Grand Strategy Games /gsg/

How stupid are you, nigga?

Stupid enough to ask.

How fucking overpowered are these roaches?

Overpowered by the righteous blessing of Allah and Osman's impeccable vision.

Let's try this again, honest question: any of you faggots actually deal with bullshit paradox mechanics or do you mod them out? I mean I respect the whole concept of getting good but the way AE/badboy is setup is really pissing me off.

Same thing for fort ZoC.

Truly, Allah's blessing shines upon the Sultan.

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If you haven't noticed, Paradox games are set in a low fantasy setting where Islam is the one true religion.

I wanted to experience being the Chosen Ones for myself.

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I forgot to mention out of sheer frustration that qara quoynloo and haasa are allies.

Not to mention this delightful string of events that happened right before this where medhri bahdi got a personal union over ethiopia. I supported ethiopia's independence and when it won, it broke it's alliance with me and formed one back with medhri bahdi while keeping it's new alliance with haasa my ally. I think I'm done playing this game for a while.

we warned you about playing eu4 user

IT JUST KEEPS HAPPENING

Okay, someone please explain to me in babby terms how to expand within the HRE. I was playing as Hesse a few times and the whole place seems unusually… stable. Everyone is allied to everyone else, your neighbors all have the same ~8k stacks so you can't overpower them quickly and my own allies never want to support me in a war.

With all the bullshit EU4 added, did they at least fix something?

hell no

Not even the muslim tatar Cossacks with Ukrainian leader names?

Most money I've saved up ever in CK2

Nobody? I'm stumped and can't even find tops for 1.19 in this regard.

Two ways to do it. One is to become the HRT and the other is to blob.

If you want to become the HRE, vassalize the electors and keep bribing them, then keep passing reforms.

The other way is to blob. This may involve forming Germany, although it's pretty weak in EU3. You barely get any cores you wouldn't already have. Send around guarantees and warnings, vassalize everyone you can. Diploannex whenever you can, and do this until you're big enough to bully everyone.

Unam Sanctum during the reformation is a good way of getting CBs.

Germany is extremely powerful in EU3, especially if you form Prussia beforehand and do the military reforms. If you form it you're pretty much unstoppable.

Oh sorry, I forgot to mention I was playing EU4, not 3. I just can't get past the opening stages there because it's always me vs 3 allied OPM.

really this
There's no reason to play EU4

Mod?

After The End
github.com/notalbanian/postapoc

R8 my Super Germany in HPM.

Is there any other kind?

Hopefully not.

The werewolf that has been terrorizing Narsis for the past 150 years has finally been slain. This is a bug, by the way, because I completed the "control beastform" quest and stopped getting the random events where I go out and attack people.

Does yours save? Everytime I try to save the game crashes with that mod on.

Yeeea so I played around with EUIV a bit more and managed to expand and win some wars etc.

Well, I knew it wasn't the greatest game but holy shit this is… all of this is just madness. I thought CK2 was bloated with pointless shit but EUIV is nothing but pointless shit. All these tiny mechanics that tweak half a percent here or add 10 points there and they crossreference each other and you gotta watch five dozen different bars and numbers at the same time… It's not even playable anymore. None of it actually adds to the experience. Nothing, zero.

My god.

Wait until you get to the late game, where wars are fought off the back of mercenary armies because you have a huge economy to support it and manpower gets obliterated the moment too decently sized stacks collide. At that point you can no longer lose the game because the AI is bad at war and you always have an army.

It's probably a good thing the game doesn't let you spend money on monarch mana other than through advisors, or it would be way too easy.

Not bad at all, but you do need Banat at least.

Why even bother if you aren't going for the natural Pyrenees-Ural borders of Germaniums?

Not since 1945

Why is it so bad? I played EU3, it's more balanced but has less oomph to playing a small nation against a big one. The trade system in 4 is a bit bonkers but easy to handle once you figure it out.

Overall way better than CK2 even if it doesn't touch DH/HoI3 in terms of complexity and difficulty. Has the same problem as Vicky 2 in that there's a bit too many tiny percentage modifiers everywhere and the UI is a non intuitive clusterfuck.

Also traditional Paradox business model but lol, pirate.

How do I get her out of hiding?
She has been hiding for like 60 years, I thought she would come out once I killed Melkhior and Ushoran who were targeting her, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

What mod?

Also might be broken programming on your end, dunno - in canon games people quit hiding in a year or two even if the people hounding them are still about.

vanilla* the fuck's wrong with me

Geheimnisnacht

she's likely targeted by someone else as well

That is probably the case, I just glanced at her relationships and noticed that she has one more rival left, though if he is actually plotting against her, I'm unable to detect it.

Have you tried taking that guy out?

Taking out vampires is hard, and if I fail my son, the King of Stygia will die in the process.

I actually did a few playthroughs as Neferata – my vamp rivals constantly plotted against me. They never got enough plot power to do anything, but they were content to keep that plot going for 200+ years, so it's likely she is being targeted by him.

you get the "hunt down" plot instead of the regular one? Knowing magic helps massively, but idk if high martial or personal combat helps

So when you are starting a new game, can't you now select if you can have both plots and to send assassins for gold like Old-School CK2? if so, why not do that, or find a way to activate that option.

in the mod, "monsters" need to be taken out with a special "hunt down" plot, during which you send someone (or go yourself) to slay it like a fairy tale hero. So you go to the crypt of a vampire, get past the defenses, find him sleeping in the coffin, raise the wooden stake, and get your head torn off because the vampire woke up. Sometimes you actually succeed, but you really shouldn't go do it yourself unless you want your character to die, or have skills in magic

Time to send my spawn on the mission.
Surely he will not disappoint us, right?

Nevermind, he pussied out

heeheheh

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Blame Lamia for being such a whore that she allowed herself to be seduced by a mortal and attain his way to immortality.
I actually wanted to become a Carstein vampire, but Isabella wouldn't put out.
Besides I have been a good servant and protected Queen Neferata ever since she lost her territories, probably canceled over a hundred assassination attempts on her.

There's actually a qt lesbian carstein vampire with holdings near drakenhof

You can't seduce Lesbians unfortunately.

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Yeah it saves.

bugger

It's like you didn't even try

What am I seeing here?

I see no Super Germany here.

You can't, beta.

Formable empire in the After the End mod which takes place in post-apocalyptic America
iirc it's made up of folks that worship the old factories and machinery of the rust belt

Why aren't you playing them. praising the Omnissiah?

I'm not the user that posted the screenshot
Besides, my dumb ass never managed to get the mod working properly.
I think I tried playing as Iowa

You already have to have a big chunk of Germany in order to form it. Pic related. It takes a long time to conquer and core those provinces. The amount of cores it gives is pathetically small. Unifications are good when they give a lot of cores to blob over.

I'm going to try forming Germany in EU3 to see how it goes. I've done it before, but each time it was frustrating.

We don't like new Paradox games, so if you're talking about EU, it's assumed to be EU3.

Empire of the Rust Cultists, other user explained them, though their rulers are Atomicists currently.
Kind of a shame, their Empire looked pretty nice until those stupid inheritance drifts happened (which wouldn't have happened had they remained Rust cultists and therefore unable to marry into those other realms).

Because I'm currently doing an Americanist patriotic Founding-Father worshipersTrump playthrough.
Original goal was to MAKE AMERICA… AGAIN
But the criteria to remake America is stupidly specific so I just decided to MAKE THE ATLANTIC MY BITCH instead.

Might consider doing a Rust Cultist playthrough at somepoint, though after this playthrough is done I'm probably going to go back to Europe.

God bless.

The Atomicists are pretty cool too, but you have to start as tribal or as a spic.

That's not Super Germany. Super Germany must at a bare minimum include ALL of Austria's starting provinces (in addition to all of the historical Kleindeutschland - if you're playing as Austria, you must take Alsace-Lorraine even if you managed to avoid getting German Empire cores on it).

0/88

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[autistic screeching]

Who are you losing GP Rank 1 to, that Russiablob or the UK?

Nobody?

Aren't there some guys who worship Cthulu further up north in like
NH or something? That sounds cool also.

What about the west coast? Anything interesting over there? Cascadia?

I recently got back into CK2 and I REALLY hate the binary nature of a lot of things.
I should not be forbidden from changing my succession laws if I haven't held my primary title for a decade, I should have a smaller penalty if I have done so.
I shouldn't be forbidden from getting say, primogeniture as a pagan, I should get a large vassal (and huge non-firstborn) penalty for doing so.
Also, there shouldn't be a "european feudalism" on/off switch to glick.

Also, I have been playing after the end, and has it always had this utter shit performance?

Yes, New England is home to tribal occultists who mostly worship Lovecraftian lore. I tried playing as them once but their posturing kind of sucks and I got bored.
Their lands are useless though I eventually just invade them to stop their annoying ass raids.
In the South you have the Empire of California which generally either shits the bed early on and stays split or expands and becomes one of the most powerful states. As to be expected from Californians, their religion is basically a hand full of syncretic New Age nonsense. Slightly north of them are the Gaians, mother Earth worshiping matriarchy who get cucked out of their lands basically every time I play. They have the unique ability to castrate male prisoners.
Cascadia is Indian territory and generally tends to form decently impressive lands as seen in pic. They are raven worshipers iirc.

Works ok for me.

There's the Empire of California, which is a sengoku japan style empire with the emperor merely being a figurehead in control of only one province while the rest of the empire is divided into different kingdoms.
North of them are the Gaians, which are basically matriarchal tree huggers.

just finished a game as Venice… you guys want some border gore?

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indeed

Who should I play?
My current game is the King of Superior, and I can't pass any reforms because I used my council as an appeasement for dukes while I was consolidating my power. Currently the King of Michigan is my only real rival, and neither of us can really beat the other, and he also holds a duchy that is de jure mine.
I've gotten bored of it due to the total gridlock I can only really fix by waiting for all the assholes to die and putting yesmen in place. The first thing I'm doing is voting all council powers out. Fuck this shitty mechanic.

This meme needs to die. EU4's interface is a clusterfuck and the business model is absolutely jewish, but Vicky 2 is both an easier and shittier game - same thing goes for CK2.

CK2 has a much simpler military strat and worse AI, and gaming the system is the easier thing ever. Vicky 2's Interface is fucking awful, trade runs on a bajillion variables *and* combat is also an overly simplified piece of shit.

HoI3 and DH are the only "great" Paradox games - EU3 and 4 are pretty tired for the second spot in my book.

smh tbh famalamam

Let him be wrong in peace

look at that glorious Revolutionary Russia

How

It's published by Paradox, you retards.

And it's true. Case in point how every /gsg/ thread you fuckers claim EUIV is the worse thing since Hitler and then proceed to talk about EUIV and post screenshots for half the goddamn thread.

That's an odd phrase to use seeing as Hitler was a pretty great fellow.

Published means next to nothing, that's like saying EA actually makes games. They are just the Jews selling and distributing it.

Actually, yeah. I've been in normalfag land for way too long.

True in a sense but still allows me to use the umbrella term "Paradox Games".

they colonized some of the empty provinces at the very eastern end of asia / the westernmost end of north america
from there it's easy pickings to just expand westwards into Siberia / Russia

Spain or Portugal tend to do that sometimes
Pics related, Portugal sharing a border with my Commonwealth

So i [spoiler] Pirated [/spoiler/ HoI4 last night and gave it a go.

How the fuck o i play this shit? Where are the fucking resources like money, oil, etc? Nothing makes sense.

it plays itself for you, you dont need to do anything

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Resources will be added later by DLC, but only if you pay for the pleasure of sucking Johan's dick

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It may be an issue with versions. The version of the mod I posted a couple threads ago is good for CK2 with Reaper's Due but not any of the patches that came after. I'm not playing the newest release of Elder Kings but a beta from before they made their official release.

Christ how horrifying.

Once you're a blob yourself, it should be your task to make the borders in Europe look good via annexing/vassalizing offending countries.

I'm actually wondering now too. I've used it before on some really old games.

Kinda fucked up the latest release (V8) of user's edits for VeF, so I had remove its download link (In case anyone downloaded it from the latest thread.) So, after fixing some small details (Such as provinces belonging to wrong holders and such) I've been thinking about adding some stuff to Central/Eastern Europe, namely:

#This is what I had in mind:draculesti_dynasty = { leader_land_shock = 2 #(You know, impalements and psychological terror) hostile_attrition = 1 #(All the marshes created after the night attack on Targoviste) yearly_corruption = -0.1 #(Keep those Boyars in check) global_unrest = -2 #(Keep everyone else in check) mercenary_cost = -0.15 #(The guy was smart and used Gypsies and other dudes as his mercs) global_manpower_modifier = 0.15 #(Despite being a small chunk of land, Wallachia employed every able man) relations_decay_of_me = -0.15 #(Saxon slander) diplomatic_reputation = -1 #(Saxon slander)}

#This is what I had in mind:komnenoi_dynasty = { legitimacy = 1.5 #(Komnenoi are legit as fuck) prestige_decay = -0.015 #(Figured out prestige would be too much, so prestige decay it is) diplomatic_reputation = 1.5 #(The guys kept a steady line of contacts) fabricate_claims_cost = -0.15 #(Easier Anatolian clay I guess) ae_impact = -0.1 #(I'm not sure about this one, it's even easier Anatolian clay, which could be OP) army_tradition_decay = -0.015 #(Allusion to the Komnenian Restoration) navy_tradition_decay = -0.015 #(Allusion to the Komnenian Restoration) discipline = 0.025 #(Allusion to the Komnenian Restoration)}

#This is what I had in mind:kastrioti_dynasty = { legitimacy = 1.5 #(Albanians LOVE Skanderbeg and his Dynasty) prestige_decay = -0.015 #(Again, I thought prestige would be too much) land_morale = 0.1 #(Albanians were eager to be free from t*rkish yoke) reinforce_speed = 0.1 #(Thought it'd be a nice touch for the guys) infantry_power = 0.075 #(Shiptars weren't so bad back in the day) cavalry_power = 0.075 #(At least not as much as they are right now, taking muhammad's donger up their asses) prestige_from_land = 1 #(And considering they ravaged ottoman territories with considerably smaller armies) manpower_recovery_speed = 0.1 #(I think the Shiptars of old might've been the real Illyrian deal)}

The release should be out soon, as I'm nearly done coding the stuff, only the CBs remain and country mods when neighboring the t*rks remain to be coded (Which I don't what bonuses to add). What do you guys think? I need me some feedback.

>inb4 stop playing EU4
no fun allowed

This is bizarre. I have no idea how Finland managed to get Thrace. I just released them from Novgorod and afaik they couldn't even make an army since they were swarmed by rebels.

Uh, you doing okay, England?

Is this a case of the English AI being too dumb to figure out how to naval invade or the new feature where westernization instantly gives natives western tech and tech group?

No clue since I don't have vision of the Americas or Europe, but I'd guess the former. I've played nearly 200 hours since Rights of Man was released and I've not once seen Aztec do well.

Why is everyone in the British Isles whether it be CK2, EU4, or HOI such a useless piece of shit of an ally?

Anyway, r8 my borders - I'm done expanding except for the blank space in between the Zanzibar coast and Lake Malawi. I think the mirrored coastlines make for a rather aesthetic small empire.

In EU4 allies are retarded no matter the nation, always charging their troops into willing death.
Meanwhile in CK2 you can get a bazillion events that ruin your alliance for absolutely no reason, which is why I typically don't make any and if I need any extra manpower I just make someone be my tributary.

Yeah, usually Aztec AI can't reform and its only the north american natives who get OP westernization.

Maybe England was in a war with Spain or something and got its navy knocked out?

Because they all have one thing in common: Paradox naval AI

Lads I did it

I ruined the world.

I bet you like it when Paracucks make African technology on the level of European.

What did he mean by this?

I was the boers so I already had european techs.

Vicky 2 South Africa is European, you retard.

Hello there m8

What do you guys think happens when I play EUIV on Steam with torrented DLCs?

Gaben buys them all for you instantly

Same as what happens with Ck2

nothing

I don't think Gaben is THAT bad with money.

I remember being able to pirate CK2 DLCs and use them on Steam.

This game is easy

the hard part is not making terrible shitty looking blob

Can somebody post the Victoria II infographs? Recommended nations for a first playthrough?

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Thanks user.

Tech pics are about 75% wrong.

i disagree they are fine

There are a lot of problems which have been discussed many times before, but let me try to greentext the major problems.

>the mana monarch point system feels more like a blob casting spells than a leader making intelligent policy decisions

I know I'm missing some, but I think I got most of the issues with this game. CK2 was the beginning of the end of casualization and EU4 was the point of no return. I got hooked on it because it was my first and I thought there would be more flavor patches and a bigger mod community, but I think there is no redeeming it now. VeF looks like a promising overhaul but I haven't tried it yet.

the issue is that despite EU4 having shit mechanics, it still has more annd better content that EU3. For example the map, with many more provinces, more flavour all around for HRE, various religions, etc., more events and decisions, the claimXcore system… There shuld be a game or a mod that takes the best from each

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I saw Crete annex part of Portugal once, EU3 does some crazy shit once in a while.

The AI in EU3 is pretty basic. If it can annex something and not go over infamy, it pretty much always will. OPMs constantly get eaten up by complete random when they join a war and get occupied by the first nation able to ship over 5k troops.

Not sure how much effect Economic taught and critique has, but deffinetly wouldn't say it's that important I mean you get -6% input efficiency by the end. management strategy gives half of this bonus anyway, plus a bunch of output efficiency.
And Naval Doctrine is more important than Ship construction, it give colonial points and you can't even build the later ships without high level ports anyway.
Business Regulation also adds the +10% to mining and farming, I think you forgot about that.
Military Directionism allows you to use and defend against gas attack, that -3 can be pretty brutal.

What? how is Light armament not the most important? You need it to colonize first of all, and it improves your infantry and cav and reduces combat width, and infantry alone will be at least 50% of any army.
That +90% education efficiency from social taught up to Biologism is essential if you start with low litteracy.

playing as her is a ton of fun

Because frontliners deal almost no damage compared to artillery. Even Machine Guns is basically nothing compared to Heavy Artillery or Army Leadership (more tactics = infantry last longer and Artillery get longer to fire). Even Psychology is better for your military than Light Armament (experience multiplies tactics).

Reducing combat width is pretty meaningless. If the enemy is trying to infantry swarm you they are going to die anyway.

Colonization is nice but that only puts 1 tech at important and it should have a note that colonization is literally the only reason to go Light Armament.

Not at all. Properly managed you can get 4% clergy and 90%+ literacy as Russia before 1900 without any Social Thought techs. If you get every Social Thought tech possible you can barely get it 10 years earlier, which is a really poor return in terms of tech points for a tech point starved nation. It's at best Nice to Have with the problem that the nations who need it (low literacy) are better off researching other things first anyway. It's only real use is if you want to educate your African/Asian colonies or something.

Who is a good country to play in victoria 2 to just chill as and learn the game, build factories and shit? I tried Korea but way too fucking backwards to get anything done and the best way to play Japs is to attack and civilize that way? I stayed away from yorup since I thought they would have a lot of great power shenanigans.

Who can i play solitaire with and learn the fucking game?

Is anyone else bothered by the square-y borders some states of the US have?
They make my autism tingle, they're unnatural… It's like watching two faggots kissing in plain view.

Uncivs aren't great for learning until you've already played civs.

Spain is a good choice. Starting GP, very unlikely to be involved in wars unless you want to. Gets you used to fixing your horrible starting pop distribution and literacy (something you'll have to do for 90% of the countries in the game).

You can jerk off on your Island all game as Japan without anyone bothering you.

Thanks user, gonna try them now.

What said, but also France is a good choice. They'r easier to play since they have a higher population and more literacy, but you'l have more wars(prussia and being a GP)

In general in almost every Parajew game except CK2 Portugal and Spain/Castille are the best starting choices. In one of the few strokes of realism they're comercially relevant enough to be important but too distant from the interesting shit to get attacked.

Very comfy.

That's only true for EU and Victoria, in HOI they'r boring,Germany or even Romania are much better choices.

Spain is quite powerful in HoI. Romania is worse in every way and Germany can be intimidating.

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I got eu4 to work in wine before, but now I can't. Do I need something other than the redist and netframework, or did the new wine break it?

In the manual it says MP was supposed to be a replacement for agents because it was annoying how you always have too few or too many.

Are you guys forgetting the civil war in 1936?
You cant cozy up with a civil war in early game that leaves you crippled for the rest of the game.

is this place related to /gsg/eneral aka liquor and steamgruppe shitposting land

Ottoman's start with 5% discipline. That means you take 5% more damage and deal 5% less damage. It's a 10% swing on how strong you are against them. It is easily one of the most broken starting benefits in the game.

It's also the fact that they are basically always ahead of time on Military (OP ruler system + lucky bonuses) while Austria and anyone eastern are commonly behind on tech with the new institution bullshit.

I'd honestly come to defense of eu4. There's a lot that is incredibly frustrating about it but overall it's a decent game that I've sunk hundreds of hours into.

I'll agree though I don't like what they are doing with institutions. the negative for being behind is way too harsh on countries like sweden and russia. To the point they are almost not even worth playing.

I'd also say that southeast asia has a particular problem with getting colonization. I feel like nations in fucking malaysia shouldnt be able to just go and colonize half the damn malaccas before I even get there as the netherlands. And they get westernized militaries really quick too. It's fucked.

I think Paradox should just take a bundle of these mechanics and make an original world, preferably fantasy based.
Something like

Institutions are easy to game as a player, just dump mana into development as soon as a new institution pops and you'll save thousands of mana not buying tech at inflated prices. It also gives you a "free" (since you would have wasted it on inflated tech prices anyway) 200 or so development over the course of the game.

EU4's problems go way beyond institutions, mana is just a fundamentally dumb concept. Imagine if every AI played like a player and did the above, leaving every minor nation on the planet with 200+ development by the end game.

100 player game when

I feel they're good in HoI to learn the very basic stuff, but my beginner recommendation for HoI3 is actually Brazil. Rush them into Axis and your game will basically be a slow stream of brits and maybe some Nicaraguan/USA allieances pouring from the north, and the Amazons provide a fun lesson in army maneuvering and terrain types.

My most hated thing is rebels. You can have an effective tax rate of almost npthing, 3+ stability, negative unrest and almost no manpower left, but somehow there will always be a massive peasant doomstack.

The core mechanics are deeply flawed and even the layers on top, whether tech, ideas, events, decisions; primarily consist of straight modifiers to values which are too far abstracted to actually represent anything. It becomes an arcadey series of arbitrary steps rather than a deliberate strategy game. The engine is a slight upgrade of the previous one which fixes none of the glaring flaws of the previous, and the design philosophy only compounds them in an attempt to accomodate them.

For Christ's sake, every single major update, even in EU3, either made the Untermen Empire too strong or too weak, causing game-breaking results every time. Paradox have failed at making a game that can simulate these kinds of interstate dynamics. It's not even a historical accuracy thing; the game is simply not capable of the core gameplay which it is supposedly built on. Without all the little tricks and gimmicks they use to cheat for certain countries, hard code certain actions they take, (((political considerations))), etc., the games wouldn't even function. The whole platform is a fucking joke, and only mods and the novelty of the concepts involved allow it to remain relevant.

What start dates do you usually play with in EU3?

I would honestly agree a lot with this in that people would likely give far less of a fuck if it was a fantasy universe rather than something trying as hard as it can to pull off historical accuracy. there's a lot of good ideas in EU4 that could use a lot of refinement.

I agree that mana is dumb but they made it a core mechanic of the game and it makes it hard to get rid of it. I kind of like ideas but most ai nations follow the exact same pathing.

I get that institutions are easy to control. Playing as the netherlands is a joke for institutions as you are nothing but well developed provinces with a ton of money. It's a neat idea but again one of those things I don't think was implemented that well

A fantasy setting by Paradox would have Social Justice and SWEDEN YES out the ass.

Just looking at some of the stuff that the Warhammer mod has been doing. Necromancy, learning magic, taking slaves to work your tiles or be sold for mad dosh.

And mods.

Eh, Stellaris wasn't that bad on that front, the moderation of the modding community was full SJ though.

EU has always had incredibly shitty rebels. In EU2 combat was a ridiculously random clusterfuck where 5k could rout 15k of yours with a bad dice roll. EU3 had ping pong bullshit where it took a year of combats to kill rebels 100 at a time. EU4 has combat that causes ridiculous amounts of casualties and has way too little manpower, so its merc spam or bust.

Stellaris's problem is that its a game that is like 1/10th EU, 1/10th Victoria 2, 1/10th HoI, and 7/10ths unfinished. And Paradox likes it that way because they can sell the missing parts as DLC without being criticized like they would if they made an EU5 missing basic mechanics from EU4.

Is east vs west good? It seems to be that one Paradox game nobody gives a fuck about but I want to know if it's worth getting.

Made border contact with the Nehekharans.
What should I know about fighting them?
I once seen them beat off a 68,000 strong orc WAAAGH like it was nothing despite having a much smaller army.
My army is about 20,000 + 20,000 with my tributaries and potentially another 10,000 if I perform a necromantic ritual. Can I take them on?

Also some impudent mortal captured my wife and does not want to give her back to me, took her nose too.

The lack of updates for Stellaris was odd tbh, seems like they planned a bunch of dlc and proceeded to forget about the game.

….lad

Can you guys give me examples of ((((political considerations)))? I don't doubt it at all, but I guess I'm too historically illiterate to have noticed anything aside from native americans having broken bonuses and the "women in history" being just retarded stretches (This woman was smart for her time and IRL sometimes gave advice. You get the option to make her the monarch!)

The most fun I got out of Stellaris was the Empire creator.

I should not have laughed at that as much as I did.

HoI4

It was one everyone was hyped for, finally, a proper cold war game, then Paradox gutted it

Institutions and the resulting KANGZdom.

I laughed
For some reason I laughed even harder.

With Romania you can turn fascist and conquer the surrounding countries early on (except the Soviets) whitch gets you about as much industry as germany in 1940 if I remember right, and all that without being tied to a faction. Spain has a bit more manpower but you just sit on ass untill Germany attacks France, and try to grab some land. You'l end up having little industry untill then, and you'l be at war with Britain.

I think they intended to make way more cosmetic DLC like the new plant races. People got pissed that they cost so much and Paradox's plans were screwed. Wouldn't be surprised if the "cuties" was supposed to be its own pack with 4x the portraits that they bundled with other DLC because no one was going to buy it.

Most of the actual mechanics from HoI3 are in HoI4, just terribly dumbed down. What they did for HoI4 was create entire new types of (shit) content like national foci.

What's a good mod to make EUIV historically accurate, more complex, less bullshitty and in general not shite?

Why can't my population just be happy with Fascism.

Veritas et Fortitudo

Need to deal with the Jews first, user.

Aren't Jacobins French and not Jewish?

Was the comte de Mirabeau a Jew?

You will have opposition in literally any country of any regime, including a complete utopia. You cannot achieve everyone's happiness in real life, not even in theory. The only problem with Vic 2 is that the opposition size is vastly inflated, and that they are stupidly aggressive and ready to rise

What I think is the problem that by default the rebel deaths are set very low in the settings notepad file or whatever you call it.
Turn it up by one or a half and the liberal population will simply die ( as it should in fucking rebellions) and won't recover until a few more decades.
Game is much more enjoyable that way, also realistic.

I think that is the value I changed to something higher last time I played Victoria 2, it actually makes the rebel populations fucking die realistically in wars.

shouldn't dead 1 soldier kill 1 pop?

Yes, but in paradox default its 0.2 as you can see.
So soldiers dying don't actually affect the world population much.

No, it won't kill off the liberal population specifically. It just kills pops, keeping their ideology % the same. In effect if your nation is 50/50 then killing 1k jacobins would be killing 500 of your non-rioting pops.

Pops represent a family of 4, so it should be no more than .25. .2 is probably to represent wounded but not dead or fathers who already have children (thereby their death doesn't slow pop growth), or something like that.

Whatever, it still slowed down the rebellion buildup considerably and that's the only thing I cared about.

It's not deaths but casualties after a battle, I would imagine around 60-70% would be wounded troops.

WHY DOES BRITAIN NEVER HELP???????

(((Anglos)))

Paradox Naval AI.

They're just being historically accurate

Thing is it also includes soldiers wounded and unable to keep fighting in that particular battle, but who aren't actually dead / permanently crippled. If everyone wounded in a battle was killed, you'd run out of soldiers at in insane EU4ic rate.

HPM famalam. And make sure you enact a full welfare state, and occasionally give them a political reform they want then repeal it six months later so no rebel group is able to air its grievances long enough to actually grow.

Nice one

It was also an oblique reference to how most nations, especially important ones, have certain things they're programmed to want and others to disregard. It stops things like Austria making tentacles all over Europe like in pre-DW EU3. The issue is that such mechanics are just artificial damage control, proving that the core mechanics themselves are not suited to what they are intended to portray.

The historical reason rebellions are weakened after a failed putsch or a few thousand slaughtered in an uprising is not that there are now less people who believe in their ideology. There should be a mechanic which discourages people from espousing that ideology for a while, and makes a bunch of the existing followers discontinue their (in Vicky terms) "official" status as a rebel. The modifier could wear off as people forget the massive ass-whooping the rebels receive and decide to give it another go.

RIP Averland, shouldn't have put a woman on the throne.
Now even if they kill her, the territory will be mine.

This, plus taking the army size into consideration. Only stupid retards would decide to rise up with grand total of 12k rebels, when they know the country has a 40k stack in the neighbouring province. Revolutions should only happen rarely, but at a scale that would genuinely threaten the player. Right now they are pretty much pests that are easy but tedious to wipe out

...

that's because there were no jewish aristocrats

Hey guy that is not really that unrealistic because you know who founded the first modern states? Italian city-states because they had the money to pay for soldiers and a bureaucracy. They were really fucking powerful.

You mean how they paid the condittieri to put on a show? Real fucking success right there

You don't enjoy having to regularly cleanse every single province because those stupid fucks want to vote?

Success in front of anyone else who could not? Yes.

Italian mercenary companies had agreements with each other not to harm each other too much and essentially put on a show for the retards stupid enough to hire them. The fact no italian state after the fall of Rome managed to unite italy up until the 20th century, much less forge an empire or get out of their designanted shit-boot outside for a few trade posts speaks volumes about their "sucess". Italian states weren't a powerful state in Europe, they were the southern buffer between Habsburgs and France, where both those powers measured their dicks in terms of influence.

I could never derive any enjoyment from Vicky 2.

The interface is ass, trade is retarded percentage manipulation three thousand, pops are usually just busywork and you can still break the game with colonialism. Also, stack combat and rebels all the time in an even worse manner than other GSGs.

Worse than EUIV imo.

Favorite is still HoI3 - think it's a miracle they got that game right at all. No excess of "muh holohoax" either in a WW2 game.

What does it change? The mod page just says "adds glory of byzantium as an alt scenario plus some events and mechanics", very fucking vague.

The aliens are at the gate, but the gate is holding. I've lost one frigate and one corvette protecting the jump point. I'm constructing a Jump Point base loaded with laser and gauss weaponry to secure the gate in the long run. I could probably take their homeworld in a little under 3 months, but I want to have a challenge and allow the aliens to grow stronger.

Werent you able to use space catapults in that game?
Grab an asteroid belt, get one of those conveyer things aimed straight at the gate, activate if you lose.

The catapults only work for a colony to colony basis. That wouldn't work for the gate.

It's great for genociding aliens that took over your colony though

Welp thats a shame, you could get some great defense systems by exploiting space catapults.
Can you blaeof glory the gate if it falls?

Gate's can't be destroyed that I know of, but I could always add defenses to the gate on the other side of the system and then the gate connecting to that system. I have late game technology so I'm able to take out a 24,000 ton ship out with one Advance Spinal Laser. I won't lose the gate until the aliens research their tech up to my level.

Well it seems that hundred years of seclusion has finally fried her brain.

In my playthroughs, every longer-lived character tends to become a lunatic sooner or later (except yours). Dwarves as a race tend to be led by batshit insane psychos sooner or later, for example.

What the fuck AI.

To be fair aristocrats are pretty shit, they sabotaged Italy in WW2 and most of the treasonous elements in the German military were also aristocrats.

They took out my missile collier with one fucking hit. The enemy ship hit the missile magazines and the entire ship blew up.

Now I might be in a pickle if they send a decent sized fleet like they have been for the past few months.

oh wow, how does that even fucking happen?

A true master plan

More provinces, countries, events, lessened mana use in the form of bureaucracy and province development time; basically if you blob uncontrollably, you won't be able to fully control your realm, autonomy increases, less taxes, so on and so forth.
Also provinces develop on their own and naturally as time goes on, can apply/abolish serfdom in certain provinces, policies aren't stupidly useless (don't cost mana and you can enact them when meeting certain requirements.)
It's pretty good overall, can't play eu4 without it. MEIOU and taxes ain't so bad either.

Gonna take the chance to ask.

Anyone know *why* I'm getting destroyed in combat? I have higher numbers, 20 to their 21 military tech, the exact same balance as their unit types and full goddamn morale, but I step into the fight and immediately lose half my goddamn morale.

Bad screenshot, but the dice roll wasn't what killed it. They're attacking *me* after crossing a damn river, and I paused as SOON as the battle popped up. Fuck this game.

The colonists have almost a full point of morale higher than you (4.7v 5.6), they have higher discipline by 5% and .3 more of the other thing.

you aren't losing half your morale, you begin with less than enemy. In the screen, you can see that your max morale is 4.7, whereas enemys is 5.6. Morale is raised by technology, ideas, policies, some decisions, prestige, and lots of other shit

also, 5% discipline advantage is more than it may seem.

to elaborate on what said
Each 1% of discipline is 1% less damage taken and 1% more damage dealt. Your opponent is currently 10% stronger in war than you are. Combined with the nearly 20% higher morale they have, its no surprise that they are dealing you such trouble. I'd also look at what general you have and what general they have. If yours have no shock/fire and theirs has 3, it could lead to a big impact.

Discipline is an overpowered stat that is very hard to come by, but given in too great amounts when you can get it.

Rather then being overpowered, the issue is that a good player knows its power and seeks it out wherever possible, whereas the AI tends to be too retarded to do that, leading to underperformace in late game (because getting lots of discipline is mostly only achieved in late game, and the AI does grab at least some bonuses to even shit out for the first half of the game). The amount of discipline related to opportunities of getting it is fair (with the exception of shit like Otto getting a bonus for being a roach), the issue is, as always, with Parashit being inept at AI.

Well I can see your point, and if you only get discipline through ideas you can at most get 10% for that 20% swing in combat, and one of those ideas is Quality, which has boat-stuff not used by everyone, and both Quality and Offensive only get discipline once you max out the idea group. I still don't think it's well designed because of how swingy discipline can be.

You play Aurora a lot? If not, are you at least somewhat experienced with the combat?

Also, my captcha was surprisingly relevant.

Did you turbo annex a bunch of Aztec/Mayan land?

The AI goes nuts if it has tons of uncored/unconverted/rebellious shit. Basically it ends up merc spamming forever and can't actually fix the problem.

...

Release them, see what happens.

Haha fucking really?

Yeah, the amount of morale damage you do is proportional to your max morale.

I think tactics and discipline might affect morale damage taken/dealt as well, in which case its an even bigger gap.

I play it all day every day.

Longest time played straight is 16 hours

I'm working up the design of space based game slightly similar to Aurora. It's going to be diplomatic/political and economic focused, but warfare obviously has to play a role. What parts of Aurora's combat (and ship related stuff, like design) do you like, and what parts, if any, would you skim?

I'm currently thinking of my style of combat operating in 3 stages. 1st stage is when ships stay close in a fleet as they approach a threat. 2nd stage involves breaking into task forces and engaging. 3rd stage would be disengaging (retreating/chasing down quitters/etc). How ships operate in a fleet, the task forces they can split in to, and how they undergo a battle, etc would be configurable, but once combat begins it would be up to admirals and captains to make changes on the fly. Player input or even micromanaging would still probably be allowed. This will also probably be in 2D, similar to how Aurora handle graphics.

Mod?

Already been asked in this thread, and its the warhammer mod.

So is hoi IV worth a download or nah? I come from a heavy darkest hour background

Why do people keep asking that? The answer will always be no.

In my case because I haven't been on /gsg/ for about a year and I don't know these things. I saw a youtube video cover some brief bits and it looks alright, apparently you have more control over your government style? Or is that a workshop thing?

Everything is worth a free download to decide for yourself, man. Unless you've got some time bandwidth cap you should just play it and make up your own mind.

The reason it's so awful is because of its AI and some stupid shit, like nukes not affecting population. But AI is really, really bad unless you play MP just stay away from it

t. a guy who conquered Soviets as Afghanistan in his first playthrough

Ya'll should just watch a couple of recent iSorrow videos to see just how awful the game is.

Got anything with highlights?

...

Why is combat so utterly shit now?
Used to be you could brute force the faggot AI with numbers, now even a minor crossing penalty makes stacks half your size a problem.

Stop meme posting this kiketuber.

...

DISCARDED

We asked them to make combat more than just stack math. We assumed Paradox would come up with a reasonable alternative.

They didn't. Discipline 2stronk.

Paradox altered the morale mechanics to make it tricky to brute force anything.

Used to be morale worked like you think it would work. Now it works such that every unit in combat has a constant morale drain even if it takes no damage. This means that even if you outnumber your enemy 8 to 1 around 3/4ths of your army will rout before they've taken any real damage at all because their morale goes to zero just by being in the battle.

Nowadays if you want to brute force something you actually have to make extra stacks and slowly feed them in as the battle goes on, since stacks outside the battle will arrive with full morale.

tbh EU3 was more imbalanced when you could take +1 morale as your first idea and curbstomp literally anyone. And there was a +25% discipline idea, lol.

It is certainly shit for all EU games though. CK2-style combat would be way more appropriate for EU. Or MotE-style, but that's basically just CK2 with a frontage limit.

Oh for fuck's sake, that explains a lot.

What do you think of this border gore /gsg/?

Byzantium survived for two centuries and Scotland annexed England.

The only thing about the combat system that pisses me off is the fact that you have to go back into the combat overview and cease fire. I think that should be automatically done when all the enemies are killed.
Aurora's combat is bare bones, so you can't really skim much of it. You see an enemy? Set it as a target and hit fire.
I would like to see more weaponry in the game though. Lasers, microwaves, gauss, railguns, plasma, mesons, and missiles are not much to go by. The differences in the beam weaponry isn't noticeable either. Plasma does a lot more damage and mesons go through sheilds, those are basically the only differences of note.
The fleet combat in aurora is a bit disappointing. The enemy throws a handful of ships at you (Excluding star swarms that outnumber you 10:1) at a time and it is a let down. Make sure the aliens can have a fleet the size of the players at least.
The style that you are describing can be done in aurora if you are an autistic fuck that wants to be 100% efficient. I just stick my ships all in one fleet and call it good.

Their stated reason was that in MP players would have battles lasting decades due to all the troops that could be piled in (like how V2 can get late game). And the idea of fixing their battle system rather than throwing retarded cludgey mechanics in didn't occur to them.

whats the difference?

What a fucking surprise.

Does anyone even play Paradox games in MP outside of the devs themselves and their Youtube e-celeb lickspittles?

Someone has failed this thread.

Maybe, but you described the target audience already so it's not like it matters.

It actually adds a lot to the roleplaying aspect. Trouble is that literally the only game that doesn't have horrible desync problems is EU4 (and HoI4, but no one plays that).

They are making blockade runners with fast engines and heavy armor. I pulled back my fleet and brought in my Jump Gate Defenders. Giant space stations with a shitload of overpowered lasers and plasma carronades.

They have not gotten through.

Cascading alliances are a great meme. Kanem Bornu started this war only allied with Morocco

What does MP have to do with grand strat?

What about Revolution Under Siege and other ageod games? I never see them posted about but they're in the torrent links in the OP. Are they any good?

I'm interested in this, too. I wanted to check out To End All Wars, but I've seen a lot of complaints that it expects you to have played the rest of the series, to the point of tooltips being missing.

parashit included MP to all its newer games, and insists on balancing it around it. Predictably, SP suffers. The fact fucking nobody plays MP doesn't seem to matter to the shitters

I downloaded it and it runs really poorly.

Is it just my computer, or is it the game?

the turns take forever on my machine if that's what you mean

I also saw a fair amount of complaints about AI turns taking forever. Shame.

...

jej

I recall several devfags braggig about making their own GSG in previous threads. Any news on that front?

Not even the turns, haven't gotten to that yet. Just the cursor lags moving around, and the screen moves around slowly. Could just be my computer; it does that with Darkest Hour sometimes. When is does that on DH I just have to exit and restart it a few times.

Then that's just your machine

guys look at me

Since when is Romania a beautiful blue color? When I played them they were an ugly Bohemian brown, I feel cheated.

...

Pretty gross fam

Well, /gsg/, I went ahead and tried Revolution Under Siege, and I gotta say, it's kind of shit.

Hahaha I was just looking through the Paradox forums.

Calling Muslims Kebab is now VERBOTEN.

Yet another EUIV DLC that adds bloat. Fuck me.

What does it add?

Knowing Paradox, it's probably going to make Otto even more powerful.

"Ages" with strictly defined start and end dates that act as missions on steroids and yet more mana currency ("Splendor").

Abilities
Ottomans : +33% Siege Ability
Portugal : +50 colonial growth
Denmark : 30 less liberty desire in subjects.
Venice : +50% Trade Power from Ships

:^)

I only have 200 hours in Vic 2 and am burnt out. I think I might have become more jaded, whacked out, fucked in the head I can't enjoy anything anymore. If only there was a reset button or a way to clean my mind. Sorry for blog post, it's just these games used to bring me great joy.

A guy posted a RUS screenshot a few threads ago. I expected him to follow up, but he never did.

Knowing Paradox this means Ottomans will siege +100% faster with offensive ideas.

Bet you could stack policies and literally blitzkrieg in the 16th century,

Actually, checking the modifiers on the wiki:

That's -93% to siege time as vanilla ottomans and potentially -113% if you do stupid shit.

If you were truly sorry, you wouldn't have clicked "reply."

I fucked up and allowed aliens in the system. They were only in the system for 15 seconds before being atomized by 50 guns, but they managed to get off a barrage of missiles and destroy a recreational base and 500 of its crew.
They also have buoys that will give them eyes behind the gate. Once my frigates get back from transporting the survivors back to the homeworld, they will destroy the buoys.

Johan should just come out and admit he wishes to be assfucked by a turk already.

Why those fucking cunts just cant die out

New thread before this one gets deleted please

It must be made when this is one is on the last page which will take half a day if not more. Just fucking write gsg in the catalog, you monkey.
What do you even care?

Some day Johan will be assfucked by them in a MP and the next patch will nerf him to the ground. Like what happened when he got assfucked as Bohemia (I think?)

Meant nerf THEM to the ground

I hope you know this war is fully justified in their favor.

I bet he's the one LARPing as Ottomans, so it'll never happen

Which begs the question: If all balancing is done for MP, why are they clearly buffing one specific nation and thus ruin the balance for everyone who doesn't play that nation?

This is never the problem when Johan is the only one Playing the MP, and playing as them

also don't forget the buff Otto can get if they switch to Coptic or some other OP religion

...

what is this, civilization?

Why the fuck would I ever want to take this decision? For 25 prestige and fucking nothing else? Give me a fucking break, just holding one of those provinces gives free prestige for the rest of the game. If you were to do this you should at least get some long term bonus with other Catholics or the papal state. Instead it's just a dead loss. Not to mention that you had to spend admin points to get the decision in the first place, and now you're throwing them away.

Why the fuck isn't the formation of new Catholic countries in occupied muslim lands tied to the crusade mechanic? Why can't you release novel crusader states in arbitrary locations? What crusader states other than Jerusalem can even be created? If you want to roleplay a crusade then you're stuck releasing preexisting states but they'll be muslim so you have to annex, convert and release (which creates countries which are pissed off at you) and that can only be done in north africa because there's fuck all in Egypt, and you have to do it before the cores expire. And instead of getting any favor for this you'd just be weakening yourself (and the country you created isn't going to crusade the saracens on their own) so why bother? And speaking of the crusade mechanic - why is it so shit? I thought countries went into the crusades together but you only get to invite your allies instead of it working more like a coalition. Why the fuck do you have to border the target instead of being able to crusade as France or England? I guess France and England never went crusading, huh? How many updates and DLCs has this game had now? What the fuck is Paradox doing with their time besides playing multiplayer looking dumb as shit buffs to add to the Ottomans?

I know. I only have myself to blame.

In EU3 it was a alright decision, since you didn't have a vassal limit you could roleplay and keep them on for the game (and since tech cost scaled with # of provinces owned it was debatably beneficial to keep lots of vassals owning the low quality overseas land).

Blame EU4 for being crap. There's a huge number of mechanics/events/decisions that make absolutely no sense since Paradox just copy and pasted in everything from EU3. They even still have decisions and events that can only happen before the start date of EU4 in the game, lagging the game for no reason.

How am I doing as the Zulu? Westernized before China and all of Africa (Save Liberia, of course). Also, the world in this campaign is turning out fucky. I can post map shots if you want.

Pretty good. Just make sure you push out the Anglos before the game ends. And yes post the maps, I love seeing how fucked up the map can get in these games.

That's useless. Get your 4% clergy and 100% admin efficiency. Craftsmen won't even promote until around 40 or 50% literacy IIRC.

kk

It used to be worse, btw. France in the Rhineland, Buenos Ares independent, tiny Egyptian exclave in Syria, etc.

How did CSA win?

The Civil war was actually over the FSA, and the USA became the CSA when it lost.

because the crusades were evil goy

New thread, in which I reveal that I am retarded and can't crosslink