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CharlestheHammer posted:Why? What would make it stand apart from the other paradox games? It would be cool to build a fantasy nation with cool spells and monsters and orcs and things, these are hard to find in historical games
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May 22, 2021 23:50
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CharlestheHammer posted:I don’t get what being fantasy adds to this. Space at least complements the exploration but Ever played Master of Magic or Heroes of Might and Magic? Fantasy works really well with basically the same exploration model as Stellaris. You send out a character to loot various kinds of lairs and crap, and get gold, items, spells, other heroes, etc from it. And unlike those old games, in Stellaris so many of those encounters has a tiny, self-contained story in it that makes the experience very engaging. Stellaris 1.0 was a really broken game in so many ways, but despite that I think I played >30h of it in the first week. Just because the exploration was so fun. And the way CK-style characters really work in fantasy is that because you can load them to the gills with magic poo poo, they themselves, and not just the armies they lead, can easily become your heavy hitters. So you invest more into them emotionally, and so seduction plots to steal the enemy heroes become even more important.
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May 23, 2021 00:02
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The Chad Jihad posted:It would be cool to build a fantasy nation with cool spells and monsters and orcs and things, these are hard to find in historical games https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1385440355
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May 23, 2021 00:55
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Raenir Salazar posted:I think its correct that any kind of Fantasy themed Grand Strategy game basically has to have a character system because fantasy as a genre is about adventurers and their adventures within the backdrop of a larger setting as context. I think this is really the key design difficulty with a fantasy GSG. Fantasy is traditionally overwhelmingly focused on the doings of a relatively few characters, and it's hard to create a game scope that focuses both on those bold few AND the overall nation-state that lasts over the passage of time. I can't speak for anyone else but I find that CK fantasy mods based on popular IPs tend to be cool at first, but lose interest quickly once all the main characters I know of and have an emotional connection to die out and I'm dealing with generic randos in a situation far removed from the context of the original IP. A number of them also in general have timing issues since the heroes are supposed to be going on massive, world-shaking adventures in a single lifetime or even within the span of a few years but the CK system doesn't really support that unless you've the power of an overwhelming superstate behind you as well. Not to say that it's impossible, just that it requires extra design work to make it, well, work. Could be a couple of ways of doing it - instead of playing a nation, maybe you play as a god vying with other gods for control and influence, using heroes as your agents in the world to exalt or shatter nations as you see fit, thus giving you the grand strategy scope while still retaining individuals as the spine of the emergent narrative. I'd be pretty down for that, come to think of it, especially if there's no explicit victory goals and you can spend time trying to mold society to your whims, or to protect a single kingdom alone, or to find worthy candidates to propel to greatness in your name or what have you.
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May 23, 2021 01:42
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Obviously a fantasy GSG should be built on That Which Sleeps' model. Tomn posted:I can't speak for anyone else but I find that CK fantasy mods based on popular IPs tend to be cool at first, but lose interest quickly once all the main characters I know of and have an emotional connection to die out and I'm dealing with generic randos in a situation far removed from the context of the original IP. A number of them also in general have timing issues since the heroes are supposed to be going on massive, world-shaking adventures in a single lifetime or even within the span of a few years but the CK system doesn't really support that unless you've the power of an overwhelming superstate behind you as well. I always felt the big problem with those mods was that the IPs they were drawing from weren't constructed to provide interesting fantasy scenarios. So you have small numbers of polities, flat diplomacy/terrain etc. A scenario constructed from the ground up to be fodder for a GSG should avoid that issue, if the designers know what they're doing.
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May 23, 2021 01:54
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Fantasy GSG people, play King of Dragon Pass and Birthright - The Gorgon’s Alliance. Just imagine the two mashed together. Perfect game.
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May 23, 2021 02:42
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The “birthright” setting would work well within the crusader king engine I would think! I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a mod for it yet, though I suppose it’s one of the more obscure D&D settings.
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May 23, 2021 03:17
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Hot Dog Day #82 posted:The “birthright” setting would work well within the crusader king engine I would think! I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a mod for it yet, though I suppose it’s one of the more obscure D&D settings. There was, more than one even. I think one of them may have been goon-made? https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/mod-birthright-d-d-take-ii.755935/
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May 23, 2021 03:37
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The next game should be set in the Redwall universe.
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May 23, 2021 04:24
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If we're talking fantasy universes, I remain surprised that there's no Paradox Warhammer title, either for the fantasy or sci-fi flavor. It would be a great fit thematically.
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May 23, 2021 04:56
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:There was, more than one even. I think one of them may have been goon-made? Ooo I happily stand corrected! Thanks for the link.
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May 23, 2021 05:00
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The Chad Jihad posted:It would be cool to build a fantasy nation with cool spells and monsters and orcs and things, these are hard to find in historical games Clearly Paradox should team up with Illwinter and make Dominions into a proper Paradox title where the AI is only terrible instead of utterly godawful.
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May 23, 2021 05:11
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Cantorsdust posted:If we're talking fantasy universes, I remain surprised that there's no Paradox Warhammer title, either for the fantasy or sci-fi flavor. It would be a great fit thematically. I disgree, total war is a way better fit since you can actually fight with the iconic units of the factions rather than just smashing your stack into their stack. Also all the pdx diplomacy stuff doesnt even apply to half the factions. Chaos and Orcs arent going to rivalling people or angle for alliances, they're going to basically just be Stellaris Fanatic Purifiers along with half the factions in the game.
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May 23, 2021 05:16
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4X space exploration was already a genre long before Stellaris came along, and people are used to space having little to no geographic features. It can feed off of people's more generic lust for exploring space, regardless of how little may be out there, as well as sci-fi shows that really mesh well with the idea of interstellar states vaguely defined with steereotypes glaring at eachother from a distance across the infinite expanse of nothingness. Fantasy as a genre is usually built around old worlds that have existed for centuries, millennia, eons before the audience came in. Sorta in medias res on a grand scale. Making a 4X would seem weird, and Paradox's usual maps deal with complicated enough geography that it's really hard to procedurally generate. And while you could in theory just go with boilerplate versions of standard fantasy trope societies, that's pretty boring without details. There's even a whole lot of immediate implication dominoes if you give the player access to unique fantasy mechanics like magic. Basically they'd need to have writers and designers doing a lot more work than they do on other games to build a setting from the ground up, and there's no guarantee the setting will create that much extra appeal to drum up a new audience, and that kind of project needs dramatically more creative investment beyond s simple three word pitch.
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May 23, 2021 06:34
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What was that fantasy RPG that they were working on and then canceled? Runeforged or something?
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May 23, 2021 06:51
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Cantorsdust posted:If we're talking fantasy universes, I remain surprised that there's no Paradox Warhammer title, either for the fantasy or sci-fi flavor. It would be a great fit thematically. The Warhammer mods are pretty popular, but there's no way GW would give out Warhammer Fantasy licenses out so that someone could compete with the by far most successful Warhammer computer game series they've ever released. If there hadn't been Total Warhammer, you would have a point, but that ship has sailed.
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May 23, 2021 06:58
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Dirk the Average posted:Clearly Paradox should team up with Illwinter and make Dominions into a proper Paradox title where the AI is only terrible instead of utterly godawful. Please don't increase the odds of me actually ending up Torrannor posted:The Warhammer mods are pretty popular, but there's no way GW would give out Warhammer Fantasy licenses out so that someone could compete with the by far most successful Warhammer computer game series they've ever released. If there hadn't been Total Warhammer, you would have a point, but that ship has sailed. Yeah, it seems pretty obvious why Paradox doesn't have any access to the GW license, a little company called Creative Assembly is releasing a highly successful game with it.
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May 23, 2021 07:01
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CharlestheHammer posted:I think a lot of the problems is most people’s suggestions seem to boil down a different game but fantasy themed and I don’t see the appeal. Hell I don’t think the historical titles sell based on the period, but what that period brings to the table The main thing I can think of would be the world itself. Not only could it be set up in a way that twists the regular notions of a GSG map, but it could also be dynamic, something like: - The world map is a series of overlaid maps that connect in various locations, with stuff like underground cavern systems allowing movement not visible to people above ground, or even the realms of magical entities trying to gain access to the mortal world. - The world map features actual fantastical poo poo, with various effects on gameplay, like inhospitable regions that serve as a superb barrier to normal invaders but might also become the perfect staging ground for invasion by equally nasty magical invaders. Or regions where the flow of time isn't constant, and an army might speed through in the blink of an eye, giving you a tactical advantage. Or conversely, the opposite happens, and you end up having to contend with your former king demanding his throne back from his now geriatric son who he left behind as a toddler. - Finally, as mentioned, the map could be dynamic. For the fantasy poo poo to really feel properly different, I think it should be of the more cataclysmic variety. Like, the defeat of the Sorcerer Shah might result in him blowing an actual crater into the world map as he dies, scaring the land and creating a permanent reminder of the history of the world. Or even more dramatically, letting rituals do stuff like lowering/raising the elevation of an area, possibly drowning a kingdom beneath the waves. If that was more of a long term project, it would also be the perfect setup for sending out adventurers or creating a coalition to take down the Sorcerer Shah. Less dramatically, the expansion of subterranean connections beneath the surface world, or the creation of portals to magical realms through cult rituals, would be an obvious way to twist the strategic landscape. The last bit would definitely require a really solid climate model, though if people are suggesting procedurally generated worlds for exploration, then that's really a requirement anyway. Which thinking about it could result in some pretty funny reversals of fortune, with the sinking of one kingdom beneath the waves resulting in shifting winds patterns turning the once verdant realms of the perpetrator into a desert.
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May 23, 2021 07:07
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i'm sure there are already mods doing this but a LOTR paradox grand strategy game could totally work
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May 23, 2021 07:13
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Farecoal posted:What was that fantasy RPG that they were working on and then canceled? Runeforged or something? Runemaster.
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May 23, 2021 07:22
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cool av posted:i'm sure there are already mods doing this but a LOTR paradox grand strategy game could totally work The main difficulty I see with this is: What do good factions (elves and dwarves especially) do outside of fighting the evil factions? Expansionism doesn't seem lore friendly. So unless the game contains Aragorn's tax policies, Gimli's trade policies and Legolas's character based gameplay I don't see it working very well.
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May 23, 2021 07:24
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Here's a question: What generic features of fantasy would add a significant twist to a fantasy GSG? Furries. I get what you're saying, when you look at it all from an abstract strategic perspective there's not a big mechanical difference between global world-changing spell and, say, a new law. Most of the fantasy stuff in TW Warhammer is what you see in camera close-ups. I think that if PDX does a fantasy GSG then it won't just be EU/Imperator/Victoria/CK-style thing, like Stellaris they'll probably do something fundamentally different, probably without provinces or not on a plane. Maybe it'd be a Civilization-style game where you lead a species from a wild magical age into an industrial era where magic dies. Maybe it's a multiverse simulation. Something like that. I think Imperator had shown them that if they want to make something like EU they have to make EU5 so they won't try to tweak their formula anymore, just use completely new approaches like Stellaris.
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May 23, 2021 07:31
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A big plus for a fantasy themed GSG is actually having something that adds a bit of deconstruction to it. All those fantasies armies need to eat and sleep; merchants need roads in order to be there to sell potions to the heroes at the last dungeon. Kings have reasons to be petty and short sighted for long term reasons beyond just the end of the world. In a way it brings things back to Tolkien with how Mordor actually has fertile land tilled by human settlements who provide the food for the orc legions and stuff. It can be a source of conflict between the Heroes who need to save things, the Demon Lord who wants to conquer the world; and everyone else who are trying to do their own business.
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May 23, 2021 08:19
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Raenir Salazar posted:A big plus for a fantasy themed GSG is actually having something that adds a bit of deconstruction to it. All those fantasies armies need to eat and sleep; merchants need roads in order to be there to sell potions to the heroes at the last dungeon. Kings have reasons to be petty and short sighted for long term reasons beyond just the end of the world. In a way it brings things back to Tolkien with how Mordor actually has fertile land tilled by human settlements who provide the food for the orc legions and stuff. ilitarist posted:Furries. A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 08:49 on May 23, 2021 |
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May 23, 2021 08:30
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Paradox owns the Vampire license... A grand strategy game about the Jyhad over the centuries, vying for control of Kindred and mortal power centers...
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May 23, 2021 08:57
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ilitarist posted:Furries. Boo! Go full magitech!
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May 23, 2021 09:13
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I could go for a fantasy GSG that went full in on naval combat, like a One Piece type setting where the world is all ocean and islands. It'd certainly distinguish the game from the other Paradox titles mechanically. Maybe all the sailing is done like a strategy game, and all the islands play like Fire Emblem maps. Thank you for coming to my pitch meeting.
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May 23, 2021 09:27
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Yeah it would have to be something that plays completely differently from just nation blobbing. Otherwise it's just "you can activate a spell to get better unit stats". Also, something something mana 
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May 23, 2021 09:32
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To be honest, I think there's more space for a fantasy GSG to have very outlandish mechanics that wouldn't work in a historical setting - a necromancy faction working entirely off of raising dead units, quest chains that trigger big Stellaris Crisis type events, portions of the map being moving floating continents or areas being destroyed/transformed by magic entirely, and so on. But as Stellaris shows, there's always a push/pull between making a faction mechanically distinct and fitting within the systems that exist in the game, and trying to balance for multiplayer, so the end result can end up not being as distinct as the devs might originally have intended.
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May 23, 2021 09:41
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Red Bones posted:To be honest, I think there's more space for a fantasy GSG to have very outlandish mechanics that wouldn't work in a historical setting - a necromancy faction working entirely off of raising dead units, quest chains that trigger big Stellaris Crisis type events, portions of the map being moving floating continents or areas being destroyed/transformed by magic entirely, and so on. But as Stellaris shows, there's always a push/pull between making a faction mechanically distinct and fitting within the systems that exist in the game, and trying to balance for multiplayer, so the end result can end up not being as distinct as the devs might originally have intended.
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May 23, 2021 10:04
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Charlz Guybon posted:Boo! Go full magitech! It would be interesting to have tech routes that were full-on sorcery, magictech, and full age of science industrial-age. Can they co-exist?
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May 23, 2021 10:20
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Earthdawn or gtfo  More seriously, settings with a strong narrative with a big war in it could lend themselves to the paradox treatment. From LOTR to Dragonlance to Wheel of Time you have an absolute ton of stories that involve banding together to fight an ancient evil and then dealing with the fallout from that. It wouldn’t be too radical of a change to model that central conflict, with gathering allies and so on, and assuming the player survives then getting to “what happens next”: Stellaris already does this to an extent with the endgame crises. Or in settings like Eberron, where fantasy WW1 already happened and everyone is jockeying for position ahead of fantasy WW2. Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 10:43 on May 23, 2021 |
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May 23, 2021 10:41
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Art, setting and feel matters a lot to people., if I could play Imperator but with tusks and pointy ears then it would be a ton more fun for me with just that. And yes, not being limited to trying to follow historical borders and geography does allow the developers to setup weird scenarios and challenges that might not be possible in a historical game.
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May 23, 2021 10:51
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Earthdawn would be my thought also. More generally, there are tons of fantasy settings with a baked-in 4X type start like that. Post magical apocalypse, sort of thing. The 100-year demon plague expired and survivors of various factions emerge from their vaults...
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May 23, 2021 10:55
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Noir89 posted:Art, setting and feel matters a lot to people., if I could play Imperator but with tusks and pointy ears then it would be a ton more fun for me with just that. And yes, not being limited to trying to follow historical borders and geography does allow the developers to setup weird scenarios and challenges that might not be possible in a historical game. I mean it doesn’t seem to matter to much as games that didn’t exactly ever reach a unique feeling failed. Like that Japanese game that just became a prototype for CK. Hell even Imperator was that until it was improved and it still hasn’t exactly recovered
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May 23, 2021 11:19
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Red Bones posted:To be honest, I think there's more space for a fantasy GSG to have very outlandish mechanics that wouldn't work in a historical setting - a necromancy faction working entirely off of raising dead units, quest chains that trigger big Stellaris Crisis type events, ah, the my little pony mod for hearts of iron
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May 23, 2021 11:30
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Just slap Paradox grand strategy together with Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or something.
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May 23, 2021 11:37
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You can also just do stuff that wouldn't necessarily make sense in a real world setting, like that Cult faction in Endless Legend that just builds one giant megacity or really lean into stuff like CK2's Satanic events as your next ruler turns out to be the Dark Lord of Prophecy.
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May 23, 2021 13:07
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Doesn't paradox own the rights to Tyranny? That's a neat setting and would absolutely be a cool gsg.
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May 23, 2021 14:23
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Rather than a fantasy GSG, why not take a departure into something totally different? I like Buttery Pastry's idea of not having distinct provinces. What about taking it a little bit further - a game about playing as a nomadic tribe? Nomad simulator! I'm not sure which period would be most interesting. Perhaps the migration period in Europe? Or perhaps make it a neolithic period setting, where, over the centuries, you must decide whether to settle your tribe and become agriculturists, or stick to the old ways and merely trade with the growing farming settlements? Or perhaps it could be a game about the Mongols! Imagine a game where you play as not a ruler, or a state, but as a population. Borders are fluid, and the push and pull of where your people go depends on the seasons, on friendly or rival neighbors, on the quality of forage you can get, or of grazing land for your livestock.
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May 23, 2021 14:37
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