PDOX Games VIII: Communism Will Win

[North German Realm]

I wonder if playing a Zoroastrian Bavandid run in Daylam or Tabaristan would be interesting. Maybe I could restore the Priesthood again.

[Danubian Peoples]

I wonder if playing a Zoroastrian Bavandid run in Daylam or Tabaristan would be interesting. Maybe I could restore the Priesthood again.

I should probably do that instead.

[Bralia]

These past couple of Victoria games have been nuts, I've had so many first-time moments. Which is crazy because I've been playing V2 singularly with the PDM mod for so long. Behold my first sighting of a unified Australia and New Zealand.

[Cisairse]

Install HIP, disable defense pacts and CB restrictions in the settings and you have a good game.

I have been playing with it for a while now. But the problem is that no mod can really address the problems with CK2. Problems which by the way are shared by most paradox games, but especially CK2 and HOI4. Which is why the announcement of a proper intelligence system for HOI4 was greeted so positively. To give two examples:

1. Mana pool mechanics.
CK2 escapes most of these (unlike say EU4) but the secret societies are still fundamentally just mana pools. And not terribly fun ones at that unless you deliberately chose not to game them. The reason being that, shockingly enough, they are very easy to game. If you set your mind to it and have enough gold you can easily go from a nobody to the head of a secret society in 30ish years. And have all the mana you need to run amock with it. And that is not just bad design but also a massively missed opportunity. Just imagine how much more fun it would have been if those had been designed so that climbing the ranks was a multi generation effort you had to invest a lot of your game time into.

2. Lack of information.
Paradox games in general tend not to give you all the information you need but CK2 and HOI4 are particularly bad about it. And that matters because among other things it cheapens a lot of the really good game mechanics out there. Take for example the division designer in HOI4. Why does everyone just run around with 7+2 divisions? Why don't they try and custom build divisions to outdesign each other in a newer ending game of cat and mouse? The system definitively provides for it. And the other mechanics like supply and training do as well. But the information, in this case enemy division composition, just isn't there.
Same thing is true for the CK2 combat system only worse. You have this well designed multi stage combat system with all the intricacies of the HOI4 model and yet you can't really do anything with it because not only do you not know your enemies army composition (making planing a counter impossible) but you don't even control your own troop composition. So that's a great system just wasted.
Another example would be the lack of a decent overview screen to show you all your holdings, what buildings are in them, tax data, construction progress etc. all in one big easy to read screen so that you don't have to manually click each one at a time and check.

That sort of thing is really what the game needs.

So tldr; paradox games are very fun and they certainly are not bad games. But they are good in the same way Bethesda games are good. Great fun, great idea, decent execution but lots of room for general polish. And as not just a game programmer but an engineer in general I can easily enough spot how things could be made just that much better if only they cared.

HOI4 is a bad game, so you'll find no disagreement from me there.

I don't have whatever specific DLC you need for secret societies so I really can't comment on them, because they are not a part of the CK2 that I play.
I agree that CK2's combat system isn't very well fleshed-out. Honestly, I believe that to be CK2's biggest flaw is its combat system. However, I don't think it's so egregiously bad to actually tack any points off from my overall appreciation of the game. In general, somebody with grossly more population will always defeat smaller enemies; when close in population, there's a slight advantage to those with better generals and technology. In broad terms, that seems sane to me. Contrast this with 1.12-era EU4 when an AI would always lose to a player, or Vic2 where there is 1 optimal composition and once you have that composition it's purely who has more soldiers.

[Purpelia]

I don't have whatever specific DLC you need for secret societies so I really can't comment on them, because they are not a part of the CK2 that I play.
I agree that CK2's combat system isn't very well fleshed-out. Honestly, I believe that to be CK2's biggest flaw is its combat system. However, I don't think it's so egregiously bad to actually tack any points off from my overall appreciation of the game. In general, somebody with grossly more population will always defeat smaller enemies; when close in population, there's a slight advantage to those with better generals and technology. In broad terms, that seems sane to me. Contrast this with 1.12-era EU4 when an AI would always lose to a player, or Vic2 where there is 1 optimal composition and once you have that composition it's purely who has more soldiers.

That's the thing though. If you look at the actual mechanics of how troop stats work and what counters what and the various modifiers it is actually very well fleshed out for a game of its type. Like the pieces are all there. You just can't move them because you don't have control over your own troop composition or knowledge of your enemies. But the combat system is no less complex than that of HOI4. Only in HOI4 you have the division designer to let you pick exactly what you want to use where as in CK2 you have nothing of the sort.

Paradox is kind of like Bethesda (well in the old days anyway) in that the game it self is not bad, but once you peek under the surface and see the game it could be with just a little bit of polish you just get angry.

[Bralia]

I don't think I've ever thrown anything in genuine rage before. That's another first for me. It's fortunate that the object in question was a pillow, because that was the next closest thing to my hands after my mouse. I should keep using my pillow to prop myself up just in case moments like this ever happens again.

And I'd like to thank Italy for making this moment happen. The biggest traitors I've ever had in a Paradox game. Just because I did NOT call them into a war. And apparently that's justification enough to join my enemies since I was fighting a Dismantlement war. We've been allies for literally the entire game, I've diligently aided them in every conflict they've ever desired my help in. And the best part? Never claimed Savoy. I've had all the chances in the world to click the one button to gain cores there and fuck 'em up for the territory. But I didn't. ~80 years of opportunity for me, not taken because I valued their friendship and alliance.

Shit like this is why I've started unrepentantly cheating in Paradox games, it's just anti-fun when blatantly unrealistic crap like this happens.

[Jack Thomas Lang]

I don't think I've ever thrown anything in genuine rage before. That's another first for me. It's fortunate that the object in question was a pillow, because that was the next closest thing to my hands after my mouse. I should keep using my pillow to prop myself up just in case moments like this ever happens again.

And I'd like to thank Italy for making this moment happen. The biggest traitors I've ever had in a Paradox game. Just because I did NOT call them into a war. And apparently that's justification enough to join my enemies since I was fighting a Dismantlement war. We've been allies for literally the entire game, I've diligently aided them in every conflict they've ever desired my help in. And the best part? Never claimed Savoy. I've had all the chances in the world to click the one button to gain cores there and fuck 'em up for the territory. But I didn't. ~80 years of opportunity for me, not taken because I valued their friendship and alliance.

Shit like this is why I've started unrepentantly cheating in Paradox games, it's just anti-fun when blatantly unrealistic crap like this happens.

>Italy betraying someone
>blatantly unrealistic crap

I'm sorry, what?

[Heloin]

I don't think I've ever thrown anything in genuine rage before. That's another first for me. It's fortunate that the object in question was a pillow, because that was the next closest thing to my hands after my mouse. I should keep using my pillow to prop myself up just in case moments like this ever happens again.

And I'd like to thank Italy for making this moment happen. The biggest traitors I've ever had in a Paradox game. Just because I did NOT call them into a war. And apparently that's justification enough to join my enemies since I was fighting a Dismantlement war. We've been allies for literally the entire game, I've diligently aided them in every conflict they've ever desired my help in. And the best part? Never claimed Savoy. I've had all the chances in the world to click the one button to gain cores there and fuck 'em up for the territory. But I didn't. ~80 years of opportunity for me, not taken because I valued their friendship and alliance.

Shit like this is why I've started unrepentantly cheating in Paradox games, it's just anti-fun when blatantly unrealistic crap like this happens.

>Italy betraying someone
>blatantly unrealistic crap

I'm sorry, what?

We all know about their loyal support to their allies in the Great War.

[Renoa]

Oh my lanta the AI in HOI4 is incompetent at defending. I'm invading Japanese-owned southern China alongside my Allies buds, and they simultaneously don't put enough troops at the front lines so they get overrun and forced back, and also don't defend the coasts so the Japanese can just land behind us and encircle us. They just put them in the middle not moving with their thumbs stuck in their asses waiting to take attrition and die. The British have lost and retaken Hong Kong four times because of this.

Also the lag sweet Jesus it's bad, and it's only 1942. I'm not sure if I can stand going all the way to 1948.

Edit: AND THE FUCKING KRAUTS HAVE WAY TOO MANY GODDAMN TANKS. IN AFRICA. We control the entire Atlantic, how the hell are they even getting here without getting sunk off the coast of Portugal?!?

[Cisairse]

I'm in the middle of a CK2 game starting as the Duke of Athens in the middle of the Fourth Crusade...I inherited the Duchy of Aragon and now everyone wants to go to war with me over it

Just let me be a Mediterranean superpower, guys!

[Renoa]

Is "Scandal" a real Irish name or did this guy's parents just hate him?"

[The Huskar Social Union]

Is "Scandal" a real Irish name or did this guy's parents just hate him?"

Ive never heard of an Irish person called Scandal, so not sure, then again a lot of the Irish names in CK2 have not really been common names for a long time.

[Ifreann]

Is "Scandal" a real Irish name or did this guy's parents just hate him?"

Ive never heard of an Irish person called Scandal, so not sure, then again a lot of the Irish names in CK2 have not really been common names for a long time.

The bauld Scandal Óg Ó Muircheartaigh. We don't speak about what he was caught doing in the pig pen.

[Impaled Nazarene]

Is "Scandal" a real Irish name or did this guy's parents just hate him?"

"Bishop Scandal" the joke writes itself

[Cisairse]

Alright, let's see if I can save this.

[Ifreann]

Go home, HRE, you're drunk.

[Cisairse]

Go home, HRE, you're drunk.

Yeah they are not having a good time. Lost northern Italy, but somehow annexed all of southern Italy. And a huge chunk of northern Africa.

This has been a super weird game overall. The Mongols got bogged down in Afghanistan and then exploded, which has left eastern Europe and the middle east in a very strange place.

[Cisairse]

woop there it is

[Cisairse]

This dude finally died after having 17 kids.

[Bralia]

(Image)

This dude finally died after having 17 kids.

Nestor frankly wants more Oreo's.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Whats a good ww1 mod for HOI4?

[Bralia]

Whats a good ww1 mod for HOI4?

Is the popular one not good anymore? Surely it's still towards the top of the most subscribed list.

[Lunas Legion]

Whats a good ww1 mod for HOI4?

Not the WW1 mod IIRC, it's bad.

[Impaled Nazarene]

Whats a good ww1 mod for HOI4?

Endsieg is the closest you can get.

[Bralia]

Archimedes has brutally killed Cassander in a fit of rage and will be personally building the next Imperator patch.

Also, Groogy thought that trade companies in EUIV were underpowered so he just went and slapped down a billion more in the world.