Can you stop with ridiculous meme focuses?

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Husein

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Jan 4, 2013
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Seriously who thought making Ottoman focus tree all about invading Austria, Hungary and couping Germany? It makes 0 historical sense, it makes 0 sense realistically, it makes 0 sense gameplay wise either. A focus tree that should have focused on planning uprisings in middle east or perhaps aligning with Allies in exchange for middle east is instead all about ridiculous idea of invading Central Europe as 1930/1940 Turkey. Invading Greece would literally get everyone ganging up on Turkey, from Italians to French and British.

HOI used to be about history, interesting and plausible Alt History scenarios, and believable changes. I am sincerely worried about any future DLC nations, such as Sweden getting a focus to reconquer the Swedish empire from Baltic to Poland and Konigsberg, something that not only was impossible, but also would cause them to be ripped apart by Soviets and their own people.
 
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Tons of things are implausible in HOI4 but the alt-history scenarios sell games, so it's really a business decision. Paradox is a publicly traded company - stock symbol ETA. That means it exists to make money for shareholders. Video game companies are really part of the international "entertainment" industry. Lots of customers buy the DLCs for the alt-history scenarios.

I play historical myself to try to avoid some of the crazy stuff. That's why I haven't bought "Bosporous" yet. I actually agree with you about the ahistorical nonsense but you are asking them to make a different game really. That would also be a "business decision".
 
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Tons of things are implausible in HOI4 but the alt-history scenarios sell games, so it's really a business decision. Paradox is a publicly traded company - stock symbol ETA. That means it exists to make money for shareholders. Video game companies are really part of the international "entertainment" industry. Lots of customers buy the DLCs for the alt-history scenarios.

I play historical myself to try to avoid some of the crazy stuff. That's why I haven't bought "Bosporous" yet. I actually agree with you about the ahistorical nonsense but you are asking them to make a different game really. That would also be a "business decision".


There area reasonable Alt History scenarios. Ottomans or Turks funding uprisings in colonies across middle east and north Africa. Realistic somewhat, with better economy. Turkey invading Greece in 1930's, not only would that cause actual full on intervention but even if it did work it would make Afghanistan look like childs play. Greeks and Balkans in general did not want to be ruled by Turks ever, ever again. With the current DLC policy I can almost guarantee Norway getting a Viking focus which enables them to raid the coasts of England for civil factories and manpower boosts in 1940's. Unrealistic memery ruins the game.
 
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There area reasonable Alt History scenarios. Ottomans or Turks funding uprisings in colonies across middle east and north Africa. Realistic somewhat, with better economy. Turkey invading Greece in 1930's, not only would that cause actual full on intervention but even if it did work it would make Afghanistan look like childs play. Greeks and Balkans in general did not want to be ruled by Turks ever, ever again. With the current DLC policy I can almost guarantee Norway getting a Viking focus which enables them to raid the coasts of England for civil factories and manpower boosts in 1940's. Unrealistic memery ruins the game.

Good points. Creating better scenarios does take more developer resources though, so it affects the bottom-line. In other words it costs more money which reduces profits. As a business they are going to try to min/max developer resources in order to maximize profit. I've seen a lot of good games suffer because of that.

There is another thread about the Scandinavian Union. Paradox should be able to do an alt-history scenario like that well since they are a Swedish company yet they haven't yet. Another "business decision"? It would be interesting to see how they do that someday. Maybe in HOI5 they should allow extensive modding for alt-history scenarios so that the community can get involved in creating better, more reasonable ones.
 
There area reasonable Alt History scenarios. Ottomans or Turks funding uprisings in colonies across middle east and north Africa. Realistic somewhat, with better economy. Turkey invading Greece in 1930's, not only would that cause actual full on intervention but even if it did work it would make Afghanistan look like childs play. Greeks and Balkans in general did not want to be ruled by Turks ever, ever again. With the current DLC policy I can almost guarantee Norway getting a Viking focus which enables them to raid the coasts of England for civil factories and manpower boosts in 1940's. Unrealistic memery ruins the game.
I do this in my mod...but are a mod, for fun! But these thing are for mod! For this motive i say becoming a stock exchange company cause the collapse of quality of PDX games
 
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People REALLY need to drop this idea that HOI4 is a game that was created for history buffs because it isn't. They're going for mass appeal. Go look at charts which clearly show how HOI4 continues to increase in popularity with every meme history DLC they release. The game is in the top 30 most played games on steam regularly which is impressive for a grand strategy game. It also dwarfs every other Paradox game. Older HOI games were historical for the most part and they had nowhere near the popularity of HOI4. I think the content created by the youtube community for this game speaks volumes about the typical HOI4 player. Even before Paradox went all in on meme history most of what you would see is people making meme videos like conquering the world as... Luxembourg... I'd say the spike in popularity is definitely connected to how they've gone for more meme history scenarios as of late.
 
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People REALLY need to drop this idea that HOI4 is a game that was created for history buffs because it isn't. They're going for mass appeal. Go look at charts which clearly show how HOI4 continues to increase in popularity with every meme history DLC they release. This is apparently what the people want as evidenced by the increasing active player count and the content created by the youtube community for this game. The game is in the top 30 most played games on steam regularly which is impressive for a grand strategy game. It also dwarfs every other Paradox game. Older HOI games were historical for the most part and they had nowhere near the popularity of HOI4. I'd say there is definitely a connection to how they've gone for more meme history scenarios as of late.

You're saying a game where you can steamroll UK with 40w divisions as Germany in 1936 is a meme game and not realisitic????
 
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People REALLY need to drop this idea that HOI4 is a game that was created for history buffs because it isn't. They're going for mass appeal. Go look at charts which clearly show how HOI4 continues to increase in popularity with every meme history DLC they release. The game is in the top 30 most played games on steam regularly which is impressive for a grand strategy game. It also dwarfs every other Paradox game. Older HOI games were historical for the most part and they had nowhere near the popularity of HOI4. I think the content created by the youtube community for this game speaks volumes about the typical HOI4 player. Even before Paradox went all in on meme history most of what you would see is people making meme videos like conquering the world as... Luxembourg... I'd say the spike in popularity is definitely connected to how they've gone for more meme history scenarios as of late.


So why not Estonian colonization of US DLC? Black supremacist Nazi Germany with Tito in power? Wholesale Iranian conversion to Judaism and founding of the third temple in 1942? Norwegian vikings raiding UK and fighting Ark Royal with Longships? Chinese focus to build a tunnel trough the earth core and invade the west trough it? The summoning of Cthulhu by Panamanian Cocaine traders in 1937?

No one is asking for return to HOI3 OOB's, or some ridiculous micromanaging stuff, what is possibly wrong with things being more realistic, such as alt history peace between Soviets and Germany if some conditions are satisfied as opposing to Turks conquering Germany and Central europe in 1941?
 
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People REALLY need to drop this idea that HOI4 is a game that was created for history buffs because it isn't. They're going for mass appeal. Go look at charts which clearly show how HOI4 continues to increase in popularity with every meme history DLC they release. The game is in the top 30 most played games on steam regularly which is impressive for a grand strategy game. It also dwarfs every other Paradox game. Older HOI games were historical for the most part and they had nowhere near the popularity of HOI4. I think the content created by the youtube community for this game speaks volumes about the typical HOI4 player. Even before Paradox went all in on meme history most of what you would see is people making meme videos like conquering the world as... Luxembourg... I'd say the spike in popularity is definitely connected to how they've gone for more meme history scenarios as of late.


Sadly true
 
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So why not Estonian colonization of US DLC? Black supremacist Nazi Germany with Tito in power? Wholesale Iranian conversion to Judaism and founding of the third temple in 1942? Norwegian vikings raiding UK and fighting Ark Royal with Longships? Chinese focus to build a tunnel trough the earth core and invade the west trough it? The summoning of Cthulhu by Panamanian Cocaine traders in 1937?

No one is asking for return to HOI3 OOB's, or some ridiculous micromanaging stuff, what is possibly wrong with things being more realistic, such as alt history peace between Soviets and Germany if some conditions are satisfied as opposing to Turks conquering Germany and Central europe in 1941?

Unfortunately, that kind of game could be popular with the pubic. If it makes more money then it's not unreasonable for a video game company to do it. That's capitalism...
 
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So why not Estonian colonization of US DLC? Black supremacist Nazi Germany with Tito in power? Wholesale Iranian conversion to Judaism and founding of the third temple in 1942? Norwegian vikings raiding UK and fighting Ark Royal with Longships? Chinese focus to build a tunnel trough the earth core and invade the west trough it? The summoning of Cthulhu by Panamanian Cocaine traders in 1937?

No one is asking for return to HOI3 OOB's, or some ridiculous micromanaging stuff, what is possibly wrong with things being more realistic, such as alt history peace between Soviets and Germany if some conditions are satisfied as opposing to Turks conquering Germany and Central europe in 1941?
If it’s fun it’s fun.

i wish they’d just do a really wide dlc that was just full of historical trees so they can get a good bulk of the map having some historicity.

Then the rest of the dlc can tweak them while adding tons of alt history fun.
 
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"We don't want meme ahistorical focuses, meme Ottoman Empire should not go to war against Greece because UK would not accept that, instead meme Ottoman Empire should make meme uprisings in the middle east, because that is so much more realisitic and the UK would not go to.war against a resurgent Ottoman Empire over the middle east!"

The ottoman empire is a meme, period. I don't play as them, but people should be able to do it. That the Ottomans incite pro-Ottoman Arab revolts is even more unrealistic. The British would never allow that. The Arabs would never do that.

Moreover the Ottomans are able to puppet Iraq and get Syria from France.

This is not about alt-history being bad, but that OP want a different (and at least just as unrealistic) ahistorical path for Turkey.
 
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"We don't want meme ahistorical focuses, meme Ottoman Empire should not go to war against Greece because UK would not accept that, instead meme Ottoman Empire should make meme uprisings in the middle east, because that is so much more realisitic and the UK would not go to.war against a resurgent Ottoman Empire over the middle east!"

The ottoman empire is a meme, period. I don't play as them, but people should be able to do it. That the Ottomans incite pro-Ottoman Arab revolts is even more unrealistic. The British would never allow that. The Arabs would never do that.

Moreover the Ottomans are able to puppet Iraq and get Syria from France.

This is not about alt-history being bad, but that OP want a different (and at least just as unrealistic) ahistorical path for Turkey.


Meme uprisings in the middle east, but not Syria, Iraq, Arabia or Greece?
 
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Meme uprisings in the middle east, but not Syria, Iraq, Arabia or Greece?

Last time I checked all but Greece is in the middle east.

Point is: it is moot when the argument of OP is to have just as unplausible focus trees.
 
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Norwegian vikings raiding UK and fighting Ark Royal with Longships? Chinese focus to build a tunnel trough the earth core and invade the west trough it? The summoning of Cthulhu by Panamanian Cocaine traders in 1937?

I get where you are coming from, but if the new DLC Barbarossa turns into a far fetched story about descendants of the pirate Hayreddin Barbarossa migrating to Norway and attacks the Ark Royal with small raider ships, I will be looking at you. :oops: You know the rule, when in the asylum, keep all crazy ideas and sharp tools out of sight.

Now the Chinese building a tunnel to the other side of the world is a fascinating idea. Even if the game assumes the earth is just dirt and rock under the crust, where do they put all that dirt? That much dirt piled up in one place is sure to put a serious wobble in the earth's rotation. All divisions on the surface get a moving sickness malus.
 
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I get where you are coming from, but if the new DLC Barbarossa turns into a far fetched story about descendants of the pirate Hayreddin Barbarossa migrating to Norway and attacks the Ark Royal with small raider ships, I will be looking at you. :oops: You know the rule, when in the asylum, keep all crazy ideas and sharp tools out of sight.

Now the Chinese building a tunnel to the other side of the world is a fascinating idea. Even if the game assumes the earth is just dirt and rock under the crust, where do they put all that dirt? That much dirt piled up in one place is sure to put a serious wobble in the earth's rotation. All divisions on the surface get a moving sickness malus.


They do need to reach Japan and all their islands, so probably used up building corridors to it haha
 
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People REALLY need to drop this idea that HOI4 is a game that was created for history buffs because it isn't. They're going for mass appeal. Go look at charts which clearly show how HOI4 continues to increase in popularity with every meme history DLC they release. The game is in the top 30 most played games on steam regularly which is impressive for a grand strategy game. It also dwarfs every other Paradox game. Older HOI games were historical for the most part and they had nowhere near the popularity of HOI4. I think the content created by the youtube community for this game speaks volumes about the typical HOI4 player. Even before Paradox went all in on meme history most of what you would see is people making meme videos like conquering the world as... Luxembourg... I'd say the spike in popularity is definitely connected to how they've gone for more meme history scenarios as of late.
I would add, that while the game definitely does need expanded historical trees all over the map, WW2 is one of the most oversaturated historical topics there is in media, and some people just get tired of the same old thing every once in a while. The goofy meme scenarios are definitely a huge part of what keeps me playing this game in between 'historical' runs. I honestly think if the game were super gritty and realistic and only focused on historical and historically plausible outcomes it would still be confined to a niche community, bar perhaps new Paradox fans onboarding from the successes of CK2 and EU4.
 
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I would add, that while the game definitely does need expanded historical trees all over the map, WW2 is one of the most oversaturated historical topics there is in media, and some people just get tired of the same old thing every once in a while. The goofy meme scenarios are definitely a huge part of what keeps me playing this game in between 'historical' runs. I honestly think if the game were super gritty and realistic and only focused on historical and historically plausible outcomes it would still be confined to a niche community, bar perhaps new Paradox fans onboarding from the successes of CK2 and EU4.
The problem isn't the memes ... at least for me, but the fact that the game is BROKEN! Endless bugs, many of which have been fixed by the community (but which cancel the results of ironman for those who want trophies ... too bad these bugs often ruin the results for many users)! Very unbalanced features, features broken from D1 (peace conferences, yes, I'm watching you! And not just you ...) ... this infuriates players! If these thing not are broken...player not are angaist meme focus
 
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