I'm aware, been playing Elder Kings actually. I just like the customization that Stellaris gives.
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I'm aware, been playing Elder Kings actually. I just like the customization that Stellaris gives.
Great, so, do you have a team that can make it?
Our portfolio of strategy games will grow in the coming years, whether we have something that will scratch that particular itch or not, only time will tell. I'm incredibly excited about what we have in the works though, both internally and externally. Personally, for me, I expect the next generation of games from us to blow the existing ones away (shots fired to current live teams)!
I would say that AoW2 and AoW shadow magic re much more than civ clones. Perhaps AoW3 deserve that criticism but the earlier games int eh franchise do not. It's so sad they took away cool options like turning your domain into a volcano or sinking it into the sea. Then again the third installment does other things well. The main think bugging me is that it does not have rivers.
I know some guys. We've been working on figuring out this really awesome coding language. It doesn't even use punch cards. Have you heard of FORTRAN 77?Great, so, do you have a team that can make it?
You must live in an other dimension if you can't find fantasy themed 4X. There's plenty of them, and actually most 4X are fantasy themed (there's also a lot of SciFI 4X, and history-based 4X are the minority).
Age of Wonders, Warlock, but also Endless Legend, Thea the Awakening, Fallen Enchantress, Eador, King of the Dragon Pass, Dominion, Master of Magic... and that's just the ones that immediately come to my mind. Most of these games aren't civ clones either. Sure they don't play like Stellaris, but if your question is "are there Stellaris clones but in a fantasy world", then you should make it clear, and of course the answer is no, since it would be absurd to play fantasy empires on a galaxy map that use only ships. What we want in a fantasy game aren't the same thing as in a scifi game, even if you don't seem aware of it.
If you like customization and bad Stellaris UI, maybe Dominion might be the game for you. If you want solid, fast gameplay, then try Warlock. Endless Legend has a good atmosphere. AoW has the same kind of focus on warfare as Stellaris, with the same disappointment when you understand that it's extremely repetitive. But there are many other fantasy-themed 4X games. Not many grand strategy ones obviously, since that genre is supposed to be history-based, and calling Stellaris grand strategy is just a mistake or a marketing strategy ("because it's done by Paradox, it must be grand strategy, right?"), but if that's what you're looking for, there's Sovereignty : Crown of Kings.
So it would be quite hard for Paradox to find a market there, except if they made a really good game that could compare with the other game on the market (comparatively, there weren't a lot of relatively casual space 4X when Stellaris was released). A Paradox fantasy game would be nice, but it's false to pretend that there's nothing like that out there.
Age of Wonders, Warlock, but also Endless Legend, Thea the Awakening, Fallen Enchantress, Eador, King of the Dragon Pass, Dominion, Master of Magic... and that's just the ones that immediately come to my mind. Most of these games aren't civ clones either. Sure they don't play like Stellaris, but if your question is "are there Stellaris clones but in a fantasy world", then you should make it clear, and of course the answer is no, since it would be absurd to play fantasy empires on a galaxy map that use only ships. What we want in a fantasy game aren't the same thing as in a scifi game, even if you don't seem aware of it.
If you like customization and bad Stellaris UI, maybe Dominion might be the game for you. If you want solid, fast gameplay, then try Warlock. Endless Legend has a good atmosphere. AoW has the same kind of focus on warfare as Stellaris, with the same disappointment when you understand that it's extremely repetitive. But there are many other fantasy-themed 4X games. Not many grand strategy ones obviously, since that genre is supposed to be history-based, and calling Stellaris grand strategy is just a mistake or a marketing strategy ("because it's done by Paradox, it must be grand strategy, right?"), but if that's what you're looking for, there's Sovereignty : Crown of Kings.
So it would be quite hard for Paradox to find a market there, except if they made a really good game that could compare with the other game on the market (comparatively, there weren't a lot of relatively casual space 4X when Stellaris was released). A Paradox fantasy game would be nice, but it's false to pretend that there's nothing like that out there.
The biggest problem with Stellaris is that is lacks replay value. In my opinion this is because it has no 'lore'. In the historical grand strats history is the lore, people love and can relate to thong like resurrecting the Roman Empire.
Race customisation in Stellaris is great but ultimately all play the same due to limited game outcomes and objectives. Unfortunately I feel that any fantasy game based on the Stellaris mould will just repeat its errors .
The best way to make an enduring fantasy grand strategy game would be to license an existing world so that the lore is already built in. However, the problem with this approach is that you will struggle to get anyone who isn't a fan to buy into the game.
The best bet would be to go with a LotR game as it has great lore and is very well established in the mainstream.
Race customisation in Stellaris is great but ultimately all play the same due to limited game outcomes and objectives. Unfortunately I feel that any fantasy game based on the Stellaris mould will just repeat its errors .
The best way to make an enduring fantasy grand strategy game would be to license an existing world so that the lore is already built in. However, the problem with this approach is that you will struggle to get anyone who isn't a fan to buy into the game.
The best bet would be to go with a LotR game as it has great lore and is very well established in the mainstream.
As mentioned above, there are a lot of fantasy 4x games already (although there are also a lot of space 4x games and that didn't stop Paradox making Stellaris).
However, as far as I am aware, there are virtually no historical 4x games besides Civilization. So, if you don't like Firaxis' vision of history, you literally have no alternative.
I do wonder if a historical 4x would be a better fit for Paradox, as they wouldn't have to worry about new lore or licensing, they already have a lot of historical games under their belt, and as far as I can tell it is a massively under-contested market.
(Plus, it would be pretty easy to mod a fantasy game out of that product anyway. I seem to remember reading that Paradox were interested in the ASOIAF licence a few years back, but they've basically scratched that itch by making CK2 very fantasy-mod-friendly.)
However, as far as I am aware, there are virtually no historical 4x games besides Civilization. So, if you don't like Firaxis' vision of history, you literally have no alternative.
I do wonder if a historical 4x would be a better fit for Paradox, as they wouldn't have to worry about new lore or licensing, they already have a lot of historical games under their belt, and as far as I can tell it is a massively under-contested market.
(Plus, it would be pretty easy to mod a fantasy game out of that product anyway. I seem to remember reading that Paradox were interested in the ASOIAF licence a few years back, but they've basically scratched that itch by making CK2 very fantasy-mod-friendly.)
One solution to the "no lore" issue could be solved if you incorporate the visible generation of the map from the CKII Random Map Tool.
So you watch the races interact, watch them battle with each other, maybe have opinion mods between the races that had negative interactions.
It adds context for when you decide to rebuild the fallen elven empire, or when you help the Orcs overwhelm the chokepoint citadel that staved off so many invasions.
So you watch the races interact, watch them battle with each other, maybe have opinion mods between the races that had negative interactions.
It adds context for when you decide to rebuild the fallen elven empire, or when you help the Orcs overwhelm the chokepoint citadel that staved off so many invasions.
Vicky 3, Rome 2 (with another name preferably). You know we want it.Great, so, do you have a team that can make it?
Our portfolio of strategy games will grow in the coming years, whether we have something that will scratch that particular itch or not, only time will tell. I'm incredibly excited about what we have in the works though, both internally and externally. Personally, for me, I expect the next generation of games from us to blow the existing ones away (shots fired to current live teams)!
And I personally want to be blown away, thank you.
Depends on how you define 4X. Weak empire building, and the most of the game design emphasis being on combat and RPG isn't what I'm looking for. I like rich RPG elements in fantasy 4X, but I miss advanced empire management, and advanced diplomacy, mixed into it. Not too many examples of such games, especially if you do not include Space 4X (those I concider another genre then traditional fantasy that is more Tolkien'ish).
Calling Thea: the Awakening 4X is more than a little bit of a stretch and listing Master of Magic? That's really grasping or it shows you just how weakly represented the genre actually is since it's ~20 years old and can't even be played on modern machines without jumping through emulator hoops. Sadly, you can make arguments that it is still among the best the genre ever produced. Dominion and all it's sequels are, frankly, lacking in polish (and an actual random map generator). And so on, and so forth, as all the current titles are flawed (some far more than others).
Finally, someone said it. I mean, if you guys check the discussion in Stellaris as opposed to HoI, CK, EU, or Vic, the theme in Stellaris seems to boil down mostly to just mechanics. Whereas in the other four pillars, the discussion sometimes branches into historical accuracy/inaccuracy.
This would obviously be a challenge for a fantasy GSG as well, unless you slapped an expensive IP on it. I think Stellaris has replay value (our data says so), but the motivators for it may be different to the historical games. Not everything works for everyone of course.
I was thinking about this some more and started to think about doing this a two part instalment. The first would be a story driven procedural game some form of RTS or RPG type game, think Starcraft or Mount and Blade. I also remembered a really cool old Xbox game, a fantasy hack and slash, called Kingdom Under Fire: Hereos. The game would feature story driven quest lines from all the factions in a subsequent grand strategy follow up giving you tons of freedom to do all your world building without having to somehow build that into a strategy game.
As an added bonus you would be selling this to people who already buy Paradox games and thus be getting them interested in the follow up game whilst DLC could be made for the primary to introduce new factions as the grand strat is being developed.
As an added bonus you would be selling this to people who already buy Paradox games and thus be getting them interested in the follow up game whilst DLC could be made for the primary to introduce new factions as the grand strat is being developed.
There are several ways of handling a back story for a fantasy GSG.
First, you can go "pre history", and start the game out as essentially hunter-gatherers with no prior examples of civilization to draw upon. Basically, you write the background lore as you play. To some extent, this could be along the lines of what "Spore" seemed to promise, but failed to deliver. This pre-history setting would seem to lean toward a "first person" or "one figure = 1 person" system, however, because you wouldn't yet have organized the military into formations as the building blocks, more like small tribal bands of up to a dozen or so individuals. That's somewhere between "Mount & Blade" or "Age of Empires" at the start, and "Civ" or Slitherine's "Chariots of War" by the end of the game. Building up towns and infrastructure was heavily stylized or practically irrelevant in most of those games, and generally handled unrealistically. I feel that Paradox could do far more to have a "world" built up almost from scratch by the player: you settle your small band in a suitable location and proceed to create a unique civilization (with a wide range of choices for government, morality, economic focus, and various other aspects) over a span of decades or centuries. In my opinion, Civ's downfall was that it rushed too quickly from that early phase into the "Imperial" timeframe and beyond, so by the time your tribe had barely settled a couple of towns, you were suddenly into organized armies that obsoleted everything before, and all the trappings of an advanced civilization. Those later periods don't fit a fantasy theme at all, in my opinion.
Second, you can buy into some existing franchise. That costs money, restricts the game to things that fit the existing lore, and potentially limits further expansions and other options. This is the route that many companies have taken for a "quick buck", and which typically didn't usually last for more than one or two games before the inherent limitations became too problematical.
Third, you hope to find the right person or combination of individuals with a vision for some new fantasy realm, and spend the necessary time and money to have it fleshed out PROPERLY, rather than hash something together in a few months and have it sort-of half-work. Note that the relatively few success stories (compared to the vast number of attempts) usually involve at least one person with a vision that spans decades of creative development time before their "world" is sufficiently filled in to be viable. For Tolkien, it was a life's work that took decades of development and a lot of small bits and pieces written within the setting before he started organizing it into his greater works, like LotR. For The Elder Scrolls, it wasn't until the second game that the background really began to take shape beyond a generic D&D "wannabe", and it didn't really fill out into something truly unique until the third game. I strongly suspect that at least one of those developers "lived" in that world for years in his own mind before it was presented to us in those games. There's a fine line between genius and insanity, and this kind of thing requires someone who can freely cross back and forth between the two, along with someone else who can separate the brilliance from the insanity. As one person put it, "It is only those who are cracked who let the light shine through".
First, you can go "pre history", and start the game out as essentially hunter-gatherers with no prior examples of civilization to draw upon. Basically, you write the background lore as you play. To some extent, this could be along the lines of what "Spore" seemed to promise, but failed to deliver. This pre-history setting would seem to lean toward a "first person" or "one figure = 1 person" system, however, because you wouldn't yet have organized the military into formations as the building blocks, more like small tribal bands of up to a dozen or so individuals. That's somewhere between "Mount & Blade" or "Age of Empires" at the start, and "Civ" or Slitherine's "Chariots of War" by the end of the game. Building up towns and infrastructure was heavily stylized or practically irrelevant in most of those games, and generally handled unrealistically. I feel that Paradox could do far more to have a "world" built up almost from scratch by the player: you settle your small band in a suitable location and proceed to create a unique civilization (with a wide range of choices for government, morality, economic focus, and various other aspects) over a span of decades or centuries. In my opinion, Civ's downfall was that it rushed too quickly from that early phase into the "Imperial" timeframe and beyond, so by the time your tribe had barely settled a couple of towns, you were suddenly into organized armies that obsoleted everything before, and all the trappings of an advanced civilization. Those later periods don't fit a fantasy theme at all, in my opinion.
Second, you can buy into some existing franchise. That costs money, restricts the game to things that fit the existing lore, and potentially limits further expansions and other options. This is the route that many companies have taken for a "quick buck", and which typically didn't usually last for more than one or two games before the inherent limitations became too problematical.
Third, you hope to find the right person or combination of individuals with a vision for some new fantasy realm, and spend the necessary time and money to have it fleshed out PROPERLY, rather than hash something together in a few months and have it sort-of half-work. Note that the relatively few success stories (compared to the vast number of attempts) usually involve at least one person with a vision that spans decades of creative development time before their "world" is sufficiently filled in to be viable. For Tolkien, it was a life's work that took decades of development and a lot of small bits and pieces written within the setting before he started organizing it into his greater works, like LotR. For The Elder Scrolls, it wasn't until the second game that the background really began to take shape beyond a generic D&D "wannabe", and it didn't really fill out into something truly unique until the third game. I strongly suspect that at least one of those developers "lived" in that world for years in his own mind before it was presented to us in those games. There's a fine line between genius and insanity, and this kind of thing requires someone who can freely cross back and forth between the two, along with someone else who can separate the brilliance from the insanity. As one person put it, "It is only those who are cracked who let the light shine through".
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Stellaris is a horribly dull game with incredibly bad combat mechanics, worse diplomacy, and an infuriating inability to explore due to every AI closing their borders on first contact.
I think a paradox fantasy game can be great, but at the same time the road from idea to game is a long and difficult one to travel. While insperations of previous work is a good idea, copying is bad and lead to a unnoticable game. While you can have your orcs its a good idea to make them rememberable. Like if everyone else make evil orcs and good elves I think you should maybe do good orcs and evil elves for a change.
Anyway a game should probably try to be something more than based on simple but easily accessible fantasy sterotypes. While the world is a difficult place, a hero need to make though choices or remain an peasant.
Obviously the common fantasy lore and tropes may not lend themself well towards a grand strategy game due to a focus on individual characters instead of a large faceless entity called a country, I guess that is a reason why such games such a master of magic still was able to get noticeability because by adding such people as near god mages it could still keep in touch with the individual focus.
This terra incognita for paradox could be even more valuable than anything done before or a waste of resources so the question is if they are willing to take the risk in hope of this land of opportunity and by so influencing a genre to an great extent and become an object of envy for futher developement. I think many people want to see what they can add to this genre.
Anyway a game should probably try to be something more than based on simple but easily accessible fantasy sterotypes. While the world is a difficult place, a hero need to make though choices or remain an peasant.
Obviously the common fantasy lore and tropes may not lend themself well towards a grand strategy game due to a focus on individual characters instead of a large faceless entity called a country, I guess that is a reason why such games such a master of magic still was able to get noticeability because by adding such people as near god mages it could still keep in touch with the individual focus.
This terra incognita for paradox could be even more valuable than anything done before or a waste of resources so the question is if they are willing to take the risk in hope of this land of opportunity and by so influencing a genre to an great extent and become an object of envy for futher developement. I think many people want to see what they can add to this genre.
Nooooo. Good orcs are boring and immersion breaking. What's up with this unlogical postmodernist thinking? Change just for the sake of change is always a terrible idea.
Stellaris has done well exploiting classic sci-fi stereotypes.
There are alot of other games trying to change things up just for the sake of change, often with immersion breaking effects, and logical flaws en masse. Fiascoes all of them.
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How can it be immersion breaking when we are talking about completely different universes? Each universe have their own rules and immersion breaking come from breaking these rules, not that one universe break another universe rules.
And while the sterotypes exist, the importance here is the flexibility of making any race into anything, including humans. It could work well into a fantasy grand strategy game, especially maybe more so if you play as some kind of creator wizard/god.