Paradox Interactive Games Thread

[Alben Barkley]

I'm digging CK3. Found it hard to get into Paradox games before. I tried Hearts of Iron but it seemed so complex and I just didn't have the time for it. This game, which got such great reviews and seemed so interesting that I just had to give it a shot, was a bit easier to dive into. The tutorial was actually helpful. And I like how it's like half-strategy, half-RPG. The greater focus on characters I think makes it a bit more accessible.

[Alben Barkley]

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?

[Alben Barkley]

For those who were asking, I have now become hooked on HOI4 actually on top of CK3. (The British Empire just dominated the globe the other day, so much for the sun setting...) These games are like crack for me, holy s--t I can't believe I never got into them before.

I haven't played Vic 2 yet, now I guess I'll hold out for Vic 3 but I look forward to that a lot because that's one of my favorite time periods in history.

[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!

[Alben Barkley]

Crusader Kings III is getting all sorts of hype on my Playstation feed lately.

Seems like a game I would totally get into, but the "create your own character" function is not available on consoles yet (I'm on PS5).  And unless it's Street Fighter, I refuse to play any video game where I can't create my own character.   

I'm usually more of a console guy, but honestly I think this would have serious issues on a console controller as opposed to PC interface.

That's what they say about Elite Dangerous.

What people think of as a PC game, but I slay it on Playstation because using a DualShock/DualSense is far more intuitive to pilot an aircraft/ship, as opposed to a mouse and keyboard. 

I configure it to make it more "arcade-ey"

But with strategy games like this, you’re literally just clicking on stuff the whole time. Seems like it would be a huge pain to have to scroll through menus and such with a controller, not to mention commanding armies, etc.

[Alben Barkley]

I can't decide if Monarchist Britain or Democratic Germany is my favorite HOI4 run but I always seem to keep coming back to those two. Just tonight did the latter, capitulated the Soviets by 1939 after they stupidly declared war on Poland while I was guaranteeing them. Then Italy suicide bombed Yugoslavia and I cleaned them up too. It's just Japan against the world now basically, and it's still only 1940. (I'm allied with Britain and France; neither went fascist or communist in this run.)

Recently did the former too, which is super fun when you're blasting "Rule Britannia" while putting THE COLONIES back in their place!

Imperial Germany is also fun and kind of a middle ground between the two. Recently finally got Victoria as Kaiserin so I can try to restore the HRE. It's kind of convoluted to get her: You have to oppose Hitler, beat the Nazis in the Civil War, go down the Kaiserreich path, prevent the Hindenburg disaster by improving air safety regulations, delete your army so the Netherlands don't see you as a threat and decline you when you demand Wilhelm II's return, use a bunch of political power to make succession decisions and improve relations with the UK, send Victoria as a liaison, and have the rest of the Royal Family take a fateful trip on the Hindenburg...

She is I believe one of three female rulers in the game, along with "Anastasia" (also got her as Poland) and Elizabeth II (a similarly convoluted sequence of events as Monarchist Britain, never pulled it off myself though).

[Alben Barkley]

Am I the only one who thinks it's a little weird how in HOI4, Germany (despite being the real life losers) is the hardest nation to beat and easiest to play as? Like Operation Sea Lion is a joke, it's so easy. I should NOT be able to establish Naval Supremacy and Air Superiority over the British so simply, then once I land just march all the way to Scotland and capitulate them in like a day. Like, that's not AT ALL how it worked in real life.

Meanwhile, invading the Soviets is as simple as drawing a line from Leningrad to Stalingrad and pressing play. Again, not AT ALL how it worked in real life.

I never actually did a full Nazi Germany playthrough before today, believe it or not. Both because it just isn't that interesting to me compared to historical alternatives and because I find it a bit distasteful (yes, it's just a game, but still). And maybe it's simply because I'm a better player now than I used to be, but the fact that I was able to completely beat the Allies AND Comintern by 1942 (and could have earlier if not for waiting on justification focuses/non-aggression pacts, and playing as historically and methodically as possible) just seems a little farcical.

Was the point supposed to be that if Hitler wasn't stupid enough to open a two front war, he could have easily won? Because that's not really historically accurate. Most scholars think Sea Lion was never going to work anyway, and that Germany might have been screwed against the Soviets alone. Yet it's much easier for me to beat the Soviets as Germany than vice versa.

Plus after beating the Soviets, I'm now at war with a back-stabbing Japan and am actually aligned with the US against them which also seems unrealistic. Historical focuses are on, but the Japanese invaded my German East Indies I took from the Dutch. I had planned to launch an invasion of the US from Nazi Canada but oh well, guess I gotta deal with Japan first. Don't really want to though, fighting them is always annoying. Might just call it quits on this game after already achieving all of Hitler's goals. Plenty of Lebensraum now!

Anyway, I think Germany might need a serious debuff in future updates. Both to make them more challenging if you play as them and easier to beat if you play against them. As it is I just think it's unbalanced and unrealistic.

[Alben Barkley]

Canada is now playable in HOI4, thanks to a recent update which made it possible to boost both manpower and industry, both of which Canada desperately needs. Before you had to choose between the two. Using this update, I was able to lead the charge in defeating both Germany and Japan; most of West Germany is the Canadian Occupation Zone and Japan is split between me and my American allies.

Even before that, I was able to get an achievement for defeating the US and burning down Washington as Canada. This was actually pretty easy. All you have to do is go fascist, ally with Germany, and make a beeline to DC. I capitulated the whole US in the end but you get the achievement even if you don't, all you have to do is occupy DC.

[Alben Barkley]

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

1. Most important stuff to keep track of: Manpower and fuel spring to mind. In some early games I made the rookie mistake of letting both slip to 0 and, naturally, had a bad time. So be sure to up your conscription laws if you're running low on manpower, and of course don't create more divisions than you can sustain. No oil will slow you down pretty bad too, so be sure to not have too much naval activity (the biggest gas guzzler) going on unless you can afford it. It's a good idea to build refineries if you're playing a country (such as Germany) that doesn't have a large supply of/access to oil too. However fuel is basically unlimited as the US. Also of course keep a close eye on your logistics screen, which shows your production deficits and surpluses.

2. Common noob traps to avoid: Well, there's what I wrote above. Also keep in mind a lot of advice in videos, etc. on the internet is outdated. No longer are 7/2 divisions of 20 width recommended for example. So try to get up to date tips, especially if you have all the DLC. Make sure you keep an eye on your supply lines and that your troops actually are getting what you are producing, there were some big changes there with the "No Step Back" DLC.  Oh and it's for the best to build civilian factories early, then (if needed) refineries, THEN military factories. Rule of thumb is civs in 1936-37 at least. Reason is you need those factories to trade, produce other things including military factories, and (with the La Resistance DLC) build and upgrade a spy agency. Speaking of which, spy agencies are really only all that potent IMO if you are playing a non-democratic nation. Democratic nations can't use the "collaboration government" operation which can make capitulating an enemy (especially the USSR) much faster and easier. That's by far the best use for a spy agency.

3. Best nations for beginners: Germany actually. Few reasons: First, you basically get to set the pace of the game since you are the aggressor. You can essentially build up until you are ready to attack. Plus the German focus tree allows you to annex Austria, Czechoslovakia, etc. without firing a shot. Second, Germany is insanely OP, which is ironic considering real life. You're actually powerful enough to take out Poland and the Soviets at the start of the game if you really want to push it, then walk over the Western Allies and it's pretty much game over before France fell in real life. (But I wouldn't recommend that for a first game.) Third, you don't have to worry too much about being spread too thin or even doing anything particularly complicated with your navy because you don't have a vast colonial empire to handle like the UK and France. Fourth, there are three political routes to go down (historical, Kaiserreich, and democratic) and all are fun. Historical because it's just fun to play the bad guy sometimes, and again you're the aggressor in the thick of things so there's more action. Kaiserreich because it can play out in a variety of ways (ally with Britain, basically redo WW1, even restore the Holy Roman Empire!). Democratic because you can take history's bad guy and turn it into the good guy with a pretty powerful "Central European Alliance" that takes on the Soviets. (As I recently did, posting about it next.) Gives it nice replay value.

US is also a pretty solid beginner nation because you basically can't lose, and you get to spend a lot of time preparing for the war with lots and lots of resources at your disposal. Dealing with the politics and debuffs at the beginning is the only real problem, and it's mainly just a minor nuisance. That and you might get bored doing so much waiting, unless you join the war early which is actually a weaker route than going historical with the Neutrality Act.

Italy used to be a good beginner nation maybe, but with the latest DLC it's become much more complicated. If you don't pay close attention to a rather annoying mechanic the game imposes on you, you risk being deposed and plunged into a civil war. Fun. Same with the USSR, it's now more complicated with recent DLC that includes a "Paranoia Meter" minigame for Stalin.

For the other majors, France is hard if you don't know what you're doing. Country is a mess of political instability, economic problems, etc. that have to be sorted out. You also of course have the ticking time bomb of Germany's invasion, and unless you have sorted everything out by the time it happens and prepared a solid defense, they'll probably march to Paris and capitulate you immediately. That said, if you want to practice defense, it's worth trying. It also has some fun alternate history routes that can turn you into the aggressor like the Napoleonic route! One of my favorite countries nowadays actually but it was pain when I was a noob.

UK has the problem of having to either decolonize or cover a vast colonial empire. You don't start out with that huge an army but do have the biggest navy. But navy is relatively complicated. More fun alternate history options here though, like Edward VIII becoming a dictator and forcing the Anglosphere and colonies (US included!) to fall in line. But it's more of an intermediate than total beginner country I think.

I haven't played Japan very often tbh so can't speak much to that. I know people like to complain about its rather dated focus tree. Like the UK, it seems to be more naval-focused as well and as I recall you're pretty much railroaded into an early war with China.

You can also pick pretty much any minor (except for some obvious ones like Poland -- though it's good if you REALLY want to practice defense, and does have some awesome alt history easter eggs!) for a relatively relaxed experience if you'd rather do that to start off. Canada is a good one, especially after recent updates as I mentioned in an earlier post. I've had fun with others like Turkey as well. Beauty of the game is you can pick literally any country and unless it's like, Luxembourg, you can probably figure out SOMETHING fun to do with it.

Anyway, hope you get into the game, it's one of my all-time favorites now (I'm pretty much the opposite as you in that I have EU4 and the pass with all DLC but I've barely played it, but have a lot of hours in HOI4). "Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking." (Seriously though one last tip, it's actually worth buying the Allied Speeches Pack and extra music if not too expensive because it makes the game more epic. Nothing like doing D-Day while listening to Eisenhower's actual speech kick in!)

[Alben Barkley]

I think I've perfected the "Good Guy Germany" game. I unironically brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to Europe! Liberated most of the continent and brought it DEMOCRACY! Most European countries except like Britain and France (which have their own faction) are now in my faction and/or democratic, including Russia! After tackling Hitler and Stalin, I decided that wasn't enough freedom and democracy so I took out Italy as well. The game mechanics with deposing Mussolini and the Italian Civil War turned it into my puppet, which I gifted all of Italy's core territory to at the end. Ethiopia of course was liberated.

Now Spain is the last real vestige of authoritarianism on the European continent, but unfortunately I can't declare war on them because they haven't generated world tension and I'm a democracy. I guess Franco, like in real life, will hold on to power by staying neutral. But overall, I think this is a much better outcome for European WW2 than what we got! Almost all countries stay free, independent, and mostly democratic.

[Alben Barkley]

My best USSR game yet. I took out Germany by 1937! Actual war only lasted a couple months! And I just used the starting army! Also got an achievement: "We don't really like statistics: As the Soviet Union under Stalin, conquer Germany while suffering less than 1 million casualties total." I don't think it was even close (looked it up, I took about 300k casualties compared to about 30 million for real life USSR, or about 8.6 million only military)... Hell they were barely any tougher than Poland this time!

[Alben Barkley]

My best USSR game yet. I took out Germany by 1937! Actual war only lasted a couple months! And I just used the starting army!

Is that Heart of Iron 3? I bought that a year ago and have been too tired to play it ever since.

Looks like Hearts of Iron 4.

I think that was the one I bought. I did attempt to play it for a few minutes but it was too complicated.

It is HOI4. It seems more complicated than it is. There is a fairly steep learning curve compared to most games but once you get it down, it's tons of fun. It's basically a WW2 simulator/sandbox you get to play around in. Basically infinite ways to challenge yourself to change the course of the war, or you can just do a fairly faithful simulation.

[Alben Barkley]

The Last Romanov!

I put "Anastasia" on the throne of Poland and this lowly impostor has now grown to greatness, uniting the Slavs and reclaiming Russia. Taking Poland from a minor nation surrounded by two superpowers with only 40 rather weak divisions, low manpower, and just a handful of factories and planes and practically no navy at the start into a massive superpower in its own right, with cores on the defeated former Soviet Union and a greater industry and manpower than Germany. I even took Iran for good measure.

Poland may not exactly be a starter nation, but if you pull it off you can snowball into an absurdly large and powerful nation. The only time I won as Poland in the past (on Ironman mode with achievements on anyway), I sold out to the commies rather than defeated them, and even then just barely defended myself from Germany. Now I can easily take out the Nazis just like I did the Bolsheviks!

[Alben Barkley]

Update: Germany, Japan, and Italy all defeated. Germany annexed (along with Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria) and Italy puppeted. This is the first time I've beaten them all AND the USSR in the same game as Poland. (I did it before in a France game which I took all the way to 1948 for achievements; usually I stop before WW3 breaks out.) I now have 820 factories, 18.15 million manpower, and 346 divisions.

I'm going to have to play this game.

If you're going to, I'd recommend following along with some YouTube guides to start. I was going to recommend ScumpyDawg, whose videos helped me start out, but I just checked and he appears to have deleted all his videos! That's a shame. Bitt3rSteel is pretty good too though and he's still active.

[Alben Barkley]

Update: Germany, Japan, and Italy all defeated. Germany annexed (along with Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria) and Italy puppeted. This is the first time I've beaten them all AND the USSR in the same game as Poland. (I did it before in a France game which I took all the way to 1948 for achievements; usually I stop before WW3 breaks out.) I now have 820 factories, 18.15 million manpower, and 346 divisions.

I'm going to have to play this game.

If you're going to, I'd recommend following along with some YouTube guides to start. I was going to recommend ScumpyDawg, whose videos helped me start out, but I just checked and he appears to have deleted all his videos! That's a shame. Bitt3rSteel is pretty good too though and he's still active.

Have you ever managed to conquer Ireland in this game?

Many times as Monarchist or Fascist Britain. Now I'd be more interested and impressed with the reverse though!

[Alben Barkley]

One of my proudest games yet, defeating the Axis as FRANCE by the end of 1937!



To do this, oppose Germany remilitarizing the Rhineland right at the start of the game. With RNG (and possibly the position of your troops, I had more luck it seemed when I didn't put them right on the German border but on a fallback line slightly behind it), the following will happen: Britain will refuse to help you, Germany will refuse to demilitarize, this will start war with Germany and also a civil war in France. Sounds terrible right? WRONG!

The civil war only involves a few divisions in Northern France and is quickly dealt with. Then you can turn all your attention to Germany. Simply defend the Maginot Line with a few weak divisions and begin pushing northward with your best divisions. The challenge is you will have low manpower, low supply, and zero public support for the war and your government. However, you do have a bigger army than them, and ultimately that should be enough to break them. It also helps if you create the "Little Entente" faction and invite Czechoslovakia and possibly Poland into the war, spreading the Germans thin. You can also get the British to join your faction despite their earlier refusal to help you. This also called Italy into the war for me; I took some of my Maginot troops and put them on the Italian line and simply held until I was done mopping up Germany. Then I turned attention to Italy, and they broke much easier than the Germans (with the help of Yugoslavia this time). Mussolini was deposed and the Italian government split in two, ending the war and fascism before Christmas 1937! (Germany capitulated in June.)

The only problem is I didn't have quite enough war score to take ALL of Germany, despite doing pretty much everything (all I saw the British do was a failed naval invasion of Konigsberg, ironically the one German city I couldn't take). This prevented me from getting an achievement with this run! Oh well, I guess I could do it again knowing what to do now. It was a very fun and satisfying game regardless. And I thought capping the Germans early as the Soviets was good!

[Alben Barkley]

Can you try to defeat the Axis as Canada?

I have, but it’s a more conventional game where you side with the Allies, do D-Day landings, etc. Best I’ve done as Canada is lead the charge to defeat the Axis and turn West Germany into the Canadian Occupied Zone after a few years of war and a long build-up to it. I haven’t crushed them early and completely dominated them in the peace conference like you can as the French and Soviets. Reason is Canada starts out super weak and until recently it wasn’t even really possible to build them into a decent power with both manpower and industry, which still takes time to do. They’re still a minor power and start out as a British puppet (though in my Canadian game I broke free of Britain and joined a faction with the US).

The game is not the most realistic thing in the world, to say the least (we’re talking about a game in which I put “Anastasia” on the Polish throne and took over Germany and Russia, to say nothing of my games playing as the Pope… I’m sure you’d love those!). But it does roughly reflect the balance of power in the real world in 1936, easter eggs and gimmicks aside. So probably not possible to create a superpower Canada that steamrolls everybody without exploits. Not that a classic Allies game isn’t fun and rewarding in its own way, and Canada’s a fine country for that.

Although, I did beat the US as fascist Canada, but only with German help. Also the US is weak at the start. Maybe a little weaker than we were in real life for game balance reasons, but it’s also true we didn’t have a huge standing army and were isolationist.

[Alben Barkley]

Just did another early war with Germany run as France. This time I left Britain out of it, which made it a bit more difficult but did mean I didn't have to deal with Italy and I got the achievement for absorbing all of Germany into my faction. I have to say, it was pretty satisfying to see Germany's first three victims -- Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France -- beat up on them before they could ever embark on their evil campaign of conquest.

I'm considering playing this game over the holiday but I am having trouble motivating.

Watch this video and follow along if you need a place to start:

It does require all the DLC through "No Step Back" however. But you can pay 5 bucks to try out the DLC for a month.

[Alben Barkley]

My new favorite strategy in HOI4 is to go "No Further Appeasement" as the UK. Basically you kick out Chamberlain as soon as he takes office, replace him with Churchill, puppet the Netherlands to establish a foothold on the European continent, and declare war on Hitler ASAP. I had the Nazis toppled and Italy puppeted by February 1940, months before France fell or Churchill took office in real life!

VERY satisfying. Helps to request forces from all the UK's puppets if you're going to do this btw. That actually gives you the second largest starting army in the game behind only the Soviets and saves you a ton of manpower.

[Alben Barkley]

"The British be damned! France supports her friends! The Czechs shall not be betrayed!" Honestly almost brought a tear to my eye as I wrecked Germany with that option. I've now beaten Germany as France in basically every possible way: The historical route where you ally with Britain and simply defend and survive. The route of making a pact with the Soviet Union which allows you to build up until Barbarossa. The route where you immediately oppose Germany remilitarizing the Rhineland. The Napoleonic Empire route where you invade Germany first. And now the route where you refuse to appease at the Munich Conference.

Each one is satisfying in its own way. By god I basically bought this game so I could make France win like they should have been able to historically, and by god has it ever delivered!

[Alben Barkley]

So I went with the Stresa Front route as Italy to guarantee Austria's independence and fight the Anschluss. After I defeated Germany, I puppeted them. Aaand.,. their leader is still Hitler. I guess because I played as fascist Italy, and the default fascist leader for Germany is Hitler. It's just a little ridiculous that I'd fight this war and Hitler would still be in power! Also ridiculous that the UK kept inviting me to and kicking me out of the Allies. I feel like this path wasn't developed to work well with the game...

[Alben Barkley]

This one's especially for you BRTD:



It's an older run of mine, but it checks out.

Next time I do the Papal States, I'll be sure to not stop at taking Vichy France and puppeting Germany, but conquering all of Protestant Europe!

[Alben Barkley]

This one's especially for you BRTD:



It's an older run of mine, but it checks out.

Next time I do the Papal States, I'll be sure to not stop at taking Vichy France and puppeting Germany, but conquering all of Protestant Europe!

How is that even possible when the Papal States didn't exist in that time frame?

Pope takes over Italy.

Anyway, last night I did an "Ingsoc" 1984 run where the British Communinst Party takes over most of Europe, with George Orwell as an advisor:

[Alben Barkley]

This is the most disgusting thing I've done yet in the game, and that includes taking over the world as Hitler:

[Alben Barkley]

Is it possible to actually take over Germany and/or the Soviet Union playing as Poland?

Yep.

Started as Poland in this game: