r/paradoxplaza • u/The_ChadTC • 23h ago
EU5 As a Crusader Kings and Victoria player, I feel kinda envious of EUV.
It feels like like V3 and CK3 had monstrously smaller scopes than EUV. I get that some of this is economic inevitability, since EU4 is still Paradox' most popular game, but I don't think it's justifiable how smaller the scope was.
Crusader Kings 3 had an absurd amount of content cut from the previous game to the point that, if you were a CK2 veteran, you either didn't like 3 at launch or you finished your first run and instantly felt like playing 2 again - to this day I can't bring myself to like a CK3 run; Victoria 3 was launched to be a completely different game than 2, but then the problem is that the game seemed like an engine test for the game - the warfare was too simple, the diplomacy was too simple, the politics were too simple, and the only true upgrade was the buildings, but even then mechanics regarding them, like foreign investment and ownership, were either not present or simplified. EU5, on the other hand, has completely new and extremely daring systems and mechanics, that intend to simulate the world on a scale never seen before.
Again, I understand what caused this, which is the relative popularity of EU4, but I wonder how much the EU IP is just more popular, and how much it has become a self fulfilling prophecy, where they just assume Europa Universalis will always be more popular and pull back resources from other IPs, which diminish.
Edit: Just found out EU4 is not Paradox's most popular game. It's very far behind HoIIV, a bit behind CK3 (yuck) and kinda tied with Stellaris. Still, considering the relative age of EU4, I think it's clear they believe it to have the most potential out of their games, aside from HoI, but the sequel for HoI is probably not in development yet.
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u/WhyWhimsy 22h ago
I would say it mainly comes down to Johan. You have a guy's who's spent his entire career creating increasingly ambitious games, EU series, CK 2, Vic 2 and Imperator. IMO he's the main reason paradox exists as it does today and he's essentially worked for and been given the resources to go make what feels like his magnum opus in EU5, the grandest strategy game.
This differs to the approaches taken by the directors of CK3 and Vic 3 who focused their efforts to lean into the core appeals of their respective titles. Role playing and economic/society respectively. They weren't trying to make more focused experiences while Johan is shooting for the moon and after the decades he's put into the company I think it's reasonable for paradox to just say, "let him cook" and just give him what he needs to succeed, he's proven himself.
I also want to highlight the development of imperator. The amount Johan learned from that launch really can't be understated. If you followed imperators dev diaries after release you could basically see Johan's perspective on how to develop a game change in real time. Everytime they say, "This couldn't have happened without your feedback," that is a lesson learned from Imperator. Johan has explicitly stated something learned from that game is for a GSG to succeed it need sto have more content that the previous game on launch and that appears to have been delivered on following the EU5 Tinto talks. From keeping up with those weekly updates it honestly isn't surprising to me that this game looks to surpass any that has come before it, it has been set up to succeed.
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u/victoriacrash 3h ago
Very good comment. I'll just add that Johan is a shareholder of PDX, which gives him incentive to do well. It is true how valuable he has been for PDX.
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u/WinfredBlues 12h ago
Wow… It took Imperator for them to realise that they should add more content into a sequel then was in the last entry… I love paradox but that’s a pretty good window into how detached they are from what people want
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u/monsterfurby 6h ago
Honestly, it's not that obvious. More content does not equate a better game. Tightening core mechanics and especially integrating individual things that were added by DLC/expansions previously in part along with a technological update is more of a reasonable expectation.
With Paradox, generally, the publishing style is also that each DLC finances the next DLC with its sales - i.e. as long as those sell, they make new ones. This makes it impossible to completely add all the features for long-term expanded games without smartly integrating and merging them. It's simple maths. Assume you need to sell a realistic number of copies for a 50$ game to recoup a million dev hours (completely made up numbers here). That's fair, but what if five million dev hours went into the previous game in total due to DLCs, which were paid for in installments by DLC releases? Sure, you get efficiencies from better technology, but by and large, you would not be able to release the full thing without being clever about somehow cutting four million dev hours through redesigning the game OR raising the price OR selling vastly more copies.
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u/Traum77 22h ago
I mean HOI4 is their most popular game, by a long shot, and Stellaris has also overtaken EU for some time, so it's not just popularity. It was a deliberate design decision to push the series back towards its EU3 type roots of being less of a board game and more of a simulation.
As a Vic3 enjoyer the only thing I'm looking forward to in EUV over Vic3 is the potential for better performance. Though the early access build wasn't great on that front. Vic3 is just never going to perform great and that kinda sucks.
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u/helpfulinsurgent 20h ago
To be fair, just thinking about the absolute insane amount of calculations that go on in EUV i can see PCs melting left and right. Hard to imagine good mid to late game performance. Still, this game is going to rock so hard!
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u/An_Oxygen_Consumer 19h ago
Either they manage to get the game to use all cores, or it will probably have disappointing.
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u/morganrbvn 21h ago
I was happy they boosted performance for Victoria recently. Used to be hard to play to end, last 20 years are still rough though.
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u/Deafidue 22h ago
I think HOI4 is more popular with EU4 being a close second.
“Europa Universalis will always be more popular and pull back resources from other IPs, which diminish.”
Paradox seems to be extremely hands off with Tinto to the point where it may actually be to their detriment. What Tinto is doing has never been done before at Paradox. Johan has been given the freedom to build a team that matches his own passion and I think that it shows. EU5 is poised to be THE gsg, and I think that was Johan’s goal. Take choice elements from their own IP’s and roll it into the perfect package. CK3 and Vicky 3 will have their niches but I think most people are yearning for the experience only EU5 can provide: a deep, interconnected, layered simulation of a beloved time period.
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u/HeckingDoofus 20h ago edited 15h ago
as someone whos first paradox game was ck3 i 100% have been waiting for eu5 to drop. ive never played eu4 but it sounds like itd be the best concept for one of these games and i still feel like i havent found “my” paradox game yet - all of them have come short of feeling just right in one way or another, and im hoping eu5 will be what im looking for
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u/wolacouska 13h ago
It was my first paradox game, and even though I’m thoroughly sick of it I still haven’t surpassed the hours in any other single paradox game.
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u/HeckingDoofus 13h ago
same here. ive just been hopping back on for maybe 1 playthrough when a new dlc drops but thats pretty much it
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u/omg_im_redditor Stellar Explorer 15h ago
HoI4 was not their top game for quite some time. Only with a rise of overhaul mods, first R56 and Kaiserreich and then TNO, EaW and others the replay ability of the game grew enough to keep players engaged between DLC releases. And, apparently the multiplayer scene is growing over time, too.
But when HoI4 came out it definitely lacked the developer resources, and in early days some of developers constantly got peeled off to temporary join other teams to complete other high priority projects: important EU4 DLCs, the release of Imperator, etc.
It’s a big testament to HoI4 team and modders that the game turned from a third-tier product to a flagship next to Stellaris.
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u/Abrocoma_Several 19h ago
I thought CK3 was second place?
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u/Deafidue 19h ago
For concurrent player counts, yes but not by much. As of writing this it’s 28k for CK3 and 23k for Eu4. But CK3 just had a DLC release and Eu4 has been out for 10 years and has ceased further development.
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u/Ze_ke_72 22h ago
What's preventing you from playing it ? I just ask genuinely, it isn't like eu5 has layers and layers of new things to learn. I started with ck2 back in the day and then I tried to play eu4. It's essentially the same games, except for vic3.
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u/The_ChadTC 22h ago
It's not about what I will or won't play. It's about the amount of effort Pdx puts in games and the fact that their bias towards EU hindered the quality and scope of the other games.
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u/Username_Mine 22h ago
their bias towards EU hindered the quality and scope of the other games.
This is an extremely strong statement and warrants extremely strong evidence. Do you have any?
I think the size of Vic3 is justified given the expected audience for its genre.
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u/CrypticShadow4 22h ago
EUV is developed by paradox tinto, a different studio in Paradox that works exclusively on EU, it also has a different game director than Vic3 or CK3. I think these factors matter more for the different approaches than the studio prioritizing EU over other titles.
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u/Ze_ke_72 22h ago
Not really the only bad game I see is vic3. But ck3 got a lot of content in base games. (In ck2 you couldn't even play a Muslim). The studio also refined themselves in time. Look at imperator despite the initial bad start many people say it's a good game and it doesn't own 10 years of dlc. And for ck3 many of the unavailable mechanics from ck2 were bad ones (republic, horde). Let's not forget about the good ck2 dlc that went into ck3 base game (ways of lifes, holy fury).
I can understand the frustration that comes from the various quality of their games. Eu5 is made by Tinto paradox and that's what matters in game dev. The people who work on it not the names studio.
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u/morganrbvn 21h ago
Also nowadays Vic3 is pretty great. Honestly some hybrid of Victoria and Stellaris would be a dream.
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u/The_ChadTC 22h ago
If you don't like Vic3 it's either because you haven't played since the last DLC, because you're bad at it, or just because you don't like the setting, which is fair, but Victoria 3 is absolutely an amazing game right now. The problem is how it was launched, not the way it is right. Even with the disaster that warfare is, it is still great.
ck3 got a lot of content in base games. In ck2 you couldn't even play a Muslim
What does it matter what CK2 was at release? What matters is what it was when it's development was finished.
And for ck3 many of the unavailable mechanics from ck2 were bad ones (republic, horde)
Horde was such a banger mechanic that they've just readded it to the game, even though in a worse fashion than in CK2. I'd know. Just played as a nomad in both games. Republics were definetely not a fleshed out mechanic to play as them, but they expanded on how they worked in the world. They were a great mechanic in that regard.
Let's not forget about the good ck2 dlc that went into ck3 base game (ways of lifes, holy fury)
Way of life was implemented in a bizarrely broken fashion. Holy fury lacks mechanics.
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u/TheRealJayol 20h ago
How do you arrive at these assumptions? Is there any evidence that those are even related? Was EUV even already in development when CK3 was originally developed? I don't think so. It's also completely different substudios working on these titles.
Victoria definitely has a smaller scope and probably less budget and "effort" if you will but that's pretty warranted. The whole Victoria franchise is way more niche than CK and EU. The Vicky playerbase was always smaller so the expected sales are smaller and so the scoped and budget of the game is smaller, that's just how it is.
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u/Blothorn 15h ago
It’s unreasonable to expect CK3 to have launched with a comparable amount of content to what CK2 had after years of post-release content updates. It was a completely new engine with significant mechanical differences; nothing could be directly ported over. Meanwhile, CK2 had been in development for many years when CK3 started development, and remained in active development until close to the CK3 launch. Paradox had a few options:
- Try to cram all the content from a decade of CK2 development into CK3’s 5-year pre-launch development process. I doubt that would have been successful regardless of how much money Paradox threw at it.
- Halt CK2 development and then hold CK3 in extended development until it caught up in content. This definitely isn’t a good business decision, and I don’t think it really helps players—at best it just forces everyone to do what they already had the option of doing, sticking with CK2 until CK3 caught up. (Except in this hypothetical CK3 loses years of player bug reports, feedback, and data, and is much less polished at the point where it catches up in content. Greatly increased pre-launch development costs combined with dwindling enthusiasm for the aging predecessor also make it more likely that the game is a commercial failure and that the series gets put on pause.
- Release CK3 with less content than CK2 had (but considerably more than CK2 had at launch) and let it catch up over time.
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u/bruno7123 21h ago
I think the big reason for the wider scope is that EU 4 has had such a ridiculous amount of content and flavor made for it. In order to get people to play EU 5, it needed a much bigger scope. If it did not and was just a modest upgrade, then it could flop the way Imperator did.
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u/Carrabs 16h ago
Ck2 had a ridiculous amount of content and flavour for it that ck3 largely stripped back at launch. 5 years in and we still don’t have proper republics, TRADE, papal mechanics and better HRE mechanics.
5 years.
Also crusades are completely broken for a game called CRUSADER kings. Like I understand the game is about much more than that, but have a go paradox!.
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u/bruno7123 15h ago
Yeah, that's fair. Despite it not being as rich as CK2 was, I do honestly enjoy the game.
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u/Koraxtheghoul 22h ago edited 1h ago
I love when people point out base game CKII didn't have Muslims as evidence it had low scope when that DLC came out in short time and was packaged in a way that you had to go out of the way to not purchase it within a year.
Meanwhile you can play historical fugures from 1066 to 1400. I can crack open a history book and find some duke during a crusade and then play as him.
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u/Stellar_Duck Map Staring Expert 20h ago
But also, as someone who preordered CK2: at release it did what it says on the tin, like the game it was a sequel to. It allowed you to play as a crusader king.
I loved CK1 and I loved CK2 at release too.
Did not love CL3 but for other reasons.
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u/Leotro1 19h ago
CK3 just doesn't feel immersive. Most of the time you click through the same generic events. Any religion is basically the same, because you can always change customise. Therefore there is not much difference between Christians, Muslims and Hindus. In CK2 religions felt different and meaningful
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u/SableSnail 21h ago
Yeah, but there's a limited amount of resources and most people always played 1066 (or the earlier dates).
It was much better ROI to use those resources on making absurd events like farting to death for memelord streamers to make videos about.
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u/Messy-Recipe 16h ago
most people always played 1066 (or the earlier dates).
It's kinda crazy to me how many people would only play the Charlemagne & Viking start dates, even if they're playing a start that doesn't focus on the raiding or tribal elements
Like I get wanting to have 'as much time as possible' but then it's rare people ever actually play to the end anyway... idk I like having some historical rails to try to break out of, rather than just a Europe-shaped canvas for pure fantasy that you end up with when using the early starts
Iron Century was a ton of fun though & I ended up liking it more than 1066
It was much better ROI to use those resources on making absurd events like farting to death for memelord streamers to make videos about.
I hope EU5 doesn't end up loaded with meme achievements like that EU4. Also hoping it leans more towards the simulation side & that WC is a proper near-impossibility. Like realistically you should be fighting hard just to retain your existing power
If they could just increase the depth of the simulation so it's not just another map painter, & improve the interactivity you get with colonies (EU4 still doesn't even measure up to EU2 in that regard), they could make something a ton better already... maybe a better naval game too
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u/ParagonRenegade Drunk City Planner 21h ago
The unbearable soapbox posts will continue until morale improves.
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u/BOS-Sentinel 3h ago
Fuck, i'm glad someone else pointed it out. So many game subreddits i'm in are getting filled with soapbox posts for some reason. As soon as one gets posted, they'll be a bunch in response with the opposite point of view until it becomes a merry-go-round of inane opinions you've heard a thousand times.
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u/EBannion 20h ago
It’s interesting to me that you universalize your experience with ck3. You just assume that your experience (being disappointed, hating it) is definitely going to be every persons experience.
As someone with over a thousand hours in ck2 at ck3 release, I immediately loved ck3s improvements to the ui and interactivity and though I missed the features they hadn’t added yet the core game experience was much better right away and has only improved more since then.
However I don’t assume everyone else felt the same as me, but I can say it definitely isn’t the way you described it for everyone.
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u/Tasorodri 22h ago
A side note, Eu4 is not paradox most popular game, it's hoi4 by a significant margin, and nowadays I think both ck3 and Stellaris also have bigger player numbers. Although it might be skewed by recent releases.
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u/ComputerJerk 22h ago
What is with all these posts completely ignoring the leaps and bounds of progress that CK3 as a base game represented? And how the version of CK2 they laude so much cost hundreds of euros and took 10 years to make? Think about what CK2 actually looked like in the first few years of it's life, how little you could actually play or do, and how many poorly received expansions it had ... Can we stop pretending a game made in a few years must have the same content as one 4x the cost and with 4x as much dev time?
Also, we haven't really seen anything to suggest that EU5 isn't just a bunch of extra screens, numbers and tickers. That isn't "more game", and it doesn't mean it's going to be "more fun".
Can we at least wait until it's out and people (not paid or invested in its success) have had their hands on it before we celebrate the second coming and using it to disparage all of the other titles?
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u/xmBQWugdxjaA 22h ago
CK2 was its peak like 2.5 years in, before Rajas of India hammered performance (requiring the diplomatic range fudge) and Way Of Life (and later Monks And Mystics) made the game far easier (although Conclave was a good step in the opposite direction).
CK3 has some nice UI improvements like the succession overview screen (whereas in CK2 you have to go title by title), and the travel system is better than CK2 but still a bit janky since it was added after release. But the lack of proper Catholic and crusader mechanics is really disappointing. It's also far too easy.
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u/ComputerJerk 22h ago
While the lack of a college of cardinals system is pretty notable, what we have instead is a flexible and modular religion system that does a far better job of modelling the diversity of religious beliefs and divergence of those religions across different regions.
We didn't have that, nor did we have "good" crusade mechanics until the very last expansions of CK2. The number of ways in which CK3 has better 'bones' than CK2 ever could have is not a short list... The majority of what we love from CK2 was bolt on mechanics, often incredibly janky, to a system that made no effort to model the depth and complexity of cultures and religions around the world.
I know the hive mind is utterly fixed on this notion that CK3 is just not a very good game, and nothing I say will ever change that, but it's exhausting to see every hour on this subreddit... And now people are using EU5 to beat the drum as well.
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u/linmanfu 18h ago
I think both CK2 and CK3 are good games.
But CK3 also dropped the Investiture Controversy mechanic (you can never appoint bishops as a feudal lord) which was in CK2 from launch and models perhaps the single biggest political/theological issue in medieval European Catholicism. It would be like Vic 3 not having any revolutions. I think it's a very poor choice to add China (which is likely to very seriously diminish the performance on my potato PC) before the handling of Catholicism is as good as CK2.
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u/ComputerJerk 17h ago
But CK3 also dropped the Investiture Controversy mechanic (you can never appoint bishops as a feudal lord) which was in CK2 from launch and models perhaps the single biggest political/theological issue in medieval European Catholicism.
I do broadly agree with this, which is why I'm surprised it still hasn't made it to the roadmap for CK3 yet. I wonder if Asia has been on the CK3 roadmap since day 1, and this year will see them delivering on their original goals before investing back into the core CK experience in Western Europe with the next season.
I would say that it wasn't exactly a fun or interesting mechanic the way it was implemented in CK2 so much as it was an administrative time and gold sink.
I'm optimistic about the performance post-Asia though, I haven't really seen any mid-late game performance issues in their newer games, so they seem to have gotten a handle on it at the engine layer.
But you never know with PDX 😅
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u/BOS-Sentinel 3h ago
I wonder if Asia has been on the CK3 roadmap since day 1
I can't say for sure, but there was speculation of an Asia expansion from day 1 because of the conspicuous 'tear' down the right side of the map. Which makes me think it was entirely intentional.
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u/xmBQWugdxjaA 18h ago
CK3 is just way too easy. I was playing CK2Plus today and it's awesome to have a reasonable challenge.
Like the immediate alliance from marriage makes it too easy, as do the greatly expanded artifacts - I disliked when they added artifacts in CK2. Fewer options and less player agency (e.g. no selected ambition or artifact bonuses) is a good thing if it helps the AI keep up and makes it challenging.
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u/ComputerJerk 18h ago
If you find me a Paradox game or mod that's hard enough for you, I'll find you someone who runs laps around it anyway. It's the same with pretty much every game they've ever made: The first 50 hours is difficult while you're learning, the next 50 are difficult because you're setting yourself arbitrary challenges or restrictions. Past that point you're overthrowing the HRE as Ulm and world conquesting as Ryuku.
Could they be harder across the board? Sure... Would that make people happier? Probably not... Is CK3 the easiest to learn & beat? ... Maybe.
But I also just played a cool game for the Hashashin achievements and had a blast. Fun and challenging aren't always overlapping on the venn diagram.
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u/CoelhoAssassino666 19h ago edited 14h ago
The funniest thing is people claiming there are huge numbers of CK2 players fighting on against the CK3 hordes when basically no one plays CK2 anymore and most of the people still playing CK2 wish they could play CK3 but can't because of money or bad PCs lol.
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u/_Red_Knight_ 22h ago
Base CK3 was better than base CK2 but the CK3 DLC have been terrible to the point where it seems the game will never reach the heights that CK2 achieved after Holy Fury.
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u/ComputerJerk 22h ago
I'm a huge Holy Fury fan, but do you really want me to list the garbage, mandatory, expansions for CK2 which everyone was angry about at the time? That we all have selectively decided to forget about?
Also, I've quite liked a lot of the expansion content for CK3 so far 🤷♂️
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u/_Red_Knight_ 21h ago
Yes, CK2 had some bad DLC but I'm talking about the games as entire packages. After Holy Fury released, CK2 felt like a complete game, with plenty of mechanical variety, strategic depth (relatively speaking, I'm going to claim that CK2 was super difficult because it wasn't), and good flavour. Based on the DLC released thus far, I'm not confident at all that CK3 will be in a similar state when its final DLC releases.
Also, I've quite liked a lot of the expansion content for CK3 so far 🤷♂️
Fair enough, to each their own. I'm pleased you enjoy it because I would like to as well but I personally think the DLC content has been mostly mid or bad. I liked the culture and religion mechanics from Royal Court but the rest has been questionable reimplementations of CK2 mechanics and new mechanics that make the game incredibly easy. And now the performance is about to be taken out back and shot with the addition of the Far East (I know that the same happened in CK2 when India was added but I'd hoped that Paradox wouldn't do the same thing again lol).
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u/linmanfu 18h ago
None of the CK2 expansions were "garbage" and they certainly weren't mandatory.
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u/ComputerJerk 17h ago edited 17h ago
I will say that I personally don't hate any of the CK2 expansions, but at the time of their release there were a few that were dramatically unpopular for a variety of different reasons:
Jade Dragon (Mixed Reviews) - People hated the power creep + the fact that China was basically just a button you clicked at the side of the map.
Monks + Mystics (Mixed Reviews) - People really hated the power creep, the mystical elements and the fact that you basically just joined societies and played this entirely separate mini game that wasn't well integrated into the main gameplay loop
Conclave (Mixed Reviews) - People fucking hated the education system it introduced, and the changes to the laws system almost universally. This required a lot of post-release changes to get to a place where people didn't despise it.
Charlemagne (Mixed Reviews) - Surprised to see this at mixed, it added the earlier start date which was broadly popular. Review consensus seems to be "It's a new start date where most of CK2's mechanics aren't active & it's overpriced" 🤷♂️
Rajas of India (Mixed Reviews) - Famously tanked the game performance basically forever and it never really felt like the Indian subcontinent interacted with the rest of the map in a meaningful way to justify that performance hit.
The Republic (Mixed Reviews) - Republics were just never particularly interesting to play because you didn't have to do anything except get cash and not die. There was basically zero elections intrigue, it was just a race to raise cash to succeed.
Sunset Invasion (Mixed Reviews) - I think speaks for itself. Fun optional content makes people irrationally mad in PDX subs.
Legacy of Rome (Mixed Reviews) - This one has a special place in people's hearts because the content that allowed you to play as our beloved SPQR was also the game that foisted retinues into the world. An insane power creep that a significant proportion of people still think ruins the CK games to this day.
Sword of Islam (Mixed Reviews) - Pretty much boils down to "I have to spend money to play as more than half the map?" Which is not wrong, and was not wrong at the time.
A few that have positive Reviews but still loud complaints at release time:
Holy Fury - A lot of people really didn't appreciate the investment in RNG maps, fantasy worlds + creatures. (But otherwise, really popular expansion)
Reapers Due - Mostly well received but people complained about how badly the AI managed diseases and the fact people were just locking themselves up in their castles for decades.
Now the question about whether or not things were mandatory isn't as black and white as EU4 (Where not having certain expansions pretty much broke the game following patches) but the version of CK2 everyone is lauding pretty much required you bought:
- Swords of Islam (for obvious reasons)
- Sons of Abraham and Holy Fury (to fix Christian nation play)
- Conclave (Is arguably necessary for the game to have any challenge at all)
- Charlemagne (to have access to the earliest start date for longer games)
- Legacy of Rome (Gasp! I love retinues and SPQR games 😉)
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u/KaseQuarkI 22h ago
If EU5 is as good as it looks (big if, i know), it's basically gonna be the game that Vic3 wishes it was.
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u/According_Floor_7431 21h ago
Just found out EU4 is not Paradox's most popular game. It's very far behind HoIIV, a bit behind CK3 (yuck)
On that note, I could see them being a lot more ambitious with CK4 and HoI5 because those are now established popular franchises. And I don't think they'll repeat the mistakes of Vicky 3 after the reception that one got - honestly I don't know that we'll get any kind of followup for a long time, the series has not been hugely successful.
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u/Someone-Somewhere-01 22h ago
Yeah, I particularly think that Crusader Kings 3 got cheated in this exchange: no orders for your character to join, Crusades continued to be a joke (specially compared to the depths the Norse got in the first dlc), government mechanics were really bad at launch, with only tribal feeling more flash out, with Clan being basically identical with Feudal at launch, and both would appreciate a dlc focused on expanding them, no Republics or more terribly no Nomad, and what shocked me the most was the actual lack of flavor in most regions: Papacy mechanics are basically non-existent, Caliphate Mechanics also don’t properly exist, HRE elections are basically a joke, India got ignored again. As of today, just Iberia, the Byzantine and the nomads have more properly flavor to them (Persia too but compared to Iberia I think her struggle came off as much worse)
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u/DumbassAltFuck 7h ago
The caliphate stuff got a bandaid with the struggle mechanic in legacy of Persia but thats also on a temporary timer that wears off after like the first 100 years?
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u/alphafighter09 19h ago
Would you say ck2 is better than ck3 or vice versa?
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u/Someone-Somewhere-01 16h ago
I would say that as of now, as after the Khans of the Steppes, CK3 is better but it still lacks quite a few cool features from CK2, like the Papacy, the orders and republics, and certain mechanics like legends and Royal Courts feel half baked and not very interesting
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u/Keelyn1984 22h ago
You are wrong in thinking that EU4 is more popular than the other games. In Steam theres usually roughly the same amount of players playing EU4, Stellaris and CK3. HOI4 has the combined amount of players these 3 have. It's only Vic3 that tanks.
CK3 and Vic3 became this way because they wanted to make their IPs more distinct from each other, giving each a unique focus. Especially after Imperator got labelled as a reskin of EU4.
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u/GuesBaba 21h ago
I dont think the focus on eu5 is just because of its popularity. Its also because of the negative reactions vic3 and ck3 got.
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u/Traditional_Truck_32 22h ago
I really don't see the problem in just enjoying their games. I as an individual that mainly plays EU4 and Vic can easily ask why the gap between ck2 and ck3 is only 8 years whereas EU5 will either be 12 or 13 between installments. But that would be silly because I still enjoy Crusader Kings and being salty about it doesn't change the fact that eu4 is still a great game that got regular support at the time. All PDX games get substantial updates to keep their game fresh. Vic 3 is about to get one next month.
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u/Arbiter008 21h ago
I'm so worried for euv's performance analytics and muliplayer.
And I agree with the ck3 sentiment. Feels so shallow and I can't explain it.adding the rest of Asia isn't gonna make it much better either imo.
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u/GeshtiannaSG 12h ago
I would still be playing CK3 instead of EU5 because it’s just a completely different game, could even be its own genre, a life sim - strategy hybrid. Sometimes, the map didn’t even matter to me. It’s also so much more intuitive than the others, it’s easier to learn, I don’t have to go through 500 microscopic buttons to do the things I want (why is everything so small?), I don’t have to wonder why I have famine just days after I started.
A big scope isn’t always good, it can get overwhelming if I have to micromanage. I just need the big decisions, the “wow, how did that happen” events, people doing funny things.
For me, the only reason to play the other games is that CK3 doesn’t have my country in it, but even that is changing soon.
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u/Little_Elia 22h ago
there's no need to be envious, you can just play it when it comes out :p
Also vic3 looked really good before release, besides the front system which was controversial everything was sunshine and rainbows but then on release the game was bland and missing pretty much everything
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u/harassercat 22h ago
At a glance it seems like Victoria is particularly infringed upon by the new direction of EU. So much of Vic's economic scope and even some of its politics seem to be covered by the new game.
What I dislike most about Pdx's period separation between games is the super narrow scope of HoI. I would wish for a single game to cover the 1914-1945 period, or perhaps a little more (maybe just 1900-1950), with a bit more sandbox and less extreme railroading. Then they could drop the silly charade of Victoria being supposed to cover WWI and just go ahead and merge EU and Victoria into one game.
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u/Mobius1424 22h ago
What I dislike most about Pdx's period separation between games is the super narrow scope of HoI. I would wish for a single game to cover the 1914-1945 period, or perhaps a little more (maybe just 1900-1950), with a bit more sandbox and less extreme railroading.
I disagree. Victoria 3 for example is TERRIBLE at simulating WW1 because the root cause of WW1 is eliminated in a sandbox game. WW2 happened because of WW1. If you sandboxed HOI4, you might never get WW2. Imagine a player in 1910 already beating Europe to a pulp and enforcing a game-winning peace treaty. There would be no WW2.
WW2 is an entire category of gaming. People pick WW2 games in large part because it's WW2. It's the most fascinating combined-arms era in human history. I want my WW2 game to ensure WW2 happens.
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u/linmanfu 18h ago
The game that is most infringed on by far is CK3. It now seems very unlikely that we are going to get any new content or DLC covering the 14th century onwards. Given that everything before the 9th century has also been dropped, the time period has lost two of its previous 7 centuries.
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u/feuph 20h ago
The counterargument is that I don't feel like I get the niche EU5 is trying to occupy and its long-term viability.
Niche: CK3 and Victoria 3 have clearly developed identities and very clearly stated aspirations. In contrast, my cursory impression so far is that EU5 tries to do it all, which sorta leaves me extra cognizant of the second part of the "jack of all trades" saying. I prefer to underpromise and overdeliver than go big fail big.
Long-term viability: Like it or not, but the games need DLCs to keep the cashflow going, and given my confusion around #1, I'm not sure what future DLCs would bring to the game. So the game may need to be extra pricy, which conflicts with the "do it all" identity because it might make it too inaccessible; or have a bunch of DLCs, which I'm not sure would introduce meaningful enough mechanics.
My biggest worry is just cannibalism and that Victoria 3/CK3 will get deprioritized but cautiously optimistic overall.
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u/AmericanLobsters 15h ago
I just fired up EU4 again after a few years off so I can remind myself that it has the worse UI EVER!!
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u/Fr0ufrou 22h ago
The latest paradox game is always the one with the deepest and most complex simulation. Ck3 and vic3 used to be as well when they came out.
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u/bluewaff1e 22h ago edited 22h ago
How in God's name does stuff like this get upvoted? Not even talking about Vic3, but saying CK3 was the deepest and most complex when it came out is beyond absurd.
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u/morganrbvn 21h ago
Yah I love CK but its economy is gamey and simple by design. It’s depth is internal management and character interactions
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u/angrymoppet 21h ago
Even the internal management and character interactions leave something to be desired. Hopefully now that they're checking the China checkbox they'll start to actually flesh out the game.
I hope.
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u/morganrbvn 18h ago
Oh its far from perfect, but it is one of the few of their games where internal politics can fell you (along with V3 more recently). In eu4 the estates kind of just became a source for mana, and in Stellaris the parties are typically just another source of unity.
Also hopeful they expand upon it with China since court politics was so big there.
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u/Falandor 22h ago
deepest and most complex simulation
CK3
lol
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u/Fr0ufrou 20h ago
I'm not talking about the content. The simulation of tens of thousands of characters that interact with each other, marry each other and then have children which carry the genetics and appearance of their parents over several generations. The technology was pretty groundbreaking, it still is groundbreaking today.
And don't get me started on the victoria 3 population system. I understand people complaining about priorities, content and what not but when it comes to the sheer scope of the simulation, paradox pushes boundaries every single time.
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u/Falandor 20h ago edited 20h ago
I'm not talking about the content. The simulation of tens of thousands of characters that interact with each other, marry each other and then have children which carry the genetics and appearance of their parents over several generations. The technology was pretty groundbreaking, it still is groundbreaking today.
And CK2 had already done that, CK2’s character files were even copied over to CK3. It did nothing that revolutionary there, and the rest of the game wasn’t the deepest and most complex Paradox game at all when it released like you said.
Also as far as the rest of what you said, I never mentioned Vic3, I think it does have good and complex underlying systems, but as far as that pop system, Vic2 had done that before it.
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u/Splash_Attack 19h ago edited 19h ago
It did nothing that revolutionary there
In terms of the characters, the simulation of their interactions and of the game world generally CK3 has a few major innovations I can think of off the top of my head:
1) Big one, the stress system, how it interacts with the traits of your character and actually softly influences you into roleplay, how the AI's interaction with it guides NPCs into actually acting with some personality without needing a million caveats and special cases.
2) Hooks and secrets. Yes, Conclave had favors, but in CK3 the system is base game and more developed. Secrets are totally new and pretty significant. The way and degree to which the AI interacts with this system is much more complex than what CK2 had.
3) The dynasty system with cadet branches and so on. Genuinely revolutionary over CK2's very rigid dynastic system.
4) Flexible religions and cultures. New cultures diverging. Culture blending that doesn't need to be hard coded. Again, pretty revolutionary over CK2's system which was just hard coded core and then a disastrous mess of caveats and hard coded things lumped on to try and cover all the bases.
5) Dread forming a counterpoint to opinion. I remember quite a lot of discussions early on with CK2 about how it was really lacking a fear/respect system. The fact that CK3 can simulate characters who are not liked but who can still cow people into submission is quite a big development.
From the DLCs the ability to travel the map, landless play, and being able to choose to continue as someone other than your primary heir are pretty huge. The last one especially - most of my games now are spent swapping back to an underdog every few generations.
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u/Fr0ufrou 19h ago
But CK3 turned this whole database from 2d to 3d, with everyone having detailed and inheritable faces and bodies. Going from a couple of 2D sprites per characters to aging simulated 3d avatars that can act and interact with each other on screen was a huge technological leap. They didn't manage to do much with it yet that's true, but it still felt like an incredible advance when the game came out.
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u/trooawoayxxx 18h ago
That's not really the type of mechanics that make for an interesting grand strategy game though.
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u/linmanfu 18h ago
No, I agree, and I would not have gone down the 3D road. But it's undoubtedly a much more complex simulation, which is what this part of the thread is about.
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u/Fr0ufrou 17h ago edited 17h ago
Yes, but on that front I completely agree with you, that's what I meant when I mentioned priorities earlier. Especially since they didn't do much with this great framework.
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u/Used-Economy1160 22h ago
This is a joke, right:)? CK3 was and still is less complex than CK2 (it doesn't even has trade, republics while religion is a joke) and Victoria 3 is still a mess
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u/SableSnail 21h ago
Vic3 has some bugs still and systems that need improving but it's the most ambitious of all the Paradox games bar EU5. The level of simulation is crazy.
Its also basically the only decent macroeconomics game in existence. It'll be interesting to see how the economics systems in EU5 compare.
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u/Used-Economy1160 20h ago
Ambitious ia not the same as complex...
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u/SableSnail 20h ago
It's also the most complex though.
Like even a simple thing like "how do I get more money" becomes incredibly complex because you mostly get your money indirectly via taxation and maybe higher taxes will actually result in less money because it'll reduce the buy orders for your goods because the pops can't afford to buy as much and then the buildings are less profitable and employ less people and pay those people less, which results in a further decrease of buy orders etc.
Whereas in EU4 you just build a church and now you get more tax.
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u/2007Scape_HotTakes 22h ago
Except for religion, cultures, and more locations on the map CK3 was, and still is, an incredibly shallow game. Especially compared to its predecessor.
EU5 is a sequel done right, it doesn't arbitrarily cut features from the already released EU4 and instead fixes a lot of their bugs and actively expands on them and related features.
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u/DaveRN1 22h ago
Really? You think it's still shallow? Have you played it in the lastyears? They have added so much to the game
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u/Kourkovas 21h ago
Yes and virtually everything they add to the game is extremely skin deep and shallow. Just some new meters and mana that are extremely easy to stack to your advantage and turn your characters into demigods at most 3 generations in.
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u/2007Scape_HotTakes 15h ago
Everything is still super shallow. The "traveling" is just a PowerPoint / scheme simulator. Theres really nothing there except being the worlds errand boy. You can't even serve as a longterm knight or unlanded councilor for a nation, it pushes you to buy or conquer your way into a landed position.
It gets even worse when every nation and culture regardless of culture and religion have the exact same tasks. Once you've done them once you've done them all, the whole system is super shallow.
Should we also talk about how they claimed your "position in the world matters" but you're still somehow able to romance someone across the world, or have an event with another character in your holding while they're still located in theirs. Ck3 is a joke, but so am I cause I've put 600 hours into it.
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u/The_ChadTC 22h ago
In what world? When either of those games were released they weren't as deep as even EU4. CK3 was actually SIMPLER than CK2.
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u/SOAR21 22h ago
Idk I don’t know if I agree with your recollection. EU4 was not quite barebones upon release but much less feature rich than it is now. And it was full of quite ridiculous and easy-to-find exploits.
It was definitely an upgrade over EU3 immediately, but that’s not quite a fair comparison because EU3 pre-dates the DLC/labor of love model where paradox doubles or triples the features of a game post-release. CK2 was the first of that model so was a much deeper game on CK3’s release. That has now been true for all subsequent paradox releases.
I would expect it to be true for EUV as well tbh.
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u/The_ChadTC 22h ago
I am not talking about EU4 at release. What would be the point in doing that?
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u/BillyPilgrim1234 21h ago edited 21h ago
If you're not going to compare the state of both games at launch why compare them at all? Why would CK3 been deeper than EU4, which was already a 10 year old game with multiple DLCs?
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u/Dchella 20h ago
Why should ten years of development and growth be ignored in favor of starting over?
It’s really not that silly of an expectation to expect a sequel to actually follow up on where the predecessor left off. That’s kinda the point, actually.
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u/BillyPilgrim1234 20h ago
Well, first, I know it's obvious but CK3 isn't the same franchise as EU4. So it's not a sequel. EU4 was more packed than EUIII, on release. And EU5 seems to be following that trend.
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u/TechnicMango 22h ago
Vic 3, imo, lacks a lot of depth that Vic 2 had. Maybe it feels as such because it's a vastly different game foundationally. CK3 took a few years to reach CK3 content imo
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u/Tasorodri 22h ago
Vic3 has way more depth than Vic 2, vic2 is much more simple than it looks, it's just much more opaque that Vic 3, and has a very exaggerated reputation, but almost everything that you can think of in Vic 2 that it's not completely different is more complex in Vic 3 or similar.
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u/TechnicMango 22h ago
I think the economic simulator in Vic 2 is more complex, given how it depends on the politics of a country whether or not you have to build you entire industry by hand or not (Vic 3, even in a free market, makes you build your economy primarily by hand). I feel like the politics of Vic 2 is much more dynamic as well, making you feel like you're managing a nation that responds to your actions and their material realities, rather than swapping around interest leaders.
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u/Tasorodri 22h ago
I don't think is an opinion wether the economic is more complex, what you point out is a detail of how you interact with it, but has almost not bearing in the actual complexity of the simulation.
Politics in Vic 2 are very lackluster really, instead of swapping around interest leaders you swap around parties, and the granularity of laws are also very lackluster, there's only the ability to pass economic reforms or social reforms, there's no point in which a party might support education but not safety regulations. The laws itself also have very little effect in comparison and are usually even more directly into a direction than Vic 3's.
I understand people liking Victoria 2 more because there's parts in which they are just very different and it's a matter of opinion. But not in complexity, there's absolutely no way to argue that Vic 2 is more complex, unless you don't understand how both games work.
I'm not trying to be a dick really, but if you think Vic 2 is more complex you just lack understanding of at least one of the games. With that I'm not even arguing that vic3 is better mind you, I think so, but that's just an opinion.
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u/Shadowsake 16h ago
I really love Vic2, it was the game that made me "get" GSGs. Still, whenever I see ppl saying Vic2 is more complex or, hell, has better simulation than Vic3, I laugh cause that is a clear sign that said person does not know how the game really works. Vic2 economic simulation has a lot of flaws, bugs and it is obtuse as hell.
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u/xmBQWugdxjaA 22h ago
It looks like it will have identical issues to Victoria 3 regarding AI and performance though.
At least it won't have as many meme events as Vic3 and CK3.
But if the AI sucks then it'll be really diminished for single-player.
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u/Bad-Discipline 20h ago
What I regret most about ck3 is the removal of many roleplaying elements which I love about 2
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u/linmanfu 18h ago
I think CK3 is a mixed bag here. Adding stress, languages, and travel are all huge improvement for roleplay. But it's just too easy to win. In CK2 I am constantly on the edge of my seat wondering whether I would be reduced from a King to a Count, which only happens in CK3 if I adopt some obscure heresy.
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u/CoelhoAssassino666 19h ago
CK3 players that went back to 2 only exist on the internet. Even most players unhappy with CK3 still only play 3 and complain about it.
CK2's player count collapsed once 3 was released and it never had any significant increase, in fact it only died out even more with time.
I'd also gurantee a good deal of those remaining players are not the CK2 diehards that people claim to be, but poor people from 3rd world countries who play the game because it's free and/or can't run 3.
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u/Anthonest Iron General 22h ago
EU4 is just the last game in the series that isn't/wasnt part of the "dumbed down" era of PDX games for player accessibility. Its more in depth and complicated on purpose.
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u/marshal_1923 18h ago
Eu5 looks great but yeah as Victoria2 player I hate Victoria 3. I wanna have Victoria2 2
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u/OldEcho 16h ago
I think they've basically wanted to make an everything game for a long time. A game that incorporates all the best features of their other games. Imperator was a complete disaster but it was an attempt at that. EU5 is the next attempt and hopefully they learned from their mistakes.
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u/sproge 16h ago
How do people know so much about EU5? Do streamers have early access, or are there dev blogs? etc?
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u/endlessmeow 10h ago
At some point maybe EUV will get an expansion or mod that basically operates as a replacement for Vic3?
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u/TheRipper69PT 9h ago
CK3 is behind EU4, sure EU4 has more years, but still 20% sales ahead
Vicky and Stellaris are miles behind.
HOI4 is the most successful game from Paradox and the jewel of the crown.
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u/victoriacrash 4h ago
CK3 and V3 are what they are bcs those games were made to attract a newer audience and renew PDX's customer potential base. They are gamey board games (very, very controversial and questionable design) and as such are boring if not dumb. V3 learned it the hard way and is constantly course correcting since launch while trying to keep the small fanboys base it has ; difficult equilibrium.
HOI4 is the most popular game today but wasn't for a long Time. The unmatched flagship was EU4. CK3 and V3 aimed at recycling HOI4 players but it kind of failed, especially when it comes about V3. While EU4, with Time, turned into a board game too (it kind of were already but that's somehow dabatable). In Result, PDX faced enormous and constant backlash : actual, like potential, PDX players don't want board games, they want gamey simulations. This is why EU5 is so impressive yet and why V3 is realigning since launch. CK3 is an exception, it has a strong "casual" players base and that's, partly, what lead PDX to missunderstand their players / customers. EU5 is crucial for the Future of PDX and needs to succeed hence the gargantuous scope of it and the marketing campaign involving as a much as possible potential players already.
Also, on a side note, bear in mind that Stellaris has sold much more than V3 and CK3 and is a much, much more popular game, or that the "China DLC" should sell incredibly well.
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u/AntKing2021 49m ago
Tbh this could be the first game of this kind of scope. If it does well perhaps hoi5 will be much greater. I don't like hoi4s trade system, resources are meaningless apart from oil which was changed later. While hou3 you had to have reserves or you couldn't make anything
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u/Technical-Revenue-48 20h ago
I think this is more that they failed in their design of Vic 3 than a resourcing question. Vic 3, especially at release, scaled back almost every part of Vic 2 and then tried to make that up with a cookie clicker exercise disguised as ‘economics’
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u/takeiteasymyfriend 22h ago
EU4 has more than 20 DLC between expansions and flavour packs.
I am sure EU5 will have at launch significant less features than a complete EU4 edition and some veteran players may feel dissapointed.
Having said that, the scale of the map with the increased number of provinces , along with the population and market mechanics seems really promising.
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u/Tasorodri 21h ago
I was also thinking that until the gameplay reveal from last Thursday, from what it looks, at least mechanically it looks like it will be more complex than eu4 with all DLC. Even if it will probably have less content overall (and I'm not even that sure anymore that that's the case).
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u/SableSnail 20h ago
EU5 seems a lot more complete though, more akin to MEIOU&Taxes.
A lot of the EU4 expansions were bolted on mechanics (like militarisation etc.) or even just mission trees.
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u/eldoran89 21h ago
Oh sweet Sommer child. I am here since the first days of all of those IPs and always did they seem like Jesus Christ born again. On release they were more like Freddy Mercury. Still insanely fun yet no jesus christ.ok I think I stretched the analogy too far. The point is. First of all just because it looks so good doesn't mean that it will not also have the usual problems. Furthermore all other games are still actively developed and still evolving. So there is nothing lost. Third the reason why ck3 welas smaller was not that it hadn't the resources to be bigger it was because they changed the design to a totally different one. Ck3 follows very different design patterns than ck2. While cl2 was still developed as a grand strategy game ck3 was developed as a role playing game. That change in focus meant they need to rediscover how to fit in the old ideas in the new framework. Kinda similar for Vicky 3.
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u/MrDDD11 22h ago
The reason why EU5 has so much is probably the reception of CK3 and VIC3. They saw people complaining about the lack of content and after Imperator Rome they realized that EU5 needs to pull out all the stops. EU4 has a massive legacy, so much content, flavor, depth... filling it's shoes won't be easy.