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Enjoy posted:The logistics side is definitely my favourite part of HoI4. Researching tech, designing the equipment, putting it into production lines, designing the formation the equipment will be fielded by, then training the divisions and sending reinforcements to them in the field... the whole thing is interconnected, it's amazing. Have any other games tried to do something similar? 4x games like Master of Orion or Stellaris basically ignore equipment as a tangible resource you have to produce and stockpile https://store.steampowered.com/app/1154840/Shadow_Empire/ Shadow Empire (and Advanced Tactics Gold before it)
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Apr 21, 2024 17:57
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gradenko_2000 posted:I think it was Len Hafer from Three Moves Ahead that said that one of Imperator's issues was that there was just no way you could get people interested in most of the factions in the game except as targets to be conquered. Yeah, I think it's this. The closer a game has to factions that you can relate to, the more interested people will be in playing it. Hearts of Iron is the closest to modern day and has a lot of countries that still exist in the modern day or the ability to form them, while following historical narratives you've read and watched about extensively. And in Crusader Kings, the relatability factor comes from the ability to roleplay. With Imperator, people watch movies, shows, and documentaries about Ancient Rome, the Greeks, Carthage, and Persia, but most other factions are completely unknown to the average person. And if the game isn't going to give these unknown factions any character either, then you have little reason to care about them. This isn't the only factor that matters (otherwise EU4 wouldn't be more popular than Vicky 3), but it seems like a pretty big one.
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Apr 21, 2024 18:13
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I think the only names on Imperator map that are still there on the map are Egypt and Armenia. Unlike, say, EU4, where most modern countries are one step from being formed by somebody if not already there. The density and detail of Imperator doesn't really work for most people. Total War games approach of making just a few playable factions with every one having some charged identity works better for a setting like this. I like how Fields of Glory Empires handles this: it is a much more abstracted than I:R and most of the map is filled with passive "independents", including even parts of Greece (Olympia is a free real estate), which sounds primitive but this also means that every single country present on the map has a unique description, traits, something.
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Apr 21, 2024 18:46
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Imperator's start date is a weakness too, i feel, because Egypt, the Seleucids, the Antigonids and Mauryas already feel like end game empires. Being around them is daunting. These games work better when you start small or middle sized and work your way up.
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Apr 21, 2024 18:53
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I'll agree relatability is a major plus for games, but I think you can get people interested in unknown factions if you do it right. Total War tends to nail it, and Imperator utterly failed.
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Apr 21, 2024 19:02
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HoI is popular because it's the most focused game in a time period people know and are fond of.
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Apr 21, 2024 19:10
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I like it in a kind of "What if *Allied country* prepped for WW2 like this" way, but HoI 4's AI is pretty terrible.
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Apr 21, 2024 19:15
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HoI4's unquestionably a beer-and-pretzels (and specifically beer-and-pretzels, not vodka-and-chechil or sake-and-arare) sim at best, but to some degree I find that more forgivable, or at least more explicable, with something set in recent history--there is a very clear modern western doctrine, say, so its thought processes being the baseline for a game from a western studio even if they're not necessarily supported or if they don't match how even the west actually fought the war makes sense in a way that isn't nearly as clear as time winds back. It also makes for a very satisfying gameplay loop, which I think explains a good amount of the popularity. Take personal command of the things that go vroom and produce measurable swings in the overall war over the course of a few dozen ticks, regroup and repeat, rather than waiting on advancement counters or siege rolls.
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Apr 21, 2024 19:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:I think it was Len Hafer from Three Moves Ahead that said that one of Imperator's issues was that there was just no way you could get people interested in most of the factions in the game except as targets to be conquered. Lmao if you play any classical game as Rome
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Apr 21, 2024 21:36
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HoI4 is the best Fallout game since New Vegas. Kaiserreich is cool too. I think I'm approaching 4 digit hours played and I'm at 0 achievements thanks to only playing modded.
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Apr 21, 2024 21:52
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Frionnel posted:Imperator's start date is a weakness too, i feel, because Egypt, the Seleucids, the Antigonids and Mauryas already feel like end game empires. Being around them is daunting. These games work better when you start small or middle sized and work your way up. Yeah, as fun as "the Diadochi wars might go differently every game!" might seem from a design perspective, having a map with a few gigantic empires and everything else is barely a city state isn't great for giving a lot of interesting options. In retrospect the EU: Rome start date was probably a better choice.
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Apr 21, 2024 23:01
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This is true but on the bright side there's (to my fuzzy recollections of both games) a daunting amount more space in to exist as a smallish state coming to grips with the mechanics in Imperator vs EU Rome since the map is so much bigger unfortunately most of it never gets played because all the places anyone knows/who aren't tribals are in the thick of the superpower mess, so you get the choice of "play Rome", "play an endgame threat when you barely know the game", "get crushed by said endgame threat", or "play someone small enough and safe enough to learn with but with no theme or flavour or pre-existing historical knowledge on your part to connect to" in retrospect it's a marvel the game is as popular as it is that said I still want to try it again and helpfully it isn't currently a moving target like, say, CK3 Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Apr 21, 2024 |
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Apr 21, 2024 23:29
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ilitarist posted:
wasn't that before they were publicly traded
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Apr 21, 2024 23:34
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ilitarist posted:I think the only names on Imperator map that are still there on the map are Egypt and Armenia. Unlike, say, EU4, where most modern countries are one step from being formed by somebody if not already there. Macedonia erasure. I agree with other posters for real. Imperator should have taken a clue from Total War and started with Pyrrhus in Italy as the Byz challenge to Rome’s Ottomans. soviet elsa fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Apr 22, 2024 |
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Apr 22, 2024 00:00
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People get mad at parts of the map being empty but the only people playing Tannu Tuva or Ryukyu are doing it for the memes.
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Apr 22, 2024 00:10
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ilitarist posted:Years ago Paradox were willing to rework a lot of HoI4 after they showed alpha version to people, even back then they knew they can't make any mistakes with their biggest games. I was at this preview event and this is pretty much how it went. They put us in a very small scenario (invade poland) and it was some great visuals and promising concepts but the systems clearly weren't working as intended with Dan Lind and another developer, who I regret I cannot remember the name of, being quite enthusiastic about the parts that worked and doing small frowns about the bits that didn't. Lo and behold a few months later at E3 they publicly delay it to mid-2016. Ironically I almost immediately afterward had hands-on with a really impressive near-final build of Cities Skylines. Stairmaster posted:wasn't that before they were publicly traded Yes
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Apr 22, 2024 00:35
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JonBolds posted:I was at this preview event and this is pretty much how it went. Oh hey, it's you. I remember this story from Three Moves Ahead episode, I think. soviet elsa posted:Macedonia erasure. It really is a problem even for TW where the lost of playable factions is limited and each one gets special treatment with VA, art and gameplay. People don't want to play as Pontus. Lately they switched to character-focused factions but it limits the scope a lot and I'm not sure how well it works outside of adaptations of character-focused novels like Three Kingdoms and Troy.
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Apr 22, 2024 08:02
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Stairmaster posted:wasn't that before they were publicly traded The majority shareholders of Paradox post-IPO are the same people as before the IPO.
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Apr 22, 2024 18:34
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