Paradox Games

Saxony. He's the founder of the Holy Roman Empire.

Ah, I see.

Wait, we get to play as Otto himself?

Shit, I can't wait for the update.

The Magyars will probably be a pain in the neck - they were still a major threat to European kingdoms until Otto beat them in the Battle of Lechfeld.

Kinda makes me want to make form a Magyar Hungary ;)

So, which game would you all recommend for a complete, utterly clueless newbie like myself? I was planning on buying but I have no clue where to start, and Paradox's games have a reputation for being three bitches and a bastard to actually, you know, play.

I'd say Stellaris personally,Crusaders II had definitely easier to get into but it's still difficult and frustrating at times

Yeah, Stellaris is the easiest. HOI 4 would probably be the next-easiest.

Is it still being updated like Crusaders?

Oh yeah, Stellaris has been very profitable for Paradox.

They're not going to stop updating it anytime soon.

The same could be said for EU 4, I think. Paradox has certainly found the winning strategy for these games.

Ay, Muffin, nice to see you here.

I've only played Europa Universalis 3 & 4 and Crusader Kings 2 and can't give suggestions about other games. That said, if you have nothing against older games, I suggest EU3 - particularly with Divine Wind expansion. It's jank in many places, but I'd say it offers tons of good stuff for a low price.

There is no constantly increasing roster of DLC. It's easier to learn game if it's not changing every couple months. And, like I said, it's cheaper.

Easy to understand trade. And unlike EU4, it's not arbitrarily biased towards europians.

The best warfare of the three. Yes I fucking said it. AI is dumb as shit, but at least it does what it's supposed to do. Incompetently for sure, but at least it can find your country for the most part. In EU4 forts ensure that the one with better casualties to manpower ratio wins, AI goes off its rockers if the enemy has provinces across the globe and military access is outright broken. War in CK2 is utterly barebones except for military tactics - you do a math homework and then compose your retinues to trigger best possible tactics. In levy battles one army - even the one with superior numbers, generals and terrain advantage - will often melt out of nowhere because tactics eclipse everything. And there is no naval warfare at all.

I actually do prefer older games, mostly because I don't need to concern myself with specs (always an ongoing concern when you play on a toaster) and if it is cheap and (less in)acessible, that's all I can ask, really.

Whenever I get to it (because I'm one of those weirdoes who tries finish his Steam/GOG backlog), I'll make sure to chronicle it here so we can all have a good laugh whenever I do something stupid, I mean that honestly.

Keep in mind that DLC gates a lot of core features, and the cost adds up.

As for which game, that mostly a case of what time period and geographic areas most appeal to you.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on May 17th 2019 at 6:20:32 AM

Did they ever do a game centered around the Sengoku Jidai or the Three Kingdoms period?

Or 19th Century Latin America?

There is a game literally called Sengoku. It's basically proto-CK 2 in Japan.

Does Surviving Mars qualify for this thread? Having a lot of fun with the Green Planet expansion, though I had the bad luck of rolling a particularly difficult mystery and decided to start from scratch.

There is Victoria. It's not focused on Latin America, but it is set in time period when Spain and Portugal had kicked out of the continent. Victoria 2 is considered to be the most complex and realistic game of all Paradox titles by many people.

Victoria or Hearts of Iron are your best bets for South America.

Sengoku... never played it, but its not the best regarded Paradox game from what I hear.

Yes it does. Surviving Mars is a lot of fun.

It's also on free weekend now.

There are two other options if you want to play in Latin America, albeit in a different time period - in EU4, many of the natives there are playable (for a generous value of "playable") or you can colonize the area, OR in the other chronological direction, CK2 has the After the End: A Crusader Kings II Mod mod, which is centered on the United States, but also includes Latin America as far south as the equator or so.

American natives in EU4 are in comperatively good spot. EU3 is where playing them is extended suacide.

Good spot? There's barely anything to do. Basically, you conquer your little region, then you sit around on speed 5, waiting for Mighty Whitey to colonize near you so you can learn to build ships and gain institutions.

I said 'comparatively'. Everything you described is worse in 3 by several magnitudes.