What's paradox most popular franchise?(not counting Cities)

[Deathmachinept]

Just been seeing some videos on youtube.. and people just talk about EU 4 and CK2 and keep saying HoI series is more complex and hard to get into? maybe it's me but I always found HoI simpler to learn compared to EU 4, Victoria and CK2.

I also always thought HoI franchise was the most popular and it was with HoI 2 that paradox started getting more popular...

Did HoI 3 out sold all previous titles same for HoI 2?

Am I wrong or was there anyone else that experience the same especially compared to HoI 2 for example?

 

[Gamer_1745]

My understanding is both EU IV & CK2 are much more popular than HoI3. I found HoI3 easy to get into, but it maybe because of my background in wargaming.

 

[Caesar15]

Europa series probably. Reason hearts of iron series isn't as popular is people's unwillingness to get into it or they simply found it too complex/too overwhelming.

 

[henzington]

I would ask if you have played A World at War Gamer_1745 since the 2.0 rules.

 

[Gamer_1745]

I only got as far as Advanced Third Reich with the map additions (Ethiopia) from the General magazine. My game got destroyed by water damage and I stopped playing.

I have a strong passion for wargames (of many types) and that is why I am so interested in HoI3 & HOI IV.

 

[henzington]

Yeah ditto the nice part about world at war is all the rules are online and there is a decent program that you can play it with called warplanner.

http://www.aworldatwar.org/

 

[Deathmachinept]

Europa series probably. Reason hearts of iron series isn't as popular is people's unwillingness to get into it or they simply found it too complex/too overwhelming.

I remember playing HoI 2 demo on the battle of the bulge or D-Day and understanding in a few minutes really loved everything bought the game.. 1hour hit and miss and understood enough to play it good and win. Same share the game with a friend he loved and got into really fast.

But with both EU IV, CK2 and Vict I had to google stuff on the web and was easily lost on the UI.. CK 2 and Vict were really hard to learn or grasp how could you impact the game even after doing tutorials.

That thing about your country having different rulers who want to rule and can overthrow you, the fact you can click on everyone like in wikipedia and end up in italy or germany court members, raising armies, trying to go in a crusader but you end up with -2000 gold, claim system, making wars but not staying with the terrain you capture, vassals is really complex compared to HoI at least for me.

 

[adam_grif]

Steamspy is a reasonably good estimation of ownership for Steam games.

Hearts of Iron III:
379,017 ± 16,892

Crusader Kings 1:
84,051 ± 7,960

Crusader Kings 2:
1,081,215 ± 28,490

Europa Universalis 3:
268,923 ± 14,232

Europa Universalis 4:
708,314 ± 23,077


Not all games are sold on Steam, but CK2/EU4 stats basically represent something close to 100% of owners. HoI3 and EU3 not as much, but they've never been anything but niche titles. Not gonna be millions more than these numbers or anything.

CK2 was a breakout hit. It represents the start of "modern Paradox" games that are more polished and focussed on ongoing updates and support more or less indefinitely. It's also their biggest hit for the grand strat titles. EUIV followed a similar trajectory but hasn't sold as much thus far (although it's been out less time too). But PRIOR to "new paradox", Hearts of Iron seems to have been their biggest selling title. This fits anecdotally what I've heard before that the HoI series was their biggest - but I can't remember where I heard that.

 

[Gamer_1745]

Thanks I hadn't heard of Warplanner. They have 4681 registered users, yes a small number when compared to HoI.

 

[Deathmachinept]

@adam_grif
That kinda proves my feeling and that is that HoI is always the most popular game by cycle... I think at the time of HoI 2 release it was the most successful game to date, after HoI 3 release it was the most successful game they had and so on..

I would really like to know HoI 2 Total sales I know friends who own them and I even have 2 copies thinking I had lost the game and bought a new one.. Plus they re-release at least 3 editions of HoI 2 physical box.


What amazes is CK2 sales I would have not guess them.

 

[BBBD316]

As a half decent CK & EU player and a pretty terrible HOI player, the bascis are pretty simple, research, armies, etc.

The building a well equipped and numerous army is where I think a lot of players get tripped up, plus managing the economy with IC and trade. I have played HOI3 and been able to build most of the units that the theatre says I need, yet when war breaks out I am woefully undermanned. Whether I just don't build enough, spend too much on upgrades or useless things, I struggle and then after that it is hard to recover.

Also in CK and EU you have decades to recover and comeback, in HOI you lose a few battles and you have troops marching through your capital. The previous games are also light on the actual battle mechanics, there are less provinces and you just march a hopefully numerically superior force against your foe. So it can be overwhelming and if you aren't used to this it can be too hard, don't bother.

I would suggest a 1939 bookmark would be good as it would allow players to at least have the starting forces and feel they may be able to at least do better than historically.

 

[Shade205]

From what I heard the HOI series was always the most popular in each "cycle". Adam_Grifs post basically confirms that.

It's to be expected. The time frames of Europa and crusader kings are fun and exciting for some yes but World War 2 will always draw a large crowd.

I don't see why the pattern wouldnt repeat, wont be surprised at all to see hoi4 end up out selling ck2 & eu4.

 

[adam_grif]

I am not expecting it to outsell CK2, that game has a sort of life of its own especially with Game of Thrones modding and such, but I think it could do on par or better than EUIV.

 

[Art1985]

I think hoi series are most simple game from paradox, when I saw hoi2 I understood how to play in minutes (maybe because I dreamed about such game before that when I played panzer general). But EU and CK I can't play even now, I don't understand what to do there and don't understand my mission in the game.
And I don't understand why developers didn't invite hoi players to event and why we have to read and see information from eu and ck players that don't know hoi series games and can't inform us about what changed to the better or worst.... but maybe that's the reason why?

 

[henzington]

There are some people who have videos on youtube for hoi3 but the people who stream EU4 and CK2 have way more viewers as both games are much popular.

 

[Shadowless]

I personally expect HOI4 to be the smallest of the new generation of Paradox titles (well I expect Vicky will be smaller but that's much farther away) mostly because it is a title that has a very focused time period which I don't think will work as well (compared to CK2 and EU4) for the massive amount of new people playing Paradox titles since CK2. Still I expect it will be a great success to build upon what they have been doing with the new generation of games.

As to why they invited CK2/EU4 players I have to agree with henzington it is merely because they have a larger audience since those games have already gotten their new iterations when the huge boom in Paradox sales occurred whereas HOI4 hasn't because well...it isn't out yet

 

[Art1985]

I personally expect HOI4 to be the smallest of the new generation of Paradox titles (well I expect Vicky will be smaller but that's much farther away) mostly because it is a title that has a very focused time period which I don't think will work as well (compared to CK2 and EU4) for the massive amount of new people playing Paradox titles since CK2. Still I expect it will be a great success to build upon what they have been doing with the new generation of games.

I think main problem for hoi4 is that devs want to attract more players but in result they will make game that will be something in the middle of eu and hoi and that players from eu dislike it because it's not more like eu and hoi players because it's not more like previous hoi games.

 

[Shade205]

There are some people who have videos on youtube for hoi3 but the people who stream EU4 and CK2 have way more viewers as both games are much popular.

You can't really compare hoi3 to eu4 and ck2 and expect it to be fair. Hoi3 can only be fairly compared to eu3 and ck1

 

[Shadowless]

You can't really compare hoi3 to eu4 and ck2 and expect it to be fair. Hoi3 can only be fairly compared to eu3 and ck1

He isn't comparing HOI3 to EU4/CK2, he is comparing the size of the audience of the youtubers/streamers.

 

[Dr.Livingstone]

HOI used to be the most popular franchise, so much so that if you go back into forum history, you can read old users complain about the glut of new users who only played HOI2. After HOI3 and the new Paradox that came with CK2, HOI lost its almost flagship status.