Paradox Games

This is why you not only kill off the Karlings, but also remove Kebab.

...But did you manage to seduce one of your siblings?

Also heathens. Cause screw anyone who isn't you, doubly so if they are on your border.

Discovered something in HOI 4...I think playing as minor powers is a lot more fun than with Majors.

Yeah, I know that feeling. I haven't even touched the majors yet because a) I probably wouldn't find them interesting and b) I'm more comfortable building up a minor nation anyway than to start big and probably fail big.

I play Ho I almost exclusively in co-operative multiplayer, so I leave the majors to someone else.

Speaking of that, any chance of us arranging a tropers-only game of HOI 4 or EU 4? I think it could be fun.

Yeah, I just recently got HoI4 and played as Germany for a bit to get a rope of the basics, and holy shit micromanagement/logistics is a pain in the ass. Even though I didn't really play optimally (didn't really have a plan for how to invade Britain and I didn't know about the Netherlands rush strat), things are a pain. Like, I got scandinavia and france and stuff, but plunging through Africa is tedious, and trying to hold Italy's Ethiopia is kinda a pain since the ai can't defend their stuff all that well and I didn't really want to look there every couple of seconds to micro stuff/set fronts, so I just set Italy's expedition troops in the area on garrison. Also taking over Belgium bogged me down cause I didn't realize you're supposed to invade Netherlands simultaneously to open up wider front until it sucked my manpower. Soviet Russia seems friendly, so that was ok. Probably might try smaller nation or 'Murica or something on next game, cause I'm not sure I want to continue german game.

Also tried Austria run in EU 4 to try and unite empire (cause I found it kinda tricky in past attempts). Got excommunicated cause I tried to do shadow kingdom thing by eating Venice lands, but then I repaired relations with pope when ruler died. Also got Pu'ed under Burgundy because old guy couldn't produce kids, and then got union under Polandball because Burgundy wasn't strong enough, but then Hungary/Muscovy saved me so then I was emperor again. And then heresy happened. Kinda had to shift around electors since Mainz go captured early and Genoa (who I made elector after Mainz because they were friendly) left empire, so I made Friesland (who is now Netherlands) an elector since they were friendly at the time, but then protestantism happened and now four electors hate me and want to vote for Salzburg (wanted them alive so there could be more princes, might have to eat them). Also all four (I think) centers of reformation showed up in HRE, so there's so much heresy in the HRE but not much heresy outside it. Kebab hates me, Britain hates me, Spain hates me, Poland hates me but that's okay, but France is okay even though I can't ally them. Tried to get people to return to true faith, but electors were too big to convert back. Ulm has a reformed center of reformation but I don't want to attack them cause they're free city and other places are too big. Pretty much have been at low manpower for most of game, though I'm big and have Burgundy, Trier(still catholic), Cologne (still catholic), Hungary, and Russia as allies and Bohemia under PU (and I made them catholic even though they embraced Protestantism originally). Kinda scared for when thirty years war kicks off and I'll probably lose emperorship if character dies but might be okay. Also Trier and Cologne are kinda big in this game, though Spain's also got land in west Aquitaine area. Polandball spat out Galicia land and is small-ish due to independence war and attack from Kebab, and I think Moldavia (or whatever their march is called) is now allied to some HRE states. Also, I don't think Poland ever got PU over Lithuania in this game, and there is big wedge in Lithuania due to Russia.

Also, troper Ho I 4/Stellaris game thing might be interesting.

Apropos of nothing, did any of you either have a moment of Heel Realization in a Paradox game?

Nah, I usually go in knowing I'm the bad guy (eg. gleefully slaughtering anyone who doesn't follow my gods or playing a race of Absolute Xenophobe space foxes bent on removing all other organic life), or at least come up with a justification for my horrible actions (eg. counter-(almost-)genociding some Fanatic Purifiers who (almost) genocided the one species that shared my exact ethos and who was generally likely to be my only allies as a case of Pay Evil unto Evil).

Or I actually go around playing the good guy. Or at least the benevolent conqueror (run xenophile ethics, annex everyone around me because we'll be happier together than apart). I mean, sure, millions die, but that's the cost of hundreds of years of geo/interstellar politics.

I think the most Heel Realization (as in, I didn't mean to be evil and actually wanted to be the good guy) was being France and selling out Czechoslovakia and Poland so that I could build a few more armor divisions and beef up the Maginot Line from the Channel to the Mediterranean. I mean, it worked, and they wound up as glorious French Commune clay with more enlightened rule, but still, dick move me, subjecting them to six years eight months (it probably shouldn't be that easy for France to defeat Germany when Germany doesn't even have a second front) of Nazi occupation.

I specifically made one of my custom Stellaris civilizations to be the stereotypical Evil Empire, so no :P

Anyway once again tried Holland, made the mistake of having Castile and Denmark try to support me. Didn't work out.

I actually had a Heel Realization moment in my last co-operative multiplayer game - and the faction I was playing wasn't even supposed to be all that evil.

In fact, all things considered I'm probably one of the nicer empires around. Xenos have the same rights as the founder species, there's no slavery and I even have migration treaties with some of the (democratic) factions above me.

On the other side you have the implied brainwashing that's going on in my empire, the negative ethics divergence, So for all the positive aspects of my empire this really creeped me out.

And then there's my friend's faction that's basically a bunch of militant atheists (Militarist/Materalist/Collectivist) with a few genocides in their history of galactic expansion. We're not in an actual alliance, but we have a defensive treaty and are splitting up the galaxy between us; I'm keeping to the core worlds, he's expanding throughout the outer regions.

At some point earlier in the game a xenophobic fallen empire in the outer rim forced my friend to abandon a high-energy world on the border because they felt annoyed by it. Of course my friend swore revenge and I offered him assistance should the day of reckoning come - I got lucky with the cultist event and researched early particle lances off them, so I was the dominant empire in the region.

Around a century later the Unbidden invaded and we beat them back. Afterwards we decided to right what was wrong and punish these xenophobic jerks.

When my fleet jumped into one of their ringworld systems and blew off 80 % of their fleet within seconds, that's where it hit me: We were the bad guys in this scenario, at least compared to them. They were absolutely no threat to us; my friend could have just colonised everything around them and they probably wouldn't have done anything except send a complaint.

Instead we obliterated a millenia-old species - well, I only destroyed their fleet, but my friend purged every POP and resettled the ringworlds with a sub-group of his main species.

I didn't design my species to be that malicious. They're actually charismatic; their AI personality would be "Federation Builders". But from a RP standpoint they're either apathetic to war crimes happening outside their sphere of influence - or they're tacitly condoning it.

And the fact that my population might not like war - spiritualists get a slight happiness malus during wars - they don't care about what's going on outside the core.

So yeah, I'm probably one of the bad guys in this scenario. :/

edited 29th Sep '16 7:25:51 AM by DrunkenNordmann

But Federation Builders are dicks. Just, instead of directly wrecking empires, they wreck gameplay with disgusting federations and spam messages asking me to surrender sovereignty most of the time so that they can build fleets off of my tech. Their very nature is to take and take and take, while never giving.

Now, I don't know about you, but when an insignificant nation demands I share my most sensitive military secrets and have no valuable information of their own, I get a little upset and relations cool dramatically.

Also, they promote a patchwork of small states, while I prefer to unite everyone in a single multi-ethnic empire. We are stronger united than apart or federated.

edited 29th Sep '16 7:42:52 AM by Balmung

They'd be warbait for me, outright.

I'm considering doing a CK 2 campaign involving forming the Kingdom of Frisia and leading them through the ages into EUIV. Getting and keeping Independence would be a bitch.

When comparing my empire to federation builders I was referring to its view of other species - my actual playing style involves absorbing my neighbours piece-meal because the alliance->federation system is currently broken (and will be fixed in Heinlein).

So in practice it's a fairly benevolent hegemonic empire ruled by a council of elders - nice to live in (except for the implied brainwashing, I guess), temporarily unpleasant if you're not living in it - because depending on how far from it you're living your planet has a chance of being bombarded and invaded to be a) integrated into the big empire nearby or b) become part of a new political entity that's indoctrinating you for a while before the big empire nearyb integrates you.

And now that my save unbroke itself in regards to my interference/enlightenment laws (they didn't show up for some reason previously) I can finally enlighten all these primitive worlds in my empire.

Wonder if any of these protectorates become vassals before we have conquered the rest of the Galaxy.

edited 29th Sep '16 8:54:30 AM by DrunkenNordmann

Is Stellaris worth diving into now then? I love the concept - more narrative driven 4x than just juggling a +1 to gold production. But I hear the diplomacy options aren't quite there and some content feels a tad repetitive?

And Have only skimmed the mod scene so far.

Have people had much fun with race changes? And are Corvettes still insane?

Corvettes are not insane anymore, no. Diplomacy is alright, I think, because both you and the AI can engage in it to trade for resources and stuff, but it does tend to be somewhat repetitive. Heinlein, however, and the Leviathan and War in Heaven expansions do promise to shake it up a good bit though.

The amount of blank mods (just a title, no description) on Steam for Stellaris is crazy annoying.

Yeah, I find that annoying too.

Anyway, I seem to have finally gotten off the ground as Holland. Broke free of Burgundy, two provinces away from being able to form the Netherlands (just need Freisland and Gelre), and already have my first colonial nation: the Dutch West Indies. Also started a colony in Manhattan that will probably be like Dutch New England or something. I'm probably going to call all of my troops abroad back to the Continent to conquer Freisland, then Gelre afterwards. Or do it the opposite way.

The Xiptotac Consciousness, of course, is not "evil." Nor is it good. It just is.

If by "is" you mean "is a rapacious hivemind that will enslave or annihilate its neighbors (probably annihilate) if they have clay that it wants."

Do colonial nations automatically expand by making other colonies, or is that all you?

They colonise neighbouring provinces as well, it just takes them longer to finish. So I wouldn't hold my breath on them colonising their region on their own.

Alright then.

Which reminds me, I really need to get my Muslim multiplayer CK 2 campaign back on track - we want to try continuing it in EU 4 and I want my Sunni South America.

Well, that was a mistake. Calais declared itself the Netherlands last night so over the next few years I made it my priority to conquer them and make myself the Netherlands instead, but on the last war I took all of their provinces but Calais which made the entire HRE angry enough to declare a Coalition war on me. Even with France and Spain helping we lost because there were so many enemies xD

Oh well. I guess I'll just have to conquer everyone piecemeal, since Netherlands only has two provinces and every other nation that joined them is now independent again.

So, I think I just crashed the world economy as the PRC.◊

We finally got our war with the Allies when the Soviet player attacked Afghanistan - funnily enough, Belgium joined us because they were in a defensive war against the UK at this point.

One French invasion of the British Isles later and the war was over in under a year, with this◊ as the result.

What we also forgot was that I had a closed economy, so now it looks like I either have to open my economy to outsiders or just build a massive airforce.

Probably going for the latter.