Paradox Grand Strategy: Tim Cook? How many divisions has he got?

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Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Red Bones posted:

I was thinking something historical, yeah. Bronze age Mediterranean and the near east, pre-columbian mesoamerica and some historical periods in south-east asia would potentially be good periods for a game where you're switching between dealing things at the city level and then switching to a wider map view to deal with relations between city-states - who are your trading partners, who are your vassals, who are your allies, etc.

It's a personal preference for what kinds of games I enjoy, but I also think the interplay between the city and the wider map would make for interesting gameplay. Running a city provides meaningful gameplay challenges that aren't just based around military expansion, whilst also giving players a new way to see their success visually represented by building a fancy palace, improving the city infrastructure, building a huge monument, etc. Maybe sieges actually take place on the city map, so the placement of defensive structures is actually meaningful. Some resources are rarer than others, but in a game with a wider map the resources actually come from somewhere, so decorating your entire greek city-state with lapis lazuli statues doesn't just require you to achieve some abstract level of wealth in ducats, it also requires securing a stable supply route all the way from Afghanistan, or stealing the material off other people who already have it.

Anyway, that's all just blue sky poo poo, I don't know if it would work in practice and I can already think of a lot of potential hurdles to overcome. It's just an example of how a map game and a city game could fit together, especially in a historical setting where city-states were the norm, or a common form of political organisation.

I want this now. Take responsibility and go make it happen. :v:

# ¿ May 11, 2018 23:10

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 08:23

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Mana is not allowed unless the game has wizards! :mad:

# ¿ May 11, 2018 23:21

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

My totally accurate and perfectly reliable guess would be on Rome 2. I base it on that Paradox looked into working with Jon Shafer (which I believe didn't happen because they wanted different things with... whatever they discussed and went separate ways with no hard feelings).

Tomn posted:

Goddamn it, this is what I get for phone posting.

But yeah, I can�t recommend Children of the NILE enough. Monumental architecture in the most literal sense, a well-developed economy based on food as currency, a government run by the few educated elites and heavily reliant on priests, and a relaxed, repetitive cycle of flooding, planting, and harvesting that all does a ton for immersion in the gentle rhythms of ancient Egypt.

If you�ve played one Impressions citybuilder you�ve played like 90% of them all.

CotN was good but it didn't have nearly enough maps to play.

Well true but Emperor was the best one, mostly because of roadblocks and residential walls.

# ¿ May 12, 2018 09:28

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I for one can't wait for my favorite tubers to start let's playing Rome 2.

# ¿ May 23, 2018 22:31

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I really hope Paradox NEVER adds something as terrible as a globe shaped map. Not only would it be frustrating to use and impossible to get any kind of overview of the world without flattening it out and at that point why bother to waste all the time and resources on implanting it? Please never, Paradox.

# ¿ May 28, 2018 09:48

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Xerophyte posted:

Clearly they should solve this problem by using the tiling and infinitely scrollable Peirce quincuncial projection:

This standard projection surely won't confuse anyone.

It's better than a globe but I'm getting just a tiny bit confused trying to wrap my dumb head around playing on a map like that.

Pirate Radar posted:

Yeah but will Antarctica be playable

Surely you mean Iberictica? Special trade good, penguins.

# ¿ May 28, 2018 10:56

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Tomn posted:

Remember the good old days of EU3 when you had annual income and expenses and monthly income and expenses and it was real easy to miscalculate and accidentally end up with a deficit come the New Year?

Did it have a worse system than "My liege we were two ducats short but don't worry we took out a loan of a thousand and have to pay hundreds in interest."?

# ¿ Jun 3, 2018 12:26

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

ExtraNoise posted:

Not to cut in too much on the buildings debate (I am pro-buildings) but this is pretty exciting news. As a Seattlite, if I end up getting the job at Paradox (this is still in the works), maybe I can just hang out in a corner at Harebrained instead of moving my family to Stockholm? A Paradox Seattle satellite office, if you will. I could put up a little sign above the potted plants I'd be hiding behind designating official Paradox space.

oh and also more amazing battletech games or something? idk

If you ask really nicely you might get to serve drinks at the secret Paradox beach property during their vacation. It will however involve mopping up a lot of vomit after the Mr Universe competition which may or may not involve a Blorg in speedos.

Also Stockholm is full of stockholmare so I would strongly advise against moving there.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2018 23:21

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

In EU4 you need twice as many soldiers as your opponent, half to siege them down and half to run back and forth to stop their constant attempts to run around and siege down your undefended areas. Their maphacking allows them to always run away before you get close too, with a 90% chance of them running into a third nation they have access to but you don't (doesn't matter if they are only in one war at all). In my last game I was warring around in northern Italy when suddenly freaking Wurzburg was carpet sieging my holdings in former-Tunis from the east. Because they always have land access everywhere and knew that I didn't have any armies over there. I can't even stand doing late game wars against large nations at all unless the front is small with little to no other land access.

I am angry. Angry about army AI. :argh:

# ¿ Jun 17, 2018 19:48

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I'll just settle for the AI not running around like a scalded beaver all the time.

spectralent posted:

and while we're at it what's with these multiple selections anyway, players should have to click every token and individually order them all to a target province.

And battles should be quick time events where failing one prompt means you don't deal any damage that phase. Every battle should assign five or ten new completely random buttons on the keyboard to use, assuming the swedish layout of course. Better hope you know where � is located.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2018 22:05

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Maybe if they made units commit to movement after 1 day regardless of how long the journey is or something. Probably a bad idea but it would reduce the obnoxious spamming a little.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2018 22:55

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Red Bones posted:

Eu5 is just a blank printed map of the world and some colouring pencils.

I'm not sure if the average EU4 player can handle anything more advanced than crayons.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2018 13:28

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Jackie D posted:

Muffin Points

I had to spend over a thousand diplomatic muffins to annex Naples.

Redeye Flight posted:

Why am I not surprised, that's like Wiz's specialty.

Maybe he should start life coaching. :v:

# ¿ Jun 26, 2018 09:17

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I've spent a little over 2000 hours in Paradox games and while occasionally frustrating the vast majority has been fun. :toot:

# ¿ Jun 26, 2018 12:44

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

reignonyourparade posted:

I have literally never heard the Latin version of it, just name your drat game "The Die is Cast."

Just step up your knowledge pleb. :smug:

# ¿ Jun 28, 2018 23:33

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

axeil posted:

this is the first time i've seen this image and it's hilarious.

"no you can't trademark 'bestiest game ever'"

That's fantastic. :golfclap:

# ¿ Jul 2, 2018 16:03

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Raskolnikov38 posted:

well its given by hitler for starters

Wait, what? :stare:

# ¿ Jul 8, 2018 22:10

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

CharlestheHammer posted:

I feel like peak paradox forum involves some sort of Slavic country.

Not Byzantium lead by Hitler?

# ¿ Jul 31, 2018 00:06

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Fister Roboto posted:

I'm definitely not a fan of the 3d character models. CK1 style profiles would work a lot better, make them look like Roman coins.

I hope there'll be a mod that replaces them with faces from Oblivion.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2018 20:23

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Pacho posted:

Just give it time. In Imperator 2.0 the system will be able to handle a "Council of Wives" tribe hell-bent on imposing the matriarchy on Europe or an Atlantis-like utopia of philosopher-kings. Also, maybe, something more historical

Amazon tribes dlc?

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 20:21

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Fintilgin posted:

Oh, god, please lets have a Pharaoh sequel with smart agents instead of walkers.

Children of The Nile? Granted the agents aren't very smart, but on the plus side that means the game doesn't lag like crazy trying to path everyone.

Psychotic Weasel posted:

Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom was my favourite of the Impressions citybuilders - not only had the ancient Chinese figured out how signs worked (something the Egyptians and Romans before them hadn't) so people wouldn't just take a stroll across all of creation instead of doing their drat jobs, but there was more variety in the missions and objectives. Also the game looked much nicer, something that apparently was important to me in 2002.

Freaking roadblocks which stops walkers and residential walls with gates you can toggle to control the type of walkers allowed to pass. Pure joy. Especially the walls which make cities pretty and blocks off the view of the warehouses and such so you can have them fairly close without people refusing to improve their home over it.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2018 12:31

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Man, now I want to play a good city builder even more. But they are all terrible, early access or I've played them way too much already. :smith:

Fintilgin posted:

I have issues with CotN because the fog is so close and I can't get pretty views of my city.

I am sad and petty.

Hey aesthetics are important.

NoNotTheMindProbe posted:

It looks like someone is doing a remake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xdwRztI_fQ

Ooooh. Wishlisted.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2018 14:28

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Mantis42 posted:

Btw, this is exactly what I'm talking about with these Impressions games.

I got warehouses full of meat and millet, ready for the merchants to feed the town.

And here's the food shop, saying they have insufficient food, even though there's a giant pile of meat and millet just down the street. And now all my houses have turned into straw because the people don't have high enough quality food. This is the tutorial.

Every couple of months I think I'll give it another try and start over again. I usually get a few missions in but I always get a point where the walkers simply refuse to deliver goods, the houses degrade into huts, and everyone leaves the city. I have no idea what the game wants from me, it feels like herding cats.

Anyways, sorry for the digression. Is there a better thread for this?

The ONLY problem is that your mill only contains one type of food and your market is set to take at least two types. Food vendors only grab from mills. Storing grain in warehouses is perfectly fine but it won't be delivered directly to markets. Putting the mill a bit closer wouldn't hurt but as long as the game doesn't tell you it's too distant it should be fine most of the time.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2018 07:23

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

It was available for like six months though? I just don't understand the point of making franchise accessibility seasonal.

Maybe it's how long the average relationship lasts. :shrug:

# ¿ Oct 5, 2018 15:15

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

catlord posted:

I would love Paradox's take on a fantasy game.

My liege! The orcs have declared war on us with the Waaaagh!!!!! casusbelli.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2018 22:26

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Neither was particularly good.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2018 23:21

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Terrible Opinions posted:

Tyranny was good, fight me.

Then roll for initiative! :rolldice:

I'm not saying it was terrible or even bad, it just wasn't good. It did have good parts but overall I wouldn't rate it above average. No real enemy variety, the ancient horrible and scary... glowing balls... abandoning the whole idea of serving the evil overlord fairly early and the armor and aggro system which makes your primary tank worthless at tanking. I was kinda disappointed.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2018 09:31

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Yes, exactly.

Kills-In-Shadow was a very fun party member though.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2018 10:28

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I think it's broken. I told it to stop sucking but it just returned the message.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2018 23:03

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I kinda want to divide Judea into as many factions as possible.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2018 13:57

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Vicky3 would have been just a stupid idea for a game because it might as well be a HoI4 or EU4 based mod, that much was clear from the beginning.
That's why Rome was the right title to do next.

(sorry) :v:

# ¿ Oct 23, 2018 12:46

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Ofaloaf posted:

Happy to say that yet another goon starts working with Paradox next month.

Congratulations, and condolences. Don't let the fans crush you with despair or the glamour go to your head. :toot:

# ¿ Nov 2, 2018 22:13

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Alchenar posted:

Nah, remember the first HOI4 MP event they did everyone came away saying "A step up, but uh... the game doesn't really work". And then PDX straight up pushed release back a year to rework it.

The people who go to these events haven't historically been anything other than honest with their thoughts.

I can totally believe Quill18 was genially excited to play.

The one event that sticks out the most in my memory was a HOI4 one where Marbozir was playing some lovely irrelevant place in China somewhere and got furiously salty when he endup just sitting there for hours not being able to do anything. I think he was in a Stellaris event at least once too. But trying to watch the first of the official Paradox videos it was so messy and poorly edited I couldn't even tell who was playing what or keep track of anything.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2018 00:01

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

It seems they were only allowed one half an hour video. Which made it edited down and feel very rushed to show as much as possible. :shrug:

# ¿ Dec 3, 2018 14:34

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Autonomous Monster posted:

Who thinks these dark to bright green colour scales are a good choice for map modes? Who?

Where do I find them and how do I kill them

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/development-diary-3rd-of-december.1133062/

Probably the same person(s) who picked the Sunni and Shia colors in EU4.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2018 23:03

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Funky Valentine posted:

The mountains look like dinosaur bones getting excavated.

CK2 got the animal kingdom...

# ¿ Dec 4, 2018 00:22

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

It's also impossible to get an overview of everything since it doesn't even show half, the bits near the sides won't be clear enough to be useful. I hope they never use globes.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2018 23:51