A definition of "niche" that doesn't include Dwarf Fortress seems to need some refinement
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I guess EU4 is more niche than I thought...
- Thread starter Dakka
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Point taken.A definition of "niche" that doesn't include Dwarf Fortress seems to need some refinement
Though, Dwarf Fortress is in a strange position since it's the quintessential niche game, i.e., it's famous for being obscure, among other things.
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EU4 is an old game (by game industry standards
), so drop off in numbers is expected. If anything, having 100K regular players after few years is a sign of not a niche games - niche games probably don't even sell 100K copies.It's a bit of a stretch to put Total War and Age of Empires into a strategy genre. When you start doing that where do you stop? It's not like RPG and FPS games completely lack strategy, so you could stretch definition a bit more and put them there as well.
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The only TW game I've played sure looked like a strategy game
Of course, it had that usual combination that strategy/tactics hybrids have which I don't like: turn-based strategy and continuous-time tactics.
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It depends on how hardcore gamers we are. For me niche is a game noone knows apart from people interested in videogames, and noone plays apart from afficionados of the genre. That's what I understand from the very meaning of the word niche. WoW, CoD, LoL, Fifa, Sims or whatever are widely known even by non-gamers and pretty much every gamer either played some of it or has at least a basic idea of the gameplay. A million sale and 200k players the last two week is an insane number. Yet when I say my favorite game is EU4 people say either "meh?" or "that's a strategy game, right?". IRL I only know one guy who plays the game. And not like I really know him, he's just my GF's ex (which funnily tells a lot about the people she likes, but that's another story)
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Are you putting some emphasis on "looked like"?The only TW game I've played sure looked like a strategy game
Of course, it had that usual combination that strategy/tactics hybrids have which I don't like: turn-based strategy and continuous-time tactics.
In truth, my knowledge of TW is about a decade old, so maybe things have changed. Though I think that trying to classify the game based on components is not too productive. For example, Dominions can be also described as turn-based strategy and continuous-time tactics, but there's very little in common between the 2 games. I suppose the key is in the relative importance of strategic decisions vs tactical decisions.TW is hard to put in a specific box. A lot of it fits into RTS genre, but the strategic component makes it kind of different.
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I think a lot of personal experience depends on the circle. Paradox games are kind of unusual - a lot of people who play EU4 and even more so CK2 are not people who normally play strategic games. And often those people don't play any other video games at all.
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And the people that were turned off from getting the game feeling that it would be a hollow experience without the $250 worth of DLCs ($100 worth when on sale). Still a steep purchase for a game you don't know if you will end up liking. The DLCs add a lot of good stuff but when playing the vanilla game you don't know if things can get better or if you will like what you are paying for, so the purchase of DLCs may feel risky for some. I think its time to merge the first couple of DLCs and skin packs to the main game. Now that more DLCs and content packs are coming out, it's going to get really expensive to have the "whole experience" game.
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So I had a poke around steamspy and found some interesting facts:
More people played Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in the past 2 weeks than have ever played Half Life 2 or have played any of the Total War games since Empire.
Civ 6 has been played more than Civ: Beyond Earth, but more people played Civ 5 in the past 2 weeks than Civ 6.
I was primarily looking at number of players in the past 2 weeks and number of players (ever) to counter the possibility of people being given a game they never play (I've seen lots of giveaways for Valve games specifically). I also excluded games I knew had been released outside of steam (eg Civ 4, Gal Civ 1+2)
Of the games that I looked at (32 in total), EU4 stood out due to the high ratio of players in the past 2 weeks to players in all time at 19.8%. The only games which beat that ratio were Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (2012), Warhammer TW (2016), Civ 6 (2016), HOI 4 (2016), COD: Infinite Warfare (2016).
Dark Souls 3 (also 2016) had only 15.9% and Attila TW (2015) had 15.3% and CK2 (2012) had 9%.
Of the most players in the past 2 weeks this was dominated by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. All other 32 games combined (including TF2) had fewer players in the past 2 weeks.
More people played Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in the past 2 weeks than have ever played Half Life 2 or have played any of the Total War games since Empire.
Civ 6 has been played more than Civ: Beyond Earth, but more people played Civ 5 in the past 2 weeks than Civ 6.
I was primarily looking at number of players in the past 2 weeks and number of players (ever) to counter the possibility of people being given a game they never play (I've seen lots of giveaways for Valve games specifically). I also excluded games I knew had been released outside of steam (eg Civ 4, Gal Civ 1+2)
Of the games that I looked at (32 in total), EU4 stood out due to the high ratio of players in the past 2 weeks to players in all time at 19.8%. The only games which beat that ratio were Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (2012), Warhammer TW (2016), Civ 6 (2016), HOI 4 (2016), COD: Infinite Warfare (2016).
Dark Souls 3 (also 2016) had only 15.9% and Attila TW (2015) had 15.3% and CK2 (2012) had 9%.
Of the most players in the past 2 weeks this was dominated by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. All other 32 games combined (including TF2) had fewer players in the past 2 weeks.
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A fair amount of people know of Europa, but hardly any of them play it because they often find it too hard. Of course, they probably bought it not fully knowing it was a grand strategy that is not as simple and easy as Civilization.
Most of my friends own EU:IV, but most have <20hrs on it.
Most of my friends own EU:IV, but most have <20hrs on it.
I like EU4 and it's community the way it is. I like it being niche. As long as we keep the company alive, you know!
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Dominions has non-interactive tactics; it doesn't matter what the time handling of tactical combat in Dominions is, because you don't have tactical control, just the ability to set (fairly simple) standing orders for the automated resolution system to apply.
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Eh, it's not that bad. I got into PDX games this past year, and £35 (during the sale for the release for Mare Noctis) got me the base game plus all the expansions bar the most recent three (at the time), and a few bits of content packs; that was as much as I spend on a game on proper release, which I felt was enough for a game I wasn't sure I'd like (it's what I paid for Stellaris, for example).
After my first game clocked in at 200-odd hours, another round of £25-ish on another sale got me pretty much the rest.
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Also known to me as "the other strategy game that features a mighty Ulm".
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Grand strategy is quite distinct and falls somewhere between the traditional strategy and traditional RTS games, so from the perch of Grand Strategy something like TW is not too far away. But now imagine looking at it from the perch of Dominions. If you put those 2 into the same genre you can also put a lot of RPG and sim games as well. Since there's no formal definition of a strategy game you are free to do so, but the classification will become less and less useful as it gets broader. From practical point of view you can look at it whether recommending the games within the category would have a good chance of success. So if you recommended TW to EU4 player it might have some reasonable chance of success. What about recommending TW to Dominions player?
That's correct and it illustrates why "turn-based strategy" and "continuous-time tactics" don't describe the game very well. This seemingly small difference results in a huge gameplay difference. Having interactive tactics wouldn't probably change the strategic aspect very much and it would create micromanagement hell. I wish more developers would do more to reduce micromanagement
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Wait? So civ 3 was released in steam, but civ 4 was released outside of it?
Civ 3 and Civ 4 were both released un-steamed as my dvd copy of 4 attests. They have both been added to the steam catalog sometime after.
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