Just saw a humble bundle for a ton of Paradox games for about $17. Already have EU4 but was thinking of getting Stellaris and will probably purchase just for that. Passing on for anyone else to check into, good for about 5 more days.

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/best-paradox-interactive

Anybody played CK3 yet?

JJxvi said:

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Anybody played CK3 yet?

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I've played just a bit past the tutorial. I'm very not good at paradox games, this one seems more accessible than other CK iterations I've tried and failed at but I've only put a couple hours in. Game looks great and runs fast even on my really old computer.

CK3 seems very difficult and stressful. Ive mostly just been trying to play a peaceful game from the early period start to try and rush development for my culture and home duchy, and while i have been relatively successful at that, I invariably have my duchy stripped off of me by some eastern european heathen blob. Catholicism seems poorly equipped to do much,, i personally flip to catholic near the beginning of the game as Bohemia, but thats about as far as Christianity gets over several games. Never seen anything resembling a reconquista of Iberia, seen a couple successful Jerusalem crusades, but that kingdom gets wiped off the map again in a decade. Once i used some faith to redirect a crusade toward Pomerania, and oh boy did that crusade get its ass kicked worse than any of the other ones Ive seen. It wasnt even close to a fair fight.

Basically my games eventually end when Lausitz or Poland or Silesian heathen blob declares a holy war on my liege for my duchy. The game does not really even notify me that this is the case, i just have to check any time my liege has a war icon appear even though it is my titles on the line. Also, i am only "hostile" to the enemy and not officially involved in the war, the ai does not treat me as allied forces, and i cannot seige down enemy territory because im not technically at war with them.

Solution in my current game is to just have at minimum 2000 gold to try and hire two sets of the biggest merc companies to defend my territory when it happens this time. So far I dont really make beyond about 1050 AD. Czech culture generally has become very advanced and Im probably the most powerful duchy in the game even if Im a vassal, but the AI Christian king does not seem capable of helping me at all.

In my last failure this was a King of Bavaria that basically ruled all of west germany, bohemia, and Italy, but was no match for Poland even with me trying to help

i think in ck2 you only got non-agressions pact through marriages, and you had to upgrade them with a "form alliance" interaction. There may have been a penalty which prevented getting alliances when already at war. CK3 seems to follow more of a "Game of Thrones" take where betrothals and marriages=alliance immediately.

JJxvi said:

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i think in ck2 you only got non-agressions pact through marriages, and you had to upgrade them with a "form alliance" interaction. There may have been a penalty which prevented getting alliances when already at war. CK3 seems to follow more of a "Game of Thrones" take where betrothals and marriages=alliance immediately.

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The thing is with paradox, they haven't implemented certain parts of that feature to make it "balanced" until all their DLC shenanigans come out. CKII had 17, just look at what they are doing with prision architect and HOI 4.

That being said, aurora 4x bloodline game?

For those playing EU4 or considering it, here are some runs that you might try if you haven't already:

-Take Madyas and become the world naval power. Their idea set is very naval heavy and combined with the right ideas and policies you can have a navy like the Prussians have troops. I had a blast with this one as the major colonizers attempted to conquer my various islands but failed since they couldn't land troops. I was sinking hundreds of ships in wars while losing very few.

-Speaking of Prussia, at least one time with EU4 you should form Prussia and max out the troop quality options. Its very satisfying to watch other armies melt when up against yours.

-Try for the achievement where you gain all 5 holy sites as a Coptic nation. The easiest way is to convert to Coptic as the Ottomans and go from there.

-Try a Central African game. I had a Luba run that turned out pretty well.

-Go for the Ideas guy achievement. You can make a custom nation with only 3 development and have to get to having monthly income of 500 ducats. For a challenge start in Bornholm.

-I had a good time with a Brunswick - Hanover - Germany game.

-I ended up getting crushed in the end, but I had a fun run with a Georgia game where I turned Coptic. Between your National ideas, the Coptic bonus, taking defensive ideas, building mountain forts, building ramparts, and using the defensive edits you can have forts that are insane for enemies to take. You'll need them too with the countries you will have around you. I had a battle where my troops arrived a couple of days late to relieve a siege that ended up ending things but I had a good time before that.

-A few other countries to try if you haven't already: Pegu, Yemen or Rassids, Kutai, form Kurland, and form Armenia.

And finally all players should form Texas at least once. Texas Ideas

Anyone played VIC2? How does that compare to the other Paradox titles?

Havent done much but tinker in the tutorial, but I bought Imperator:Rome now that they have released version 2.0 and it seems to be starting to be positively reviewed by some of the youtube types I follow.

Aggie1205 said:

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Anyone played VIC2? How does that compare to the other Paradox titles?

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I've played it, never really got into it. Of the major Paradox Grand Strategy games, I'd rank it at the bottom of the list only above Europa Universalis:Rome (Imperator I havent played enough to grade yet, but I'm expecting that title to eventually be good). Also, a large number of people out there disagree with that I'm sure.

I found even the economic and political side of the game in HOI:4 (which is theoretically much more limited since HOI4 is a war simulation first and Vicky 2 is supposed to be the politics/economy simulation) to be more fun.

I did end up picking up Vic 2 during the winter sale but haven't played much. Mostly bought it to play as Texas, but havent really gotten into it.

I have enjoyed CK3 this far. I never played CK2 so this was totally new to me.

Victoria 3 gets released next month. I'm cautiously optimistic. Seems like it would favor my preferred playstyle in a lot of these games where I focus a lot on economy development over warfare. That said, Vic2 was never my thing so, we'll see.

I've played a lot of HOI4, I think that game continues to get better. They had the new tank designer with the No Step Back Expansion. New aircraft designer comes next week along with the release of By Blood Alone DLC and some major mechanic updates.

I've been playing a CK3 game again recently, first game after the release of Royal Court...having the artifact stuff is fun, but the actual court part of it is kind of annoying. I dont really get this game too much although I loved CK2, the AI is so bad that unless I get wiped out in the first 50 years while I'm a small minor by some huge empire, nobody has a prayer of beating me, and even if I did end up fighting some huge war, I've almost always got enough gold to hire all the mercs in Europe. I guess I'm supposed to be blobbing out so much that I have hard fights with my vassals rebelling, but I dont do that? i dunno

Also in CK3 the Crusades the game is named after are a joke. With my Kingdom of Sicily in my current game, I could probably take out by myself every Islamic kingdom in Africa and Iberia in a series of devastating Holy Wars, but the actual "Crusades" that the Pope keeps calling (and I participate in) have just no chance of ever succeeding even when starting with a large troop advantage. The AI can defend a crusade with doomstacks, but the AI crusader armies are awful and have no prayer of winning except maybe with a 3 or 4 times troop advantage.

Are you playing the most recent patch (CK3)?

I find that the AI is much more competent now. Larger kingdoms tend to be much stronger and stable because the AI prioritizes maintaining their home duchy. They also develop their realm much faster now, so they tend to accumulate a lot more gold that they can use to hire mercs if you attack. CK3 still isn't "hard" if you understand the mechanics, but it isn't quite as easy as it used to be.

As a consequence, however, crusades have become virtually impossible, you're right about that. They were always difficult due to the terrible ally AI but I could definitely win them before the update. Now the doomstacks are like 2-3x larger than they used to be so even my OP men-at-arms can't turn the tide of the battles.

I will agree that interior revolts tend to be fairly rare. I usually play pretty tall which minimizes that, but it's rare that revolts actually threaten me instead of merely offering an opportunity to reorganize my realm into proper de-jure titles with content vassals.

JJxvi said:

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Basically my games eventually end when Lausitz or Poland or Silesian heathen blob declares a holy war on my liege for my duchy. The game does not really even notify me that this is the case, i just have to check any time my liege has a war icon appear even though it is my titles on the line. Also, i am only "hostile" to the enemy and not officially involved in the war, the ai does not treat me as allied forces, and i cannot seige down enemy territory because im not technically at war with them.

Solution in my current game is to just have at minimum 2000 gold to try and hire two sets of the biggest merc companies to defend my territory when it happens this time. So far I dont really make beyond about 1050 AD. Czech culture generally has become very advanced and Im probably the most powerful duchy in the game even if Im a vassal, but the AI Christian king does not seem capable of helping me at all.

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You should be able to interact with your liege through an "offer to join liege's war" interaction. This should allow you to siege down lands and contribute to the warscore.

I will agree that it's annoying you don't get notified in those situations - what's even worse is when a peasant revolt occurs that takes out some of your land even though it isn't named anything that would remotely indicate that you might lose territory.

Also, if you're playing as a vassal, definitely give yourself the "march" contract to boost your levies for free - you don't need a hook to enact that like you do to reduce your taxes or other benefits.

edit - just realized this post was from 2 years ago, not 2 weeks! Pretty sure you've figured this out by now haha

Lol

I assume I'm on the most recent patch, this is a game that I just started a week or two ago. I agree that the AI seems stronger and seems to be consolidating kingdoms into the mid\late game much better. A year anda half ago my mid game men at arms could have put all of Europe to the sword because the AI never even built anything in their holdings and I was winning sieges in like 10 days.

That said, I don't come up against anybody with gold like I have gold. I just fought a neighboring kingdom who declared on me (I guess because had no allies at that moment) and he had over a couple thousand coins...but I had like 15,000.

That's true, they usually won't stack that much money. I usually don't get that late-game though (and early to mid game I basically spend money as fast as I earn it to build up my personal demense). I've only "completed" one game and basically only did it for the achievement. The first few hundred years are always the most exciting, because as you note - once you're established it's really hard for the AI to keep up.

Also the AI won't game succession like the player will (disinheritance, imprison+execute, accept vows, etc) so that allows the player to snowball a lot faster than most AI realms.

Oh yeah, the cultural system is also new for me for this game, compared to the way it originally was. Do your vassals do anything with culture except convert to whatever their capital is? I see pop ups for like other AI creating hybrid cultures, but so far my vassals have never done anything, whether that is converting their duchy to one culture, or hybridizing the two that they have in their demsne or anything like that. I'm ruling Sicily, so there is/was a ton of different Lombard, Greek, Sicilian, Italian, Maghreb etc in Italy, Sicily and North Africa and also my own culture is Roman which is spread around sparingly too, but the only movement has been either done by me, or the random early game conversion from Lombard to Sicilian.

JJxvi said:

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Oh yeah, the cultural system is also new for me for this game, compared to the way it originally was. Do your vassals do anything with culture except convert to whatever their capital is? I see pop ups for like other AI creating hybrid cultures, but so far my vassals have never done anything, whether that is converting their duchy to one culture, or hybridizing the two that they have in their demsne or anything like (I'm ruling Sicily, so there is/was a ton of different Lombard, Greek, Sicilian, Italian, Maghreb etc in Italy, Sicily and North Africa and also my own culture is Roman which is spread around sparingly too, but the only movement has been either done by me, or the random early game conversion from Lombard to Sicilian.

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Only Dukes, Kings, and Emperors will culture convert provinces. So If you want the Roman culture to be spread, you need to make sure that your vassal Duke/Kings are also of Roman Culture. Certain cultural traits will also help the culture spread as well. Your vassals may change culture to the local culture if cultural rebels get strong enough in their holdings, so it may be worthwhile to culture convert their capital holding yourself.

It's actually a lot easier if you hybridize your culture because your vassals will automatically convert to that new culture (if they like you enough).

I did a Yngling 867 start where I hybridized Norse + Anglo-Saxon into Danelander, then hybridized with Andalusian into Iberian Danelander, then hybridized with Berber into Moorish Danelander. I controlled the southern half of Iberia and most of Morocco and it was entirely culture-converted (mostly by my subjects).

I think most of my vassals are Sicilian because they were given duchies with a capital that was Sicilian or Lombard, so maybe they have been converting things to Sicilian. I've been developing my capitals mostly for tech rush so I'm just beginning to convert duchy capitals back to Roman so I'll see what they do

JJxvi said:

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I think most of my vassals are Sicilian because they were given duchies with a capital that was Sicilian or Lombard, so maybe they have been converting things to Sicilian. I've been developing my capitals mostly for tech rush so I'm just beginning to convert duchy capitals back to Roman so I'll see what they do

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Make sure they are roman culture too (educate their heirs to be Roman or have your courtiers do the same - use hooks if necessary but generally they should be happy to let you educate their kids) or else they will just convert the provinces back to Sicilian.

Looking forward to By Blood Alone expansion for HOI4 tomorrow. Air and Naval typically are my favorite parts of the game to mess with, plus Italy has been my favorite nation to play in Europe, so glad to see an update on their tree/mechanics.

I'm curious to see the new peace conference mechanics. The current peace conference issues were probably my biggest complaint of any Paradox game. You would see the Soviets pushed back to Moscow and never push back when the Allies capitulated Germany from the other side yet due to casualties sustained the Soviets would get Southern France amonst other things in the peace deal.

I have a lot of problems with this DLC.

Maybe I'll figure out how the airwing mechanics and single sized airwings have supposedly made my life easier, at some point, but right now it seems like a nightmare.

The plane designer seems incredibly broken in terms of realism, with weird stuff like being able to put multiple engines on light airframes, or 4 on medium airplanes and these planes are actually superfast fighters that destroy everything in the sky.

I also find it very hard as like the USA to wrap my head around how to deal with the air problem. If I start making multirole aircraft, it seems like I will have to keep making multirole aircraft in the future or else air wings will automatically refill with newer planes where some of them can perform roles that other cant.

It also annoys me that I cant create and train my carrier air groups in an airbase anymore, because that creates 100 size airwings, while carrier airwings need to be 10 planes. The air stuff also seems to have weirdly broken the US navy, as carrier planes never sink anything anymore in naval battles.

I'm sure the buggy stuff will get fixed, but I'm not sure the plane designer is as fun as it sounded, especially if its gonna be "rule the skies with 4 engine medium fighters"

Everytime a HOI4 dlc drops I have to remind myself to tick off auto-update so I can continue to enjoy Kaiserreich in peace

JJxvi said:

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Also in CK3 the Crusades the game is named after are a joke. With my Kingdom of Sicily in my current game, I could probably take out by myself every Islamic kingdom in Africa and Iberia in a series of devastating Holy Wars, but the actual "Crusades" that the Pope keeps calling (and I participate in) have just no chance of ever succeeding even when starting with a large troop advantage. The AI can defend a crusade with doomstacks, but the AI crusader armies are awful and have no prayer of winning except maybe with a 3 or 4 times troop advantage.

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Probably an overcorrection from earlier patches. Crusades used to be unstoppable from the 1066 bookmark. After 867 and the Northern Lords DLC, Catholics kind of got nerfed as all of England would usually be Asatru by 950 lol

I did finally win one (and I mean it when i say "I" won it, my allies sucked hard) in the Sicily game i was playing

JJxvi said:

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I did finally win one (and I mean it when i say "I" won it, my allies sucked hard) in the Sicily game i was playing

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Ck2 had this issue too, there was a time where Crusades would win all the time and then a patch would drop and then all of a sudden Jihads would win all the time and then flip flop every patch.

I've noticed that Spain typically is a lost cause for Catholics in 867 though 1066 usually plays out better for them. The Muslims also don't try and push far enough into India.

But it's a sandbox and balancing these things takes time, especially with Paradox's Frankenstein dlc approach

Re HOI4, I see the planes do have equipment tags now, so i guess that's how you keep certain models from reinforcing certain wings

Peace conference doesnt seem any better. Bit more confusing mostly. Still having the same issue where the Soviets take random parts of France, Italy, and Africs despite having gotten pushed back to Moscow and never even retaking their own land. All due to the inflated calculation of land losses.

The Axis also sends way too many division to East Africa. Can you imagine the Germans sending 25 divisions to East Africa without having taken Egypt first? And trying to supply them?