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Seems like the go-to strategy in that game would just have been "be China, rush to modernize and unlock Industrial Technology, use your vast army of artisans to take everyone's money". Of course, in Victoria 2, "Be China" is kind of a winning strategy no matter what the circumstances.
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Mar 7, 2020 01:29
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China in V1 was really fun, and I remember modernizing in the VIP mod taking real effort. I honestly don't remember V2.
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Mar 7, 2020 02:30
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That game also featured the smallest, saddest CSA ever, apparently accomplished by extending slavery to every new state I created.
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Mar 7, 2020 17:55
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We keep having fucky American Civil Wars over in map goons, considering my last USA game didn't have one.
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Mar 7, 2020 18:15
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The Cheshire Cat posted:Of course, in Victoria 2, "Be China" is kind of a winning strategy no matter what the circumstances. Yup. https://lparchive.org/Victoria-II/Update%2017/
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Mar 7, 2020 21:11
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Raskolnikov38 posted:“don’t worry everyone, this time will be the time that finance capitalism doesn’t gently caress up everything!” I’m a bit curious about this line of reasoning. Subscriptions are good for companies because they are predictable. Source: I’ve been a senior exec at a software company. We used to push our sales team to sell subs more than one offs because although the one offs were more profitable, predictability was a lot more important for planning. This should be intuitively obvious but: if you know how much money is coming in next quarter, you will have fewer layoffs. Capitalism as a system may suck, but it’s annoying when people don’t understand how it actually works. I don’t really see a problem with the subscription model for games like EU4, where the incentive is just to iterate constantly. Koei should have done the same instead of releasing lovely new editions of 3 Kingdoms in a world where CA has already done it better.
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Mar 8, 2020 01:34
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Beefeater1980 posted:I’m a bit curious about this line of reasoning. Subscriptions are good for companies because they are predictable. Source: I’ve been a senior exec at a software company. We used to push our sales team to sell subs more than one offs because although the one offs were more profitable, predictability was a lot more important for planning. because it will cost more for no benefit. and thats nonsense, companies will routinely do layoffs even in extremely profitable years, because its profitable to do layoffs. thats why they do them.
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Mar 8, 2020 01:45
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Beefeater1980 posted:I’m a bit curious about this line of reasoning. Subscriptions are good for companies because they are predictable. Source: I’ve been a senior exec at a software company. We used to push our sales team to sell subs more than one offs because although the one offs were more profitable, predictability was a lot more important for planning. "gently caress it up" I am not sure that you and Raskolnikov have the same definitions for that phrase, but cheers for intelligently increasing quarterly earnings my bigbrained friend
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Mar 8, 2020 01:46
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Beefeater1980 posted:Capitalism as a system may suck, but it’s annoying when people don’t understand how it actually works. Consider that we do know exactly how it works, and that are instead unhappy with how it works.
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Mar 8, 2020 01:50
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Beefeater1980 posted:
Have you actually played Koei's 3K games? None of them are actually like TW3K. Also subscriptions are bad for single-player games, hope that helps.
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Mar 8, 2020 01:55
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Airspace posted:Have you actually played Koei's 3K games? the newest one is pretty much nation-sim with agents only instead of the usual pseudo-RPG, it's very in line and also trash
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Mar 8, 2020 02:24
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Subscriptions are not necessarily bad for singleplayer games. It's just a case of implementation. If it was literally just the games Paradox have up on the Xbox Game Pass, but with all the DLC, it'd still be a good deal. Especially if they match that pricepoint. Also, if it's a gateway to letting people try the full experience without having to pay the bigass one time cost per game? Heck yeah. Airspace posted:Have you actually played Koei's 3K games? The RoTK series is baffling. It's more like they have a couple sub-series that they keep pumping out, the Officer and the Nation style games, and they always shake up maybe one or two different things each release just to see what sticks. Then they charge full price for an expansion that brings in everything that stuck from previous releases.
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Mar 8, 2020 02:33
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Subscriptions are not necessarily bad for singleplayer games. It's just a case of implementation. If it was literally just the games Paradox have up on the Xbox Game Pass, but with all the DLC, it'd still be a good deal. Especially if they match that pricepoint. that problem is entirely artificially created though lol like, putting mechanics inside dlc and then never rolling things up is a concious choice and changing either would fix the issue. the sub is fixing an issue thats there by design so they can sell a sub to fix it.
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Mar 8, 2020 02:36
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Stux posted:the sub is fixing an issue thats there by design so they can sell a sub to fix it. bingo. the obstacles to jumping into EU4 didn't fall from the sky or grow out of the ground. paradox designed things that way to sell DLC.
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Mar 8, 2020 02:38
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Airspace posted:Have you actually played Koei's 3K games? I’ve played all of them from 4 onwards. They are: (a) wildly different from TW3K, because they are primarily relationship simulators with a tacked on strategic element; (b) wildly similar to each other; and (c) several years behind any randomly selected indie studio in terms of quality, which is ironic because Japan is in general pretty hot on attention to detail.
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Mar 8, 2020 02:50
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Subscriptions are not necessarily bad for singleplayer games. It's just a case of implementation. If it was literally just the games Paradox have up on the Xbox Game Pass, but with all the DLC, it'd still be a good deal. Especially if they match that pricepoint. Which subscription for singleplayer games has not been bad.
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Mar 8, 2020 02:57
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reignonyourparade posted:Which subscription for singleplayer games has not been bad. The Xbox Game Pass? Origin Access Basic isn't bad either, if those games are your cup of tea.
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Mar 8, 2020 03:00
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I'll admit everything I've read about the theoretical EU sub has been 'only the sub from here on out' so if they do it and go the Xbox Game Pass (I can buy the expansions OR sub) then that's fine with me. I just spread my Paradox game-playing across time so I don't want to go 'oh, I want to play EU this month, I have to pay 15 dollars', which is what it sounds like to me.
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Mar 8, 2020 03:03
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:The Xbox Game Pass? Origin Access Basic isn't bad either, if those games are your cup of tea. The key is basically pricing. Those are like what, 10-15$ a month for a TON of games. While the EU pass seems to be 10$ a month for just EU4. Which is not great.
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Mar 8, 2020 03:11
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:The Xbox Game Pass? Origin Access Basic isn't bad either, if those games are your cup of tea. the right answer was humble monthly which just gives you game keys and you keep everything
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Mar 8, 2020 03:11
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Beefeater1980 posted:This should be intuitively obvious but: if you know how much money is coming in next quarter, you will have fewer layoffs. We've seen game development companies enact layoffs regardless of the success of their games. Layoffs are only relevant to income if it's the difference between the company going under or not, and sometimes not even then, but the logic of profit maximization is that you engage in the layoffs anyway, because if you cut labor costs to a minimum, management gets to keep more of the take.
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Mar 8, 2020 04:21
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gradenko_2000 posted:We've seen game development companies enact layoffs regardless of the success of their games. I'm sure the "senior exec" knows this and has first hand experience with it iykwim
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Mar 8, 2020 05:37
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:The Xbox Game Pass? Origin Access Basic isn't bad either, if those games are your cup of tea. Both of those give you access to dozens if not hundreds games. So it's hardly a subscription to a singleplayer game and rather a subscription to the store. With EU4 we're talking about buying a game and subscribing to its DLCs.
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Mar 8, 2020 09:40
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yikes! posted:I'm sure the "senior exec" knows this and has first hand experience with it iykwim
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Mar 8, 2020 10:22
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Eimi posted:The key is basically pricing. Those are like what, 10-15$ a month for a TON of games. While the EU pass seems to be 10$ a month for just EU4. Which is not great. ilitarist posted:Both of those give you access to dozens if not hundreds games. So it's hardly a subscription to a singleplayer game and rather a subscription to the store. With EU4 we're talking about buying a game and subscribing to its DLCs. I agree. I'd happily pay $10 a month for the entire Paradox back catalogue (everything pre-CK2), CK2 and all DLC, as well as EU4 with all DLC, along with no DLC versions of the rest of the newer releases, for example, or other games published by Paradox. As you guys are saying, EU4 alone would be a harder sell. Might be able to convince friends to go in on it at $5. I'd probably be willing to throw $1 a month away for purely the cosmetic DLC, which I'd never otherwise buy. Stux posted:the right answer was humble monthly which just gives you game keys and you keep everything Eh, Humble Choice and Monthly are strange ones. Monthly was a straight lootbox and Choice is a bundle system. Something like the Humble Trove would be cool for older Paradox games.
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Mar 8, 2020 13:54
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:As you guys are saying, EU4 alone would be a harder sell. Might be able to convince friends to go in on it at $5. I'd probably be willing to throw $1 a month away for purely the cosmetic DLC, which I'd never otherwise buy. I think psychologically it's a hard sell even if it's everything EU4 for just $1 per month. I know multiplayer games cost much more, but EU4 competes with XBox gamepass you've mentioned as well as Humble and Origin and so on. Those give you "all you can eat" deal (even if they miss DLC, I guess). EU4 doesn't compete with those, it competes with Blizzard here. But yeah, even if I own most of what Paradox has produced they could probably sell me their $5 pass for everything Paradox have published, not just developed as Dev studio.
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Mar 8, 2020 14:22
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Layoffs are actually really bad for companies and decrease profits, not increase them. It turns out that layoffs are just a talent drain because the best people will leave on their own and the rest will just lose motivation. Company morale and team building are much important to maximizing revenue than pretty much any other factor. If the company is managing their employees correctly they should be culling those unable to meet the standard on a consistent and individual basis, not doing massive "layoffs" to cut three fat.
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Mar 8, 2020 15:05
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And yet somehow layoffs always make number go up while rising wages, benefits, etc. make it go down 
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Mar 8, 2020 15:07
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Crazycryodude posted:And yet somehow layoffs always make number go up while rising wages, benefits, etc. make it
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Mar 8, 2020 15:32
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twig1919 posted:Layoffs are actually really bad for companies and decrease profits, not increase them. It turns out that layoffs are just a talent drain because the best people will leave on their own and the rest will just lose motivation.
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Mar 8, 2020 16:00
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From a corporate perspective, layoffs are evidence of poor management. Poor management appears to be endemic in video game companies, probably due to a combination of (a) a lot of people wanting to work on video games and therefore being willing to overlook the fact that the lifestyle is terrible and the chance of being unceremoniously sacked is high; and (b) the core business model being “spend x years making a product that nobody actually needs and hope to persuade enough people to buy it to justify the investment, over and over again”. It’s not dissimilar to the movie industry, which also has hilariously hosed up economics. Things like DLC and subscriptions are an attempt to have a business model that is a little more predictable. At its heart, most serious business management is about trying to forecast the future as accurately as possible, and then handling the fallout from the inevitable inaccuracies. The capitalist model leads to a lot of lovely outcomes and should absolutely be replaced or at least mitigated, but this isn’t one of them. It’s genuinely baffling to me how upset people get about the idea of SaaS for games when virtually the entire business software world has switched to that model because it fundamentally makes more sense. If you expect people to be drawing down salaries every month and patching their game, why not pay for it via subscription?
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Mar 8, 2020 16:04
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Beefeater1980 posted:It’s genuinely baffling to me how upset people get about the idea of SaaS for games when virtually the entire business software world has switched to that model because it fundamentally makes more sense. Because software as a service isn't compatible with any playstyle other than playing the same game forever, and dramatic shifts in how games are sold are inevitably used to obfuscate and worsen the value for money. Just because it "makes more sense" for a publically-held corporation to want something doesn't mean it's better for the end user.
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Mar 8, 2020 16:53
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Eh, Humble Choice and Monthly are strange ones. Monthly was a straight lootbox and Choice is a bundle system. Something like the Humble Trove would be cool for older Paradox games. theyre monthly subs that give you cd keys and you keep the games and its the only implementation of getting a bunch of games for a monthly fee that is fair. Beefeater1980 posted:From a corporate perspective, layoffs are evidence of poor management. Poor management appears to be endemic in video game companies, probably due to a combination of (a) a lot of people wanting to work on video games and therefore being willing to overlook the fact that the lifestyle is terrible and the chance of being unceremoniously sacked is high; and (b) the core business model being “spend x years making a product that nobody actually needs and hope to persuade enough people to buy it to justify the investment, over and over again”. It’s not dissimilar to the movie industry, which also has hilariously hosed up economics. Things like DLC and subscriptions are an attempt to have a business model that is a little more predictable. layoffs are a part of extremely profitable and successful companies. they are evidence of good management because good management is making the company more profitable. other software switching to a monthly sub is also bad and sucks no one is over the moon about photoshop being on a monthly sub instead of just buying a piece of software once and using it. the reason everything is moving to the model is because its more profitable and makes the customer pay more money for the same thing. thats it. its not some mystery. everyone already understands the model.
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Mar 8, 2020 17:43
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Beefeater1980 posted:It’s genuinely baffling to me how upset people get about the idea of SaaS for games when virtually the entire business software world has switched to that model because it fundamentally makes more sense. If you expect people to be drawing down salaries every month and patching their game, why not pay for it via subscription? Strange how you bring this up because every single freelancer and independent creator I know absolutely hates the change to subscription models for stuff like photoshop and office. It might make more sense for big corporations, but it's heavily burdensome and inconvenient for individuals.
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Mar 8, 2020 18:07
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Stux posted:theyre monthly subs that give you cd keys and you keep the games and its the only implementation of getting a bunch of games for a monthly fee that is fair. Hey now, that pro-consumer outlook isn't adhering to our philosophy: 
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Mar 8, 2020 18:14
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Ah yes, Paradox should definitely enact a subscription policy so that you could play 15 to 20 euros per month to play Europa Universalis 4, an old and bloated Crusader Kings 2, an ancient Victoria 2, a lovely ww2 game where the main tactic is to just build forts and let the entirety of nazi german manpower be smashed into those forts via frontal attacks and a classical age\space game where after years of development and DLC they've managed to go from buggy boring games with nothing to do to just being boring games. Yeah please where can i subscribe.
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Mar 8, 2020 19:51
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Hey that’s not fair! Imperator and stellaris are getting new and exciting bugs too
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Mar 8, 2020 20:31
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I have begrudgingly accepted DLC, but I can never do subscription models, because I want whatever I bought to still be there when I forget about it and remember it years later.
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Mar 8, 2020 20:59
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SlothfulCobra posted:I have begrudgingly accepted DLC, but I can never do subscription models, because I want whatever I bought to still be there when I forget about it and remember it years later. How dare you expect to retain ownership of the things you pay for, don't you know paying a regular fee for a license to use a product is better for more predictable quarterly earnings
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Mar 8, 2020 21:08
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yikes! posted:Hey that’s not fair! Imperator and stellaris are getting new and exciting bugs too
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Mar 8, 2020 21:51
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