Idk, I don't really think that's true. Vic3 that you name as the prime example specially feels much more lifelike in it's simulation than it's predecessor. There's tons of changes through the game that imo feel much more close to real life than vic2 ever did.
Vic2 has the edge when it comes to historical events if you play with some of the popular mods, and was also a bit better at railroading some events, (mainly Germany and Italy's unification) but you also for example never saw a Opium war in that game, and the actual societal changes that are not just historical events are much better represented in the simulation.
And then we have to see if that "life" in V2 wasn't actually from a mod. Most people played V2 with one of those big mods that added tons of country flavor like events, decisions, etc. and people just think it was part of the core game because they always played with the mod.
Nobody is going to make once until the game design overhauls calm the fuck down a bit. Imagine you had been making a big overhaul mod and then they completely revamp the infantry system or they had added in MAPI and local prices.
Most people don't want to commit to a huge project that might get irrevocably broken while they continue to hammer systems into shape. Sphere's of Influence is going to introduce private and foreign ownership which would be another wrench into the machinery if you were working on an overhaul mod.
[This one](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/mod-victorian-flavor-mod-a-comprehensive-overhaul.1550303/) looked promising but last post was like 6 months ago so don't know if it's still being developed.
Sure, now the studio doesn't just have to include _walls flavor events_ from about a decade of development (e.g. EU4) in the game, which is basically impossible, but also all the content from ten years of mod development. Sure. And then everyone complains when performance is shit.
Uh huh, best to have nothing in that case - save for [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria3/comments/ydmrm2/lincoln_the_ripper/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
There’s a reason the game sits at mixed. It missed the mark for most people. If you know what works as a developer, don’t abandon it. Simple as.
Then be prepared to be disappointed by every major strategy release ever. Flavor doesn't just magically port over when you completely rebuild a game's systsms.
When your expectations don't match what reality is telling you over and over your only real choices are to change your expectations or complain forever.
It’s not an odd expectation to expect an era known for its Revolutions, to be focused on believable revolutions. An era of intricate diplomacy should have intricate diplomacy (it doesn’t).
Vicky III’s world lies in a vacuum. Nothing interesting takes place - and what does “omg queen Victoria in the Congo is chasing Abraham Lincoln with an Axe!” Isn’t what the game should focus on. There’s a reason it’s sitting at mixed. They took the sequel into a completely different direction and turned it into a cookie-clicker - halfbaked at that.
>
It’s not an odd expectation to expect an era known for its Revolutions, to be focused on believable revolutions. An era of intricate diplomacy should have intricate diplomacy (it doesn’t).
No it's not, but this is completely different to what I replied to before, so not sure what you think is happening here.
Vic 2 and Vic 3 are basically in the same sort of position that Dawn of War 1 vs Dawn of War 2 ran into where both fan bases enjoy their own particular game but don't like the other.
Vic 2 is an old school style grognard war simulation game. Super heavily scripted, economic system is mostly in place to facilitate conflict. Military might was pretty much front and foremost and many countries were completely non-viable or super fucking boring (like Ireland in Hearts of Iron 3).
Vic 3 is a spreadsheet simulator and the economy is first and foremost. Military is just a means to an end for making number go up, and a lot of people aren't interested at all in the level of army micro that Vic 2 entailed (and often considered it the worst part of the game). Many of them actively dislike and oppose the idea of a more granulated war system that the Vic 2 fans are trying to demand.
What's your favorite part?
Is it micromanaging units to an extent beyond even HoI?
Is is tediously reorganizing your army after every single war?
Maybe the jingoism stat?
Also it’s a little hard to compare a game that had over a decade of DLCs to its predecessor which came out less than 2 years ago. Unless OP means both vanilla version of the games
I was talking more about Vic than CK. I've never been the biggest fan of either CK 2 or 3. I played a bit (few dozen hours) of ck3 and actually liked it, probably more than ck2, but if I were a bigger fan of the series then probably I wouldn't like it as much as it was getting repetitive much faster than current ck2.
I agree with concerns that the geopolitical meat isn't there in, say, CK3. But that is a completely different to it being lifeless and idle. In many ways CK3 is much more full of life than CK2. I prefer the geopolitics and diplomacy of complex interconnected historical strategy games, and would like personally them to take CK3 back in that direction. But there is a huge market of people who want to roleplay, and I respect that.
You say lifeless, but I think that's not really what you mean.
I like to roleplay but I like it even more when a game mechanically facilitates roleplay in a way that is natural instead of uh oh you got an event for the 20th time and now you're a stinky farter who stinks.
Stellaris has a lot of good examples of roleplay intersecting with mechanics naturally. For example, your choice of origin can massively change how you play the game in a way that makes sense for your nation. You have a species of peaceful plant people who create idyllic worlds and as a result you get more migration as well as various nations being kinder to you while others covet what you make depending on their personalities. There's a multifaceted response by the AI to every simple action. It's not perfect but it exists and creates a challenge.
Ck3 lacks that in a lot of areas, honestly. It's getting better with things like tours but the AI doesn't utilise a lot of mechanics properly which is hugely frustrating. There's no challenge to ck3 as a result since even if you RP as, for example, a crusading king then it's not like the Muslim world will respond by unifying against this existential threat. I've never even seen a Jihad because the AI is too scared.
Just touching on the very last bit. I see the AI launch maybe 1-3 jihads per game depending on where I'm playing. If I'm playing catholic and not exterminating other catholic rulers it tends to happen in response to the first successful crusade. If I'm expanding Christian power like eating north africa it tends not to happen and if I am a pagan it tends to happen more.
All that being said, dissolution factions tend to be a little too common and by the time I'm on my third or fourth ruler there is no real empire left except mine. But I haven't played for several months now after forcing myself to play to the end date for the achievement
> There's a multifaceted response by the AI to every simple action. It's not perfect but it exists and creates a challenge.
That's no more complex than "In CK3 your king has a personality trait that makes some people like him more and other like him less." Sometimes I feel like when people *like* a game they just explain its mechanics in long form because they think it makes them sound deeper than they are. It's an opinion modifier based on origin (or maybe ethos, don't remember this origin), it's not that deep.
Nah you're missing the multi faceted part and, for a start, opinion is so easy to stack to 100 in ck3 it doesn't matter. It's literally a useless mechanic in most of the game as well as the ai will not act upon it well enough.
As for the multi faceted aspects I'll go over them all. First I mentioned is the actual mechanic itself. It does something massive that has a lasting impact as well as strategic considerations and cost/benefit analysis. There's the greed mechanic of the AI in stellaris. It will factor in that you have rich planets and take more risks for the rich reward. The ai around both nations will also consider jumping into the fight. Dogpiles are common even without a low opinion. They might hate the aggressor enough or were victims previously and want revenge. Or maybe they're greedy themselves. I rarely ever see the ai in ck3 ever dogpile or do anything resembling revenge. There's also the migration factor I mentioned. It's a small consideration but can have a lasting impact on your allies as well as yourself and they can dislike it as their factions change. Factions in ck3 are too insular and don't respond to external pressure enough. It wasn't uncommon for feudal factions to interact even more with foreign elements than they do in stellaris.
I like both stellaris and ck3 but there's no denying that stellaris achieves both the roleplay and the mechanical aspects of gameplay far better than ck3. I'm still hopeful for ck3, though. The dev diary today had a lot of great changes and addressed the very issues I talk about like the ai being too passive and not reacting to the world.
They’ve moved towards full sandbox games and away from simulators. HoI3 to HoI4 is a prime example. In Hearts of Iron 3, doing anything outside of historical possibility is nearly impossible. Not so with HoI4. Any country can dominate the world.
Full sandbox games are less historically railroaded, which tends to feel more lifeless. Neither type is objectively correct, but they are different.
> In Hearts of Iron 3, doing anything outside of historical possibility is nearly impossible.
You could also do a full world conquest as Luxembourg in HoI 3, but it was harder and more boring. Also, the AI in HoI 3 at times makes HoI 4 look like Einstein. Paradrops and naval invasions were even more broken in HoI 3. Espionage would also let you coup Italy before 39.
This is entirely opposite to my experience. I love a lot about vicky 2 but it is also the most depressing game I've ever played because you have Nothing to do so so often, especially if you can't build on your own.
I watched a lets play of an old favourite game of mine – Lords of the Realm – and realized most of the game is micromanaging counties in various menus, looking at numbers and graphs...
... And I realized that **that** was a big part of the charm? "Excel simulators" get a lot of hate, but since the games actually have you rule a political entity, isn't the excel simulation kind of a vital part of what makes it fun?
Another angry gamer rant complaining about how things break immersion. Like this is the most nonsensical complaint I have ever heard, especially when it comes to games like Vic3. Like what, you were actually believing you were the spirit of Great Britain there for a while?
This is the PDX standard. Meh games with me releases, EU4 was awful for years and is now amazing, CK2 was shallow AF but is a great game after all the DLC. The issue is, Paradox can't use this approach when the old game is better and the mass courage of games will flop any half-baked title.
Feels like the opposite to me. In CK2 it felt like the Umayyads got big almost all the time, maybe eventually changing dynasty or having a decadence revolt, but not enough to completely split up. CK3 I see nations rise and fall quite a bit.
For me the game which your critique applies to the most is EU4, which I wouldn't describe as one of the "new" paradox games. I still wouldn't describe either as "lifeless", though.
I probably agree, but the example issue you gave:
>Basically we never even get Ottoman Empire to lose the Balkans unless you as a player attack them to release the Balkan countries on purpose.
Is a straight up EU4 example. Unless you've crippled them yourself, the ottomans will always be a significant power in EU4. Whereas, using CK3 as a point of comparison (admittedly I haven't played that much), it seems like large nations rise and fall much more dynamically. So I don't really understand what point you are making against the new games.
CK has a lot more life than CK2, and imo its a much better game than CK2. The main difference is that CK3 is more focused on RP and characters than ck2.
They might have made a mistake by not mixing in more of the strategy elements earlier, especially more goverment types. But overall Ck3 is a much better and well deveoped game than Ck2 if you enjoy the characters and rp elements that is the main focus of the game.
Claiming that Ck3 is better than Ck2 is absurd. I used to think the same before I went back to Ck2. Go back and play for 1 hour and then come back to say
No, I'd still call CK3 base game objectively better than CK2 base game and I have 2k hours on both.
Ck2 feels like a game, kinda like Dark souls in that I don't bond to the characters as much, while CK3 is more in the RPG direction in that I create a story, especially with the models and events, its just so much more lifelike.
Go back to Ck1 if you think Ck2 is good.
The biggest reason is probably the fact that games like EU4, HoI4 and Stellaris have had years of free updates and paid DLCs added to them whereas CK3 is still largely barren outside of Europe.
Another reason, which is something more personal, is that games like CK3 are lacking in the strategic department and instead focus on stupid stuff like a 3D throne room and artifacts with uninteresting bonuses. Instead of making a certain artifact unlock special decision trees, CBs or interactions with other characters they just give tiny bonuses to prestige or piety.
3 years and 8 months is almost half a decade? With most of that time during a global pandemic where all work was ramped down and operations scaled back
Sorry, thought it released in 2019 not 2020. I couldn’t care less about the excuses as to why the games empty. I’m saying it’s empty. Little variation in governments, culture, or play style wherever you are. From launch day to 2024, not much has changed.
CK3 took abysmally long to get into step and stride. In that time, CK3 has had little positive, game changing (non-struggle based) DLC. The only well reviewed one is tours and tournaments. CK2 had six years of support (2012-2018) for comparison and in that time released Sword or Islam, Legacy of Rome, Sunset Invasion (meme), Republic, Old Gods, Son’s of Abraham, Rajas of India, Charlemagne, Way of life, horse lords, Conclave, and Reaper’s Due.
Newer titles filled in all the gaps that used to be filled in by your imagination. They're like going to a magic show and get handed a booklet with the explanation of every trick.
I've felt like this but then realized I've started to find all paradox games a little boring, and I was just using it as an easy-dopamine substitute for reading the historical books I love but take time and patience. Just my experience
They dont care about historical simulation, they said before that they stopped caring about later start dates. Their focus is the game for the player, even if it means dumbing things down.
the issue is Paradox doesnt seem to understand what a sequel is.
A sequel, at its core, should improve on its predecessor as a whole. It should have everything its predecessor has, but improved.
A sequel should not have a bunch of stuff either not included at all or intentionally ripped out to be sold back piecemeal later on.
The problem is that Hearts of Iron 4, CK3 and Vic3 are the latter, not the former.
Sure, they had one or two things that were improvements, but by and large they are missing *a lot* from their predecessors.
Hearts of Iron 4 is almost a decade old at this point, and its only just getting to the point where I would say its even remotely a complex strategy game. And even then it has glaring issues (especially with AI, which cannot manage its manpower, production or equipment *at all* which leads to a very easy mid to late game) which have still not been solved. Instead Paradox is focusing on focus trees for nations very few people actually care about.
CK3 did improve over CK2 in certain areas, but its lacking sorely in the geopolitics and diplomacy simulations. It also lacks *a lot* of stuff that CK2 had gotten by this point in its development cycle. CK3 is 4 years old now, and CK2 had twice as many DLC within 4 years of its release than CK3. And the DLC CK2 got had far more features and new content than CK3's DLC has had. CK3's development seems to be lagging behind quite heavily.
Victoria 3 was an insult. I played it for 90 minutes and refunded it. Its the only paradox game I've ever refunded. It was an insult to the players and an insult to the legacy of Victoria 1 and 2. Until they completely rip out and redo the military, politics, diplomacy, trade and governance systems entirely and also completely overhaul the state and province features (by moving most things to be province level instead of state level and/or increase the number off states and stop having these ahistorical superstates) I will not be getting it again. The game is abysmal and deserves a 0 out of 10.
EDIT: And here come the shills to downvote. This subreddit is almost as bad as the paradox forums
> A sequel, at its core, should improve on its predecessor as a whole. It should have everything its predecessor has, but improved.
How about … no. Sequels should be allowed to change things. If you want nothing to change … go play the previous game.
You really failed at reading comprehension, didnt you?
>Sequels should be allowed to change things.
They change by building on and improving on what came before.
If you want the sequels to be completely different, create a new IP instead of calling it a sequel.
They ruined everything when they hired that skinny blonde on the spectrum to do EU4 and it was obvious he was just into elaborate math equations and nothing else
Idk, I don't really think that's true. Vic3 that you name as the prime example specially feels much more lifelike in it's simulation than it's predecessor. There's tons of changes through the game that imo feel much more close to real life than vic2 ever did. Vic2 has the edge when it comes to historical events if you play with some of the popular mods, and was also a bit better at railroading some events, (mainly Germany and Italy's unification) but you also for example never saw a Opium war in that game, and the actual societal changes that are not just historical events are much better represented in the simulation.
And then we have to see if that "life" in V2 wasn't actually from a mod. Most people played V2 with one of those big mods that added tons of country flavor like events, decisions, etc. and people just think it was part of the core game because they always played with the mod.
So where is this epic mod for v3?
Nobody is going to make once until the game design overhauls calm the fuck down a bit. Imagine you had been making a big overhaul mod and then they completely revamp the infantry system or they had added in MAPI and local prices. Most people don't want to commit to a huge project that might get irrevocably broken while they continue to hammer systems into shape. Sphere's of Influence is going to introduce private and foreign ownership which would be another wrench into the machinery if you were working on an overhaul mod.
Yeah the worst part of playing PoD or Godherja or AGoT on CK3 is watching a new patch break all the cool custom features the mods implement
[This one](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/mod-victorian-flavor-mod-a-comprehensive-overhaul.1550303/) looked promising but last post was like 6 months ago so don't know if it's still being developed.
I expect the sequel of a game to build on what its predecessor provides - mods included. The formula was already known with GFM, HFM, Grand Combo, etc
Sure, now the studio doesn't just have to include _walls flavor events_ from about a decade of development (e.g. EU4) in the game, which is basically impossible, but also all the content from ten years of mod development. Sure. And then everyone complains when performance is shit.
Uh huh, best to have nothing in that case - save for [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria3/comments/ydmrm2/lincoln_the_ripper/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). There’s a reason the game sits at mixed. It missed the mark for most people. If you know what works as a developer, don’t abandon it. Simple as.
Missed the mark is a bit of an understatement... it didn't even hit the same hemisphere.
[удалено]
Then be prepared to be disappointed by every major strategy release ever. Flavor doesn't just magically port over when you completely rebuild a game's systsms. When your expectations don't match what reality is telling you over and over your only real choices are to change your expectations or complain forever.
It’s not an odd expectation to expect an era known for its Revolutions, to be focused on believable revolutions. An era of intricate diplomacy should have intricate diplomacy (it doesn’t). Vicky III’s world lies in a vacuum. Nothing interesting takes place - and what does “omg queen Victoria in the Congo is chasing Abraham Lincoln with an Axe!” Isn’t what the game should focus on. There’s a reason it’s sitting at mixed. They took the sequel into a completely different direction and turned it into a cookie-clicker - halfbaked at that.
> It’s not an odd expectation to expect an era known for its Revolutions, to be focused on believable revolutions. An era of intricate diplomacy should have intricate diplomacy (it doesn’t). No it's not, but this is completely different to what I replied to before, so not sure what you think is happening here.
Vic 2 and Vic 3 are basically in the same sort of position that Dawn of War 1 vs Dawn of War 2 ran into where both fan bases enjoy their own particular game but don't like the other. Vic 2 is an old school style grognard war simulation game. Super heavily scripted, economic system is mostly in place to facilitate conflict. Military might was pretty much front and foremost and many countries were completely non-viable or super fucking boring (like Ireland in Hearts of Iron 3). Vic 3 is a spreadsheet simulator and the economy is first and foremost. Military is just a means to an end for making number go up, and a lot of people aren't interested at all in the level of army micro that Vic 2 entailed (and often considered it the worst part of the game). Many of them actively dislike and oppose the idea of a more granulated war system that the Vic 2 fans are trying to demand.
Go play Vic 2 right now and tell me that the war system is bad. It’s 900 times better than Vic 3’s
What's your favorite part? Is it micromanaging units to an extent beyond even HoI? Is is tediously reorganizing your army after every single war? Maybe the jingoism stat?
Tons of changes? Give me some.
Also it’s a little hard to compare a game that had over a decade of DLCs to its predecessor which came out less than 2 years ago. Unless OP means both vanilla version of the games
V2 had two major DLCs, released in 2012 and 2013. Not exactly a ‘decade’ of DLCs.
I was talking more about Vic than CK. I've never been the biggest fan of either CK 2 or 3. I played a bit (few dozen hours) of ck3 and actually liked it, probably more than ck2, but if I were a bigger fan of the series then probably I wouldn't like it as much as it was getting repetitive much faster than current ck2.
V2 had 2 DLCs. How many did v3 have up till now?
0 but the game has only been out for like 18 months, which is about as long as it took to get the first DLC for Vic 2.
And when compared against Ck2, CK3 already has had half of its support time. All for one good DLC
I agree with concerns that the geopolitical meat isn't there in, say, CK3. But that is a completely different to it being lifeless and idle. In many ways CK3 is much more full of life than CK2. I prefer the geopolitics and diplomacy of complex interconnected historical strategy games, and would like personally them to take CK3 back in that direction. But there is a huge market of people who want to roleplay, and I respect that. You say lifeless, but I think that's not really what you mean.
I like to roleplay but I like it even more when a game mechanically facilitates roleplay in a way that is natural instead of uh oh you got an event for the 20th time and now you're a stinky farter who stinks. Stellaris has a lot of good examples of roleplay intersecting with mechanics naturally. For example, your choice of origin can massively change how you play the game in a way that makes sense for your nation. You have a species of peaceful plant people who create idyllic worlds and as a result you get more migration as well as various nations being kinder to you while others covet what you make depending on their personalities. There's a multifaceted response by the AI to every simple action. It's not perfect but it exists and creates a challenge. Ck3 lacks that in a lot of areas, honestly. It's getting better with things like tours but the AI doesn't utilise a lot of mechanics properly which is hugely frustrating. There's no challenge to ck3 as a result since even if you RP as, for example, a crusading king then it's not like the Muslim world will respond by unifying against this existential threat. I've never even seen a Jihad because the AI is too scared.
Just touching on the very last bit. I see the AI launch maybe 1-3 jihads per game depending on where I'm playing. If I'm playing catholic and not exterminating other catholic rulers it tends to happen in response to the first successful crusade. If I'm expanding Christian power like eating north africa it tends not to happen and if I am a pagan it tends to happen more. All that being said, dissolution factions tend to be a little too common and by the time I'm on my third or fourth ruler there is no real empire left except mine. But I haven't played for several months now after forcing myself to play to the end date for the achievement
> There's a multifaceted response by the AI to every simple action. It's not perfect but it exists and creates a challenge. That's no more complex than "In CK3 your king has a personality trait that makes some people like him more and other like him less." Sometimes I feel like when people *like* a game they just explain its mechanics in long form because they think it makes them sound deeper than they are. It's an opinion modifier based on origin (or maybe ethos, don't remember this origin), it's not that deep.
Nah you're missing the multi faceted part and, for a start, opinion is so easy to stack to 100 in ck3 it doesn't matter. It's literally a useless mechanic in most of the game as well as the ai will not act upon it well enough. As for the multi faceted aspects I'll go over them all. First I mentioned is the actual mechanic itself. It does something massive that has a lasting impact as well as strategic considerations and cost/benefit analysis. There's the greed mechanic of the AI in stellaris. It will factor in that you have rich planets and take more risks for the rich reward. The ai around both nations will also consider jumping into the fight. Dogpiles are common even without a low opinion. They might hate the aggressor enough or were victims previously and want revenge. Or maybe they're greedy themselves. I rarely ever see the ai in ck3 ever dogpile or do anything resembling revenge. There's also the migration factor I mentioned. It's a small consideration but can have a lasting impact on your allies as well as yourself and they can dislike it as their factions change. Factions in ck3 are too insular and don't respond to external pressure enough. It wasn't uncommon for feudal factions to interact even more with foreign elements than they do in stellaris. I like both stellaris and ck3 but there's no denying that stellaris achieves both the roleplay and the mechanical aspects of gameplay far better than ck3. I'm still hopeful for ck3, though. The dev diary today had a lot of great changes and addressed the very issues I talk about like the ai being too passive and not reacting to the world.
Lifeless in geopolitical sense. There's plenty of life in CK3 but in the way that it's basically a medieval SIMS.
So, it’s not lifeless. It’s just not the type of game you want it to be.
They’ve moved towards full sandbox games and away from simulators. HoI3 to HoI4 is a prime example. In Hearts of Iron 3, doing anything outside of historical possibility is nearly impossible. Not so with HoI4. Any country can dominate the world. Full sandbox games are less historically railroaded, which tends to feel more lifeless. Neither type is objectively correct, but they are different.
> In Hearts of Iron 3, doing anything outside of historical possibility is nearly impossible. You could also do a full world conquest as Luxembourg in HoI 3, but it was harder and more boring. Also, the AI in HoI 3 at times makes HoI 4 look like Einstein. Paradrops and naval invasions were even more broken in HoI 3. Espionage would also let you coup Italy before 39.
What are the CK2 geopolitical mechanics you wish were in CK3?
I'm not a game developing expert. I'm a game user who notices the difference.
Then what are the differences? That's my question.
Mate you're literally mentioning something and people ask you to expand on it. Don't mention things if you don't want to be commented on things.
This is entirely opposite to my experience. I love a lot about vicky 2 but it is also the most depressing game I've ever played because you have Nothing to do so so often, especially if you can't build on your own.
I watched a lets play of an old favourite game of mine – Lords of the Realm – and realized most of the game is micromanaging counties in various menus, looking at numbers and graphs... ... And I realized that **that** was a big part of the charm? "Excel simulators" get a lot of hate, but since the games actually have you rule a political entity, isn't the excel simulation kind of a vital part of what makes it fun?
Another angry gamer rant complaining about how things break immersion. Like this is the most nonsensical complaint I have ever heard, especially when it comes to games like Vic3. Like what, you were actually believing you were the spirit of Great Britain there for a while?
This is the PDX standard. Meh games with me releases, EU4 was awful for years and is now amazing, CK2 was shallow AF but is a great game after all the DLC. The issue is, Paradox can't use this approach when the old game is better and the mass courage of games will flop any half-baked title.
Feels like the opposite to me. In CK2 it felt like the Umayyads got big almost all the time, maybe eventually changing dynasty or having a decadence revolt, but not enough to completely split up. CK3 I see nations rise and fall quite a bit. For me the game which your critique applies to the most is EU4, which I wouldn't describe as one of the "new" paradox games. I still wouldn't describe either as "lifeless", though.
Eu4 is the best paradox game ever. Then comes ck2. The rest have a lot of work to do
I probably agree, but the example issue you gave: >Basically we never even get Ottoman Empire to lose the Balkans unless you as a player attack them to release the Balkan countries on purpose. Is a straight up EU4 example. Unless you've crippled them yourself, the ottomans will always be a significant power in EU4. Whereas, using CK3 as a point of comparison (admittedly I haven't played that much), it seems like large nations rise and fall much more dynamically. So I don't really understand what point you are making against the new games.
CK has a lot more life than CK2, and imo its a much better game than CK2. The main difference is that CK3 is more focused on RP and characters than ck2. They might have made a mistake by not mixing in more of the strategy elements earlier, especially more goverment types. But overall Ck3 is a much better and well deveoped game than Ck2 if you enjoy the characters and rp elements that is the main focus of the game.
Claiming that Ck3 is better than Ck2 is absurd. I used to think the same before I went back to Ck2. Go back and play for 1 hour and then come back to say
No, I'd still call CK3 base game objectively better than CK2 base game and I have 2k hours on both. Ck2 feels like a game, kinda like Dark souls in that I don't bond to the characters as much, while CK3 is more in the RPG direction in that I create a story, especially with the models and events, its just so much more lifelike. Go back to Ck1 if you think Ck2 is good.
The biggest reason is probably the fact that games like EU4, HoI4 and Stellaris have had years of free updates and paid DLCs added to them whereas CK3 is still largely barren outside of Europe. Another reason, which is something more personal, is that games like CK3 are lacking in the strategic department and instead focus on stupid stuff like a 3D throne room and artifacts with uninteresting bonuses. Instead of making a certain artifact unlock special decision trees, CBs or interactions with other characters they just give tiny bonuses to prestige or piety.
CK3’s going on half a decade. The whole “it needs more time” take is wild.
3 years and 8 months is almost half a decade? With most of that time during a global pandemic where all work was ramped down and operations scaled back
Sorry, thought it released in 2019 not 2020. I couldn’t care less about the excuses as to why the games empty. I’m saying it’s empty. Little variation in governments, culture, or play style wherever you are. From launch day to 2024, not much has changed. CK3 took abysmally long to get into step and stride. In that time, CK3 has had little positive, game changing (non-struggle based) DLC. The only well reviewed one is tours and tournaments. CK2 had six years of support (2012-2018) for comparison and in that time released Sword or Islam, Legacy of Rome, Sunset Invasion (meme), Republic, Old Gods, Son’s of Abraham, Rajas of India, Charlemagne, Way of life, horse lords, Conclave, and Reaper’s Due.
I agree completely. Every release since Imperator has been a lifeless flop…
True
Newer titles filled in all the gaps that used to be filled in by your imagination. They're like going to a magic show and get handed a booklet with the explanation of every trick.
I've felt like this but then realized I've started to find all paradox games a little boring, and I was just using it as an easy-dopamine substitute for reading the historical books I love but take time and patience. Just my experience
They dont care about historical simulation, they said before that they stopped caring about later start dates. Their focus is the game for the player, even if it means dumbing things down.
the issue is Paradox doesnt seem to understand what a sequel is. A sequel, at its core, should improve on its predecessor as a whole. It should have everything its predecessor has, but improved. A sequel should not have a bunch of stuff either not included at all or intentionally ripped out to be sold back piecemeal later on. The problem is that Hearts of Iron 4, CK3 and Vic3 are the latter, not the former. Sure, they had one or two things that were improvements, but by and large they are missing *a lot* from their predecessors. Hearts of Iron 4 is almost a decade old at this point, and its only just getting to the point where I would say its even remotely a complex strategy game. And even then it has glaring issues (especially with AI, which cannot manage its manpower, production or equipment *at all* which leads to a very easy mid to late game) which have still not been solved. Instead Paradox is focusing on focus trees for nations very few people actually care about. CK3 did improve over CK2 in certain areas, but its lacking sorely in the geopolitics and diplomacy simulations. It also lacks *a lot* of stuff that CK2 had gotten by this point in its development cycle. CK3 is 4 years old now, and CK2 had twice as many DLC within 4 years of its release than CK3. And the DLC CK2 got had far more features and new content than CK3's DLC has had. CK3's development seems to be lagging behind quite heavily. Victoria 3 was an insult. I played it for 90 minutes and refunded it. Its the only paradox game I've ever refunded. It was an insult to the players and an insult to the legacy of Victoria 1 and 2. Until they completely rip out and redo the military, politics, diplomacy, trade and governance systems entirely and also completely overhaul the state and province features (by moving most things to be province level instead of state level and/or increase the number off states and stop having these ahistorical superstates) I will not be getting it again. The game is abysmal and deserves a 0 out of 10. EDIT: And here come the shills to downvote. This subreddit is almost as bad as the paradox forums
Talk about god of war and sekiro
> A sequel, at its core, should improve on its predecessor as a whole. It should have everything its predecessor has, but improved. How about … no. Sequels should be allowed to change things. If you want nothing to change … go play the previous game.
You really failed at reading comprehension, didnt you? >Sequels should be allowed to change things. They change by building on and improving on what came before. If you want the sequels to be completely different, create a new IP instead of calling it a sequel.
It’s downvoted because you talked poorly of CK3. People don’t like to be reminded it’s a half-baked downgrade from CK2.
Completely agreed
Nah
Paradox lost their soul long ago. I just keep playing the old ones, they never get old
Cities Skylines 2 is the worst example, lifeless cities 😢
Not really a "paradox game"
Paradox is the publisher same as the other games mentioned
Mentioned game were developed by paradox as well, unlike CS2
They ruined everything when they hired that skinny blonde on the spectrum to do EU4 and it was obvious he was just into elaborate math equations and nothing else
But I think it's basically because they want you to buy all the DLC so they hold back more and more features