The games are great to a point - their treatment of slavery is the most obvious. EU4, a game about colonization, slavery was one of the greatest factors in colonization => slaves are a non-factor in colonization + nobody consumes slaves, some places just produce them + abolishing slavery is like the least interesting decision you could make, no effect on anything. (Slavery is a little better in Vic2, to be fair.)
Also, world conquest is too easy. Geography, culture, religion have only a negligible effect. Anyone can conquer anyone and nobody really objects.
And there are no social problems, just a few negative stats you make go away with points. Society can only go up - money, technology, religion, absolutism, militarism, etc. - they only have positive effects.
Yeah, one of the biggest problems with EU4 from a gameplay standpoint IMO is that it does basically nothing to simulate the difficulties of ruling a giant empire, especially with a bunch of conquered peoples who in recent memory were independent. Once you reach a certain size in game, you have to fuck up massively for everything to collapse.
Right. And the game itself becomes tedious because you can't delegate responsibilities. Commanding a stack or two of troops is fun. Commanding 10 stacks (possibly on 3 fronts) where the greatest danger is 2 stacks ending up on a random low-development province together and losing thousands of soldiers to attrition is booooring. Same with a fleet of ships vs. several fleets that require micromanagement to avoid attrition on intercontinental voyages.
A better game would make you share responsibilities with intelligent AI - which would both save on tedious micro and lead to frequent entropy, as a region that doesn't need you and can defend itself can tell you to fuck off.
The community is a mixture of bad and not-as-bad-as-expected? Like they don't have the typical g*mer attitude towards e.g. LGBT folks or women, which is a low bar to pass but also impressive for a game community where declaring a holy war is a good thing that gets you land and prestige.
CK2 isn't the worst for sure, but HOI4's community isn't great. Admittedly, a game where you can literally play Hitler will probably attract a fash crowd
It doesn't help that Hoi4, last I played, has in-game events for atrocities committed by the USSR and the UK, but not for those committed by the Nazis. That could have changed though, I haven't played vanilla hoi4 in a long time.
it really isnt the best. like if you look at the post history of a lot of the mods on reddit, theyre socialists. the motherfuckers just cant reign that shit in lmao its too much
I don't understand how people play CK II and somehow don't come away with the impression that every single noble was a scheming power-obsessed sociopath who would happily murder their infant relatives for political gain and only ever cared about religion as an excuse to murder people and take their land.
Or maybe they do understand that but think it's good for some reason??
and only ever cared about religion as an excuse to murder people and take their land
No, some of them took it seriously and spent all their time growing new varieties of roses, surreptitiously waking up friends who fell asleep during sermons, and launching weird abortive crusades against low-ranking Muslim nobles who were briefly rebelling against the Caliph due to a tax increase.
Sees a civil war in a nation with a different religion
"It's free real estate"
Also can't forget the people who decide to join a secret cult out of sheer boredom.
One of my favorite CK II stories is the time I was playing a random Italian count who heard the voice of Jesus giving him military advice, publically converted to a Christian heresy, then went on a crusade where he met a teacher who convinced him to secretly convert to Islam. That didn't stop him from launching holy wars in North Africa, but I had a plan that once I conquered enough I would publically convert to Islam so that I could turn around and launch holy wars into Italy - unfortunately I didn't realize I needed the DLC for that. But he founded a society for secret Muslims and it wasn't really going anywhere, the meetings were pretty much just him and his son hanging out and shooting the shit, but that's when, out of nowhere, the Holy Roman Emperor himself showed up.
My leader died and my son took over and the game automatically converted him to Christianity because I didn't have the DLC, and I figured that was that, it was fun while it lasted. Then, years later, completely out of the blue, I get a message the the Holy Roman Emperor has decided to publically embrace Islam. In one fell swoop, without a drop of blood, everything from Tunis to Denmark turned green (in the religious mapmode), and the Islamic world, which had been about the weakest I'd ever seen it, suddenly seemed poised to conquer Europe, thanks to the Holy Roman Caliphate.
I quit after that because A) "my work here is done" and B) I'm a cheap bastard and the DLC was expensive.
Paradox Interactive was a mistake
The games are great, the community is...not amazing
The games are great to a point - their treatment of slavery is the most obvious. EU4, a game about colonization, slavery was one of the greatest factors in colonization => slaves are a non-factor in colonization + nobody consumes slaves, some places just produce them + abolishing slavery is like the least interesting decision you could make, no effect on anything. (Slavery is a little better in Vic2, to be fair.)
Also, world conquest is too easy. Geography, culture, religion have only a negligible effect. Anyone can conquer anyone and nobody really objects.
And there are no social problems, just a few negative stats you make go away with points. Society can only go up - money, technology, religion, absolutism, militarism, etc. - they only have positive effects.
Yeah, one of the biggest problems with EU4 from a gameplay standpoint IMO is that it does basically nothing to simulate the difficulties of ruling a giant empire, especially with a bunch of conquered peoples who in recent memory were independent. Once you reach a certain size in game, you have to fuck up massively for everything to collapse.
Right. And the game itself becomes tedious because you can't delegate responsibilities. Commanding a stack or two of troops is fun. Commanding 10 stacks (possibly on 3 fronts) where the greatest danger is 2 stacks ending up on a random low-development province together and losing thousands of soldiers to attrition is booooring. Same with a fleet of ships vs. several fleets that require micromanagement to avoid attrition on intercontinental voyages.
A better game would make you share responsibilities with intelligent AI - which would both save on tedious micro and lead to frequent entropy, as a region that doesn't need you and can defend itself can tell you to fuck off.
The community is a mixture of bad and not-as-bad-as-expected? Like they don't have the typical g*mer attitude towards e.g. LGBT folks or women, which is a low bar to pass but also impressive for a game community where declaring a holy war is a good thing that gets you land and prestige.
CK2 isn't the worst for sure, but HOI4's community isn't great. Admittedly, a game where you can literally play Hitler will probably attract a fash crowd
HOI4 definitely has the worst community, next to the Vicky community I'd say
It doesn't help that Hoi4, last I played, has in-game events for atrocities committed by the USSR and the UK, but not for those committed by the Nazis. That could have changed though, I haven't played vanilla hoi4 in a long time.
it really isnt the best. like if you look at the post history of a lot of the mods on reddit, theyre socialists. the motherfuckers just cant reign that shit in lmao its too much
I don't understand how people play CK II and somehow don't come away with the impression that every single noble was a scheming power-obsessed sociopath who would happily murder their infant relatives for political gain and only ever cared about religion as an excuse to murder people and take their land.
Or maybe they do understand that but think it's good for some reason??
No, some of them took it seriously and spent all their time growing new varieties of roses, surreptitiously waking up friends who fell asleep during sermons, and launching weird abortive crusades against low-ranking Muslim nobles who were briefly rebelling against the Caliph due to a tax increase.
"It's free real estate"
Also can't forget the people who decide to join a secret cult out of sheer boredom.
One of my favorite CK II stories is the time I was playing a random Italian count who heard the voice of Jesus giving him military advice, publically converted to a Christian heresy, then went on a crusade where he met a teacher who convinced him to secretly convert to Islam. That didn't stop him from launching holy wars in North Africa, but I had a plan that once I conquered enough I would publically convert to Islam so that I could turn around and launch holy wars into Italy - unfortunately I didn't realize I needed the DLC for that. But he founded a society for secret Muslims and it wasn't really going anywhere, the meetings were pretty much just him and his son hanging out and shooting the shit, but that's when, out of nowhere, the Holy Roman Emperor himself showed up.
My leader died and my son took over and the game automatically converted him to Christianity because I didn't have the DLC, and I figured that was that, it was fun while it lasted. Then, years later, completely out of the blue, I get a message the the Holy Roman Emperor has decided to publically embrace Islam. In one fell swoop, without a drop of blood, everything from Tunis to Denmark turned green (in the religious mapmode), and the Islamic world, which had been about the weakest I'd ever seen it, suddenly seemed poised to conquer Europe, thanks to the Holy Roman Caliphate.
I quit after that because A) "my work here is done" and B) I'm a cheap bastard and the DLC was expensive.
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