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

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Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

JGBeagle posted:

Does anyone else get hung up on Paradox's registration screen? No matter how many times I refresh, the page erases my password and then loads indefinitely, never completing my registration. I just want to look at the mods.

Is that an issue you've got with just the registration of one game, or have you got multiple games you've been trying to register and they're all screwing up? What internet browser are you using?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2013 22:23

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 18:06

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Beamed posted:

I'm excited for when MotE's map gets ported to EU4, and the rest of the world gets an equivalent province density(excepting siberia and desolate areas etc.) My precious micro-management

One of the first mods for EU4 better be a more provinces mod, because judging by what screenshots are out the provinces currently in the game are back to the early EU3 scale-- the souther part of the Italian peninsula is just four provinces, single-province J-shaped Languedoc is back, and so forth.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2013 17:48

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

American Invasion DLC. France and Britain will have to set aside their differences to contend with Khan Jefferson and the Great Horde of Liberation sweeping across Europe from the west.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 00:27

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

It was King Charles' experimental period.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 06:37

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

I would play this game so hard. I would pay serious money to play this game. I would build Boston to make sense from day one. I know this will never happen but ohhhhhh, I want it to.

A good historic city-building game should encourage the exact sort of logic that leads to gordian knot-like street layouts, with the cost of Haussmannization being absurdly high. :colbert:

# ¿ Feb 25, 2013 02:33

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Orange Devil posted:

You have no idea how badly I wish that Sim City was this. I want my cities to grow rather than merely expand.

Best mechanic I could think off would be to make the cost of road-laying to be very high and limit financial controls early on, meaning that the player only has the cash to lay down a few major trunk roads. AI-residents would then lay down their own roads at no cost to and with no control by the player, leading to a couple sensible roads and then a clusterfuck of small roads leading off into the residenial areas (also grown by the AI and outside the player's control). Later research/inventions/events would enable better revenue-garnering techniques, increased player control over the city and finally the ability to demolish poo poo. By the time the player has all that stuff, however, the city would be like London circa 1666 or Paris in the early 19th century or some such.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2013 03:31

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

wukkar posted:

It is a shame it is designed this way, please reconsider this restriction. The crisis system can't represent the Pact of Plombi�res if Sardinia-Piedmonte can't offer to give Savoy and Nice to France.

Offering Cyprus to the Brits as a way to gain their favor in a crisis against Russia, playing as the Ottomans, would be pretty rad. As it is, though, what's been described for HoD sounds pretty rad so far and I'm happy to take what I can get in terms of new gameplay mechanics.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2013 18:58

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Raenir Salazar posted:

I would want a good war game, but I would also want there to be something substantial to the economy and politics, but yes I would put the emphasis on the war, so long as there's some variety to different types of wars like Vietnam or Afghanistan.

But the most important thing about the Cold War is that The Big One was avoided. Sure, there were all sorts of satellite wars and it's right and proper for those to have some attention, but to focus on those conflicts to the detriment of all the diplomacy and spycraft which went on to prevent a direct confrontation from happening is to seriously miss what ought to be the point of a Cold War grand strategy game.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 06:18

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Raenir Salazar posted:

And Germany lost WWII but that possibility of them winning is like there. I've done it once allied to Poland.

Sure, but if the game details a possible German victory moreso than it does the Allied-Soviet victory that actually happened? That seems to be part of the issue here. All the military details suggest that there is more work being done on "Cold War goes Hot" stuff, which is ahistorical but certainly possible, than there is on the historical Cold War machinations that went on to prevent that very same scenario from actually occuring!

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 06:29

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

quote:

For instance, War of the Roses looks poised to grow and improve quite a bit this year, but I can never shake the feeling it thinks small. It is becoming more of a medieval Battlefield, complete with a Rush-style game mode, but it lacks the accidental grandeur or Mount and Blade. It has the art and style of a great medieval combat game, but the scale of a shooter deathmatch. While the Brian Blessed DLC coming out this year should be good for a laugh (his narration of a deathmatch sounds priceless), I�m not certain that War of the Roses is the best of both worlds so much as an awkward combination.

Why is it only now that I've heard about this?

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 21:17

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Kavak posted:

Eh, I disagree. Germany is more democratic than not (There's also a distinct lack of Nazis), Russia isn't being ruled by Stalin and has a chance to stabilize its democracy, Japan can pull back from military rule, etc. Parts of the world are much more troubled, like the United States, but I have my own issues with the ACW event chain. Kaiserreich's more unstable than OTL, definitely, but not all the outcomes are bad.

At the same time that all those countries have the possibility of becoming pregressively more democratic and peaceably reforming, they all also have the opportunity to laugh madly as they suspend elections, give power to ne'er-do-well mustache-twirlers, and oh god. Not all the outcomes are good, either.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 00:25

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Kavak posted:

I've had to scrap several attempts at making the American Civil War event chain more believable and nuanced because I did something wrong somewhere and couldn't be assed to find where I missed a bracket. I've finally learned to back up files so I don't have to reinstall the entire mod.

How'd you aim to make the Civil War Two Boogaloo more nuanced, if you don't mind me asking?

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 00:33

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Kavak posted:

I have a few issues with it, but my biggest one is that you have these long event chains for each candidate winning the election and they all have the same total civil war outcome- all your attempts at compromise and maintaining order are meaningless, except to buy time for building more units. I'd like to have the option to placate at least one of the factions. For example, Curtis can negotiate a solution to the Combined Syndicates strike, but when Long flips his poo poo they revolt against you anyway. I tried to put in some flags to stop that from happening, but something got messed up somewhere.

That sounds neat! Back in HoI2 days when I first checked out KR and the KR spiel I thought their talk about the ACW and "choosing sides" implied that was going to happen, so it's neat to hear someone actually try to do that.

Rather than untangling the mess of flags and triggers already in the game, have you thought of just having the "Reconcile the syndicates" option sleep the CSA secession event?

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 01:06

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Kavak posted:

I honestly would've preferred if the U.S. started out split up into smaller republics, maybe with one in California based around Hollywood and a few Native American Nations...

You mean something like this:

Thank God for the E3 map project, otherwise a Crimson Skies mod would be a cluserfuck of 3-province countries and fuckall.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 03:27

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Zeron posted:

What? It's entirely avoidable. Granted it's only through one specific path of the events but it's still entirely possible to not have ACW2.

Could've sworn the KR devs have said that route is an accident, but they decided to not fix it up because some people for some strange and inexplicable reason want to avoid the Electric War II: Civil Boogaloo.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 03:34

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Kavak posted:

Somebody on the Kaiserreich forums mentioned that the AUS had more of a base in the midwest than the deep south in the HOI 2 version, which the flavor text in the USA's events supports. Then they later moved them inside the boundaries of the Confederacy and threaten to ban you in poor English when you bring up that what looks like, and honestly should be, a Neo-Confederate movement bears no resemblance to it . So yeah, I'm wondering if the original designer of the ACW left at some point and they've been confused as to what to do with it, because aside from the bug, I think its the only war in the game that is totally unavoidable- as in, you could put human players in charge of each country and the world could avoid war except for there.

You're right about the Midwest thing. Don't know for sure why the AUS' powerbase was moved from the Midwest to the Old South-- aside from possibly trying to bring up Confederate connotations while breathlessly denying it in the same moment, the South has more IC to work with?

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 04:16

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

You know what Kaiserreich really needs? Vaguer event triggers, if not also vaguer events themselves. There's a decent amount of post-Weltkreig II events, Boogaloo War: Electric Civil Two events, and various reconstruction events, but an awful lot of those are dependent on very specific triggers and several flags, like Syndicalist Germany (god forbid you create the German Union before the Kaiser capitulates) which mean that very few postwar events actually fire in a single game. If some events and event chains could be made just a little more generic, a lot more things could happen after the war.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 05:23

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Pimpmust posted:

The Ottomans seem to be one of few countries without an event chain to turn the lumbering beast around (like Qing). Just straight up "enjoy your dissent cake, in fact have a dozen of them" even if you are winning.

Reforming the Habsburg Empire, reviving the Qing more than a decade after it's overthrown and a republic's taken its place, Mexico reclaiming and coring territories lost in 1848-- these are all in the realm of possibility in Kaiserreich, but the Ottoman Empire's decline is inevitable.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 07:30

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

SkySteak posted:

I hope not. Then again if it all goes to poo poo there is always ICBMs. However I have a question:

When I research 'Massive Naval Invasion' it says 'Max Amphib Size: 7' does that mean I get penalties or some other negative modifier if I have more divisions doing a naval landing?
or

I think it means you simply cannot attack a beachhead with 8 or more divisions.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2013 17:56

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

V for Vegas posted:

It begins

Doomdark says 7 diaries - so an early May release!

I am intensely curious as to how they went about solving the Magyar problem. Looks like they actually made the Magyars landed at game start, so it will be interesting to see how the migration into Pannonia plays out.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2013 13:55

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Freudian posted:

Random event that gives Nomads claims on counties to their west. In future patches they'll introduce modding tools to point the expansion path in a specific direction.

Is there any mechanism in place to encourage abandonment in the east as long as western expansion continues? Otherwise the Old Gods' Hungary is going to end up spanning Pannonia and Ukraine in most games, looks like.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2013 16:45

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Drone posted:

I wanna know what percentage of people who love Paradox games go on to study history/become historians. I mean I won't say it was a deciding factor for me or anything, but I played Vicky/Ricky for a couple years before I started a bachelor's degree in history.

I was in high school when I started playing Paradox games, and it did help fire my interest into something more serious. Of course, then I ended up interested in the one period Paradox hasn't touched, and now I'm always frustrated when the next new project doesn't end up being a Early Middle Ages/Dark Ages game.

Kavak posted:

I've always been interested in history, but I think getting into Paradox's stuff kicked me into gear and made me single out my major. Wish I'd found them a year earlier instead of dicking around with classes I hated for my Freshman year.

Trying to be an engineering student Freshman year for me was definitely a mistake.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2013 21:40

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Kuiperdolin posted:

The worst part is that, if it fails like Magna Mundi, and after the Paradox France breakup, it might make Paradox much less likely to collaborate with external small teams, although it was a really nice policy in the absolute.

What's the cause behind stuff like this? Is it just that fans with official backing and resources tend to feature-bloat due to overestimating how much time and stuff and everything they have to work with, or...? Why'd the Darkest Hour team not screw up where the others have screwed up?

# ¿ Mar 31, 2013 23:45

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Oh wow, that newspaper feature is pretty rad.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2013 19:13

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

SpaceViking posted:

This war on the stream.

The not recruiting replacement soldiers and the 10 newspapers piled up is driving me nuts.

Isn't it often the case that a game's devs aren't the most capable players of those very same games?

# ¿ Apr 11, 2013 20:31

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Ferrosol posted:

Oh god Paradox makes the best ~~adverts~~ games. I want this

Well sure, I'll buy it.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2013 02:06

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Tomn posted:

That's odd, I thought Abyssinia WAS Ethiopia. So what did they consider to be Ethiopia back then?

Might be a dash of Classicism seeping in there-- the Greeks and Romans basically dubbed everything from the Sahel southwards �thiopia, even West Africa and the Niger River watershed and all that. A lot of 19th century European maps seem to have used the name in that fashion up until the Berlin Conference and Scramble for Africa.

# ¿ May 5, 2013 16:21

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

France agreed to the Franco-British union rather than surrender to Germany in my Darkest Hour game:

e: No mods, just used the command panel at the start to force USA to release CSA at the start of the scenario, then reloaded as the Confederates for fun.

Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 19:08 on May 12, 2013

# ¿ May 12, 2013 19:02

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Farecoal posted:

Wait, the Confederacy can exist in Darkest Hour? How do they come about?

They're a releasable country, yes. I released them (and California and Texas, but then I acceptall/demand territory re-annexed them) by starting off as USA at the 1933 start and then firing event 2049048 with a console command. 2049048's supposed to fire only if the US is horribly beaten in a war by Japan or the USSR, but that never happens.

# ¿ May 13, 2013 00:05

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Fintilgin posted:

ParadoxNet launches all its nukes at Nepal, and repeatedly marches its Terminator armies back and forth between L.A. and San Diego while demanding the unconditional surrender of all Mankind. After two years it surrenders and cedes its servers to Luxembourg.

When all warfare is computerized in the future, this is what it's going to be like.

# ¿ May 13, 2013 00:25

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

gradenko_2000 posted:

My first attempt at forming Germany ended up with Austria, Bavaria and all the principalities forming the German Empire, but without Prussia

I kind of want to see that. An Austria-led Germany without Prussia in it is a nice reversal of Prussia-led Germany without Austria.

# ¿ May 13, 2013 02:27

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Fister Roboto posted:

You probably don't want to see it. Think of the horrible swiss-cheese borders.

Well okay, beat them Hohenzollerns up and snatch the Rhineland from 'em, but other than that it ought to be okay.

# ¿ May 13, 2013 04:31

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Cantorsdust posted:

Please please please make a CK2 DLC that will generate an EU4 save game. I will pay beaucoup piles of money for it.

Make the files accessible through Notepad so that province and TAG values can be reassigned to make the whole thing work with mods. Promise us the moon.

Also! Dinosaurs.

# ¿ May 15, 2013 02:09

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Tulip posted:

The Paradox Game that most closely follows how i think of governments is Mount & Blade. Which would be kind of cool - nukes fly and it turns in to M&B: DC.

You have conquered Kiev! President Eisenhower awards it to himself and invites you to a feast. You have five days to arrive at his camp.

# ¿ May 17, 2013 23:37

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

The Narrator posted:

I could imagine a system of MotE-esque coalitions that sort of apply for ideology. I guess as a member of a specific ideology (communism, NATO/capitalist allies, Islamists, etc.) there would be an urging for you to join that particular coalition, which perhaps could be a pain for the player but *shrug* I'm not sure on that.

'Course, then you might get a bit finicky with the definition of ideologies and what belongs to what. Would Islamists belong to a more autocratic axis of countries? What about Arab Socialism, then?

# ¿ May 18, 2013 05:49

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

ZearothK posted:

Napoleon's Legacy, which is a scenario where Napoleon defeated both Russia and Britain in the final coalition. It's more grounded in reality than the other mods, though it has some... Questionable decisions about ethnic cleansing.

It started as a 4chan project. It's surprising more questionable things aren't in it.

# ¿ May 26, 2013 13:41

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Kavak posted:

Well that explains everything! We should be counting our blessings they haven't tried their hand at Hearts of Iron yet.

...have they?

Not that I can recall. A couple of Kaiserreich contributors have popped up from time to time and there's always never-finished (cough) projects posted, but there's no big Hearts of 4chan project or anything like that. 'Austro-Bohemian Byzantium' is the only HoI-ish thing I can think of off the top of my head.

Early iterations of the Napoleon's Legacy/napoopan mod did have a decision to turn Albanian pops into oil or coal, I forget which, so it's definitely improved for the better from then.

e: The Albanian thing was a joke-too-far response to a great Serbian nationalist post on the Paradox forums, iirc.

Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 14:12 on May 26, 2013

# ¿ May 26, 2013 14:05

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Fister Roboto posted:

Are you suggesting that they should perhaps evict their roast meats?

You're coming at it from the wrong end. Roast meats should not be dislodged from the confines, but rather propagated further afield!

That is, the Ottomans need to retake Macedonia and southern Bulgaria.

e:

Bishop Rodan posted:

What the hell is that thing in Venice?

Venice, looks like.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 03:09

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 18:06

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Morholt posted:

Laurasia Universalis. Dinosaur politics.

I tried making Dinosaur portraits for CK2 once but my graphical skills suck.

# ¿ May 30, 2013 17:59

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