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It looks good to me so far. The only thing I'd prefer is being able to split up the fronts more. The American Civil War shouldn't be a single front, and neither should the Germany/Russia front. I hope that being able to split up fronts makes it into the game, but if not I'm sure it'll be in a warfare DLC
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Nov 11, 2021 21:49
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Kaza42 posted:It looks good to me so far. The only thing I'd prefer is being able to split up the fronts more. The American Civil War shouldn't be a single front, and neither should the Germany/Russia front. I hope that being able to split up fronts makes it into the game, but if not I'm sure it'll be in a warfare DLC Edit: Reading dev responses in the thread, there are no split fronts on single borders. It appears this is in fact the name of the entire front between Mexico and Texas. Huh. Eiba fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Nov 11, 2021 |
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Nov 11, 2021 21:52
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A Buttery Pastry posted:If you can't actually take part in a war, then you shouldn't get a say in the diplomatic play leading to war. I suppose you could unlock it by demanding access through another country, saying you will fight for your right to fight, but otherwise I'm not seeing why it should be a real possibility. Having a bunch of countries with little to no ability to participate in a war jumping in anyway is not something they should actively encourage. Eiba posted:Probably the same thing that would happen between two landlocked countries in older games and in real life. Not a lot. What would you expect to happen? Bear in mind, I'm not criticizing the move to fronts, I love the idea and can't wait to play it; just trying to figure out how it will work. But say, France attacking Austria in a war of containment, for example? Or a humiliation one?
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Nov 11, 2021 21:52
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Eiba posted:Isn't that implied by the "Texas-Utah" front? That would be a weird name for the whole border between Mexico and Texas. Fronts are only broken up by non-adjacent provinces. The Civil War would be one front, unless the CSA gets a state that's not attached to it's borders (or naval invasions). You can have multiple generals/orders in a front and if they go through with letting you set goals that's how you'd handle it.
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Nov 11, 2021 21:57
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The generals stuff all sounds excellent and the fronts are interesting, but I'm getting a definite wait-and-see vibe from it. All in all, still better than having to manually command armies so even if it's not ideal at release I'll buy this in a heartbeat.
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Nov 11, 2021 22:02
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canepazzo posted:Bear in mind, I'm not criticizing the move to fronts, I love the idea and can't wait to play it; just trying to figure out how it will work. One of the previous dev diaries mentioned a "violate sovereignty" option for invading through somebody else's territory, that ought to do the job.
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Nov 11, 2021 22:12
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Red Bones posted:Pop sexuality will not be simulated in the release version of the game, but it will be stimulated in the post-release Victoria III: Gross Indecency DLC, featuring over 10,000 pages of authentic 19th century erotica in epub format. Dynamic political scandals using CKIII's poetry generator, but for the details of salacious affairs.
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Nov 11, 2021 22:15
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I dig the vision for warfare and mobilizing logistics. Great job, Wiz & team. One thing I'm worried we might miss out using the fronts framework are strategic opportunties to take or raid other land not targeted in the war for short-term gain, morale hit, or leverage later. E.g. if i have a few raised but unassigned battalions, maybe they can take a strategic island even if the war is continental. Something like the Chesapeake Campaign in the War of 1812 comes to mind or raids along Chilean coast by Thomas Cochrane.
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Nov 11, 2021 22:19
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Friend Commuter posted:One of the previous dev diaries mentioned a "violate sovereignty" option for invading through somebody else's territory, that ought to do the job. And military access treaties are still a thing. Eiba posted:Isn't that implied by the "Texas-Utah" front? That would be a weird name for the whole border between Mexico and Texas. They say that they tested split fronts and it sucked, but I dunno, still sounds weird to lump everything together. Killing direct unit control sounds good but I hope there's still a sense of discrete war areas and identifiable events. With the new importance of generals, you should face hard choices of where to put them and I don't know how that works if, say, the US civil war is just one big mass of stuff happening.
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Nov 11, 2021 22:39
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Fray posted:And military access treaties are still a thing. Honestly, i think what they'll probably end up having to do is split it into discrete 'campaigns' or something like that where you can assign a general to it and the result at the end is some change of territory potentially, or not.
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Nov 11, 2021 22:48
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I’m really excited about this. There’s a little beer-n-pretzels game called Stellar Monarch that did the fronts thing (you have navies and you assign one or more navies to each border) and to me it felt like a very elegant approach. Game looking good.
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Nov 12, 2021 00:53
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Fray posted:And military access treaties are still a thing. Yeah, and historically in US Civil War you would have had Grant winning big in the West while McClellan was being useless in the East....
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Nov 12, 2021 01:28
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the current system they described would model the us civil war fine, if my reading comprehension is good. grant and mcclellan would be in command of discrete stacks of units on the same front, and would fight independently of each other. not every fight on the front involves every unit on the front, the formations still move independently throughout the front. the thing i'm not sure you could do would be to assign the army of the potomac to specifically fight in VA, but i'm honestly fine with that part being slightly more abstracted out and not being the divine tactical emperor blessed with foresight i like to think i am in other pdox games.
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Nov 12, 2021 02:09
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I don't really understand what decision making a player actually does once a war is already underway. So to use the Civil War example. Naval landings seem to be in, so taking New Orleans and attempting the Peninsula Campaign are both viable. Can I do the Anaconda Plan? Can I tell my generals to avoid entering border states? If an offensive fails, what can I do to rectify things?
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Nov 12, 2021 06:45
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It all sounds ambitious but it feels like it's not just taking away the tactical decision-making layer, but also the strategic one. With so much of it abstracted and automated, it sounds like war outcomes will be decided from the start of the diplomatic play.
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Nov 12, 2021 13:11
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Ham posted:It all sounds ambitious but it feels like it's not just taking away the tactical decision-making layer, but also the strategic one. With so much of it abstracted and automated, it sounds like war outcomes will be decided from the start of the diplomatic play. Hasn’t it always, outside of exploiting the AI? It’s always been just a numbers game and a bit of counter shuffling.
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Nov 12, 2021 13:37
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Ham posted:It all sounds ambitious but it feels like it's not just taking away the tactical decision-making layer, but also the strategic one. With so much of it abstracted and automated, it sounds like war outcomes will be decided from the start of the diplomatic play. Well yeah, all the decisions that would actually affect war are generally made prior to the war starting. Staffing, how much you've built up your military, what generals you've chosen, mobilization etc. If it lasts long enough then sure you can change the outcome by building up your military more, just you're going to suffer a lot in the meantime.
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Nov 12, 2021 14:09
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Ham posted:It all sounds ambitious but it feels like it's not just taking away the tactical decision-making layer, but also the strategic one. With so much of it abstracted and automated, it sounds like war outcomes will be decided from the start of the diplomatic play. they've stated pretty plainly that it won't, and that even wars in progress at the start date aren't a foregone conclusion. however, most wars in history had clear factors that lead to the outcome of the war before it even began (in hindsight, of course. at the time, due to the "fog of war", it wasn't always obvious). i have no problem with the system as described, i think preparation should be 80% of war fighting, and strategy/tactics about 20%, especially at the grand strategy level during this era
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Nov 12, 2021 14:16
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baiting the AI into attacking you in mountains is half the fun of paradox combat
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Nov 12, 2021 14:24
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Raskolnikov38 posted:baiting the AI into attacking you in mountains is half the fun of paradox combat half of zero is still zero
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Nov 12, 2021 14:26
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Raskolnikov38 posted:baiting the AI into attacking you in mountains is half the fun of paradox combat They already have HOI4, EU4, CK3, Imperator, and other games I'm forgetting where you get to play as Grant rather than Lincoln. I agree that cheese is a lot of fun, but I'm liking how they cut down on scope creep, it's one less thing to balance and worry about.
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Nov 12, 2021 14:48
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Raskolnikov38 posted:baiting the AI into attacking you in mountains is half the fun of paradox combat as always the truth about paradox combat comes out, it's not fun to play or engage with people just have fun when they win because winning is fun. people have spent hundreds of hours working out every little dumb AI exploit to make the serotonin in their brain go off and have managed to convince themselves that the good part of the game is where I win and look cool. in reality moving meta stacks around into the perfect spot at speed 1 while the AI walks back and forward in place is the worst part of every paradox game.
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Nov 12, 2021 14:51
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TBH whether a mechanic in a game is fun or not is always a synthesis of a lot of different systems, so a dev diary on the basics of land warfare combat in an unreleased game is not really gonna reveal if it's ultimately going to be fun to play or not. One thing I hope is that there are levers to pull, whether they're economic/supply based or more actively intervening in strategic planning, that let players significantly influence their own ongoing wars rather than everything being set up at the start and then being mostly driven by AI generals. Otherwise I feel like it's going to be a pretty frustrating experience setting everything up, and then not being able to do anything whilst you watch for five or ten minutes as the war goes irreversably wrong.
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Nov 12, 2021 15:09
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I mean sometimes getting absolutely poo poo on despite doing everything right is important.
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Nov 12, 2021 15:16
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Yeah, I’m not actually concerned about any loss of tactical decision-making, because there was almost none to begin with. Paradox doesn’t make wargames, they make narrative engines that have some trappings of wargames. That’s why combat is always the worst part of their titles: it’s an appendix rather than an actual part of the core gameplay loop. What’s causing consternation is that they’re dropping a lot of the pretense for the first time. People who oppose the fronts design talk a lot about preserving tactical gameplay, but I don’t think that’s really what worries them, because that’s never been what paradox games are about. I think they’re really concerned about their narration being compromised. Fronts and doomstacks both come down to a soup of stats and dice rolls in the end, but the latter looks like more happened than actually did. So despite any debates about tactics, I think what people really want is narrative power, and that largely comes down to presentation. Things like splitting the front up among different generals could help sell a narrative even if it’s just a visual thing with no mathematical significance. If the brain can create a story, it’ll convince itself that meaningful decisions were made to bring that story about. In the end you get a design that’s cleaner, less burdensome, and (I expect) much more playable by an AI, and the player isn’t actually making fewer meaningful choices. Maybe more meaningful choices, since they seem keen to integrate war more closely with the social-political-economic mechanics that comprise the real gameplay loop.
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Nov 12, 2021 15:17
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Fray posted:Yeah, I’m not actually concerned about any loss of tactical decision-making, because there was almost none to begin with. Paradox doesn’t make wargames, they make narrative engines that have some trappings of wargames. That’s why combat is always the worst part of their titles: it’s an appendix rather than an actual part of the core gameplay loop. That's a great point
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Nov 12, 2021 15:27
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My favorite part of the whole change is how upset it has made people (on reddit/pdox forums), when all their complaints are basically them assuming/making stuff up because there isn't enough info out to actually judge how fun it's going to be and there really won't be until we can see it in action or play it ourselves.
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Nov 12, 2021 16:23
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It’s gonna be fun when these combat changes turn out to suck tho, but people still pretend it’s better to save face
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Nov 12, 2021 16:29
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Have to say that I was that guy who, after a while, just clicked "auto Resolve" for battles in Napoleon: Total War. I don't give a poo poo about tactics, haha!
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Nov 12, 2021 16:37
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DrSunshine posted:Have to say that I was that guy who, after a while, just clicked "auto Resolve" for battles in Napoleon: Total War. I don't give a poo poo about tactics, haha! "It's a Total War game with better autoresolve" is what made me start playing EU3 in the first place
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Nov 12, 2021 16:52
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I just hope we get a combat system where you can't micro/exploit the A.I into massively lopsided wins in a game where internal management is supposed to be important; EU4's combat it serviceable for a game that is ultimately focused on warfare, but CKIII's focus on interpersonal relationships is undermined by the fact that you can piss off everyone in your realm and be unconcerned because you can fight far more effectively than the A.I can. Modernising the Qing empire in Victoria 3 will be a lot less of an interesting game if you know you can just bait every reactionary rebellion into attacking you across the Yellow River and handily destroy them, for example. Vagabong fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Nov 12, 2021 |
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Nov 12, 2021 17:19
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DrSunshine posted:Have to say that I was that guy who, after a while, just clicked "auto Resolve" for battles in Napoleon: Total War. I don't give a poo poo about tactics, haha! I did this for all the Total War games. The last one I played was Shogun 2 though; I eventually realised that the major focus of the series (the tactical combat) wasn't what I was looking for, and the rest of the strategic gameplay wasn't super interesting.
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Nov 12, 2021 17:21
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I mean Total War games are all about the battles, especially now. Even the ones that did have a more developed empire management side were still pretty lacking.
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Nov 12, 2021 17:32
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Yeah I also came from playing a lot of Total War with autoresolve and then being interested in Paradox games because of that.
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Nov 12, 2021 17:38
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RabidWeasel posted:"It's a Total War game with better autoresolve" is what made me start playing EU3 in the first place Same. When I realized I find grand march of history more interesting than the actual battles I've stopped playing TW games. Besides, the actual battles in most of those games turn out to be grossly inadequate. Maybe for Shogun or Medieval those army sizes are OK but Cannea or Borodino having armies of couple thousands feels less immersive than Paradox soldiers with numbers under them (I know Pdx army numbers aren't right too). TW games work much better recently. In Warhammer it's armies of elves and vampires and orcs so I don't care about army sizes. In Three Kingdoms and Troy we deal with mythologized settings with larger than life heroes.
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Nov 12, 2021 18:48
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ItohRespectArmy posted:as always the truth about paradox combat comes out, it's not fun to play or engage with people just have fun when they win because winning is fun. This is why I said before, Paradox wars aren't fun, but they're satisfying. When your doomstack hits the enemy armies and their number goes down faster than yours, then it goes really small as they run away? That's satisfying as gently caress. When you stackwipe something? Extremely satisfying! But not fun. It's gaming bubblewrap, but the bubblewrap might have splinters inside it if you're not paying attention and leave your carpet siege on speed 5, accidentally leave one province unoccupied because of rebels, then the enemy suddenly has a whole army of mercenaries and kills your guys.
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Nov 12, 2021 19:10
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the greatest thing about these changes is that it solves so much secondary stuff that was attempted before that they can revisit that approach for other games the new format allows for military politics which perhaps was one of the most elusive things paradox chased on in previous games. With it it's totally possible for a general or few to have a major fit because the good king has some progressive views on Catholic/Protestant relations and this simply cannot do, in an organic way (incidentally these systems might be exactly what was missing in imperator rome) the comparison that keeps coming to my mind is with Football Manager, which honestly is an absolutely great thing imho. Turning warfare into a hands-off thing might seem a strong departure and questionable to a good amount of people, but what can be gained from that design change can provide for a much greater reward in overall gameplay
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Nov 12, 2021 22:35
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I like the idea behind the fronts system. The old-style Paradox war system never really felt all that interesting to me, so a departure from that is very welcome. I feel like being able to set strategic targets outside of wargoals seems like it should absolutely be in the game, but as far as I've read it's just a "maybe we'll add that, maybe not" at this point in development. I'm also curious to see just how navies are gonna work.
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Nov 12, 2021 22:53
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I hope/imagine there'll be a naval-specific DD as there's naval actions that skirt actual war, like enforcing embargoes or conducting blockades. Maybe they could be related to war goals (e.g. "remove embargo") or diplomatic maneuvering ("start blockade to enforce demands"). In war, I hope you can set naval targets like performing port raids or interdict shipping as they're more strategic and could be orders given to admirals rather them acting on their own prerogative.
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Nov 12, 2021 23:19
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I think the fronts DD mentioned the next two will be about Naval stuff, so you are in luck.
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Nov 13, 2021 00:55
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