Paradox Interactive Thread: V3 'Check out my sick Germany blob' - Games

[QUOTE=Valiantttt;48995032]EU3 is better in some ways. Many of the points you name are subjective. I personally find colonial nations boring because they make the colonial game feel so unpersonal. EU3 looks better then EU4 IMO because I prefer the map style instead of going for a terrain(Running EU4 on a flat terrain mod). It is all about taste, personally I prefer the infamy system and historical events can be annoying(like the burgundian inheritence, railroads the game). And EU4 has tons of features, hell even features that are almost basically needed, locked behind the DLC paywalls(but the AI gets access to the majority of them). It is all about personal preference. I for example will not be buying HOI4 because the direction that game is going in turns me off in so many ways(from what I could see much less provinces, the map looks ugly as fuck, the whole favors thing). BUT that doesn't mean HOI4 doesn't have good points or at least points that I can see some people liking.[/QUOTE] I'd prefer Colonial Nations starting with +1 Colonist passive idea and removing the 0.25 debuff to settlers. Like, what the shit. If it's over 10 provinces i'm sure they'll have plenty of time and people to expand. I'd prefer also the idea of building mercenaries/soldiers in the colonial nations PROVIDED you're not currently fighting a war on the continent.

[QUOTE=GrizzlyBear;48994975]Can't set up and customize client states. [/QUOTE]To be fair on this they're so late game I feel they're not even worth the trouble, do they still take up a diplomatic slot or did they change that? [quote]Has absolutely terrible MP.[/quote] Now this I can very much disagree with. I can't even begin to tell you how much more stable EU3's honesty was compared to EU4's. I can think right off the bat there were [B]far[/B] less OOSs and the chance of it happening even less. The only problem I can think of with EU3's was maybe the missing feature to join off someone off Steam etc, so you had to manually put in IP every single time, oh yeah and that incomptaibiltiy with DLC too I guess, I don't remember that being much of a trouble for us back then though. That's really the only thing EU4 has over it's predecessor. EU4 mp is [I][B]utterly[/B][/I] garbage when it comes to more than like 7 people playing. I can say I was probably vocal about hating on EU4, but after art of war and CS it's pretty bearable now. Even with EU3 mods like EU3+ it's hard to go back because of all the features PI dumped into 4. The only thing that I probably still hate about it is it's absolutely shit-canned MP and OOS problems.

Also don't get me started on the incredibly stupid "build x canal" decisions in EU4 that Paradox thought were such a brilliant idea.

[QUOTE=Kljunas;48995217]Is EU3 even really "far more complex" than EU4? I mean EU4 does have a lot of mechanics that weren't in EU3.[/QUOTE]it's not really too hard but it did sort of have a learning curve, not as much as VIC2 or HOI3 though. I remember a guy from here playing Castile (I think it was that one user with Banana in his name) and getting completely rekted by like Granada or something. It might've actually been EU4 though, I don't remember it was quite a while ago.

[QUOTE=Anderan;48995334]Also don't get me started on the incredibly stupid "build x canal" decisions in EU4 that Paradox thought were such a brilliant idea.[/QUOTE] whats so wrong with it other than being an unnecessary feature?

[QUOTE=Toyhobo;48995415]whats so wrong with it other than being an unnecessary feature?[/QUOTE] Because building the Panama Canal, which is considered a marvel of modern engineering and required (at the time) modern equipment and pest control (fucking mosquitoes) before the steam engine is even practical is incredibly stupid and goes well beyond the realm of even remotely plausible alt history. Historically they couldn't even establish an overland trade route because the area was so inhospitable. EDIT: I bet the people dumbing me are part of the group that was arguing in favor of the canals because "It's alt history! I should be able to do what I want no matter how improbable or inane it is!"

[QUOTE=kamikaze470;48995292]To be fair on this they're so late game I feel they're not even worth the trouble, do they still take up a diplomatic slot or did they change that? Now this I can very much disagree with. I can't even begin to tell you how much more stable EU3's honesty was compared to EU4's. I can think right off the bat there were [B]far[/B] less OOSs and the chance of it happening even less. The only problem I can think of with EU3's was maybe the missing feature to join off someone off Steam etc, so you had to manually put in IP every single time, oh yeah and that incomptaibiltiy with DLC too I guess, I don't remember that being much of a trouble for us back then though. That's really the only thing EU4 has over it's predecessor. EU4 mp is [I][B]utterly[/B][/I] garbage when it comes to more than like 7 people playing. I can say I was probably vocal about hating on EU4, but after art of war and CS it's pretty bearable now. Even with EU3 mods like EU3+ it's hard to go back because of all the features PI dumped into 4. The only thing that I probably still hate about it is it's absolutely shit-canned MP and OOS problems.[/QUOTE] I've been playing up to 30 player MP matches on EU4 (something awful MP group) and the latest patch pretty much removed the last remaining OOS crashes, I think you should try it again on mp. It's great fun.

There are a lot of things to criticise about EU4, and I agree that culture conversion and canals are shitty mechanics for instance. But bad mechanics alone don't make a game less complex. You can think that EU4 is worse than older Paradox games and I respect that but I don't agree that it's dumbed down.

[QUOTE=Kljunas;48996033]There are a lot of things to criticise about EU4, and I agree that culture conversion and canals are shitty mechanics for instance. But bad mechanics alone don't make a game less complex. You can think that EU4 is worse than older Paradox games and I respect that but I don't agree that it's dumbed down.[/QUOTE] It's not so much that it's worse as it is, or at least was, over simplified in some cases. The biggest culprits was the over reliance on monarch points and the culture/religious conversion and coring mechanics, which at least have been addressed to some degree. I don't hate EU4 by any measure, I rather like it. I just feel the need to be extremely critical of Paradox because there are people like those that inhabit their forums that fawn over every decision they make regardless of if it is any good it is or not.

I try as hard as I can to like EUIV, because it's so pretty and has stable multiplayer (if anyone thinks EUIV has unstable MP, then you obviously didn't play Vic2 MP or HOI3 MP), but I honestly just can't do it. I feel like everything I do in the game runs up against arbitrary limits or is forced on me by the ridiculousness of monarch points. All I really want out of Paradox is a game like Victoria 2 or HOI3 but with EUIV's interface improvements ad more stable multiplayer. I have a feeling it'll never exist, though.

[QUOTE=daschnek;48997327]I try as hard as I can to like EUIV, because it's so pretty and has stable multiplayer (if anyone thinks EUIV has unstable MP, then you obviously didn't play Vic2 MP or HOI3 MP), but I honestly just can't do it. I feel like everything I do in the game runs up against arbitrary limits or is forced on me by the ridiculousness of monarch points. All I really want out of Paradox is a game like Victoria 2 or HOI3 but with EUIV's interface improvements ad more stable multiplayer. I have a feeling it'll never exist, though.[/QUOTE]HOI3 and Vick2 mp were fine, though then again I never really played much of HOi3's, but from the MP games I had in vick2 it was far more stable than EU4. MP falling apart had less to do with OOSs and more with people's interests being lost over time, because admitedttly, these are pretty railroady games, so same stuff tends to happen more or less the same albeit slightly differently each playthrough. I haven't been able to play a EU4 mp game just June or so. I'm not optimistic about EU4 being stable, because with each new patch it's the same old "i-it'll work this time guys!" and every single time it's the same old OOS. Hell, we tried a CK2 game recently and there was rampant OOS (even in lobby how even) so we gave up. Maybe it's the people I play with, I dunno, but mp just refuses to not OOS.

[QUOTE=Anderan;48995446]Because building the Panama Canal, which is considered a marvel of modern engineering and required (at the time) modern equipment and pest control (fucking mosquitoes) before the steam engine is even practical is incredibly stupid and goes well beyond the realm of even remotely plausible alt history. Historically they couldn't even establish an overland trade route because the area was so inhospitable. EDIT: I bet the people dumbing me are part of the group that was arguing in favor of the canals because "It's alt history! I should be able to do what I want no matter how improbable or inane it is!"[/QUOTE] Canals are nothing new to human engineering, nor are they stupid for EU4. Humans have been building them/proposing them since the beginning of ancient kingdoms and general civilizations. Fuck-- the Egyptians and Persians collectively built the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs]Canal of the Pharaohs/Trajan's River[/url] beginning in the 6th century, and they successfully linked the Red Sea/Indian Ocean with the Nile River and the entire Mediterranean Sea. Civilizations in the region used it until the mid-700s AD. That's impressive. The Persians built several ambitious canals actually, ignoring all their other megaprojects-- including one that cut through a peninsula in Greece under Xerxes that was completed in only three years using slave labor. And as far as the Panama Canal goes, whether or not it could have been accomplished in the 16th century when the first proposals for it started appearing is entirely a matter of speculation. Would it have been as complex as its real world version is had the Spanish decided to go ahead with it? No, definitely not because of (as you said) differences in technology. But technology aside, such a project could have been accomplished by sheer manpower and force of will; the previous ones that were built by the ancients had been. The Spanish had an active slave trade going with Africans in the New World beginning at the start of the 16th century, and they probably would have used them to work on such a megaproject. Would a lot of these slaves have died from diseases and inhospitable working conditions in the process? Oh fuck yeah they would have. But so what? The Spanish would just import more until the project was done. It would have taken years and who knows how many lives, but it could have been done. They never bothered to of course because Charles V was more interested in the colonization of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Paraguay (and so on; basically, he just wanted to carve out New Spain's place before doing anything else), and that just led to it being shelved-- even though it would have given the Spanish a significant advantage over the Portuguese. But whatever. I dumbed you because what you're saying is dumb. Panama Canal alternate history aside, there have been numerous attempts throughout human history, successful and otherwise, to build canals the world over to link regions together for trade and diplomacy, to launch military campaigns and give strategic advantages, and so on. The Ancient Egyptians and Persians built them, the Greeks and Romans built them, Medieval Europeans built them and maintained preexisting ones, and so on.

[QUOTE=Govna;48997932]Canals are nothing new to human engineering, nor are they stupid for EU4. Humans have been building them/proposing them since the beginning of ancient kingdoms and general civilizations. Fuck-- the Egyptians and Persians collectively built the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs]Canal of the Pharaohs/Trajan's River[/url] beginning in the 6th century, and they successfully linked the Red Sea/Indian Ocean with the Nile River and the entire Mediterranean Sea. Civilizations in the region used it until the mid-700s AD. That's impressive. The Persians built several ambitious canals actually, ignoring all their other megaprojects-- including one that cut through a peninsula in Greece under Xerxes that was completed in only three years using slave labor. And as far as the Panama Canal goes, whether or not it could have been accomplished in the 16th century when the first proposals for it started appearing is entirely a matter of speculation. Would it have been as complex as its real world version is had the Spanish decided to go ahead with it? No, definitely not because of (as you said) differences in technology. But technology aside, such a project could have been accomplished by sheer manpower and force of will; the previous ones that were built by the ancients had been. The Spanish had an active slave trade going with Africans in the New World beginning at the start of the 16th century, and they probably would have used them to work on such a megaproject. Would a lot of these slaves have died from diseases and inhospitable working conditions in the process? Oh fuck yeah they would have. But so what? The Spanish would just import more until the project was done. It would have taken years and who knows how many lives, but it could have been done. They never bothered to of course because Charles V was more interested in the colonization of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Paraguay (and so on; basically, he just wanted to carve out New Spain's place before doing anything else), and that just led to it being shelved-- even though it would have given the Spanish a significant advantage over the Portuguese. But whatever. I dumbed you because what you're saying is dumb. Panama Canal alternate history aside, there have been numerous attempts throughout human history, successful and otherwise, to build canals the world over to link regions together for trade and diplomacy, to launch military campaigns and give strategic advantages, and so on. The Ancient Egyptians and Persians built them, the Greeks and Romans built them, Medieval Europeans built them and maintained preexisting ones, and so on.[/QUOTE] I never said canals are impossible, but you're disregarding the sheer scale of the panama canal. When the French attempted to build the Canal they suffered 22,000 casualties, the sheer number of slaves it would take to build the canal in the 16th and 17th century would have been absurdly high. The Spanish took 40 years to even import 37,000 slaves to South America. The money it would have taken the Spanish to get a sufficient workforce, tools, engineers, ect would have likely bankrupted Spain. Hell when Scotland tried to start an overland trade route to connect the Atlantic and Pacific in the same area that alone cost between 25% and 40% of the gold in Scotland. Not to mention it's really fucking hard to cut through this thing called the Continental Divide with hand tools. On the topic of the Canal of the Pharaohs, it literally took them nearly 700 years to build it starting in the 6th century BC and it mostly used the Nile. The part they actually built was maybe a 3rd of the length of the modern day Suez Canal and catered to ships significantly smaller than those used in the EU timeframe baring galleys. Yes, megaprojects have always but unsurprisingly they failed far more often than they succeeded because either they took too long and cost way too much or the technology for them to be built didn't exist. The Canal of the Pharaohs too so long because nobody had invented locks when it started. I don't even see the point in bringing up the fact that people build regular canals. Building a canal in a local area, using local labor, to accommodate generally river traffic is hardly the same as building across a very inhospitable area an ocean away. As far as I can tell your entire justification just boils down to "people wanted to build them at the time!". Why not let me build flying units in EU then? I mean, after all there were plans to build them at the time. Surely with enough money and dead slaves I can have an army of Da Vinci air screws? Sure it might sorta technically be possible, in the same way you can eventually punch through a boulder. With enough time and blood you'll get through eventually, but that time is so far in the future it's beyond practical or even really plausible. I'd even hold it akin to building skyscrapers (above 20 stories) at the time. Sure it might technically be possible, but the engineering feats necessary to accomplish it are so large and impractical that its more likely to fall over before it's even done. You'd be better off just building multiple much shorter buildings until the technology to make taller ones more practical becomes a thing.

[QUOTE=Govna;48997932]But technology aside, such a project could have been accomplished by sheer manpower and force of will; the previous ones that were built by the ancients had been.[/QUOTE] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinth_Canal#Ancient_attempts[/url]

[QUOTE=kamikaze470;48997448]HOI3 and Vick2 mp were fine, though then again I never really played much of HOi3's, but from the MP games I had in vick2 it was far more stable than EU4. MP falling apart had less to do with OOSs and more with people's interests being lost over time, because admitedttly, these are pretty railroady games, so same stuff tends to happen more or less the same albeit slightly differently each playthrough. [/QUOTE] The MP was fine? I'd love to know how you managed to experience that. My Vic2 experience for the last ~3 years has been that the game needs the mapcache cleared every few sessions to avoid constant OOS, and when it doesn't OOS, clients get absurd just-barely-playable framerates. By the late game as a GP, I'm lucky to be pushing 10-12 fps as a client - in only a two player MP game. HOI3 gives less OOS issues, but the rest of the criticism still applies.

[QUOTE=Anderan;48995446] EDIT: I bet the people dumbing me are part of the group that was arguing in favor of the canals because "It's alt history! I should be able to do what I want no matter how improbable or inane it is!"[/QUOTE] WELL HEY MAN! Remember how the ancient Buttfuckians tried to dig a canal from the Italian Peninsula to China and never got anywhere and we don't really have any data on it other than some really vague writings but...b-but YOU WEREN'T THERE MAN YOU DON'T KNOW

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;49000125]WELL HEY MAN! Remember how the ancient Buttfuckians tried to dig a canal from the Italian Peninsula to China and never got anywhere and we don't really have any data on it other than some really vague writings but...b-but YOU WEREN'T THERE MAN YOU DON'T KNOW[/QUOTE] lol that canal already exists its called the ocean

[QUOTE=Rowtree;49002301]lol that canal already exists its called the ocean[/QUOTE] What're you talking about man? If you sail past Europe you fall off the map.

Why the fuck do royal marriages still count against the maximum amount of diplomatic relations.

Probably because a Royal Marriage is one of the most powerful diplomatic actions in the game.

Is it? I can understand for Christian countries but for non-Christians it just seems like another relationship boost since they can't form PU's anymore.

Of course, PU's are incredibly powerful, and an extra relations boost is always good, there's been many times when a marriage has helped me solidify an alliance. Then there's the yearly increase heir chance, increased legitimacy, etc. I don't neccesarily agree with PU's being taken out for non-christians for the reasons stated when they have other ahistorical stuff in like the canals as people were mentioning earlier that weren't built for another 50-100 years after the game ends.

[QUOTE=Govna;48997932] I dumbed you because what you're saying is dumb. Panama Canal alternate history aside, there have been numerous attempts throughout human history, successful and otherwise, to build canals the world over to link regions together for trade and diplomacy, to launch military campaigns and give strategic advantages, and so on. The Ancient Egyptians and Persians built them, the Greeks and Romans built them, Medieval Europeans built them and maintained preexisting ones, and so on.[/QUOTE] China was the only power before the industrial age that could make canals on the scale of the Suez canal. China had sheer manpower to accomplish it and they built canals in dense areas where they could easily supply their workers.

[QUOTE=El Burro;49006324]Of course, PU's are incredibly powerful, and an extra relations boost is always good, there's been many times when a marriage has helped me solidify an alliance. Then there's the yearly increase heir chance, increased legitimacy, etc. I don't neccesarily agree with PU's being taken out for non-christians for the reasons stated when they have other ahistorical stuff in like the canals as people were mentioning earlier that weren't built for another 50-100 years after the game ends.[/QUOTE] Speaking of PU/Vassalization, I can't stand that you aren't able to vassalize someone with more than 100 development. I could be a gigantic, sprawling fucking empire that has holdings from Scandinavia to Japan, but fuck me I guess if I try to vassalize the Netherlands.

[url]https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads%2Fparadox-interactive-acquires-white-wolf-publishing-from-ccp-games.888941%2F[/url] oh my god oh my GOD

HOI4 Peace Conferences Dev Diary [url]https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hearts-of-iron-iv-31st-development-diary-30th-of-october-2015.889096/[/url]

Started a new mp game today with some folks (around 14 total) [t]http://i.imgur.com/Q7yGEXh.png[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/bWBAVgF.png[/t] France had a few players drop in and out, as it's still early in the game (Christmas 1471, screenshots from October though) so who knows how they'll be doing later on. It got sort of wrecked by Burgundy earlier on before the first player quit. The second player tried to stabilize the situation, but he also ending up quitting because of Burgundy and such. Currently they have no human player right now, so them and the situation concerning Burgundy could go anywhere. Central Europe saw my (Bohemia) absorption of both Saxony and Silesia, as well as the diplomatic vassalization of another small German minor. Our Austrian player absorbed his Southern neighbors, as well as the annexation of Bavaria, warranting him a large coalition by most of the smaller Imperial princes. He dropped a few times because of connectively issues, so he faced the mercy of ai control for a while here and there. Before he started having these problems, he had intervened on the French side of the Burgundian conflicts, which was something the English had done as well (as indicated by their Calais province, I think). Brandenburg vassalized both the Hansa and Pomerania, and butted heads with TO on a occasion or two. He allied with both of our Brunswick players and the intermediate AI and the two helped eachother out along the way. I don't know if that friendship will last though. Further East, Poland fed Lithuania the LO and later unleashed their mighty dog on the Ottoman Empire, but I believe they since pulled back after I warned them a damaged Turks would do more harm than good this early on in the game. In Anatolia, The Ottomans declared war on the Mamelukes for a Syrian province, and enjoyed some form of success before the Egyptian player seeked Polish support. They agreed hoping to feed Lithuania, thus this sudden two front war cost the Turkish severely in terms of land lost and manpower as the Lithuanians stomped around through the balkan virtually unopposed. At one point the Turks had only 9k in manpower and only a small parse of land still unoccupied. The war hasn't ended yet, so I'm thinking it will probably end in a white peace, but only time will tell. In the Iberian peninsula, the Portuguese player bridgeburned and had lost provinces to Morocoo as a result. The Spanish player faced tough opposition by the coastal North African kingdoms but they managed to since then stabilize. Not much to comment on any of the others. Sweden lamented about being the worst European player and Russia did what Russia normally does. The Dutch player got screwed over I imagine and he kept pleading for Austrian help when it turned out he was AFK. Songhai was pretty quiet and I can't see him, and I think Persia helped out Mamelukes. We had a bunch of other randoms but in typical random fashion most of them dropped out since they played minor countries.

Them mamelukes tho

Its a small thing, but I like it in Paradox games that you can name your units. Like the HOI series, you can name your ships, so I got the HMCS Kiss My Ass taking on the Japanese Imperial Navy

Jesus Christ the Soviet Union in vanilla TFH HoI 3 is so damn pathetic it's unreal, I seriously HoI 4 makes it the behemoth it was in real life, I don't think you could lose the eastern war as the Axis even if you tried. Germany in reality had next to no chance of winning vs Russia, I get you need to make it possible for Germany to win because it's not meant to be super accurate but at least give the bear some teeth.