Do you guys think there should be a "Sandbox mode?"

[Ironhide G1]

Am I the only one who thinks that for Paradox Strategy Games (at least for the ones I play, V2 and HOI3), there should be a Sandbox mode? It would be an optional game mode, and you could take territories, add armies, tweak stats about each province, who owns it, add leaders, change country's info, prestige, etc... I think this would be a great/really way to make/share scenarios with other people without modding the game.

If there is something like that already, I apologize, its just I haven't seen it.

Anyway, I want to hear your guy's thoughts.

 

[heliostellar]

You do realize that there is a Custom Nation builder, right?

 

[Ironhide G1]

Where?

 

[heliostellar]

I'm assuming you are talking about EU4? It's part of El Dorado.

 

[BobSagini]

I'm assuming you are talking about EU4? It's part of El Dorado.

Read his first sentence, he meant HOI3 and Victoria 2

 

[heliostellar]

Read his first sentence, he meant HOI3 and Victoria 2

Ahh yes. Well, none of those games is in active development, so... not gonna happen.

 

[Torugu]

Ahh yes. Well, none of those games is in active development, so... not gonna happen.

On the other hand, the Nation Designer has been highly successful and so have other "Sandbox type" features. In fact PDS apparently sees so much potential in them that they are now spending considerable time redoing the random new world from Conquest of Paradise for free.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that at least one of the many HOI4 expansions that no doubt will be coming our way once HOI4 is released, will introduce a Nation Designer equivalent. And the same goes for Vicky 3 if it ever sees the light of day.

 

[wthomas]

Would be interesting to see sandbox features as part of a Scenario builder that could be put on the workshop as additional starting bookmarks.

I'm thinking like the good old days with Age of Empires or Civ2. They had some great tools if you wanted to build a scenario but didn't have a whole lot of coding know-how.

 

[heliostellar]

Well, they always seem to be afraid of people using "exploits" and having unauthorized, unapproved fun, so they would only do it if it came with significant restrictions on the human player.

 

[Lemont Elwood]

All of you guys bringing up the Nation Creator are missing the point. That thing only lets you change who owns what. It'd be good to be able to change the provinces themselves.

Have you all never played a regular RTS, with their scenario editors?

 

[Torugu]

All of you guys bringing up the Nation Creator are missing the point. That thing only lets you change who owns what. It'd be good to be able to change the provinces themselves.

Have you all never played a regular RTS, with their scenario editors?

That's what modding is for.

 

[Lemont Elwood]

That's what modding is for.

Great, what a solution. That's like telling folks to just "mod" their phone to play music, instead of it being a built-in feature. Accessibility is what scenario editors are for. Not everybody has time to learn modding itself.

 

[Ironhide G1]

I extremely dislike modding... I'm awful with code and last time I tried downloading a mod for a game I installed a virus. I distrust most things that aren't official. I wholeheartedly concur with Mr. Elwood here.

 

[Axe99]

Am I the only one who thinks that for Paradox Strategy Games (at least for the ones I play, V2 and HOI3), there should be a Sandbox mode? It would be an optional game mode, and you could take territories, add armies, tweak stats about each province, who owns it, add leaders, change country's info, prestige, etc... I think this would be a great/really way to make/share scenarios with other people without modding the game.

If there is something like that already, I apologize, its just I haven't seen it.

Anyway, I want to hear your guy's thoughts.

It looks like Paradox are moving towards this approach (as per the EU4 custom set-up you can put together if you've got El Dorado), but I wouldn't expect it to be patched in for Vicky 2 or HoI3 (although there was the potential to do a little customisation through the custom game mode in HoI3 if I recall, but I don't recall that much, and I think it was very limited in any event). HoI4's still having the base game made, but if that takes off (and if beta sign-ups are any indication, it looks like there's plenty of interest in the game ), it should get plenty of expansions, so fingers crossed you might get something there.

For the older games, though, your best hope is to look around for mods that suit your tastes or learn to mod yourself. It's not too bad (it's all in text files), but it is a bit finickity, and takes some work. Once you know how to edit one province, for example, you know how to do the rest. I do recall there may have been a scenario editor for HoI3 at some stage, but that memory's really hazy (had a quick google and found http://www.paradoxian.org/hoi3wiki/HoI3_Editor, but it's not for the latest version of HoI3).

 

[Lemont Elwood]

Well, they always seem to be afraid of people using "exploits" and having unauthorized, unapproved fun, so they would only do it if it came with significant restrictions on the human player.

You're probably right, it's pretty unreasonable that both CK2 and EU4 have "points" limits on what is more or less a feature for private games.

CK2 is also insufficient in that you can't customize your family/court.

A V2 editor could work, it'd just be EXTREMELY HARD to balance for a player... you'd spend a ton of time just figuring out what to put where.

 

[DEEPGAME]

Scenario builder... what a fantastic idea.

 

[Will Steel]

HoI4 and especially Victoria 3 with nation builder would be totally amazing.

Old games aren't going to be updated, sadly. Now we have a great, great need of Victoria 3.

 

[ShadowNinja909]

For now we have the Clausewitz Scenario editor

 

[LordTempest]

I extremely dislike modding... I'm awful with code and last time I tried downloading a mod for a game I installed a virus. I distrust most things that aren't official. I wholeheartedly concur with Mr. Elwood here.

The very idea of modding a game may sound daunting at first, but modding a Paradox game in the way you have described: adding armies, editing provinces, etc. is as simple as editing a text file and knowing the necessary jargon, which is much, much simpler to learn than you may think.

For example, since you were talking about Vicky II, let's say you wanted to make Paris a British province instead of a French one. All you have to do is open up the province file (your installed directory eg. C:\Games\Paradox Interactive\Victoria II\History\Provinces\France) find the province you want to edit, (425 - Paris) click on the file and replace owner=FRA and controller=FRA with owner=ENG and controller=ENG. That's it, all you have to know is the three-letter country code (which you can find for all nations at ...Victoria II\History\Countries) and how to operate a keyboard!

Say you want to change what goods Paris' RGO produces from grain to tea, same process: open the file, and replace the word "grain" with "tea." Simple. If you'd like to learn more about modding, you can check the Paradox Wikis for simple guides to mod other aspects of the game. If you're worried about stuffing up your game, make a backup of every file you edit before you edit it (literally just copy the file and paste it somewhere safe) and replace the edited file with the backup if something goes wrong.

Great, what a solution. That's like telling folks to just "mod" their phone to play music, instead of it being a built-in feature. Accessibility is what scenario editors are for. Not everybody has time to learn modding itself.

No, it's like saying that you want someone else to make all your phonecalls for you because you're unsatisfied with your rotary dial telephone and yet "don't have the time" to "learn" how to use a touchpad or smartphone. You already know how to use a touchpad or smartphone - it's just like using a keyboard or mouse, respectively - you just don't know it yet.

 

[heliostellar]

No, it's like saying that you want someone else to make all your phonecalls for you because you're unsatisfied with your rotary dial telephone and yet "don't have the time" to "learn" how to use a touchpad or smartphone. You already know how to use a touchpad or smartphone - it's just like using a keyboard or mouse, respectively - you just don't know it yet.

You can also "learn" how to write assembly code, but it's too time consuming and cumbersome for most people.

A scenario editor would make a nice addition. I have no doubt we'll see this in future games since both CK2 and EU4 have similar tools.