The future of EU4 and Paradox games, a schism?

[James The 1st]

WTF? Monarch points in Victoria 3 would be an abomination. The game needs tweaks, not putting that kind of crap.

As a matter of fact Paradox needs to lose its tendency to reinvent the wheel in EVERY new game. There is good reason why Civilization still uses gold, beakers, shields etc - because they work well enough.

Meanwhile, with Paradox games, way too much stuff is scrapped in every new version.

Why? It's good for a game designer to try new things, that's how you get the good stuff in the first place. If you like the older idea, then you can just keep playing the old game.

I like the direction they took in Civ 5 to try to shake up the formula, and I hope to try to do so even more in Civ 6.

 

[Taciturn Scot]

so then if they didnt have the time then, why didnt they add it later for free as it was originally intended, dun dun duhhhhhhhhhhh!

Last time I checked, I don't live in Utopia where people work for free Lucky you for doing so.

 

[TheArchduke]

WTF? Monarch points in Victoria 3 would be an abomination. The game needs tweaks, not putting that kind of crap.

As a matter of fact Paradox needs to lose its tendency to reinvent the wheel in EVERY new game. There is good reason why Civilization still uses gold, beakers, shields etc - because they work well enough.

Meanwhile, with Paradox games, way too much stuff is scrapped in every new version.

A simplification of the atrocious POP System with the brilliant Monarch Point system would be great for Victoria.

Or to put it more simply, not everyone agrees with you. Feature creep is not always a positive thing.

 

[Kyoumen]

Ive played natives in EU3 and I think they are extremely playable. Just because it actually takes some time to annex the entirety of Europe does not mean it is unplayable - unless you are a bad player of course, but very easy difficulty can fix that.

Your condescension is noted.

You know how people complain about how truce timers make certain countries "unplayable", like Scotland, because they have only one "natural" route of expansion and waiting 15 years at speed 5 to do anything again is incredibly tedious?

Well, here's how an EUIII native plays:

1) Annex everything in the immediate vicinity.

2) Wait decades doing literally nothing.

3) Do some colonising once you can eventually grab the colonist idea. This will also likely be for a few decades, depending on which natives you are playing. You can do nothing else in the meantime. There are other possibilities for your one pre-European-contact idea besides colonising - in that case, add more decades doing literally nothing.

4) See which European shows up next to you. If it's Spain, good game, you can start over (fighting them is not generally feasible despite the AI's inability to support seaborne invasions since your armies will melt like butter against theirs and they will instantly seize any province they take, meaning you'd have to win it back in the peace and lol good luck with that because the AI is hardwired to think they can beat you regardless of the facts on the ground). If it's Portugal, hope that the RNG has given you a monarch that can Westernise (they'll also attack you but their armies are small enough to crush with overwhelming superiority). If no such ruler is in the offing, good game, you can start over. If neither of them shows up in 150 years, good game, you can start over.

5) If you got past step 4, congratulations! Now you have the fun of dealing with every single country in Europe with a navy repeatedly attacking you for the next two centuries like clockwork because the AI is hardwired to consider you an easy target due to your religion even if you own an entire continent and outnumber their forces twenty to one.Westernised Inca Empire owns everything from Patagonia to Arkansas? That's okay, OPM Pommerania is still sure they can take you.

I'm not even going to get into stuff like, say, how fun it is to deal with rebels as a native in EUIII.

Yes, in the most technical sense of the term, they were "playable". There are reasons to consider them "unplayable" that do not involve "I can't conquer Europe with them easily", as I would have assumed anyone who has played them in EUIII would be aware of.

 

[satyrlord]

*snip*

+1 there

Half of this thread is looking at EU3 and Vic2 through rose-tinted glasses - a natural human response but irrational nonetheless. I recently reinstalled EU3 because I was guilty of this rose tint as well - it's not a bad game but I couldn't play it at all because it's so outdated. Maybe if I would spend a few years modding its graphics, it would be fairly playable for me, but there's no way I'm wasting my precious time dwelling on the past.

What I want from Paradox is to make MP much faster, more stable and more fun. Am I a "casual"? Am I the cause why Paradox is "dumbing down"? Meh, who knows, it's not for anyone to judge but me.

I do have criticisms, which is purely subjective. I refuse to buy anything HOI-related because I dislike podcat's attitude, but that's my problem not Paradox'.

 

[laijka]

Last time I checked, I don't live in Utopia where people work for free Lucky you for doing so.

That sounds more like slavery than Utopia to me.

 

[NCreepy]

I guess many of the changes might have to do with ironman -> achievements. To make it harder to get them or something. Would be nice to allow me to turn off lucky nations while playing iron man and i might considder it. I strongly disslike playing vs cheating AI.

 

[Arilou]

A simplification of the atrocious POP System with the brilliant Monarch Point system would be great for Victoria.

Or to put it more simply, not everyone agrees with you. Feature creep is not always a positive thing.

The POP system pretty much IS Victoria, honestly. Scrapping it would be like removing characters from CK2.

 

[TheArchduke]

The POP system pretty much IS Victoria, honestly. Scrapping it would be like removing characters from CK2.

I know, but there are other ways to go about simulating the 19th century, like Imperialism, without the need for PoPs. But I disgress, sometimes a PI game works for someone, sometimes it does not. I love all EU titles, HOI2 and the CK series. Victoria, not so much.

I just wanted to make the point that it is a matter of taste.

 

[CrabHelmet]

A simplification of the atrocious POP System with the brilliant Monarch Point system would be great for Victoria.

Or to put it more simply, not everyone agrees with you. Feature creep is not always a positive thing.

I'm sure you could do a Victorian era game without POPs, but... it wouldn't be a Victoria game. They're the entire crux of the mechanics. Removing them would be a far bigger and deeper change than just removing EU3's sliders.

 

[Beagá]

A simplification of the atrocious POP System with the brilliant Monarch Point system would be great for Victoria.

Or to put it more simply, not everyone agrees with you. Feature creep is not always a positive thing.

And not everyone will agree with you there, so get off the high horse.

Atrocious POP? Brilliant MP? Lol... just lol.

For me it´s exactly the opposite, lack of population as a mechanic (even if simplified, no need for POPs) is one of the major blunders of EU4... Besides, I never argued that nothing should be changed, ever, in every new version - the problem is when yu scrap a feature with POTENTIAL and replace with something that is dubious at best, instead of trying to improve it. I´m not sure I agree with the tidal wave of changes in HOI 4.

 

[WeissRaben]

...I will openly and without shame admit that the local autonomy system completely blindsided me. I can only hope the game will continue moving on this track.

 

[LiberiusX]

A simplification of the atrocious POP System with the brilliant Monarch Point system would be great for Victoria.

Or to put it more simply, not everyone agrees with you. Feature creep is not always a positive thing.

I'm sorry, but I first played Vicky 2 after I played CKII and EUIV(among other PDS and PI titles) and Vicky 2 is quite simply the best grand strategy I've ever played. There are so many things to learn about the mechanics as well as so many paradigm shifts in the gameplay that the game has no problem remaining interesting throughout.

That sounds more like slavery than Utopia to me.

I'm sure for Utopia to function properly slavery of some form would have to be used on one level or another.

 

[Obik]

...I will openly and without shame admit that the local autonomy system completely blindsided me. I can only hope the game will continue moving on this track.

I agree with you, I see it as a first step in improving internal management many forumites asked for.

 

[brifbates]

I'm sorry, but I first played Vicky 2 after I played CKII and EUIV(among other PDS and PI titles) and Vicky 2 is quite simply the best grand strategy I've ever played. There are so many things to learn about the mechanics as well as so many paradigm shifts in the gameplay that the game has no problem remaining interesting throughout.

You clearly haven't reached great power status yet if you think the game doesn't get tedious/boring...

 

[Jango40]

I both hate the current EU4 and don't want to make the game more historical.

Am I disagreeing with everyone..?

 

[WeissRaben]

I both hate the current EU4 and don't want to make the game more historical.

Am I disagreeing with everyone..?

Depends on what you mean by "historical". If you mean "following what HAS happened", I agree somewhat. If you mean "following what MIGHT have happened reasonably", then no, it's EXACTLY what I want.

 

[LiberiusX]

You clearly haven't reached great power status yet if you think the game doesn't get tedious/boring...

I have with multiple countries, usually countries that are or are destined to be a Great Power. I find it quite fun throughout actually. Granted, PDM makes it worlds better, but Vanilla was fun too. I've heard people gripe about the influence game, and I agree that that may be one of the games weaker points, but it is far from tedious. Usually by 1860ish in my games, everybody's spheres are pretty much set and can be forgotten about unless there is a revolt or they lose them in a war.

My most recent Austria>A-H>DNF game was incredibly fun, but I think my previous Japan game was the most memorable, and I don't recall any EU4 campaign that came to be near as much fun.

The only thing that I find kind of annoying is elections. Good concept, but needs to be streamlined. Still, no where near as tedious as some of the mechanics in EUIV.

 

[redwood36]

As a new player with only 10 hours in euiv, I'll say that as a noob I have no interest in multiplayer at all until I have a basic understanding of the mechanics.. If the multiplayer is for anyone it's for medium to advanced players.

But as someone who plays euiv and (more) ck2 I'm definitely interested in having a better sp experience. I don't know how you can play either game multiplayer given the time these games take to play.

 

[AJ2009]

I can't stand multiplayer, I stupidly bought March of the Eagles and have only played it twice. One MP once singleplayer. It was dull.

Having said that I don't think PI are in decline (in terms of quality) I really like EU IV and I actually find it much harder than HOI II/III or Viki II. In fact I think the AI has gotten much better since the dark days of the mid 2000's.

I think in someways we need things thrust upon us, the community is so pluralistic. PI reads peoples ideas but at the end of the day they are the ones coding the games.