case, with no help from the Western Allies? What would the world be like today?

[GoTfan]

What if Trotsky managed to overthrow Stalin and still beat the Germans? Completely, as in this case, with no help from the Western Allies? What would the world be like today?

Virgin Stalin vs Chad Trotsky

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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.

[Alben Barkley]

I'm in Kaiserreich now!



Maybe I always was but I don't remember a "Barkley Plan" last time I played this.

[Alben Barkley]

I not only broke up and subjugated the UK, I liberated Northern Ireland.

Enjoy BRTD!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I not only broke up and subjugated the UK, I liberated Northern Ireland.

Enjoy BRTD!

That flag implies a fascist France, so fitting.

Ever played as Greece? Seems like a country that could be interesting with its WW2 history.

[DaleCooper]

I was going to say, I thought that looked like the Vichy French collaborator flag.

I tried to play Hearts of Iron IV once but I don't have a high enough IQ to figure it out.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Alben probably is excited as I'm seeing ads for this "Trial of Allegiance" DLC now.

[The Dowager Mod]

Am I the only one playing Stellaris?

[7,052,770]

Am I the only one playing Stellaris?

I've never played it, but it seems pretty cool. It's just always so daunting to sit down and learn one of these Paradox games.

[Badger]

Am I the only one playing Stellaris?

No, but very very rarely on my part

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I formed Italy in Victoria 3 on my first try!

Started as Kingdom of Two Sicilies, took over some northern Italian states, loved seeing the Pope get overthrown and replaced by the Roman Republic, haha, but in the end the Republic of San Marcos ended up as the unification candidate and taking over Two Sicilies. That new united country has enough provinces to form Italy. In 1906, 35 years after it happened in reality.

And as Two Sicilies I set up colonies in Africa, so those are now Italian East Africa and Italian South Africa. And Tripoli is Italian held too of course.

[Blue3]

Am I the only one playing Stellaris?

I play it.

I just don’t play it often, and I’m always miffed when I go to play again and the most recent update made my old game incompatible.

But that seems to be the biggest weakness with Paradox games in general.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Am I the only one playing Stellaris?

Have played it, liked it but not as much as some other games, still 130 hours apparently

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Some of the games i played recently

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Also my Bharat / India save has been reviewed on YT by a popular EU4 Youtuber.

[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

[Bacon King]

Am I the only one playing Stellaris?

I do!

[LAKISYLVANIA]

[dead0man]

dead0's both late and early review of Balders Gate 3 (late in that the game has been out for 6 months and early because I ain't finished it yet)

several facts to set the table:
1.the wife plays storyline games, Dragon Age, Mass Affect, etc
2.I don't
3.we both like D&D (watch Critical Role, don't really play though, but have)
4.we like to play video games together but we don't like the type of games the other plays (she does like Civ type games, but doesn't like playing them with me)

So I got tricked into BG3.  Not by my wife, she didn't know.  I tricked myself.  I thought it was going to be an open world game where you just digitally play D&D, but it's not that at all.  The story is set, you can make choices that affect what happens, but it's limited and still the same story.  I don't give a sh**t about the story, so whatever.  I"ll just do my thing while she does the story part.  But it takes so long and the fighting isn't that fun.  I tried playing my own game to get a little better and maybe try and get into the story, but Cheese and Rice it's so boring.  I just don't care.  And I know why.  It's how they do the dialogue cut scenes.  I'm used to Rockstar Games, and have been spoiled with how they do the same thing.  Stuff happens, your character has a voice, it's entertaining.  In BG3, everybody is just standing there and the character you're playing as just has this stupid look on it's face and never shows an ounce of emotion. 

NPC says to you"you just killed that villager!! Why? Just to make sure the Big Bad didn't find out about our plans, how could you? You monster!"
Your character's response-<blank face>
NPC-"ok sure, but maybe next time discuss this with us first"

Nobody moves anything but their lips and maybe the direction their eyes are pointing.  No emotion.

Makes me giggle nearly every time.

In a Rockstar Games game.  It would go like this.
<NPC and you get on your bikes and start riding>
NPC "hey man, why'd you shoot the shop keeper, he was innocent"
your character- <flips off a pedestrian in the cross walk> "get out of the way asshole!  Look, I had to shoot him, he was going to call Sanchez and let him know of our plans, and I ain't going out like a bitch"
NPC "you don't know that man, he might have kept his mouth shut, he went to school with my moms"
YC-"man Eff that old <racial slur>, I gots to keep after me and mine knowwhatimsayin?  Look, we get the guns delivered to Tyrone, get that money, pay back the Cartel what we owe and we take the rest and move to South Beach like we been plannin' fool, now lets go."

Emotion, the characters are doing stuff.  It's like watching a movie.  I know some of the storyline games the wife plays the character she is playing as talks, but I'm not sure they ever do anything during them but stand there.  If you want me to get emotionally involved with the game, you have to stop knocking me out of the story.  Vice City came out 22 freaking years ago and did a WAY better job at this than the award winning BG3 did 6 months ago.


The combat is fun, or at least fun enough.  It's open world enough, it's not a train ride like some games are.  You can take tasks out of order, there are side missions and such.  It's not super easy, even on the easy setting (the wife insists on easy) so that's good.  She's playing her own game and is much further along in her game than our shared game and is enjoying herself a great deal, and that makes me feel a little bit better about the $125 I spent on two copies of the game.  I don't think I'll ever complete a play through by myself.


Anybody else play?

[dead0man]

Manor Lords, that has to be up some alleys here.  I've been excited about it for months, release is right around the corner.  Lots of game "influencers" got their game last week so lots of videos up.