Paradox Games

Eh, it adds more game variety, and considering how huge the British Raj's population is it'd be a waste to not have three different nations (Japan, Australia, and India) vying for the Pacific as another war away from the one in Europe. What's the point of making Australia or somewhere like that fascist if you're still railroaded into the Allies?

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Kinda hard to tell yet, but even if you never play as the Commonwealth, they are still an important part of the war. so an improvement to them is an improvement to the game.

Yeah, the Commonwealth makes up most of the strength of the Allies. Britain wouldn't have a presence in Asia if it weren't for the Raj and its navy, and the other Pacific possessions, and Australia.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

And the Spearhead mechanic sounds important.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Request Lend-Lease, or, "Hey, Yanks, can I requisition from the Arsenal of Democracy?"

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

Thank goodness. So many times you can start as a minor and your divisions don't have most of their weapons.

Anyway, they released a dev diary today about the various directions you'll be able to take as South Africa, like a Communist thing liberating colonial possessions and whatnot, along with getting rid of the racial system.

Also I did a case of Moral Myopia in the HOI 4 subreddit. I expressed dismay that the Afrikaaners were included as a part of the party system and a lot of people went "Oh, so you don't like apartheid but you play a game with Nazis in it?!"

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Spearhead mechanic?

Basically "punch through this place's defenses." Classic blitzkrieg maneuver to help with envelopments.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Started another TOG game with a friend; I went for Halfdan Hvitserk, he went for Björn Ironside.

Turns out Jorvik is actually pretty good for a heathen realm because a) you're already feudal and b) you start off with a powerless council.

Before they added tribalism Ivar was actually the stronger one of the two viking rulers in Britain - these days I usually see them either collapse completely or convert to Christianity and THEN collapse.

So the Ivarings being what they are now, I managed to grab all of Northumbria for myself and a year or so later Jylland invaded Mercia, allowing me to subjugate them. After getting rid of Jylland again (because that's my friend's area of expansion) I formed a custom kingdom of Jorvik.

And then the troubles began. See, the Jutes only occupied the east of Mercia, so there was still a Anglo-Saxon elite in power in the western half. This dynasty kept rebelling every few years and the only reason I couldn't get rid of them was because other things prevented me from doing so. Wessex formed England out of the remaining southern provinces and proceeded to declare war on me three times. The first time they wanted to press a vassal's claim on a province in Mercia - thankfully, said vassal immediately died as I was still busy dealing with some stuff in the north.

Then they declared a holy war for Mercia while I was weakened and fighting a war against Strathclyde. Luckily, Mercia decided to revolt again, ending the holy war inconclusively.

I don't remember why I wasn't able to dislodge the Mercians, but a few years later they rebelled again - with England declaring another holy war on me, this time for my provinces in Essex. This time I kept an eye out for the English troops, avoiding them and beating down Mercia. After I knocked down this revolt my friend sent troops over from Sweden and beat the English to a pulp.

At some point I finally managed to replace the nobility in Mercia with Norse vassals - I just revoked everything in Mercia and allowed a viking raider who kept sacking my Christian provinces to settle there because why not.

Then the emperor of Byzantium died and a Jew ascended to the throne. I have no idea how, but for some reason one of the Khazar Bulanids was the emperor's heir. That, of course, activated the crusade trigger and also gave the Catholics two holy orders to play with, completely harmstrining any further expansion.

Now I'm waiting for the Sweden player to reform the faith so I can finally change my succession laws and finally stabilise my rule.

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

Yeah, the next time I start playing a CK game reforming the religion will be my first priority.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Ok, so my Slaving bird people Stellaris game has hit a big roadblock: all the empires I was picking planets of of are now in a defensive pact with the only other empire that is larger and stronger than me. The ONLY other empires that aren't are in order:

An Isolationist Fallen Empire to my southwest I can't take on yet(and is blocking settlement of several good planets due to existing border friction)

A Tech Fallen Empire to my northwest I also can't get at yet(who fortunately is acting as a barrier to said larger empire)

A mediumish empire to my west that's on the other side of a good sized gap from my borders(would require a couple outposts) and is ALSO bordering said isolationist fallen empire

A decent sized Fanatical Purifiers to my north I'm SLOWLY carving chunks off of every 10 years or so

I'm starting to think I should have vassalized the smaller empires to my southeast and south when the warscore was low enough, because they are ALSO allied to my west neighbor(who I can take on at my leisure), and while they are nothing it's still annoying to have to leave 3-4k stacks at my south borders.

Honestly, I also think my big mistake was having too many slave sectors, since slaves are piss poor at research and energy, my two biggest hurdles to breaking this bog I'm in(i.e. bigger fleets and/or better tech)

You don't use slaves for everything. You use them for mining and farming while making your pops do research and energy.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Yeah, I get that :P but I don't think sectors make that distinction :P

Let me tell you a secret: Sectors are still broken.

I like the idea of having the AI manage most of my planets - because I'm not insane enough to want to manage everything myself - but it still does a lot of stuff it isn't supposed to do.

Like enslaving everyone. Like destroying unique buildings. Like colonising planets with the wrong species (because they don't have the correct one in their borders, but "allowed to colonise" means "MUST COLONISE!")

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

I just turn off slavery, make them respect the tile resources, and ban redevelopment.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Same here. I usually don't play slaver empires, not even with collectivism, because I finally want to get a federation together.

Turns out, the game likes to surround you with people of the opposite ethos, so everytime I end up as the only spritiualist in my corner of the galaxy - and because of the stupid way association treaties work there's no chance of me getting somebody on board who isn't a materialist.

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

Does Stellaris really do that? Because that sounds like confirmation bias to me, unless of course you're joking/sardonic. Personally I've found the ethos of neighboring empires mostly random (or-at-least it appears random).

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

Nah, just being a miserable git again. Though the game really tends to surround me with either opposite ethics empires or absolute assholes personality-wise.

And my point about association treaties still stands. I get the "vote on invitation" thing, but having to vote on the association thing as well makes the diplomatic option completely useless, in my opinion.

edited 5th Nov '16 1:36:54 PM by DrunkenNordmann

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

Ok, .

I feel your pain, in my first Stellaris game I discovered a massive Fanatical purifier empire next to me (I think it started out as an Advanced AI). Predictably it crushed me.

A shame, Patch 1.4 will be expanding on galactic politics and Federations so your issues *may* be fixed whenever 1.4 is released.

edited 5th Nov '16 1:49:53 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

New CK 2 Dev diary is up: looks like at least some of the focus is on religion (again), heresies and cults.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/ck2-dev-diary-29-illumination.980638/

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Oh, that could be interesting :)

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

So Martin retired Make Space Great Again Hat due to current events. I guess nobody at Paradox thought election would end up like this huh .-. I kinda wonder now if most Trump related memes are now sort of... What was the trope again?

Discredited Meme?

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

While I understand the sentiment, I doubt the community at large will retire any Trump-related memes. The Paradox community in general seems to have a very dark sense of humour.

Heck, my multiplayer Muslim game in CK2 is called #MakeIslamGreatAgain - mainly as a Take That!.

Still, things are funny until they aren't anymore - and then it swings right back into funny at some point again. Problably depends on how the next few years pan out. :/

edited 9th Nov '16 12:54:46 PM by DrunkenNordmann

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

I'm not sure if someone mentioned this but Paradox is planning to somehow massively change pop ethics and remove the ethics divergence modifier.

Source: [1]

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn