Yeah. I pretty much ignore the government/character development stuff in Rome.
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I have read all the comments in the thread to understand if it was worth trying to buy Rome. At the end of the day I think that the answer is no.
Am I wrong?
PS
I had a very bad experience with EU3
Am I wrong?
PS
I had a very bad experience with EU3
Care to explain what it was about EU3 that you didn't like?
Rome is a similar game but also different in many ways. So it may still be worth looking into. personally I'm not overly impressed with it in the long term. But I don't regret trying it. I've had fun for a while, and hopefully the game will improve with patches and mods.
EU3 vanilla is good.
EU3 with NA is very good.
EU3 with IN is awesome.
Rome vanilla has lots of potential, is fun for a while, but doesn't deliver in the long run.
Rome with VV is a good game, even better with some of the recent mods, but doesn't keep up compared to EU3.
EU3 with NA is very good.
EU3 with IN is awesome.
Rome vanilla has lots of potential, is fun for a while, but doesn't deliver in the long run.
Rome with VV is a good game, even better with some of the recent mods, but doesn't keep up compared to EU3.
In my opinion EU3 is very bad, it's plenty of bugs like the random retreat (solved only if you pay for an expansion) and has nothing to do with the history (it's just a randomized generator of unhistorical states)
Have you tried Magna Mundi
It makes the game rock hard but much more plausible.
The states that they have in EU3 are far from unhistorical, but rather a best approximation of the states that existed at the time. Obviously, the borders of the provinces changed over time, so the exact borders of the states in question will be slightly different than the completely historically accurate ones. Overall I think it is the best they could have done, and it has taught me a lot about geography
I personally like the games and think that they are worth the price that goes into them. EU3 both in vanilla and IN is still one of my favorite games. I made the mistake with EUR of buying it immediately after release, which cost me another 20 dollars, but still afforded me many hours of fun gameplay. I havent had a chance to play it in a while, but I don't mind the 10 dollars that I will have to pay to buy the expansion. Granted, it seems like a weird business model, but I am willing to go along with it for the amount of time that I will play and enjoy. Overall, great games Paradox, Thanks
That's the nature of the beast with paradox games, and indeed most commercial video games out there. The developers have to tread a fine line between historical accuracy, gameplay and timing for release. It looks like EU3 (and EUR, for that matter) was plagued by being rushed, so in the end the game is only considered 'complete' when coupled with the expansions.
The beauty of the game, though, is really in the moddability. So, if you find the case game disappointing, i strongly suggest you get the expansions (if you compare the cost of the game plus expansions to other full games that rarely have as much support as paradox games, it's still good value) and one of the leading mods. That should improve your experience somewhat, i think. If not, them i think you may need to re-evaluate what you're looking for in a game.
I have tried it and it was much better. The issue is that at the end of the day is a mod and that it doesn't solve any bug.
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The states that they have in EU3 are far from unhistorical, but rather a best approximation of the states that existed at the time. Obviously, the borders of the provinces changed over time, so the exact borders of the states in question will be slightly different than the completely historically accurate ones. Overall I think it is the best they could have done, and it has taught me a lot about geography
I personally like the games and think that they are worth the price that goes into them. EU3 both in vanilla and IN is still one of my favorite games. I made the mistake with EUR of buying it immediately after release, which cost me another 20 dollars, but still afforded me many hours of fun gameplay. I havent had a chance to play it in a while, but I don't mind the 10 dollars that I will have to pay to buy the expansion. Granted, it seems like a weird business model, but I am willing to go along with it for the amount of time that I will play and enjoy. Overall, great games Paradox, Thanks
I didn't tried the expansions because I was (and I'm) really pissed off with the Paradox policy: a bug should be fixed for free and not in a pay for expansion.
About the bugs and expansions please see my opinion in my previous posts. About the moddability I found EU3 far less moddable than HOI or Victoria. Am I wrong?
Except that the expansions don't only fix bugs; they add all sorts of extra features. Heck, the patches that Paradox do release often have extra features, too, something you don't normally see in computer games (there are notable exceptions, of course). And I think you'll find most developers take the opportunity of an expansion to fix bugs as well as add functionality--so, in a sense, most games force you to 'pay' for bugfixes that are included in expansions.
I think it's better to look at the boxed Paradox games as being a sort of 'preliminary' game, where they can gauge the public reaction and release the 'rest' of the game to suit. When the cost of the expansions is added to the base game's cost, it's still usually good value compared to other games straight from the box.
EUR, for example, set me back USD$25 for the main game when it came out, and USD$10 for the expansion (which comes to about AUD$52). Another comparable product, Rome Total War, cost me somewhere in the ballpark of AUD$70-80 when it came out several years ago, and the Barbarian Invasion was about AUD$50. This is all from memory, though, so the numbers may be wrong.
The rubbish exchange rate for Australian games (and my leaky memory) not withstanding, EUR and EU3 come to be a good deal. You really have to look at paradox games as only actually being complete products when their expansions are released.
That's very true as of late. But that's all good and well for us diehard fans who would stick with a game until the expansions come out, for everyone else it's inevitably dissappointing. I think it's a risky strategy for PI to take. It would be better to have a better vanilla game out of the box. This way the potential market for the expansion is greater, too.
The trend these days is against expansions that are necessary. Most expansion released these days are for games that are already feature-rich, well-patched and well-supported.
Patches that add features are also more and more common nowadays. In fact the whole PC gaming scene seems to be moving toward bigger and better patches, at the detriment of a stable gold builds. I don't have a big problem with that, as long as the games are promptly patched. I get the feeling that PI's support resource is stretched to the limit as-is, though.
Its funny how you inflate RTW and deflate EUR.
Nikolai said:
Correction:
EU3 vanilla was terribly bad. (remember the awesome commentaries everywhere? i do)
EU3 with NA was bad. (basically paid an expansion for a few extra years and historical leaders/monarchs - which paradox introduced to shut up users, but what users truly wanted was a more historical game - still remember mecklemburg in Alaska? i do)
EU3 with IN is decent. (a lot of stuff was finally fixed/implemented)
In other words, you finally got EU3 as it should be after buying all expansions. Even so i cant say that the awesome randomness makes the game any good.
Yeah, i still remember one of the patches for EU3 - instead of fixing crucial bugs, paradox added the "Screenshot" ability. I remember playing online with some of my friends (which was BUGGED as hell back in these days), and we often said - "We cant play properly, but we can at least take screenshots! Yay!".
Now, seriously, these patches were few in numbers (the ones that contained extra features), and when they did contain new features, these werent that important or big. I still remember a patch that added some extra spy function on EU3. Relatively easy stuff to implement, and barely had any impact on the game.
Other games, do actually contain extra real features in some patches (if you say that its not "normal" on other games, then i wonder what games you play). I already mentioned this somewhere else, but warcraft III TFT for example, had one patch giving new units/abilities to the game (which actually have a huge impact on the game). Both of which, graphical, and written.
I'd like to see why you think so, since it's quite the opposite, actually; I was being very generous to RTW.
My EUR calculation was based off an approximate conversion rate of USD$1 = AUD$1.5, even though when I made the purchases it was closer to AUD$1.1 or 1.2 (exchange rate was ridiculously good at the time)--moreover, having just checked my receipts, EUR was actually priced at USD$20. RTW, when it was released, was around the $70-80 mark in Australia--if not more--though that is partly because of the crazy markup we get on games over here.
The comparison was supposed to be relative, not absolute. RTW is priced at about $10 now because of M2TW and ETW being released since then. I'm saying that, at the time of their respective releases, I consider EUR to be a much better buy for me.
Leaving the subjective judgment of how good a game is aside, there are two opposing view points at odds here:
BurningEGO & co. feel rightly indignant for having purchased an incomplete game, which has subsequently been inadaquately patched. They also feel indignant that, having made the initial purchase, they will probably have to buy all expansions to make their initial investment worthwhile.
Cheex et al, on the other hand, take a wider point of view in considering the cumulative cost of the expansions. They argue that, taking the vanilla+expansions as one complete product, PI games stand well against other games on the market.
Other than the emotional factor, these two views are both true IMO. The conflict here is largely one of perception. But I do think PI has chosen a very stupid policy in "packaging" their games this way. Given the same final price, a customer would be much happier if they bought a good game out of the box, as opposed to buying an incomplete game and then feel forced to buy expansions to make up for it. Not only does this disgruntle the faithful fans, it also alienates many potential customers that would never get pass the lackluster 1.0 experience. As a matter of principle and a matter of good business, any single product should be good enough to stand on its own.
The release-first-and-fix-later approach can only work for a shareware game or a studio that has the resource and capacity to patch things quickly and adequately. PI is neither. Having been around for 10 years, PI is by now a well-established developer/publisher. It's about time they behave like one.
BurningEGO & co. feel rightly indignant for having purchased an incomplete game, which has subsequently been inadaquately patched. They also feel indignant that, having made the initial purchase, they will probably have to buy all expansions to make their initial investment worthwhile.
Cheex et al, on the other hand, take a wider point of view in considering the cumulative cost of the expansions. They argue that, taking the vanilla+expansions as one complete product, PI games stand well against other games on the market.
Other than the emotional factor, these two views are both true IMO. The conflict here is largely one of perception. But I do think PI has chosen a very stupid policy in "packaging" their games this way. Given the same final price, a customer would be much happier if they bought a good game out of the box, as opposed to buying an incomplete game and then feel forced to buy expansions to make up for it. Not only does this disgruntle the faithful fans, it also alienates many potential customers that would never get pass the lackluster 1.0 experience. As a matter of principle and a matter of good business, any single product should be good enough to stand on its own.
The release-first-and-fix-later approach can only work for a shareware game or a studio that has the resource and capacity to patch things quickly and adequately. PI is neither. Having been around for 10 years, PI is by now a well-established developer/publisher. It's about time they behave like one.
But we should have free patches that only fix bugs, and then expansions that add things.
As for now, you have to pay for seeing bugs fixed. I shouldn't be forced to buy an expansion to see bugs fixed, even if the expansion adds new things. EU3 plain and NA have serious issues (think about AI's immunity to bankrupcy) and we have to see if IN gets totally polished.
Please, don't speak about other companies being the same, and about prices of other companies' titles. A thing bad done does not become good if all others do the same.
Are You Guys Still missing My Point?? Seriously?
Ha!!! I've sat back and watched for a while now, and you guys (after 5 pages of this thread) are still missing my point! Get over it! It's ten freakin' dollars. Stop thinking about how you think Paradox has wronged you. They're trying to make money (like most people try to do) and despite your desire forfree stuff, it's not going to happen. So you can grouch if you want to but you're wasting your time. Either buy it and be happy or don't and play four fifths of a game. Just don't come here and complain about how they've wronged you. Computer games are not a necessity, it's a luxury. The price of this luxury (an extremely unnecessary one at that) is something that should (and is) up to Paradox. So let's not hold that against them. Buy it or don't. Although I do encourage it if you want more out of the game.
Ha!!! I've sat back and watched for a while now, and you guys (after 5 pages of this thread) are still missing my point! Get over it! It's ten freakin' dollars. Stop thinking about how you think Paradox has wronged you. They're trying to make money (like most people try to do) and despite your desire for
free stuff, it's not going to happen. So you can grouch if you want to but you're wasting your time. Either buy it and be happy or don't and play four fifths of a game. Just don't come here and complain about how they've wronged you. Computer games are not a necessity, it's a luxury. The price of this luxury (an extremely unnecessary one at that) is something that should (and is) up to Paradox. So let's not hold that against them. Buy it or don't. Although I do encourage it if you want more out of the game.- Status