Paradox Dev's, I sincerely hope you all take this to heart - your games are more enjoyable, the more we players feel a sense of "changing history" and molding it to what we want it to look like, than to dive into a forced history lesson along the way, forced upon us by Paradox Game Developers.
Let me give you a small example: I start up Ethiopia in the "...Sands" intro, and I know they have a famous Monarch, Zar'a Ya`qob (who is believed to be a descendant of King Solomon of Israel, thus his name itself means "from Jacob" as in the Jacob who is grandson of Abraham, and the same Jacob renamed Israel and who we get the name Israel from). So this is a very legitimate historic character of note, at the start of the game, and a reason that I want to see how his stats are portrayed and how Ethiopia holds up in a quick play of this nation.
So, I check to see if an heir is established yet (and all this while Paused at start of the game) - and there is no heir, although there is a competing claim to the throne, so I see that I need to evaluate my options immediately. Ethiopia is Coptic Christian, so I scan for the nations you've placed near Ethiopia that are Coptic, and sure enough, there are two Coptic nations near by, so I immediately choose to enter a "Royal Marriage" with the stronger/more strategic of the two. So now I've married off my famous Monarch to a fellow Coptic believer, and going to move along.
Nope, you had a forced history lesson for me while I'm on my alternate history path - you give me a pop-up about 6-12 months later that my Monarch has married a Muslim girl from a Muslim tribe who converts to Coptic Christianity, named Eleni Hadiya, who will serve Ethiopia for many successive Monarchs (funny, you even control whether she gets to live for many generations). So, Eleni Hadiya becomes his second wife/Consort and replaces my prior wife (who actually had better stats, btw), and itself is quite an odd thing when you consider that you just had the Monarch marry 2 people in a 6 month period, and I don't think polygamy was a thing in Coptic Ethiopia, but I digress...
You need to realize that this is Immersion breaking, and it is a break in the flow of my game. I had my famous Monarch marry a Coptic from a strategic point of view, to a nearby Coptic nation, and my Monarch married a Coptic for diplomatic reasons, and if you did still want to teach me a history lesson - you could put up the pop-up that talks about Eleni Hadiya but now show that she will not be part of my game, so I still learn your forced history lesson, but I don't have you force NPCs into my game. Make sense? I hope it does.
You should consider this from a Macro level - don't force-insert history lessons that have already been bypassed or over-ruled by the player in their game choices. Some of us will enter Alternative History paths, so don't break our immersion in that path, by trying to force-insert real history once it no longer is a logical insertion into the flow of the game.
This is one of the most critical things I see toward all of Paradox's history-based games, that you try too hard to insert yourself, even when it no longer makes sense. Know when to back off, and when to teach. You can still teach your history lessons, but you could show them from a "what could have been" if the player wasn't on their alternate history path that now has discounted/nullified the value or logic of the real-history inject.
In your future game development, you need to get more artistic about how you insert yourselves into game flow, keep it "real" even when it is unreal, even when Alternate History is being pursued, code in the ability to remain immersed in that Alternate History while informing players of Real History. Many of us appreciate your history lessons, but we don't appreciate the lesson being a forced-change to a game that was on a different path.
Let me give you a small example: I start up Ethiopia in the "...Sands" intro, and I know they have a famous Monarch, Zar'a Ya`qob (who is believed to be a descendant of King Solomon of Israel, thus his name itself means "from Jacob" as in the Jacob who is grandson of Abraham, and the same Jacob renamed Israel and who we get the name Israel from). So this is a very legitimate historic character of note, at the start of the game, and a reason that I want to see how his stats are portrayed and how Ethiopia holds up in a quick play of this nation.
So, I check to see if an heir is established yet (and all this while Paused at start of the game) - and there is no heir, although there is a competing claim to the throne, so I see that I need to evaluate my options immediately. Ethiopia is Coptic Christian, so I scan for the nations you've placed near Ethiopia that are Coptic, and sure enough, there are two Coptic nations near by, so I immediately choose to enter a "Royal Marriage" with the stronger/more strategic of the two. So now I've married off my famous Monarch to a fellow Coptic believer, and going to move along.
Nope, you had a forced history lesson for me while I'm on my alternate history path - you give me a pop-up about 6-12 months later that my Monarch has married a Muslim girl from a Muslim tribe who converts to Coptic Christianity, named Eleni Hadiya, who will serve Ethiopia for many successive Monarchs (funny, you even control whether she gets to live for many generations). So, Eleni Hadiya becomes his second wife/Consort and replaces my prior wife (who actually had better stats, btw), and itself is quite an odd thing when you consider that you just had the Monarch marry 2 people in a 6 month period, and I don't think polygamy was a thing in Coptic Ethiopia, but I digress...
You need to realize that this is Immersion breaking, and it is a break in the flow of my game. I had my famous Monarch marry a Coptic from a strategic point of view, to a nearby Coptic nation, and my Monarch married a Coptic for diplomatic reasons, and if you did still want to teach me a history lesson - you could put up the pop-up that talks about Eleni Hadiya but now show that she will not be part of my game, so I still learn your forced history lesson, but I don't have you force NPCs into my game. Make sense? I hope it does.
You should consider this from a Macro level - don't force-insert history lessons that have already been bypassed or over-ruled by the player in their game choices. Some of us will enter Alternative History paths, so don't break our immersion in that path, by trying to force-insert real history once it no longer is a logical insertion into the flow of the game.
This is one of the most critical things I see toward all of Paradox's history-based games, that you try too hard to insert yourself, even when it no longer makes sense. Know when to back off, and when to teach. You can still teach your history lessons, but you could show them from a "what could have been" if the player wasn't on their alternate history path that now has discounted/nullified the value or logic of the real-history inject.
In your future game development, you need to get more artistic about how you insert yourselves into game flow, keep it "real" even when it is unreal, even when Alternate History is being pursued, code in the ability to remain immersed in that Alternate History while informing players of Real History. Many of us appreciate your history lessons, but we don't appreciate the lesson being a forced-change to a game that was on a different path.
- 5
- 2
- 2
