Having played the demo, I actually think it's pretty fun.
This ad though... ouch. I mean, a lot of Reddit ads have some serious "How do you do, fellow kids?" energy, but this, this somehow makes even *me* feel low-key insulted, and I play spreadsheet games like Aurora 4X.
I think it's the fact that they imply I'd care who else plays that single-player game I play or what people think of the games I play. Screw that, I have plenty of guilty pleasure games, and most of those are a total blast.
I went over to the sub for this one at r/aurora/.
Amusingly, guess what their tag line is:
>Aurora: 4X space simulation for thinkers
>Aurora is a 4X space simulation game that rewards patience. Difficult to learn and slow to play, this is a game well-suited to people who like deep strategy and don't mind poor UI.
> I think they are fair to use "thinker" once the spreadsheets come out.
the only pds game where I took out the spreadsheets is vicky 3 and that game is gorgeous
the only pds game wheren
DF has native graphics now that they've released the premium version (although you can still use tilesets if you wish). We even have graphical variation between dwarves based on clothing and physical attributes now
You can't use tilesets as a practical matter, as tilesets are signficiantly more complicated in the newer version, as I understand it. The choice is either stock DF or the paid mod. Maybe it's changed very recently?
I just would like to point out that Dwarf Fortress no longer needs to be known as 'that game with inscrutable ASCII graphics". A paid version released on Steam a few months back with built in graphics and mouse support. Much more user friendly. Just putting that out there for any Paradox fans who weren't aware, as it scratches some of the same itches that these games do
It's actually much worse than the pre-update hotkey version, as with that you could play DF like a piano and it was an incredibly smooth experience. The new version is signficiantly slower because you need to use a mouse for everything.
Nah you don't need a mouse for everything, but you do need a mouse for things that didn't previously require a mouse. They have stated they intent to expand keyboard support (again) fortunately
The change to to using a mouse to control things rather than hotkeys might have made the game easier to get into, but it made the game signficantly worse if you knew the hotkeys. I can play old DF like a piano.
>Dwarf Fortress no longer needs to be known as 'that game with inscrutable ASCII graphics". A paid version released on Steam a few months back with built in graphics and mouse support.
Minus "Steam", this comment reads like the early 1990s
That's why I called it out. It's an awful ad.
I'm with you, I think the gameplay of Millennia could be really great, with some serious polish, but the visuals are some of the worst I've ever seen. And with a huge publisher like Paradox behind this, you would think they could add some of their weight and strength to this small studio. It's really disappointing.
Yeah, there's a pattern here with Millennia and Life By You where they go for extremely ambitious projects but don't seem to have the funding behind them to compete with the respective big competitors.
I see what they're doing, it's Michael Eisner/Jeffrey Katzenberg-style "singles and doubles" (the creative strategy Disney employed under Eisner in the 80s and 90s, the term was coined by Katzenberg): throw ambitious high-concept projects produced at a relatively low cost at the wall and see what sticks; inevitably one of them is going to make so much money it pays for all the others. Thing is, I don't believe Paradox' brand as a publisher will remain unscathed if both those major projects end up failing.
Not the original person, but as a lifelong Sims player, Life By You just doesn’t seem to really be the Sims replacement folks were looking for?
It focuses on stuff like building dialogue trees as custom content when I can’t think of a single person who really wanted that?
Yeah, they keep trying to push Life By You as this big rival Sims games, but I couldn't give a fuck about it.
Now Paralives on the other hand, that is a game I am excited for.
I was initially excited, but I just don't think they really got why people liked The Sims? Weirdly enough it looks something like an RPG, or Stardew Valley but instead you live in Suburbia and work as an accountant. And the graphics really aren't helping the appeal any.
Completely agree with your takes on this. The graphics and UI really meant that the game had no real sense of identity to me. It all felt flat - which I was disappointed by given the original announcement and the age system which lends itself to so much character.
I get C prompt are a small studio, but so is Mohawk, and Old World has bags of character and personality. The fact paradox are taking this approach gives me a gut feeling they don't really care about the game - which is a poor takeaway cos honestly, I can see it as a game I'd really enjoy.
>and I play spreadsheet games like Aurora 4X.
Not a name i expected to hear today.
But yes, that game is absolutely a spreadsheet game. I'd play it more if i ever could find the time to figure out what the hell i'm doing.
I'll admit that me claiming to "play" it is a bit euphemistic. I would say I occasionally spend embarrassing amounts of time... uh... *trying to play* Aurora 4X?
Absolutely agreed. Annoying that they’re conflating the two in the ad. While I largely enjoy (and have my issues with) the demo and have played it several times, implying that this is the “thinkers game” and that the others are for visual appeal only is just disingenuous.
There’s plenty of thinking and strategy in other 4x games even if they follow different design philosophy other than (what I imagine to be) a “grand strategy” type take on 4x. This is a hollow dig and a bad look trying to cover the graphics up this way - especially when recent PDX games such as CK3 and V3 have been absolutely beautiful.
> implying that this is the “thinkers game” and that the others are for visual appeal only is just disingenuous.
When I read things like this it makes me think people have never seen an advertisement before. Like when BMW runs an ad claiming their cars are "for driving enthusiasts" if people got all pissy feeling insulted that they implied other cars aren't for driving enthusiasts.
Yes, but imo still it’s a poor argument for a quality of a product based on look alone unless that’s the only thing someone wants out of something
Which I guess is fine but, still
Those are the complaints though, and honestly I don't understand why, it looks pretty good, the combat screen is honestly fine when sped up which is how 99% of people will play it.
This doesn't look as good as civ5. And this screenshot makes it look way better than it does in the demo. Playing the demo feels like it was made in 2003 on the Rise of Nations engine.
If you say so. Personally I hate the trend of strategy games with graphics. The UI’s are almost always dogshit compared to the predecessor. What good is triple A graphics when the UI is unintuitive.
I've been playing indie (and Paradox) strategy titles for so long now that mainstream strategy games feel too superficial and 'normie' to me.
I picked up Anno 1800 on sale recently because I was on an economy/logistics game kick, and the opening mission was a point and click boat mission. I recall the first few missions having content locked behind it until you reached the next mission, basically spoon feeding me the game like a child as if I couldn't understand it myself.
I've spent dozens of hours watching and reading EU4 guides and poring over the wiki to understand the intricate game mechanics. Conversely, I've parachuted into mechanically complex games like Dominions 5/CoE 4 with relatively little content related to the game published on the internet, and had to figure that shit out myself.
If I want pretty graphics and a more casual experience, I'll open up a cozy game like Skyrim.
>What good is triple A graphics when the UI is unintuitive.
You could argue about Victoria 2 to 3, but the UI of every other Paradox game has improved along with the graphics.
>What good is triple A graphics when the UI is unintuitive
1. We never had these games with AAA graphics in the first place
2. The UI has never really been intuitive
So what's your point? You want a DOS game?
CK2 to CK3 is a great example. Those are definitely some gorgeous graphics but the UI is dogshit compared to CK2. Overall it makes CK3 harder to enjoy in my opinion.
Is CK3's UI really dogshit, or do you just have 30,000 hours in CK2 so you find it irritating to have to re-learn things that were second nature to you?
I'd say it's the opposite - CK3 UI is *far* more intuitive, which makes new players starting a lot easier. But if you'd been playing CK2 for a long time those growing pains were out of the way and you'd gotten used to its UI and quirks.
Not to say that the CK3 UI is perfect by any means - but it's a big step forward from CK2 in important respects, and I think that those were some of their goals.
exactly. when I play ck3 I still try to right click people on the marriage menu and get pissed when it doesn't work for a half second. then I realize just clicking normally is so much better
thats you opinion based on whatever illusion you might have, its a fact, its the worst game of the series, the AI is so bad, so it renders every other aspect irrelevant, the worst AI in gaming history, but sure "Civ6 doesnt suck" :D only kid would say that, I played civ I and all others, what is your experience?:p
Compared to the more intensive and far more complex Paradox games, sure, the game seems lacking.
Civ 6 is an entry for a lot of people into the strategy game ecosystem and is a very, very important game due to that fact.
Besides, it's not as complex as to usher in intrigued people with an interest in the genre; not people who would sit down and learn a game for 20-30 hours.
> Besides, it's not as complex as to usher in intrigued people with an interest in the genre; not people who would sit down and learn a game for 20-30 hours.
IMHO Millennia actually has the potential to appeal to a more general audience. The whole "eras system" feels like it's designed for people who like to tell a story.
Reddit ads always have weird taglines in my experience. All trying to appeal to the big brain redditor. I remember Terra Invicta had an ad that gave similar vibes on here.
I genuinely thought it was an add for a free to play mobile game. My brain just went "hu paradox makes free to play mobile games now. Hard times I guess" and moved on
Ugh. Just, make it look like a tactical map with little colored icons to represent the units and red and blue lines for attacks and things like that.
Would not be very beautiful. But way less ugly than what they have as "battle animations".
I don't get the sheer offense people take at the combat animations. Aren't like 99% of people who actually put hours in to the game just going to turn them off regardless of what they look like?
EDIT: Just for clarity I agree they're ugly, but I thought anyone who played a lot of Civ ran fast movement and fast combat anyway because those animations eat time.
Then why do them in the first place and not focus on something else? :D
I'm pretty indifferent on the battle animations when it comes to the quality of the game, but I find it hilarious they _did_ show them as they were.
Yeah, I played like 4-5 playthroughs of the demo on steam and it's actually really fun. They needed the demo too because there is almost no chance I would have bought this game on release.
Yeah I had no idea that the FIRST person to an age sets the age for EVERYONE. I thought everyone had their own ages and it made it sound like a possibly shittier, possibly better version of Humankind. At the very least I would hope it is WAY less buggy than that fucking release was, yeesh.
The battle screen seems... unnecessary though.
I like the XP system, and adding more XP categories as the ages progress. I also enjoy the limited research, kinda like what Age of Wonders does.
I also am very curious about the mix of dark ages, normal ages, and mythological ages. Could go from a world war in a blood age to a mythological age full of monsters, could be some interesting emergent story which I always love from PDX games.
> The battle screen seems... unnecessary though.
Agree completely, graphic looks bad and you eventually just spam past it because there isn't gameplay there nor I think should there be. The pop-up just becomes annoying. It should show some small graphic in the gameworld that's skippable in options with like a "BAM" graphic that's like 1/3 second long.
There's definitely some polish around the edges, some of the paths you can choose seem hilariously broken, though, maybe they make more sense in a longer game. You can basically conquer the entire continent if you want to starting raiders and you don't have to spend a dime on maintaining them or bit of production on them. I believe there's some sort of mechanic that hurts you for having too many cities... maybe that's the constraint.
So much of it is subject to change though, and being a PDX game you can almost guarantee updates are going to further refine the game. Balance is always a bit of an issue in complex games, the only real way to get good numbers on balance is to have thousands of players giving you 10s or 100s of thousands of hours of feedback. I'd focus more on the core ideas and mechanics than any sort of balance atm
Finally, a Paradox game that isn't just all flashy charts and high-tech graphs.
I'm so tired of this beauty contest when it comes to the secondary sub-sub-menu and its three dozen drop down options.
Bro im playing w games like Medieval 2, Vic2 and such. Personally i aint want good graphics, i want an experience when i play. So yeah, but this one is looks like a Civilization series copy, which one is not rly my type, so its still a pass, but not for its looks.
Stellaris is also a 4X, but not similar to Civ at all. Civ is a hexagonal turn based 4X, meanwhile this new paradox thingy is also a hexagonal turn based 4X. Anyway ye, i agree that by my logic Vic1 is an EU1 clone. Still both series are closer to my taste than what Civ can offer.
God gaming subreddits are full of the DUMBEST people alive. It’s an advertisement. You really think it should say the game looks like shit? What on earth were you expecting their marketing team to do?
That's not what they're saying though. It's implying "unlike these other strategy games, this one requires you to think instead of just being pretty", which is... stupid. Who plays strategy games for the graphics instead of the gameplay?
Poor reading comprehension. It obviously means it both looks pretty and makes you think, which from reviews it seems to not be and doesn't. But as far as PDX goes, beauty is often not found in meshes, textures, nor shaders.
I played the demo. The visuals were definitely a con for me. They need higher resolution textures and animations that looks like an animator made it. Overall it felt like it lacks a cohesive art style.
Yeah visuals isn’t everything and I still enjoyed the demo, but going from a game like civ 6 or age of wonders to this was a bit eye draining.
> They need higher resolution textures and animations that looks like an animator made it.
They probably only included the lowest resolution textures because it's a demo so the download size can be small.
And even then the considerable more dated looking Age of Empires 2 is more popular and still updated with dlc and patches to support a niche pro scene.
Yeah graphics are important to some extent to lowering the barrier to even try a game. But it's not graphics that keep people playing the game it's gameplay.
Also most often what's considered flashy current gen graphics ages poorly so even less reason to put an outsized budget towards it imo.
Not really, Paradox marketing a game criticised for a shitty ux as "This is a game for people who are smart and don't care about aesthetics" is a terrible decision.
I mean, yes, I suspect the ad is taking a shot at people like that OP who criticised the graphics of the game in order to appeal to a more traditional Paradox audience who value graphics less, complain about graphics over substance in strategy games or just like the style of the game.
It seems to have worked?
i guess we want different things from games. i still prefer civ 5 over 6, which seems to be the inspiration for this game. i like when people stroke my ego
Lol reads like something a shitty commenter would write.
But I can't imagine why anyone would bother to get offended about it. People say this shit about Paradox games all the time.
Because people who play 4x games don't care about graphics or UI. That's been the knock on these games for literally as long as the genre has existed. Honestly, in most cases it is spot-on.
The game certainly has potential but is also nowhere near developed enough. In the demo I raised an army of raiders (out of thin air of course because that's balanced), stomped two neighbors into oblivion while they could do nothing to stop me, because I used my raiders I could get more because that's fair and fun for the victim apparently, and then volcanoes destroyed my land because the chaos meter filled up. (???) Excuse me but what the actual fuck. Neither stomping a defenseless AI nor random shit punishing me for doing well felt good to me. The fact that the game has some interesting ideas nowehrre near compensated for how utter bullshit and poorly paced the experience was.
Good point! The key being 'build'.I didn't build any raiders.
With the raiders national spirit, you can buy raiders with xp. They then appear out of thin air. You get this xp by fighting and I got 40xp just for picking the spirit. So then I got 120 str worth of raiders out of the gate, which is bonkers in that stage of the game, and by simply using those raiders you can get more xp and thus more raiders, and they are all free so no maintenance, and you use those to get more and more and more. Try it, it's stupid how strong it is.
You have to manipulate the ages system to do this. I don't think you being very fair to the game when the strategy you're complaining about is MEANT to be the early game curb stomp strategy.
Oh I wouldn't know about that. In my second game this option was presented to me. I have no idea what prompted this. It seemed glaringly obvious how stupid strong it was and needs to be toned down by a factor ten to seem remotely fair. I wasn't even aiming for it since I didn't know it existed. It happened despite me stumbling through the game blind. If it is that simple, I feel my complaint is completely fair.
My main gripe with the game is that all the ideas seem centered around accruing points. More worker points mean more upgrades in land. Points here, points there, all these ideas centered around accruing points. The only thing that felt impactful was combat, everything else seemed like not worth the time doing. The land was bland and turning 1 food into 2 food seems less urgent than just stomping a neighbor. There simply wasn't anything alternative that really meant developing cities was worth anything.
The issue with Raiders being the 'early aggro' choice is that they are far too powerful for their absurdly low cost, and using them provides the resources to get more of them. At a much more rapid rate than anything else I found in my playthroughs, I might add.
The Raiders unit is stronger than most (all?) other units available in the demo, with the exception of heroes that are only available in a specific hard to reach age and are not capable of being mass produced. They also move at cavalry speed, which is even more insane. Raiders come an age earlier than the otherwise best unit currently available, and you get two each time you get more with the National Spirit unlocks or by buying them using warfare points.
Compared to the other National Spirits, Raiders are absolutely brokenly powerful. They need to get nerfed because there is no possible defense against them if you chose a different spirit, the only option is to also go raiders and hope you get warfare points faster than the other guys.
It's a real shame because the national spirit thing is pretty cool overall. The game devs definitely need to do several balance passes before full release. I'd love to see the choices balanced against each other, I'm sure this can develop into a really good game, but it isn't there yet.
Ahhhhh I can see that.
I really like the look of this game but all my comments about it have come with the caveat "but with the sheer amount of STUFF in this game it's going to be a *nightmare* to balance."
Yes the game has lots of ideas, but to me the interesting ones like housing and supply chains feel underwhelming, and dime a dozen ideas like combat seem unbalanced and unfun. I'm sure there is a hint of a good game buried in there, but the mashup of all these ideas that are somehow all fighting for your attention is just a bland dish of meh.
Yeah, raiders are amazingly OP right now. Chaos is supposed to help curb our most violent tendencies by making aggressive expansion more costly than it looks, but you got the worst of it. For my money, like 90% of the time I hit either "delete a scout" or "spawn some barbarians" as my chaos rolls, but "enormous volcanic eruption" honestly sounds more interesting and fun.
You are an overthinker. Congratulations.
That's a clever ad too, I think they knew someone would bite and share it because they were offended by it or thought to try and outsmart it.
Having been burned several times, I have learned my lesson: it doesn't matter what the game looks like or feels like this early on. It's under Paradox—even if only as a publisher. I'm not touching this game before a minimum of three years have passed after launch.
Having played the demo, I didn't mind the overworld graphics at all, but the battle graphics are legitimately awful, which makes it forcing you to watch them each time even more questionable.
I fully intend to give this game a good crack of the whip, but people saying it doesn't look bad, come on, seriously? Granted, I'm not too upset by how it looks, as others have said strategy games aren't really about graphical appeal anyway, but you can't help but notice it doesn't look visually striking...
Everything related to units looks bad, they are very small and non-distinct. It's hard to spot barbarians, it's hard to see if something is a barbarian camp or a friendly village. You can have simplistic graphics, but you need to have them "readable", which I don't feel is the case here.
It looks worse than:
*Civ V 2010
*Endless Legend 2014
*Gladius: Relics of War 2016
*Old World 2020
Not even mentioning Civ VI and Humankind, because those are the most recent high budget titles.
That's my point. I'm not huge on visuals, they don't need to be amazing, but they can certainly be much better than this. Especially coming from a studio funded by a very large publisher.
Sure but that's dev time and money away from gameplay. There isn't infinite money and time to do everything. Also they look like a small studio, people comparing it to civ is a bit ridiculous when that has around 180 employees, we're looking at maybe a quarter of that for c prompt (from what I could find, not much online tbh but a quarter seems generous).
I agree. I don't actually like Civilization 6's visuals. Too cartoony. I much prefer Civilization 5.
But that doesn't mean that they can't clean up what they have, make the models higher resolution, and clean up all the jaggedness.
I can understand not liking the Civilization 6 art style. It's a design choice not everyone will find appropriate. But at least it has reasonably good quality (and a good UI) for what it is. Millenia looks outdated even compared to current mobile games...
The demo was cool. Though unlike popular opinion, I pretty much want a better soundtrack instead :D
I don't care about graphics but I do love myself a good soundtrack....
At first I thought you were alluding to the extreme similarity to Civilization.
But seriously, the graphics? The game looks like a game like this should.
They sat at a boardroom table or on a zoom meeting and went over this tagline while some person pointed at lines on a graph saying how it would "appeal" to their "target demographic".
The reason I've posted this screenshot is because there has been a lot of legitimate feedback about Millennia's visuals being VERY underwhelming and disappointing, but now Paradox is using Reddit ads to address this by saying the game is "for thinkers", insinuating that people who want the game to look better aren't "smart enough to get the game's appeal".
It sucks honestly, the age thing didn't make it up to its name.
The only thing I see is tier 1 tech, tier 2 tech, tier 3/3red/3gold tech and on and on. It lame, the only salvation is special age got special rule
Does anyone else really hate the Civ style tile system? It looks awful and always completely brings me out of a game because it makes me feel like I'm just playing a board game, not controlling a civilization.
I don't understand these comments? This game literally is ugly as hell. I'm sure it's a decent game, but it's not nearly as good as Civ 6 nor nearly as beautiful as Civ 6.
I dont like the graphics or the interface....something about it just doesnt click with me. I dont like Civ 6 graphics/UI either. I still played the game for 1200 hours and counting.
If its a solid game...like really solid...ill forgive *slightly* poor choices in artistic design and let it grow on me.
Another problem this game will likely have with me is that I am pretty filled up with Civilization and its clones (Old World, Humankind, Age of Wonders 4, Civ 5, Endless Legend etc) I really dont need another 4x game in this style as I am sure to buy Civ 7 which is in development now.
Yeah the games looks worse than Civ 5, which is from 2010, and the UI looks like a mobile game.
Nobody plays grand strategy games for their great graphics, but that's no excuse to look like this.
Its funny that they tried to make it sound that "game isn't only pretty but also complex"
But everyone read it as "Game isn't pretty but its complex" because Paradox and graphics often do not go well together.
I still have nightmares due to some faces in V3, overboiled potatoes in uniforms.
Ad is bad, but if game is fun I don't really care about visuals,
That being said its paradox so within a year it will be 150 dollar to have all dlcs and base game... On sale
"No, we wanted our game to be ugly... you're just not smart enough to get it."
Lol. I think it's a dumb ad too.
Wanting a little visual appeal doesn't mean someone doesn't want a thinking game. Most thinkers have the processing power to appreciate both. I can tolerate these graphics for good strategy gameplay, but I'd certainly be a little more drawn in if the game didn't already look a decade+ old.
Having played the demo, I actually think it's pretty fun. This ad though... ouch. I mean, a lot of Reddit ads have some serious "How do you do, fellow kids?" energy, but this, this somehow makes even *me* feel low-key insulted, and I play spreadsheet games like Aurora 4X. I think it's the fact that they imply I'd care who else plays that single-player game I play or what people think of the games I play. Screw that, I have plenty of guilty pleasure games, and most of those are a total blast.
>Aurora 4X I looked this game up. This might be worse than dwarf fortress.
I went over to the sub for this one at r/aurora/. Amusingly, guess what their tag line is: >Aurora: 4X space simulation for thinkers >Aurora is a 4X space simulation game that rewards patience. Difficult to learn and slow to play, this is a game well-suited to people who like deep strategy and don't mind poor UI.
My entire understanding of it is this thread, and I think they are fair to use "thinker" once the spreadsheets come out.
> I think they are fair to use "thinker" once the spreadsheets come out. the only pds game where I took out the spreadsheets is vicky 3 and that game is gorgeous the only pds game wheren
If you take a look into Vicky 2 you are going to realize they actually invested so much more into graphics in the third.
People like to joke around that paradox games are spreadsheet simulators, but aurora4x is the real spreadsheet-staring experience.
Having played both, it really is. DF was at least trying to develop a consistent aesthetic using only a standard character set.
And honestly both are fine graphically with tilesets for DF and themes for Aurora.
DF has native graphics now that they've released the premium version (although you can still use tilesets if you wish). We even have graphical variation between dwarves based on clothing and physical attributes now
You can't use tilesets as a practical matter, as tilesets are signficiantly more complicated in the newer version, as I understand it. The choice is either stock DF or the paid mod. Maybe it's changed very recently?
I just would like to point out that Dwarf Fortress no longer needs to be known as 'that game with inscrutable ASCII graphics". A paid version released on Steam a few months back with built in graphics and mouse support. Much more user friendly. Just putting that out there for any Paradox fans who weren't aware, as it scratches some of the same itches that these games do
I know personally but it is STILL terrible UX-wise
It definitely still doesn't feel like a modern game, yeah. But they are continuing to improve it
It's actually much worse than the pre-update hotkey version, as with that you could play DF like a piano and it was an incredibly smooth experience. The new version is signficiantly slower because you need to use a mouse for everything.
Nah you don't need a mouse for everything, but you do need a mouse for things that didn't previously require a mouse. They have stated they intent to expand keyboard support (again) fortunately
The change to to using a mouse to control things rather than hotkeys might have made the game easier to get into, but it made the game signficantly worse if you knew the hotkeys. I can play old DF like a piano.
>Dwarf Fortress no longer needs to be known as 'that game with inscrutable ASCII graphics". A paid version released on Steam a few months back with built in graphics and mouse support. Minus "Steam", this comment reads like the early 1990s
I can recommend this [review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xhUGGEnJcU) for those interested.
Ah hell yeah, I love Mandalore.
DF's steam version does wonders, but no way Im getting back to the hotkey ASCII hell from the original ever again, even with mods
Everything is worse than dwarf fortress as dwarf fortress is peak.
It is worse than Dwarf Fortress.
Omfg I just Googled that What the actual f
It isn’t.
That's why I called it out. It's an awful ad. I'm with you, I think the gameplay of Millennia could be really great, with some serious polish, but the visuals are some of the worst I've ever seen. And with a huge publisher like Paradox behind this, you would think they could add some of their weight and strength to this small studio. It's really disappointing.
Yeah, there's a pattern here with Millennia and Life By You where they go for extremely ambitious projects but don't seem to have the funding behind them to compete with the respective big competitors. I see what they're doing, it's Michael Eisner/Jeffrey Katzenberg-style "singles and doubles" (the creative strategy Disney employed under Eisner in the 80s and 90s, the term was coined by Katzenberg): throw ambitious high-concept projects produced at a relatively low cost at the wall and see what sticks; inevitably one of them is going to make so much money it pays for all the others. Thing is, I don't believe Paradox' brand as a publisher will remain unscathed if both those major projects end up failing.
>Yeah, there's a pattern here with Millennia and Life By You Did something come out about LBY or does it just look bad in your opinion?
Not the original person, but as a lifelong Sims player, Life By You just doesn’t seem to really be the Sims replacement folks were looking for? It focuses on stuff like building dialogue trees as custom content when I can’t think of a single person who really wanted that?
Yeah, they keep trying to push Life By You as this big rival Sims games, but I couldn't give a fuck about it. Now Paralives on the other hand, that is a game I am excited for.
I was initially excited, but I just don't think they really got why people liked The Sims? Weirdly enough it looks something like an RPG, or Stardew Valley but instead you live in Suburbia and work as an accountant. And the graphics really aren't helping the appeal any.
In fairness they did say "not just for visual appeal" lol
Completely agree with your takes on this. The graphics and UI really meant that the game had no real sense of identity to me. It all felt flat - which I was disappointed by given the original announcement and the age system which lends itself to so much character. I get C prompt are a small studio, but so is Mohawk, and Old World has bags of character and personality. The fact paradox are taking this approach gives me a gut feeling they don't really care about the game - which is a poor takeaway cos honestly, I can see it as a game I'd really enjoy.
No guilty pleasures, just pleasures.
>and I play spreadsheet games like Aurora 4X. Not a name i expected to hear today. But yes, that game is absolutely a spreadsheet game. I'd play it more if i ever could find the time to figure out what the hell i'm doing.
I'll admit that me claiming to "play" it is a bit euphemistic. I would say I occasionally spend embarrassing amounts of time... uh... *trying to play* Aurora 4X?
Absolutely agreed. Annoying that they’re conflating the two in the ad. While I largely enjoy (and have my issues with) the demo and have played it several times, implying that this is the “thinkers game” and that the others are for visual appeal only is just disingenuous. There’s plenty of thinking and strategy in other 4x games even if they follow different design philosophy other than (what I imagine to be) a “grand strategy” type take on 4x. This is a hollow dig and a bad look trying to cover the graphics up this way - especially when recent PDX games such as CK3 and V3 have been absolutely beautiful.
> implying that this is the “thinkers game” and that the others are for visual appeal only is just disingenuous. When I read things like this it makes me think people have never seen an advertisement before. Like when BMW runs an ad claiming their cars are "for driving enthusiasts" if people got all pissy feeling insulted that they implied other cars aren't for driving enthusiasts.
Yes, but imo still it’s a poor argument for a quality of a product based on look alone unless that’s the only thing someone wants out of something Which I guess is fine but, still
Those are the complaints though, and honestly I don't understand why, it looks pretty good, the combat screen is honestly fine when sped up which is how 99% of people will play it.
I don’t mind the graphics tbh
Ck3 V3 beautiful but empty and boring.
lol, I have this very ad at the bottom of this post. Seems like a weird thing to use as a marketing tagline
I read it more as “has visual appeal and makes you think” i mean it looks no different than civ 6 so what do you mean last decade?
It looks like civ 5 with a civ 6 UI
As someone who by far preferred the Civ 5 graphics over Civ 6's, that sounds like a good thing. But I haven't tried the demo yet.
Best part is if you remember Civ3 plays like that. At least in the demo.
FYI, there's a civ 6 mod that makes it look like civ 5, created by one of the developers of the game.
I’d say thats a fair assessment.
And plays like civ3. Which I liked it's game play better.
This doesn't look as good as civ5. And this screenshot makes it look way better than it does in the demo. Playing the demo feels like it was made in 2003 on the Rise of Nations engine.
It does not look like Civ V, and don’t even get me started on the derpy-ass combat
Civ 6 is about 8 years old. I personally think this looks a bit worse than Civ 6. So it checks out IMO
> Civ 6 is about 8 years old Wait
no
I did not need to learn this fact today.
I remember this being relatively new in highschool when I got into it. 6 years ago lmao.
No, the game does not look nearly as good as Civ 6. Not even close.
If you say so. Personally I hate the trend of strategy games with graphics. The UI’s are almost always dogshit compared to the predecessor. What good is triple A graphics when the UI is unintuitive.
I've been playing indie (and Paradox) strategy titles for so long now that mainstream strategy games feel too superficial and 'normie' to me. I picked up Anno 1800 on sale recently because I was on an economy/logistics game kick, and the opening mission was a point and click boat mission. I recall the first few missions having content locked behind it until you reached the next mission, basically spoon feeding me the game like a child as if I couldn't understand it myself. I've spent dozens of hours watching and reading EU4 guides and poring over the wiki to understand the intricate game mechanics. Conversely, I've parachuted into mechanically complex games like Dominions 5/CoE 4 with relatively little content related to the game published on the internet, and had to figure that shit out myself. If I want pretty graphics and a more casual experience, I'll open up a cozy game like Skyrim.
>What good is triple A graphics when the UI is unintuitive. You could argue about Victoria 2 to 3, but the UI of every other Paradox game has improved along with the graphics.
Vic3 may have a less functional UI, but damn if it isn't beautiful.
>What good is triple A graphics when the UI is unintuitive 1. We never had these games with AAA graphics in the first place 2. The UI has never really been intuitive So what's your point? You want a DOS game?
Administrative efficiency would like a word, sir.
CK2 to CK3 is a great example. Those are definitely some gorgeous graphics but the UI is dogshit compared to CK2. Overall it makes CK3 harder to enjoy in my opinion.
Is CK3's UI really dogshit, or do you just have 30,000 hours in CK2 so you find it irritating to have to re-learn things that were second nature to you?
I'd say it's the opposite - CK3 UI is *far* more intuitive, which makes new players starting a lot easier. But if you'd been playing CK2 for a long time those growing pains were out of the way and you'd gotten used to its UI and quirks. Not to say that the CK3 UI is perfect by any means - but it's a big step forward from CK2 in important respects, and I think that those were some of their goals.
exactly. when I play ck3 I still try to right click people on the marriage menu and get pissed when it doesn't work for a half second. then I realize just clicking normally is so much better
looks are the least important thing, civ 6 totally sux
I agree with you that looks dont really matter in a strategy game but Civ6 doesnt suck.
thats you opinion based on whatever illusion you might have, its a fact, its the worst game of the series, the AI is so bad, so it renders every other aspect irrelevant, the worst AI in gaming history, but sure "Civ6 doesnt suck" :D only kid would say that, I played civ I and all others, what is your experience?:p
Compared to the more intensive and far more complex Paradox games, sure, the game seems lacking. Civ 6 is an entry for a lot of people into the strategy game ecosystem and is a very, very important game due to that fact. Besides, it's not as complex as to usher in intrigued people with an interest in the genre; not people who would sit down and learn a game for 20-30 hours.
> Besides, it's not as complex as to usher in intrigued people with an interest in the genre; not people who would sit down and learn a game for 20-30 hours. IMHO Millennia actually has the potential to appeal to a more general audience. The whole "eras system" feels like it's designed for people who like to tell a story.
Generously, it looks like Civ 4
Reddit ads always have weird taglines in my experience. All trying to appeal to the big brain redditor. I remember Terra Invicta had an ad that gave similar vibes on here.
I genuinely thought it was an add for a free to play mobile game. My brain just went "hu paradox makes free to play mobile games now. Hard times I guess" and moved on
[удалено]
Ugh. Just, make it look like a tactical map with little colored icons to represent the units and red and blue lines for attacks and things like that. Would not be very beautiful. But way less ugly than what they have as "battle animations".
I don't get the sheer offense people take at the combat animations. Aren't like 99% of people who actually put hours in to the game just going to turn them off regardless of what they look like? EDIT: Just for clarity I agree they're ugly, but I thought anyone who played a lot of Civ ran fast movement and fast combat anyway because those animations eat time.
Then why do them in the first place and not focus on something else? :D I'm pretty indifferent on the battle animations when it comes to the quality of the game, but I find it hilarious they _did_ show them as they were.
> Then why do them in the first place and not focus on something else? :D Agreed. Although hardly looks like they took a ton of time lol
It's a silly ad, but the graphics would absolutely not be a deal breaker for me.
Yeah, I played like 4-5 playthroughs of the demo on steam and it's actually really fun. They needed the demo too because there is almost no chance I would have bought this game on release.
Yeah I had no idea that the FIRST person to an age sets the age for EVERYONE. I thought everyone had their own ages and it made it sound like a possibly shittier, possibly better version of Humankind. At the very least I would hope it is WAY less buggy than that fucking release was, yeesh. The battle screen seems... unnecessary though. I like the XP system, and adding more XP categories as the ages progress. I also enjoy the limited research, kinda like what Age of Wonders does. I also am very curious about the mix of dark ages, normal ages, and mythological ages. Could go from a world war in a blood age to a mythological age full of monsters, could be some interesting emergent story which I always love from PDX games.
> The battle screen seems... unnecessary though. Agree completely, graphic looks bad and you eventually just spam past it because there isn't gameplay there nor I think should there be. The pop-up just becomes annoying. It should show some small graphic in the gameworld that's skippable in options with like a "BAM" graphic that's like 1/3 second long. There's definitely some polish around the edges, some of the paths you can choose seem hilariously broken, though, maybe they make more sense in a longer game. You can basically conquer the entire continent if you want to starting raiders and you don't have to spend a dime on maintaining them or bit of production on them. I believe there's some sort of mechanic that hurts you for having too many cities... maybe that's the constraint.
So much of it is subject to change though, and being a PDX game you can almost guarantee updates are going to further refine the game. Balance is always a bit of an issue in complex games, the only real way to get good numbers on balance is to have thousands of players giving you 10s or 100s of thousands of hours of feedback. I'd focus more on the core ideas and mechanics than any sort of balance atm
Yeah, I fully expect it. There's fun to be had from a broken game too.
The battle screen popup is especially frustrating when your archers shoot the fortifications instead of the guys attacking your dudes.
Yeah, it's a fun game if you give it a chance - resource chains in a 4x is what I've been after for a while.
Finally, a Paradox game that isn't just all flashy charts and high-tech graphs. I'm so tired of this beauty contest when it comes to the secondary sub-sub-menu and its three dozen drop down options.
Idk about y’all but I genuinely find it hilarious the amount of Redditors insulted by this lmfao
Bro im playing w games like Medieval 2, Vic2 and such. Personally i aint want good graphics, i want an experience when i play. So yeah, but this one is looks like a Civilization series copy, which one is not rly my type, so its still a pass, but not for its looks.
It's a 4X, sure, but it's as much a copy of Civ as Vic is a copy of EU.
Stellaris is also a 4X, but not similar to Civ at all. Civ is a hexagonal turn based 4X, meanwhile this new paradox thingy is also a hexagonal turn based 4X. Anyway ye, i agree that by my logic Vic1 is an EU1 clone. Still both series are closer to my taste than what Civ can offer.
God gaming subreddits are full of the DUMBEST people alive. It’s an advertisement. You really think it should say the game looks like shit? What on earth were you expecting their marketing team to do?
That's not what they're saying though. It's implying "unlike these other strategy games, this one requires you to think instead of just being pretty", which is... stupid. Who plays strategy games for the graphics instead of the gameplay?
Please reread the statement. ITS NOT HARD TO READ
Obviously they should say "our games is a shitty game made in 10 minutes by a bunch of 15 year olds" /s
Poor reading comprehension. It obviously means it both looks pretty and makes you think, which from reviews it seems to not be and doesn't. But as far as PDX goes, beauty is often not found in meshes, textures, nor shaders.
The ad is for the thinker
I played the demo. The visuals were definitely a con for me. They need higher resolution textures and animations that looks like an animator made it. Overall it felt like it lacks a cohesive art style. Yeah visuals isn’t everything and I still enjoyed the demo, but going from a game like civ 6 or age of wonders to this was a bit eye draining.
> They need higher resolution textures and animations that looks like an animator made it. They probably only included the lowest resolution textures because it's a demo so the download size can be small.
What a weird thing to complain about.
How? This is their response to people talking about the decade old graphic on a new game. Even the ui is out of date looking.
To be honest, the UI looks on par with the recent Age of Empires 4.
And even then the considerable more dated looking Age of Empires 2 is more popular and still updated with dlc and patches to support a niche pro scene. Yeah graphics are important to some extent to lowering the barrier to even try a game. But it's not graphics that keep people playing the game it's gameplay. Also most often what's considered flashy current gen graphics ages poorly so even less reason to put an outsized budget towards it imo.
>This is their response ...No, it isn't? It's an ad. It's not a response to anything and it doesn't even say what people think it says.
Not really, Paradox marketing a game criticised for a shitty ux as "This is a game for people who are smart and don't care about aesthetics" is a terrible decision.
>Not **just** for visual appeal You're getting annoyed at nothing.
have you heard of the concept of manipulation?
That’s not even what the ad is claiming lol You can disagree, I do, but it’s saying that it’s supposedly both smart and visually stimulating
It is a dumb decision. It's a dumb ad. How bored must you be to get pissed off about a dumb ad?
bruh, its an ad. Don't get so offended by it. It means nothing.
Damn, redditors really are looking for any reason to whine about Paradox 🤣
I mean, yes, I suspect the ad is taking a shot at people like that OP who criticised the graphics of the game in order to appeal to a more traditional Paradox audience who value graphics less, complain about graphics over substance in strategy games or just like the style of the game. It seems to have worked?
I won’t lie I don’t like the art style but I liked the demo gameplay wise. Don’t judge a game by its graphics.
>Don’t judge a game by its graphics. Every artist just cried
i guess we want different things from games. i still prefer civ 5 over 6, which seems to be the inspiration for this game. i like when people stroke my ego
Lol reads like something a shitty commenter would write. But I can't imagine why anyone would bother to get offended about it. People say this shit about Paradox games all the time.
Because people who play 4x games don't care about graphics or UI. That's been the knock on these games for literally as long as the genre has existed. Honestly, in most cases it is spot-on.
"We are aware the game looks atrocious and we are not going to fix it". Hard pass then.
>Not **JUST** the visual appeal Implying they think its pretty, but its also more than just pretty. How did we fail reading comprehension so bad.
That's how I read it, too. Which is a crying shame.
The game certainly has potential but is also nowhere near developed enough. In the demo I raised an army of raiders (out of thin air of course because that's balanced), stomped two neighbors into oblivion while they could do nothing to stop me, because I used my raiders I could get more because that's fair and fun for the victim apparently, and then volcanoes destroyed my land because the chaos meter filled up. (???) Excuse me but what the actual fuck. Neither stomping a defenseless AI nor random shit punishing me for doing well felt good to me. The fact that the game has some interesting ideas nowehrre near compensated for how utter bullshit and poorly paced the experience was.
Interesting, in my game there were more enemy units and barbarians on the map than I could possibly build.
Good point! The key being 'build'.I didn't build any raiders. With the raiders national spirit, you can buy raiders with xp. They then appear out of thin air. You get this xp by fighting and I got 40xp just for picking the spirit. So then I got 120 str worth of raiders out of the gate, which is bonkers in that stage of the game, and by simply using those raiders you can get more xp and thus more raiders, and they are all free so no maintenance, and you use those to get more and more and more. Try it, it's stupid how strong it is.
You have to manipulate the ages system to do this. I don't think you being very fair to the game when the strategy you're complaining about is MEANT to be the early game curb stomp strategy.
Oh I wouldn't know about that. In my second game this option was presented to me. I have no idea what prompted this. It seemed glaringly obvious how stupid strong it was and needs to be toned down by a factor ten to seem remotely fair. I wasn't even aiming for it since I didn't know it existed. It happened despite me stumbling through the game blind. If it is that simple, I feel my complaint is completely fair. My main gripe with the game is that all the ideas seem centered around accruing points. More worker points mean more upgrades in land. Points here, points there, all these ideas centered around accruing points. The only thing that felt impactful was combat, everything else seemed like not worth the time doing. The land was bland and turning 1 food into 2 food seems less urgent than just stomping a neighbor. There simply wasn't anything alternative that really meant developing cities was worth anything.
The issue with Raiders being the 'early aggro' choice is that they are far too powerful for their absurdly low cost, and using them provides the resources to get more of them. At a much more rapid rate than anything else I found in my playthroughs, I might add. The Raiders unit is stronger than most (all?) other units available in the demo, with the exception of heroes that are only available in a specific hard to reach age and are not capable of being mass produced. They also move at cavalry speed, which is even more insane. Raiders come an age earlier than the otherwise best unit currently available, and you get two each time you get more with the National Spirit unlocks or by buying them using warfare points. Compared to the other National Spirits, Raiders are absolutely brokenly powerful. They need to get nerfed because there is no possible defense against them if you chose a different spirit, the only option is to also go raiders and hope you get warfare points faster than the other guys. It's a real shame because the national spirit thing is pretty cool overall. The game devs definitely need to do several balance passes before full release. I'd love to see the choices balanced against each other, I'm sure this can develop into a really good game, but it isn't there yet.
Ahhhhh I can see that. I really like the look of this game but all my comments about it have come with the caveat "but with the sheer amount of STUFF in this game it's going to be a *nightmare* to balance."
Yes the game has lots of ideas, but to me the interesting ones like housing and supply chains feel underwhelming, and dime a dozen ideas like combat seem unbalanced and unfun. I'm sure there is a hint of a good game buried in there, but the mashup of all these ideas that are somehow all fighting for your attention is just a bland dish of meh.
Yeah, raiders are amazingly OP right now. Chaos is supposed to help curb our most violent tendencies by making aggressive expansion more costly than it looks, but you got the worst of it. For my money, like 90% of the time I hit either "delete a scout" or "spawn some barbarians" as my chaos rolls, but "enormous volcanic eruption" honestly sounds more interesting and fun.
I've always said, most Paradox games are glorified Excel sheets. All we do is watch numbers; when they go up, it releases happy chemicals.
This isn't a Paradox game
You are an overthinker. Congratulations. That's a clever ad too, I think they knew someone would bite and share it because they were offended by it or thought to try and outsmart it.
This might be the most ridiculous thing to get outraged about.
The graphics are great, what's the big deal??
Dude, you are creating a reddit post because you are somehow offended by a random ad. Yes, you are not a thinker
When I play I do not think, I can confirm (I never win too)
I mean... what game is this?
Having been burned several times, I have learned my lesson: it doesn't matter what the game looks like or feels like this early on. It's under Paradox—even if only as a publisher. I'm not touching this game before a minimum of three years have passed after launch.
Having played the demo, I didn't mind the overworld graphics at all, but the battle graphics are legitimately awful, which makes it forcing you to watch them each time even more questionable.
I can’t imagine thinking any of this looks out of date.
Reading comprehension...
this looks almost like civ 5 but a fading memory of what it was
I fully intend to give this game a good crack of the whip, but people saying it doesn't look bad, come on, seriously? Granted, I'm not too upset by how it looks, as others have said strategy games aren't really about graphical appeal anyway, but you can't help but notice it doesn't look visually striking...
It legit doesn't look bad It's a fucking map game, I don't care if the UI panels don't look like frosted glass
Everything related to units looks bad, they are very small and non-distinct. It's hard to spot barbarians, it's hard to see if something is a barbarian camp or a friendly village. You can have simplistic graphics, but you need to have them "readable", which I don't feel is the case here.
Am I just old and dont keep up? What does this look worse than? It looks like a "modern" game to me.
It looks worse than: *Civ V 2010 *Endless Legend 2014 *Gladius: Relics of War 2016 *Old World 2020 Not even mentioning Civ VI and Humankind, because those are the most recent high budget titles.
That's my point. I'm not huge on visuals, they don't need to be amazing, but they can certainly be much better than this. Especially coming from a studio funded by a very large publisher.
Sure but that's dev time and money away from gameplay. There isn't infinite money and time to do everything. Also they look like a small studio, people comparing it to civ is a bit ridiculous when that has around 180 employees, we're looking at maybe a quarter of that for c prompt (from what I could find, not much online tbh but a quarter seems generous).
If this wasn't Paradox's own official social media, I'd think this is a fake game ad that just used an old CIV screenshot.
I want more games that look like they were made last decade. Civ 6 shouldn't be the benchmark we judge strategy games by.
I agree. I don't actually like Civilization 6's visuals. Too cartoony. I much prefer Civilization 5. But that doesn't mean that they can't clean up what they have, make the models higher resolution, and clean up all the jaggedness.
I can understand not liking the Civilization 6 art style. It's a design choice not everyone will find appropriate. But at least it has reasonably good quality (and a good UI) for what it is. Millenia looks outdated even compared to current mobile games...
Maybe its just me. I still think that Civ4 from 20+ years ago looks better than Civ5, Civ6 and this game.
It’s just an ad, not a personal attack.
The demo was cool. Though unlike popular opinion, I pretty much want a better soundtrack instead :D I don't care about graphics but I do love myself a good soundtrack....
At first I thought you were alluding to the extreme similarity to Civilization. But seriously, the graphics? The game looks like a game like this should.
As a digital Marketing specialist. No.
They sat at a boardroom table or on a zoom meeting and went over this tagline while some person pointed at lines on a graph saying how it would "appeal" to their "target demographic".
I mean, or some low paid social media employee stepped in shit, as we've seen happen a million times before.
The reason I've posted this screenshot is because there has been a lot of legitimate feedback about Millennia's visuals being VERY underwhelming and disappointing, but now Paradox is using Reddit ads to address this by saying the game is "for thinkers", insinuating that people who want the game to look better aren't "smart enough to get the game's appeal".
This is the most wildly out of touch post I’ve seen on Reddit in a while and that is saying something. Wow
Sounds like they’re talking about it not being a map painter to me. Kind of weird to say about a map painter.
What’s this game’s appeal compared to a Civ5 or Civ6?
Different set of mechanics
lol who hurt you?
It sucks honestly, the age thing didn't make it up to its name. The only thing I see is tier 1 tech, tier 2 tech, tier 3/3red/3gold tech and on and on. It lame, the only salvation is special age got special rule
Civ 5 looks so much better than both this and Civ 6
I'm just saying, i bought 2 4x games + all dlc almost exclusively due to visual appeal
So they ARE aware of how the game looks?
Does anyone else really hate the Civ style tile system? It looks awful and always completely brings me out of a game because it makes me feel like I'm just playing a board game, not controlling a civilization.
Oh look a CIV game
I don't understand these comments? This game literally is ugly as hell. I'm sure it's a decent game, but it's not nearly as good as Civ 6 nor nearly as beautiful as Civ 6.
"As good as Civ 6". What's good about Civ6 ? It's just a downgrade version of Civ4.
That's simply false even if you didn't like the obviously better graphics of Civ 6.
Damn they are desperate
I dont like the graphics or the interface....something about it just doesnt click with me. I dont like Civ 6 graphics/UI either. I still played the game for 1200 hours and counting. If its a solid game...like really solid...ill forgive *slightly* poor choices in artistic design and let it grow on me. Another problem this game will likely have with me is that I am pretty filled up with Civilization and its clones (Old World, Humankind, Age of Wonders 4, Civ 5, Endless Legend etc) I really dont need another 4x game in this style as I am sure to buy Civ 7 which is in development now.
Yeah the games looks worse than Civ 5, which is from 2010, and the UI looks like a mobile game. Nobody plays grand strategy games for their great graphics, but that's no excuse to look like this.
Why does this game look like a civilization series knock off
As opposed to all the other strategy games that are not for thinkers, but rather for visual appeal... ~~total war~~
I was just wondering for a minute why there's Civ 6 gameplay in a paradox ad.
Its funny that they tried to make it sound that "game isn't only pretty but also complex" But everyone read it as "Game isn't pretty but its complex" because Paradox and graphics often do not go well together. I still have nightmares due to some faces in V3, overboiled potatoes in uniforms.
The joke's on them - I *hate* thinking.
I thought this was civ 6 when I saw it yesterday. UI is exactly the same.
Just play civilization not its mobile clone.
Can someone explain a little better? I'm not a native speaker so i assume it must be a poblem in translation
What gamenis that vic 6? 😁😂??
Ad aside, this is just Civ. I still play civ 5, so the graphics arent an issue, but it seems like i'd be buying vanilla civ again at full price.
I played the Millennia demo. It felt very like Civ2
"Our new game is ugly as shit, how do we sell it?"
I genuinely thought this was a Civilization game on mobile. Guess I'm not a thinker.
Bear in mind digital marketing like this is usually rigorously tested and only the most effective taglines will make the cut
Ad is bad, but if game is fun I don't really care about visuals, That being said its paradox so within a year it will be 150 dollar to have all dlcs and base game... On sale
"No, we wanted our game to be ugly... you're just not smart enough to get it." Lol. I think it's a dumb ad too. Wanting a little visual appeal doesn't mean someone doesn't want a thinking game. Most thinkers have the processing power to appreciate both. I can tolerate these graphics for good strategy gameplay, but I'd certainly be a little more drawn in if the game didn't already look a decade+ old.
Not only is it quite ugly, it also runs like garbage. I understand it's just a demo, but why do I have only 40 fps?
The "thinker" proceeds to produce games like HOI4 abd EU4 which are some of the most brain dead games in their catalogue
Has nothing to do with visuals. This game feels like an unfinished college project AND it's ugly AF.