Steam Stats - why has CK2 so much fewer daily players than other three main Pdox games?

[Aqua817]

IMHO, a part of it is that it's getting to be around time for PDX to start working on CKIII. CKII is 6 years old, which is an eternity when it comes to games. This is really starting to show in many aspects. CKII is still fun and PDX could certainly still pump out a few DLC, but soon "blob die repeat" is going to mean that most people would rather just hit up PUBG or EU4 than CKII. Plus, CKII is starting to have a rigidity problem. In CKII, religions do the same things, the same cultures show up. Yes, Reformed Slavic England is funny, but after your 4th Reformed Pagan game you realize that Reformed Pagans really aren't all that different from each other. Things like the Miaphysite Church literally have no flavor except for some extremely minor things and even then they get plowed down by the Muslims usually within the first 100 years of the game, completely bypassing the fact that Christian Africa was a huge part of West African history. A part of what CKII needs is a revamp with a significantly more dynamic religion and culture system. No 2 games should be the same after you gain enough power. If you're playing as the King of Lombardy and conquer North Africa, instead of North Africa turning Italian/Lombard, perhaps it should turn Berbero-Lombard or something like that in between. Heresies should go from "random things you convert to when you wanna holy war other Christians/Muslims" but something that if you leave it alone long enough it could have real teeth. Furthermore, they should be more dynamic in that perhaps they have random traits generated on the ascension of a "heresiarch" rebel leader. It can be a real problem when that heresy you left alone because you were to busy tumbling with your inbred horse-sister suddenly spawns a 50k rebel stack intent on turning your realm into a Heresiarch theocracy.

Just, overall, while CKII itself in the form it is in now is nearing the end of it's capabilities, in the future, a CKIII game with a new engine that is really up to date with what is possible now could be truly magnificent.

 

[MrReaper182]

IMHO, a part of it is that it's getting to be around time for PDX to start working on CKIII. CKII is 6 years old, which is an eternity when it comes to games. This is really starting to show in many aspects. CKII is still fun and PDX could certainly still pump out a few DLC, but soon "blob die repeat" is going to mean that most people would rather just hit up PUBG or EU4 than CKII. Plus, CKII is starting to have a rigidity problem. In CKII, religions do the same things, the same cultures show up. Yes, Reformed Slavic England is funny, but after your 4th Reformed Pagan game you realize that Reformed Pagans really aren't all that different from each other. Things like the Miaphysite Church literally have no flavor except for some extremely minor things and even then they get plowed down by the Muslims usually within the first 100 years of the game, completely bypassing the fact that Christian Africa was a huge part of West African history. A part of what CKII needs is a revamp with a significantly more dynamic religion and culture system. No 2 games should be the same after you gain enough power. If you're playing as the King of Lombardy and conquer North Africa, instead of North Africa turning Italian/Lombard, perhaps it should turn Berbero-Lombard or something like that in between. Heresies should go from "random things you convert to when you wanna holy war other Christians/Muslims" but something that if you leave it alone long enough it could have real teeth. Furthermore, they should be more dynamic in that perhaps they have random traits generated on the ascension of a "heresiarch" rebel leader. It can be a real problem when that heresy you left alone because you were to busy tumbling with your inbred horse-sister suddenly spawns a 50k rebel stack intent on turning your realm into a Heresiarch theocracy.

Just, overall, while CKII itself in the form it is in now is nearing the end of it's capabilities, in the future, a CKIII game with a new engine that is really up to date with what is possible now could be truly magnificent.

My guess is that there is not going to be a CK3 for a long time yet so don't build your hopes up for one. Being 6 years old does not mean we need a new version of the game, the one we have now is just fine. Could they make a new version of CK any better than CK2? I doubt that they could in the next few years. It's better that Paradox start work on a sequel to CK2 when they have something truly new to bring to the table. Making a sequel to CK2 is going to be hard as CK2 is loved by so many people. Making the same game with prettier graphics is not going to cut it, you need to add something which as not been done before with the previous game for a sequel to be worth while. It's best Paradox take there time in making CK3. After all we can wait as we have CK2 to play.

 

[Zsrai]

you need to add something which as not been done before with the previous game for a sequel to be worth while.

Like a proper, up to date game engine perhaps? One that fully utilizes all cores?

 

[PK_AZ]

Like a proper, up to date game engine perhaps? One that fully utilizes all cores?

Nah, its clearly overrated.

 

[Black Turtle]

Like a proper, up to date game engine perhaps? One that fully utilizes all cores?

CK2 is the fastest running game out of all the major Paradox games right now. I'm not sure what patch you're playing on but optimization hasn't been a problem since Reaper's Due, and it's only gotten faster since. EU4, Stellaris, and HoI4 late game are all slower than CK2. There's no reason to believe CK3 will be any faster or better optimized. In absolute terms it'll probably be slower on the same systems since it'll have higher spec requirements.

 

[Admiral_Obvious]

CK2 is the fastest running game out of all the major Paradox games right now. I'm not sure what patch you're playing on but optimization hasn't been a problem since Reaper's Due, and it's only gotten faster since. EU4, Stellaris, and HoI4 late game are all slower than CK2. There's no reason to believe CK3 will be any faster or better optimized. In absolute terms it'll probably be slower on the same systems since it'll have higher spec requirements.

All of those games you mention run slower mostly due to the fact that there can be hundreds of persistent armies on the world at any time.

CKII is faster because only the "big guys" can get retinue, and the levies are disbanded after a war. So as a result the game doesn't have to think as hard as it does when handling how many tank units are pushing into france, while the rest of the line is rocket artillery.

 

[Me_]

Because it's the oldest (that one year really changed a lot - some games drop from being played by millions to being played by almost nooone over a year) and the playerbase for all of them overlaps a lot.

 

[Slaists]

Playing...

- offline
- without Steam

This is how I play. Almost 95% offline.

 

[Zsrai]

CK2 is the fastest running game out of all the major Paradox games right now. I'm not sure what patch you're playing on but optimization hasn't been a problem since Reaper's Due, and it's only gotten faster since. EU4, Stellaris, and HoI4 late game are all slower than CK2. There's no reason to believe CK3 will be any faster or better optimized. In absolute terms it'll probably be slower on the same systems since it'll have higher spec requirements.

Yeah, I know CK2 is faster. I also remember post RoI slowdowns, and how every other DLC's tweaked optimization and performance to offset the new content. Just because CK2 is faster than the other PDS games doesn't mean that they don't need to develop a new engine for the next generation of games. The Clausewitz engine is 11 years old now, and even with the updates it doesn't really utilize multiple cores (which are an industry standard now). That's the point. Even 2.0 and 2.5 have this issue.

 

[Admiral_Obvious]

Yeah, I know CK2 is faster. I also remember post RoI slowdowns, and how every other DLC's tweaked optimization and performance to offset the new content. Just because CK2 is faster than the other PDS games doesn't mean that they don't need to develop a new engine for the next generation of games. The Clausewitz engine is 11 years old now, and even with the updates it doesn't really utilize multiple cores (which are an industry standard now). That's the point. Even 2.0 and 2.5 have this issue.

Use if multiple cores isn't the industry standard. It only is if you have enough money to make a game which can use multiple cores or multithread. All of that does indeed start at the engine level however.

It's a huge hassle to work with. When you do offer multiple core/multithreading support.

 

[Dagda]

To the OP, you can't handwave the fact of it being 'the oldest' when CK2 was sort of the first game that introduced Paradox's new DLC direction. CK2 then quickly surpassed the previous successes of HOI and EU and became Paradox's most successful game (until Stellaris) despite the first iteration being a relatively unknown gem in comparison. Paradox and EU4 benefited greatly by CK2's explosion and imo is the game that put them on the mainstream map.

CK2 was also not originally released on Steam. Bought mine on gamergate and those sales most likely aren't factored into Steamspy numbers etc.

CK2 multiplayer has always been a hot desync mess

 

[Zsrai]

Use if multiple cores isn't the industry standard. It only is if you have enough money to make a game which can use multiple cores or multithread. All of that does indeed start at the engine level however.

It's a huge hassle to work with. When you do offer multiple core/multithreading support.

What?

 

[Admiral_Obvious]

What?

You can't simply "add" multiple core support. You have to rebuild everything from the ground up if you want to do that.

Lots of games don't do it because it's not worth the time or monetary investment to do so.

Multithreading/multiple core support is NOT industry standard. It only applies to huge games which will melt a single core if you didn't do otherwise, which are largely AAA titles, or physics engines.

 

[Zsrai]

You can't simply "add" multiple core support. You have to rebuild everything from the ground up if you want to do that.

So that's literally what I said posts ago. A new engine with multiple core support.

Multithreading/multiple core support is NOT industry standard. It only applies to huge games which will melt a single core if you didn't do otherwise, which are largely AAA titles, or physics engines.

So, sounds a lot like late game PDS products? Game slowing to a crawl? If it's only getting worse as time goes on (both in the game and as new games are getting released), I would hazard a guess that maybe the engine needs to be updated/redone? Possibly with multi-core support?

 

[Admiral_Obvious]

So that's literally what I said posts ago. A new engine with multiple core support.



So, sounds a lot like late game PDS products? Game slowing to a crawl? If it's only getting worse as time goes on (both in the game and as new games are getting released), I would hazard a guess that maybe the engine needs to be updated/redone? Possibly with multi-core support?

I think a large portion of the issue involves the graphical changes that they've added onto the games with the same old engine.

Look at any large front line for HOI 4, and then compare that to HOI 3 or CK 2. HOI 4 has to process a lot more, just on the visual end of things (notably weather constantly changing), as well as many more individual units versus the old HOI 3.

 

[cristofolmc]

That said, CK2 (not so much CK1) was extremely popular at it's peak; it was in many ways the title that turned Paradox from "tiny niche publisher" into "significant player."

This is SO important and people seem to forget it. 3-5 years ago, the CK2 forums had sooo much more activity than EU4's. And you could see that it was the title that brought thousands of people to the franchise. Everything seemed to be about CK2 and everyone seemed to love it so much more than any other title.

 

[Bernard95]

This is SO important and people seem to forget it. 3-5 years ago, the CK2 forums had sooo much more activity than EU4's. And you could see that it was the title that brought thousands of people to the franchise. Everything seemed to be about CK2 and everyone seemed to love it so much more than any other title.

That's something I remember. Was it like a year ago or more like two when the EU4 forums officially surpassed us in number of posts or something?

 

[Admiral_Obvious]

That's something I remember. Was it like a year ago or more like two when the EU4 forums officially surpassed us in number of posts or something?

I don't even think it was that long ago. More like 9-10 months since EU got "the bigger number".

 

[Dragatus]

I expect it's because CK2 has a less developed multiplayer community. You can play the games singleplayer in offline mode or even without launching Steam at all. Plus multiplayer extends the amount of time people play a given game. I would expect CK2 and EU4 to have similair amount of singleplayer play time, but then EU4 would have more multiplayer play time on top of that.

If my hypothesis is correct that offers a solution to the problem that at release CK3 cannot possibly be as complex as CK2. A good and stable multiplayer experience is something CK3 could offer that people aren't really getting from CK2.

 

[Orinsul]

HoI4 and Stellaris you can play after a long day of work.
for CK2, you need to be awake and paying attention
So more play time for them, but more enjoyment of CK2