Paradox - Thank you. I love this game

[flame7926]

Honestly, I'd say EU3 is the least complicated of the 4: HOI3 being the most, Vicky2 being second, CK2 being third, and EU3 being forth. EU3, you can simply just raise your army, move a few sliders here and there, and call it good. CK2 you've got tech, each barony has its own army (levy), and you have to carefully, delicately balance 1000s of potential relations with other people - not just with their king, but key dukes and counts as well. Plus your own internal squabbles.
I never even played Vicky2 or EU3 long enough to bother registering them ><

I would agree on these rankings. HOI3 is too complicated to play. EU3 I just never got into, too simple/complex in the wrong places. Probably not the games fault, more mine. CKII is very good, a bit simpler but very enjoyable. Victoria's complexity is under the hood, the economy. I like Victoria 2 the best, with CKII second.

[Teije]

What do you like about Victoria 2? Only one I've never played out of the 4 of them, and it looks interesting.

[rjd2]

Are the any other games even remotely like Paradox Games? I've played Total War a lot but got pretty sick of the 3d battles there, and that seemed to be one of the main features. (Mainly cause I sucked and couldn't be bothered with all paper-sissors-rock sort of thing like the pikemen beat calvery who beat infantry who beat pikemen and trying to micromanage all those units so they would attack their weakest opponents.)

I am not a massive gamer by some standards, I have only played EU3 and CK2 but they are easily the best games I have ever played (and Football Manager). Seems like there is just so much potenial in these games, especially with such an awesome modding community.

Don't know if I can wait a year for EU4. Feel a bit guilty asking this on the Paradox forums but does anyone have any reccomendations? Feel a wee bit burnt out on EU3 and CK2, have like over 1000 hours playing those games. I really like the politics.

[Yanqui9]

I just wanted to agree with OP. I recently bought this game in a bundle of the latest DLCs from Gamersgate and have been playing it practically non stop since. I have played HOI2 and HOI3 which were fun. I got Victoria II but never got into it at all, never really played it. I took the risk of getting Crusader Kings II and am very happy with it.

Next up is EUIII (No I haven't played Europa Universalis yet, please forgive me! :-) ) but I'm going to wait until I'm done with CKII before I do.

[Carmilla]

Yup, Pride of Nations has a manual that is 65 pages long.

You darn kids today! Why in my youth we had manuals that were several hundred pages long! We read all of it too before we started playing our vidya games! :P

[Ciccillo Rre]

I would agree on these rankings. HOI3 is too complicated to play. EU3 I just never got into, too simple/complex in the wrong places. Probably not the games fault, more mine. CKII is very good, a bit simpler but very enjoyable. Victoria's complexity is under the hood, the economy. I like Victoria 2 the best, with CKII second.

This

[Damiank]

I have to agree with the original poster.

My Paradox history involves buying all of the games and never playing them beyond an hour or so because I just couldn't figure them out. With Crusader Kings 2, something clicked and I have loved playing it ever since. And - even better - playing CK2 helped Victoria 2 and EU3 click with me, and now I love those as well.

Basically I think it has been an exceptionally successful gateway game for Paradox, and I am happy it exists. I still can't get my head around HoI3.

[Alex_brunius]

You darn kids today! Why in my youth we had manuals that were several hundred pages long! We read all of it too before we started playing our vidya games! :P

Aye!

I remember a Janes combat simulator game I bought that came with a 500 page manual (I think it was AH-64D Longbow). After reading it I felt like I would almost be qualified to fly a real helicopter :P

When googling I even found the somewhat shorter manual for the sequel if anyone is interrested

[tapewormlondon]

Honestly, I'd say EU3 is the least complicated of the 4: HOI3 being the most, Vicky2 being second, CK2 being third, and EU3 being forth. EU3, you can simply just raise your army, move a few sliders here and there, and call it good. CK2 you've got tech, each barony has its own army (levy), and you have to carefully, delicately balance 1000s of potential relations with other people - not just with their king, but key dukes and counts as well. Plus your own internal squabbles.

I never even played Vicky2 or EU3 long enough to bother registering them ><

mmmm I would say that CK2 and EU3 are equal. I spent a while getting used to EU3 but breezed CK2, but only because I had played Sengoku prior. Vic2 is second and HOI is WTFOMG HARD!!!!

[Diet of Worms]

Personally I put Victoria 2 a little above HOI3 in terms of complexity.

It is often easier to play, since you can with many countries can just ignore the whole economy and POP system as you capitalists happily build factories and railroads for you, and you play it similar to EU3. But to actually play well, and manipulate your POPs in the way I'm sure an expert can... That is a complex system! Makes CK2 characters seem positively basic

HOI3 has a huge amount of stuff that you have to learn to even get going. All the precise rules of division composition, order of battle and the tech (good god, the tech!) but once you've got over that, everything is on the surface and is - individually at least - pretty simple. It doesn't have that feeling of everything running on top of a hugely deep model that you can only grasp the edges of...

(For non Vicky 2 players, the entire population of the world is simulated in POPs, 1 POP equalling I think 4 people - basically a household. These POPs are defined by their employment type, nationality, religion and location, and maybe more. They clump together with other POPs that are of the same exact type. Then these larger POPs have needs and desires that are met by the functioning of the economy and political views. They interact with the government, convert to different types when certain criteria are met, and are the pool you recruit your soldiers from, and produce rebels when annoyed. And probably a whole load more that I've either forgotten or never learned... this game intimidates the hell out of me to be honest...)

[salvettic]

Yup, Pride of Nations has a manual that is 65 pages long.

If you finished the Tutorials and read the Manual of most Paradox games you still didn't learn anything... with the first game, the forum and some guides you get the first steps, it took me nearly 40 hours of gameplay to began to grasp some things!