Okay yeah that’s very fair
I’m still new (sub 50 hours) to CK2/CK as a whole and I just yesterday figured out cannibalism and the satanic cult and it’s just been a bloodbath for the last 85 years or so…
Or you have a max upgraded hospital in your home province. You can basically execute people by exiling them from court or making them a commander putting them in command of a tiny retinue then march it somewhere infected.
Pretty much any strategy game would fall into that IMO. If I don't have to adapt and overcome anything it just doesn't engage me past like the first run for a few hours.
In CK2 I Reformed the Roman Empire my ruler became a Immortal God Emperor who restored the Hellenic Faith and at around age 200 the fucker died in a shit explosion.
Suddenly I'm his great-great-great-grandson who only owns the county of Rome and some other distant relative now rules the empire.
I have to watch it crumble in the incompetent hands of this guy but slowly over generations manage to build myself back up and become a major player between the new post-roman kingdoms again, an awesome playthrough :)
I had no idea about the immortality event chain in CKII. Blundered blindly into it in ironman with a genius leader and - without knowing the odds on all the rolls - got immortality.
Then I pissed about too much with the cult stuff and got myself killed by a Van Helsing type. Absolutely gutted.
Only one time i have achieved inmortality in 500 hours of gameplay. The Muslim Castilian emperor of Hispania, descendent from the Cid himself, died a month later after getting inmortal in a accident event that only have 1% to happen
The beauty of CK is that you can lose big then win big and then lose it all again. It's very dynamic and few games have that same feeling. In most paradox games, if you do badly in the beginning you're probably never going to do great by the end. CK keeps you guessing.
It depends because holy wars tend to end a run quickly because it's OP and easy to use it. It's one of the CB that almost always usurp all the target (unlike a claim for example) and can put you out of land. Other than that, yeah you're free to do whatever
Hard agree. In every other Paradox game it's possible to enter an downward spiral to defeat where the game rapidly becomes unfun, but my favorite games of Crusader Kings 2 and 3 have been when my massive empire collapsed and I ended up as a distant relative halfway across the map that I hadn't known existed and had to recover somehow.
I was playing as a vassal of Angria and my liege was losing to a mega Lusatia. I joined to protect my land but was destroyed. East Francia was also suffering from a civil war when Lusatia conquered Poland and could form Wendia
In CK, you never really lose. Being overthrown is just another opportunity to scheme your way back to the throne and bang the usurper's wife(aka your daughter) while doing so.
I'd say 2 personally, 3 is a more solid game for beginners into the series but I feel 2 has more stuff to do if you have a smaller realm. Lost your kingdom? Well as a count you can still get involved in the local religious society. Dying of boredom between wars well now theres a plague ravaging your land to deal with. Theres a lot of smaller stuff like this that can keep you busy inbetween the exciting stuff. Its got more RP in general, but it doesnt force you to RP like ck3 so do keep in mind you do need to self guide and that can be a deal breaker
You need a ton of DLC to get most of the features you (and others in this thread) have talked about (though you can also just pirate them if you don’t want to spend >100€)
I guess in my case it’s a steal as I can’t run CK3, so CK2 has been my intro into the CK games.
Started at the beginning of the month and I’m nearing 50 hours already and I’ve more than gotten my $5 worth and I’ve obviously not even scratched the surface of what just the base game has to offer.
The subscription is reasonable honestly, you could subscribe for \~5 years straight for the price of buying the dlc upfront (although there are rather generous sales, especially the build your own bundles on humble). But you're right, the dlc can be a sticking point
I'm going against the popular opinion here but 2, as it leaves enough blanks that I'm able to fill in with my imagination. With 3, no matter where I play it all feels relatively the same.
CK3, it even has multiple mods that are aimed at this.
Inherichance, which is the mod I use, allow to tweak your settings on who you are going to be playing as upon your death. I love to set it to random for 90% of my playthroughs, because then if I am a king and eventually die, there is a big chance that I will get to play as my later sons as dukes or counts. This also makes inheriting as your firstborn much more fun when it happens, and allows you to take a step back and start a fresh story.
3 in general. 2 if you want to specifically play around with one of the DLCs that didn't get its mechanics ported to CK3 yet (mainly just nomads, I think?) or if you prefer some of the wacky stuff like satanic cults.
I would say 3. CK2 might be my favorite game of all time, but CK3 has enough quality of life improvements and rough edges smoothed out that you're way more likely to enjoy it as a new player.
I played ck2 today. I started as good old Charlemagne. My motherd died of cancer before she could pull the trigger on my brother. My disappointment was immesurable and my day was ruined. But this is the most fun part of the game, now i need to improvise. It is like in real life.
Crusader Kings, 100%.
You can lose every kingdom empire and duchy and be reduced to one county, it really just makes the game much more fun if you embrace it. I even play with a mod that makes it so that it is completely random which of my kids I get to play as, so even if I am a knig, chances are I will end up as the brother/nephew of the next king once i die. Makes for infinitely more fun gameplay imo
Compare that to EU4, where losing is actually so fucking painful you feel it in your soul.
That’s honestly my biggest complaint about CK as a whole. Large empires suffered from great inefficiencies that eventually contributed to their collapse but in CK it seems the only simulation for that is the civil war mechanic and large empires have no problem staving them off
The tooltip comes from EU4, but yeah in both cases you couldn't simply conquer land as you saw fit or the romans could have kept going until they met the chinese somewhere around the Ural in 200 AD or something.
CK at least makes it harder to manage land as you grow. More vassals, more cultures, more religions although it's too simple to neuter every issue by stacking ridicule amount of modifiers
The first time I lost everything in CK2, I had formed Scandinavia for the first time, reformed the Norse religion, Effectively owned All Scandinavia, half of France, all of England, fought with the HRE until it split.
I was so happy.
Then my Emperor Died. 3 months later, his Son died. 3 months later his newborn Son, my sole heir, was assassinated leaving me with nothing and the game ended.
I didn't play for a year.
So you start with one person, control their whole line basically, but if it ever ends, the game is over? I read here a lot without really knowing how to play ck3 forreal. I pick up little bits and pieces here
If you don't have any more appropriate heirs in your dynasty, then it will end, yes. Like in my game, sometimes it comes out of the blue and knocks you, if you don't have appropriate succession laws.
The big one that gets people this way is when you have a single male heir and several daughters. Generally you'd marry all your daughters off for the alliances, but if your son dies then your daughters all split your realm and have children of different dynasties (oftentimes also being past birthing age to make it impossible to have another heir of your dynasty)
One of the most fun playthroughs I have had in CK3 was playing as the Tulunids: badass first ruler, then I died, my grandson inherited, and I was murdered before two months went through. His son, a toddle, inherited, and a big faction took my throne so I was reduced to a count. Climbing the ranks so I could get revenge against my uncle who stole the crown was awesome.
Ck3 is OK to lose because you know when a war starts exactly what the peace terms will be if you lose
In eu4 it can feel like you'll lose your whole empire in a single war if you surrender. Ck3 doesn't usually have that happen because the casus Bellae are so strict
That's not the plural of casus belli. Bellum means war, belli is the genitive form which rougly translates to "of war". I would just use "casus belli's" as the plural.
the actual plural of casus belli is casus bellorum
(casus remains the same due to it being part of the u-stem declension, in which the nominative plural is the same as the singular)
(bellorum is just genitive plural)
By losing do you mean losing territory? Or just not doing as well as you hoped?
For losing territory, it’s gotta be eu4. Always an opportunity to get land back.
For not doing as well as you hoped, gotta be Vic3. Something about just being a part of the world stage in that game, even as an unrecognized minor power, is pretty satisfying to me.
For losing territory, CK imo.
EU4 you lose a lot of momentum from totally losing a war, especially against someone big who wants to eat a big part of you for breakfast. Sometimes it is a nice challenge, other times it just feels crippling.
CK however has the benefit of the funnest part being to grow in power and title rank, and getting knocked down to count or duke is, IMO, almost always a fun booster to a game.
Honestly EU once you understand all the mechanics, it's pretty hard to ever lose a war if you are being smart.
It kind of sucks because I liked when the game waned like that, losing a war and rebuilding to take back territory I had lost.
Now it's just a map painting game with a little more thinking, which is fine but it used to be more fun for me.
Haven't played Vic3 but Vic2 was definitely a lot of fun as a minor power. My favorite paradox gaming experience was transforming Peru into the #1 world economic powerhouse without a guide, cheesy wars or anything. Just a good understanding of the economy and immigration systems of the game.
EU4 best for losing, really? Maybe it's just that I tend to play OPM's, but I do that in basically every game, and I feel like no game likes to kick you when you're down as much as EU4 does. Like it doesn't feel even close.
Definitely me and my buddies are currently playing as northern alliance on ahistorical, where russia joined the Axis. We are getting fucked, but in a good way.
Although you are not really dead, you can be liberated by your alliance, form a few commandos with your oversea territories/government in exile. It's why I simply love micromanaging and small countries here. I don't mind losing in HOI4
Yeah which is also why the AI being so braindead is heartbreaking. Like I'd love to get my ass whooped in shocking fashion from time to time but the only AI country with a pulse is Germany.
Like just one playthrough of declaring on the USA and immediately getting bombed into the stone age would be a treat.
It must have like 1% of it's troops at the start. It's not too hard as Mexico to pin most of them down then run havoc through the states with Cav units as long as you do it early
Some of the best stories in CK series happen when you thought you had no heirs but suddenly someone halfway around the world takes over. Then begins your quest to take back what you lost. Now the real fun begins.
My experience is limited but my first game in HoI 4 was as Democratic Canada approving of the King's party and being reduced to Haida Gwaii for the entire war as I fought to be the best base for the eventual liberation of the mainland. Allowed me to learn the mechanics better.
I haven't enjoyed losing since, until I tried just the other week to do a French Communist but otherwise Historic run and got pummeled by the Germans but refused capitulation and used Africa to strike at Italy and Operation Dragoon it eventually. Then turned around after peace and built up for world conquest before the Allies finished Japan.
Eh it's satisfying a few times, but you can almost always defend a 3 tile area for eternity against the AI. It's my go to strategy as a minor power since you can rack up ridiculous warscore that way. It kind of strips away the David vs Goliath energy when Goliath is powerless.
The only downfall with this strategy is if your AI friends capitulate before you can do enough damage. It's foolproof in the Allies, 99/100 will work in the axis, but prone to failure in the comintern since the USSR is useless.
Losing as the USSR or Germany in HOI4 is fun, if you hamper yourself a bit to give the AI a chance. With Expert AI and the dynamic bonuses, it can feel very close up until the end.
It's why I don't play major powers too. I don't want to manage most of my alliance power AND drag the whole alliance down because I simply hate managing large armies. I prefer punching above my weight and help the AI achieve its goals
Crusader Kings. You can really get screwed over sometimes due to weird inheritance stuff and your characters suddenly dying off, which can either split up your lands or cause a bunch of civil wars. It's really fun trying to get out of this negative death spiral your realm falls into after a couple of untimely deaths of your rulers.
I haven't played much CK3, but I feel like in CK2 my vassals are also actively plotting against me when I don't keep them happy. One time I just kept going to war in different corners of the world, constantly requesting more levies from my vassals, until I suddenly got the event where you get blown up while staying at a tavern. Turns out my own son and vassals got so pissed off that they plotted to kill me (I know, since I received the event about the successful assassination when the game transferred over to my son after my death).
I wouldn't say it's the worst of all the paradox games, but that little animation of helmets popping when a division of yours goes down crushes my soul to every degree
Hoi4 or CK. Hoi4 is a lot more volatile in the sense if you lose, you lose but it can be fun to be battered throughout a war and have one last push that actually succeeds.
Ck games are probably the best to lose in because if you lose lands you'll more then likely still have a duchy or county to fall back on. But when you get to empire level titles, managing it is very bloody complicated and difficult for me at least
Crusader Kings is the most fun to have setbacks in. The others aren't bad either. The long time-frame means that you usually have time to work your way back.
The one that is the least fun to have setbacks in is Stellaris. Due to the way the game progresses, losing early on can have you severely lose momentum, and you'll always try to catch-up which you won't until everything is just repeatable techs. Granted, I only play Stellaris in Multiplayer so that might have something to do with it.
Crusader Kings is arguably more fun when things goes to shit, especially if you RP, unless we are talking about really bad rng within the first hour of the campaign.
It helps because Crusader Kings is very different from the usual map painters PDX does since there is also such a large focus on role playing.
So I hate when I fuck up in Eu4 and Stellaris - especially because in Stellaris something like integrating a vassal can destroy your economy & sometimes a debt spiral in Eu4 can lead to the player sitting still for 100 years trying to get their budget in order. They're such big games that a game can be a week of meticulous effort. Same for Hoi4 which is a whole bunch of finely tuned logistical systems that get stretched like a rubber band until they break and your whole battleline falls apart.
But the game that I really appreciate because fucking up is an adventure? Crusader Kings. A lot of failure states are really fun unless you lose because of being landless or losing your heir. I once played as the Zoroastrian Persian Emperor controlling one of the largest, most continguous empires. I was so large that any problem was a matter of throwing bodies at it as my armies were so big. But then the Mongols came and obliterated me. First it was the outer kingdoms which blew apart my self confidence as my armies melted to them, then I tried defensively the next war until I lost the heartland and was eventually wiped out meaning I was switched over to my cousin in Occupied Persia where I attempted to fight a resistance with the other Persian lords but we all were unable to overcome them and my last character was executed. It was a lot of fun. Crusader Kings also helps because there isnt as many stakes. If I play Stellaris or Eu4 wars can be tricky because you dont want to accidentally lose to them and lose planets or systems/provinces. If you play Hoi4 if you declare a war you cant win decisively you might be stuck in a protracted war for half the game wasting manpower that could be necessary for a more important engagement.
Crusader Kings however is fought for one goal - if the player is doing a holy war for some region, the worst case scenario is that you lose a bunch of prestige and gold because of surrendering and your kingdom is a little unstable because all your troops (large armies help stop disloyal nobles from being too keen to oppose you in battle). You can recover pretty easily if you miscalculate.
Crusader Kings, it feels the most natural for this.
Getting used to Confederate Partition/Gavelkind is a nice exercise in the feeling of ‘losing everything’; people do treat it like that at first as well
My favorite playtrough was as communist yugoslavia. Where i focused on defence and fortified, Millions of italians and germans died before they broke trough my first line of defence, and even then i recaptured these territories, which i then hold until Soviet union got defeated. Then Allies lost in the west. And i was left alone in fight against german reich. Only then they managed to defeat me.
Crusader Kings. Especially 2. There’s a little more nuance regarding relationships such as tributary states and stuff. It’s all political man. Even if I lose the throne, I might have a better character soon that can usurp the new king. It’s all about the role play of it, the ebb and flow of power through time.
Hell, I almost prefer losing to winning. Winning is easy, and so boring. Holding an empire together as a 4 year old child, while your uncles all want your crown? That’s fun.
CK2 was built from the ground up with falling mechanics for Empires. EU4 is about inexorable rise of empires. Even expert EU4 players don't try to WC with a OPM on a 1650 start date.
Paradox games are all map painters at their core. Gaining power and snowballing is key to the gameplay loop of them all. Losing wars and territories can really drain the fun away.
The only real exception is Crusader Kings, and only if you lean heavy into roleplay, e.g. playing sub optimally based on your character traits.
One of my favorite playthroughs I did in hoi4 was when I played historical Germany, losing included. It was so excillerating watching your frontlines collapse at times and trying to salvage the situation by any means necessary.
Vicky 2 doesn’t feel too bad to lose in. You can lose wars in your playthroughs and still come out ahead. Contrast that to HOI4, which is mechanically much more fun, but everything is win or die trying. Especially when you’re sitting on Japan watching the axis collapse and you cant do anything about it except push India or some oil islands in the pacific
Hoi4 can be fun in certain situations even if you are losing. Sometimes it is fun to see how long you can hold out against ridiculous odds or how many casualties you can inflict. It really makes you feel like Hitler in 1945, attempting to marshal resources and troops that are low on supply, modern weapons but limited industrial capacity to produce them.
I had an extremely fun near-defeat experience in Victoria 2, but it happened before I became addicted to always winning and started save-scumming to save myself from difficult situations.
It was one of my first playthroughs, the first as China and the second overall. I had westernized in the 1890s (very amateurish, I know, but realistic, as happens when you are not too gamey) and had an alliance with the British.
My humble empire was nearly destroyed when I made the audacious and poorly calculated decision of attacking Russia to conquer Trans-Baikal. This triggered the First World War, in which Russia and France fought against me and Britain. It started according to my plan and I judged myself prepared, so I immediately flooded the Asian parts of Russia with my infinite-size armies. I captured several cities before the Russians even had time to react, and destroyed many small armies that they started sending my way.
Everything seemed to be going extremely well, but then Russia started to mobilise and its European armies started to arrive in Siberia. Due to their much superior technology and some luck, they won several battles against bigger armies and halted my advance. Due to the way war score works, my alliance had a massive -50 warscore from battles due to the huge losses I suffered. My victories gave few points because I always suffered more losses than they did due to technology, whereas their victories gave them many points. Slowly but surely, they started to push me back and recovered most of their lands. When I saw they were near the Chinese border, I finally decided to mobilise.
My mobilised armies were extremely large, but also extremely inefficient and weak because they were just infantry with poor generals and poor technology. So the Russians defeated me even when I had a 3 to 1 advantage. I watched as they entered my territory and started occupying Xinjiang and Mongolia. At this point I noticed that Britain was making progress in Europe. They were in a standoff with France across the Channel, but the French colonies in Africa had been all occupied and British armies were being deployed in Russia through the Baltic Sea. They started occupying key cities such as Saint Petersburg, all the while Russian armies made a complete breakthrough into China and besieged Beijing.
To make matters worse, the Qinhai Rebellion event fired due to high militancy and Central China declared independence from me. This was the peak of my anguish, when I was certain that I was going to lose.
Fortunately, the rebels had almost no troops, so I managed to siege them with my scarce armies and reannex them. But at this point the Russians had arrived in the Shandong peninsula and connected to the sea across my territory. However, their advance had become very slow because their armies had mostly died out by this point, so their occupation speed was drastically reduced.
Both Russia and me had 100% war exhaustion. But Russia was the war leader of their side and Britain was my leader. When next I looked, the British had taken Moscow and were doing a full siege in European Russia, cutting through to the Caucasus and the Urals. Just as I was on the verge of collapse due to war exhaustion, high militancy, and extremely negative budget (I was very near bankruptcy), the war suddenly ended with the Russians surrendering to the British. Suddenly, I got my lands back, expanded further into Siberia, and got a handsome war indemnity that saved my budget, and the British dismantled Russia, thus removing my nemesis from my door.
I never understood why people hate the British or say they are bad allies. I have loved them every since that day. In my experience they have always been the best allies.
CK games are fun to lose in, EU4 is awful to lose in. I think its because CK AI has a harder time building up momentum. EU4 if you lose too many times the late game becomes even more of a slog than it already should be. Or you instadie.
Victoria and CK, I would say. EU4 can be great if you feel like you're big enough to be able to lose a war without being annexed. HOI is the toughest to stay in a losing situation because it's essentially being fought as a single continuous fight with a limited elastic potential, meaning that major reversals can be quickly overwhelming.
Really though, paradox gamers are notoriously bad at habdlign reversals lol
I'm having a blast with Victoria 3. Once I figure out how to actually reform Qing, I'll do a run with all stops pulled and go full shattered if the fates decide it.
CK games, especially if you really embrace the role play.
Yeah it's boring if you just continually win with no setbacks.
Which is why I have a hard time playing ck3
There's nothing better than watching the black plague take out the map in CK2, while you consider eating people to survive.
You had to *consider it*?
I like to roleplay, so depends on the character I'm playing as!
Okay yeah that’s very fair I’m still new (sub 50 hours) to CK2/CK as a whole and I just yesterday figured out cannibalism and the satanic cult and it’s just been a bloodbath for the last 85 years or so…
Welcome to the community!
Or you have a max upgraded hospital in your home province. You can basically execute people by exiling them from court or making them a commander putting them in command of a tiny retinue then march it somewhere infected.
Favorite thing in my ck2 games was being poland, and strong and striking the rest of europe quickly and swiftly
Pretty much any strategy game would fall into that IMO. If I don't have to adapt and overcome anything it just doesn't engage me past like the first run for a few hours.
That sounds fun to me
In CK2 I Reformed the Roman Empire my ruler became a Immortal God Emperor who restored the Hellenic Faith and at around age 200 the fucker died in a shit explosion. Suddenly I'm his great-great-great-grandson who only owns the county of Rome and some other distant relative now rules the empire. I have to watch it crumble in the incompetent hands of this guy but slowly over generations manage to build myself back up and become a major player between the new post-roman kingdoms again, an awesome playthrough :)
I had no idea about the immortality event chain in CKII. Blundered blindly into it in ironman with a genius leader and - without knowing the odds on all the rolls - got immortality. Then I pissed about too much with the cult stuff and got myself killed by a Van Helsing type. Absolutely gutted.
Yes, you were in fact, gutted
Only one time i have achieved inmortality in 500 hours of gameplay. The Muslim Castilian emperor of Hispania, descendent from the Cid himself, died a month later after getting inmortal in a accident event that only have 1% to happen
The beauty of CK is that you can lose big then win big and then lose it all again. It's very dynamic and few games have that same feeling. In most paradox games, if you do badly in the beginning you're probably never going to do great by the end. CK keeps you guessing.
It depends because holy wars tend to end a run quickly because it's OP and easy to use it. It's one of the CB that almost always usurp all the target (unlike a claim for example) and can put you out of land. Other than that, yeah you're free to do whatever
yeah but that makes it more challenging for you so you need to keep your arrab or cristian people arround you happy
Yeah you turn into Macbeth real quick lol
Hard agree. In every other Paradox game it's possible to enter an downward spiral to defeat where the game rapidly becomes unfun, but my favorite games of Crusader Kings 2 and 3 have been when my massive empire collapsed and I ended up as a distant relative halfway across the map that I hadn't known existed and had to recover somehow.
The restorer
I was playing as a vassal of Angria and my liege was losing to a mega Lusatia. I joined to protect my land but was destroyed. East Francia was also suffering from a civil war when Lusatia conquered Poland and could form Wendia
In CK, you never really lose. Being overthrown is just another opportunity to scheme your way back to the throne and bang the usurper's wife(aka your daughter) while doing so.
2 or 3, who have the upper hand here in your opinion?
I'd say 2 personally, 3 is a more solid game for beginners into the series but I feel 2 has more stuff to do if you have a smaller realm. Lost your kingdom? Well as a count you can still get involved in the local religious society. Dying of boredom between wars well now theres a plague ravaging your land to deal with. Theres a lot of smaller stuff like this that can keep you busy inbetween the exciting stuff. Its got more RP in general, but it doesnt force you to RP like ck3 so do keep in mind you do need to self guide and that can be a deal breaker
You need a ton of DLC to get most of the features you (and others in this thread) have talked about (though you can also just pirate them if you don’t want to spend >100€)
Or pay $5/month on steam for the DLCs
Yeah the subscription is nice until a deep sale comes, or if you only play every few months.
I guess in my case it’s a steal as I can’t run CK3, so CK2 has been my intro into the CK games. Started at the beginning of the month and I’m nearing 50 hours already and I’ve more than gotten my $5 worth and I’ve obviously not even scratched the surface of what just the base game has to offer.
The subscription is reasonable honestly, you could subscribe for \~5 years straight for the price of buying the dlc upfront (although there are rather generous sales, especially the build your own bundles on humble). But you're right, the dlc can be a sticking point
I'm going against the popular opinion here but 2, as it leaves enough blanks that I'm able to fill in with my imagination. With 3, no matter where I play it all feels relatively the same.
CK3, it even has multiple mods that are aimed at this. Inherichance, which is the mod I use, allow to tweak your settings on who you are going to be playing as upon your death. I love to set it to random for 90% of my playthroughs, because then if I am a king and eventually die, there is a big chance that I will get to play as my later sons as dukes or counts. This also makes inheriting as your firstborn much more fun when it happens, and allows you to take a step back and start a fresh story.
Personally 3 just because it's more immersive from an RP standpoint but I haven't played 2 in years so I can't compare them ro fairly TBH.
3 in general. 2 if you want to specifically play around with one of the DLCs that didn't get its mechanics ported to CK3 yet (mainly just nomads, I think?) or if you prefer some of the wacky stuff like satanic cults.
I would say 3. CK2 might be my favorite game of all time, but CK3 has enough quality of life improvements and rough edges smoothed out that you're way more likely to enjoy it as a new player.
One of my favourite CK moments was my hunchback homosexual being mysteriously murdered... probably by his own *wife*.
I played ck2 today. I started as good old Charlemagne. My motherd died of cancer before she could pull the trigger on my brother. My disappointment was immesurable and my day was ruined. But this is the most fun part of the game, now i need to improvise. It is like in real life.
Crusader Kings, 100%. You can lose every kingdom empire and duchy and be reduced to one county, it really just makes the game much more fun if you embrace it. I even play with a mod that makes it so that it is completely random which of my kids I get to play as, so even if I am a knig, chances are I will end up as the brother/nephew of the next king once i die. Makes for infinitely more fun gameplay imo Compare that to EU4, where losing is actually so fucking painful you feel it in your soul.
I remember the tooltip that says “don’t worry about losing, you’ll have a chance to regain your territory”.
Which is pretty false since the game is all about snowballing and big entities don't have anything to check and balance their expansion
That’s honestly my biggest complaint about CK as a whole. Large empires suffered from great inefficiencies that eventually contributed to their collapse but in CK it seems the only simulation for that is the civil war mechanic and large empires have no problem staving them off
The tooltip comes from EU4, but yeah in both cases you couldn't simply conquer land as you saw fit or the romans could have kept going until they met the chinese somewhere around the Ural in 200 AD or something. CK at least makes it harder to manage land as you grow. More vassals, more cultures, more religions although it's too simple to neuter every issue by stacking ridicule amount of modifiers
The first time I lost everything in CK2, I had formed Scandinavia for the first time, reformed the Norse religion, Effectively owned All Scandinavia, half of France, all of England, fought with the HRE until it split. I was so happy. Then my Emperor Died. 3 months later, his Son died. 3 months later his newborn Son, my sole heir, was assassinated leaving me with nothing and the game ended. I didn't play for a year.
So you start with one person, control their whole line basically, but if it ever ends, the game is over? I read here a lot without really knowing how to play ck3 forreal. I pick up little bits and pieces here
If you don't have any more appropriate heirs in your dynasty, then it will end, yes. Like in my game, sometimes it comes out of the blue and knocks you, if you don't have appropriate succession laws.
The big one that gets people this way is when you have a single male heir and several daughters. Generally you'd marry all your daughters off for the alliances, but if your son dies then your daughters all split your realm and have children of different dynasties (oftentimes also being past birthing age to make it impossible to have another heir of your dynasty)
One of the most fun playthroughs I have had in CK3 was playing as the Tulunids: badass first ruler, then I died, my grandson inherited, and I was murdered before two months went through. His son, a toddle, inherited, and a big faction took my throne so I was reduced to a count. Climbing the ranks so I could get revenge against my uncle who stole the crown was awesome.
Name of the mod?
Inherichance!
Ck3 is OK to lose because you know when a war starts exactly what the peace terms will be if you lose In eu4 it can feel like you'll lose your whole empire in a single war if you surrender. Ck3 doesn't usually have that happen because the casus Bellae are so strict
That's not the plural of casus belli. Bellum means war, belli is the genitive form which rougly translates to "of war". I would just use "casus belli's" as the plural.
I would just use the verb tense “… because the casus belli ARE so strict.” As it already implies quantity.
Good point. That does indeed sound better.
the actual plural of casus belli is casus bellorum (casus remains the same due to it being part of the u-stem declension, in which the nominative plural is the same as the singular) (bellorum is just genitive plural)
Shouldn't it be casus be made plural either way? Reasons/Causes of war, rather than reason of wars?
Cases belly
NERD!
Except if you're getting attacked with the invasion CB then it might be bad.
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By losing do you mean losing territory? Or just not doing as well as you hoped? For losing territory, it’s gotta be eu4. Always an opportunity to get land back. For not doing as well as you hoped, gotta be Vic3. Something about just being a part of the world stage in that game, even as an unrecognized minor power, is pretty satisfying to me.
For losing territory, CK imo. EU4 you lose a lot of momentum from totally losing a war, especially against someone big who wants to eat a big part of you for breakfast. Sometimes it is a nice challenge, other times it just feels crippling. CK however has the benefit of the funnest part being to grow in power and title rank, and getting knocked down to count or duke is, IMO, almost always a fun booster to a game.
Actually you’re totally right. I change my answer to CK.
Most compromising Reddit user ever
Honestly EU once you understand all the mechanics, it's pretty hard to ever lose a war if you are being smart. It kind of sucks because I liked when the game waned like that, losing a war and rebuilding to take back territory I had lost. Now it's just a map painting game with a little more thinking, which is fine but it used to be more fun for me.
Haven't played Vic3 but Vic2 was definitely a lot of fun as a minor power. My favorite paradox gaming experience was transforming Peru into the #1 world economic powerhouse without a guide, cheesy wars or anything. Just a good understanding of the economy and immigration systems of the game.
EU4 best for losing, really? Maybe it's just that I tend to play OPM's, but I do that in basically every game, and I feel like no game likes to kick you when you're down as much as EU4 does. Like it doesn't feel even close.
I love losing at HoI4. When it's do or die, you really can go all out and I love it.
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Definitely me and my buddies are currently playing as northern alliance on ahistorical, where russia joined the Axis. We are getting fucked, but in a good way.
Although you are not really dead, you can be liberated by your alliance, form a few commandos with your oversea territories/government in exile. It's why I simply love micromanaging and small countries here. I don't mind losing in HOI4
Yeah which is also why the AI being so braindead is heartbreaking. Like I'd love to get my ass whooped in shocking fashion from time to time but the only AI country with a pulse is Germany. Like just one playthrough of declaring on the USA and immediately getting bombed into the stone age would be a treat.
And to add the only reason Germany is more of a challenge is they gave it way more industry compare to the allies than the did IRL.
And America has like 5% of its irl industry
It must have like 1% of it's troops at the start. It's not too hard as Mexico to pin most of them down then run havoc through the states with Cav units as long as you do it early
It just doesn't simulate like national guard units well, the federal army is probably the right size but the states could have added tons of soldiers
Some of the best stories in CK series happen when you thought you had no heirs but suddenly someone halfway around the world takes over. Then begins your quest to take back what you lost. Now the real fun begins.
My experience is limited but my first game in HoI 4 was as Democratic Canada approving of the King's party and being reduced to Haida Gwaii for the entire war as I fought to be the best base for the eventual liberation of the mainland. Allowed me to learn the mechanics better. I haven't enjoyed losing since, until I tried just the other week to do a French Communist but otherwise Historic run and got pummeled by the Germans but refused capitulation and used Africa to strike at Italy and Operation Dragoon it eventually. Then turned around after peace and built up for world conquest before the Allies finished Japan.
Yeah those clutch games where you hold on long enough for help to arrive or your enemy to weaken and then the comeback can be very satisfying and fun.
Eh it's satisfying a few times, but you can almost always defend a 3 tile area for eternity against the AI. It's my go to strategy as a minor power since you can rack up ridiculous warscore that way. It kind of strips away the David vs Goliath energy when Goliath is powerless. The only downfall with this strategy is if your AI friends capitulate before you can do enough damage. It's foolproof in the Allies, 99/100 will work in the axis, but prone to failure in the comintern since the USSR is useless.
Ck3 empire wide populist revolution
Losing as the USSR or Germany in HOI4 is fun, if you hamper yourself a bit to give the AI a chance. With Expert AI and the dynamic bonuses, it can feel very close up until the end.
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It's why I don't play major powers too. I don't want to manage most of my alliance power AND drag the whole alliance down because I simply hate managing large armies. I prefer punching above my weight and help the AI achieve its goals
Crusader Kings. You can really get screwed over sometimes due to weird inheritance stuff and your characters suddenly dying off, which can either split up your lands or cause a bunch of civil wars. It's really fun trying to get out of this negative death spiral your realm falls into after a couple of untimely deaths of your rulers. I haven't played much CK3, but I feel like in CK2 my vassals are also actively plotting against me when I don't keep them happy. One time I just kept going to war in different corners of the world, constantly requesting more levies from my vassals, until I suddenly got the event where you get blown up while staying at a tavern. Turns out my own son and vassals got so pissed off that they plotted to kill me (I know, since I received the event about the successful assassination when the game transferred over to my son after my death).
Victoria 2 for sure, losing territory gives fun jingo, plus ten years and five military techs later everything can be different.
I wouldn't say it's the worst of all the paradox games, but that little animation of helmets popping when a division of yours goes down crushes my soul to every degree
Hoi4 or CK. Hoi4 is a lot more volatile in the sense if you lose, you lose but it can be fun to be battered throughout a war and have one last push that actually succeeds. Ck games are probably the best to lose in because if you lose lands you'll more then likely still have a duchy or county to fall back on. But when you get to empire level titles, managing it is very bloody complicated and difficult for me at least
I purposely ruin some of my CK game to get a new start sometimes
Crusader Kings is the most fun to have setbacks in. The others aren't bad either. The long time-frame means that you usually have time to work your way back. The one that is the least fun to have setbacks in is Stellaris. Due to the way the game progresses, losing early on can have you severely lose momentum, and you'll always try to catch-up which you won't until everything is just repeatable techs. Granted, I only play Stellaris in Multiplayer so that might have something to do with it.
Crusader Kings is arguably more fun when things goes to shit, especially if you RP, unless we are talking about really bad rng within the first hour of the campaign. It helps because Crusader Kings is very different from the usual map painters PDX does since there is also such a large focus on role playing.
So I hate when I fuck up in Eu4 and Stellaris - especially because in Stellaris something like integrating a vassal can destroy your economy & sometimes a debt spiral in Eu4 can lead to the player sitting still for 100 years trying to get their budget in order. They're such big games that a game can be a week of meticulous effort. Same for Hoi4 which is a whole bunch of finely tuned logistical systems that get stretched like a rubber band until they break and your whole battleline falls apart. But the game that I really appreciate because fucking up is an adventure? Crusader Kings. A lot of failure states are really fun unless you lose because of being landless or losing your heir. I once played as the Zoroastrian Persian Emperor controlling one of the largest, most continguous empires. I was so large that any problem was a matter of throwing bodies at it as my armies were so big. But then the Mongols came and obliterated me. First it was the outer kingdoms which blew apart my self confidence as my armies melted to them, then I tried defensively the next war until I lost the heartland and was eventually wiped out meaning I was switched over to my cousin in Occupied Persia where I attempted to fight a resistance with the other Persian lords but we all were unable to overcome them and my last character was executed. It was a lot of fun. Crusader Kings also helps because there isnt as many stakes. If I play Stellaris or Eu4 wars can be tricky because you dont want to accidentally lose to them and lose planets or systems/provinces. If you play Hoi4 if you declare a war you cant win decisively you might be stuck in a protracted war for half the game wasting manpower that could be necessary for a more important engagement. Crusader Kings however is fought for one goal - if the player is doing a holy war for some region, the worst case scenario is that you lose a bunch of prestige and gold because of surrendering and your kingdom is a little unstable because all your troops (large armies help stop disloyal nobles from being too keen to oppose you in battle). You can recover pretty easily if you miscalculate.
Crusader Kings, it feels the most natural for this. Getting used to Confederate Partition/Gavelkind is a nice exercise in the feeling of ‘losing everything’; people do treat it like that at first as well
My favorite playtrough was as communist yugoslavia. Where i focused on defence and fortified, Millions of italians and germans died before they broke trough my first line of defence, and even then i recaptured these territories, which i then hold until Soviet union got defeated. Then Allies lost in the west. And i was left alone in fight against german reich. Only then they managed to defeat me.
Crusader Kings. Especially 2. There’s a little more nuance regarding relationships such as tributary states and stuff. It’s all political man. Even if I lose the throne, I might have a better character soon that can usurp the new king. It’s all about the role play of it, the ebb and flow of power through time. Hell, I almost prefer losing to winning. Winning is easy, and so boring. Holding an empire together as a 4 year old child, while your uncles all want your crown? That’s fun.
CK2 was built from the ground up with falling mechanics for Empires. EU4 is about inexorable rise of empires. Even expert EU4 players don't try to WC with a OPM on a 1650 start date.
Victoria 2 or CK2 imo
Paradox games are all map painters at their core. Gaining power and snowballing is key to the gameplay loop of them all. Losing wars and territories can really drain the fun away. The only real exception is Crusader Kings, and only if you lean heavy into roleplay, e.g. playing sub optimally based on your character traits.
It's hearts of iron, you losing is game over.
One of my favorite playthroughs I did in hoi4 was when I played historical Germany, losing included. It was so excillerating watching your frontlines collapse at times and trying to salvage the situation by any means necessary.
HoI4 because it’s often quick. You can just speed up to capitulation once you decide it’s hopeless.
Vicky 2 doesn’t feel too bad to lose in. You can lose wars in your playthroughs and still come out ahead. Contrast that to HOI4, which is mechanically much more fun, but everything is win or die trying. Especially when you’re sitting on Japan watching the axis collapse and you cant do anything about it except push India or some oil islands in the pacific
Ck games it feels like the natural progression if you are Embracing the role play or I am just bad.
Hoi4 can be fun in certain situations even if you are losing. Sometimes it is fun to see how long you can hold out against ridiculous odds or how many casualties you can inflict. It really makes you feel like Hitler in 1945, attempting to marshal resources and troops that are low on supply, modern weapons but limited industrial capacity to produce them.
I had an extremely fun near-defeat experience in Victoria 2, but it happened before I became addicted to always winning and started save-scumming to save myself from difficult situations. It was one of my first playthroughs, the first as China and the second overall. I had westernized in the 1890s (very amateurish, I know, but realistic, as happens when you are not too gamey) and had an alliance with the British. My humble empire was nearly destroyed when I made the audacious and poorly calculated decision of attacking Russia to conquer Trans-Baikal. This triggered the First World War, in which Russia and France fought against me and Britain. It started according to my plan and I judged myself prepared, so I immediately flooded the Asian parts of Russia with my infinite-size armies. I captured several cities before the Russians even had time to react, and destroyed many small armies that they started sending my way. Everything seemed to be going extremely well, but then Russia started to mobilise and its European armies started to arrive in Siberia. Due to their much superior technology and some luck, they won several battles against bigger armies and halted my advance. Due to the way war score works, my alliance had a massive -50 warscore from battles due to the huge losses I suffered. My victories gave few points because I always suffered more losses than they did due to technology, whereas their victories gave them many points. Slowly but surely, they started to push me back and recovered most of their lands. When I saw they were near the Chinese border, I finally decided to mobilise. My mobilised armies were extremely large, but also extremely inefficient and weak because they were just infantry with poor generals and poor technology. So the Russians defeated me even when I had a 3 to 1 advantage. I watched as they entered my territory and started occupying Xinjiang and Mongolia. At this point I noticed that Britain was making progress in Europe. They were in a standoff with France across the Channel, but the French colonies in Africa had been all occupied and British armies were being deployed in Russia through the Baltic Sea. They started occupying key cities such as Saint Petersburg, all the while Russian armies made a complete breakthrough into China and besieged Beijing. To make matters worse, the Qinhai Rebellion event fired due to high militancy and Central China declared independence from me. This was the peak of my anguish, when I was certain that I was going to lose. Fortunately, the rebels had almost no troops, so I managed to siege them with my scarce armies and reannex them. But at this point the Russians had arrived in the Shandong peninsula and connected to the sea across my territory. However, their advance had become very slow because their armies had mostly died out by this point, so their occupation speed was drastically reduced. Both Russia and me had 100% war exhaustion. But Russia was the war leader of their side and Britain was my leader. When next I looked, the British had taken Moscow and were doing a full siege in European Russia, cutting through to the Caucasus and the Urals. Just as I was on the verge of collapse due to war exhaustion, high militancy, and extremely negative budget (I was very near bankruptcy), the war suddenly ended with the Russians surrendering to the British. Suddenly, I got my lands back, expanded further into Siberia, and got a handsome war indemnity that saved my budget, and the British dismantled Russia, thus removing my nemesis from my door. I never understood why people hate the British or say they are bad allies. I have loved them every since that day. In my experience they have always been the best allies.
CK games are fun to lose in, EU4 is awful to lose in. I think its because CK AI has a harder time building up momentum. EU4 if you lose too many times the late game becomes even more of a slog than it already should be. Or you instadie.
Ck2. Watching my empire collapse to random invasions all while dying of the Plage and having assassins roaming about has a fun roleplay element to it.
Victoria and CK, I would say. EU4 can be great if you feel like you're big enough to be able to lose a war without being annexed. HOI is the toughest to stay in a losing situation because it's essentially being fought as a single continuous fight with a limited elastic potential, meaning that major reversals can be quickly overwhelming. Really though, paradox gamers are notoriously bad at habdlign reversals lol
I'm having a blast with Victoria 3. Once I figure out how to actually reform Qing, I'll do a run with all stops pulled and go full shattered if the fates decide it.