|
Also clearly Vicky 2 is the most complex game
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 03:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 07:33 |
|
|
In a lot of ways Vicky is actually the simplest.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 03:29
|
|
|
Arrhythmia posted:I don't think taking an enumerated list of the mechanics stats and bars of CK2 and EU4 (and the other games of that ilk) and saying "ah, yes, CK2 has twice as many moving gears" is an interesting or useful analysis. Which parts of the games are more complex and more stripped down? Why? Should they be as complex as they are? Should they be more complex? Do they model the important themes of this period of history? Any of these questions is more interesting than just saying "well, you have more control over unit composition in eu4, ergo, it's more complex". i mean thats why im asking how is it complex in a way that actually affects play. i can see that there are lots of numbers in ck2, maybe more than eu4? but it doesnt present as complex, the moving parts are easy to get a handle on and track. the actual gameplay side in how i was interacting with the things i was doing was far less complex to me, and its not control over unit composition or anything like that, thats extremely simple in eu4 anyway. in an eu4 game unless ive decided to play as a native american tribe, theres not really a lot of time where im autoing through for things. you spend a huge amount of the playthrough engaged in the games mechanics and events. ck2 i wasnt, in fact at some point pretty early on i had expanded enough that my nation began playing itself. this isnt an issue in and of itself because as ive mentioned i understand the draw of ck2 isnt nation management, its focused on individuals, however that part i specifically found anemic, my rulers bled together extremely quickly, with the same events popping up constantly for each one, and there was little in the societies or other things to help create a meaningful distinction on my own steam either. the furthest it came towards that was messing around with shia but that ended up having the same issues and also felt extremely disconnected and didnt really go anywhere. this isnt really how non-christian religions feel in eu4 where, despite there being more options, theres more Stuff to do with them, more reasons to pick one or the other, more ways to influence your own religion or others, more flavor and events, interesting mechanics you actually use and impact how you play and your decisions etc. another thing i tried doing to get into the spirit of what people sold the game to me on was spying and assassinations, but it again felt just... not fully realised? i could understand the aim of the systems and engage with them but it boiled down to the same thing over and over. it felt ridiculously easy to get murder plots to high enough percentages to carry them out and there were practically no penalties for failing. i could arbitrarily just keep doing them until they succeeded, and it was the same everytime. i didnt feel like i was playing through a story of my rulers intrigue and subterfuge, i was insanely aware i was simply checking boxes for a game mechanic to fire. so the two sides of it compounded really, by the time i stopped playing it was because i was just sat there with the time going by clicking events away and watching my vassals just expand themselves and i just stopped. the fact that the part i was most sold on the game about, how you played as a ruler and it was more about the individual interactions between rulers, relationships etc, ended up being mostly focused around some very blatant and unengaging mechanics and events that repeated themselves insanely quickly was shocking. obviously any game like this is going to hit repetition on events, but it was so quickly. an eu4 playthrough you generally have a rather large amount of events with a combination of generic ones, nation specific ones, religious ones etc and you will see repeats between playthroughs but no where near to the same level. i think the ages in eu4 help with this a lot, but even outside of that both the flavor and mechanics around things like your nations religion feel far more fleshed out and impactful than what i experienced in ck2. and if its an issue with playing a non-christian ruler then... thats part of the issue! its actually fun being other religions in eu4!!
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 03:52
|
|
|
Stux posted:ck2 has more numbers on screens but it feels a lot more straight forward and simple in the way those actually operate, and with less things going on that you the player actually interact with. and maybe thats just being the wrong religion or something by playing as an islamic ruler, but can you elaborate on how the things you listed are more complex in ck2 other than disease (not complex but also just not really a mechanic in the same way at all in eu4) and character stats (same again). A PU in CK2 for example happens when the heir to a kingdom marries the heiress to a kingdom and they have a child together and the laws of both kingdoms are such that that child inherits them both. In EU it happens when a country doesn't have an heir and some RNG based on the last time the Pope died comes up on the right number. Vassal/overlord relationships are obviously a focus of CK2 and more in-depth than in EU4 where it's basically a bitflag on the vassal. Combat mechanics...they're pretty ignorable in both games, but CK2 has more unit types, "tactics" your units can use, allows you to arrange your flanks, and has more traits for commanders. Religions have their own systems of rulers and can be reformed and spawn heresies and holy wars are more detailed. Fair enough that character stats and disease aren't really things in EU4, and it's not really interesting to list off features that one game or the other doesn't have, but I suspect there are "more of them" in CK2; really my only argument is it's not a simpler game -- I even (depending on my mood) enjoy EU4 more myself.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 03:52
|
|
|
cool av posted:A PU in CK2 for example happens when the heir to a kingdom marries the heiress to a kingdom and they have a child together and the laws of both kingdoms are such that that child inherits them both. In EU it happens when a country doesn't have an heir and some RNG based on the last time the Pope died comes up on the right number. its just whichever royal marriage has the most dev iirc, and then it can spin out into succession wars etc. i dont think its much less complex at all, its just focused on a different level and in a different era. a PU focused austria playthrough has a healthy dose of events, diplomacy and war around PUs and makes the mechanics engaging and part of how you plan out your alliances and wars, as well as rewarding you for being observant and siezing opportunities. in comparison, for me at least, in ck2 it felt much less dynamic, which made it feel simpler. i mean ck2 is obviously going to be more complex with vassals but i didnt feel like the relationship side was as indepth as i expected, it still boiled down to keeping an "im upset" number down. religion honestly felt a lot less complex, again i played as an islamic nation. eu4 also has different systems of rulers for different religions, different heresies that can spawn and rebel. the ck2 heresey system is certainly more indepth but the religion system overall is shallower with less religions represented and less depth in those that are. im assuming here that in the christian nations theres more to it, but from what i saw outside of that there was a lot less going on. ck2 combat does seem to have more numbers and stats flying around but again, i dont consider that complexity if it doesnt meaningfully impact play, and it really didnt. the combat in actual play was even more simple and easy to abuse than in eu4 and its not exactly complicated there. when im thinking about eu4 and complexity though and why in my mind its over ck2 is like... literally everything else. the amount of detail in the different regions and nations is ridiculous and appears to be far more thorough. when it comes to governance and state types and mechanics, eu4 is far above it and thats what really sticks out to me, the different forms each nation takes and the number of unique mechanics for different regions or cultures or sometimes even individual nations, its very complex and its also not isolated. by playing with the mechanics yourself you gain a better understanding of how the nations with them will act and their goals which increases your options in future playthroughs. each game feels to me like i am learning more about how the disparate systems function and that to me is meaningful and interesting complexity. im hoping ck3 can deliver more on what ive heard people sell ck2 as, with the individual ruler focus, but it felt lacking. i was actually shocked when i realised eu4 only came out a year later and has the same amount of dlc, with how thin i found ck2 to play. i think i said this before but i can actually remember near every one of my eu4 playthroughs, i feel like it has the stories that people said ck2 would give me.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 04:44
|
|
|
i want vicky3 the least out of all of them because looking at stellaris and imperator, pop-based systems... yeeeeeesh
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 04:51
|
|
|
OctaviusBeaver posted:I like all the flavor events in CK2. A pretty wench is throwing herself at you.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 07:01
|
|
|
Stux posted:when im thinking about eu4 and complexity though and why in my mind its over ck2 is like... literally everything else. the amount of detail in the different regions and nations is ridiculous and appears to be far more thorough. when it comes to governance and state types and mechanics, eu4 is far above it and thats what really sticks out to me, the different forms each nation takes and the number of unique mechanics for different regions or cultures or sometimes even individual nations, its very complex and its also not isolated. Very often I see people complain about EU4 being too simple and pointing at CK2 or Victoria 2 or even Stellaris as an example of complexity. The truth is that you are right, those games might have more values but most of this values do not contribute much to your decisions. Victoria 2 might be an exception cause you care about many of those number on higher level of play, but even then anyone who knows that game can list you large number of things they'll do starting as any country outside of some edge cases like Krakow.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 07:06
|
|
|
Gamerofthegame posted:i want vicky3 the least out of all of them because looking at stellaris and imperator, pop-based systems... People liked all the demographic breakdowns and stuff in Vicky and watching their policies and actions and events shift those numbers. And then Stellaris comes along and suddenly "pops" means "there are 12 people living on this entire planet, out of a maximum of 16". It was very disappointing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 08:08
|
|
|
Jabor posted:And then Stellaris comes along and suddenly "pops" means "there are 12 people living on this entire planet, out of a maximum of 16". It was very disappointing. What? That's not what 12 pops on a capacity 16 planet means. Gort fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Apr 24, 2020 |
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 09:54
|
|
|
Vicky 3 will be terrible. Paradox doesn't know how to make games anymore...
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 10:00
|
|
|
Gort posted:What? That's not what 12 pops on a capacity 16 planet means. That's exactly what it means from a game mechanics perspective. It's one population unit that occupies one unit of space, works one job, is of one species, and has one ethos. Sure, players realize that having an entire planet only capable of supporting 16 people is insane, and so rationalize each pop as representing a large number of individuals. I don't think that's ever actually stated in the game anywhere, but it's a pretty reasonable interpretation. That fluff interpretation doesn't change the fact that mechanically, you interact with them as though each pop was one individual.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 10:07
|
|
|
Jabor posted:That's exactly what it means from a game mechanics perspective. It's one population unit that occupies one unit of space, works one job, is of one species, and has one ethos. The game needs less pop micromanagement, not more. One of the big things dragging down the late game is that it's a pain to keep 1000 pops on 30 planets employed and housed.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 10:16
|
|
|
Even if a pop is meant to represent a billion people or whatever you still just end up thinking of it as one little guy and it feels more like a board game token system rather than a cool population model with shifting demographics. For me anyway. I dunno why Paradox games have always avoided modelling actual population numbers. I'm sure there must be good reasons but like Total War Three Kingdoms seems to manage it ok?
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 10:24
|
|
|
fuf posted:Even if a pop is meant to represent a billion people or whatever you still just end up thinking of it as one little guy and it feels more like a board game token system rather than a cool population model with shifting demographics. For me anyway. They haven't. Eu3 modeled actual population numbers. They tended to get very silly.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 10:55
|
|
|
Hearts of Iron 4 has population numbers, too.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 10:58
|
|
|
Gort posted:The game needs less pop micromanagement, not more. One of the big things dragging down the late game is that it's a pain to keep 1000 pops on 30 planets employed and housed. Obviously. Vicky has many times more individual "pops" than Stellaris, but much less "pop micro". You don't control things about any of the individual tens of thousands of pops in your nation in Vicky. Instead, you control things at a higher level. You set focuses to encourage pops of particular types, you use your trade policy to ensure that your pops have their resource needs met, that sort of thing. Looking at the system in Vicky, and the fact that people were hyped about it and wanted more in that style, and then implementing a "pop system" that involves the player loving around with every single pop individually, is completely missing the point of what people were wanting. The system in stellaris 2.0 is an improvement over 1.0 to be sure, but still not really a Vicky successor.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 11:48
|
|
|
Anno posted:Outside of some sort of new fantasy IP that's what I want most out of PDS next. Hopefully that's what Wiz is off tinkering with. I really want them to do a fantasy world. One with an established backstory. Make it up, or run with a license; Dragonlance or Birthright or one of the hundreds of books out there that have a following but never went mainstream, I don’t care. It has so much potential.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 11:49
|
|
|
Stux posted:i mean thats why im asking how is it complex in a way that actually affects play. i can see that there are lots of numbers in ck2, maybe more than eu4? but it doesnt present as complex, the moving parts are easy to get a handle on and track. the actual gameplay side in how i was interacting with the things i was doing was far less complex to me, and its not control over unit composition or anything like that, thats extremely simple in eu4 anyway. in an eu4 game unless ive decided to play as a native american tribe, theres not really a lot of time where im autoing through for things. you spend a huge amount of the playthrough engaged in the games mechanics and events. ck2 i wasnt, in fact at some point pretty early on i had expanded enough that my nation began playing itself. this isnt an issue in and of itself because as ive mentioned i understand the draw of ck2 isnt nation management, its focused on individuals, however that part i specifically found anemic, my rulers bled together extremely quickly, with the same events popping up constantly for each one, and there was little in the societies or other things to help create a meaningful distinction on my own steam either. the furthest it came towards that was messing around with shia but that ended up having the same issues and also felt extremely disconnected and didnt really go anywhere. this isnt really how non-christian religions feel in eu4 where, despite there being more options, theres more Stuff to do with them, more reasons to pick one or the other, more ways to influence your own religion or others, more flavor and events, interesting mechanics you actually use and impact how you play and your decisions etc. I find this focus on events, aka popups with messages a bit strange. The dynamic storytelling in CK2 mostly doesn't come from those type of events (with a few exceptions), but from the actions of AI characters outside of those. Just to give an example, as the king of Aragon, I was making progress in reconquering Spain from the Muslims. Then I noticed the "vassal inheritance" warning, and found out that the now duchess of Barcelona had married the duke of Toulouse, vassal of the king of France. I was not about to lose my biggest duchy to some foreign monarch, so I immediately set to assassinate the baby. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a very high plot power, it was around 120%. But I thought that I should just give it time. I hadn't realized that one of the 5 people who supported my plot had the drunkard trait, and sure enough, he blabbed the details of my plot one tavern night, giving me an immediate opinion hit with all my vassals. That necessitated a round of bribes and distribution of honorary titles to get it under control, while the duchess was obviously enraged. I had previously revoked one uppity duke's duchy without cause, giving me a tyranny penalty, so this was pretty hairy. It led the faction that favored my brother for the kingship of Aragon to get critical mass and declare a faction war, which was a bit dicey since I spent quite a bit of gold to keep things from escalating this far. Luckily, I kept enough money for an emergency hiring of mercenaries, and I ultimately won that war. But I was constantly worried that the Andalusians would attack me, which would have turned the whole situation into a real nightmare. Luckily, they were busy with their own internal problems, and had to contend with a Shia emir in Morocco as well. And in all of this, the only "event" that made a difference was the drunkard event firing, revealing my plot. The rest was simply dynamic storytelling in the CK2 engine. Of course, there are events that can have big influences. The demon child event chain can make you scramble to change your succession laws from agnatic (males only) to agnatic-cognatic (females can inherit if there are no valid male heirs) if your daughter is the spawn of Satan, since there's a high chance she will kill all her brothers. Or try playing an insane characters, make your horse your chancellor, and outlaw not wearing masks in public. But overall, to restate it again, you only having played Muslims means you don't have a correct picture of what CK2 really is like.As I wrote before, vassal management is much easier as a Muslim ruler, as is expansion and warfare, and they have among the fewest unique events of any religion. Of course, I have to wonder about you saying that the differences in regions and religions in EUIV is so much better than in CK2 when you've only played one faith. You've obviously never played with the pagan reformation system if you think you have so much more influence over your religion in EUIV. And I wonder how you can just keep failing murder plots without it blowing up in your face. Those opinion penalties stack, and you're not long for the world if all your vassals have -100 opinion of you. And also of course, the point where your vassals expand on their own is another danger. You could have sat back a bit to let them expand, and then go through a bad succession, and suddenly, it was not so much that your "nation played itself", but that potential rivals for the throne just expanded their power base. Or you could have waited until a Crusade inevitably hit you to experience more challenge. Let decadence spiral out of control, suffer a Shia invasion, etc. And you even played Iberian Muslims. Who can just expand into mostly Shia Morocco until they hit the area around Tunis, who face initially weak Christians in the north, and otherwise have no real danger near them. You didn't play in the Middle East, where you had to contend with a powerful Sunni Caliph who has a CB to subjugate any Sunni ruler. Where steppe raiders could be annoying, or ruin your day. Where the Byzantine Empire is far from dead. Where crusades will land first. Where Turkic or Mongol hordes can sweep you up. Where China and the Western protectorate can push in your poo poo. No you played one of the safest, most boring and most powerful starts in CK2. That's of course not your fault, but it definitely skews your perspective of the game. Basically, your experience is not representative. And perhaps those systems in CK2 don't appeal to you. But there's a lot of meat there if you're willing to engage with them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 12:26
|
|
|
Captain Beans posted:A modder for Three Kingdoms Total War (a game with CK2 style events that occur with your characters based on traits ect.) created a good system for that game. You come up with the 'event' but have a large number of modifiers that influence details of how it plays out. For example an event where your main character decides that alcohol is bad and should be banned. If you have generals that like you they say "thats a great idea, we are gonna ban alcohol after victories". If you have generals that like you and are non-drinkers themselves they can ban alcohol in military camps at all times. If you have generals who dislike you they make fun of you for being a weenie, if they dislike you and are a drunk themselves they throw a party to spite you. That sounds pretty cool Stux posted:another thing i tried doing to get into the spirit of what people sold the game to me on was spying and assassinations, but it again felt just... not fully realised? i could understand the aim of the systems and engage with them but it boiled down to the same thing over and over. it felt ridiculously easy to get murder plots to high enough percentages to carry them out and there were practically no penalties for failing. i could arbitrarily just keep doing them until they succeeded, and it was the same everytime. i didnt feel like i was playing through a story of my rulers intrigue and subterfuge, i was insanely aware i was simply checking boxes for a game mechanic to fire. You are right about this: the whole scheming and plotting and murdering part is very simple and poor and it was never developed further. Its cool and people love it cause theres nothing like it on any other strategy game (as far as I know) but still, its very prosaic and you pretty much have to use your imagination to make it interesting. But this is one of the aspects that CK3 promises to improve a lot Elias_Maluco fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Apr 24, 2020 |
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 12:29
|
|
|
Torrannor posted:I find this focus on events, aka popups with messages a bit strange. The dynamic storytelling in CK2 mostly doesn't come from those type of events (with a few exceptions), but from the actions of AI characters outside of those. Just to give an example, as the king of Aragon, I was making progress in reconquering Spain from the Muslims. Then I noticed the "vassal inheritance" warning, and found out that the now duchess of Barcelona had married the duke of Toulouse, vassal of the king of France. I was not about to lose my biggest duchy to some foreign monarch, so I immediately set to assassinate the baby. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a very high plot power, it was around 120%. But I thought that I should just give it time. I hadn't realized that one of the 5 people who supported my plot had the drunkard trait, and sure enough, he blabbed the details of my plot one tavern night, giving me an immediate opinion hit with all my vassals. That necessitated a round of bribes and distribution of honorary titles to get it under control, while the duchess was obviously enraged. I had previously revoked one uppity duke's duchy without cause, giving me a tyranny penalty, so this was pretty hairy. It led the faction that favored my brother for the kingship of Aragon to get critical mass and declare a faction war, which was a bit dicey since I spent quite a bit of gold to keep things from escalating this far. Luckily, I kept enough money for an emergency hiring of mercenaries, and I ultimately won that war. But I was constantly worried that the Andalusians would attack me, which would have turned the whole situation into a real nightmare. Luckily, they were busy with their own internal problems, and had to contend with a Shia emir in Morocco as well. And in all of this, the only "event" that made a difference was the drunkard event firing, revealing my plot. The rest was simply dynamic storytelling in the CK2 engine. This is all well and good, but an alternative means to dealing with the original issue would be passing the controlled realm inheritance law.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 12:39
|
|
|
Maybe it's changed but when I played Stellaris it had the dumbest population growth model you could think of. Each planet "grows" a single new pop every once in a while so a giant planet has the same absolute population growth as an empty one which means by percent a new planet would double in population every few years and a giant one has basically no growth. Plus it would only grow the minority pops until they were equal so if one immigrant species came to earth then the population would be 50/50 after a few years and all of your planets feel the same.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 14:20
|
|
|
OctaviusBeaver posted:Maybe it's changed but when I played Stellaris it had the dumbest population growth model you could think of. Each planet "grows" a single new pop every once in a while so a giant planet has the same absolute population growth as an empty one which means by percent a new planet would double in population every few years and a giant one has basically no growth. Plus it would only grow the minority pops until they were equal so if one immigrant species came to earth then the population would be 50/50 after a few years and all of your planets feel the same. This has not changed. Actual population levels don't have much to do with growth, while the number of planets that population is spread over is critical. It's dumb as gently caress.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 15:09
|
|
|
Torrannor posted:I find this focus on events, aka popups with messages a bit strange. The dynamic storytelling in CK2 mostly doesn't come from those type of events (with a few exceptions), but from the actions of AI characters outside of those. Just to give an example, as the king of Aragon, I was making progress in reconquering Spain from the Muslims. Then I noticed the "vassal inheritance" warning, and found out that the now duchess of Barcelona had married the duke of Toulouse, vassal of the king of France. I was not about to lose my biggest duchy to some foreign monarch, so I immediately set to assassinate the baby. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a very high plot power, it was around 120%. But I thought that I should just give it time. I hadn't realized that one of the 5 people who supported my plot had the drunkard trait, and sure enough, he blabbed the details of my plot one tavern night, giving me an immediate opinion hit with all my vassals. That necessitated a round of bribes and distribution of honorary titles to get it under control, while the duchess was obviously enraged. I had previously revoked one uppity duke's duchy without cause, giving me a tyranny penalty, so this was pretty hairy. It led the faction that favored my brother for the kingship of Aragon to get critical mass and declare a faction war, which was a bit dicey since I spent quite a bit of gold to keep things from escalating this far. Luckily, I kept enough money for an emergency hiring of mercenaries, and I ultimately won that war. But I was constantly worried that the Andalusians would attack me, which would have turned the whole situation into a real nightmare. Luckily, they were busy with their own internal problems, and had to contend with a Shia emir in Morocco as well. And in all of this, the only "event" that made a difference was the drunkard event firing, revealing my plot. The rest was simply dynamic storytelling in the CK2 engine. there isnt any story telling there though, youve told it as a story, but the actual way it plays out in the game is very very mechanical and "gamey" and also extremely predictable. i guess the real issue i have with the "dynamic storytelling" in ck2 is that i can spin the same stories out of an eu4 game but to me, those stories are also backed up by engaging gameplay. i still cannot understand why ck2 is a storytelling game and eu4 isnt other than the difference in focus between individuals and entire nations, but you can tell a story about a country and to me the stories from eu4 are much more interesting. and this isnt some predisposition to that kind of thing, in other games i absolutely love story focused games about individuals. in fact when my friend was trying to get me into eu4 i was extremely put off by the things i now like! and the only reason i bring up events is thats just how paradox games add a lot of their flavor, and in ck2 is extraordinarily grating that i was seeing the same events pop up constantly to the point where i wouldve loved them to have just stopped. quote:Of course, there are events that can have big influences. The demon child event chain can make you scramble to change your succession laws from agnatic (males only) to agnatic-cognatic (females can inherit if there are no valid male heirs) if your daughter is the spawn of Satan, since there's a high chance she will kill all her brothers. Or try playing an insane characters, make your horse your chancellor, and outlaw not wearing masks in public. i dont have much interest in the more silly stuff in there but the other issue i have is: why is playing as a muslim ruler so bad then? in eu4 part of the fun is i can play anywhere at this point and im probably going to get some interesting things to deal with that arent in other regions, including religious things. and even if its easier that doesnt mean it has to be less engaging or fun! in eu4 if you play as a steppe horde the game is undoubtably easier but it still remains fun and presents a different scale of challenge. quote:Of course, I have to wonder about you saying that the differences in regions and religions in EUIV is so much better than in CK2 when you've only played one faith. the keyword here is "differences" and its weird to tell me on the one hand that playing as a muslim, one of the most major and important religions in the era of the crusades that ck2 is set in, means im playing as a religion with little flavor or difficulty, and then on the other say ck2 has more differences in religions. the game is literally called crusader kings!! if one of the six main religious strains available in the game, and arguably the most important one outside of christianity for the setting, is so shallow then how can the game have more differences? and wrt regions i dont think it can even be argued, in eu4 you have stuff like being able to play in the east and deal with the mandate of heaven, a unique japanese specific vassal system and early game, the hre, steppe hordes, rus nations attempting to form russia and colonise eastwards, everywhere you look on the map there are different ways to play, with many drastic differences in the regions. quote:You've obviously never played with the pagan reformation system if you think you have so much more influence over your religion in EUIV. And I wonder how you can just keep failing murder plots without it blowing up in your face. Those opinion penalties stack, and you're not long for the world if all your vassals have -100 opinion of you. And also of course, the point where your vassals expand on their own is another danger. You could have sat back a bit to let them expand, and then go through a bad succession, and suddenly, it was not so much that your "nation played itself", but that potential rivals for the throne just expanded their power base. Or you could have waited until a Crusade inevitably hit you to experience more challenge. Let decadence spiral out of control, suffer a Shia invasion, etc. i didnt play pagan no, but the reformation system looks no more complicated than the spread of the reformation and dealing with that as, for example, a catholic member of the HRE. most of my murder plots were against other nations as i had no real need to do many internally, although i did still do some and even with them failing i never had things spiral out of control. and also as time went on they just... didnt fail anymore anyway because i had no issues getting the plots backed. i had bad successions, i had internal wars where vassals came together to fight me. one major one had half of them start a war against me but due to the way the combat works it was never really a threat and i took back control. i had a crusade as well but again, it posed no threat at all really, which was disappointing. suggesting i purposefully let decadence go wild... i dunno, the entire point of that seems to be to not? its not exactly great if an answer is "purposefully do something wrong to wreck yourself". quote:And you even played Iberian Muslims. Who can just expand into mostly Shia Morocco until they hit the area around Tunis, who face initially weak Christians in the north, and otherwise have no real danger near them. You didn't play in the Middle East, where you had to contend with a powerful Sunni Caliph who has a CB to subjugate any Sunni ruler. Where steppe raiders could be annoying, or ruin your day. Where the Byzantine Empire is far from dead. Where crusades will land first. Where Turkic or Mongol hordes can sweep you up. Where China and the Western protectorate can push in your poo poo. No you played one of the safest, most boring and most powerful starts in CK2. That's of course not your fault, but it definitely skews your perspective of the game. ok but this is another issue. theres not really boring starts in eu4 with the major exception of starting in the americas, which will end up requiring you to skip through a chunk of time to wait for colonisers to appear and sucks. if you pick the ottomans in eu4, the most powerful nation possible, its not a boring game, its extremely fun. theres an insane amount of ottoman specific content and its fun! its fun being a powerful nation! its fun being an opm and scraping by for decades until you can finally expand! im personally interested in the iberian region and especially the religion and politics and the massive changes throughout the different eras, its one of the most interesting regions to me, and especially during ck2s era. why on earth would iberian muslims in the era of the umayyad caliphate be boring?! why wouldnt it have care and detail put in! quote:Basically, your experience is not representative. And perhaps those systems in CK2 don't appeal to you. But there's a lot of meat there if you're willing to engage with them. but its exactly my point about complexity: if the only way to have deeper gameplay is to play as christian and pagan, when in eu4 you have an extreme level of variety and mechanics for different nations, then to me the game is much less complex. theres less moving parts and less going on. im assuming that those options do have more detail put in than the average eu4 region, but complexity comes from many moving parts that all matter, and in ck2 they dont. the apparently complexity of how the christian nations operate played little to no part on how i played as an iberian muslim nation. it would be like playing france in eu4 not having to even consider the internal politics and power struggles of the HRE! and the systems do appeal to me! the concept of the game as ive seen it described is very appealing! but it wasnt that at all, and i was "punished" for playing one of the major powers of the era because it is shockingly underdeveloped apparently.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 16:19
|
|
|
reignonyourparade posted:They haven't. Eu3 modeled actual population numbers. They tended to get very silly. Any decent town needs to have exactly 999,999 people.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 20:02
|
|
|
Stux posted:i still cannot understand why ck2 is a storytelling game and eu4 isnt other than the difference in focus between individuals and entire nations, but you can tell a story about a country and to me the stories from eu4 are much more interesting. and this isnt some predisposition to that kind of thing, in other games i absolutely love story focused games about individuals. Stux posted:i dont have much interest in the more silly stuff in there but the other issue i have is: why is playing as a muslim ruler so bad then? Zane fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Apr 24, 2020 |
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 20:46
|
|
|
OctaviusBeaver posted:Maybe it's changed but when I played Stellaris it had the dumbest population growth model you could think of. Each planet "grows" a single new pop every once in a while so a giant planet has the same absolute population growth as an empty one which means by percent a new planet would double in population every few years and a giant one has basically no growth. This part has been fixed by a modder, there's a mod out there that makes pop growth reasonable if this part bugs you. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1922397818 quote:Plus it would only grow the minority pops until they were equal so if one immigrant species came to earth then the population would be 50/50 after a few years and all of your planets feel the same. This part is still 100% the same and why I play gestalts instead of dealing with this.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 20:47
|
|
|
Zane posted:'countries' in eu4 are pretty abstracted and don't correspond very well at all to the actual structure of pre-modern governance. there is abstraction in ck2 as well of course. but ck2 does nonetheless capture how government is made up of individuals: and how government--especially in the pre-modern era--was very much determined by how various large property-holding individuals got along. ck2 captures this basic historical logic in its gameplay systems. and people are simply more relatable. to think of 'countries' or 'states' in eu4 meanwhile as being real pseudo-rational entities, even beginning in 1400-1600, is a pretty big retrospective historical anachronism. just because it's not "historical" doesn't mean it's not fun or more interesting or better
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 20:54
|
|
|
yikes! posted:just because it's not "historical" doesn't mean it's not fun or more interesting or better when, on the other hand, mechanics are only good mechanics inasmuch as they facilitate good gameplay.. then their 'story' is going to be of more limited interest. they won't have the same depth of reference to human experience. Zane fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Apr 24, 2020 |
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:03
|
|
|
yikes! posted:just because it's not "historical" doesn't mean it's not fun or more interesting or better This is true, but where the hell else is EU even going to at this point? I don't even know what other features people are asking for. Plus, if you look at something like M&T, that's a system that is both interesting and fun and better. It is also a nightmare to engage with because they have to tack a bunch of poo poo into the UI in really weird ways because most of it isn't mod-able, but it's good. Hell Groogy (I think it was Groogy anyway) said that system was essentially the inspiration for the Estates rework that's going into the big patch.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:06
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
Zane posted:'countries' in eu4 are pretty abstracted and don't correspond very well at all to the actual structure of pre-modern governance. there is abstraction in ck2 as well of course. but ck2 does nonetheless capture how government is made up of individuals: and how government--especially in the pre-modern era--was very much determined by how various individuals got along together. and people are simply more relatable. to think of 'countries' or 'states' as being real pseudo-rational entities, even in 1400-1600, is a pretty big retrospective historical anachronism. yes and its also a historical anachronism that i can start as an opm in eu4 and take over the entire planet. its not historically accurate that i can have my satanist ruler sire an immortal demon hier. these are video games. even with respect to historicity they will bend it to be fun, it would be extremely unfun if they didnt. ck2s simulation of government of the time doesnt strike me as any more accurate other than "its made up of individuals". the game is quite happy to do away with reality at multiple junctures so trying to claim historical accuracy as a selling point over eu4 when you can infuse a horse with your immortal blood and appoint it chancellor is weird. the point of these games is to provide a compelling grand strategy and create narratives with the various interactions the player has with the AI characters or nations. eu4s abstraction of governance across three eras is very importantly fun, and although its absolutely an abstraction it still conveys things in a satisfying way. it also doesnt affect what i mentioned in the first place; that eu4s simulation of nations is just as well suited to creating stories as ck2s, just in a different manner and with a different focus. quote:the multiple muslim marriages and open muslim succession law makes the whole gameplay system of property inheritance and heir selection--core features for western rulers--relatively trivial. i always internally mod muslim max marriages down to 2. which at least somewhat opens up the property inheritance game. right, but my issue is is why is there not more effort put into muslim rulers in a game based around the era of the crusades and which purposefully limits its scope to europe? this is the complexity issue for me, it doesnt really matter if christians and pagans have some extra complexity over an average eu4 religion if they are the only ones that do, because eu4s religions are handled far more evenly and it doesnt feel like half the game is missing because you didnt pick a christian in europe. the answer in eu4 for when existing mechanics dont adequately model a region or provide compelling gameplay differences has been for them to add it. i mentioned the mandate of heaven before but ill bring it up again because its so indepth, for a region the other side of the planet from europe in a game called "europa universalis" and not only that, its still been balanced and changed and overhauled multiple times from its initial version! the contrast between the amount of effort and detail put into all these different nations and areas when ck2 has had the same amount of dlc and apparently cant handle someone wanting to play the religion that the entire era is focused around is shocking.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:07
|
|
|
yikes! posted:just because it's not "historical" doesn't mean it's not fun or more interesting or better An argument that would work better if EU4 were any of those things
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:10
|
|
|
EU4 is a wargame with some set dressing about running an early modern country tacked on, the core gameplay loop is all about painting the map your color and having massive continent-spanning hellwars between all the great powers every 20 years and re-enacting the Somme 400 years early.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:30
|
|
|
I guess technically if you don't want to spend all your time fiddling with your army and having massive hellwars, you can instead paint the map your color by playing a colonizer and sitting there at max speed for hours occasionally clicking an empty province.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:33
|
|
|
i mean if you only want to play for wc then i guess it is? but not really in practice. my recent game where i went for the dith achievement took me to nearly the end of the game to do due to several things the AI did making my goals very hard to get to and at no point was i playing to paint the map my color, nor was i having hellwars either.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:48
|
|
|
Crazycryodude posted:EU4 is a wargame with some set dressing about running an early modern country tacked on, the core gameplay loop is all about painting the map your color and having massive continent-spanning hellwars between all the great powers every 20 years and re-enacting the Somme 400 years early. Yes but I want the war game to be made harder, which would admittedly reduce the rate of continent spanning hellwars and Somme battles. The systems to do this are a real supply system and internal politics.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 21:52
|
|
|
Stux posted:i mean if you only want to play for wc then i guess it is? but not really in practice. my recent game where i went for the dith achievement took me to nearly the end of the game to do due to several things the AI did making my goals very hard to get to and at no point was i playing to paint the map my color, nor was i having hellwars either. Dithmarschen, the peasant republic that's radically different from the old feudal order surrounding it and is a massive societal challenge to the very fabric of Europe, has an achievement that's still just "conquer these places" because that's the only real interaction possible. The governance of the realm through a very tumultuous and revolutionary (at some points literally) era is boiled down to a few numbers that are trivial to keep at max value, and mainly exist to determine how much money is available to spend on troops. You can "invest" in your lands internally with buildings and trade and development but it's really just spending resources now to increase your long-term income so you can afford more troops. The diplomacy system is built around supporting wars, sure it can present interesting checks to infinite expansion but how friendly you are with France or whatever affects nothing significant beyond which side of a war you end up on. The Reformation ends up mainly being about which side of the inevitable war you end up on (this is fair because religious wars WERE a big part of the Reformation but still). Even colonization is about getting more money to spend on more troops and/or getting new neighbors to have new wars against. This doesn't make EU4 bad and CK2 good or whatever, they're just about very different things and appeal to different audiences. If you want a wargame, play EU4. If you want to gently caress around with dynasties and internal realm politics and RPG-lite stuff, play CK2.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 22:00
|
|
|
Crazycryodude posted:Dithmarschen, the peasant republic that's radically different from the old feudal order surrounding it and is a massive societal challenge to the very fabric of Europe, has an achievement that's still just "conquer these places" because that's the only real interaction possible. The governance of the realm through a very tumultuous and revolutionary (at some points literally) era is boiled down to a few numbers that are trivial to keep at max value, and mainly exist to determine how much money is available to spend on troops. You can "invest" in your lands internally with buildings and trade and development but it's really just spending resources now to increase your long-term income so you can afford more troops. The diplomacy system is built around supporting wars, sure it can present interesting checks to infinite expansion but how friendly you are with France or whatever affects nothing significant beyond which side of a war you end up on. The Reformation ends up mainly being about which side of the inevitable war you end up on (this is fair because religious wars WERE a big part of the Reformation but still). Even colonization is about getting more money to spend on more troops and/or getting new neighbors to have new wars against. i want to mess around with dynasties and internal realm politics and rpg-lite stuff though and i wasnt saying eu4 is trying to be the same game as ck2 or doing ck2 better than it. ive pretty consistently said i understand ck2 is more focused on the individual interactions and that i was specifically underwhelmed with that, and that the complexity eu4 offers, while in a completely different area, is more meaningful because its more impactful and varied. saying that i believe eu4 to be more complex and in a way that affects gameplay is not me saying i believe it to be more complex in the same ways ck2 is attempting to be except where direct comparisons can be drawn, for example in regards to religion and regional detail where i believe its a justified comparison. theyre certainly very different games, but what im trying to say is that eu4 executes on what it is trying to be far more successfully and with more meaningful complexity, and that it isnt less able to create storylines for the player, theyre just not focused on individual actors and rulers but on nation interactions.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 22:13
|
|
|
That's fine? CK2 does kinda suck if you're not a Christian or maybe a steppe horde, mostly I think because the game launched with only Christians playable so since day 1 everything outside Western Europe has been kinda neglected. They made a valiant effort with the China and India bits but Islam is still notoriously bad, because they originally weren't meant to be playable at all and then when Paradox did go to add playable Muslims it was in 2012 so it's very much a 2012 Paradox product rather than a modern one. Is it a pretty bad idea to leave one of your two major religions lovely and unfinished-feeling? Yeah, but welcome to 2012 Paradox. Where all the actual work got put in (Western European Catholics), CK2 is pretty good at what it wants to do.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 22:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 07:33 |
|
|
CK2 is a blast for pagans right now, probably the most fun choice
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2020 22:25
|
|