Paradox Interactive Games Thread

[GenerationTerrorist]

Having great fun with Hastein in the 867 start. Conquered Rome and made a Norse enclave in Italy. The man himself is 106 years old and has outlived all 17 of his Children and 24 of 26 Grandchildren. My Heir is a 18 year old Great-Grandson who looks (stat-wise and traits) like he could be as ungodly as Hastein himself.

EU IV is still my favourite game of all time, but CK3 can be wonderful at times.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Having great fun with Hastein in the 867 start. Conquered Rome and made a Norse enclave in Italy. The man himself is 106 years old and has outlived all 17 of his Children and 24 of 26 Grandchildren. My Heir is a 18 year old Great-Grandson who looks (stat-wise and traits) like he could be as ungodly as Hastein himself.

EU IV is still my favourite game of all time, but CK3 can be wonderful at times.

Uh how did you get him to be 106?

[GenerationTerrorist]

Having great fun with Hastein in the 867 start. Conquered Rome and made a Norse enclave in Italy. The man himself is 106 years old and has outlived all 17 of his Children and 24 of 26 Grandchildren. My Heir is a 18 year old Great-Grandson who looks (stat-wise and traits) like he could be as ungodly as Hastein himself.

EU IV is still my favourite game of all time, but CK3 can be wonderful at times.

Uh how did you get him to be 106?

He wouldn't die!

[ilikeverin]

My Hæsteinn lived forever, too! Mine ended up settling in Tunisia, and his descendants keep gobbling up more of the continent and have a toehold on Italy.

[7,052,770]

Haesteinn should have his own bloodline already in the game, like Ragnarr, Dyre, Rurik, and Fairhair. At his age, it can be kinda dicey to get him one, and I hate to burn a forged one on my first character.

It's possible to get him a warrior bloodline, but he has to work his way up from the bottom (unlike Rurik's son who I believe starts as the Slavic hero already) and will be very old and lower in personal combat, and you could prepare invade Israel and convert to Catholic or Jewish and get one that way, but I wish he just had a historic one.

Or, I wish there were a bookmark like 20 years earlier so I could play as young Haesteinn.

[The Dowager Mod]

CK3 is the first Paradox game I returned for a refund, Just didn't do it for me.

[Donerail]

CK3 is the first Paradox game I returned for a refund, Just didn't do it for me.

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 spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

CK3 is the first Paradox game I returned for a refund, Just didn't do it for me.

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...

The Norse DLC added a ton of new features. Would like to get secret societies and saints back though.

[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

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

 In Vicky II, you got to coax this, press that issue and micro your way to anything. This is a large part of the reason why I soured on Vicky II quickly and just kept playing Vicky Revolutions.

I'm fairly certain that you could do this in Vic2 as well (with a similar penalty to militancy), last time I checked?

Yeah, as long as you have absolute or Prussian monarchy you can. You get a militancy hit if you are Prussian monarchy, because hey we had elections what are you doing.

I’m not a fan of the idea of being able to bribe the upper house. The core gameplay is about coxing your nation into the modern world within the restriction of your internal politics. Just getting a ‘screw it, I do what I want button’ would kill allot of the appeal for me. The modifiers and their effect do need to be more clear though

The example for me that comes to mind, is Russia as I play it a lot in Victoria: Revolutions. Russia is a country where inertia, its size and various other factors tend to make it stagnate and become backwards until some driving force blasts its way through to modernizing the country. While I am cognizant of how the real history of the country played out during this period, at the same I am likewise for the impact of say Peter the Great 100 plus years prior. The mechanics of Revolutions, allowed for an assertive push towards industrialization early, whereas Victoria II was far more restrictive in my efforts to industrialize, to convert pops and that doesn't even get into the whole annoyance that is the international crisis mechanic and its penchant for sparking WWI style conflicts over and over again.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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...

[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?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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?

937, Connachta

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

Anyway, this is the game after some 50 or so years of further gameplay today.
I have ambitions to take Leinster and in the process cut Britanny off from its lands in the British Isles but that's not possible yet.
Crown Authority is higher in Scotland now - I can revoke titles.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

came across this old thread from all the way back in 2004 that served a similiar purpose to this thread.

[Damocles]

That awkward moment when the Russians send 100,000 troops to their deaths in the Dobrogean marshes, against dug-in, fortified Ottoman positions, over a river, led by a +3 Defense general…

[vitoNova]

More like ParaCucks Interactive. 

There are only 2 MMORPGs worth playing in this day and age:  Elder Scrolls Online and Elite Dangerous. 

[Lumine]

Started playing Darkest Hour again, still the best WW2 game for me (currently launching Barbarossa in May 1941, from a 36' start).

If one could add some of the flexibility of HOI4 into DH but keep most of the game mechanics - particularly warfare - it would be absolutely perfect.

[vitoNova]

We need a vidya games subforum.

I just finished The Outer Worlds -- and both the DLCs -- and this game was the shiznit.

[Alben Barkley]

Currently doing a democratic Germany run in HOI4. I overthrew Hitler and beat him and the Nazis first thing in a Civil War. Hitler died during the invasion of Berlin and I hung the Nazi leadership and banned fascism. The military junta that seized control then restored free elections and relinquished power to a democratic government again, led by Konrad Adenauer. I then focused on both building up my industry/military and establishing friendly relations with my neighbors, forming the Central European Alliance. Austria even willingly voted to be annexed! Now I lead a massive alliance of basically all of Europe (notable exceptions of fascist Italy and Spain) against the USSR.

The UK also had a civil war where the fascists tried to take over but they were driven off the island and only hold the colonies now. The fascists also tried to invade Ireland, which led to the Irish joining the Allies and siding with the British; now they have a united Ireland and are still part of the war against the Soviets, who started the war by declaring on Lithuania. I’ve pushed them back and taken Lenigrad, very close to taking Moscow and Stalingrad now. Funny thing is how I’m defending my close ally, Poland, in this alternate timeline. The Soviets are the clear bad guys and the Germans the good guys trying to unite Europe in defense of democracy. This is why I love this game!

[Continential]

I played as the NCR Mojave Territories recently in "Old World Blues" and I haven't played HOI4 in a while and I liked playing it and it felt fun. I should play more HOI4.

[dead0man]

Currently doing a democratic Germany run in HOI4. I overthrew Hitler and beat him and the Nazis first thing in a Civil War. Hitler died during the invasion of Berlin and I hung the Nazi leadership and banned fascism. The military junta that seized control then restored free elections and relinquished power to a democratic government again, led by Konrad Adenauer. I then focused on both building up my industry/military and establishing friendly relations with my neighbors, forming the Central European Alliance. Austria even willingly voted to be annexed! Now I lead a massive alliance of basically all of Europe (notable exceptions of fascist Italy and Spain) against the USSR.

The UK also had a civil war where the fascists tried to take over but they were driven off the island and only hold the colonies now. The fascists also tried to invade Ireland, which led to the Irish joining the Allies and siding with the British; now they have a united Ireland and are still part of the war against the Soviets, who started the war by declaring on Lithuania. I’ve pushed them back and taken Lenigrad, very close to taking Moscow and Stalingrad now. Funny thing is how I’m defending my close ally, Poland, in this alternate timeline. The Soviets are the clear bad guys and the Germans the good guys trying to unite Europe in defense of democracy. This is why I love this game!

I've done that, just not as completely as you did.  If only the real timeline could have gone that way!

[ilikeverin]

came across this old thread from all the way back in 2004 that served a similiar purpose to this thread.

I was a cool 13 year old, what can I say

[The Dowager Mod]

came across this old thread from all the way back in 2004 that served a similiar purpose to this thread.

I was a cool 13 year old, what can I say

I was all over that thread. 

[ilikeverin]

came across this old thread from all the way back in 2004 that served a similiar purpose to this thread.

I was a cool 13 year old, what can I say

I was all over that thread. 

Of course! *hughughug*