Paradox Grand Strategy: From the Carnival of Lust to the Enlightened Times

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Paradox Grand Strategy: From the Carnival of Lust to the Enlightened Times

«‹›5 »

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

The Spanish Civil War is a great training grounds as well. Just a few units and a few provinces, but with lots of rivers and varied terrain, so you can get the feel of the mechanics of combat.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2013 10:45

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 15, 2024 22:50

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Jabarto posted:

That's relatively common in my games since England always get dragged into war with Morocco via their alliance with Portugal. The Ottomans tend to get around a lot, too; I've seen them take and hold provinces in Italy, France, and even Sweden at various points in the past.

The Ottomans really like picking up Defender of the Faith for Islam. I've seen them get dragged into wars all over the place because of it.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2013 06:38

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

They're all part of the Balkan culture, along with the Croatians, Serbians, Greeks, Turks, Romanians and Hungarians, and would thus be part of the Balkan Settler mechanic, which adds +1 revolt risk for each level of the modifier, outside clay producing provinces.

Don't let anyone from Eastern Europe hear you saying that the Roma are part of their culture!

# ¿ Jan 16, 2013 02:56

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Fintilgin posted:

He's already been assigned to HOI4.

Over 200,000 provinces!

# ¿ Jan 17, 2013 00:30

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

DrSunshine posted:

The more I think about the upcoming East vs. West game, the more I am convinced that it would be very interesting to pay a Paradox political simulator-type game that takes place from around 1970 up to the first decade of the 21st century, with a lesser focus on military matters than HOI3, and more of a focus on politics and economics. It might be like Victoria 2 with the focus on economics, and CK2 with its political intrigue and backroom dealing. I thought the whole election and political party thing with Victoria 2 was pretty neat, and had more potential, but they could've gone even deeper with it.

Plus, the forty years between 1970 and 2010 were decades of such massive change. I'd be really interested to play through economic globalization, preside over the 1973 Oil Crisis, the rise of the Internet, the industrialization of China, or the Great Recession. It would be awesome to deal with all sorts of things like extremist terrorist groups, multinational corporations, and Intergovernment organizations like the E.U. or the U.N.

Imagine trying to win the 2008 US election as the Republican Party! Or try playing as Thailand during the Asian Financial Crisis!

Or successfully invade Kuwait as Saddam Hussein.

I know it's not the full Paradox treatment, but go play Shadow President with DosBox. You're the US just before the first Gulf War. Can you prevent it? Will your poll numbers survive an armed conflict? What about threats of terrorism from Libya and North Korea? Can you expand the economy with free trade agreements, or will you lose out to the economic powerhouse that is Japan? Will you maintain your influence over Europe and prevent Russian incursion?

All in all, pretty fun.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2013 07:36

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

I've signed up for Paradox's newsletter like five times now, and have never unsubscribed from it. Yet every time I hear about one of these code giveways, I check and notice that I haven't received an issue in months. They just keep auto unsubscribing me or something. Who knows. It's incredibly frustrating. At least, this time I already have the game they're giving it away. I just would have liked to given it to someone else instead.

Same here, but I'm not sure what the issue is.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2013 01:52

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

That guy really doesn't like CK2+.

Yeah I pretty much agreed with everything there except for CK2+ and the lack of EU3+

In other news, I'm playing through EU3+ as Ming and it is fun as hell. My blobbing is noticeably slowed, I have to work a little for my CBs, and it just feels good.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2013 04:56

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Trujillo posted:

Anyone have a few tips for eu3 multiplayer? About to get into my first multiplayer game tomorrow and I want to at least try not to be the first one knocked out.

You're dealing with people, so like in every multiplayer game, communication is key. The few games I have been in with friends, we hashed out what areas of expansion we "claimed" and only started loving with each other as we hit those borders. Also, making peace deals/alliances is a hell of a lot more fun when both sides are people and know how to bargain!

# ¿ Jan 26, 2013 21:31

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Let's do Portugal, ally myself with Spain/England, stay out of Europe and go for colonization. Move my capital to America, become the New World great power. Alternatively, pick Venice, try out the new trade mechanics.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2013 21:41

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Patter Song posted:

Portugal already owns Ceuta, Madiera, and Azores, while Castille already owns Canaries, speeding up colonization.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's nice to get the AI to start colonizing, but already handing out colonies means I can't beat my competitors to the punch and grab all the nearby islands, locking them out of America for a while.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2013 01:14

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

You could always do something like create an event that spawns landless armies to represent a migration. Say Tribe A has expanded and now occupies >50% of the provinces with Culture B. An event is triggered that spawns stacks of Culture B units on the edge of Tribe A's territory that move away from Tribe A and try to take land from someone else. Alternatively, make it all event based with culture switching of provinces that are experiencing immigration or emigration. An influx of different culture immigrants as a result of a migration could trigger a hefty revolt risk, and if the rebels take a county they replace the count with one of their own culture.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2013 04:37

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

gradenko_2000 posted:

* Standalone (dedicated?) servers so you can just host a game and leave it running as players drop in and out through the days

Welcome to the [SRB] Official Clan Server!!!

*No swearing
*No griefing
*No France or Ming camping
*Only 1v1 duels, no alliances allowed

# ¿ Feb 3, 2013 08:57

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Fintilgin posted:

EDIT EDIT: Since I never take ANY action in a Paradox game without first pausing, they're functionally turn based already, with variable length turns. Or, well... that's what I like to tell myself

If you don't have every important message set to popup and pause and every unimportant one set to log, you're playing the game wrong. :colbert:

# ¿ Feb 6, 2013 21:28

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Is Kersch's miscmods compatible with the most recent EU3 5.2 beta?

# ¿ Feb 8, 2013 00:26

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Farecoal posted:

So is social democracy unpopular on SA, because apparently I was left out of the loop

5 years ago it would have been unpopular because D&D was libertarian. Now it's unpopular because D&D is communist. Whether this is an improvement is left to your own opinion.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2013 00:40

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Gimmick Account posted:

I don't understand that comic.

It's one of a series of similar parody comics from the Onion.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2013 02:07

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Patter Song posted:

I actually almost always play as Asians, mainly because of the extra challenge.

It is, however, one of the reasons why I was so slow to upgrade to DW. Utterly breaking my favorite countries (Kazakh, Chagatai, etc.) with horde mechanics and utterly ruined Ming and Japan.

Nowadays I play Steppe Wolfe almost exclusively (always looking for things to show off for my thread) so it doesn't really matter. In SW, it doesn't matter who you're playing as, there's some way to break the game in half and become the most powerful country in the world if you just think hard enough. (Aboriginal Australians may be an exception to that rule)

Your Malaysia nogovernment was still my absolute favorite thing I've ever seen in a Paradox game. Second favorite would be Wiz's effortless Crusader Kings conquest.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2013 03:21

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

catlord posted:

So, what's the point of having monthly and yearly income?

Yearly income is a larger lump sum at the end of the year, in addition to your regular monthly taxes. Generally, it is okay to be running a negative monthly income as long as you make it up at the end of the year. But yeah, the system is redundant, and EU4 will only have monthly income.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2013 03:52

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Ah, I see this one has bought "The Sword of Islam." Time to pay him a visit.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2013 16:46

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Patter Song posted:

So I finally beat the Russians, took back northern Manchuria, took back Tuva(Sofianova region), and forced them to give my buddies Japan Sakhalin Island to further weaken them in the east. All it took was...occupying everything up to Kiev and Minsk.

I'm amazed Russia is keeping GP status with 0 military. Meanwhile, my people are being very, very odd about where they move to:

Krakow is now 20% South Chinese and 13% North Chinese...within a decade I fully expect it to be majority Chinese.

My world, 1898:

What's that white border between Portugal and Spain? Austria?

# ¿ Feb 14, 2013 19:41

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Fister Roboto posted:

So here's the Ottoroman Empire after about a hundred years:

The North African Coast and Hedjaz were all inherited through PUs, so they're all cored. Probably going to take over the rest of Arabia, the south into Swahili lands for the ivory provinces, and then push further up into Italy. From that point it's all Imperial territory, and Austria is still giving me a tough fight even after modernizing. Comedy option: Ottoman North America.

Of course at this point I discovered that somehow my ruler's dynasty somehow became Zayyanid (from Algiers). I could probably fix that in the save file, but my immersion

I think you mean the Islamic Roman Empire :v:

# ¿ Feb 14, 2013 21:15

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

I can't wait for CK2, EU4, and, at some point, Vicky 3 all in the new engine. Seriously, seriously, please make an automatic porter/scenario editor, and I would pay full game price for it. That would be a dream.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2013 07:37

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Tomn posted:

Steppe Wolfe was doing National Ideas before Paradox ever dreamed of them. Does the plundering not stop with Ubik, Johan?

We are a Bulgarian State.

I'm waiting for Paradox to publish Fjord Wolfe: as a Scandinavian state we get several bonuses.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2013 21:40

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

DrSunshine posted:

Now there's an idea. Maybe I can provoke the communist faction into a rebellion. Then we can transition directly from Absolute Monarchy into Proletarian Dictatorship by the 20th century!

I'm more of a match for Russia, but it takes freaking forever to get troops up there, so I'm probably gonna set my sights on kicking the white man out of South Asia. Now to rapidly industrialize and build factories in all ten gazillion of my provinces...

Lower taxes on your rich dudes to 0, watch them throw up so many factories.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2013 20:33

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Enrico Dandolo posted:

I'm gonna orient my camera to the orient.

If you choose a muslim country you must orient your camera towards mecca 5 times a century.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 23:44

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Pakled posted:

I would expect EU:Rome 2 to be awesome now that Paradox has the one person who played EU:Rome for longer than 20 minutes working for them.

You should have wiz whip up a nice final version of Reign of the Ancients and release it as the final patch or DLC.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2013 03:00

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

It not only couldn't do naval invasions, it simply couldn't build and use transports at all, meaning that without player intervention, the European powers always lost their colonial holdings to native populations, and with player intervention, it was trivial to take those colonial holdings. And the entire premise of the game is based around colonization. Yeah. That's what Empire was. I hear it's better now, and I kind of want to try it again. It's been on my steam list...

It's kind of amazing how just a year or so later, they released Napoleon Total War, which was a massive improvement in every single possible way. Far more competent AI, far more balanced strategy map balance, and was just better looking and better playing, even with a pretty cool story that followed the life of Napoleon with neat CG cutscenes even. Creative Assembly is the most schizophrenic company ever.

Shogun 2 was also really good. Its stand-alone expansion, Fall of the Samurai, is also said to be really good. So CA has been on a roll lately. Rome 2 might be really good.

CA really suffered in the AI department after they switched from a Paradox-like setup with discrete provinces to an open map that armies marched across. The AI had a hard time dealing with positioning. Things probably hit their lowest point in Empire, but Medieval 2 wasn't great either. However, Napoleon, which was originally meant as an expansion to Empire but turned out so well that it became its own game, had amazing AI. Shogun 2 and its expansion, Fall of the Samurai were both amazing as well. I have high hopes for Rome 2, which is probably my favorite setting. Here's hoping Paradox can make a EU: Rome 2 or CK2: Rome to capitalize on the buzz.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2013 23:32

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Bishop Rodan posted:

I've read that prior to IN rebels weren't grouped into Nationalists, Patriots, Fanatics, Peasants, and the like. There was just one generic "rebels". How did that work? What happened when they took provinces? Did they ever defect, declare independence, force convert, etc., or were they basically just there to keep you busy with an irritating game of whack-a-mole?

The worst part was that you couldn't set armies to auto hunt rebels.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2013 00:36

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Gorgo Primus posted:

Try out the Tutorial... I hear good things about it.

Better than Hitler?

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 01:01

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Patter Song posted:

Well, Ubik, that's certainly one way of preventing Ming from expanding:

If you read through those requirements, it would appear that Dai Vet must both be "a samurai clan" and not be "a samurai clan" at the same time before you can declare war.

edit: nevermind, I looked at it again and misread it. Which isn't loving hard to do, by the way.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 06:15

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

FadingChord posted:

I've had a pretty good run in my first real game of Victoria 2 as France. Britain went broke about five years in and their prestige fell through the floor, so I was top dog from about 1840 to 1880, when their industry got scary. I grabbed the Rhineland off of Prussia in two separate wars to keep a strong Germany from forming on my side, although Bavaria popping in and out of the 8th great power slot is about the only thing that's keeping Austria from forming the South German Federation. Around 1890, Austria bit Silesia off of southern Prussia, which launched their industry past mine as well.

I've been spending like crazy keeping all of my factories upgrading and I'm subsidizing every factory in France (I think I'm losing maybe 200 pounds a day from my treasury of 4 million+), but Austria just keeps ahead of me and Britain's gone back to its typically ludicrous lead. I'm thinking about sticking with the game just to see a Great War, but repeatedly loving over Prussia has just gotten me in trouble with Britain, Austria, and Germany while everybody else is pretty lukewarm towards me (minus my giant sphere that includes South America and half of China), so I'm pretty sure any Great War will involve murderstacks of British soldiers landing in Normandy while Austria and Prussia overrun the Rhineland and my sphered Italy.

Am I missing anything exciting if I quit now? There aren't even fun rebellions going on; I think Luxembourg got toppled by Anarcho-Liberals and Two Sicilies fell to the Redshirts, but that's about it. I'm in 1890, my tech is almost maxed out (I'm backfilling naval tech now because land dominance was always the name of the game), and it seems like the only way to stop Austria is overrunning them through Italy (probably doable) while the British have their way with my African holdings and American remnants, probably ending in me just cutting down Austria's prestige while Africa becomes another blob of red factories.

It's a fun enough game, but I can definitely see where the criticism of most of it being sitting back and watching your country get eclipsed by an omnipotent England comes from. I'm counting on Heart of Darkness, Wiz!

Build a coalition and start WWI with GB, then you can quit.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2013 23:31

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Rome Total War and I think Medieval 2 both had the option to exterminate or enslave a settlement when you conquer it, and give in game bonuses in the form of reduced dissent and redistributed population for doing so. Yet I've never heard anyone complain about those features. Victoria, EU, and HOI go out of their way to not mention historical cruelties like that, and people poo poo on them a lot more.

I just don't see the problem. I'm playing a country before the modern era, and although I the player can judge the "historical" actions of my country to be horrible, my country's contemporaries often didn't. And I the player just justify it to myself as being a necessary cost of bringing the entire world under my enlightened rule :getin:

I don't want moralizing in my games. I'm as left as they come, but I don't see how I need to be told that my actions in a game are bad and I should feel bad.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2013 19:22

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

You should rename North Dakota to DPRNDK, a la DPRK.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2013 17:33

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

I've never played Victoria 2, but I'm going to get into it for HoD. Question: how much of your population will you lose over a game killing rebels? Should I be worried about draining my population?

# ¿ Apr 13, 2013 20:42

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

I want to know when the first patch is coming out for HoD. That's usually my signal to try playing a Paradox game :v:

# ¿ Apr 16, 2013 03:09

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Scrree posted:

Okay, so I looked into it a bit and apparently inventing Gas Attacks gave me -3 defense instead of +3 attack. Italy does not have the tech needed researched nor the invention, so it's not just a lack of defense on my part. Anyone know what file I need to dig through to find out how to fix this?

This is in the base game?

edit: Only thing I could find was \inventions\army_inventions.txt enabling gas_attack, but it had nothing about stats. Looks like it's hard coded.

Cantorsdust fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Apr 18, 2013

# ¿ Apr 18, 2013 00:51

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Speaking of which, any word on when the first patch is coming out?

# ¿ Apr 18, 2013 23:08

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

So this is my first time playing Victoria 2. I started with China and tried to westernize. Beating up on Korea and Dai Vet with my massive manpower gave me the research points I needed to westernize eventually, and I wind up with all of loving China in my grasp. From there, everything got really confusing. I keep getting hit with this "nobody likes the Manchu" event giving my pops a steady stream of militancy. I also can't figure out how to pass any reforms. I understand that I need to convert the house from conservatives to liberals, but even with 3 national focuses devoted to promoting liberals in my 3 most populous provinces, they're stuck at 20%. How do I get anything done?

# ¿ Apr 19, 2013 06:13

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

I've followed Grey Hunter's LP of War in the Pacific for a while now, and I would kill to play a game like that with an approachable UI. But no, it has to be for sperglords...

# ¿ Apr 19, 2013 17:33

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 15, 2024 22:50

Cantorsdust: Aug 10, 2008; Infinitely many points, but zero length.

I'm trying to write an event in Vicky 2 that would take a every province a country owns, strip all the cores from it, and then give a core to the controller. I'm trying to create a decision for China to remove all of its extra cores once it reunifies. Only problem is that I can't find the right scope that would let me remove all the cores.

I've tried

code:

	add_cores = { 
		alert = no 
		potential = { ai = no }
		allow = { } 
		effect = { 
			any_owned = { remove_core any_country }
			any_owned = { add_core THIS }
		} 
		ai_will_do = { factor = 0 } 
	}

and also tried

code:

any_owned = { any_core = { remove_core = THIS } }

and

code:

any_owned = { any_country = { any_core = { remove_core = THIS } } }

Nothing. Very frustrating.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2013 08:13

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Paradox Grand Strategy: From the Carnival of Lust to the Enlightened Times

«‹›5 »