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Like while I accept that these games are never going to have that weird grognardy feel again and that's probably for the best, I absolutely hate the meme culture around CK3 and HOI and vicky 3 being marketed on that depresses me. That said, I think that it just doesn't have the same kind of event engine that will lead to it becoming like CK3, and it won't have the...whatever it is HOI has that leads to its culture. So I'm hopeful, even if some of the streaming marketing of it makes me wince.
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Oct 22, 2022 22:57
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They were memey even before that Vicky itself is the origin of one of the more popular paradox memes
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Oct 22, 2022 23:05
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I don't mind some memes and humor, but I hate it when goons call people anti-fun when they prefer thematically consistent games instead of shallow but novel wacky poo poo.
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Oct 22, 2022 23:12
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holy poo poo this game is happening
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Oct 22, 2022 23:14
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None of Paradox's old games were actually grognardy, they were just opaque and complicated. If you figure out how Vicky 1 and Vicky 2 truly work and try to optimize your strats you find yourself doing the same dumb stuff every playthrough. The world is simply not prepared for minor countries conquering Johore in 1836. The potential for Vicky 3 is in player-driven narratives, and in insane full conversion mods
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Oct 22, 2022 23:22
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What would be a grognardy game; Dwarf Fortress?
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Oct 22, 2022 23:24
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Lol CK is extremely thematically consistent and extremely memey. They aren’t opposites
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Oct 22, 2022 23:26
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Raenir Salazar posted:What would be a grognardy game; Dwarf Fortress? Dorf Fort, Aurora 4x, Command MANO, poo poo like that. Extremely crunchy.
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Oct 22, 2022 23:30
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CharlestheHammer posted:Lol CK is extremely thematically consistent and extremely memey. They aren’t opposites Id say thats mostly true but with the exception of the really out of place eugenics stuff
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Oct 22, 2022 23:34
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Paradox have always been the middle ground game. When you want something meatier than like Civ but don’t want to deal with the more tedious harder core games
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Oct 22, 2022 23:34
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Raenir Salazar posted:What would be a grognardy game; Dwarf Fortress? gary grigsby’s war in the east, gary grigsby’s war in the west, gary grigsby’s war in the pacific
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Oct 22, 2022 23:36
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:The world is simply not prepared for minor countries conquering Johore in 1836.
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Oct 22, 2022 23:43
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Shadow Empire would be a candidate for “turbogrog 4X”
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Oct 22, 2022 23:47
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CharlestheHammer posted:Paradox have always been the middle ground game. When you want something meatier than like Civ but don’t want to deal with the more tedious harder core games The funny thing is that even the full grognard games suffer from the same problem where they're often not actually that difficult (in terms of decisionmaking) if you understand how they work but as you go up the grognard scale systems get more elaborate and time consuming to interact with so eventually you get to a point where you have to choose between continuing to optimise every action or just playing the game less optimally to save time. Paradox games have tended to do away with the opacity and time sinks over time but that makes shortcomings in other parts of the gameplay more obvious
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Oct 22, 2022 23:48
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Here's how I see the potential for a Vicky Cold War mod. Nukes are of course, in the game. They are horrendously complex to build, they might require researchers, engineers, and officers alike to produce, along with the rest of the supply chain for materials. They are end-game goods for superpowers, and they don't help you in war because throwing a nuke ends in MAD. Why do they exist? Life need for the deep state pops, who staff high-end bureaucracies and military buildings. At some point the internet will be invented, and memes become an everyday need for most pop types. Enterprising players can replicate the North Macedonian economy by flooding the markets with their low-rent memes, enabled by depressed labor costs but good internet infrastructure. Alternatively, you can safeguard your country's domestic creative class, establishing protective tariffs on foreign memery.
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Oct 22, 2022 23:59
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RabidWeasel posted:The funny thing is that even the full grognard games suffer from the same problem where they're often not actually that difficult (in terms of decisionmaking) if you understand how they work but as you go up the grognard scale systems get more elaborate and time consuming to interact with so eventually you get to a point where you have to choose between continuing to optimise every action or just playing the game less optimally to save time. Yeah, it really is this way with all those complicated simulations with complex rules. First you think that incomprehensible UI is a consequence of a huge galaxy-spanning scope and detailed emulation of a living world, but then you realize that UI was there to keep you from realizing that you can conquer the world by kiting AI into a kill zone or earn infinite money by buying cheese in a cheese store and selling it across the street to a gener store. Often the games that look extremely primitive turn out the most demanding in terms of actual gameplay, like XCOM remakes or Slay the Spire. Now that I think about it I too hasn't loved anything done by Paradox since EU4. HoI4 is just isn't my cup of tea, Imperator is only fine instead of great, Stellaris and CK2/3 are role-playing games to create your own stories rather than interesting strategy games. Victoria 3 would be fine if it's just that and I'm a little worried because I think modern meme Paradox has started with the meme potential of Victoria 2. Here are Jewish Koreans living in Florida! Lol look the AI has managed to create independent fascist India! In fact now that I think about it most of the memes were about some country turning fascist or communist. Anyway I do hope that Victoria 3 delivers that feeling of overcoming interesting problems.
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Oct 23, 2022 00:14
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ilitarist posted:Yeah, it really is this way with all those complicated simulations with complex rules. First you think that incomprehensible UI is a consequence of a huge galaxy-spanning scope and detailed emulation of a living world, Master Of Orion 3
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Oct 23, 2022 00:19
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How about a post WW3 mod focused on the Southern Hemisphere? Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria etc are the major powers but the collapse of the global trade networks and the destruction of the first world has knocked them back into 19th century level development. They have to build a new world order while fighting over the burning remains of the nuked out countries.
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Oct 23, 2022 00:23
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Consider that the meme-y world conquest stuff started all the way back in Crusader Kings. Like, no number, just Crusader Kings. The only real 'meme' video I saw was the one where Jan Meyen beat Russia in a war and I'm reasonably certain like 90% of that was the AI not being able to naval invade which is a fairly common Paradox problem in and of itself.
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Oct 23, 2022 00:45
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Half of this threads dream playthrough are basically memes like 1836 communist speed run, new Africa in America or bust, retake France as Haiti, etc etc.
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Oct 23, 2022 01:01
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Hellioning posted:Consider that the meme-y world conquest stuff started all the way back in Crusader Kings. Like, no number, just Crusader Kings. Mind you, that IS a little worrying because one of the benefits to the new simplified naval and war system is that it SHOULD have been easier for the AI to get its head around naval invasions. Then again the UK managed to Opium War well enough in the Japan stream so who knows, maybe there was something wrong with the Russian fleet specifically.
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Oct 23, 2022 01:06
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Tomn posted:Mind you, that IS a little worrying because one of the benefits to the new simplified naval and war system is that it SHOULD have been easier for the AI to get its head around naval invasions. Then again the UK managed to Opium War well enough in the Japan stream so who knows, maybe there was something wrong with the Russian fleet specifically. it seems like they're having to balance the war AI quite carefully to prevent it from doing stupid naval invasions while still launching them when appropriate i would guess that they're erring on the side of the AI being very slightly weak and dumb on launch because fewer people will bounce off of the game immediately than if they went too far the other direction and made them slightly too strong instead
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Oct 23, 2022 01:23
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:None of Paradox's old games were actually grognardy, they were just opaque and complicated. If you figure out how Vicky 1 and Vicky 2 truly work and try to optimize your strats you find yourself doing the same dumb stuff every playthrough. The world is simply not prepared for minor countries conquering Johore in 1836. I should mention I always played with mods that actually populated Africa.
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Oct 23, 2022 01:27
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Ms Adequate posted:Dorf Fort, Aurora 4x, Command MANO, poo poo like that. Extremely crunchy. I gotta check out some of these!
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Oct 23, 2022 01:49
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Raenir Salazar posted:I gotta check out some of these! At least the first two of these are free! (Make sure to get the C# version of Aurora if you do get it).
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Oct 23, 2022 01:56
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Jazerus posted:it seems like they're having to balance the war AI quite carefully to prevent it from doing stupid naval invasions while still launching them when appropriate Back when HOI4 was first released, the AI was actually EXTREMELY good at judging where to put their planes, on what missions, and in what numbers, meaning that any time you would do activity in an air zone, your enemies would immediately, to the second, put the exact amount of planes to counter you in the zone you were active in. It was not fun. Eventually there was some delay and error added in the AI's decision making to make it more human. Basically: making good AI from the get go is hard. Personally, I prefer a stupid, but active AI to a passive/dead one. As for the AI banding against the human player, I've always liked what Creative Assembly did in Total War with the realm divide mechanic, where once the player reaches a certain threshold (time/size/whatever) that would trivialize the AIs, they all then unites against the player, since otherwise divided they would stand no chance. Now, is there a way to implement that seamlessly, or with subtlety in paradox games? I'm not sure.
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Oct 23, 2022 02:02
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 King Vladimir Ilyich?! 
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Oct 23, 2022 02:06
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Popoto posted:Back when HOI4 was first released, the AI was actually EXTREMELY good at judging where to put their planes, on what missions, and in what numbers, meaning that any time you would do activity in an air zone, your enemies would immediately, to the second, put the exact amount of planes to counter you in the zone you were active in. I loved Realm Divide in Shogun 2 too, but it was pretty widely hated. To be fair it had minimal telegraphing if you hadn't encountered it before, but it really did fit into the gameplay flow perfectly, and is why my Shogun 2 games are some of the only ones I actually finish in just about any campaign-based strategy game. I know this is a kind of condescending opinion, but I feel like most people don't know what's good for them AI-wise to be honest. People complain relentlessly about it cheating, but then expect it to perform at a level that's actually challenging, but then also be fun rather than a chore. Paradox AI frankly strikes that balance about the best out of basically any franchise out there and yet people are immediate to pillory Paradox for it all the same. I'm honestly at the point of getting kinda pissed off at people that just offhandedly remark as though it's crap. Like what the gently caress do you want, you know? I mean, they don't, I suppose is my point.
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Oct 23, 2022 02:14
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Popoto posted:Personally, I prefer a stupid, but active AI to a passive/dead one. As for the AI banding against the human player, I've always liked what Creative Assembly did in Total War with the realm divide mechanic, where once the player reaches a certain threshold (time/size/whatever) that would trivialize the AIs, they all then unites against the player, since otherwise divided they would stand no chance. Now, is there a way to implement that seamlessly, or with subtlety in paradox games? I'm not sure. v3 would be the game to implement it in, because balance of power politics defined this period diplomatically. if you pop your head too far above the rest of the pack, imo you should start to run into issues where other great powers weigh in against your diplomatic plays just to get an excuse to gently caress with you. i think infamy probably does do this, but it seems like raw power doesn't? it's hard to tell without having hands on the game yet
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Oct 23, 2022 02:18
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comp stomp 7v1 no rush 15 mins
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Oct 23, 2022 02:18
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by which i mean the average video game player just wants to curb stomp AI into oblivion and get their dose of dopamine
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Oct 23, 2022 02:19
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Jazerus posted:v3 would be the game to implement it in, because balance of power politics defined this period diplomatically. if you pop your head too far above the rest of the pack, imo you should start to run into issues where other great powers weigh in against your diplomatic plays just to get an excuse to gently caress with you. i think infamy probably does do this, but it seems like raw power doesn't? it's hard to tell without having hands on the game yet i agree that yeah, the 19th century is the start of extremely static borders, and it's why when the great powers figured battling in europe would be too costly, they then 7v1 africa to steal what they could.
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Oct 23, 2022 02:20
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Koramei posted:I know this is a kind of condescending opinion, but I feel like most people don't know what's good for them AI-wise to be honest. People complain relentlessly about it cheating, but then expect it to perform at a level that's actually challenging, but then also be fun rather than a chore. Paradox AI frankly strikes that balance about the best out of basically any franchise out there and yet people are immediate to pillory Paradox for it all the same. I'm honestly at the point of getting kinda pissed off at people that just offhandedly remark as though it's crap. Like what the gently caress do you want, you know? I mean, they don't, I suppose is my point. For sure. Total War fans are the worst about this imo - every time a battle is anything other than walking two lines of infantry at each other with some supporting range fire, a couple Warhammer monsters and like two units of cav (that enemy spears aren’t allowed to turn and brace) it’s met with nothing but scorn. I think Stellaris probably has the most fun AI in strategy games right now. They put up a decent fight without being too annoying and there’s a good amount of leeway for surprises. The team that’s been focused on it since the Custodian program sprung up has done a great job. Unless you include modded, in which case Civ V Vox Populi is excellent. Anno fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Oct 23, 2022 |
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Oct 23, 2022 02:25
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Anno posted:For sure. Total War fans are the worst about this imo - every time a battle is anything other than walking two lines of infantry at each other with some supporting range fire, a couple Warhammer monsters and like two units of cav (that enemy spears aren’t allowed to turn and brace) it’s met with nothing but scorn. Complaints about AI I think always boil down to what players want is to win, and to feel like they won on their own merits. They want an AI that will seem smart enough to not be trivially defeated, but not smart enough to actually beat them. And there's not really any right answer to designing an AI like this because what people consider to be "trivial to beat" or "unfairly good at micromanagement" varies wildly, as do the sorts of strategies players want to be able to pursue and still be able to win. Like if the AI was actually good enough to make meme "start as a OPM and take over the world" runs genuinely impossible, people would complain because people want to be able to do that, and they want to be able to do it without spending years optimizing the perfect strategy like the Magnasanti guy. I feel like the AI aggression and AI behaviour towards players difficulty options are a decent concession to try to cater to different players, where if people want to do stupid minmax bullshit and have the AI still give them a challenge, they can just tell the AI "hey I'm gonna be doing stupid minmax bullshit and you should treat me accordingly".
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Oct 23, 2022 02:47
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AIs are poorly suited to Pdox games, the amount of iterations, the asymmetry, and the real time ticks are the worst possible combination of issues. Not to mention the combat models, which come down to random results if you truly fight on equal terms
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Oct 23, 2022 03:12
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I think to encapsulate the issue with paradox AI, using the Front AI for Hoi4 for example; a player knows to just eyeball the front and keep like 3-6 divisions per province based on what's the opposing force, to sit on mountains and use terrain as best as you can (defend rivers, rivers on mountains, forts, etc). The AI constantly seems to shift troops around, don't seem to factor in entrenchment and that often its just better to leave troops where they are to entrench than to move things around. The AI also can't judge if a front is just untenable and will get encircled by even a slightly experienced player. The AI can't guess at the player's intentions and threat level, especially of their armored divisions, and don't know how to handle a breakthrough, and will just extend a front to infinity trying to contain it, shifting troops off of their entrenchment bonus to try to "do something" that even a slightly experienced players will quickly know not to do. And knows its better to just pull back entirely to a fall back line if its untenable or to just redeploy some reserves to try to check or counterattack the attempted breakthrough. This isn't factoring in all the ways players can cheese the AI through their division templates and so on. I'd say consistently this is a problem with the AI insofar as control of armies is concerned. I haven't played a lot of single player EU to know how well the AI nation builds in EU, but I'm assuming any player can easily snowball and just vastly better at improving their nations while the AI basically just stagnates (especially when it comes to timing golden ages and stacking development cost reduction modifiers). The Cheshire Cat posted:Complaints about AI I think always boil down to what players want is to win, and to feel like they won on their own merits. They want an AI that will seem smart enough to not be trivially defeated, but not smart enough to actually beat them. And there's not really any right answer to designing an AI like this because what people consider to be "trivial to beat" or "unfairly good at micromanagement" varies wildly, as do the sorts of strategies players want to be able to pursue and still be able to win. Like if the AI was actually good enough to make meme "start as a OPM and take over the world" runs genuinely impossible, people would complain because people want to be able to do that, and they want to be able to do it without spending years optimizing the perfect strategy like the Magnasanti guy. I feel like the AI aggression and AI behaviour towards players difficulty options are a decent concession to try to cater to different players, where if people want to do stupid minmax bullshit and have the AI still give them a challenge, they can just tell the AI "hey I'm gonna be doing stupid minmax bullshit and you should treat me accordingly". I think what would be the "ideal" enemy AI is an AI that mimics certain behavioural quirks of a human; such as having an attention span that allows the possibility of surprising the AI, of not having to deal with unfair level of micro in terms of the Clicks Per Minute an AI is seemingly capable of. That's one hand, on the other there should be some indication of being able to strategize and plan ahead, and indications of having and carrying out a goal. In which case their actions should indicate they favour a certain action that telegraphs where their focus is; which also while exceedingly competent, isn't perfect. An AI that was capable for example, in Hoi4, of gradually building up troops for a major offencive, springing it on the player the moment the player seems busy elsewhere, that would be fantastic. Instead of what they tend to do, which is to just constantly attack, wasting equipment and manpower and just exhausting themselves before the player even has to push. Basically, the AI shouldn't be trivially defeated just by landing a single division on St Petersberg which was left undefended for some reason; but can reasonably be expected not to employ cheese that a human might; in short present the ideal challenge for a more RP oriented single player experience. A beginner player should get crushed, a experienced player should have a challenging earned win, and a expert player should win handedly but with the AI not giving up and giving the best point until the end.
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Oct 23, 2022 03:22
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Of all the bigger strategy games I think Paradox games generally have the best AI? Compared to Civ, TW, Endless * etc. By a good bit, too.
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Oct 23, 2022 03:22
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RabidWeasel posted:The funny thing is that even the full grognard games suffer from the same problem where they're often not actually that difficult (in terms of decisionmaking) if you understand how they work but as you go up the grognard scale systems get more elaborate and time consuming to interact with so eventually you get to a point where you have to choose between continuing to optimise every action or just playing the game less optimally to save time. yeah, paradox games are riddled with the same false decisions and just-do-busywork-optimal-behavior stuff grognard games are, they just have more window dressing you have to learn about first. but it does take awhile to see 'em for what they are, and i suppose that's good probably? i dunno, maybe other people realized it before i did lol Slim Jim Pickens posted:AIs are poorly suited to Pdox games, the amount of iterations, the asymmetry, and the real time ticks are the worst possible combination of issues. Not to mention the combat models, which come down to random results if you truly fight on equal terms dunno how much this is true, only bc i feel like there IS no asymmetry in terms of mechanics in every game besides Stellaris. and even stellaris it's most of the way there. i feel like pdx games are hard to program AI for, but I'm not sure there's been a Paradox game with a robust enough AI to make me think they've tried. Popoto posted:by which i mean the average video game player just wants to curb stomp AI into oblivion and get their dose of dopamine ugh. yeah, this might be true too. i know in the civ thread for example every other player talked about restarting until they got a good start for their civ, that sort of thing. it's not my cup of tea there but maybe it is just me.
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Oct 23, 2022 03:23
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Anno posted:Of all the bigger strategy games I think Paradox games generally have the best AI? Compared to Civ, TW, Endless * etc. By a good bit, too. There's an interesting anectdote I once read somewhere about the AI for an old Star Trek Civilization-clone; about a campaign a player had where the AI for one of the empires (Gorn or Klingons?) seemed to be acting strangely; the most powerful AI seemed to be doing nothing to stop the player; and the player eventually won, but when he looked at the save from their perspective he figured out what was up. They were stopping a different empire from winning, by keeping them occupied. Which indicates a probably pretty clever minimax algorithm or similar being employed that let the AI evaluate its possible actions and even if it didn't have a means of winning, tried its best to not lose. It'd be cool if we saw AI like that more.
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Oct 23, 2022 03:27
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Anno posted:Of all the bigger strategy games I think Paradox games generally have the best AI? Compared to Civ, TW, Endless * etc. By a good bit, too.  For all the people that say it's bad AI, it's like...compared to what? The only game that comes to mind with "better" AI is Old World, and turn-based 4X is a whole different beast from pausible real-time.
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Oct 23, 2022 03:29
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