|
It is very worth it to build trade buildings, especially in competitive nodes where you want to direct as much trade as you can towards you, such as the Caribbean. Fully building up your trade buildings in those nodes will give you an almost ridiculous advantage.
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 09:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 10:50 |
|
|
YF-23 posted:It is very worth it to build trade buildings, especially in competitive nodes where you want to direct as much trade as you can towards you, such as the Caribbean. Fully building up your trade buildings in those nodes will give you an almost ridiculous advantage. Caribbean, Ivory Coast and Horn of Africa are the three critical hinges for the Atlantic-coast European majors, I think. Dominate those three and find some way to deal with Swahili and Kongo and you can control pretty much the entire flow of trade from Asia and the New World.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 10:21
|
|
|
 I managed to form Mega-Germany in my first Victoria 2 game since EU4 came out. Thank you to whoever taught me the trick: Fully occupy all of Austria's provinces, wait for it to drop out of Great Power status, then add the Add to Sphere wargoal within the same war. AHD's ticking warscore mechanic actually makes this even easier because to win the Franco-Prussian War all you have to do is to march big stacks into the 3 key Elsass-Lothringen provinces, let the French march into the Ruhr and points east, and pick off their armies one by one as they split them into sub-10k stacks - ticking warscore + battles won warscore will be enough to force the French to peace. I even managed to get Luxembourg by adding them to my sphere before forming Germany.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 10:34
|
|
|
I love Victoria 2. It's certainly not perfect but it's just such a great time to encapsulate in a game with all the technology change and the opportunities for smaller nations to still become something since they aren't locked in like in HoI. Just had WW2 (in 1924: Liberation of Serbia) and pretty much won the western front by myself with the Dutch by breaking the back of the British army in the three month battle of Dutch Wallonia. Gas attacks, armor battles, airplanes... it had it all. 200,000 men on each side with the British finally going down giving our side +25 war score just from that battle. The +10% I got from catching the French navy in the Straights of Dover pretty much ended the war. Although Germany will take most of the credit for occupying a lot of France, I really think I played a bigger part in it. Germany and Holland really whooped the rear end of France and England. What a great game.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 11:09
|
|
|
Can someone give me a summary on darkest hour and kaisserreich, like why is darkest hour considered the best hearts of iron game, how does it handle ww1 start dates etc. I've read the op but I'd like to hear from a goon or two about how it plays and what I can expect.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 11:53
|
|
|
maev posted:Can someone give me a summary on darkest hour and kaisserreich, like why is darkest hour considered the best hearts of iron game, how does it handle ww1 start dates etc. I've read the op but I'd like to hear from a goon or two about how it plays and what I can expect. Darkest Hour is the only game that comes with a WWI scenario and has a very nice map designed to accommodate it. Hearts of Iron 2, even with expansions, doesn't have most of the "quality of life" features Darkest Hour has, like automated trade and decisions. Arsenal of Democracy adds stuff like national ideas and other mechanics- it goes in a very different direction than DH and doesn't have Kaiserreich. Same with Hearts of Iron 3, but I'll let others tear into it. Kaiserreich, on top of being the best alt history scenario ever, has more stuff to do for most countries, so you don't have to play a major military and industrial power for an interesting experience.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 15:26
|
|
|
The first post also has a link to the best goon mod, Hegemonia, a Hohenzollern alternate history.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 15:28
|
|
|
It probably won't ever happen, but I think a cool idea for a Paradox game could be a timespan covering the dawn of civilization. You'd build your society literally from scratch, utterly rewriting history. I don't know what a good end date would be, though, maybe the rise of the Roman Republic? That would be a hell of a long time span, but it could be interesting.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 20:00
|
|
|
DStecks posted:It probably won't ever happen, but I think a cool idea for a Paradox game could be a timespan covering the dawn of civilization. You'd build your society literally from scratch, utterly rewriting history. I don't know what a good end date would be, though, maybe the rise of the Roman Republic? That would be a hell of a long time span, but it could be interesting. It'd never work, though, because of how many different mechanics it would require.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 20:11
|
|
|
Wolfgang Pauli posted:I think it could work if Paradox put some thought into it. All of their grand strategy games are about changing paradigms: CK2 is about the transition from Medieval to Renaissance, EU3 is Renaissance to Industrialization, and Vicky 2 is the early Industrial Revolution to 20th century modernity. For something spanning so broad a period, Paradox might have to make it more obvious. I'm not sure if this could even have an end date. Maybe industrialization, since that's the one big marker independent of our own cultures and history that signifies that big a change. I'm not talking about an all-of-history game, Paradox have said they'll never do it, I'm strictly speaking of early history. And if you're looking for a transition, you could go with the transition from nomadic living to the agricultural revolution to city dwelling.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 20:17
|
|
|
An early civilization Paradox game would make it a lot easier to make my Mega-Campaign LP instead of waiting for modders to release a stable CKII mod.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 20:30
|
|
|
JGBeagle posted:An early civilization Paradox game would make it a lot easier to make my Mega-Campaign LP instead of waiting for modders to release a stable CKII mod.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 20:44
|
|
|
NihilCredo posted:If you're using a CK2 mod to play the rise of civilization you might as well play Age of Empires for as much relationship as it's going to have to history. Representing Muslims and Norsemen through feudalism is already a big stretch, putting hereditary counts and dukes in every ancient civilization is pretty much fantasy. Don't be such a buzzkill, jeez. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 20:52
|
|
|
DStecks posted:I'm not talking about an all-of-history game, Paradox have said they'll never do it, I'm strictly speaking of early history. And if you're looking for a transition, you could go with the transition from nomadic living to the agricultural revolution to city dwelling. For an early history game, how about starting in 612 BCE with the sacking of Nineveh? Assyria starts out at war with the anti-Assyrian coalition of Babylon, the Medes, etc. Many of the Greek states exist, albeit in unrecognizable forms (the Pisistratid Dynasty hadn't even taken power in Athens yet). Lydia's around, as is Judah as an Assyrian vassal and the pathetic 26th dynasty Egypt (last of the native dynasties). If you want to include the legendary Roman Kings, Tarquinius Priscus, 5th of them, is on the throne in Rome (basically an OPM in Rome proper). If you want to move it up to the legendary founding of the Roman Republic in 509, then... Brutus and Capitolinus are consuls (with a DHE for the attempt by Brutus' sons to make themselves kings). If we're going EU Rome or CK2 style, there are characters like the future Coriolanus at schoolboy age populating the city. Tarquinius Superbus is in exile in Etruria begging the Etruscans to impose him back on the throne of Rome as a puppet. Rome can blob into the neighboring Latin minors, but eventually is going to have to face down the Etruscans to their north and the Greek colonies to their south. The Carthaginian Republic has already established independent power in parts of north Africa and has a foothold on Sicily and Sardinia, in the former of which it faces rival Greek city-states, especially Syracuse. Persia rules all of the Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Anatolia as mostly self-governing vassals. We're ten years before the massive revolt of the Ionian city-states, financially backed by their cousins on the Greek mainland. Persia is the unchallenged superpower and most of their subject people are happy about keeping their own local rules and customs. Hippias, Tyrant of Athens, was overthrown in 510 BCE, the year before game start, and is residing in the Persian court, hoping for the Persians to reinstall him on the Athenian throne. Meanwhile, Cliesthenes is reforming the Athenian system to establish that famed dysfunctional "democracy" we all know and are conflicted about. Zerubabel is the Jewish governor of Judea for the Persians, Ezra and Nehemiah are not yet born though they'd pop up in DHEs shortly into the game (their careers taking place in the 450s BCE). Patter Song fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Sep 22, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 20:56
|
|
|
Wolfgang Pauli posted:I think it could work if Paradox put some thought into it. All of their grand strategy games are about changing paradigms: CK2 is about the transition from Medieval to Renaissance, EU3 is Renaissance to Industrialization, and Vicky 2 is the early Industrial Revolution to 20th century modernity. For something spanning so broad a period, Paradox might have to make it more obvious. I'm not sure if this could even have an end date. Maybe industrialization, since that's the one big marker independent of our own cultures and history that signifies that big a change. Are Paradox games really about changing paradigms, or is it just a coincidence that the last thousand-odd years of history, which Paradox happens to cover and which we have way more information on and are closest to, are about changing paradigms? CK2 in particular doesn't really feel hugely different from one end of the game to the other, especially if you don't have the retinue DLC installed. Also, I personally find the idea of a game covering the dawn of civilization to be fascinating, but I don't know if Paradox is the right company to take it on, exactly. I kinda feel that a game covering that period really needs to have an emotional punch - that it needs to convey the sense of people realizing that they're making something new and incredible and exciting and glorious, the fact that "Holy poo poo you guys have any of you heard of buildings so large? Of so many people in one place? Of such wonderful things our people are producing? THIS IS GODDAMN AMAZING." There's also the fact that everything is new to everyone - they aren't sure of any principles of leadership (over that many people, that is) or military tactics or economic management so early on they'd be making all sorts of crazy, wild-rear end guesses and theories based on all sorts of things, good and bad, right or wrong because they don't know any better. I don't know if a mapgame can convey all of that properly. That's just my own feeling, though. It might still be possible to make a decent mapgame about early civilization without seriously touching on that kind of thing, but I probably wouldn't like it as much.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 21:09
|
|
|
CK2 does represent changing paradigms albeit it's a bit more low key. As time goes on you get a higher cap on how many provinces you can directly own, and higher relationship with nobility. This indirectly causes a similarity to the consolidation of power by european kings near the end of the medieval era to the beginning of the age of exploration.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 21:30
|
|
|
Patter Song posted:[snip] That era would be brilliant for a game in principle, I'm just not sure Paradox would be up to the task of executing it properly. Anything pre-Roman Empire is pretty much going to be a chronological ROTW as far as the need for specialised historical knowledge goes, and a lot of the mechanisms in their major games can't really be comfortably transposed to that period in any straightforward way. Even fundamentally the basic grand strategy paradigm of fixed territorial provinces changing hands in a definite orderly way would need a long hard look (which they started in EU Rome I guess but not to any really appreciable extent).
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 21:38
|
|
|
Tomn posted:Are Paradox games really about changing paradigms, or is it just a coincidence that the last thousand-odd years of history, which Paradox happens to cover and which we have way more information on and are closest to, are about changing paradigms? CK2 in particular doesn't really feel hugely different from one end of the game to the other, especially if you don't have the retinue DLC installed. quote:Also, I personally find the idea of a game covering the dawn of civilization to be fascinating, but I don't know if Paradox is the right company to take it on, exactly. I kinda feel that a game covering that period really needs to have an emotional punch - that it needs to convey the sense of people realizing that they're making something new and incredible and exciting and glorious, the fact that "Holy poo poo you guys have any of you heard of buildings so large? Of so many people in one place? Of such wonderful things our people are producing? THIS IS GODDAMN AMAZING." There's also the fact that everything is new to everyone - they aren't sure of any principles of leadership (over that many people, that is) or military tactics or economic management so early on they'd be making all sorts of crazy, wild-rear end guesses and theories based on all sorts of things, good and bad, right or wrong because they don't know any better. I don't know if a mapgame can convey all of that properly. Zohar posted:That era would be brilliant for a game in principle, I'm just not sure Paradox would be up to the task of executing it properly. Anything pre-Roman Empire is pretty much going to be a chronological ROTW as far as the need for specialised historical knowledge goes, and a lot of the mechanisms in their major games can't really be comfortably transposed to that period in any straightforward way. Even fundamentally the basic grand strategy paradigm of fixed territorial provinces changing hands in a definite orderly way would need a long hard look (which they started in EU Rome I guess but not to any really appreciable extent).
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 22:20
|
|
|
Honestly, if Paradox aren't building on the successes of CK2 and (most likely) EU4 by sprucing up Vicky and HoI then I don't know what they're doing.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 22:43
|
|
|
Wolfgang Pauli posted:Paradox can't handle nomads and migrations. If they haven't figured it out after The Old Gods and EU4, they never will. They openly recognized it to be a big challenge before these games and didn't do anything to solve it. Oh god, I'd forgotten the clusterfuck horde mechanics from DW. The same applies in spades to late antiquity as well so I doubt we'll get to see a (good) game for either period from them 
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 23:18
|
|
|
Wolfgang Pauli posted:It's the retinues that make all the difference. They model the transition from levies to a standing army. EU4 is about taking that kind of still-mostly-medieval army and giving it cannons and guns and building factories and robbing most of the world for personal gain. Vicky 2 is about leveraging those markets into economic powerhouses by building factroys. The game may not feel radically different, but place an end of the game economy and army against a beginning of the game one. Napoleonic units and artillery vs knights and medieval footmen. Spear levies vs. cataphracts and heavy infantry. Tanks and planes and poison gas vs musketeers and smooth-bore cannons. I don't think they were specifically designed to showcase these changes, but the periods can't be modeled without representing these changes. I should point out that by the time EU4 starts up, the transition to standing armies is nowhere near complete. Peasant levies are on the decline, but armies at least in Europe are still being run on the 'feudal' basis that's modeled reasonably well by CK2. What happened around game start is that levies start giving way to small levies of relative professionals, heavily augmented with mercenaries. Standing armies aren't really a thing until ~1600.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 23:47
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
So, what does everyone think of March of the Eagles? Pretty much my only exposure to it was seeing it used to model the wars between EU3 and Vicky 2 in Wiz's Azeri LP. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 23:50
|
|
|
Why the gently caress is Hungary in west slavic culture group?
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 23:56
|
|
|
PittTheElder posted:I should point out that by the time EU4 starts up, the transition to standing armies is nowhere near complete. Peasant levies are on the decline, but armies at least in Europe are still being run on the 'feudal' basis that's modeled reasonably well by CK2. What happened around game start is that levies start giving way to small levies of relative professionals, heavily augmented with mercenaries.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 23:56
|
|
|
Lichtenstein posted:Why the gently caress is Hungary in west slavic culture group? The same reason there's a 'Turko-Semitic' culture group, I expect. Rincewind posted:So, what does everyone think of March of the Eagles? Pretty much my only exposure to it was seeing it used to model the wars between EU3 and Vicky 2 in Wiz's Azeri LP. It seems to only really come into its own in multiplayer, and as a niche strategy game, it's really hard to find people to play it with! Also, the British are both terrible at landing expeditions *and* infuriatingly invincible at sea. Even more so than historically, I guess. PleasingFungus fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Sep 23, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2013 23:58
|
|
|
Lichtenstein posted:Why the gently caress is Hungary in west slavic culture group? Because culture group isn't "linguistic" group and Hungary has a lot more in common with its steady early modern BFF Poland than it does with the Finns in the EU4 period?
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 00:02
|
|
|
PittTheElder posted:Standing armies aren't really a thing until ~1600. Really, I wouldn't mind if it was possible to purchase complete mercenary armies, similar to how you can hire them in CK2, instead of buying separate mercenary regiments. You could even have it so they actually had to travel from wherever they were based, so you wouldn't be able to just instantly summon a new army. Even better if these mercenary armies came with their own leaders which didn't count against your limit. That might actually be a way to model the transition to more national armies, by having the mercenary armies with free leaders adding a lot of umph in the early game before you unlock additional leader slots. Hell, they could even make is so mercenaries were sometimes ahead in tech, making them more competitive than your national forces. Patter Song posted:Because culture group isn't "linguistic" group and Hungary has a lot more in common with its steady early modern BFF Poland than it does with the Finns in the EU4 period?
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 00:18
|
|
|
Patter Song posted:Because culture group isn't "linguistic" group and Hungary has a lot more in common with its steady early modern BFF Poland than it does with the Finns in the EU4 period? Somebody should make an "ultra-realistic" mod with an "Altao-Ugric" culture group that covers everything in a massive arc from Japan, up through the steppes and down to Constantinople.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 00:19
|
|
|
Defeatist Elitist posted:Somebody should make an "ultra-realistic" mod with an "Altao-Ugric" culture group that covers everything in a massive arc from Japan, up through the steppes and down to Constantinople. Indo-European is now one of our accepted cultures!
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 00:26
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:Indo-European is now one of our accepted cultures! Cue everybody culture converting Basque provinces since they are now never accepted. The Basque genocide mod.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 00:34
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:Indo-European is now one of our accepted cultures!
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 00:37
|
|
|
Papua New Guinea now has twenty times the number of provinces to better represent the ~850 languages divided into 60-odd linguistic families on the island.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 00:53
|
|
|
PleasingFungus posted:The same reason there's a 'Turko-Semitic' culture group, I expect. Ah, it's too bad it's hard to find people to play with-- I've always wanted to try a multiplayer Paradox game, but I don't really want to coordinate one as incredibly long as an EU4 or CK2 campaign would be, so the narrower focus of MOTE sounded kind of neat.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 02:41
|
|
|
Spiderfist Island posted:Papua New Guinea now has twenty times the number of provinces to better represent the ~850 languages divided into 60-odd linguistic families on the island. Dammit, you're making me want to play a Papua New Guinea game. The ultimate painting simulator.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 07:14
|
|
|
On the subject of national standing armies, I always found it amusing that cortez's expedition to mexico had a ton of italians, portugese, geonese and an African(!) in it. Reading books like Henry Kamen's 'Spain's road to empire' really highlights how much of a factor mercenaries were in 'national armies', and indeed the massive limitations on the state at every level until the 19th century. I thought CK2's model was an excellent reflection on levies, vassals, and the nature of state power in the period. Realistically this should heavily impact the time period of Eu4 too, though how this would be done and if it'd be fun at all is a different question. maev fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Sep 23, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 07:25
|
|
|
I've been thinking that, just like you get supply multipliers as you tech, you could get force limit bonuses from techs. Then make mercs not count towards the force limit. This makes the admin group really great, and I'm ok with that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 07:37
|
|
|
Kavak posted:Darkest Hour is the only game that comes with a WWI scenario and has a very nice map designed to accommodate it. Hearts of Iron 2, even with expansions, doesn't have most of the "quality of life" features Darkest Hour has, like automated trade and decisions. Arsenal of Democracy adds stuff like national ideas and other mechanics- it goes in a very different direction than DH and doesn't have Kaiserreich. Same with Hearts of Iron 3, but I'll let others tear into it. Does Darkest Hour have spacebar pause? Because that (along with most of them looking ugly as poo poo) is my main issue with Europa engine games.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 13:58
|
|
|
ChrisAsmadi posted:Does Darkest Hour have spacebar pause? Because that (along with most of them looking ugly as poo poo) is my main issue with Europa engine games. You can define it in a config file, but it's not set as default, I think.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 17:29
|
|
|
maev posted:Can someone give me a summary on darkest hour and kaisserreich, like why is darkest hour considered the best hearts of iron game, how does it handle ww1 start dates etc. I've read the op but I'd like to hear from a goon or two about how it plays and what I can expect. Darkest Hour is the best Hearts of Iron game because it's completely modular: If you ever wanted to play just the original, Paradox-developed Hearts of Iron 2 with the Doomsday and Armageddon expansions, you can do that completely seamlessly. Or you can add in classic HOI2, but with DH's interface improvements and faster processing speed (DH Light). Or you can go for the new developers' own map and mechanics changes (DH Full), or you can go with the large number of available mods, including Kaiserreich. It's the best HOI game because it's very playable without being overwhelming nor tedious. Balance issues are there, but at least Europe is small enough that you'll actually play the game long enough to experience the balance issues. For WWI scenarios, it starts off in Aug 1914 and the Great War is generally railroaded to trigger along historical lines, with perhaps a small percentage chance of the AI taking a different decision and changing history right off the bat. There's unfortunately no direct link between WWI and WWII, but I believe there are mods that are trying to model post-war reconstruction, the interwar gap, and the reigniting of WWII between whoever's left, no small feat even if you only ever expected a historical outcome for WWI, much less accounting for alt-history. Kaisserreich is hailed as a great mod because it's alt-history, and more importantly a fairly complete alt-history. All of the major players are fleshed out with dozens of event chains that will let the player go towards multiple directions. As well, the scenario feels very much like it was designed around being a game: Most large nations have been broken up into smaller states, or are bordering similarly large and powerful states so that fights tend to be closer/fairer - and even if you do manage to beat France as Germany, by that time the rest of the Syndicalist nations across the globe might have won their own regional conflicts so you still have a large alliance to contend with anyway. As well, the game structures conflicts so that there's never too much a long build-up period - the United States doesn't have to wait from 1936 to 1941 just to get in on the action when it has to deal with a civil war before the 40s, and such similar set-ups for everyone else. ChrisAsmadi posted:Does Darkest Hour have spacebar pause? Because that (along with most of them looking ugly as poo poo) is my main issue with Europa engine games. Yes, it does. Kaiserreich has it assigned as a keybind naturally within the mod configuration, and then it can be easily enabled by a player in any other case.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 17:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 10:50 |
|
|
Omelette du Fromage posted:I've been thinking that, just like you get supply multipliers as you tech, you could get force limit bonuses from techs. Then make mercs not count towards the force limit. This makes the admin group really great, and I'm ok with that. Indeed, your mercs really shouldn't count against your forcelimits. It doesn't make sense that your regular troops get exponentially more expensive because you hired a bunch of mercenaries.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2013 18:51
|
|