Megathread : V2 Demo Discussion and Feedback
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But when I saw screenshots of other people games they all have many wars in different parts of world.
I won! I won!
It was glorious! I won!
My mini-AAR:
My first focus was to colonize Oregon and Washington, to keep the filthy British away from my gateway to Pacific.
Then I turned my eyes to the Texas ordeal and marched all my forces to Louisiana and Arkansas, and my navy to New Orleans.
After Alamo, or whatever battle Texas lost, I intervened on their side. Waited a little to get a commander, then moved into Texas, and my fleet covered the gulf of Mexico and around Yucatan to piss off Mexicans.
Anyway, the war went pretty well, I won every battle and wore Mexico down, managed to extend my war goals to get Mexican Texas for Texas, and then Texas applied for Union membership, which I granted them as a free state (take that Jefferson Davies!). Since I was not sure who would get Mexican Texas I added the war goal to get the region for USA.
A few battles more and Mexico capitulated and gave me what I wanted. Hurrah! Victory and Union expands all the way south to Rio Grande. Then I return my eyes to the Pacific and see that Mexicans have slight advantage over me in Oregon.
So I send my dragoons west to speed up colonization. Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Oklahoma, Idaho... it all belongs to Mother USA and then I decide its time to push harder for industrialization and move my focus to the east coast, and play around with encouraging craftsmen, clerks and capitalists.
Meanwhile my diplomacy extends SoI on Haiti, Hawaii, USCA and Brazil. Economy is doing very well, most of my people are happy, but I probably pissed a few off with pushing for full citizenship in events and encouraging concioussness yet the best my parties can offer is residence, so every now and then I get 3k of Jacobin rebels which my troops squash with almost no casualties.
My SoI expands over Mexico, Columbia and Venezuela, and then I decide to reform my army. I kinda demilitarize all Dixie units('let us get rid of those we cannot trust' like it was 1492 all over again) and all new units I recruit are Yankee to a grand total of 120.000 standing army, which I move towards Mexico... but seems I cannot DOW Mexico because I added them to my SoI.
Then I dump that plan and move my eyes towards Canada... I even ally with Mexico, like with all the other minions in my Hierarchy and as my troops move towards New England... voilla, ACW fires up.
CSA minus Texas plus Kentucky declares war on me, and my strategic redeployment turns into a march on Virginia and Kentucky.
Since I pretty much disarmed the Rebs, I expected a cakewalk, but it got even better, my trusty minions rush to my aid, even though I did not ask them. Immediately over 60k Mexicans pass Texas and invade Louisiana and Oklahoma, and this expeditionary force later increases as USCA and Columbia arrive, making a force of over 100k.
My fleet blockades CSA, and my troops begin to occupy it while the AI desperately tries to offer resistance, but is crushed at every corner (hah! Serbian 1990 tactics work in computer war games, no AK-47 from Hungary, Argentina, Chile, Libya and Iran for you AI
)
The AI is very stubborn, and refuses to surrender until Union troops capture their last stronghold at Tampa. Chasing Davies out of his wolf den, the Confederacy capitulates and Union is whole.
Then I fire up all those emancipation and reconstruction events, and let it roll. Around two game weeks later... 'You played for 15 years, now give us money to buy kittens at pet shop to offer as sacrifice to the spider gods'... and what you know... USA IS BEST USA. NO.1! Second in prestige, fourth in industry and second in military. And the final screen shows my score is 5 points higher than UK. Take that Britain.
Overall, there is not a single thing I can complain about. This is by far the best Paradox release so far.
Highlights:
- excellent performance, no noticable lags or memory leaks, or whatever, rolls better than EU3, absolutely no point comparing with HOI3
- stability seems great and only noticable bug is text thing about none state, something that is probably fixable with wordpad
- seems very well balanced, the economy is a whole different beast than Vic 1 is. It feels complete and alive. I am unsure if there is another game to compare it with. This is probably first time that a computer game uses a macroeconomic model and that it works and is fun
- its alive, you tug it one way, events tug it the other way, and the AI tugs it into its own corner. The choices you make obvious consequences, which are in the end context driven and can be quite surprising
- military, diplomacy... everything works great
- is fun, fun fun fun fun fun fun fun...
If the other 85 years are anything like the first 15, V2 is 100% made of 24-carat win.
Great work!
It was glorious! I won!
My mini-AAR:
My first focus was to colonize Oregon and Washington, to keep the filthy British away from my gateway to Pacific.
Then I turned my eyes to the Texas ordeal and marched all my forces to Louisiana and Arkansas, and my navy to New Orleans.
After Alamo, or whatever battle Texas lost, I intervened on their side. Waited a little to get a commander, then moved into Texas, and my fleet covered the gulf of Mexico and around Yucatan to piss off Mexicans.
Anyway, the war went pretty well, I won every battle and wore Mexico down, managed to extend my war goals to get Mexican Texas for Texas, and then Texas applied for Union membership, which I granted them as a free state (take that Jefferson Davies!). Since I was not sure who would get Mexican Texas I added the war goal to get the region for USA.
A few battles more and Mexico capitulated and gave me what I wanted. Hurrah! Victory and Union expands all the way south to Rio Grande. Then I return my eyes to the Pacific and see that Mexicans have slight advantage over me in Oregon.
So I send my dragoons west to speed up colonization. Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Oklahoma, Idaho... it all belongs to Mother USA and then I decide its time to push harder for industrialization and move my focus to the east coast, and play around with encouraging craftsmen, clerks and capitalists.
Meanwhile my diplomacy extends SoI on Haiti, Hawaii, USCA and Brazil. Economy is doing very well, most of my people are happy, but I probably pissed a few off with pushing for full citizenship in events and encouraging concioussness yet the best my parties can offer is residence, so every now and then I get 3k of Jacobin rebels which my troops squash with almost no casualties.
My SoI expands over Mexico, Columbia and Venezuela, and then I decide to reform my army. I kinda demilitarize all Dixie units('let us get rid of those we cannot trust' like it was 1492 all over again) and all new units I recruit are Yankee to a grand total of 120.000 standing army, which I move towards Mexico... but seems I cannot DOW Mexico because I added them to my SoI.
Then I dump that plan and move my eyes towards Canada... I even ally with Mexico, like with all the other minions in my Hierarchy and as my troops move towards New England... voilla, ACW fires up.
CSA minus Texas plus Kentucky declares war on me, and my strategic redeployment turns into a march on Virginia and Kentucky.
Since I pretty much disarmed the Rebs, I expected a cakewalk, but it got even better, my trusty minions rush to my aid, even though I did not ask them. Immediately over 60k Mexicans pass Texas and invade Louisiana and Oklahoma, and this expeditionary force later increases as USCA and Columbia arrive, making a force of over 100k.
My fleet blockades CSA, and my troops begin to occupy it while the AI desperately tries to offer resistance, but is crushed at every corner (hah! Serbian 1990 tactics work in computer war games, no AK-47 from Hungary, Argentina, Chile, Libya and Iran for you AI
)The AI is very stubborn, and refuses to surrender until Union troops capture their last stronghold at Tampa. Chasing Davies out of his wolf den, the Confederacy capitulates and Union is whole.
Then I fire up all those emancipation and reconstruction events, and let it roll. Around two game weeks later... 'You played for 15 years, now give us money to buy kittens at pet shop to offer as sacrifice to the spider gods'... and what you know... USA IS BEST USA. NO.1! Second in prestige, fourth in industry and second in military. And the final screen shows my score is 5 points higher than UK. Take that Britain.
Overall, there is not a single thing I can complain about. This is by far the best Paradox release so far.
Highlights:
- excellent performance, no noticable lags or memory leaks, or whatever, rolls better than EU3, absolutely no point comparing with HOI3
- stability seems great and only noticable bug is text thing about none state, something that is probably fixable with wordpad
- seems very well balanced, the economy is a whole different beast than Vic 1 is. It feels complete and alive. I am unsure if there is another game to compare it with. This is probably first time that a computer game uses a macroeconomic model and that it works and is fun
- its alive, you tug it one way, events tug it the other way, and the AI tugs it into its own corner. The choices you make obvious consequences, which are in the end context driven and can be quite surprising
- military, diplomacy... everything works great
- is fun, fun fun fun fun fun fun fun...
If the other 85 years are anything like the first 15, V2 is 100% made of 24-carat win.
Great work!
I just played a very nice USA->CSA->Exile game
I have nothing to add to this thread, beside: it seems to be a very good, fun and very well developed game.
I have nothing to add to this thread, beside: it seems to be a very good, fun and very well developed game.
Just because no one has a good enough reason to attack you doesn't mean the game is bugged.
Not only me but anyone in the world..the was no war in entire world during the game (except the mexicans).
No two games are the same, so sometimes there are long eras of peace, othertimes there won't be.
National Focus should be accessible from the Production and Population overviews.
It's a pain in the ass to look for the state on the map after seeing the Production screen and decidieng to put Railroad NF into a state.
With America this might not be an issue for many people (tough it is for me) but just to think about China or Russia...
It's a pain in the ass to look for the state on the map after seeing the Production screen and decidieng to put Railroad NF into a state.
With America this might not be an issue for many people (tough it is for me
) but just to think about China or Russia...
I don't know if anyone has had this problem if anyone has reported it (I've only read up to page 7) but the diplomacy tutorial shows that great powers as the following: UK, France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and trice France with a Sweden Flag.
Could you tell me where can I find the parties file???
I usually add some new parties for my personal amusement and would like to do it here too
I usually add some new parties for my personal amusement and would like to do it here too
NULL_STATE in event leads me to belive that it isn't properly linked to a string in some string file (nothing to do with panties
)
It would be nice if province and nation searcher would search states too. It is annoying that you need to manually search particular state to find your unemployed POPs.
I just had 6 thousand dragoons defeat the confederacy!
At the start of the civil war I had all three starting dragoon brigades stationed in Roakane (CSA province bordering the union in the appalachians) so when the war starts one of them defects and is switly defeated so I think I might as well let them occupy the province. But suddenly I see them attacked by the entire CSA starting army 15 thousand men, and they're winning. Thanks to a great general (who was actually assigned by the ai, I had no idea this unit would be important) I killed 11 thousand and lost only 2. thanks to that one battle there was never a single battle east of the appalachians. The CSA reinforced their army and made another attack but that was beaten back just as soundly and by that point the units I recruited in the midwest at the start of the war had started advancing into the csa and surrounded and destroyed them. While in the east my totally unopposed forces where about to advance into south carolina. Then the time ran out
At the start of the civil war I had all three starting dragoon brigades stationed in Roakane (CSA province bordering the union in the appalachians) so when the war starts one of them defects and is switly defeated so I think I might as well let them occupy the province. But suddenly I see them attacked by the entire CSA starting army 15 thousand men, and they're winning. Thanks to a great general (who was actually assigned by the ai, I had no idea this unit would be important) I killed 11 thousand and lost only 2. thanks to that one battle there was never a single battle east of the appalachians. The CSA reinforced their army and made another attack but that was beaten back just as soundly and by that point the units I recruited in the midwest at the start of the war had started advancing into the csa and surrounded and destroyed them. While in the east my totally unopposed forces where about to advance into south carolina. Then the time ran out
Pros:
Game seems to be running fine.
Looks aesthetically pleasing.
Cons:
What is my purpose as the player in this game - the AI seems to be controlling just about anything fun that I'd like to control. All I can do is control diplomacy and military... I can't influence my factories or political reforms directly.
Also - why can't I look at my pops or even choose who works in the factories and who doesn't?
What is with all the random events? There's way too many.
Summary: I've hardly given the game any time yet, but I need a lot more convincing before I have confidence in this game's potential.
Game seems to be running fine.
Looks aesthetically pleasing.
Cons:
What is my purpose as the player in this game - the AI seems to be controlling just about anything fun that I'd like to control. All I can do is control diplomacy and military... I can't influence my factories or political reforms directly.
Also - why can't I look at my pops or even choose who works in the factories and who doesn't?
What is with all the random events? There's way too many.
Summary: I've hardly given the game any time yet, but I need a lot more convincing before I have confidence in this game's potential.
Last edited:
Well my own shortcomings aside, I found the 15 years as USA extremely exciting and generally a good time. First I'll summarize what happened in my game, then I'll reflect on the experience I had below.
Things started off with me having no idea how to handle Texas (although I do now thanks to my fellow forum users), so Mexico took that land. After proposing an alliance three times, Mexico said 'screw this', and attacked me instead. In a long and generally decisive war, I was able to demand Texas, but didn't try to get more since I'm not entirely sure how much Infamy I can handle before the UK starts to notice.
The Civil War started in March 1849, and due to the CSA getting very few of my Army, and none of my Navy, I quickly occupied about half of their territory. Mexico, seeing another opportunity to gain land, jumped in the war around May 1850, and laid siege to most of Texas fairly quickly. I was three provinces short of demanding the restoration of the Union with the CSA by the time the demo expired.
Internationally, it looked like the Jacobins were having their way with the UK, and a few German minors fell to liberal/anarchist rebellions. The Papal States fell to an Anarchist rebellion, which I found particularly amusing, for some reason. I did establish about half of South America as being within my Sphere of Influence, but lost Liberia to the UK (which I really don't care about).
So a couple of notes and questions.
*First Thoughts
My first thought when I loaded up as USA was "Ok, I understand the principles of Vicky 2, but what the heck am I supposed to do?" In other words, I could do pretty much any individual task put in front of me, but putting everything together to run a nation was just a little bit overwhelming. (Admittedly, I got the hang of it eventually).
*Education?
Maybe I interpreted the way the game is supposed to work incorrectly, but isn't your clergy class supposed to rise if you're funding education to the max? Mine just kept falling even after I continued to fund education at it's maximum for around 8 years.
*Technology
I was somewhat confused at first by the sheer amount of time it took me to research Technologies. The USA isn't the most forward thinking nation of the time, but when it took me 2 and a half years to research my first technology I got a bit worried. When the CSA split off, however, I noticed my Research Point generation increased significantly. I didn't see even a moderate increase in the number of Clerks in my nation, and by the time the Civil War started, I had just gotten back to where I started in terms of the amount of RPs from the Clergy that were being generated. Could this have to do with Clergy and Clerks suddenly becoming a much larger percentage of my population? For about 6-7 years, I had been encouraging Clergy in Boston... maybe that did it? So I guess I still have a little way to go before I understand Research Point Generation.
*Colonization
Another sort of oddity for me. I understand how to colonize well enough, but are there factors that effect one's efficiency in this endeavor? Mexico started to colonize one of those empty states before I did, but I set one of my National Focus points there anyway, and I beat them to full colonization. I have no idea how I did this. I didn't notice any kind of funding slider or anything (unless it has to do with Bureaucracy). I also couldn't figure out why, when I held my cursor over the colonization bar, it couldn't give me an accurate date when that un-colonized state would reach a level of sustainability so that I could incorporate it into the USA.
*Pop Up Windows
I played the whole 15 years on the speed setting with two bars (chevrons?), and without pausing, I still had a little bit of trouble reading through some of the events, taking a moment to understand what it meant (and what the effects of my choice would be), and then clicking option A, B, C, etc... Obviously, pausing makes this much easier, but there were times where within a few days, 4 or 5 events might pop up. This is something I don't recall from Vicky 1.
On the same note, I really don't understand where the inspiration came from for the Notification toolbar on the bottom right side of the screen above the map. I was just fine with pop-up windows telling me about what's happening (and I changed the settings to reflect that). It would take quite a bit of getting used to for me to want to open every one of those notifications every time something happens.
*Zoomed Out
As was mentioned before, I would love for a sort of Counter system to emerge when you zoom out far enough that you can't see your armies, but not quite far enough that you can see the Country Names on the map.
*System Performance
My Computer handled the game brilliantly. Granted, I just bought it two weeks ago in anticipation for Vicky 2/HOI 3:SF Patches. I'm running:
I7 930
Nvidia GTS 250
6GB RAM
*Tutorials
Having played Vicky 1 extensively, I felt like the Tutorials were a great refresher concerning what you do need to carry over from V1, and also the things that you don't need to carry over. Good Riddance to pop splitting, I say. In addition to this, the tutorials did a great job of introducing new concepts.
*Conclusion
I can tell that the Devs put a ton of work into this game, as did the Beta testers, and everyone else involved. The Music is spectacular, and the interface is intuitive and useful, nothing really seems clunky or pointless. From the looks of it, Vicky 2 won't be a masterpiece in terms of imitating history like Vicky 1 tried to be, but I don't think it should be. Staying true to history in Vicky 2 is certainly within the realm of possibility here, but at the same time, any number of things could happen to give the game more twists. This is an era where watching Germany form and crush everything in it's path gets boring after the first fifty consecutive times you see it, like in Vicky 1.
If the full game is any bit better than the Demo, then this will probably be the most properly developed game at launch (for me and my computer/setup), that I've ever seen. So thank you guys for putting your reputation on the line for this one, because by the looks of it, this is going to be a hell of a game!
Things started off with me having no idea how to handle Texas (although I do now thanks to my fellow forum users), so Mexico took that land. After proposing an alliance three times, Mexico said 'screw this', and attacked me instead. In a long and generally decisive war, I was able to demand Texas, but didn't try to get more since I'm not entirely sure how much Infamy I can handle before the UK starts to notice.
The Civil War started in March 1849, and due to the CSA getting very few of my Army, and none of my Navy, I quickly occupied about half of their territory. Mexico, seeing another opportunity to gain land, jumped in the war around May 1850, and laid siege to most of Texas fairly quickly. I was three provinces short of demanding the restoration of the Union with the CSA by the time the demo expired.
Internationally, it looked like the Jacobins were having their way with the UK, and a few German minors fell to liberal/anarchist rebellions. The Papal States fell to an Anarchist rebellion, which I found particularly amusing, for some reason. I did establish about half of South America as being within my Sphere of Influence, but lost Liberia to the UK (which I really don't care about).
So a couple of notes and questions.
*First Thoughts
My first thought when I loaded up as USA was "Ok, I understand the principles of Vicky 2, but what the heck am I supposed to do?" In other words, I could do pretty much any individual task put in front of me, but putting everything together to run a nation was just a little bit overwhelming. (Admittedly, I got the hang of it eventually).
*Education?
Maybe I interpreted the way the game is supposed to work incorrectly, but isn't your clergy class supposed to rise if you're funding education to the max? Mine just kept falling even after I continued to fund education at it's maximum for around 8 years.
*Technology
I was somewhat confused at first by the sheer amount of time it took me to research Technologies. The USA isn't the most forward thinking nation of the time, but when it took me 2 and a half years to research my first technology I got a bit worried. When the CSA split off, however, I noticed my Research Point generation increased significantly. I didn't see even a moderate increase in the number of Clerks in my nation, and by the time the Civil War started, I had just gotten back to where I started in terms of the amount of RPs from the Clergy that were being generated. Could this have to do with Clergy and Clerks suddenly becoming a much larger percentage of my population? For about 6-7 years, I had been encouraging Clergy in Boston... maybe that did it? So I guess I still have a little way to go before I understand Research Point Generation.
*Colonization
Another sort of oddity for me. I understand how to colonize well enough, but are there factors that effect one's efficiency in this endeavor? Mexico started to colonize one of those empty states before I did, but I set one of my National Focus points there anyway, and I beat them to full colonization. I have no idea how I did this. I didn't notice any kind of funding slider or anything (unless it has to do with Bureaucracy). I also couldn't figure out why, when I held my cursor over the colonization bar, it couldn't give me an accurate date when that un-colonized state would reach a level of sustainability so that I could incorporate it into the USA.
*Pop Up Windows
I played the whole 15 years on the speed setting with two bars (chevrons?), and without pausing, I still had a little bit of trouble reading through some of the events, taking a moment to understand what it meant (and what the effects of my choice would be), and then clicking option A, B, C, etc... Obviously, pausing makes this much easier, but there were times where within a few days, 4 or 5 events might pop up. This is something I don't recall from Vicky 1.
On the same note, I really don't understand where the inspiration came from for the Notification toolbar on the bottom right side of the screen above the map. I was just fine with pop-up windows telling me about what's happening (and I changed the settings to reflect that). It would take quite a bit of getting used to for me to want to open every one of those notifications every time something happens.
*Zoomed Out
As was mentioned before, I would love for a sort of Counter system to emerge when you zoom out far enough that you can't see your armies, but not quite far enough that you can see the Country Names on the map.
*System Performance
My Computer handled the game brilliantly. Granted, I just bought it two weeks ago in anticipation for Vicky 2/HOI 3:SF Patches. I'm running:
I7 930
Nvidia GTS 250
6GB RAM
*Tutorials
Having played Vicky 1 extensively, I felt like the Tutorials were a great refresher concerning what you do need to carry over from V1, and also the things that you don't need to carry over. Good Riddance to pop splitting, I say. In addition to this, the tutorials did a great job of introducing new concepts.
*Conclusion
I can tell that the Devs put a ton of work into this game, as did the Beta testers, and everyone else involved. The Music is spectacular, and the interface is intuitive and useful, nothing really seems clunky or pointless. From the looks of it, Vicky 2 won't be a masterpiece in terms of imitating history like Vicky 1 tried to be, but I don't think it should be. Staying true to history in Vicky 2 is certainly within the realm of possibility here, but at the same time, any number of things could happen to give the game more twists. This is an era where watching Germany form and crush everything in it's path gets boring after the first fifty consecutive times you see it, like in Vicky 1.
If the full game is any bit better than the Demo, then this will probably be the most properly developed game at launch (for me and my computer/setup), that I've ever seen. So thank you guys for putting your reputation on the line for this one, because by the looks of it, this is going to be a hell of a game!
What to say about this demo ?
Awesome !
everything works fine, it's clearly a political/economical simulation.
It's clearly harder than for other paradox games to enter into it (I mean by that to undertand and master it) even for a Vicky Revolution veteran but that just means the game is great
It's clearly and definitely the beautifulest Paradox game. Commands are logical and all the latests innovations crated for the latest games are here to complete it and to make this Vicky II game the best ever made.
I still of course have to play a complete game from 1836 to 1936 to be sure of my opinion, but so far, to me, Vicky II is FAR BETTER than what I espected. And I bet for a long time that this game would be the best Paradox game so it does mean something (at least for me )
King, you and the whole Paradox team nailed it great work guys !
Awesome !
everything works fine, it's clearly a political/economical simulation.
It's clearly harder than for other paradox games to enter into it (I mean by that to undertand and master it) even for a Vicky Revolution veteran but that just means the game is great
It's clearly and definitely the beautifulest Paradox game. Commands are logical and all the latests innovations crated for the latest games are here to complete it and to make this Vicky II game the best ever made.
I still of course have to play a complete game from 1836 to 1936 to be sure of my opinion, but so far, to me, Vicky II is FAR BETTER than what I espected. And I bet for a long time that this game would be the best Paradox game so it does mean something (at least for me
)King, you and the whole Paradox team nailed it
great work guys !