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What is the best PDX game? What is the worse?

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CK2 is a very broad game, but probably hardest to get into at this point with dozens of costly DLCs that all matter, and a horrific UI (outdated, claims etc are really confusing sections), especially now that CK3 is announced it prolly doesn't much pay off to get into CK2.

EU4 is a great PDS game with probably the most universal gameplay - it can be played entirely intuitively after logging in a certain amount of hours. Replayability is massive. The game just never got boring for me.

I've only recently started getting into HOI4. At first it seemed like an oversimplified game compared to the other titles, but this is hardly close to the truth. One HOI4 game is the shortest compared to the rest (it's a plus for me personally), and literally everything you do and don't do counts towards the end result. Microing huge frontlines can be harder in MP, but frontline management, logistics, focus trees, government changes, they are all very fun and have a sneaky dynamism to them. The more i play this game, the more i like it. Also, i found that DLC policy is much better compared to EU4 and CK2 - very little 'content' packs, as they are mostly integrated into base DLCs, which aren't many.
 
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Big note - never played Vic.

CKII still best, better than current CKIII for sure. Worst is probably Imperator - I barely touched it tho, didn't like what I 'touched' at all. And if talking games with +100 hours into - than Stellaris is the worst. It definitely worse than EU4 (EU4 could really compete for the first spot, it's just that CKII has SO MUCH FLAVOUR it's just absolutely crazy), maaaybe tied with HoI4 - just because HoI4 apparently has soooo many game immersion breaking bugs, that even the glorious battle system and division designer cannot outweight those. And for Stellaris being 'worse' (being worse in 'best games evaaar' is kinda nice) - they actually killed it with 'stellaris 2.0' and hyperlanes-only. Now it taste the same way as Earth based games - same 'graphs' of provinces, unrealistic and ARBITRARY space 'chokepoints'... and it actually didn't help AI at all (I think Stellaris AI is the most braindead from them - I have no problem playing max difficulty Stellaris, I didn't even tried serious Very Hard campaign in EU4) and removed this pioneering spirit of building your first wormhole generator into the unknown...
 
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Larva said:
Big note - never played Vic.

CKII still best, better than current CKIII for sure. Worst is probably Imperator - I barely touched it tho, didn't like what I 'touched' at all. And if talking games with +100 hours into - than Stellaris is the worst. It definitely worse than EU4 (EU4 could really compete for the first spot, it's just that CKII has SO MUCH FLAVOUR it's just absolutely crazy), maaaybe tied with HoI4 - just because HoI4 apparently has soooo many game immersion breaking bugs, that even the glorious battle system and division designer cannot outweight those. And for Stellaris being 'worse' (being worse in 'best games evaaar' is kinda nice) - they actually killed it with 'stellaris 2.0' and hyperlanes-only. Now it taste the same way as Earth based games - same 'graphs' of provinces, unrealistic and ARBITRARY space 'chokepoints'... and it actually didn't help AI at all (I think Stellaris AI is the most braindead from them - I have no problem playing max difficulty Stellaris, I didn't even tried serious Very Hard campaign in EU4) and removed this pioneering spirit of building your first wormhole generator into the unknown...
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If you played I:R only on release, give another try now. It still lacks more flavour, some QoL features and better diplomacy, but it is already much better than a year and half ago, a whole different game. Also people who play it are quite excited with the upcoming patch.
 
LSF said:
If you played I:R only on release, give another try now. It still lacks more flavour, some QoL features and better diplomacy, but it is already much better than a year and half ago, a whole different game. Also people who play it are quite excited with the upcoming patch.
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The thing is...I have comeback story to Stellaris - with mediocre results. Just recently had comeback to HoI4 with latest DLC - ate some nasty bugs in NEWLY INTRODUCED content. So yeah - I'm highly reluctant to get back to Imperator. Maybe next year.
 
Larva said:
The thing is...I have comeback story to Stellaris - with mediocre results. Just recently had comeback to HoI4 with latest DLC - ate some nasty bugs in NEWLY INTRODUCED content. So yeah - I'm highly reluctant to get back to Imperator. Maybe next year.
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Well, next year they will release patch 2.0 with changes in technology, military traditions, warfare... it will be interesting.

And the big problem with Stellaris is AI. When you are a beginner you simply get mesmerized by all the events and anomalies and stories. But then you realize AI just cant deal with economy and warfare. As a strategy game Stellaris is not so captivating.
 
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LSF said:
Well, next year they will release patch 2.0 with changes in technology, military traditions, warfare... it will be interesting.

And the big problem with Stellaris is AI. When you are a beginner you simply get mesmerized by all the events and anomalies and stories. But then you realize AI just cant deal with economy and warfare. As a strategy game Stellaris is not so captivating.
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I think this hits the nail on the head. Stellaris is interesting in the beginning, but once you've come to understand its features and how it plays, it ceases to be interesting because the AI is completely inane. This is actually a problem with all of Paradox's games -- they've got to the point where none of them is at all challenging in SP, once the player has understood their mechanics. This is true of many computer games, of course, but it's a particular weakness of Paradox's games. I think it is made worse by their recent tendency to put so much of the AI's behviors in the game engine, instead of letting modders "crowd source" a halfway decent AI.
 
Kriegsspieler said:
I think this hits the nail on the head. Stellaris is interesting in the beginning, but once you've come to understand its features and how it plays, it ceases to be interesting because the AI is completely inane. This is actually a problem with all of Paradox's games -- they've got to the point where none of them is at all challenging in SP, once the player has understood their mechanics. This is true of many computer games, of course, but it's a particular weakness of Paradox's games. I think it is made worse by their recent tendency to put so much of the AI's behviors in the game engine, instead of letting modders "crowd source" a halfway decent AI.
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This why CKII is the best - AI is not critical for this game to be great experience (it's more of a story telling than strategy), and AI is actually pretty good, I don't know why or how - especially with random world AI blobbing and 'trying to win' real hard. And I agree with your assessment for Stellaris here - because Stellaris most of them all lack meaningful storytelling
 
Larva said:
This why CKII is the best - AI is not critical for this game to be great experience (it's more of a story telling than strategy), and AI is actually pretty good, I don't know why or how - especially with random world AI blobbing and 'trying to win' real hard. And I agree with your assessment for Stellaris here - because Stellaris most of them all lack meaningful storytelling
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Yes, you are right, although I would put it slightly differently. What makes CK challenging are often the internal factors -- premature death of a ruler, disruptive vassals, etc. -- that give a measure of instability to a regime and aren't that hard to implement in the game. The games that depend on competition against external forces, which are most of the rest of their offerings, are not that good. HOI, being entirely about national competition, is especially grievous in this regard.

Above in this thread I said that Victoria has always been my favorite game, and this explains one reason why I like it. To me, Victoria isn't about winning, it is more about "managing" the modernization of a country. In that sense, the external threats were less important than what destabilizes your country internally and hinders its transition into a modern industrial society.
 
Vic2/CK2 for best. Both try and do something different and, while some flaws, pull it off.

Opposite would be Stellaris which has so much competition that does it better and HOI4 which somehow manages to be both a terrible mid 20th century sandbox wargame and a terrible WWII wargame.
 
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Worst is absolutely Vicky 2, it's way too hard to understand and even when you do understand it it's just not really fun.

To me the most fun is Stellaris. I love the events and moving from historical stuff to a space setting has definitely allowed the writers to take a more interesting approach. It's also a lot of fun to just build and write lore for your various space empires. Also you can be megastructure building robots

what's not to love
 
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