What would a modern Victoria/Hearts of Iron-Esque game be like?

[unmerged(306429)]

I was on another board where we had a really epic discussion about such a game.

This is what I came out of it with.

I personally prefer Victoria 2 style of politics/economies, but most people favored a Hearts of Iron like game just with modern equipment. The conditions they said would be that there was a Chinese Civil War at the same time there was a default of the EU/America much like the conditions which set up for the first world wars.

So what has stopped Paradox so far of making a post-modern grand strategy wargame yet? What would you like it to play like? Any thoughts are welcome.

 

[Samilou]

Lack of interest among high-ranking employees and fear of poor reception/sales.

 

[comsubpac]

the problem with a post WW2 game is that if wants to be "realistic" as all paradox house titles try to be it would be very boring.

game starts -> war breaks out -> nuclear holocaust -> end of game...

i don't think anyone would pay much for a game that ends after 5 minutes.

 

[Samilou]

the problem with a post WW2 game is that if wants to be "realistic" as all paradox house titles try to be it would be very boring.

game starts -> war breaks out -> nuclear holocaust -> end of game...

i don't think anyone would pay much for a game that ends after 5 minutes.

That it would be realistic wouldn't mean it is a 5 minute game or definitely ending in nuclear holocaust, nor does it need to end when it happens.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

If the game started during the cold war, there would be room for war. There actually were plenty of wars in the seocnd half of the 20th century you know. But the game could easily be desgned so war was not the main focus of the game. It could use the character system from CK and Sengoku to simulate internal politics and diplomacy (in particular, TBH I think if they ever do this diplomacy should be the focus), it could use a refined version of the Vicky economics system to simulate economics, and simulate trnasnational entities like the UN, NATO, the SCO and so on. I think with these three elemnts as the main focus it wouldn't matter if there wasn't much war.

I've played games that attempted this and they were awful because the design was atrocious. I think if they weren't awful, they would have been very, very popular.

 

[BRK]

I think it would be great, there's enough stuff going on in recent history to make a game set in this period extremely engaging and interesting. I would say it'd need to be modelled after EU3, though, instead of CK\Victoria or HoI.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

I think it would be great, there's enough stuff going on in recent history to make a game set in this period extremely engaging and interesting. I would say it'd need to be modelled after EU3, though, instead of CK\Victoria or HoI.

What makes you say that? i would think of all Paradox's existing games, EU3's mechanic would least lend themselves to the modern era.

 

[BRK]

It's the least complex and 'busiest' of all their titles, I think? A character-driven game or one focussed on the economy\military wouldn't work very well for the modern era, and even if it did it wouldn't be very interesting. They could combine aspects from their different games, of course, but we've already been told this would be very processor intensive and isn't likely to happen.

 

[Wowwars]

if this were made i'll guess it to be a nation builder/diplomacy and war but wars like libya/and ssuch small wars/guerilla wars.

 

[SAS]

well other than being really slow with all the calculations, I think a modern game set with the Victoria style would be cool.

 

[performer]

Such a game would end when the "big war" breaks out.

I dream of a Cold War game like a modern "Balance of Power", with proxy wars, gaining power on (former) colonies, MUCH espionage and ideological fightings ...

 

[Jia Xu]

I can't see any game in a modern setting being anything other than incredibly boring. Using the post-WW2 system of international relations, taking provinces in a war would result in something like 20 BBs gained per province taken. After WW2, wars stopped being cool in international relations for the most part. No one wanted to be an aggressor and war was only permissible at all if you could somehow justify it on some kind of humanitarian-like grounds. The game would be especially boring because in the post-WW2 period, there are only two superpowers, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and every other power on earth is going into a state of deep decline as far as global power goes.

Where's the appeal?

 

[BRK]

Good points. Not to mention post-1989 a warfare-driven game could get even more boring unless you're playing as the USA. I mean there's still lots of conflicts the world over (Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Timor, tribal wars in Africa, etc) but that's only a handful of nations and small-scale warfare.

So perhaps a game with an entirely different area of focus might work better. There's character-driven RPG style gameplay with CK, economy-based Vicky 2, warfare in HoI 3...how about something new? Maybe a game where the challenge is to create an ideal society with the right form of government in power (or risk massive rebellions), rights for one and all (or risk protests and lowered research if in a democracy) eradicate poverty or unemployment, increase tech output, improve education, etc -with some elements of Vicky 2's economy thrown in to simulate recessions and economic crises.

 

[Comrade Chaos]

Have you seen Supreme Ruler: Cold War..? It's awfully close.