Grand Strategy Where is Victoria III?

[Delterius]

It seems you have kept prussia from getting alsace-lorraine. Why do you hate western civilization?

 

[mondblut]

Absolutely no reason whatsoever to start it any earlier.

EU4 conversion DLC, dummy.

 

[Jugashvili]

The very point of Paradox historical games is to make alt-histories. No one ever want to play "historical" roleplay arties more than once bceause it is boring as hell. Who would ever want to play HoIIV with WWII being historical? Who will buy EUIV should it streamline historical gameplay? At least Paradox realized that they should at most draw some lines like Russia expands to steppes, Spain favors colonies, England favors navy etc. without making gameplay revolve around them. They are nice bonuses that represent said counry's historical stranghts.
With Victoria III it is an age of revolutions, spring of nations but it is very very turbulent. No compared to timespan of CK or EU. Only HoIIV is shorter and it is not even hard cap - game will last until last war will be won.

You are presenting a false dilemma between strict railroading and clown world-style Alt-History.

First of all, Alt-History is a kind of genre fiction, not simply "changing history". It is a cringeworthy genre popular among Redditards that involves huge amounts of wish fulfillment in which the author turns his preferred nation or faction into a Mary Sue that turns history on its head. For some reason the most typical scenario is "Confederates win the US Civil War" but it can be written to fulfill any kind of wish or exact vengeance for any ethnic grudge.

You may personaly like that sort of thing, but I can assure you that is not what Paradox games were about. Paradox games were about changing history within reason. Of course, there always were autists who gamed the system to produce silly outcomes like the Byzantine empire making a comeback in the 15th century or native American tribes westernizing and repelling the Europeans, but the games were not meant to be played that way, nor did the devs focus on that particular kind of player.

Unfortunately, it seems that now they feel there is money to be made by pandering to them, and so Alt-History wank rules supreme. Do you want your podunk country to be STRONK? Here, have a focus tree that will allow Latvia to field 120 mechanized divisions in two years even though this was demographically and industrially impossible! Do you want to atone for your white privilege by having Khoisan bushmen invade Europe? Spend enough mana and they'll be sailing around the ocean in galleons before you know it!

When all these competing wish-fulfillment agendas add up, the games end up with such ludicrous outcomes that they are simply no longer entertaining for me as it is impossible to suspend disbelief as the United Soviet States of America wage nuclear war against the Imperial Technate of Neo-Brazil and Greater Poland.

 

[Space Satan]

So you are describing possible game design that will be reasonable and that noone will ever buy in quantities to be viable investment.

 

[Jugashvili]

So you are describing possible game design that will be reasonable and that noone will ever buy in quantities to be viable investment.

You read it here first, folks. Nobody bought Paradox games before EUIV/HoI4 blessed us with their redditly soyness.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I wouldn't put EU IV and HoI IV on the same level of decline though. Some of EU IV's mechanics are bad because they fail to condition the emergent alternative histories to always being believable. In this regard, EU IV is a mediocre historical simulator in which you control a state actor (ergo the alternative history).

HoI IV has the same issues as above, but the national foci system (which admittedly is needed in order to railroad WW2 since both the internal politics of state actors and the interactions between them that both led to the war and guided their subsequent behavior throughout the latter's duration) is simply a bad abstraction at the core of the game. With only historical foci, you get a mediocre historical simulator which is much more railroaded than EU IV. With them set off though, you get a dumb historical sandbox that leads to completely unbelievable alternative histories (fact made much worse by dumb alternative history foci design and stupid AI, the latter being a necessity since one focus can cancel another and thus lead to schizophrenic long term behavior on the part of non-player state actors in terms of their long term strategy).

TL;DR - HoI IV with historical foci is a mediocre historical simulator that is much more railroaded than EU IV, while HoI IV without historical foci is just plain trash.

 

[Hace El Oso]

I’d never seen the Reddit-style meme alternate history taken to such dizzying heights as HoI IV. Nobody else seems to play it. EU IV was far less retarded, especially earlier in the lifespan.

 

[Jugashvili]

EU IV wasn't as memey when it first came out, but in view of Paradox's business model we might as well consider what the games look like towards the end of their DLC cycle. Oh, and I didn't even mention the Crusader Kucks series because CK2 was already more of a magical realm CYOA than a grand strategy game, I don't even want to imagine what CK3 must be like.

Space Satan , defend this (protip: you can't)

 

[Sinilevä]

The very point of Paradox historical games is to make alt-histories. No one ever want to play "historical" roleplay arties more than once bceause it is boring as hell. Who would ever want to play HoIIV with WWII being historical? Who will buy EUIV should it streamline historical gameplay? At least Paradox realized that they should at most draw some lines like Russia expands to steppes, Spain favors colonies, England favors navy etc. without making gameplay revolve around them. They are nice bonuses that represent said counry's historical stranghts.
With Victoria III it is an age of revolutions, spring of nations but it is very very turbulent. No compared to timespan of CK or EU. Only HoIIV is shorter and it is not even hard cap - game will last until last war will be won.

You are presenting a false dilemma between strict railroading and clown world-style Alt-History.

First of all, Alt-History is a kind of genre fiction, not simply "changing history". It is a cringeworthy genre popular among Redditards that involves huge amounts of wish fulfillment in which the author turns his preferred nation or faction into a Mary Sue that turns history on its head. For some reason the most typical scenario is "Confederates win the US Civil War" but it can be written to fulfill any kind of wish or exact vengeance for any ethnic grudge.

You may personaly like that sort of thing, but I can assure you that is not what Paradox games were about. Paradox games were about changing history within reason. Of course, there always were autists who gamed the system to produce silly outcomes like the Byzantine empire making a comeback in the 15th century or native American tribes westernizing and repelling the Europeans, but the games were not meant to be played that way, nor did the devs focus on that particular kind of player.

Unfortunately, it seems that now they feel there is money to be made by pandering to them, and so Alt-History wank rules supreme. Do you want your podunk country to be STRONK? Here, have a focus tree that will allow Latvia to field 120 mechanized divisions in two years even though this was demographically and industrially impossible! Do you want to atone for your white privilege by having Khoisan bushmen invade Europe? Spend enough mana and they'll be sailing around the ocean in galleons before you know it!

When all these competing wish-fulfillment agendas add up, the games end up with such ludicrous outcomes that they are simply no longer entertaining for me as it is impossible to suspend disbelief as the United Soviet States of America wage nuclear war against the Imperial Technate of Neo-Brazil and Greater Poland.

Very well said. This is exactly why I detest all the newer paracucks games. It seems like they lost some key developers right after Vic2 release, that's why their releases became mediocre at first(EUIV) and then declined into complete trash(HoI4). CK2 was an okay game at first, but with all the DLC bloating it became a fantasy game with a touch of wokeness.

 

[Axioms]

"Greater Poland" was a real thing. PLC for the win. Fuck the haters. Just cause all the Codex Pollacks are trash doesn't mean the PLC was fake news. Hitler tried to form the German version of the PLC, no reason Poland can't go that way. But The Three Mountains is a bit silly for sure.

 

[IDtenT]

Fuck history, forge the future.

 

[Jugashvili]

"Greater Poland" was a real thing.

So were the Byzantine Empire and the HRE, but bringing them back in the 20th century is just plain goofy. It's the kind of stuff that belongs to a monarchist alt-history fanfic, not what claims to be the "ultimate WWII strategy game".

 

[zool]

CK2 was an okay game at first, but with all the DLC bloating it became a fantasy game with a touch of wokeness.

The game gives you the option to turn off most of the stupid/memey stuff at the beginning in the options menu. If you also avoid being retarded and play a game that's called Crusader Kings as an Indian chief or an African tribal leader, you can enjoy CK2 (with HIP) as the relatively realistic Middle-Age dynastic simulator the CK series was meant to be.

 

[JarlFrank]

Unfortunately, it seems that now they feel there is money to be made by pandering to them, and so Alt-History wank rules supreme. Do you want your podunk country to be STRONK? Here, have a focus tree that will allow Latvia to field 120 mechanized divisions in two years even though this was demographically and industrially impossible! Do you want to atone for your white privilege by having Khoisan bushmen invade Europe? Spend enough mana and they'll be sailing around the ocean in galleons before you know it!

That's less of an alt history problem and more of a mechanics problem.

When all your mechanics revolve around artificial stuff like focus trees and spending ruler mana, of course you will get wildly ahistorical outcomes that make no sense. And especially modern Paradox games are very much about artificial mechanics that work with random bonuses that don't represent any real in-world thing, just abstractions. They aren't meant to be simulations anymore, just glorified board games where the multiplayer balance takes precedence over making a decent simulation.

 

[Silva]

The very point of Paradox historical games is to make alt-histories. No one ever want to play "historical" roleplay arties more than once bceause it is boring as hell. Who would ever want to play HoIIV with WWII being historical? Who will buy EUIV should it streamline historical gameplay? At least Paradox realized that they should at most draw some lines like Russia expands to steppes, Spain favors colonies, England favors navy etc. without making gameplay revolve around them. They are nice bonuses that represent said counry's historical stranghts.
With Victoria III it is an age of revolutions, spring of nations but it is very very turbulent. No compared to timespan of CK or EU. Only HoIIV is shorter and it is not even hard cap - game will last until last war will be won.

You are presenting a false dilemma between strict railroading and clown world-style Alt-History.

First of all, Alt-History is a kind of genre fiction, not simply "changing history". It is a cringeworthy genre popular among Redditards that involves huge amounts of wish fulfillment in which the author turns his preferred nation or faction into a Mary Sue that turns history on its head. For some reason the most typical scenario is "Confederates win the US Civil War" but it can be written to fulfill any kind of wish or exact vengeance for any ethnic grudge.

You may personaly like that sort of thing, but I can assure you that is not what Paradox games were about. Paradox games were about changing history within reason. Of course, there always were autists who gamed the system to produce silly outcomes like the Byzantine empire making a comeback in the 15th century or native American tribes westernizing and repelling the Europeans, but the games were not meant to be played that way, nor did the devs focus on that particular kind of player.

Unfortunately, it seems that now they feel there is money to be made by pandering to them, and so Alt-History wank rules supreme. Do you want your podunk country to be STRONK? Here, have a focus tree that will allow Latvia to field 120 mechanized divisions in two years even though this was demographically and industrially impossible! Do you want to atone for your white privilege by having Khoisan bushmen invade Europe? Spend enough mana and they'll be sailing around the ocean in galleons before you know it!

When all these competing wish-fulfillment agendas add up, the games end up with such ludicrous outcomes that they are simply no longer entertaining for me as it is impossible to suspend disbelief as the United Soviet States of America wage nuclear war against the Imperial Technate of Neo-Brazil and Greater Poland.

Hey Juga, have you tried Imperator after 2.0 patch? I suspect you would like it. They cut out MANA and went back to a proper cause-effect internal simulation by using a mix of Vicky Pops and CK chars, and the smaller scope reminds me of Vic2 where history evolution is usually coherent /not EU4 clown-world. Imperator is even making me hopeful for a good Vic3, something EU4 never did.

But then, is there a worse Pdox game than EU4? I find it terrible and never understood the fuss.

 

[Jugashvili]

That's less of an alt history problem and more of a mechanics problem.

When all your mechanics revolve around artificial stuff like focus trees and spending ruler mana, of course you will get wildly ahistorical outcomes that make no sense. And especially modern Paradox games are very much about artificial mechanics that work with random bonuses that don't represent any real in-world thing, just abstractions. They aren't meant to be simulations anymore, just glorified board games where the multiplayer balance takes precedence over making a decent simulation.

There's certainly a problem with mechanics, but mechanics are just tools, they can be used to good or bad effect, and in some cases abstractions can be very useful. I agree that focus trees are a bad mechanic, but this is made worse by the fact that focus trees deliberately and explicitly lay down paths for silly, over-the-top outcomes.

By the way, I know I've been railing against goofy outcomes for this entire thread, but I'm not entirely opposed to players having the freedom to get creative and to do silly stuff on occasion if they're good enough to manipulate game mechanics to achieve that. It's like easter eggs or exploits: they're only fun if they're the exception, not the norm, so if you really manage to make it big as Lesotho that means you've got a very good handle on game mechanics (and perhaps you need to get a life! ). However, when developers enshrine these goofy outcomes as focus trees they're making goofiness the norm rather than the exception and thus completely altering the tone of the game.

Hey Juga, have you tried Imperator after 2.0 patch? I suspect you would like it. They cut out MANA and went back to a proper cause-effect internal simulation by using a mix of Vicky Pops and CK chars, and the smaller scope reminds me of Vic2 where history evolution is usually coherent /not EU4 clown-world. Imperator is even making me hopeful for a good Vic3, something EU4 never did.

But then, is there a worse Pdox game than EU4? I find it terrible and never understood the fuss.

Thanks for the heads-up, I'll give it a chance. I agree, EU4 never managed to keep me interested and I haven't touched it in years. It's more polished than EU3, it's nicely presented, but it's just... bleh.

 

[AgentFransis]

There's certainly a problem with mechanics, but mechanics are just tools, they can be used to good or bad effect, and in some cases abstractions can be very useful. I agree that focus trees are a bad mechanic, but this is made worse by the fact that focus trees deliberately and explicitly lay down paths for silly, over-the-top outcomes.

I think the point Jarl was making is that the only way to make a proper simulation is to have mechanics that... simulate. In this case the capabilities and goals of nations and people. The closer your mechanics reflect reality the more realistic the outcome of your simulation will become. Vicky does this reasonably well. The modern Paradox games don't even try.

 

[JarlFrank]

There's certainly a problem with mechanics, but mechanics are just tools, they can be used to good or bad effect, and in some cases abstractions can be very useful. I agree that focus trees are a bad mechanic, but this is made worse by the fact that focus trees deliberately and explicitly lay down paths for silly, over-the-top outcomes.

I think the point Jarl was making is that the only way to make a proper simulation is to have mechanics that... simulate. In this case the capabilities and goals of nations and people. The closer your mechanics reflect reality the more realistic the outcome of your simulation will become. Vicky does this reasonably well. The modern Paradox games don't even try.

Exactly. Vicky 2 has complex population mechanics and a simulated world economy. Crusader Kings 2 is also pretty decent, with character traits driving the behavior of NPC lords.

EU4 is all about spending abstract mana to buy upgrades for your country, and gathering a large amount of modifiers so your armies are better than the enemy's for arbitrary reasons.

 

[Silva]

There's certainly a problem with mechanics, but mechanics are just tools, they can be used to good or bad effect, and in some cases abstractions can be very useful. I agree that focus trees are a bad mechanic, but this is made worse by the fact that focus trees deliberately and explicitly lay down paths for silly, over-the-top outcomes.

I think the point Jarl was making is that the only way to make a proper simulation is to have mechanics that... simulate. In this case the capabilities and goals of nations and people. The closer your mechanics reflect reality the more realistic the outcome of your simulation will become. Vicky does this reasonably well. The modern Paradox games don't even try.

Exactly. Vicky 2 has complex population mechanics and a simulated world economy. Crusader Kings 2 is also pretty decent, with character traits driving the behavior of NPC lords.

EU4 is all about spending abstract mana to buy upgrades for your country, and gathering a large amount of modifiers so your armies are better than the enemy's for arbitrary reasons.

I agree with you but I think Juga point is that this is orthogonal to abstraction. You can have an excel sheet of a game, with lots of abstract numbers and dials being about management of internal culture/population/politics/economics/etc that could result in a game with interesting domestic decisions. EU4 is shitty because besides war/map-painting it's a big void where you just click a button and wait 50 years to see the results. Aka: there is no peacetime gameplay, regardless of abstract or concrete mechanics.

Edit: dont get me wrong, I'm all for concrete mechanics too, but ultimately the point is that EU4 lacks substance outside of map-painting.

 

[Axioms]

There's certainly a problem with mechanics, but mechanics are just tools, they can be used to good or bad effect, and in some cases abstractions can be very useful. I agree that focus trees are a bad mechanic, but this is made worse by the fact that focus trees deliberately and explicitly lay down paths for silly, over-the-top outcomes.

I think the point Jarl was making is that the only way to make a proper simulation is to have mechanics that... simulate. In this case the capabilities and goals of nations and people. The closer your mechanics reflect reality the more realistic the outcome of your simulation will become. Vicky does this reasonably well. The modern Paradox games don't even try.

Exactly. Vicky 2 has complex population mechanics and a simulated world economy. Crusader Kings 2 is also pretty decent, with character traits driving the behavior of NPC lords.

EU4 is all about spending abstract mana to buy upgrades for your country, and gathering a large amount of modifiers so your armies are better than the enemy's for arbitrary reasons.

I agree with you but I think Juga point is that this is orthogonal to abstraction. You can have an excel sheet of a game, with lots of abstract numbers and dials being about management of internal culture/population/politics/economics/etc that could result in a game with interesting domestic decisions. EU4 is shitty because besides war/map-painting it's a big void where you just click a button and wait 50 years to see the results. Aka: there is no peacetime gameplay, regardless of abstract or concrete mechanics.

Edit: dont get me wrong, I'm all for concrete mechanics too, but ultimately the point is that EU4 lacks substance outside of map-painting.

This has been my argument for a long time. You need to make D/I/P mechanics(diplomacy, intrigue, politics) as interesting as combat. And ideally make trade and production more interesting as well. I wouldn't call the Vicky implementation of trade and production ideal but it was, relatively, deep and more importantly it existed at all. Unlike the bullshit "tradenode" crap in EU4 where goods give arbitrary minor bonuses.

I would say that the D/I/P stuff in Victoria was pretty shallow, compared to production. Even the POPs were a bit shallow. Although it was more than any other game had.

 

[Jugashvili]

There's certainly a problem with mechanics, but mechanics are just tools, they can be used to good or bad effect, and in some cases abstractions can be very useful. I agree that focus trees are a bad mechanic, but this is made worse by the fact that focus trees deliberately and explicitly lay down paths for silly, over-the-top outcomes.

I think the point Jarl was making is that the only way to make a proper simulation is to have mechanics that... simulate. In this case the capabilities and goals of nations and people. The closer your mechanics reflect reality the more realistic the outcome of your simulation will become. Vicky does this reasonably well. The modern Paradox games don't even try.

Exactly. Vicky 2 has complex population mechanics and a simulated world economy. Crusader Kings 2 is also pretty decent, with character traits driving the behavior of NPC lords.

EU4 is all about spending abstract mana to buy upgrades for your country, and gathering a large amount of modifiers so your armies are better than the enemy's for arbitrary reasons.

I agree with you but I think Juga point is that this is orthogonal to abstraction. You can have an excel sheet of a game, with lots of abstract numbers and dials being about management of internal culture/population/politics/economics/etc that could result in a game with interesting domestic decisions. EU4 is shitty because besides war/map-painting it's a big void where you just click a button and wait 50 years to see the results. Aka: there is no peacetime gameplay, regardless of abstract or concrete mechanics.

Edit: dont get me wrong, I'm all for concrete mechanics too, but ultimately the point is that EU4 lacks substance outside of map-painting.

Exactly. Furthermore, I don't think concrete mechanics are intrinsically superior to abstract mechanics from a general gaming perspective, e.g. I don't think simulating the trajectories of 1000 bullets with a physics model necessarily provides a more realistic result than using a table for the effect of battalion fire based on empirical observation.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

Even the POPs were a bit shallow. Although it was more than any other game had.

It's still more than what the vast majority of strategy games have.

 

[Silva]

It's still more than what the vast majority of strategy games have.

Same for the world market system.

 

[JarlFrank]

You need to make D/I/P mechanics(diplomacy, intrigue, politics) as interesting as combat.

But they already are!

(Because combat in most Paradox games, especially the EU series, is pretty damn uninteresting )

 

[Axioms]

You need to make D/I/P mechanics(diplomacy, intrigue, politics) as interesting as combat.

But they already are!

(Because combat in most Paradox games, especially the EU series, is pretty damn uninteresting )

For Paradox perhaps I should say map painting or military/conquest rather than combat.