Paradox Interactive Games Thread

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Great game. My favorite memory is playing as Yemen and setting up an empire that stretched from Egypt to Pakistan. It's my only major Muslim game.

[7,052,770]

Would this game allow me to Protestantize Ireland?

Not due to the time span. The closest thing would be to convert Ireland to one of the Catholic heresies in the game (Cathar, Fraticelli, Lollard and Waldensian), with some special dynamics such as the Fraticelli having a Pope (unlike the other three) and the Cathars having stronger female succession laws and allowing greater participation of women as military commanders or councilors. And the Lollards and Waldensians don't seem to have anything special, it's mostly flavor.

Cathars sound good!

Can you overthrow the Pope? In that time period there must be Papal states to conquer.

If you play as a Norse pagan, you can capture him and sacrifice him to the gods.

[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.

[7,052,770]

Well, Holy Fury is awesome. I may have to play as all the different Pagans and reforming to see how it goes.

I was taken aback by the extra counties in the British Isles and Iceland.

[7,052,770]

Well, Holy Fury is awesome. I may have to play as all the different Pagans and reforming to see how it goes.

I was taken aback by the extra counties in the British Isles and Iceland.

Are you going to create a feminist religion?

I'll probably go through all of the options eventually. The super-matriarchal would probably make sense for West Africa, where I've never actually done a playthrough.

Oh, and speaking of West Africa, it now connects to Ethiopia south of the Sahara!

[7,052,770]

Maybe I'm just bad at the game, but does anyone have any advice for dealing with revolts? There are so, so many pretender risings and it's very annoying. Imprisoning the claimants and executing them just seems to cause more revolts, as my vassals then hate me for being a "tyrant". Having my spymaster scheme sometimes stops the growth of factions, but only temporarily.

Try not to do anything that causes a tyrant penalty - only in the most dire of situations. You can usually revoke titles after you beat a rebellion without the penalty, so just do that and then let them go (which depending on the circumstances can cause people's opinion of you to go up for being "merciful")

[7,052,770]

I really hate the "chess with Death" event...

[7,052,770]

After over 500 hours of CK2, I decided to take the plunge and try out EU4. After watching some YouTube tutorials, I've begun a game as the Huron.

[7,052,770]

After over 500 hours of CK2, I decided to take the plunge and try out EU4. After watching some YouTube tutorials, I've begun a game as the Huron.

As someone whose put over 600 hours into the game; I wouldn't really suggest Huron as a first nation, you won't learn many core mechanics and they're gameplay is incredibly boring for the first 200-300 years. I'd go for Portugal or England, perhaps even France since it's very hard to mess up as them.

I kinda liked having 200 years to get used to the interface and what all the buttons do without having any real pressure. However, I think I wasted a lot of points getting all of those "native techs" that disappear once you switch to a European style government. I did put everything into getting exploration and expansion ideas so I have 4 colonists now and I've made a huge blob completely surrounding the Great Lakes and down to the Ohio River, so that if the Euros (including Muslim Granada) start taking some away from me, I'll still have some power base.

Overall I'm enjoying it, even though I'm undoubtedly missing a lot.

[7,052,770]

After over 500 hours of CK2, I decided to take the plunge and try out EU4. After watching some YouTube tutorials, I've begun a game as the Huron.

As someone whose put over 600 hours into the game; I wouldn't really suggest Huron as a first nation, you won't learn many core mechanics and they're gameplay is incredibly boring for the first 200-300 years. I'd go for Portugal or England, perhaps even France since it's very hard to mess up as them.

I kinda liked having 200 years to get used to the interface and what all the buttons do without having any real pressure. However, I think I wasted a lot of points getting all of those "native techs" that disappear once you switch to a European style government. I did put everything into getting exploration and expansion ideas so I have 4 colonists now and I've made a huge blob completely surrounding the Great Lakes and down to the Ohio River, so that if the Euros (including Muslim Granada) start taking some away from me, I'll still have some power base.

Overall I'm enjoying it, even though I'm undoubtedly missing a lot.

I got into the mid-1700s and had everything from the Rockies to Appalachians, down to around Arkansas-latitude, and then Portugal and the Dutch declared war on me. I lost big battles even with 2x numerical superiority, and it all fell apart. I guess I was too far behind technologically?

So far, I like the game OK, but it hasn't grabbed me like CK2 does. I'm going to keep playing and see if something clicks.

[7,052,770]

I decided to check out EU4, and after some months of playing I can with confidence say that this game sucks. I started out as Muscovy, wanted to completely annex Novgorod in one sweep, however, warscore prohibits you from doing sh**t, so you have to wait like 40 years to take over an arctic wasteland because of truces. converting foreign religions is next to impossible, and it takes a butload of money too. Playing as a Western-Central European nation is also annoying, especially when you take a province from the HRE (inb4 100k stacks of coalitons against you). The navy aspect of the game is boring (What's the point of barques anyways?), trade is confusing, you always get bad heirs, you can't get claims on overseas territory, it takes over a hundred years to embrace a new institution, culture conversion is a useless feature, sieges take too long and it completely decimates your manpower, and before you say I should use use mercenaries, they're expensive and they use up much of my economy, colonies are useless and take up to much money, AI allies are braindead when it comes to helping you in a war, and the most ANNOYING problem I have with this game is that when the enemy AI goes to war with you they carpet siege you with a dozen of 2k-1k stacks and proceed to hying these games?

While I haven't played that many hours of EU4, it definitely didn't grab me like CK2 did. I would recommend trying that one.

[7,052,770]

Crusader Kings 3 has been announced for release in 2020:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III

Meh, I'd rather they just keep expanding CK2 forever.

[7,052,770]

I've been trying to survive as one of the small Zoroaster nations for a while know but cant get around the damn Abbassids. Hopefully Ck3 is delayed slightly so I can restore the truth faith to the near east before having to jump to the new game.

I am currently working on a Zun game where I started as Haesteinn in 867, prepared invasion of Persia, and then switched over. I think the same strategy would work for Zoroastrian and put you in a much better position. Also, the Norse culture will let you raid while to get your religion's Moral Authority up and lower the Sunni (or Buddhist, Hindu, etc.) MA.

[7,052,770]

Finally pulled off one of the most difficult CK2 achievements. This required multiple wars with the Byzantine Empire.

Not to cut down your accomplishment, but you can also do this as Haesteinn (probably able Haraldr or another Norse) by doing a prepared invasion and then converting to Judaism through control of the holy sites.

But yes, that's gotta be pretty hard if you started in Ethiopia.

[7,052,770]

Finally pulled off one of the most difficult CK2 achievements. This required multiple wars with the Byzantine Empire.

Not to cut down your accomplishment, but you can also do this as Haesteinn (probably able Haraldr or another Norse) by doing a prepared invasion and then converting to Judaism through control of the holy sites.

But yes, that's gotta be pretty hard if you started in Ethiopia.

I started in Scotland.

Did you convert to Judaism beforehand? Through a wife?

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Just stumbled upon a fun strategy - As the Byzantine Emperor, I converted to the Kharijite faith through a wife. I then got a Muslim Invasion CB against any non-Kharijite kingdoms in the game.

Since I had a whole lot of troops, I used it on Arabia (the Abbasids). Unlike a prepared invasion, I didn't get to keep counties I sieged outside the kingdom, but they all became independent duchies and I took over Arabia. I first used religious revocation on all the Sunni titles in the kingdom and replaced them all with dynasty members. Then I did the same thing to Persia. I tried on Daylam, but that king converted to Kharijite shortly before I won.

Now I'm looking at taking North Africa this way. A drawback is that Muslims can't restore the Roman Empire, but I didn't convert any of my descendants, so a future ruler can handle that.

[7,052,770]

I feel like I have many more things to do in CK2 (for example, I've never played nomads, nor have I played in India except the one time I invaded as Haesteinn), so I'll probably wait a year or so and let them work out the bugs in CK3 and add some expansions, and try to catch it on sale.

[7,052,770]

FYI, all Paradox games are on sale this weekend.

I'm thinking about picking up a couple of them, for example Victoria 2 + all DLC is only $14.73. Maybe I'll get Hearts of Iron 4 and Imperator while they're available for so little.

[7,052,770]

Started playing around in Imperator: Rome last night. It's a lot to take in. I hope to watch some tutorials and get a better idea this weekend.

[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.

[7,052,770]

I have played 1,400 hours of CK2 and lately enjoyed Vic2 a lot too, but I've never gotten into EU4. I actually picked up both Stellaris and HoI4 on a Steam sale but haven't played them at all. It's just hard to find a time to learn all the mechanics of a new game like this.

[7,052,770]

Anyone ever done a Zun or Zoroastrian playthrough in CK2?

[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...

[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.

[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"