5 reasons why Grand Strategy games are taking over

[@AHappyCub]

The masculine urge to stare at a map for 8 hours

[@DotRD12]

For some people, the feminine urge as well

[@avrowolf]

Just 8 hours?

[@Elenrai]

@@avrowolf the holidays demanded sacrifices from us all 😔

[@AHappyCub]

@@avrowolf I have a job man, no bully 😢

[@Smougda]

8 hours of map staring, 8 hours of sleeping, 8 hours of work. Or 19 hours of map staring, 5 hours of sleeping for those unbalanced out there.

[@cmdrgarbage1895]

"You can't program a functioning Holy Roman Empire" my brother, was the actual one even functioning?

[@therealferaljak]

Better than the French Republic

[@luckisluck]

@@therealferaljak Hard disagree at least with the republic came the napoleonic rule. You cant say the same for the HRE

[@SuperSmith]

@@luckisluckthe HRE existed for 1000 years. How long did the French Republic last?

[@therealferaljak]

@@luckisluck >The french republic was replaced by the french empire therefore the french republic was successful May as well say the HRE was successful because it was replaced by the german empire

[@luckisluck]

@@SuperSmith Long enough to pave the way for french domination of europe, something HRE never could manage or could do.

[@phtg8327]

There's something that always turned me off about not playing in a real world map. If I'm playing as the Byzantines, for example, I want Constantinople to have the IRL advantages of that city and not simply be a base that spawns in a random location in a randomly generatred map. Back in the Civ 5 days I always used to play with a mod that had real world geography with everyone in their right place. When I discovered Paradox games I never went back.

[@volbound1700]

Agree. I play a lot of Civ 2 and Civ 4 because of all the historical mods/scenarios that came with the game or you could grab. I rarely played regular game mode. I also loved how you could make your own mods/scenarios as well as download other creations. I also preferred Civ4 combat although I think combat in Civilization games could be improved overall. I want to see something like Total War light where you can customize armies and use formations when you engage each other.

[@TurkishZombie]

My exact thoughts

[@GarkKahn]

Also played real world maps when aoe2 was new

[@suedeciviii7142]

World maps have been massively popular since the days of Civ 1/Civ 2 and the fact that many titles in the series don't play particularly well on them is a bad look for Civ. Either the maps are comically small to the point of erasing all detail, or they're massive and the empty tracks of land + uneven distances between spawn points cause issues.

[@maccabiish]

So true

[@respomanify]

Excel spreadsheets masked as games. :D I love them.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Kind of like the opposite of this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6iqdIWLa9Shjsk

[@yllbardh]

A very good description of Paradox Games, event though I've played many of them. The newer version of franchise more and more spreadsheets you get, with some pixels going back and forth.

[@julius43461]

I was always obsessed with maps and GS games. Eventually I started working in Excel and loved it. Once I read somewhere "these games are glorified spreadsheets", love it!

[@EB-bl6cc]

I'm the opposite, even if it's a "spreadsheet game" at its core, I need the game to mask that for me, basically trick me, to get me to like it. I need "mah immersion" if you will, I can't play games that are obviously spreadsheets and don't try to hide it, like the paradox games. Too dry. But to each their own.

[@theunc07234]

Meiou and taxes might be the perfect spreadsheet game modification for you

[@rnghwdbcs]

About the 5th point - there is an exploration in Stellaris, and I'd risk saying that many people are playing this game because of it in the first place.

[@suedeciviii7142]

This might be a flaming hot take, but I loved Spore's space exploration phase. I haven't played Stellaris, but if it's anything like that I'd be over the moon.

[@someclarinetplayer1815]

@@suedeciviii7142 yeah its about the grand strategy equivalent of that, though I havent played much Spore

[@jodinha4225]

@@someclarinetplayer1815 Stellaris kind of straddles the line between Grand Strat and 4x. It feels more 4x to me.

[@einruberhardt5497]

true stellaris and civ6 have actually pretty great exploration phases.

[@anelstarcevic696]

@@suedeciviii7142 Stellaris is what if Spore's space stage was the best stage of the game.

[@Augustus_Imperator]

For me personally it's all about scale and scope, the more in depth a game goes the deeper the player can penetrate into the world shaping it to its liking

[@smirkyshadow4152]

It's you again, and I completely agree It's why I like play more paradox games, and less civ now I also just like being immersed in the world of the game I'm playing, slowly taking back more and more territory as the Byzantines is way more immersive than just constantinople in the middle of nowhere on a randomly generated map

[@ЙцукенПетрович]

@@Augustus_Imperator Paradox games have no depth compared to Civ.

[@jmgonzales7701]

I want to like this genre of game, but i just cant. Its too boring for me, barely any action u cant really participate in a battle or something. I wish they made a game that combined these but with banner lord combat or something like that.

[@ЙцукенПетрович]

@@jmgonzales7701 Are you aware of the Total War series?

[@oldisgoldmentality4667]

@@smirkyshadow4152 yes exactly ,the details making it more kinda personal. like total war , you can lead an empire and in the same time looking at every individual soldier struggling in battle .just awesome

[@Cyril86]

The freedom of modding definitely helps the newer Paradox games. Anbennar mod for EU4 got me to dump another couple hundred hours into that game, when I thought I was done with it forever. While CK2, CK3, and Stellaris all have alot of big mods, including total conversions.

[@perturabo7825]

Anbennar Chads represent

[@Jackspladt]

Exactly. Even small things like for example a mod that adds maybe 1 more mechanic or some new music tracks to the game has gotten me to dump a couple more hours into games like hoi4. Nearly anything I want to add can be added quickly and makes me want to play more

[@RandomInternetGuy1011]

@@Jackspladtif modding didn’t exist in hoi4 I would have deleted the game by now, but my God modding combined with HOI4 is the perfect combination of one of my favorite gaming experiences ever.

[@Latinkon]

And after all this time, Civ 6's DLL hasn't even been released yet. What a way to impede the modding community, Firaxis.

[@vadaa4]

Half of my hoi4 playtime is dedicated to kaiserreich/redux and some more on other mods, strategy game with best modding ever

[@PortaTerzo]

6:45 "You can plot to kill your mom", true but at the same time you are blocked from murdering your sons, because "muh balance", which I think highlights bigger issues about balancing and simulation. Like in CK3, you can only conquer one kingdom per lifetime, so you can't imitate various historical conquerors.

[@lovis1188]

Not true, there is a tradition that lets you do an unlimited amount of kingdom level wars.

[@GodwynDi]

Newest DLC for CK3 has changed this drastically.

[@carl48899]

There are plenty of ways to get overpowered CBs in CK3, but a lot of them are pretty well hidden unless someone were to scour the wiki.

[@Exocrotic-yn2ck]

Türkmen culture makes you conquer kingdoms endlessely

[@MalekitGJ]

In CK2 you can with a DLC that let's you do post partum abortions & makes you regrowth your benis as a side benefit

[@LemonCake101]

To me for sure Civilization sits in its own domain compared to 'grand strategy' in fairness, if there is one thing they did well its carve out their own 'identity'

[@OneRealSilverRaven]

Sounds like a great video idea, comparing Civilization VII, the new and fancy Civ game, to Paradox and explaining the unique nature of it's existence compared to market trends

[@alex2005z]

Civ 6 is very different from the rest. The historical part is essentially neglected. It focuses more on the strategy part

[@Keygentlemen]

@alex2005z The reason why I could never move beyond V

[@FINSuojeluskunta]

Yeah Civ is not an RTS really. Coh, AOE, Wargame, TW, Starcraft, etc. are RTS games that have often gotten worse as they've focused on higher level stuff. Civilization has constantly struggled with failing to be a good RTS game or a good strategy game, it's always been mediocre at both even if many people have enjoyed them.

[@alex2005z]

@FINSuojeluskunta civ was made to be a singleplayer game, and it really worked at that. Altough it did find some sucess as an RTS game with turn timers, but the lack of support by Firaxis kills any chance of it going larger

[@hyreonk]

0:46 Historical Depth + Accuracy 2:50 Removing Tactics, Focusing on Bigger Strategy 4:22 Playing Small Factions 5:36 Elements of Life Sim Games 6:59 Removing Exploration

[@suedeciviii7142]

Thanks!

[@julianfull280]

@@suedeciviii7142 I agree on mostly everything, except I really miss battles. I'm a military commander type, and love charging, flanking and troops positioning. If there was a mod that used CK3 map and roleplaying plot mechanics, with optional Medieval 2 or 3 real time battle command, it would be perfect. But it seems military commanders and generals are an species on it's way to extinction.

[@florivlad2975]

@@julianfull280 bannerlord is disagreeing with you

[@Elementisphere]

@@julianfull280HOI4 is the more battle focused game out of Paradox

[@julianfull280]

@@florivlad2975 yeah I was precisely refering to the bannerlord battles mod. Along with the rts camera mod it's brutally execllent.... but I just want total war battles with 8000 men and the biggest walls that were present in medieval 2

[@flo-theo]

It's also that losing is fun in Grand Strategy, at least to me. LARPing that I, as Ayuthaya, got my shit kicked in by Ming and am now again a tributary is an excellent opportunity to just LARP hard as fuck.

[@Pangora2]

Once I tried a game where I tried to restore Byzantium (before they made it easy) in EU IV. I had parts of Europe back, and a healthy chunk of Anatolia - then some super-charged Mamluks exhausted everything resource I have (they somehow took most of the middle east!) After eventually losing and giving away most of everything I had in Asia, surrounded by big hostile powers with no allies and no resources left, it was a rare feeling. Instead of caring about playing 'well' I recklessly raised more armies and lashed out at any neighbor, regardless of treaties, gaining enough land so I stood a chance when the Mamluks came knocking again. It would be another war or two against them before I could expand into Anatolia again.

[@suedeciviii7142]

There is absolutely nothing more miserable than losing in a 4X game, you just get slowly grinded into the dirt. I think the sandbox nature of Grand Strategy makes losing more fun. You're free to set your own goals and those goals can be very, very modest. Plus there's more punishment for having big empires, so if an enemy annexes half your territory and faces a bunch of uprisings, sometimes you feel like you got off ok

[@coygus]

I play Stellaris quite a bit and losing can be fun, in my third ever run I got subjugated for around 60 years where I played the good little vassle, but as soon as my overlord tripped up I stabbed them in the back and flipped the power dynamic, it makes a great story and definitely is one of the reason why I continue to play.

[@Jackspladt]

I completely agree. It’s always fun to feel like you clawed your way back from defeat and that conflict is what makes the strategizing fun. If I play as Poland in hoi4 and get pushed back to Warsaw, only to turn it around with a well planned push and encirclement of Germans forces, that feels GOOD. even if I’m still losing, I feel like I’m really interacting with the game and struggling rather than mundane turn taking and conquering

[@somerandomperson1221]

Its not larp its just rp

[@rickg9401]

I love Grand Stradegy games, but I'm also quite a big fan of actually having the option of enjoying the actual battle. If they ever made a total war game with the depth of a paradox grand campaign, that would probably be my favorite game of all time.

[@Pangora2]

It works in theory, but anyone good at TW games can wipe the AI with no survivors once they get their ideal army comp going. Meaning shortly into the game, no matter the size of the country, a player can be vastly outnumbered and still cleanly take over a larger country simply by winning each tactical battle. This could only work if the TW-style battles are not handled by the people currently making them. So it'd have to be a Paradox game and I don't think many people have faith in them either. Ultimate General: American Revolution seems to be attempting a hybrid, you can see your units move on the map in real time and zoom in to the actual combat supposedly at any time. It only came out for purchase a week ago so I haven't gotten to it yet, but I did play some of their previous games.

[@ibraheemshuaib8954]

Stellaris is kinda like that, it has the length, play-time and depth that a Grand Strategy does, but also all of the micro-management of a 4x game like Civ. You can also design every individual ship and zoom in to see the battles, the ships function and act during the battle how you programmed them to act, so you can have interesting strategies. Stellaris threads the needle between 4x and grand strategy.

[@Pangora2]

@ibraheemshuaib8954 when I saw Stellaris I think it was shortly after Civ:Beyond Earth, which was "civ in space" but it was still a single planet surface with all the hexes. To me, Stellaris plays a lot like a Civ game, so I am glad someone else made th connection

[@nomooon]

Field of Glory is close. Combining both the battle game and the sandbox campaign game. But the fact that their units are auto generated for each battle, rather than carried through from battle to battle, is a big no for me.

[@aykandogan9049]

@@ibraheemshuaib8954 tbh not really. TW needs you to choose where you units goes and do during combat (at least if you dont auto resolve everything) Stelaris you can only decide which sector they will go. You cant control them during combats

[@Jean-LucPicard85]

The thing is PDX kinda has a "skill monopoly" on GSG. They're not literally the only ones making them but everyone else is barely noticeable in comparison. 4x, on the other hand, has a lot more "viable vectors" like Age of Wonders, the Endless series, Old World, Songs of Conquest, Civilization (duh), Gladius/Zephon, Total War (it's still going), the upcoming HoMM: Olden Era and to lesser extent stuff like Humankind, ARA, Songs of Silence or Millenia and a bunch of others. 4x is more widespread and maybe "healthier" overall while GSG is concentrated super hard around PDX with their competitors being very niche even compared to the less popular 4x games. PDX is also very mod friendly which is something 4x seems to struggle with.

[@laurencefraser]

The worst part about this issue is that paradox has gone down the same path many other companies have gone down as they get bigger: Screw the players, pander to the shareholders who don't know the first thing about the product.

[@Rifky809]

​@@laurencefraserImperator: Rome comes to mind

[@guyman1570]

Um... how is EU3 more moddable than say Civ4?

[@salty_simon]

​@@guyman1570Brother in Christ, that game is now 18 years old. He definitely was talking about the "newer" games

[@ibraheemshuaib8954]

@@laurencefraser As much as I hate paradox for their ludicrous amounts of DLCs, which in total cost more than the actual game, I have to admit that most of the DLCs are rather high quality, and it's not really their fault that every other grand strategy seems to be mediocre in comparison to them. Paradox lacks any real rivals in the Grand Strategy genre.

[@carl48899]

As someone who plays more Crusader Kings than Civilization, I very much agree. Civ, especially the latter games, is very much focused on the concept of winning the game; taking over the world, teching to space, squeaking out a diplo victory when the enemies tanks are at your gates. And the first time you pull out a victory on deity is a very satisfying experience. But by the time you've won deity 10, 20, 100 times, it starts to become same-y very quickly. Whereas CK, sure you can absolutely steamroll the world and make the map all one colour, but you can also not do that. The game is effectively a sandbox. Success and failure are things the player defines, and can be as simple as migrating your territory from Burma to West Africa, or bonking every Caliph. The game just feels less repetitive.

[@Elenrai]

I made a cannibalistic dwarf descended from Mohammed(he had the funny trait)and then converted from Norse Paganism to being Jewish, proceeded to declare the British Empire a thing, renamed it the Kingdom of Zion, and then gave it a windmill of friendship for a flag, with its capital somewhere randomly located in Ireland. CK3 enables you to make your friends burst into a howl of laughter, CIV6 tends to just cause angy and frustration

[@Kozkayn]

I am in the exact same situation. I used to be a hardcore Civ player before switching entirely to CK3

[@nomooon]

you described it perfectly. The first time I touched Crusader Kings 2, I was confused at how I am supposed to build up and win...

[@Keygentlemen]

I've been thinking very hard about how I'd make a hypothetical game that bridges the gap between the civ gameplay I love so much, with some more mechanical depth along the lines of GSGs. I thought I was in some sort of minority for a while, but this desire for immersion and opportunities to roleplay seems to be a common take. Maybe this is an idea I should pursue more seriously.

[@gabrielseaborn257]

@@Keygentlemen Personally like Civ V (specifically) more than any GSG's, and I've slowly realized what I want from the Civilization franchise is just Civ V 2. I think it's worth pursuing the idea, I would play it

[@btmack2]

To me, Civ started becoming less "grand" with every iteration. Previously I could muster 50-100 units to undergo an invasion of my enemies. Nowadays, I muster like a dozen units to attack my enemies. They have significantly reduced the overall "size" of an empire compared to Civ games past.

[@Keygentlemen]

Civ II having dynamic climate change right out of the gate, to Civ 6 getting a really barebones and railroaded take on it as DLC, is the most painful example for me. I want to be able to create these impossible apocalypse scenarios where victory no longer matters, but I can still find my own concept of victory. The Eternal War from Civ II is on paper just a game at a standstill, but in practice it's a phenomenal source for narrative creativity. Another is Civ V labeling units as "Polish Warrior" or "Japanese Battleship", while Civ 6 goes with "Poland - Warrior" and "Japan - Battleship". It's so minor, but it does so much for immersion.

[@Smougda]

​@@Keygentlemenbtw, the impossible war on CivII just ended recently. They only had to abandon communism and survive 1 turn of anarchy.

[@Winnetou17]

Very true. Not just on armies, but on the amount of cities too. In Civ 6, if you have 50 cities, you basically already won the game, as you have most of the world. In Civ 2 on a bigger (not biggest) map, having 50 cities makes you ... a normal civ. It's true that more cities means more micromanagement, which means more time required, effectively slowing down the game. And more armies and cities also means more work for the forever-not-smart-enough AI (even in the age of AI) which already is quite slow. Sigh

[@FINSuojeluskunta]

They did that because microing 50-100 units is an absolute chore and the combat comes down to dice rolls, so RTS players have no expression commanding the armies and strategy players are just bogged down microing so many unnecessary units

[@aephos.overwatch]

@@FINSuojeluskunta Even still they looked at the wrong solutions to that imo

[@Zombie-lx3sh]

As a civ4 and homm3 player who didn't really know what to think of grand strategy games, you just successfully convinced me that I wouldn't like them at all. Thank you!

[@squirlychipmunk]

I realize I may be honing in on a minor facet of the video, but for me personally it would be an enormous shame if Civ moves away from exploration. Part of the endless replayability of Civ 3 stems from the exploration and emerging storylines of the map generation and exploration. I'm an avid Total War player that loves the setting/tactics the games provide, but the exploration in that series comes down to "which faction snowballed this time." I find my interest in my campaigns peter out in the mid game because after the RP-heavy starting area fighting on the rest of the map feels like a chore largely b/c it is basically the same thing every time, whereas in Civ the map variety keeps me engaged. Great video as always Suede :)

[@perturabo7825]

The modders are adding a lot to current paradox games to the point I haven’t touched vanilla Hoi4 in years. I’m usually playing Kaiserredux, Old World Blues or Millennium Dawn.

[@aephos.overwatch]

I can't remember the times I played vanilla pdx game without at least 50 mods installed minimum. It's impossible to now. Don't do mods, kids.

[@polishscribe674]

I can share the two most important things that made me shift to grand strategy: 1. You don't have to be omnipotent. In Pdx games, the economy is sustainable on it's own. For example, in Age of Empires your workers require constant attention to keep building, mining, hunting and whatever else. One minute of focusing on maneuvering your army too much, and half of your workers stands idly because the patch of rescource they were assigned to depleted. Compare that to HoI4, where if you assign factories to produce different kinds of equipment, they will do it as long as you don't loose them. Same with construction, excavation, research, even the army will automatically cover the frontline it was assigned to. They propably won't push back without your micromanagement, but they sure can take care of most of the defence. 2. The stakes are higher. A lot of classic RTS gives me a feeling that I'm playing as some sort of warlord, not leader of a country that stands for something. It may not be that important, but it kinda ruins the mood.

[@volbound1700]

I like games that feel more historically accurate and realistic. This is why, although I like some of the changes, I still prefer the older Civilization games as well. Civilization II had these string of scenarios from different times in history that were great and I primarily play the scenarios vs. regular game. Similar boat with Civ 4. The Rhyes and Fall Mod is great for Civ4.

[@suedeciviii7142]

If anyone is wondering what the CK2 mod is in the North America sections of the video, it's After The End.

[@kotzpenner]

AtE is the goat of ck2 mods, I played it for hundreds of hours, can't really get into the CK3 version somehow

[@rafaelyamano2661]

@@kotzpenner the goat of ck2/ck3 mods is AGOT. Best A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones game ever.

[@kotzpenner]

@ Not a got fan, never watched it

[@kotzpenner]

@@rafaelyamano2661 never watched got

[@laylalululuna]

Praise the founders☺️🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🦅🦅🦅

[@Throwaway-p2p]

One of the flaws of grand strategy that I think gets in the way of player enjoyment is the salt that comes from loosing your campaign due to luck factors. From my time playing EU4 and observing the community, it is very common for players to quit their whole campaign if they loose a war or even one battle, or if some random outcome of an event is not completely ideal. Some say that these scenarios aren't realistic, but in history stuff like this happens a lot. Battles that seem like a clear victory for one side can end up going the other way over simple tactical mistakes or by sheer bad luck. To make a truly historically accurate grand strategy game, there must be an element of luck, but the more luck you add, the more the game feels like a farce. We aren't drawing in players for historical accuracy, we are drawing them in with historical fantasy if we eliminate luck elements.

[@vadaa4]

As someone who has a considerable playtime on both EU4 and Civ6, Civ has a really huge luck factor too. Players' reaction is similar too, like restarting when you are spawned in an unlucky point. Not just historical strategy games, but I have yet to see a strategy game with zero luck factor :d It's a good thing though, RNG makes the game more replayable though it can get annoying

[@ibraheemshuaib8954]

As a Crusader Kings player, that is honestly a skill issue. Crusader Kings players have to deal with their character randomly dying due to a pot falling on their head, there is no way to stop that, no way to prepare, it is just dumb luck, but it is also natural.

[@aykandogan9049]

@@ibraheemshuaib8954 I mean yea but it remains frustrating. Even if you know how to get around with it. You get punished for just not being lucky. Like in EU4 losing a great 5/5/6 heir because of hunting event and getting 1/0/1 heir will just result in people reloading a save. Its not really a skill issue. I can still win most of my EU4 campaigns even if I didnt restart, but I just dont enjoy the game ruining a plan or start for no reason other than a random number generator failing

[@ibraheemshuaib8954]

@@aykandogan9049 I've more or less learnt to always have a backup heir ready. It's best to consider yourself as the throne rather than who sits on it, not growing too attached to any one ruler or heir. Many ck2 strats involve intentionally killing yourself off to rapidly grow your realm via succession.

[@Pulstar232]

I used to play ironman, but the fucking 'lucky nations' thing made me just say fuck it and just never play ironman again. Not interested in already OP nations being even more OP.

[@pokedude104]

The problem with civ is everyone does the thing where they completely abandon the last game when the new one comes out and forget the older games still exist and are still playable... I finished one game of civ 6 and had no desire to start another game, haven't touched it since like 2019 or something. Civ 2 through 5 have some of the best strategy gameplay ever in my opinion. I still regularly open Civ2, I haven't taken a significant break from it since i started playing it as a child

[@suedeciviii7142]

I think it just feels that way because of the growing commercial success. Look at the sales numbers for Civ 6! Fans of the older games are still here, we're just drowned out by new converts.

[@kotzpenner]

Recently tried going back into Civ 6 (without the DLCs tho) but didn't really feel it, 5 is my fav

[@Joshua-fi4ji]

I still play 5. Unfortunately 4 and below feel to aged for me now and I never liked 6.

[@Meritania]

I play Civ IV with the caveman 2 cosmos mod, the later games have no appeal to me and if anything look as though they take away from what I already have. Mind you, I’m in the same place with Paradox and not played any of the ‘3’ titles.

[@iokuu]

I mean, that's def not true. Tons of people still play the older Civ games, and Firaxis makes them with that intention. It's why they're so different. Plus, I feel like they have different feels. Civ is a GAME game, where as a lot of Grand Strategy worries more about simulation than just being a game.

[@Latinkon]

The popularity of certain Civ mods such as Rhye's and Fall of Civilization should have given Firaxis a heads up of what some strategy game players wanted. Instead, they decided to chase trends set by Amplitude Studios by copying elements of _Endless Legend_ and _Humankind._

[@812gingerable]

3:17 it wouldn't be a Suede video without a palace building minigame diss

[@TheWatchernator]

Suede doesnt know Civ1. The palace in Civ1 is beautiful.

[@MattFerr100]

Great timing on this video considering that we are getting a new Civ game soon and EU5 is under development

[@guest273]

About the exploration part - I find 'Endless Legend' has great exploration because you can re-visit ancient ruins, there are neutral AI controlled cities that move across the map during the game and there's actually things to find in the world, like "the golden tree" etc. In Civ exploration is more like - Yay! More good tiles!

[@randomlyfactual1943]

Whiskey Dick Mountain. If there was ever an origin story I wanted to hear, it's that one.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Sung to the tune of "On Top of Old Smoky"

[@SpudgunOfficial]

Once I went to Paradox games I could never really go back to Total War

[@philsburydoboy]

The only reason I go back is to mod archers to shoot artillery and watch ridiculous battles.

[@deeznoots6241]

Part of it simply that there are several different big grand strategy games offering a bit of variety(even if they are all by the same publisher/developer in Paradox), meanwhile for 4x games there is civilisation and basically nothing else with mass market attention. Which personally I think is a shame because there have been some 4x games with interesting ideas that with more popularity could develop into some very good 4x game series, like Oriental Empires focus on a smaller section of the world with the history of China, or Shadow Empire which adds complex wargaming mechanics to a basic 4x framework to produce the inarguably best war system of any 4x game.

[@suedeciviii7142]

A good example is the vassal mechanics. Wonderful for Crusader Kings but when I play EU I'm glad I don't have to deal with them. They work great for that theme and era, but aren't needed for other themes/eras. On the subject of new 4Xs, I've been starting to play Old World.

[@JudgeAnnibal]

Endless Space had such promise as a 4x but then I think they fumbled the ball a bit with ES2...

[@Apokalypse456]

@@JudgeAnnibal i still say endless legend was 1000 times better than the humankind debacle.

[@winzyl9546]

​@@suedeciviii7142Vassal system is already implemented in EU and there even ways to make you vassals conquer the world for you and is a viable strategy in EUIV. The only reason they dont emphasize it is because of the era, Its the era of centralized authority and up to modern bureucracy.

[@paradoxicaloutcome1007]

Unfortunately Civilization is indirectly responsible for the death of the 4x genre. It became so big so quickly that everything else within that genre was left in its shadow. There are new 4x games that come out every now and then but they get practically no attention. For example I loved Millennia's concept of taking the ages mechanic and making it so that history can diverge into alternate history ages with different rules and techs depending on how the game is going. The budget of the developers was clearly not big enough for the kind of game they've made, though, but it's still a nice little game if you can get past the graphics.

[@treman722]

It boils down to one thing: Consequences. I bought Europa Universalis IV in December, 2014. It was my first Paradox game. I had always been a Civ 5 player (I still consider it my favorite game in my heart) up to that point, but wanted to try something different. I booted up EU4, perused the tutorial, and decided I wanted to play the United States. I rolled the time period up to like 1790 or something, and hit play. My first act as the US? Convert the country to Catholicism. I figured I could just do that, since there was a conversion button. A few minutes later, my nation was crawling with tens of thousands of rebels. This all happened during a war with a bunch of tribes, and the result was disaster. "This game sucks!" was something like my response. I exited the game and went back to Civ, which I would continue playing for years. But something about that first game just really continued to eat at me for a long time. A few years later, after Civ 6 came out and all my friends were slowly moving to that game or other games, I decided to hunker down and start learning EU4. It took me a very long time to get used to it, but I did. Now I have over one thousand hours in it, and it's up there with Civ as one of my favorite games, and that original experience is partially why: The things you do matter! In Civ, the game offers you a sandbox, but there's very little depth. In Paradox games, you still can do whatever you want within the sandbox's offerings, but there are consequences! Real consequences! This means players actually have to learn the mechanics, adapt to each campaign's scenario, and be smart.

[@rahko_i]

Historical accuracy is the main factor for me, why I haven't really played Civ after I discovered Paradox. I always felt it so off-putting to see George Washington lead a nation in 10,000 BC, the Chinese building the Great Pyramids, and Gandhi starting a nuclear war. I mean, yeah, it's funny for the first time, but it loses its charm quite fast. Especially after you realize how much cooler real history and historically plausible alt-history actually is-the saying that reality is often more fascinating than fantasy totally checks out. The huge let down of Humankind was indeed this. Initially I was excited about how they had implemented the eras differently, but unfortunately it took this historical inaccuracy problem just even further.

[@Keygentlemen]

Honestly, the appeal has never worn off for me. Perhaps it's just a holdover from a bygone era, but the storytelling opportunities are very much still there, even if they're more offbeat. Helps that civ comes bundled with historical context in more recent entries as well.

[@aykandogan9049]

@@Keygentlemen ye, CIV was never meant to be historically accurate. Its more about building your own empire

[@Glider324]

There is a solution to micro vs macro. Automations. Every player can choose whether they want to use the AI's code for doing stuff. If you like war but not economy, let the AI run your economy. If you like explore but not a builder let the AI do your building. It is basically just a UI change.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Fair, but Civ AI is quite bad.

[@Glider324]

@@suedeciviii7142 But if you want to focus on just one of the 4Xs, you would lower the difficulty to compensate sub optimal AI management.

[@Apokalypse456]

like distant worlds 2 does it, should be industry standard i agree

[@kyyyni]

There must some kind of real boon for automating (i.e. delegating some aspects or parts of your empire to AI-controlled agents), or a penalty for not automating. Otherwise, if total micromanaging of your empire is free (in terms of game mechanic, not player effort), a player like me will micromanage everything, making a wide enough empire borderline unplayable. If given free hand to do so, players (at least players like me) will minmax the fun out of the game. For me, this is particularly true in Stellaris.

[@cumunist2120]

this is my favorite thing distant worlds simulates fucking everything and you can pick and choose what to do you can choose to command a single fleet in a living breathing empire or run the whole thing by hand. I absolutely love how the resources are physical and you have freighters and fuel ships going around makes stellaris empires feel lifeless. Both the ai and you can take advantage of this if you're not careful, if you're pillaging the enemies economy they will feel it.

[@sander7989]

I think the exploration point is particularly strong in Hearts of Iron 4 and the major alternate history/world mods. Not only are there tons of events with varied outcomes, but it’s fun just to see what crazy things different nations choose and who eats who. The first time I started up Kaiserreich I must have spent hours just panning around the map in the “choose your nation” menu and looking at the state of things with how much detail there was, and then after that you can go around looking at the extensive political paths each place can take, plus the new nations that can arise in a game due to events.

[@Toshiro_Mifune]

I was a paradox/slithrine fanboy, until hooded horse came out. Specifically, Terra Invicta is WAY ahead of it's time if you like spreadsheet grand strategy. I have 500 hours in early access alone it's so addicting, also the way it opens up and completely changes as a game from early to mid by starting to colonize/industrialize the solar system, an mid-late where the war begins and you add the real time battles with Newtonian physics. And this is their first game.......

[@mxdysphoric8869]

5:37 we stan an after the end king!

[@thegrumpyraccoon]

Paradox looks "good" now but it's at the end of the positive cycle. They want to redo the same development path as 14 years ago but with less effort and more money demand. This time it just won't fly, people are mostly tired and less inclined to go down that rabbit hole again.

[@Frendlu]

Yes, while I'm somewhat happy that Paradox gets some attention by suede, the sad truth is that P has become stagnant. In fact I dont expect anything about EU V (not good or bad) not because they have a good team, more because their latest releases were horribles. CK3, was ok, at best. But the dlcs, theres no one that is incredible good. In fact, are mediocres, In some cases, bad. And more expensive than CK2 dlcs because they decided to increase the dlc prices Imperator Rome. The problem is that use In a badly way EU fórmula + CK fórmula and the result is just horrible. Was, IR, just a game for investors, and maybe, like a way to test the improvements. Victoria 3. What a mess. I dont have words to say how they fuck up. In some ways they managed to do a worse version than current Victoria 2, thats, somewhat a very weird archivement. And the EU IV dlcs, each one worse than the last one. So, yes, I liked Paradox, but, the last years, seems that they forgot that strategy is more than just make buttons and click them😅.

[@ЗачиняєвДенис]

Ah come on guys! Let's be more positive! EU V is on horizon! And if anything we always have black flag at our arms

[@JasonGodwin69]

Don't shill for corpos.

[@Rifky809]

​@@ЗачиняєвДенис If you have the money for 100 DLCs they planned for it that is... Kinda hard to get excited for a new paradox games without worrying about many dlcs I need to buy eventually. Many of which is probably should've been included in the base game

[@ЗачиняєвДенис]

@@Rifky809 well... I'm too poor to care about money, ya know?

[@Mincecroft]

You refer to Total War Rome which is fine for just using it as an example, but if you compare Paradox games to the more recent Total War Warhammer 3 then it's not so cut and dry. I think Creative Assembly has done well with making every faction have its own quirks of governance and you can go through the whole game just auto-resolving every fight if you aren't a fan of the real time strategy. All the factions are in their proper place and you are able to grow your faction how you see fit. I get some people aren't a fan of non-historical total war but I find the gameplay to be so engrossing that it I play it far more than I play other strategy games.

[@AGenericAccount]

There was a mod for crusader kings 3 that integrates mount and blade bannerlord into a sort of battle mini game within ck3. No idea how well it works but it is an interesting idea that players do seek out infinite depth in their grand strategy games

[@rafaelyamano2661]

there's also a mod that makes every battle you undertake launch a Medieval Total War 2 match, and the result of that match is the result of the CK3 battle.

[@Keygentlemen]

@@rafaelyamano2661 LMAO that's fucking awesome. I would love to play a daisychained series of games like this

[@LamugPuggy]

And even in less story depth games in hoi4, it is still so easy to imagine a story, and mods can give you more story as well (TNO, Kaiserreich, EAW, etc)

[@floflo1645]

Stellaris has amazing exploration and does try to bridge classical 4x and grand strategy

[@just_jack_2181]

Love it, it gets the best of both.

[@justinschrottke6286]

I Love stellaris especially because the exploration aspect is so Well done. In that Game, the AI too, has to explore, and cant See what's outside their Sensor range. Just so Well done, the entire game

[@georgejanzen774]

Happy New Year, Suede! Another year, still all the same games. My Steam library is becoming a museum.

[@suedeciviii7142]

CK2 was pretty much the last new game I got before that decade where I only played Civ 3.

[@georgejanzen774]

@@suedeciviii7142 That's borderline modern. I still played more CK2 during the time that I've owned CK3

[@kaliyuga1476]

I remember back in the day, when I was a child, sitting on my father’s lap (I was born in 2002) playing games like Age of Empires 2, Imperium 3, Civilization. No matter how much I think about it, I always remember having a great time, and I really enjoyed it. However, as I grew older, during my teenage years around 2016-2019, I started getting interested in these games again when I got my first desktop computer in my room. But they began to feel limited since, by then, my knowledge of history had grown. As you mentioned, I also love maps and observing what’s happening on them. That’s when I discovered Hearts of Iron 3, and shortly after, Hearts of Iron 4 was released. I loved it. The moment I saw the number of ideologies, all the parameters, values, ministers, names, the wiki, encyclopedias within the game, and how it was based on real events and events that actually happened, it hooked me. I could lead armies with real intent, like declaring peace, installing a puppet government in a country, or even creating my own narrative in my head while playing other games. I’ve always loved that. That’s why I think games that have become more arcade-like are for an audience seeking more of a gaming sensation, whereas those of us looking for a deeper explanation of the lore, alternative history, or real history prefer more in-depth games. Thank you very much for the video. I really enjoyed seeing someone share my opinion, especially within the community of grand strategy games.

[@aephos.overwatch]

Well said.

[@KonradWaltrowski-z6j]

The only thing I think we are not yet centered on is waging war in grand strategy games. We know from history that there are such things as errors, foolishness, that a huge army can loose to a smaller one, that how you organize a battle line (flanks, encirclement, 1,2,3 line) makes a difference. This is still missing in CK3 , Victoria, and HOI. I think Stellaris is doing it better (some depth) because it is linked to the discovery feature, as a spacefaring nation you need to visit a solar system to research how it looks like and where to build/colonize, which impacts space combat and thus forces Paradox to make it deeper. Plus it is alltheoretical, so they couldn't make a copy of historical events to fill in such game mechanics as diplomacy, espionage, marriage etc. These had to work differentyl in space among aliens.

[@Keygentlemen]

Yeah, I have to disagree with Suede's take on military. Maybe the way civ does it isn't concise enough but totally ephemeralizing it doesn't feel any better.

[@HelmutNevermore]

As someone who is not much into video gaming and has just a couple of games that I play throughout my life (Civ3 being one of them), I got immediately hooked by CK2 as soon as I discovered its existence. A strategy game that you can play without any victory conditions whatsoever was something I never knew I needed.

[@LockeTheAuthentic]

I used to be a Civ boii but I grew out of them. They are comparatively super basic, and every iteration never did anything that interesting. They need a bit of what Alpha Centari had. The lack of real immersion was also a killer for me as it just becomes silly and more like an arcade game.

[@SkyFly19853]

the way the Alpha Centauri does... I totally agree with that.

[@andrek6920]

Disagree on it being basic. I started with grand strategy and expanded to civ and paradox games are just as basic if you think civ is basic. Although in reality both are very complex games where none of it matters in singleplayer but all of it does in multiplayer.

[@RomanCigić]

The arcade game part is so true to me. When playing Civ 6 I didn't feel like i was actually "writing history" or anything remotely close to that. I felt like i was playing a mobile game where you click things to gain the most points to win.

[@Keygentlemen]

@@RomanCigić Civ 6 is a definite outlier. The visuals and tone are horribly jarring compared to previous entries.

[@aephos.overwatch]

@@andrek6920 they are too different to fairly compare like this, civ at its core is always the same game. vicky 3 and ck3 are wildly different experiences but are in the same genre. technically civ is "more basic" if that's even the right word, more like complex but not as much as some pdx games. Civ focuses on a lot. wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle. pdx games are the opposite, the hyperfocus on something, for vicky 3 that's being an econ sim during a specific time period, eu4 is like a mix of vicky and CK, and stellaris is much more civ-like out of all pdx games and probably the easiest. all pdx games have a bigger focus on realism though. civ? not at all, it's arcadey even today. the art design even shows that. I don't think civ being a less complex game is a bad thing, it's actually be a good thing. for one it doesnt have the same micromanaging and late-game problems as pdx games do, at least not in newer civs. civ is still a difficult game, but comparing civ 6 to eu4, civ 7 to eu5, the pdx game will always have more going on mechanics-wise.

[@wildfire9280]

0:58 idk, the sequel to brokeback

[@phd_angel]

I TOTALLY agree with you that "grand strategy" should be large-scale big-picture decision making. I'm sick and tired of games like Hearts of Iron and Europa Universalis being called grand strategy, whereas they are annoying micromanagement click fests.

[@aephos.overwatch]

True grand strategy doesn't exist yet then, Civ isn't enough of a strategy game to begin with.

[@rilindshehu96]

Oh man the EU3 nostalgia

[@PyroMancer2k]

The mention of micro managing battles is why I'm not a big of a fan of new Civ games. They went to One Unit Per Tile because they claim people were spending a lot of time moving units in old Civ game. But honestly it was so much easier to move units in old game because you could stack them and move them as a group as well as them not getting in each other's way. In newer Civ I can't just click move to a curtain spot on the map for several units without them tripping over each other and canceling out the move orders. Besides movement the same goes for combat. Back in Civ 4 I could just order the stack to attack and see the result. Now I gotta micro manage each unit in the battle to the point I feel like I'm playing a Tactics game. And there are SO MANY better tactics games I could be playing, Like Advanced Wars, or Fire Emblem, and so on. But if I really still want that Civ feel with more in depth Tactics I just play 40K Gladius which has different weapons and armor types so got units that are strong or weak against other units without just having basic Power Stat Higher wins that Civ series does. For as much as they wanna pretty Civ up with 3D Graphics I feel it's a bit like Doom. A great ground breaking game in it's time. But now it's a decent museum piece that shows where the genre started and can be a fun trip down memory lane but just lacks much of the depth and improvements that have taken place over the years. It's simplistic nature is why it runs into that problem of Big Empire is better with no good counter despite attempts to deal with it. Where as games like CK the very nature of the game and systems make it so that the larger your empire the more you have to deal with being pulled in different directions by characters with opposing goals. In Civ you are all powerful ruler with no challengers except other empires. In Grand Strategy games like CK your often just a normal leader having to not only deal with the rival nations but also deal with internal politics of people who don't like your and/or have ambitions of their own so they might rise up against you. It's a huge juggling act that adds to the challenge. Now compared to Civ where much like RTS games people figure out optimal build strategies for what you should be doing on Turn X. Civ often ends up feeling more like a puzzle game on what build combo to use as the tactical combat of new Civs is so bad due to AI not knowing how to do it properly I have won wars against AI killing 3-4 units of theirs to every one I lost while playing on higher difficulties to the point it just wasn't fun. Either I turn the AI difficulty way up and it massively outproduces me with cheats so it thinks it can win a war and I end up in an unending war to the point the AI is so stupid they refuse to surrender cause they "winning" only to lose their last city to another AI 4 turns later, or I simply crush them myself. Or I play at a more reasonable difficulty and end up simply out producing them cause AI is also not great at optimizing districts. In previous versions Civ4 and earlier because combat was simplified, stack driven, and combat always resulted in someone dying it was a lot easier for the AI to handle. Same with city management which is just pick a building and go. But now with all these more micromanagement systems the AI sucks at the game isn't a challenge like the older ones. Fighting the AI at harder difficulty doesn't feel like I'm fighting someone who's actually an intellectual challenge but more like playing checkers with my 8 year old nephew and letting him start with all kings because I figure it'll be interesting challenge and not really care if I win. Because at higher difficulties the AI just goes super aggressive and mindlessly zerg rushes you constantly so it becomes almost a pure tactics game. The reason I think so many people don't finish Civ games is the same reason they don't finish Monopoly. At some point it's pretty obvious who's gonna win and there is little if anything that will change that. Where as games like CK there is no define win state like, you got more science and went to moon you "win". Instead it's just whatever your personal goal was or that of your character if you are going heavy RP. And quit when either you achieve that goal or your character dies. It's more about setting your own goals and making your own story so it's more personal than a nation "surviving the test of time".

[@aephos.overwatch]

Well said.

[@EDHESE]

Shadow Empire is one of the best examples of GS games

[@Chummbo]

0:27 “RIP Victoria 3” hahaha so true so true

[@terrypennington2519]

Been out of the loop, what's happened with Victoria 3 lately? I know it's launch was rough but why is the count so low?

[@Chummbo]

@@terrypennington2519the design philosophy is just extremely divisive. Basically they isolated a lot of their fanbase in favor of more accessible gameplay

[@carl48899]

The game's core gameplay loop is flawed, and there's only so much patches and expansions can improve the game when that's the case.

[@lemoneggpie]

@@terrypennington2519 The focus on economy instead of war and the time period itself make it more niche than most PDX games. If you're into statecrafting, it's very satisfying.

[@Wairaotoledo]

People wants to move armies/navies over the Globe and Victoria 3 developers denied that... Thats why Vic 2 still GOAT

[@alfonsopalacios2725]

Not to mention the music, the ear blasting, majestic music. If i want to feel motivated at work i just blast out the Victoria 2 soundtrack

[@owostub5399]

Civ doesnt actually have a theme that you can meaningfully connect with as a player, its focused on being an interesting game. And i think that alot of people severely underrate creativity and expression in games. In hoi4 for instance if you wanted to play a country that interacts with all systems of the games and fight in every compass direction and have a fair challenge you play Germany. Most minor nations however cant, they dont have a navy and cant afford and airforce and generally have to fight along one border (finland). IMPORTANTLY both are completely valid options even though youre playing very different Games. In hoi you can play as the italians and colonize ethiopia, fight the british in egypt, attack greece and support nationalist spain. In eu4 you can play as venice and conquer and form the unified nation of italy and create colonies in africa and america. In vicky you can play as the russians and slowly industrialize your sad agricultural economy and kick out the monarchs and introduce communism while pretending youre a great power. In stellaris you can play as the lovable squingos! A theocratic autocracy of slave driving penguin guys. In civ do you want to play as the united states of america as they crawl from stone age and become a modern society launching rockets to space? What the fuck are you talking about 1 thats ridiculous 2 thats hardly represented as your options or goals in the game. 3 “america” is just a name for some modifiers and a unique unit. Civ is really just a board game with relatively simple rules with a nonsensical but endearing theme. I have no idea why people even feel the need to compare these games theyre entirely different civ has more in common with root or scythe than paradox. Is it really just because of the theme, which is arbitrary that you could make the entire game be set in the modern era without changing the gameplay much at all (cough ahem lmao). You balance growing and creating new unit factories and better units and then you slam them into other unit factories as you quickly barrel down to the game finishing. a timeless and fun gameplay loop thats lacks the scope or creative freedom found in paradox. And with a game like that theres only so many gamer types who really enjoy playing it over and over like chess, for most people theyll say that was fun or that wasnt fun and then forget about it and i have a feeling most people have played a civ game.

[@OceanHedgehog]

Stellaris does exploration really well. The player has an idea of the shape of the galaxy, but star clusters, hyperdrive pathways, resources, and factions remain hidden. You never know what your science ship will find in the next system over. In the early stages of the game, it really does give the vibes of a young civilization striking out to the stars - for better or worse. It's what made me fall in love with the game in 2016.

[@tripleg9656]

Ah EU3, my first paradox game. The nostalgia of looking at that map! With it's big 1 province Flanders, my how far they've come. CK2 and Eu4 made Flanders a half dozen provinces. Also watching this reminded me of how every goddamn province in Eu3 had to be sieged down. Between that and the 50 years to core a province, while nostalgic for it I am very glad I moved on to Eu4.

[@suedeciviii7142]

What changed with cores in EU4? I know you can fabricate claims...

[@Apokalypse456]

@@suedeciviii7142 time to core is much much less, costs admin (never played eu3, dont know if it even had admin points) and its even faster in your culture/accepted culture/your religion provinces. so unaccepted heathens take a few years, i think 3, while you can core your own people in like a year idk the times, thats from my gut feeling

[@Pangora2]

Yeah I started on EU 3 as well. After Art of War came out for EU IV, it is impossible to consider going back.

[@ЗачиняєвДенис]

​@@suedeciviii7142admin points are like mana for monarch. You need the same currency for technology, to make cores, to take ideas, for stability, for some events... And there's also diplomatic and military points

[@tripleg9656]

@@suedeciviii7142 Instead of waiting for cores to form by waiting 50 years. You spend admin points to core provinces. Very expensive for valuable provinces, and very cheap for dirt poor provinces. Coreing speed depending on whether you have claims or are the same culture, means you can core most provinces within 2-3 years usually. Sure you'll have seperatists for about 20 years after conquering a province, but that's not too bad compared to Eu3.

[@yumyum7196]

As a lifelong civ player, I am happy these types of games are increasing in popularity

[@ronaldpikksaar2202]

Paradox has driven the whole genre to the ground. We would desperately need some competition to spice it all up again.

[@aephos.overwatch]

No I wouldn't say they've done that yet, they're dragging it down but it's still standing strong. Maybe another decade or two of the DLC-fest and pie-sIiced base game releases will do the trick but EU5 is around the corner and will undoubtedly add some more spice for a bit.

[@bradenglover8269]

As someone who started with paradox games before playing a civ title, I’ll say that from what I’ve seen through my friend and my own gameplay, civ games are substantially easier to learn how to play, which also means you start to have fun and do things like multiplayer a lot quicker. While I was learning stellaris it took me around 3 separate playthroughs before I could actually compete with the standard level ais. In civ 6, the first game I played by the end I was on par with the ais.

[@aephos.overwatch]

Older civ games were even harder and the AI was too easily OP. Firaxis has made the franchise more casual friendly, I'm glad PDX isn't doing that as much, yet.

[@dmman33]

I keep trying to get into Paradox games, but they’re too dense for me. I like the Civ alternatives like Humankind, Old World and Ara

[@aephos.overwatch]

The easiest, simplest, and most civ-like paradox game is Stellaris. Highly recommend that game, especially if you've played alpha centauri or beyond earth and liked them, that's how I got into the paradox ecosystem. That was a long time ago, 9 years later the game is so much better especially modding and dlc and it's not slowing down anytime soon. Or maybe Stellaris 2 is a few years away.

[@HansLemurson]

The 8-fold snowflake without mirror-symmetry at 4:44 will haunt my dreams.

[@drdray0876]

IMO I want a game that mostly plays itself during peace (if you're doing it right) and leaves the micro for war. This is why I like Vic2 and dislike Vic3. I also don't like the direction Civ has gone after Civ3. Civ3 felt like a sandbox with how you can build your civilization, whereas Civ5 in comparison is extremely railroaded with religion and culture paths along with the design of "How can we cripplingly punish players for expanding?" I got sick of seeing empty land in the Industrial era in Civ5. EU4 has it's issues but overall is much better for portraying a grand civilization than modern Civ games. I will note that I absolutely despise the arbitrary focus trees and their rewards in HOI4 and now EU4. "Look mom, free claims on all of Europe because my country has DLC missions!" They are the complete antithesis of the sandbox design that brough me into EU4 to begin with.

[@hydrolien]

Interesting opinion. I agree that there is to much micro management with troops on late game on civ 5 & civ 6. That's the main reason why I'm still playing civ 4 sometimes.

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

One mod for CK3 allows playing the battles in real-time in M&B2 Bannerlord, so you could still get battles in that type of games. If Paradox invests in some real-time battle engine that could more or less match the mid-2000s Total Wars (Rome 1 & Medieval 2), this may outright kill TW as they'd offer battles not far behind (CA has been resting on its laurels for too long...) but with a considerably richer strategic part played in real-time. Even more than in TW, playing in real-time should be optional, but it would be great for the few battles in a war that you'd expect to be decisive. Just like sometimes country leaders led their armies themselves, Gustavus Adolphus or Napoleon for the time of EU4 for example.

[@Winspur1982]

The last time a British monarch led an army into battle was George II at Dettingen (1743) ... he missed out on the second Jacobite rebellion 2 years later (his third son was present at the final crushing of it at Culloden) but he might have been getting too old or fat to ride. You never know, EU5 might make "managing diet and exercise for your monarch" an engrossing minigame.

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

@@Winspur1982 1743 would be quite late for a game covering 1337-1837, as it would also include kings like Henry V. A bit over the 80% mark. And looking outside of the UK let's not mention the french elephant in the room who has wars named after him. So definitely appropriate for CK or EU. For Vicky it starts being debatable (Napoleon III was still leading his armies up to 1871, and Nicholas II of Russia doing that ended up in a disaster)

[@suedeciviii7142]

Ooh, that could be a good idea! Like, if the game had an in built ticker for the "significance" of a battle, and would encourage you to fight them every once in a while.

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

@@suedeciviii7142 no need for that, let the player be the judge. If you want to micromanage every battle, more power to you. But in practice most players will quickly realise when it's worth it. Take a TW campaign, you're probably not manually playing a battle for which you know you'll steamroll the opposition, you'll mostly play battles if the enemy is at least, say, 50% of your force. Especially in more modern TWs with auto-regenerating troops where any damage sustained in a minor battle would be recovered next turn anyway. There could be the added requirement of having your own leader or maybe a general given the title of marshall lead the army (more advanced armies like under Napoleon possibly having several marshalls) to further limit how often you can fight manually.

[@Pharaoh_Roxy51012]

the 5th point just makes sense, knowledge spreads, and if someone is setting up a colony in Florida, you better get that knowledge

[@linknlogs2273]

5:36 This has made CK3 have a healthy female player base too, which is neat.

[@yllbardh]

and in a way lost many old fans of franchise....

[@linknlogs2273]

@@yllbardh ... oh that's not...

[@zacharylawton]

Great video. Civ3 was my first Civ and is still one of my favorite games, but I have been gravitating towards grand strategy games lately. I have been playing a lot of Victoria 3 mostly because I enjoy the roleplaying, economic, and politics aspects way more than military. I wish that Civ had more advanced political and economic mechanics like Paradox games, like choosing an economic system or more advanced diplomatic actions. In my view this would make the game more complete, but I also can see how it would make it way more complex and hard to manage. I also think it would be neat to integrate city design elements from Cities Skylines for even more immersion. Keep up the great work Suede!

[@ShupekMan]

As someone who plays a lot of Paradox games, and used to play a lot of Civ even though I couldn't understand what's happening: a) honestly Paradox games are just way more accessible. And I know this probably sounds absurd, but I can start a Paradox game with a minor nation and explore the game mechanics without necessarily going to war the entire game. In Civ, if you're not doing well you will get demolished by the AI. b) I do enjoy the historical settings/maps more than randomly generated maps, but maybe that's just a fault of the implementation so far - Civ can afford to have a few nations that thrive in the Desert/Mountains/Hills and sculpt the randomly generated world to make such places more common near their starting area. (See Dominions 6, it does something like that) c) Civs in Civ don't really feel unique. The one unique unit you get is only useful for a handful of turns and I never got a feeling that I'm playing any different regardless of the civ. If they kept the number of civs lower but with more unique units and bonuses it would feel much better in my opinion. Think of Rise of Nations and how each Civ has a unique unit that replaces a standard unit type and has further unique upgrades on age-up. d) Civ has insane micromanagement as the game progresses - Loads of Military units, City Production, Workers, it all becomes really annoying.

[@DraganAlves]

They’re getting rid of workers in Civ 7

[@baka1949]

I agree that Civ and Total War both have a lot of micromanagement and the late game becomes very slow paced as a result. I also agree that unless you minmax, you won't feel the difference between civs, as they are expressed in passive bonuses and a few specialized units/buildings. But Paradox games are EXTREMELY inaccessible. If you start the game for the first time (even after the tutorial), you will have no idea what the game is about, what you are supposed to do, which of the infinite tabs are relevant, how to perform any function. Civ can be confusing for a few minutes, but not nearly as much. Take going to war for example. In Civ it is enough to move your military unit into another unit or city to attack. In a Paradox game you have to stumble across the casus belli mechanic, you have to figure out how to even raise an army, how to maneuver it and give orders. It's a chore.

[@Keygentlemen]

Hard disagree with Paradox games being accessible. Civ's simplification has a certain appeal (up until a certain point where it becomes too simple). Civ has every opportunity to make its cultures unique, but never does. Vox Populi for Civ V is about the best it gets and gives nearly every civ some sort of unique hook the others just can't offer, but Firaxis still hasn't figured out that "+1 yield to forest in the medieval era" is not a compelling or exciting bonus.

[@Kozkayn]

GSG games allow for more opportunities to lose and get back up. 4X, however, requires you to snowball to victory. If you lose once in a 4X game, it’s very hard to get back up.

[@ronenson1023]

I wish Eu4's one attempt to do novel exploration (random new worlds) worked better than it did. It was such a missed opportunity

[@suedeciviii7142]

I've heard of that, what went wrong with it?

[@ronenson1023]

@@suedeciviii7142 it was called conquest of paradise iirc. the issue was that it was basic and broken. it was based on only a handful of patterns so it wasn't truly random, trade routes didn't make sense, and it was one of the earlier xps so it also became increasingly unmaintained/newer features didn't mesh well with it. the idea was great but it should've been a cherry on top rather than something out of the gate and had some level of maintenance

[@Apokalypse456]

@@ronenson1023 and then we got anbennar, which the dev team themselves played and streamed and brought to popularity

[@guest273]

Suede if you want timestamps to make chapters in the video timeline you have to start from 00:00, which you normally just call "intro".

[@suedeciviii7142]

Good tip, thanks

[@ilikecrabs1]

imperator rome watching this video in shambles lmao... not even being mentioned as the "failed" paradox game because it's player count is THAT bad, is the cherry on top fwiw i have 100hours in I:R. they've worked on it a decent amount since launch and its enjoyable. funny enough, my only paradox game with even fewer hours played? Victoria 3

[@thepunisher4356]

Honestly going from a few “nations” to hundreds of nations all over the world I was sold on the paradox formula. It made the world building of every game so much more impactful to me. Especially when weird alt history happened(like the Ottoblob getting beaten and falling apart)

[@tomslastname5560]

This just sounds like a bunch of personal opinion because you like one type of gameplay over another, and not an objective evaluation or comparison of the Civ games with other strategy games. Just because you find micromanaging to be a distraction from the broader overall strategy you'd like to focus on doesn't mean that other people don't like the micromanagement option. In the Civ series you can get away with ignoring the micromanagement aspect and let your cities run themselves, and still do well in the game.

[@shaynemac]

Our family 486 and Pentium II along with Civ, Civ 2 Alpha Centauri and Masters of Orion 2 were gateway drugs. I was playing those at 7-12 years old and loving it. As computers and games got more complex so did what I wanted from them. Civ helped to learn the trajectory of human history more than anything I took in school until the very later years. Paradox games came along when I wanted to get more into the specifics and dig into the eras they’re set in. For those of us who love the history going on in the games they’re such a great companion to real life learning. I’ll always play Civ since the gameplay is so satisfying (some versions more than others), but the Paradox games are what I get utterly lost in these days. I feel lucky to have experienced the way these games have grown.

[@TalostheCat]

HoMM3 mentioned! HotA stream sometime? It just got a massive update 👀

[@suedeciviii7142]

I should reach out to MeKick and see if he wants to do a collab (he kicks my ass in a 1v1 maybe?). But I should at least install Heroes 3 so I can get B-Roll for it. I've never played HotA but I'm interested in it. Seems like the "Modern" of HoMM3

[@dragonmaster1500]

0:57 This is actually my literal job, and I love it.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Journalist? Researcher? :)

[@dragonmaster1500]

@@suedeciviii7142 Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Specialist/Analyst/Researcher.

[@pbh81]

Good video. Really surprised civ 4 only had 3 million sales. I disagree a bit with map exploration. I felt imperator Rome suffered big time from seeing the whole map especially as all barbarian nations became the same generic nation bar change of color and size. Games like this are partially fulled by imagination and I think in the Roman era it is well suited to leave things undiscovered and mysterious ( easier said than done). I felt like having spies, scouts and ambassadors explore parts unknown, discoving the true scale of nation and army sized would present the player with difficult choices. For example with seeing the map in full I can expand away from the major powers and rising powers versus a covered map where I expand to where I think I can safely grow and smashing right up to an expanding aggressive empire. Also with the migratory tribes mechanic and not having real time map information would have been more exciting and would have made the players keep an eye on his frontiers while taking military actions. One thing I really disliked about civ 4 was swapping map information with the ai and you could easily know the shape of the world really early in the game

[@suedeciviii7142]

The more bizarre thing was I couldn't find the numbers for Civ 3! Only sales just after release. I wonder if it didn't do as well as the others. I have to disagree, I prefer more information earlier. Maybe it could be learned about through the diplomacy or espionage system, so that you don't need to rely on physical units on the map.

[@Winspur1982]

Civ 4 art was just bad, in my opinion (I think Suede agrees), and people don't want to pay for bad art. They can see it for free in a museum in Cambridge, Mass.

[@Pangora2]

I:R needs to do a DLC to make playing as a Barbarian fun. Inevitably it would have tools for the AI barbarians to suck less.

[@Arkantos1900]

What I like about Paradox games, mostly eu4 and victoria 2, is that actions have consequences. You can gain enemies for life if you go certain routes, overexpansion leads to coallitions and internal issues. In victoria 2, big expansions lead to unaccepted pops and these will rebel. Often. A lot Also the Roleplay elements. You imagine an alternate history as your nation grows, or your dynasty if ck2 or 3.

[@theliato3809]

My expierence is that civilization seems like trying to play monopoly without any of the spice of monopoly.

[@impersonal6959]

Fair point about the Civ combat. I actually really like the land combat system of Vic3. It's mostly hands off, but still has some scope for player operational control, which could be expanded for another game that requires more tactics. With more refinement, I think that would be nice for Civ.

[@genericgoosereturns]

i dislike paradox games. shallow arbitrary mechanics. like how in stellaris you can make a genocidal empire that just wants to destroy everyone and yet through completely arbitrary war mechanics the enemy empire which is clearly losing and has 0 chance of winning can stall the war then force peace for 10 years (arbitrary number) and you as the genocidal evil empire are simply forced to obey this, there is no way to break this forced peace. and then there's nothing to do besides painting the map and playing cookie clicker with buildings that simply give you more resources. but there's a pretense of something more.

[@smithsmith6402]

I find the battles in the irritating as well. While I wouldn't mind if we were just mashing our armies together and rolling the dice, you get utterly massive benefits by engaging on favourable terrain, so I always end up doing this obnoxious dance of trying to bait the enemy into bad terrain, often needing to pause/unpause dozens of times in a row to hit some tiny, tiny window where they've entered the right spot and I can catch them if I send my troops right now but not 1 second later. Stellaris is also a game that promises some cool exploration stuff but the actual rewards for exploring or doing the quests always seemed very underwhelming to me. I wish there were a game out there that had high level hands off combat combined with lots of cool exploration rewards you see from a game like Master of Magic or Eador. I want to dress up my hero with a vampiric sword and boots of flying, or make an army of fireproof animated trees and watch them go terrorize the world, without telling them where to step each turn and reminding them to rest when they're injured. Just send me a news update once in a while that they had an epic fight with a dragon and found some cool loot while I dictate research and pool the resources of half a nation into making really cool magic items or giant robots or whatever.

[@pikmin937]

If you're a genocidal empire in Stellaris you get total war CB's on everyone that let you take ownership of systems just by occupying them. If you have a superior fleet then the enemy can't really stop you at all actually, you don't even need to negotiate peace with them to eradicate them.

[@beaub152]

Stellaris sucks

[@suedeciviii7142]

Normally I find the battles refreshing. But in my most recent EU3 campaign I got a "-10% army discipline" event and it became painful. My army ping ponged back and forth 30 times chasing rebels but never killing them. Thank you for reminding me of Master of Magic!

[@KirbyRL]

It depends on the game you play, each game plays differently and has different mechanics built around the same concept of being a map game based on its time period. I personally like eu4 the most, but some people may like victoria 2 more stellaris or hoi4 more because they favor the mechanics in those games. I personally always felt civ boring because every game just felt the same shielded by the idea that your nation has slightly different stats yet every game just felt like the same or similar results over and over and you only had like one or two unique units and a few straight line paths on winning. Plus the meta always felt the same(kind of like stallris) except in stellaris every year it changes significantly due to massive updates changing mechanics but it does always end up being most alloys and tech = win once everyone knows the strats. I guess I just like seeing different things every game and unique results? Idk, also paradox games are significantly more fun with friend groups, discovering mechanics and making/picking nations yourself is always more fun dont just look up guides or nation ideas for paradox games unless if you seriously are stuck. Everyone has their games they enjoy but it could be the perspective you have on how you play them just like how I hate civ I probably just never gave jt enough chances or its 15 try might do the trick for me. I used to even think total war was meh but now I enjoy it a lot due to its depth.

[@vidarfe]

3:19 Wow, that Civ3 palace brought back some old memories!

[@TapdotWater]

I can't help but feel like the argument made in "point number 2" is completely nonsensical. You don't interact with the tactics of your troops in Civilization. There's certainly been a shift towards it with "one unit per tile" in the recent releases but even still it's mostly just Rock Paper Scissors with modifiers. The combat systems in the mainline Paradox games aren't so very different, they just have a wider variety of numbers to play with (EU4's Morale, Discipline, Pips or HoI4's Hardness, Breakthrough, Width for example) all of which still have a similar gameplay loop to the modifiers in Civ. The nation you pick might have a Unique Unit that has +10 strength on rivers, and your tag might give you a +10% Shock Damage received in its Mission Tree or National Ideas. The thing you, the player, has the most control over in either game is the terrain you fight on, and ultimately in both Civ and Paradox games this just comes down to granting different modifiers or otherwise slowing down unit/army movements. Additionally, I find the argument that you "shouldn't have to pick what to have for dinner when Ave Lincoln visits or what color the drapes are going to be for your palace" as a reason why Paradox games have a "better understanding of the scope of this genre" when these examples of activities are not at all present in Civ, but basically are the defining feature of an entire Crusader Kings 3 update and DLC. I mean, I can only speak for the Civ games from 4 and up, since I haven't played the ones before that. However, if your argument is that these supposed game mechanics were a waste of time in the earlier titles then I think it's important to consider two things. Most importantly, the fact that Civ 3 and earlier are titles so old that they're irrelevant to the actual comparison being made between these game series. Anyone still playing them is either a fan of the specific title or someone looking back at older games. The second thing worth considering is, again, the fact that these features are beloved aspects of CK3. One of the big selling points I've heard has been "it's like The Sims, but for medieval nerds." There's other issues I've found with the rest of the arguments made in this video, but they mostly do come down to opinion. The the "historicity" of Paradox Games is something that should be called into question, but there are KZbin videos by people like Rosencreutz who have done it a lot better than I will be able to in a comment.

[@majorgear1021]

I do like to command armies for every battle. But I’m playing for the action and thrill of victory. I basically want to be Maximus at the beginning of Gladiator. “archers, ignite! archers, loose!”

[@dluk9494]

firsttttt

[@georgejanzen774]

seconnnd

[@aaronburdon221]

I hope they make more grand strategy games. The world can use more of them because they're fascinating.

[@Wormopera]

Okay but paradox games are absolutely not historically accurate

[@whitehawk4099]

In comparison to basically anything else on the market?

[@rowbot5555]

Significantly better than any other major games.

But that wasn’t the point. You just didn’t listen. The video said it’s accurate compared to Civ

[@TheWextin]

0:56 - The map of Lithuania - The rumour is that when the Soviets were re-drawing the boundaries for that part of the Lithuanian SSR, Stalin left his pipe on the table and people were too afraid to move it, so they drew around it.

[@Lapeno456]

I feel like the main problem with how simple civ is compired to grand strategy games is because how it feels more casual friendly, even if a little and it makes development lean a bit into that audience for the money even if that means watering down some elements. Grand strategy games in the other hand are hardly casual friendly, the spreadsheet meme is there for a reason and grand strategy gamers seem to like that (myself included lol) so instead of trying to go for a more casual market Paradox tries to keep their already solid hardcore fanbase happy which means giving a pretty indepth experience.

[@hebrux]

In Crusader Kings, I like to start as a count, then work my way up to emperor. Always fun

[@lubu4u312]

Your content is always informative and entertaining. I like how you show in game footage that always correlates with what your discussing. Civ 3 was my first civ game ever back in 2003. I've been getting into Civ 4 again and its a bummer to see you don't like that one as much. Will you ever do a tier list or show the best civs/sciences for civ 4? Thanks for the content.

[@pieceofschmidtgamer]

You see, I never saw Civ as a simulationist game because it really isn't, as you quite plainly spell out. I see Civ as a chess style game with history painted on top (and in places it was so thin that modders could reskin the game and make a fantasy or sci-fi scenario). I would personally argue that Civ3 was peak Civ, not that it couldn't be improved (dear god, it definitely could be improved), but just that every Civ after 3 just took that formula and fucked it up with grand strategy features that had no place within the franchise.

[@arekmak]

These are some very interesting points, thanks for sharing those and have a sub :)

[@suedeciviii7142]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@Ayedyn]

Ever since civ 5, you get the impression that you're playing a boardgame, no longer the feeling that you're ruling a nation in a roleplaying game.

[@yeonmineun]

I think this point is just a matter of preference but the difference between real time and turn based gameplay in multiplayer is palpable. I hate to wait for people to make a decision on wether they want to build a barn or a monument, but in real time strategy, you can feel the pressure, even more when you play as a small nations while the other people are playing as the big powers; feeling that every big decision is made without you taking part makes me feel immersed.

[@shallendor]

The Dominions games are my favorite 4X games, even though you don't have control of your units in Combat, you can give them orders and decide their formation, but no direct control in combat!

[@ZahrDalsk]

I just can't stand random worlds. I don't need the setting to be historical - fantasy like Anbennar or alternate-history like Divergences are great - but I do need it to be fixed and hand-made. Random worlds just feel pointless.

[@damonedrington3453]

The biggest advantage IMO that these games have, especially compared to what’s been coming out the last decade, is the replayability. I like to judge my games based on price vs hours of fun. I consider a game worth it if I get an hour of fun for every dollar. And to say the least- I’m not getting 70 hours of fun from most modern titles. Meanwhile even if you count ALL the DLC, I’ve spent about $120 on Stellaris- and I have north of 1500 hours, or a little less than $1 per 15 hours I’ve played. That’s a DAMN good investment. Plus, their nature means no two games are the exact same. They never get boring.