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Paradox games have never and will never be History Sims for Smart Historians so can we just get fun mechanics?
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Mar 31, 2019 02:44
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i enjoy paradox games but I also very much wantEdgar Allen Ho posted:History Sims for Smart Historians
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Mar 31, 2019 03:27
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wukkar posted:groogy please buy Stronghold thanks.
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Mar 31, 2019 03:37
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Paradox games have never and will never be History Sims for Smart Historians so can we just get fun mechanics? Supply limit is a good mechanic and so is the disloyal general mechanic
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Mar 31, 2019 04:24
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Unpopular Opinion Time: The player shouldn't be responsible for micromanaging the armies anyway, those should be a result of your government, your POPs, and your military doctrine. Disloyal generals thus become a huge systemic problem you need to work towards resolving, rather than something you just micro away from being a thing. Don't @ me.
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Mar 31, 2019 05:23
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Beamed posted:Unpopular Opinion Time: The player shouldn't be responsible for micromanaging the armies anyway, those should be a result of your government, your POPs, and your military doctrine. Disloyal generals thus become a huge systemic problem you need to work towards resolving, rather than something you just micro away from being a thing. Don't @ me. This would be a fun mechanic, that happens to coincide with the dream of History Sim. A good mechanic.
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Mar 31, 2019 05:29
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Beamed posted:Unpopular Opinion Time: The player shouldn't be responsible for micromanaging the armies anyway, those should be a result of your government, your POPs, and your military doctrine. Disloyal generals thus become a huge systemic problem you need to work towards resolving, rather than something you just micro away from being a thing. Don't @ me. BROTHER! Agean90 posted:unironically remove units as discrete objects you order around the map and replace it with fronts you just put manpower into whih then generate descriptions of whats going on based on dice rolls and tech bonuses
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Mar 31, 2019 05:30
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Beamed posted:Unpopular Opinion Time: The player shouldn't be responsible for micromanaging the armies anyway, those should be a result of your government, your POPs, and your military doctrine. Disloyal generals thus become a huge systemic problem you need to work towards resolving, rather than something you just micro away from being a thing. Don't @ me.
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Mar 31, 2019 05:34
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yea but if you do away with that you vastly start to run out of actual gameplay unfortunately paradox makes grand strategy games and the whole conquest thing is their billing point, not a design flaw
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Mar 31, 2019 05:37
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Gamerofthegame posted:yea but if you do away with that you vastly start to run out of actual gameplay While I disagree that conquest is the billing point of every Paradox game, I think the point is moot, since nowhere did I argue "get rid of conquest".
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Mar 31, 2019 05:44
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Gamerofthegame posted:yea but if you do away with that you vastly start to run out of actual gameplay theres plenty of conquest, its just that instead of clickling dudes around a map and hoping you dont get out micro'd by the computer you focus on high level planning and staffing, plus broad responses to failures at those. it would also help the game run faster since it doesn't need to calculate the pathing of a 100000 ai armies.
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Mar 31, 2019 05:47
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Beamed posted:Unpopular Opinion Time: The player shouldn't be responsible for micromanaging the armies anyway, those should be a result of your government, your POPs, and your military doctrine. Disloyal generals thus become a huge systemic problem you need to work towards resolving, rather than something you just micro away from being a thing. Don't @ me. God this sounds dope as poo poo honestly. I generally view war in Paradox games as a distraction from imagineering weird societies and historical scenarios and this would actually make it A. part of that process and B. interesting to me.
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Mar 31, 2019 06:08
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There's this lovely Paradox knockoff called "Realpolitiks" that does have one kernel of a good idea in its war system. Armies don't exist on the map, they're recruited into a pool of units that you then assign to fronts during wars and who's winning that front resolves as units kill each other off-map based on tech and army composition and the tactic/strategy you select for them etc. It's obviously not up to Paradox standards and would need work but it's the one thing that's stuck with me as a good idea from that game. I don't want to play a grand strategy game pushing counters around on a map (unless it's HoI anyways), that's what war games are for. I want to just say "deploy the Third Legion to the Gallic Front" and then watch the strategic situation unfold as my military does its thing, not micro the tactical details of which exact province to move my magical 150k man single cohesive doomblob into.
Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Mar 31, 2019 |
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Mar 31, 2019 06:15
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Was it realistically possible for Ancient Romans to just split up armies under innumerable generals just to avoid any one of them getting too much power? It's not like a general's influence would be limited to just the men they commanded personally. I thought there tended to be more centralized control of armies during wars, or even assigned control of an army to the local governor of where they were stationed. Getting appointed as a commander by the senate was a big deal, and I don't think they could just churn out 11 of them to keep power distributed throughout a region.Beamed posted:Unpopular Opinion Time: The player shouldn't be responsible for micromanaging the armies anyway, those should be a result of your government, your POPs, and your military doctrine. Disloyal generals thus become a huge systemic problem you need to work towards resolving, rather than something you just micro away from being a thing. Don't @ me. @  I have been thinking lately that I'd maybe like some kind of game with just the strategic side of things instead of the full tactical rigamarole. Like I was playing Xcom and kept getting into the basebuilding, resource allocation, and research planning, and when a mission popped up I started to dread it because of how anxious combat could be. But maybe that's scars from the Long War mod talking. More like dense war. But Paradox wants to do both the empire-building and give the experience of a bold commander making tactical decisions instead of a manager of commanders.
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Mar 31, 2019 06:38
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I agree that getting rid of annoying troop micromanagement would be great, but honestly I think a big thing about map games is that people just like seeing all their little counters moving around.
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Mar 31, 2019 06:43
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Given the popularity of vassal swarms, I think people genuinely might enjoy only having control of one particularly large counter while the rest are under AI control.
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Mar 31, 2019 06:55
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I like counter moving games and paradox games. They are different kinds of games. Putting counter moving directly into ai hands, even for player nations, would make paradox games a lot more fun and be much more true to “grand strategy.” If I wanted balance or MP I would never, never, ever nominate a paradox game even as a fifth choice. There are so many games that own them 20x over in that department. But what they do, they do well. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Mar 31, 2019 |
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Mar 31, 2019 07:05
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Aside from CK, Paradox games are wargames first and foremost. Conquest has always been the main point. If you want to do something else, cool, that's respectable, but that's also not what these games are. I'm falling asleep just thinking about these heavily abstracted combat systems.
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Mar 31, 2019 11:32
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Who plays Vicky 2 as a wargame?
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Mar 31, 2019 11:53
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Who plays Vicky 2 as a wargame? The scramble for Africa in Vic 2 can give you an idea of what a hands off wargame could look like (and why it might not be very interesting).
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Mar 31, 2019 11:55
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Aside from CK, Paradox games are wargames first and foremost. Conquest has always been the main point. If you want to do something else, cool, that's respectable, but that's also not what these games are. I'm falling asleep just thinking about these heavily abstracted combat systems. They're poo poo wargames though.
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Mar 31, 2019 11:57
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Beamed posted:Unpopular Opinion Time: The player shouldn't be responsible for micromanaging the armies anyway, those should be a result of your government, your POPs, and your military doctrine. Disloyal generals thus become a huge systemic problem you need to work towards resolving, rather than something you just micro away from being a thing. Don't @ me. You can only communicate with generals via horse messengers that have to path from your capital to their (last known) location, except there's fog of war and also sometimes your messengers don't make it through which you only realise when your general ignores his orders, except he did get them and is rebelling
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Mar 31, 2019 12:00
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Obliterati posted:You can only communicate with generals via horse messengers that have to path from your capital to their (last known) location, except there's fog of war and also sometimes your messengers don't make it through which you only realise when your general ignores his orders, except he did get them and is rebelling This game sounds loving awesome, although I can't imagine how you'd ever make it playable.
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Mar 31, 2019 12:02
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CK2: a game that is played because of the war mechanics. All this trait crap and character bullshit gets in the way of owning with my retinue EU4: the war is fun, yup, what enjoyment I get from this is moving my units around the map to counter enemy units. That is the fun part. Can’t imagine anything else from this game! Especially if I couldn’t micro-own my enemies at countermoving Vic2: so much fun war, why else would anyone play this?? HoI4: literally all I want is to micro my panzer battalions. Who cares about these focus trees? Idiots is who! Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 12:27 on Mar 31, 2019 |
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Mar 31, 2019 12:21
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:CK2: a game that is played because of the war mechanics. All this trait crap and character bullshit gets in the way of owning with my retinue You're the only one melting down here.
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Mar 31, 2019 12:33
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Aside from CK, Paradox games are wargames first and foremost. Conquest has always been the main point. If you want to do something else, cool, that's respectable, but that's also not what these games are. I'm falling asleep just thinking about these heavily abstracted combat systems. Even CK2. Take out army management and players would be bored to death while waiting for marriages and plots I find the idea of taking army management very interesting, but as someone said above, thats still a good part of the gameplay on all (or most, never played vicky) paradox games. Something would have to take its place, and something fun
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Mar 31, 2019 12:53
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:CK2: a game that is played because of the war mechanics. All this trait crap and character bullshit gets in the way of owning with my retinue I literally said "aside from CK". Paradox has gone on record as saying they designed EU4 with the primary focus on warfare, and most of the other systems in the game are meant to support the warfare in one way or another. That's not to say it's impossible to have fun with the other systems in the absence of war. It's a complex toy and there's more than one way to have fun with it, but the main focus is on warfare, yes. This should not be a controversial statement. Same (or even more so) with HoI4. Vicky 2 is admittedly a stretch as well, though I'd argue a lot of time was spent trying to make the major nations clash with each other in epic, globe-spanning wars, and most of the game systems ultimately culminate in your ability to produce guns and arm soldiers while keeping your population happy (or alive).
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Mar 31, 2019 12:56
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Warfare sucks poo poo in every single game and regardless of what it they were designed around could be replaced with a straight up coin flip for who wins a given war to universal improvement.
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Mar 31, 2019 13:15
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:I literally said "aside from CK". Paradox has gone on record as saying they designed EU4 with the primary focus on warfare, and most of the other systems in the game are meant to support the warfare in one way or another. That's not to say it's impossible to have fun with the other systems in the absence of war. It's a complex toy and there's more than one way to have fun with it, but the main focus is on warfare, yes. This should not be a controversial statement. Same (or even more so) with HoI4. Vicky 2 is admittedly a stretch as well, though I'd argue a lot of time was spent trying to make the major nations clash with each other in epic, globe-spanning wars, and most of the game systems ultimately culminate in your ability to produce guns and arm soldiers while keeping your population happy (or alive). Victoria 2 started off trying to be something else, but almost literally everything about Heart of Darkness shifts the game to being about Great Power conflict. Which I think is appropriate. Victoria is a game trying to answer the question "How did we get from the fall of Napoleon and a glorious century of peace to the inevitability of WW1?"
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Mar 31, 2019 13:15
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Elias_Maluco posted:Even CK2. Take out army management and players would be bored to death while waiting for marriages and plots I still want a paradox city builder. Just layer up the character stuff with a historical city builder like Anno, or some historical pastiche of simcity, and see how it ends up.
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Mar 31, 2019 13:50
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Paradox games, even CK2, have their most dense gameplay in warfare and in moving armies around. In peacetime, all their games basically boil down to waiting, clicking an option on an event, then waiting some more. The other interactions you can have *are there*, but they are a lot less dense than warfare. Generally what the game asks you to do is set things up then wait on them. In CK2 you will set up bethrothals and marriages, change a character focus and so on, and then... you'll wait. There is no "follow-up" action to take after you do a thing. Contrast this with the war portion of the games, where you will want to be constantly exerting some form of control. Unless you've practically already won, or are implementing a strict defensive plan, you will always be moving armies around, reacting to enemy movements, progressing in offensives and so on. This is why when EU4 added estates, everyone was happy because finally, finally there's peace time mechanics! And then they were let down because it's another passive layer of ticking a box or pressing a button and then forgetting about it for half an hour. Edgar Allen Ho posted:HoI4: literally all I want is to micro my panzer battalions. Who cares about these focus trees? Idiots is who! And this is true, but I would argue also a design flaw. It's no coincidence that when automation mechanics were added in HoI3 people complained that the entire game was being automated away. Paradox has come a long way since then in finetuning and streamlining this kind of design, so it works a lot better now, but I am still of the belief that it is inherently flawed. And look, this isn't to say that Paradox games are bad. We wouldn't be here discussing them if we thought that. But criticising Paradox for failing to make the other aspects of their games as engaging as warfare is entirely valid.
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Mar 31, 2019 14:12
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reignonyourparade posted:They're poo poo wargames though. Yeah if they're supposed to be wargames they're utter poo poo wargames, not a single hex or TOE in sight. I'm not making a joke, they're terrible at being war games (except, obviously, for HoI which is passingly competent). They're very good, however, at being country management games. If I want to play a war game I will go play one of a dozen FAR superior wargames. So when I put down my copy of Decisive Campaigns or whatever, it's because I don't want to push counters around anymore and I'd prefer to fiddle with knobs and sliders and graphs and poo poo to manage the civilian side of a country instead. Tell me about grain harvests and tax rates and infrastructure and poo poo. Give me less war and more country to manage. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Mar 31, 2019 |
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Mar 31, 2019 14:24
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Paradox games are war games first and foremost yeah. Even CK2 which has the character system which has the most non focus on combat of any of the games.....still revolves around combat. You can say they are bad at it or whatever but conquest and war are the point of these games with everything else mostly serving as a way to war better.
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Mar 31, 2019 14:35
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To me, this seems like an utterly absurd discussion. Yes, army micro can be a pain, but you can usually win a war without carpet sieging every enemy province individually, and the combat system is complex enough to have to learn and become somewhat skilled at to succeed. The idea of letting the AI completely decide whether you win a war sounds frustrating especially compared to having complete control over what your units do in the first place. Warfare and military is just another one of the many things you have to pay attention to in EU4 and Vicky 2 (much less so in CK2 and much more so in HOI4) and I think it's one of the more vital aspects to keep any of these games interesting. Especially a game like EU4 where 95% of the time you're focused on expanding your borders.
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Mar 31, 2019 14:36
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There's definitely a certain amount of automation I wouldn't mind seeing added to EU4. Like if I'm playing Russia and moving a dozen armies around, it'd be good to have some AI assistance in splitting armies so they don't take attrition damage, and automating wars that are effective won except for the carpet-sieging portion.
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Mar 31, 2019 14:49
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Gort posted:There's definitely a certain amount of automation I wouldn't mind seeing added to EU4. Give us a "Disperse army" button for armies that tanks their morale but drops their supply weight to like half or something.
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Mar 31, 2019 15:06
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I want a game where I watch procedurally generated linguistic and architectural and fashion changes over millennia. My dudes happen to collect a bunch of seashells so they put it on their furniture as inlays and export those and eventually on half the map the word for seashell is in an archaic version of my language, shifted through generations of local linguistic churn. Also for some reason they are all wearing small boats as hats and one country over they are wearing horse statuettes as shoes. And I'm watching this local populist sweep into power and build a coliseum and 500 years later the building houses the parliament. I admittedly have no idea what the actual player's job would be in this.
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Mar 31, 2019 16:17
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aphid_licker posted:I want a game where I watch procedurally generated linguistic and architectural and fashion changes over millennia. My dudes happen to collect a bunch of seashells so they put it on their furniture as inlays and export those and eventually on half the map the word for seashell is in an archaic version of my language, shifted through generations of local linguistic churn. Also for some reason they are all wearing small boats as hats and one country over they are wearing horse statuettes as shoes. And I'm watching this local populist sweep into power and build a coliseum and 500 years later the building houses the parliament. I admittedly have no idea what the actual player's job would be in this. Ideally everything would be automated, no need to play
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Mar 31, 2019 16:18
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At least 50% of the complaining and suggestions in paradox threads is from people with thousands of hours of playtime who mistake their own boredom for systemic flaws. This is not to say they are perfect games, obviously, but when you're seriously arguing for the total abstraction of warfare you might be better off sinking time into rad city builders like anno and banished, or proc gen sims like rimworld ir dwarf fortress, or supply chainers like factorio
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Mar 31, 2019 17:36
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Fuligin posted:At least 50% of the complaining and suggestions in paradox threads is from people with thousands of hours of playtime who mistake their own boredom for systemic flaws. This is not to say they are perfect games, obviously, but when you're seriously arguing for the total abstraction of warfare you might be better off sinking time into rad city builders like anno and banished, or proc gen sims like rimworld ir dwarf fortress, or supply chainers like factorio Jokes on you. I already am 
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Mar 31, 2019 17:44
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