Paradox, Strategy, and Player Autocracy

Games are, of course, exercises in fun rather than frustration, and that lends them towards giving the players a lot of control, but I'd like to suggest there's
been an... overcorrection, of sorts.
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Timeline
Intro: 00:00
Who is the player 02:35
The Other Player 05:23
Vic2 vs Vic 3: 10:31
Player Autocracy 25:58
Absolute Information 29:46
Forbidden topic 39:17
Conclusion 48:30
Outro 50:15
What’s a dinosaur? 52:20

[@hyperboreanpunk]

Your a midwit loser

[@Rosencreutzzz]

You're*

[@bouncer2177]

@@Rosencreutzzz yar* classic mistake!

[@ThePuma1707]

@@Rosencreutzzz You murdered him dude

[@ferklk]

Real

[@AemondHightower3679]

I am Severly Retar

[@CollinBuckman]

When it comes to warfare I think Imperator: Rome introduced a mechanic which, while occasionally frustrating, could also be very interesting in taking away player control. Every army is led by a general, someone usually from one of the noble houses of your realm, and as with every character they have a level of loyalty towards the current leadership. If loyalty is low, you lose all control of that army- you can't assign new leadership and can't order them, instead when you're at war this army will act entirely independently under the control of the AI and these armies would also side with the general if he revolts against you. It kinda simulates the idea that these generals are ultimately independent of the central government, rather than just being pieces for you to move around the map with impunity.

[@plebisMaximus]

Imperator introduced a very large amount of really interesting mechanics, especially with the 2.0 update. It's too bad the launch was in such a barren and boring state and the game died for it, could've been a really good addition to the PDX catalogue if it had been launched in the state it's in now.

[@harku123]

Man I am 80 hours into Imperator and I am hoping EU5 will use many of the mechanics that Imperator has. It's a genius game. Would love to have the pops, trade, character loyalty, the way military works. It's still the same warfare mechanics as eu4 and stuff. I love the way in Imperator when you have a relatively large realm, you can funnel resources to your one or two big metropolises which is kinda what empires ultimately wanted in terms of expansionism

[@ffreeze9924]

@@harku123 character loyalty is soo frustrating but thats also literally perfect. I had a game where I started in crete and conquered all the mediterranean islands. I was super OP until I had a civil war and my entire fleet of over 200 hexere sided with the enemy, giving me no way to take back the other islands. Probably my fault for keeping the fleet in a single doomstack during peacetime. 10/10 game

[@harku123]

@@ffreeze9924 a lot of the time it's more challenging to keep up loyalty than conquest with other countries but it's the most realistic approach yet that paradox has made in a game like this. As long as you heed the warnings that the game gives you with notifications, you'll be able to keep up with it just fine. If all else fails, go mercenaries, it's worth going into debt for

[@ffreeze9924]

@@harku123 debt can be pretty meaningless in imperator, and most wars are death wars. Always get mercs unless the enemy is just _that_ much weaker than you. As an experienced player of awful starting countries (Adiabene, Judea, Dodekaschoinos), I know the merc life

[@gilgamesh7084]

Ironically Stellaris would be a case study in the maximal extent a player can be made autocratic. Stellaris throws a whole bunch of info about your empire, it’s society and culture, etc. out the window, because it is *assumed* as a matter of scale that it does not matter. Stellaris, in my opinion, is the epitome of player autocracy, because not only do you have near-omnipotent control over the parts of your empire that effect gameplay, you aren’t even told what the non-relevant aspects are precisely because you can’t control them.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

Maybe this is part of what I don't like about the game? I want to enjoy it, but enjoy little of it for any length of time. Empire creation is somewhat fun though

[@slyseal2091]

I can't tell you what it's name is at this point, but when I last played it I had a mod installed that gave you a really interesting civic called "national zealots" or something. It gave you one of those sliding scale events where you can choose what to do to increase the scale, except one option also decreased the slider. It represented how proud/warlike your nation was, having it high up gave you a bunch of bonuses to planets and such. But theres an upper limit as well as a lower limit - if your national pride is too low you get massive downsides because everyone is sad and thinks the government is full of cowards. Having it max out the upper limit is interesting though: You get big bonuses to your military because "the nation thinks we are invincible". At this point you can't decrease the slider anymore. However, not taking part in wars _and_ taking any kind of meaningful loss in a war causes an event that sets the slider to the lowest possible point and an gives you an even worse debuff from having your national pride destroyed. So you do the logical thing and just don't increase the slider to the max, except there is no "stay neutral", only a normal increase and an encouraged increase option. The alternate choice to decrease national zeal also works really slowly. So if you want the bonuses/dont want the debuffs you have to micromanage the slider, _except_ it's also affected by what your politics are. As I remember, having more than one rival makes it completely impossible to stop the slider from increasing. I wasn't ever subjugated, but I imagine that would have sent you into a downward spiral too. I think this is really interesting because it's goes a very long way towards fixing the disconnect of the player and their nation.

[@lazysorcerer]

@@slyseal2091 If you remember what it's called, please tell me, that sounds very interesting.

[@edanarator7716]

Honestly, the absolute player autocracy of Stellaris is probably the worst aspect of the game, since there's no opportunity cost to any actions you take and therefore playing the game doesn't require much actual strategy

[@TheGamingMotionTGM]

"maximal extent a player can be made autocratic" Sure, you spawned as a nation that in terms of kardashev scale, a type II civilization. Then you compete with other nations that were also type II and the sole winner becomes a type III. There is also the options to create observation posts to observe pre-space civilizations.

[@darksuperganon]

To your point about limiting player information, there is a mod for CK3 that removes information about a character depending on how far away they are from you, as well as removing some of the numbers. If you're playing as the King of France you have access to information about your vassals and a pretty reasonable knowledge of who is good at stewardship or martial without being told "He's got a 15 in Stewardship", but for the Byzantine Emperor you're much more in the dark about his stats and troop compositions. If you want to push a pretender, you're taking a shot in the dark based on how big they are on the map. For smaller, more obscure characters like a random Russian duke you're given even less information based on the fact that no one in France has likely even heard of this random place, let alone knowing who the duke's lover's sister is.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

I've heard of this! I think it's a great idea, though I haven't tried it myself and I originally had some reservations over...if it would unwittingly damage the game in the way that, to use my metaphor from the video "turning off the compass" would for contemporary Elder Scrolls games would. If I get back into a CK kick, I'll try to remember it.

[@funkyfanky]

holy moly, i want to play it, what is it's name?

[@Dickheaddotcom]

Name?

[@DinoGamer10]

@@Dickheaddotcom obfusCKate i think

[@cabbage2241]

There was a similar mod for CK2 back in the day, and it was amazing. Instead of scanning over for highest stat of x or biggest whatever it was I needed, I ended up spending far more time pouring over character sheets and their assumed traits and characteristics to make reasonable deductions about whether or not they were what I needed (council, marriage, grant titles etc). Sometimes they were godly, sometimes terrible, sometimes well intentioned. It made the game feel far more real.

[@Swedishmafia101MemeCorporation]

Me before Crusader Kings: "How could rulers in the past commit such reprehensible acts like mass-murder, rape, incest and even killing children?" Me after Crusader Kings: *I G E T I T N O W*

[@calebr7199]

5 minutes of Crusader Kings be like: I need to marry my children together to preserve the empire!

[@ukaszpustelnik6850]

Me before Victoria 3: Laughing at "America invading countries that find oil" jokes Me after Victoria 3: "ok... yeah"

[@migamaos3953]

Me now realizing that taking concubines is definitely rape. Oops

[@gaffgarion7049]

The incest not so much

[@Swedishmafia101MemeCorporation]

@@gaffgarion7049 GUH? 💀

[@wintermute5974]

The thing about game AI is that how 'good' it is often ends up being 90% about how you present it. The FPS F.E.A.R. has famously good AI, but a huge part of that is that the devs put a huge amount of effort into the use of enemy shouts and chatter to bring the players attention to what the AI was doing. This sort of in-game presentation is hugely important, and it's something that Paradox games tend to do pretty badly. How well an ai makes decisions in EU4 for example is supposedly influenced by the rulers traits, but you would never realize this is meant to be the case unless you happen to mouse hover over another leaders traits for some reason, and even if you are aware the game will do very little to draw your attention to how these are actually impacting AI behaviour. Crusader Kings has a bit of an unfair advantage here, since the design actively encourages people to look at the traits of other characters and try to connect them with their actions, Paradox's other games don't have this inherent incentive to see a 'human' element in what the AI is doing.

[@grabbers6520]

The Great conquerors in Anbennar are a good example of how ruler traits could be used in vanilla as well to affect how rulers act. Would be really cool to see some EU4 AI that's able to build buildings well

[@weepingbelle4528]

i think the eu4 example is really funny because clearly the designers agree with you that they don't do enough to draw player attention to ruler traits, but they also have no idea how to do it. eventually they just gave up and implemented those pop-up messages "because the ruler of miskito is a Heartless Sociopath, rumor has spread of his desire to wage war with thirteen colonies!"

[@Waitwhat469]

The Forrest has my favorite version of this. Just having the AI trying to size you up is a great way to make it seem more real.

[@attilatormasi1733]

HOI 4 is the worst offender in this. The AI's decisions are mostly set in stone. Oh you wanted to unite Austria-Hungary again? Too bad you started with a bad seed for that and they said no, start again and hope for the best

[@WraithMagus]

I find that a bit funny, because when people actually break down F.E.A.R. they generally say that its AI was actually not anything out of the ordinary other than the length of the script. The troopers who were the core focus of that "great AI" were actually given fairly strict scripting where they could only perform certain moves in very specific conditions, which in turn meant that they had to very, very tightly control the environments in which they could appear. It's mostly smoke and mirrors that plays with player expectation and good prediction of what players will do thanks to playtesting, the sort of thing that, say, Valve was known for when it still made games. (For example, they would have to make the troopers show up in specific rooms that generally all had to be very similar-looking office spaces because the troopers were only coded to work with a few pieces of office furniture, give the player warning through coms so they start scrambling to find some kind of cover, and because the only cover in the room was something like a desk or going behind a bookcase, there could be a "over there! behind the desk!" message that gets played, spooks the player, and then, because "kick a grenade under the desk" is one of the handful of scripted actions that is prescribed for troopers in the specific instance of a player being behind a desk that is set up for having greandes kicked under it, that FEELS like a smart AI in the moment, but it only happens because the devs expressly built around making you walk into that scenario.) This made the system SEEM much more reactive to the environment, but it required a very specific environment, which in turn made fights with those enemies extremely repetitive because there was no capability to use them outside of those extremely scripted environments. This seems really reactive and complex in the abstract, but really, they have to manually set up all of those situations, which costs time and resources, so they can only really do this with about two dozen pieces of furniture total, which means you're going to see a lot of same-y office spaces and desks with a pre-designated "kick grenade here" zone, and the illusion wears thin if you see them using the same trick over and over again, so they had to mix it up with other elements (like flicking the lights on and off or having other enemy types with "less interesting AI") It's just that calling attention to the thing they were about to do, and then having a script that included more than just "shoot gun at player character" were enough to wow, even if it was just a slightly more complex version of the same thing. Paradox has a much harder problem to deal with, however, because it needs to make decisions that aren't utterly boneheaded, especially in Crusader Kings. This is a problem because there are thousands of "characters" being forced to make choices all the time, but those framerates need to be kept up, so the script has to be DEAD simple, and in fact basically just comes down to making the AI take basically a weighted coin flip on any multiple choice option. This includes such utter stupidity as, in CK2, an event where a character could see a child (either a character they are tutoring or their own flesh-and-blood infant child if too young) up on a tower, and the options are "rush to pull the child away from the edge" or "encourage the child to jump" with the latter crippling or killing their own child for no good reason. Having traits like "cruel" merely double the chance of encouraging. It takes having the "kind" trait to have no actual chance of ENCOURAGING YOUR CHILD TO CRIPPLE OR KILL THEMSELVES FOR NO REASON. I discovered this mainly through seeing some random children being crippled, and having to search for events that might cause this, and saw in the wiki this event. This really is the huge problem with Paradox AI - if you give the characters a box with two buttons, one with "get a pile of gold" and the other saying "a slow, painful death", they are mechanically going to have a 50/50 split on which button they press by default, but MAYBE if they have the genius trait, it's only a 80/20 split chance! Traits making irrational decisions by pure chance less likely isn't actually making these characters feel like they're any less idiots making decisions by blind randomness.

[@user-xp8nq5mf9y]

33:19 Fun fact the American-Spanish war of 1898 is called by some "The first press-driven war" because some news papers where quick to blame the Spain for the sinking of ships as also "publishing sensationalist and often inaccurate stories, (...) able to stir up public sentiment against Spain, ultimately leading to war." There was a guy that even claim he was responsible for starting the war, but he just said it cause he wanted people to think he had that kind of power. No idea how much you can blame the media for that actual war, but what I do know is that is that having control over the media is actually something very important. It would actually make more sense for a game like vic 3 to have several journals from different political groups like Suzerain.

[@alejandrolopezromero8000]

Imagine if you could try to censor or feed reports to certain "party" newspapers, with the idea of free and state controlled press showing the ease for different ways to influence media, which influences groups

[@EvilParagon4]

Would be cool if you and the AI could pay to put "fake news" in the newspapers, which could be used to sway AI opinions/beliefs on things, while also possibly determining your own. Of course, if you put propaganda in the newspaper, it takes away what could have been actual news you might need. So maybe the news might cover something like France running drills recently and they have _134k troops in their army._ Just a small detail for the player to read that the AI will learn and make decisions about. Now is that a fake number bolstered by France and its allies? Is it an accurate number the news is genuinely reporting? Maybe the number is 77k troops instead, could it be that you as Prussia might have put that fake information into the newspaper that then makes Britain feel confident about going to war with France? Or maybe Britain put that number there to bait you? If the newspaper was a reliable source like, 80% of the time, and essential for many of the stats you need to make decisions, there could be some serious media manipulation stategy games that could be playable there if it was such a feature.

[@thomasjardine2108]

"Remember the Maine!"

[@klarinettensemble4036]

Shoutout to Suzerain!

[@joso7228]

Or you could send a Papal Bull to Excommunicate your enemy as a 'Press-Driven War' or send Heralds to denounce Islam to launch a Crusade in a 'Press-Driven War'. The Romans used lots of Propaganda against their enemies with their version of Media, and rousing The Mob to rebel was also used.

[@unktheunk1428]

Babe wake up! New Rosencruetz video on the philosophy of historical grand strategy games just dropped!

[@Poopdahoop]

This is a beautiful video. I especially liked the part about bad AI. I recently came across Alice, the open source Vic 2 clone that runs a LOT smoother than regular Vicky 2. And Vanilla Alice has extremely optimized AI. When I played it the first couple of times, something felt reaaaally off. Then I realized that the AI always boosted clergy to an optimal percentage, always researched the most optimal things in the most optimal order, that it built in the most optimal way and focused on colonization, industrialization and pop growth while always staying on top of their army tech and composition. This in theory sounds great, but when you play it there is literally no differences between nations. AI Argentina and AI Albania and AI Russia all end up doing the exact same thing, all make 'good' and 'optimal' choices, so the whole game feels really off, and SUPER ahistorical. Every one of those nations has always optimized all of their tech and pop, so it's always a level playing field. Except, that it's not - by the nature of the game. China, France, Russia, and the UK are ALWAYS going to be the strongest possible nations because they have the most pops and land and resources by virtue of their 1836 starting point. So, in the pursuit of perfect balance and good AI, what you actually get is an EXTREMELY imbalanced game as a result.

[@hylje]

It’s not about “optimized” AI as much as AI that actually tries to play the game as a legitimate competitor to the player, or are they role-playing as a backdrop for the player’s game environment. That said, competitive AI can combine with roleplaying if the game mechanics are very specifically designed for it. Albanian AI can’t act like Russian AI, because they simply don’t have the same resources and features available. Their civilization or culture attributes nudge them towards their intended historical role, but they WILL seize the day if given the chance.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

This sounds like introducing imperfect information could help?

[@TheRedKing247]

I'm a developer on OpenVic, another project attempting an open source re-engineering of Victoria 2 and this is something we've been discussing quite a bit when it comes to the AI. I've at least suggested we try and create a system somewhat similar to Halo Wars 2 AI, where a combination of difficulty and what leader the enemy AI has actually changes the kind of tactics and strategies the AI will try to employ. The same kind of system could be implemented in a game like Victoria 2, where you tie certain goals, interests, strategies and battle tactics to various traits the nation, the leader of that nation, and the leaders of that nation's military employ depending upon the context. For example, a AI nation with a Pacifist party in power would be more inclined to play things safe on the battlefield and try to avoid casualties, only taking opportunities to strike where it's certain it could win, whereas a AI nation with a Jingoist party in power would be far more bold and willing to commit it's troops to die for the glory of the nation. Of course we're still working on a lot more of the basics of the game right now, so AI is far far off in the future to worry about just yet, but it is things like this we've been seriously considering in how to design our AI such that it's more competent than Paradox's, but still fun to play with.

[@vistagreat9994]

@@TheRedKing247 Christmas 2024

[@jayayywhy4374]

As an eu4 player i do find myself using the ledger for the obvious military reasons, especially if Im playing a smaller nation, but I also sometimes like to look at the economics of the world and see who's making the most of whichever trade goods, or highest trade value, etc. That being said, I do really like how Stellaris handles how much info you know about neighboring empires and you have to either improve relations with them enough that they'll let you know, or set up a spy network and gather info from them until you eventually find out. Even then you don't get exact numbers, you get a comparison to your own power, being ranked as either superior, equivalent, or inferior.

[@GojiraFan25]

Of all the paradox games I think autonomy is best represented in Imperator Rome. The stability of your nation is never certain and generals and armies can act independently if you lose their loyalty. It’s a damn shame Paradox abandoned it

[@Alorand]

My favorite game when it comes to balancing player agency is actually "King of Dragon Pass" - you are in charge of a bronze age tribe in a fantasy world, but are given an elder's council of advisers that discuss each choice you are about to make and give suggestions that reflect their personality and understanding of their world.

[@somerandomperson1221]

I like how little information i have in kodp and six ages it realy helps it feel like i am leading a clan. Also glorantha is a cool setting

[@Urliamo]

you also have to consider how your clan, it's traditions and factions will respond to your decisions, as it might affect happiness or even require you to replace your council. fantastic hybrid game - no other like it.

[@clovebeans713]

​@@Urliamo Sounds a little like imperator rome mechanics, especially if you start tribal

[@petersmythe6462]

Paradox is arguably the least severe here. Civ effectively gives total control over a national entity from preagriculture to space.

[@Madhattersinjeans]

Yeah, I suppose it's a case of focussing on the A student who scored a B in a test over the C student who keeps scoring Cs.

[@krityaan]

Civilization is a 4X game. Not a historical simulation. Saying a 4X game gives players too much autonomy is like saying a player in chess has too much autonomy. It's a board game where you exploit a random map to exponentially stack bonuses until you win. The AI are checks if you can stack bonuses or make exploit decisions well enough.

[@DovahFett]

@@krityaan Keep in mind that Europa Universalis was and still is a literal board game. Things like mana and other abstractions are leftovers from that era in its history.

[@Jens_Heika]

One fun example of player oligarchy is the party game King of the Castle in which one player is a monarch trying not to die, and the rest of the players are nobles making up a council who are the ones who actually make decisions. Also, there honestly is rarely a way to do anything without upsetting someone. Push back is actually built into the game here making decisions that go against the interests of a particular region (all nobles are divided into regions, three by default) causes that region to gain defiance, and if defiance goes too high the players in that region can start a rebellion (if it makes sense).

[@jodofe4879]

The role of the player in grand strategy games makes me really think of the role of God in the Old Testament. The player is omnipresent, virtually omniscient, and from the perspective of a single mortal human living in the time period of your game, as good as omnipotent. And just as God in the Old Testament guides and directs the nation of Israel as his 'chosen people', so does the player select a certain nation, group of people or a family (in Crusader Kings) to serve as their 'chosen people' whom they will guide and direct throughout the ages. The player often has a goal, an ultimate destiny that he wants to lead his people to. Just like how God has a destiny in mind that he attempts to guide people to. And just like how the player sometimes has to struggle against the game's systems to get their chosen people to do what the player wants them to do, so did God struggle with getting the Israelites to follow his commands. So regarding the question of what role the player takes in these games, I think the most fitting answer is that the player plays as some sort of divine guide, a deity who guides their chosen people towards a divinely ordained destiny.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

So.. they are sort of god games in a way.

[@Testimony_Of_JTF]

Amazing comment

[@originalmetalman9430]

Difference is im real.

[@Testimony_Of_JTF]

@@originalmetalman9430 Sorry but what made you think this was a good comment?

[@originalmetalman9430]

@@Testimony_Of_JTF was to good of an opportunity to pass up.

[@redman0027]

So I suppose I want to bring this up as just a different look at the same systems. I consider EU4 and HOI4 to be pretty good war games, and while their war systems are lacking the war itself isn't the only draw. The systems around the war are unique in their respective genres. In EU4 diplomacy and modifiers can drastically change the way a war is fought, what is it fought for, and even how the war can be won (supremacy vs claims for example). In HOI4 you choices made at the beginning of the game will have implications on combat several years down the line depending on your choices. I don't really know where I wanted to go with this, but I guess I wanted to say I agree with your point that the wars themselves might not be the best, but the systems surrounding and effecting them I find extremely compelling in the way they shape the wars. Sorry if this is a bit poorly worded.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

No worries, in fact, if I understand you, we largely agree. My concern with war is mostly that I see the discussions try and isolate that "active" part of gameplay in some measure, when really all the systems are built together. When I said "if these are war games, they're not very good ones" it's because they're clearly more than war games, but sometimes reduced to being judged by the "combat" --which is I suppose true for a lot of games in a lot of genres actually, but that's tangential.

[@roguemerc]

Thats the draw for me, especially since Total War(and its copycats) already has war as the key feature. Paradox does a decent job at making war what it is, a tool. Very few in history started a war because they think war is cool; there were usually goals, even as little as gaining honor. CK is a map game Political-RPG. Wars are super simplistic, as the gameplay is focused on realm management and politics. HOI4 is a logistics simulator. Tad different than the other titles, since war is the end goal, it is WW2 after all. But managing a frontline of troops that were automatically fully supplied, would get boring very quick; they still did a good job imo. Vicky is an economics sim. Again, war is there as a tool to support the player goals for the nation. It makes the world feel more like a World when war is more than "I want that city because there is nothing more to do in this game other than taking that city for the sake of it." I still have fun with Total Warhammer because of the unique factions. but War for War's sake, meh.

[@manuelmigoya2109]

⁠@@roguemercI like your point. I think It also kinda depends on the definition of war. I guess it would be better to replace it’s use so far for “combat”, as war could actually encompass a lot of why you are mentioning. The use of trade, diplomacy and so forth are a form of war. But the point could still be made that, even not accounting for combat, a system where the player has less influence on the outcome could be appealing. A lack of information (or reliability of said information), and/or AI interference might do the trick. But to balance it is the challenge. I always pictured a Total War style game were units commanders are themselves AI and will not always follow or understand your orders. Where the map itself might not be accurate. And where orders are actually delayed.

[@TheLazyBot]

While I agreed with most of your points here, I think your analysis of these games from a single player only stance really limits what can be done, and that was readily apparent when discussing Vic2 (and similar like EU4) warfare. When the contest is between two players, you REALLY need tactics, since it’s not an AI which can be easily baited, and these tactics change notably over the course of a game due to player choice and game balance. Vic2 warfare guides cover army composition, movement, army cycling, and even stuff like the impact of province shape. When machine gun technology is unlocked, wars turn heavily in favor of the defender, and encourage spreading armies out into proto-frontlines which can then be reinforced from the backline, which I think does a BETTER job of replicating WWI-style battles than Vic3 does, while also being more interesting to interact with. This makes wars between players a real test of skill, and diplomacy is also more challenging than just allying the nearest big guy as well since they can actually hold a grudge or tell when they’re getting scammed. What this implies is that really, the AI could be significantly better without making it too hard for players to have agency over history, and this increased challenge may actually make the systems more engaging. Also, a small point on the CK3 troop counts: while a number is shown, it may not be accurate to what you end up facing, as allies may join the war that you didn’t expect, the AI may have better generals than expected, or any other number of things. A perfectly even battle between 5k and 5k men could be a stomp by either the player or the AI with the right conditions, even when the “ledger” suggests even footing.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

These are interesting points, and I certainly do recognize I have a blind-spot when it comes to player vs player gameplay (calling it pvp felt weird like I was saying CK2 ganksquads exist). It's part of why I've distanced from the "war is better now" camp (though I don't think I was ever in it for long, if at all). It's different, and I can see why some people feel like there's been a loss in this "moving away" from the old system. I happen to like the new one well enough and didn't delve deep into stuff like cycling. I can even see why it has less room for expression, so to speak. That said, while I get what you're saying about Vic 2's tactics and agree that changes the way the game is played, the "frontline era" always felt a bit...off, for me. I guess what got me was the scale of provinces, and the reinforcements coming from "a state away" and the representation as units stationed per state (much like per-tile in Civ) implicitly covers vast tracts of land. In that light, the abstracted fronts of Vic 3 appeal to me, even if the change is less visible in some ways (and maybe because of it, to be honest). What your latter point brings up with CK does also lend itself to the reality that interpreting numbers is a layer of information all its own, and it *is* one that is, itself, a player skill. It's something I sort of wish was played into more.

[@wimmer3324]

Anyone who has played a lot of EU4 mp can tell you that there is a massive difference in skill level between players when it comes to fighting wars. That wouldn't be possible if there was no tactical depth to the game. The example of EU4 warfare provided in the video is nothing like what actually happens when two skilled players fight.

[@ruukinen]

This is still just assuming that if there is no tactical warfare, there is no way to express player skill, which is patently false since Vic3 does have player vs player tournaments. They just focus on different aspects than vic2 pvp sessions would.

[@TheRedKing247]

@@ruukinen Yes but that's the thing is that overall, Victoria 3 has less ways to express player skill than in Victoria 2 which is why people are unhappy with it. The taking out of the tactical warfare element was to the detriment of overall gameplay, especially in a way that's frustrating because taking it out didn't really have any advantages other than making things easier for people who don't want to engage with that system - and you can still let those people have their fun by just creating elements ala HOI4's frontline system or HOI3's AI system that let the players have the AI decide what to do for you. Like if you just ripped HOI4's combat system out and put it in Victoria 3, I think it would unironically be considered the greatest Grand Strategy game ever made, but instead we got this mediocre abstracted system that allows for far less expression of player skill, and a much more mediocre game as a result. And to be clear I'm not entirely against Vic 3's combat system myself and agree with Rosencreutz that it's good Paradox was trying something new. It's just that the criticisms levied against it are incredibly valid and I don't think they should have debuted this system in a game series that was already known for having a player-controlled warfare system.

[@alecwest5935]

@@TheRedKing247 I think the hoi4 proposition would have also put off a lot of other people from the game who mainly don’t play multiplayer. Like calling Vic2 “well known for tactical war gameplay” is something that seems absurd to me, I always tried to avoid wars in vic2 because I found the combat to be the worst part of the game. I mostly played singleplayer, and while I understand why many people who mainly played multiplayer would be unhappy with the change, I think that this cuts both ways. Things which might improve what many MP players enjoy might worsen the experience for singleplayer, or vice versa. Like I enjoy hoi4, but not in combination with the economic micro that I come to Victoria 3 for, and if I wanted to play hoi4’s system I’d play hoi4. To me, adding the hoi system would be a strict downgrade in the quality of the game, because I don’t want to manage it.

[@dylanhunter321]

Great video, now I can't stop thinking about the idea of diegetic ledgers and ways their relative accuracy could be tied to gameplay through the IGs/pops "doing the counting" (similar to Dwarf Fortress). Elements like literacy, technology, and free speech laws impacting such a core layer of decisionmaking would be real spicy imo!

[@lamename2010]

To give further incentive for why this sort of gameplay would be fascinating is that Italy for ww1 and 2 was considered a major potential ally for both sides, because other nations didn't realize just how small the population of Italy was, how industrially behind it was etc. The prestige of Italy outpaced the capability of Italy and played a major role in how it could constantly bargain itself into an advantageous position out of the jaws of defeat. All because other nations didn't have good data on how another nation was doing.

[@tbotalpha8133]

This is something I've been musing on a lot, too. I love the idea of a player only having access to information about their country if they build some kind of administrative apparatus. So they have administrators going out to gather information, collating it into reports, then providing it to the player. And all of that labour, and its associated tools and workspaces, would have material costs that must be accounted for. So a player running a poor country couldn't build a huge bureaucracy even if they wanted to. At the same time, each piece of administrative infrastructure would provide a certain amount of Admin (as a resource), and players would have to spend that Admin on information-gathering activities. The less they assigned to, say, tax surveying, the less accurate their information on their citizens' taxable wealth. The player could even halt an activity, and go without certain kinds of information entirely. But most importantly - Admin costs would scale exponentially. So the player couldn't just keep building government bureaus to meet demand. At some point their country would get so big that they would be materially incapable of keeping track of everything that they wanted. So maybe they'd start making concessions, cutting back on the accuracy of their information. Or maybe they'd split bits of their country off, delegating some degree of power to a subordinate district or province that would gather and act on its own information. At the same time, improvements to in-game technology could make Admin-producing buildings, or Admin-costing activities, more efficient. Or maybe the economy could become more productive, allowing it to support more Admin production in general. This would raise the upper-limit for the country's size, and/or its ability to directly administer its territory. Thereby allowing a previously de-centralized country to become more centralized, possibly involving fighting wars with its subordinate provinces that don't want to give up their autonomy.

[@jorbdan6305]

@@lamename2010 that's a really interesting observation, hadn't considered that.

[@RAFMnBgaming]

The thing with Dwarf Fortress is there's no reason not to just set the bookkeeper to max accuracy tho.

[@Waitwhat469]

@@tbotalpha8133 I would love if admin was more than just how many institutions can I support!

[@jimnicholas7334]

Victoria 2 does model the change in Napolionic to WW1 style of war by reducing the combat width of units as you advance. This means at the start of the game you want to bunch up in a death stack, and at the end of the game you want to spread units out on a wide front. You only ever see this in multi-player games though. (I only know because of the KZbinr SpudGun's videos on Victoria 2 multiplayer). Also, if the war gameplay of these games are bad, but it's the only thing people take away as good, so much so that they get upset when it's removed, then how bad does that imply the rest of the game is? Is it even a good idea to remove the implied "best feature" of the game?

[@alexzero3736]

Battles in EU/Victoria are really arcade. Good example would be Total War. Players are disappointed just because they lost control over army in Victoria 3.

[@deeznoots6241]

Yeah the AI in vic2 is too bad to understand how to fight wars

[@commisaryarreck3974]

@@alexzero3736 Players are angry they've not only lost control but are now beholden to the retarded AI Made by the company that thinks making units go from northern Russia to southern Russia strat redeploying and leaving the entire front undefended or near undefended That or "yeah this tile needs 1 unit, the other need the entire army" Players are now held hostage by a retarded AI with no influence on it

[@jackh337]

As a long time Victoria player I'm also disappointed in the downgrades to the economy. Goods are now entirely fungible in V3 rather than having a particular amount of a given good being in existence in the market and stockpiles, goods do not "exist" in 3. Also they not only took away control of military, they made it wildly broken and entirely inauthentic to the period. For instance, replicating the Franco Prussian war is effectively impossible.​@alexzero3736

[@jerico1299]

Excuse me, I have an opinion on this. Give me one moment as I, someone who has not studied history in any true formal sense, climb into my armchair. I think that a lot of the people who are the most interested in the type of games that Paradox put out (predominantly the historical 4X games) are the people who are interested in history, but not necessarily history in its totality. I think there are many people who view history through the lens of war. Which countries were at war with which other countries, for what reasons were the wars started, what kind of technology and tactics led to one side winning, and what impact did that side winning have on the history of the region. As an example, I think more players would have a good idea on what events took place during the Punic Wars than there would be players who had an understanding of how the Roman Senate functioned, or who the Roman Republic's most significant trading partners were. I would also like to say that, in many ways, the only way to get immediate rewards for your actions in these games in during wars. Oftentimes, peacetime activities involve pressing some buttons every few years and waiting for them to come off cooldown, or until you have enough resources to press them again. That is combined with the fact that those button presses likely won't impact your nation until several years down the line. Compare that to wars, where your decisions have tangible impacts in the short-term. You chose to advance an army and that meant you caught the enemy in forced march and wiped out their forces. You chose to place your troops in favorably terrain to bait the enemy into a bad fight that you could win. These decisions don't take years to impact the game, they can often times be felt immediately by the player. This can lead to the sense that peacetime is full of waiting whereas the actual gameplay is during wartime, because wartime is usually the only way for the player to have immediate feedback from the game based on their actions in the moment. All that being said, I am not an expert on any of this. I only have 200 hours in CK3, 65 hours in HOI 4 (65 hours of which were spent not knowing what I was doing), and 1.3k hours in EU4 (the game that I have grown to dislike the most of the Paradox library) nor am I a historian or a psychologist. I'm just some dude sitting in his armchair spewing theories.

[@ziggytheassassin5835]

I always viewed the player and ai as state gods sort of like the city gods of ancient mesopotamia. We have representatives in the leaders but the fate of the nation is decided by the will and strength of the god. Like the assyrians worshipped their city god Ashur or the Babylonians worshipped Marduk. The player is the real version of those gods.

[@Ciaudius]

splendid

[@cheydinhalnationalist]

I think a major, if very abstract question regarding player autocracy (a very useful term), is one of player frustration and satisfaction. The player's ability to enact their will though gameplay mechanics as is well discussed in the video is of course part of this, but in a broader sense I think there's an aspect of the ability of the player to achieve their goals within a subjectively acceptable degree of resistance from the game. Of course a major part of this in many games is the player's ability to set this level of resistance though options of difficulty and such in the game, but more specific goals may be even be prevented by the existence of those possibilities, or be impossible regardless of them. With simple goals such as "I want to conquer this much" or "I want to play this far and see the historical flavour" the player themselves have a lot options for designing their own amount of resistance faced through basic difficulty options or self-imposed rules. This changes when the goals become more specific, such as "I want to conquer the world with Hawaii in Victoria 2 on the hardest difficulty without cheating" where gameplay mechanics fundamentally restrict you to such a degree that regardless of your skill at the game, you require consistent positive events for jingoism to start wars etc. But the question inevitably arises from a design perspective of whether you would even want to make this goal attainable for a player. In the extreme, I think no one would accept a demand such as "It should be possible to conquer the world as Hawaii within a month without cheating" or on the other end "It should be impossible to conquer anything as Hawaii." Even the most gameplay focused player requires some amount of simulation and resistance, and even the most simulation focused player requires some amount of deviation both from their own actions and the computer players. A lot of this comes down to whether the resistance the player faces is "fair." While some players enjoy the possibility of say the total collapse of their realm in Crusader Kings because their heir and king died from unlucky timing on bad events or age related death rolls, others will find it frustrating. I think the decision to allow achievements to be earned outside of Ironman in the newer games, as well as adding a larger and more specific amount of game options, speaks to a wish from the developers to mitigate this kind of problem. The games have less of a default state of difficulty now, with choosing to add or remove resistance not being considered a deviation from that default state-- instead being equally valid styles of playing. It should also be said though, that this amount of freedom in itself can be limiting to some goals. Many enjoy farming achievements in eu4 precisely because it forces a level of basic difficulty, perhaps because the player may feel that they are competing on equal grounds with others seeking the same goal, or because of an ability to show off their skill though them. Turning to the age old debate of how much a player should be expected to police their experience regarding options to customize resistance from the game, we could say that any singleplayer game should have a button on your UI to give you infinite resources if you so desired, and that you can simply not click it if you don't; I can only say that while I would not want to click the button, the fact of it existing would make me uninterested in playing, even if I cannot precisely articulate why. I could go on forever as it's a topic I've thought about a lot, but I'll stop here. Haven't had luck with anyone else wanting to discuss this topic before so this video is a blessing.

[@napoleonbuonaparte8975]

41:00 I think the best example of this is Prussia in EU4, all your goverment interactions are related to military and expansion, improve your army modifiers and develop your country smoothly, that's why Prussia is for many players the most fun country in EU4.

[@Jacob-yg7lz]

TBH, I really hope that future Paradox installments get the best of both world between Victoria 3 and the others. IMO EU4 would benefit from interest group-style politics plus better economic mechanics, while HOI4 would benefit from a lot of the economy-war interactions that are available in Victoria 3. WW2 wasn't just about choosing what tanks to make and pushing them around the map, it was also about dealing with the economic rammifications of war on your morale at home and at the front. "Eggs or anarchy", as they say.

[@hecatedraws]

If we are lucky they won't learn anything from Victoria 3

[@reshuram4353]

​@hecatedraws did u not watch the fucking video

[@Lord_Lambert]

Great video as per usual. Few things I'd make a comment on; Limiting player knowledge is something I've been "crusading" for for quite some time, and while the ledger is always something a player has access to in EU4 singleplayer, the game has the ability to lock or limit it when playing multiplayer, which is something I truly think you need to experience, as your comments about warfare really do indicate that it is a huge blindspot in your game experience.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

I suppose one could call it willful ignorance, to an extent, but I, personally, don't have a strong inclination to play multplayer among anyone but one or two friends, and when doing so, it's usually just vibing in the same world, so to speak, like a "PvE" experience or a shared narrative rather than any sort of competitive thing, so I've never really had an incentive to learn "warfare for players" In the last year or so, I've tried to, at the least, be more aware of the distinction between the sub-communities and how that shapes how I see the games (and the discussions around them), or to try and avoid speaking about a gameplay world I don't know as well. 1800 hours of EU4, with maybe...50 of them, generously, being in multiplayer, means I tend to talk about the singleplayer experience. Perhaps I should have expanded my point in the "roleplay" section about the different player-bases to clarify how that impacts my perspective on war. I can certainly see how warfare having less active elements would disproportionately impact the multiplayer scene (at least for the games that aren't CK).

[@swedichboy1000]

Why though? Why screw people over by limiting knowledge when the systems in place are far from what i could consider reliable.

[@rylanfillery5935]

Really like this video. Put into words everything I've been thinking in my many hours in paradox games.

[@araxiel569]

I absolutely loved, loved, *loved* this video, because it exactly touches on things that I've been musing about and pestering my PDX-games playing friends with for the last half decade. And while I could probably write multiple pages worth of thoughts here (all quintessentially some flavour of agreement with the video), what I wanna especially focus on is how the things talked about in this video is why I believe CK3's Stress system is absolutely genius, how it perfectly bridges the divide between "player autocracy" and "player obstacle", and how it sorta exists in Vic3: Like the video points out using the Anarcho-Liberals as example, a less interesting way to restrict the player to go against the current "role" they are inhabiting, is by simply greying out a button, to just completely disallowing the player from doing a thing. In Crusader Kings terms, it's as if when you're inhabiting the "role" of a chaste, shy and honest character, the button to romance someone else's spouse would simply be inaccessible and greyed out. But this is exactly not the case in CK3: In CK3 even if you play a chaste, shy and honest king, you can try to romance one of your counts, however as a penalty for going against your "role", your character will accumulate a ton of stress, which in turn will have mechanical and narrative consequences. The game allows you to take this action, but "punishes" you with stress. And I'm using the word "punish" with a sense of purposeful inadequacy, because those consequences are what makes the game great. It creates great narratives, like the honest queen developing a drinking problem, because she couldn't handle the stress of having to assassinate her cousin that would inherit the land; knowing it was the strategically right thing to do, but feeling guilt ridden over it... and then randomly confessing to said murder to a friend. Stress in CK3 is a player obstacle, that does not take away player agency. And where Vic3 comes in is that what I would argue, what Stress is for CK3, Radicals are in Vic3. In Vic3, so many of the political decisions and events you can take that go against your current "role" (i.e. government type and which Interest Groups have the most clout) but might be strategically optimal or simply something you as player want to do, they all usually create radicals; directly or indirectly. Even as Tsarists Russia in 1936, no greyed out button is stopping you from reforming your government and kicking the Landowners from the government and putting the Intelligentsia in charge, but doing so will create an immense amount of powerful radicals in the Landowners affiliated pops, which in turn has further consequences down the line. Similarly, you can crank taxes up to Very High whenever you feel like it, however merely having it on Very High gives penalty to pop attraction to the government IGs, reduces legitimacy (which can cause more radicals) and increases radicals generation when losing SoL. Even switching Railroads from Public Ownership to Government Ownership, while being able to be done with the press of a button, kicking out all the former shareholders of a building, turns said former shareholders into radicals.

[@0MVR_0]

Paradox's Imperator republican mechanic that allows a senate to counter-mandate decisions is an interesting balance, along with Crusader King's council support even if the variability is paper thin.

[@meneldal]

Crusader Kings is very hard to balance. If your council was always opposed to everything it would make the game feel awful to play, so I believe that's why they didn't make the feature too difficult.

[@dmman33]

Thank you for what you do! You are combining two of my favorite things: thoughtful video essays and historical strategy games! You’re amazing!

[@Phoenix-ik7bm]

I defiantly feel that the lack of feedback was the key problem for vick3. In fact during this whole video I have been thinking to myself that a lot of the issues with indirect control is that the lack of a visible line of logic or line of connection between an action you took and the result much later on is a genuine frustration because from the players perspective it looks random and arbitrary, or simply put; there is no desperately needed context given to the player.

[@minoxiothethird]

A build of the game dropped while it was in closed beta, about a full year before release. Everyone I know complained it felt like a dogshit mobile game designed so that even if a child is playing they can't lose. They complained so often that every single part of the paradox forums were FILLED with complaints about victoria 3 over a year before launch. Paradox locked the forums and then a year later the game released with the only changes being made that graphics placeholders were replaced with proper graphics. Nothing else was changed and even reported bugs were left in for launch. Pity the poor multibillion dollar studio for they can't even remember how to write a single line of code fixing bugs reported accurately a year before launch.

[@irgendwer3610]

@@minoxiothethird that's just probably what paradox is looking for in their newer games. They are doing the bethesda thing where they aren't interested in being the niche game company with a die hard fanbase of difficult games, they wanna banch out and become mainstream at the cost of the previous fanbase. Their DLC policy is already very EA, the more casual players they can grab the more money they will make

[@minoxiothethird]

@@irgendwer3610 which is why their company will die. idiot CEOs trading long term gain for short term profit is the heat death of america

[@13SScorpio]

I mostly play Stellaris these days and I usually play as a Hive Mind. That makes "Player Autocracy" feel pretty immersive.

[@wolfhh4926]

This makes me think about how much micro/tactics seems to exist in "Grand Strategy" and how Paradox has never been good at this. I personally loved playing the anarcholiberals in Vic2. When one can't industrialize with a planned economy, you have to figure out what are the conditions for industrialization and make them exist. (To a large degree, the answer is just "more coal," so get more coal into one's sphere.)

[@idiotandco.1750]

I've been waiting for an essay like this. Excellent!

[@shinydewott]

Fantastic video as always, and especially in a topic I have been thinking about and dealing with for a while I am working on a grand strategy game of my own, set in the Cold war, and one of the main design philosophy I decided on early on was that I wanted to make a system that deviated from the unitary full control the player has over their countries that paradox games have ("player autocracy" as you put it). I probably spent a year total on and off thinking exactly how to deal with it, and my current idea was this: The player will play as the leading party of the government of their country, no matter how that government is formed and only the change in governments or a transitional government forcing it's will can change which party you play as. All parties have their own policies and are made up of individual people who hold their own policies and ideas, who can form factions to bargain for or even break off of the party should their proposals or desires not be met. All "pop blocks" in the provinces of the country have their policy desires and historical norms, which is affected by different conditions and affect the beliefs of new party members from that region. This gives the player 3 layers to play on: the external diplomacy of the country, the inter-party diplomacy and politics at play in the state and the factionalism and intra-party diplomacy of the ruling party. This delicate balance means that the player has an incentive to make sure their desired party stays in power no matter what. Party policies are independent of the laws of the country, which requires the whatever legislative system the country has to pass or modify laws. This means that a party with something like "laissez faire" policy doesn't automatically mean that you have to play with that new policy's consequences. However, at least in a democracy, all parties make promises during the election period that they need to uphold should they take power. Not doing so will lead to public dissatisfaction with the opposition the political establishment as a whole. This is to make sure the player doesn't constantly turn all parties that come to power to the same party or overwrite the will of the people by not enacting policies that they vote for. Should the public be dissatisfied with the current state of the parties and distrustful of both the incumbent or opposition parties, they may take violent action against the state. Terrorist organizations also work like parties, and they can range from constant attacks and rebellions until their demands of certain policies be met to declaring independence from your country and forming their own to even declaring themselves a rival government and starting a civil war that will lead to a game over should they win. Of course, I doubt what I have in mind is also perfect, and I am cautious of making the players too constrained to do anything (Anarcho-liberal VIC II gameplay style) and this video has been very insightful. I would love to hear your opinions on this idea specifically as well should you find it interesting.

[@deutschamerikaner]

One of my favorite things about Vic 2 was how distinct the different government forms were. Like the best parts of late game were the new parties emerging and taking over countries. You could become communist and spread the world revolution or play world police against extremism as an ascendent democratic power. It really felt fun to try and get a certain party in charge in order to change what you could do.

[@nbkhnzzr]

At one point in the Talesworlds forum, I asked if there were any grand strategy games other than Mount and Blade where you play as a leader instead of the "the will of the nation". No one really understood what I was talking about. It's so strange that so many people don't notice the lack of friction or politics when they play something like Civilization or Crusader Kings. Like some of these games will go as far as to simulate elections of new leaders with entirely new politics over time like Stellaris. Yet you the player haven't changed, and your will is the same. It's as though the will of the nation is passed down from one leader to the next. Like the curse of Fritz in Attack on Titan whereas soon as a new person is given power, they immediately adopt the will of the first king, regardless of their own reservations. That's why I stopped playing grand strategy, lol

[@wachtwoord5796]

Bravo. I agree with this analysis word for word. Put into words extremely well. Thank you I thoroughly enjoyed that 👍

[@Emel_unlegit]

As soon as i heard material conditions i knew i arrived at the right channel. In all seriousness, i never really thought about it in this manner, great vid

[@milantoth6246]

I have thought about this too, but came to the conclusion that it simply wouldn’t be nearly as fun as a more realistic way of doing things

[@seppokajantie9588]

I feel like the last section was kind of weak. I'm not really sure how to articulate it but one thing I noticed is that it ignores something very relevant to the topic of player agency. A big reason why the war part of these games is especially compelling (beyond the inertia of being associated with wargaming at large) is that it's the place where player autocracy makes the most sense. To pick a specific point, the claim about how the evolution in warfare is portrayed in Victoria II vs 3 is completely backwards. In Victoria II you start with eu4 style massed battles, but as you tech up the defender gets such an advantage that you really have to start caring about maintaining a frontline, and by the end of the game the combat width narrows so much you get into months-long battles to advance by a single province. You feel the change in warfare precisely because you have to manually control the individual pieces of your army. Whereas in Victoria 3 the numbers might be different, but the way you interact with war doesn't meaningfully change at all. Contrast this with the way you pass laws in Victoria II vs 3. Having to wait until there is significant pressure from the unenfranchised classes or political will in the government until you're able to even attempt passing laws feels a lot less "gamey" than how Victoria 3 does it (Victoria 3 does have restrictions in place but to me they feel like something put there to make the system work, rather than something rising as a consequence of the system, if that makes sense). This ended up being a little incoherent and perhaps more authoritative than I intended. I don't have a fully thought out position on this (which is partially why my point ended up veering into gamefeel which is not as relevant but I can speak more confidently about), but writing is hard, alas.

[@ikesileth2270]

Really do love your videos. Keep up the great work :)

[@nickfinan6031]

This video popped up in my feed and I’ve never seen any of your stuff before but I love it!

[@botchamaniajeezus]

i think youre missing something wrt the vic 2 war system. trench warfare is modeled by late game techs favoring defenders and defensive battles, cycling armies in and out without leaving the overall lines weakened in any area. while the early game techs encourage napoleonic style “decisive battles” with monster stacks and bigger combat widths, and dice rolls determining the outcome quicker because the armies can’t reorganize fast enough to effectively cycle in new troops like they can in the late game. this is especially true in multiplayer and not the incompetent AI who you can pretty easily encircle and do dumb things to.

[@botchamaniajeezus]

that said, i like the idea behind how v3 handles wars, but id like there to be more player input than currently exists. kinda like playing hoi4 just with the frontlines and battleplan systems and no micro. maybe each country can have a certain amount of orders it can give to have an element of unit micro, with things like government type, new technology, and army size playing a role in how many of these you can use in a given time frame.

[@regularchannel5624]

Hello from Ukraine. Every your video is a little party in me. Thanks for your content and wish you more subscribers.

[@one_victory6145]

Just discovered your channel, and I absolutely love your perspectives on Paradox Games! Most of the time, people are either historians or history-gamers. And it's so refreshing to hear from someone who obviously played a lot of Vic3 like us, but has a legit historical education as well. If you didn't play a lot of Vic3... then hats off to whoever did the research on the game's gameplay experiences.

[@stormcrusher13]

Probably the best critique of not only paradox games and especially warfare in these games, absolute masterclass video

[@rene537]

I enjoy the video, but I think Vicky 2 on it's own with the various buffs given by technology, illustrated the history of warfare in the era nicely enough: going from seeking a 'decisive battle' to attempting to attrition out your opponent. The whole 'ideal army' meta changing through the game also helped showcase that nicely. One second you're quashing rebeliions heroicly, and the next you're the 80 Y.o. general sending cavalry charge against Machine gun pits.

[@thetaomegatheta]

10:00 It's not easy to program an overcompetent AI. While I agree that it would also be problematic in the ways you describe if implemented, I dare you to find a real-time strategy game with an overcompetent AI.

[@chralexNET]

I think many RTS games have really good AI, where the player has to resort into cheesy tactics and trick the AI. Or maybe you find it easy to beat the new Age of Empires II AI in a fair fight? As in using a strategy/tactics that you would use against a player.

[@thetaomegatheta]

@@chralexNET From what I'm reading, the AI in AoE2 is far from overcompetent: 'for a seasoned player with strong macro, the AI isn’t really much of a challenge. It’s army control is extremely lackluster and it tends to seek out resources in really bad locations when under pressure (it doesn’t defend it’s economy very well) so it’s really easy to beat them in the earlygame with pressure and in the later stages with superior army control' 'And “out of the box” strats completely destroy it. Like you can get away with FC mamelukes if so you wish, the AI will just fold. Mass steppe lancer? ez. Kamandaran+war eles in castle age? straight out murder' 'the extreme AI playes at the skill level of an average player and nothing more. if you feel that the ai is cheating it says more about your skill then it does about the ai'

[@chralexNET]

@@thetaomegatheta The average player has probably played for hundreds of hours before they can do that. I think when out out-source your knowledge on this, you have to be careful because the people that even write these things are people that have played it a lot, and probably care a lot about it. What I can tell you as a person that a few times a year plays it for a few days in a row is that when I pick the hard AI it is challenging. You should probably play it yourself and then get back to me.

[@thetaomegatheta]

@@chralexNET Doesn't seem to be overcompetent to me, considering that people seem to be able to reliably beat what seems to be the highest-difficulty AI with ease and what appears to be pure (as opposed to mixed) strategies.

[@chralexNET]

@@thetaomegatheta I didn't say it was over-competent either, just that it was good. I don't know why a game company would put an AI in their game that you couldn't beat. Anyway, another RTS that I play from time to time is American Conquest (which is a Cossacks like game), and I usually play against the AI on hard difficulty, and win every time, but I haven't tried the Very Hard AI yet, mostly because the game becomes a slog, it can take a long time to finish a player off. I don't know if you have played it, but if you search for "American Conquest ai" on google one of the first matches will be a steam community post with the title "How are you supposed to win in this game?" In that post they write that it is a hard game.

[@drvonkitty]

banger video bestie, i hope you keep making them!!!!

[@user-xp8nq5mf9y]

what a great video to sleep. I felt so tired but so interested at the same time.

[@Pancoleon]

Great video, you've now introduced a new concept/term for a phenomenon I've been trying to wrap my head around for a while. :P I mostly play management/city builder/strategy games, so player autocracy has a big role in basically all I play, not just paradox games. As I've been studying city planning, the level of player autocracy you get in city builders has become increasingly dissonant for me (Workers & Resources Soviet Republic probably frustrating me the least because it can justify itself as explicitly a command economy simulator) but I've struggled describing the problem to friends. I am the person trying to have that conversation about how smooth & seamless building a city in Cities Skylines is and you have just helped me make it make more sense.

[@wintermute5974]

You might enjoy the Cities Skylines videos by City Planner Plays. They're constantly discussing the ways in which the power of the player differs from the constraints of actual city planning in a way that makes for a lot of really interesting comparisons.

[@jodofe4879]

As someone who works in urban planning, I can symphatize with that. The way you can just build something in Cities Skylines without having to go through a bureacratic process, negotiations and several court cases that might take up the better part of a decade is both refreshing and quite jarring when you compare the way the game works to the way reality works.

[@adzi6164]

Have you heard about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms game series by KOEI? This one has quite a history with the concept of limiting control. Many games in the series had typical total control, but some experimented with those concepts a bit: - in 7 and 8, games that introduced the "officer play" style - that is, games where you only directly control your one character - even if you are the ruler of a faction, you get a limited amount of orders you can give per season (call it a "turn"). You can ensure stuff is done beyond that by assigning policies to cities other than the one you are in directly, and assigning viceroys to districts, and give the broader policies and goals, so they manage cities in their districts. Also, you don't get to directly control any battles if you aren't directly participating, or the battle isn't an offensive explicitly ordered by you. - in 10, stuff above applies, except that turns outside of battles are removed - your control is confined to city your office is in, everything else is delegation, with you setting policies, and you only get to direct battles directly if you are personally present. - 9, being a "ruler play" game, has mostly direct control over stuff happening in the cities, but marching armies out is a different thing altogether: you assign officers and soldiers as usual, but your control is limited to setting their target, policies regarding actively targetting other enemies, and retreating. - in 11, you have direct control over everything, but you have a limited amount of AP, that you need to give commands. Each command given to officers, except controlling armies in the field, costs AP. Often, lack of AP isn't an issue, but as your empire grows, you might need to set CPU-controlled districts, as each district has their separate AP pool.

[@omegathrone3867]

Amazing video my man, hope more people watch this

[@alphabetaomega265]

32:37 Love that Vic 2 newspaper swipe at the Lib Dems lol 😂

[@anon2034]

"Are you saying that if "I" become the autocrat then things would not go well?!?!?" :)

[@andresmartinezramos7513]

Preposterous indeed It is only "I" who is capable of skippering this boat

[@anon2034]

@@andresmartinezramos7513 "I know THE TRUTH (trademarked)." :)

[@rotomfan63]

Honestly the fact for me is the fact that the reasons Victoria 3 and Stellaris are the Paradox games i gravitate to the most is because you can play tall. It is the fact that there are options other than mass conquest, but at the same time it being AN option that leads me to stick with those two more than the others. Plus I also love any game where you can increase your size through a diplomatic path. Albeit, this is something Stellaris is better at than Victoria 3(the fact that even when you and another country share a primary culture, have the best relations possible, similar governments and you have SO MUCH MORE military than them, they still will effectively never just agree to annexation where as in Stellaris the subject system totally allows you get a set up where you both can do that and in a way that the subject's relations with you don't lower is a prime comparison.). Nut it is still there in Victoria 3 and understandably more limited to the unifying the nation systems Italy and Germany have, although I do wish a lot of other unifacations had that. United Netherlands aka Benelux would be a interesting fit given the history, maybe have it tie into your religion related laws given that's why Belgium left. Heck, Turkestan could also do with this through some kind of system of "Okay if we do not unite to properly stand against Russia we are so fucked" for lack of a better wording and thus your military strength is a bigger deal there than other unifacations. Or maybe have some kind of system where smaller German states(say, one whos have Allemanic as one of the cultures who their land has as a cultural homeland) can vote to join Switzerland even given the whole confederation thing Switzerland has going. You could also do something cool with Polynesia and maybe a system of either stop colonialism by having them join you somehow or even if there's a native uprising in one of those states and you support it they offer to join you if your side wins. Admittedly this section of the comment inflated like hell cause my brain just kind of started spit balling, but I think the point that there is more that could be done with it was made either way.

[@FishwicksREAL]

so the two worst paradox games?

[@nickspillman6275]

Honestly I've come to enjoy playing tall to enough of an extent that I've started finding warfare to be a hassle. Also fish, your opinion is bad and you should feel bad.

[@Thunder103093]

cap@@nickspillman6275

[@paodelo9911]

What are you even saying? You can play tall in every paradox game aside from Hoi, (don't know about imperator never played it)

[@donpollo3154]

You can play tall in ck3 and my god it's strong

[@Owlr4ider]

Your internal vs external focus section is in reality the 3 different levels in analytic analysis of international relations: the personal national and international levels. The Crusader Kings series focus on the personal level, the Victoria series on the national level and Europa Universalis on the international level. Hearts of Iron is somewhere in the middle, mostly in the national level but winking at the international one.

[@dogukan127]

My man your content is something else

[@philipmetacomet3434]

Interestingly, wargames are a genre where there's been quite a bit of (well-received) experimentation with AI delegation and limiting player autocracy. Stuff like the various Graviteam titles, Command Ops, Scourge of War, and Command: Modern Operations come to mind. I suppose the player's role and limitations are more straightforward in more simulationist games - they're about roleplaying, in a sense.

[@petersmythe6462]

Capitalists should make decisions that are economically sensible *for those capitalists.* That is different from the interests of the state. But it's also, you know, unlikely to include building wind turbine in the middle of a dense forest or trying to sell cars to the Venetians.

[@rincasarff5200]

Great video, and it helps me understand why I fell out of love with eu4 and vic2. Ck3 has been fun and instructive on understanding of some of the basics of history I just didn’t understand, so I like it right now.

[@crillybafoon7730]

Amazing video! Made me think of another game that does a great job of exploring player autocracy, Frostpunk. It's a survival city builder game set in a post apocalyptic, steampunked late 19th century. In it, the player is given a specific role (the captain) and is directly granted control over the community by the game. However, the main way that the player loses is being removed by the population; the people revolt if they don't have homes, don't have food, get poor healthcare, etc. The Captain is able to pass laws that change the gameplay, such as allowing children to work, authorising risky medical procedures or reducing ration sizes, all of which cause discontent and loss of hope for the people. It's slightly less grand strategy and history based then a lot of the games you cover but is really interesting as a way of exploring player autocracy

[@randomname5585]

I think Imperator:Rome did it best with player autocracy, the tyranny and loyalty system is the best represent of autonomy out of any PDX game

[@christiannipales9937]

I speed 5 the whole game. I rationalize my stop reaction time as my messenger variance. Sometimes the messages from the front lines take awhile and i can make a decision. Sometimes i stop on the right moment and get the clutch stack wipe

[@0MVR_0]

three sixty no scoping in a grand strategy

[@hjuy4049]

You disgust me

[@nguyentheo1411]

insane work ! thx

[@CaliflowerQueen]

These games taught me an important life lesson. Always have a friend bigger then you to beat up your bullies ❤❤❤

[@Wertsir]

I think Dwarf Fortress has an interesting take on player autocracy. The player does have complete control over the overall architecture and design of the fortress, but they can’t directly force a given dwarf to do anything, instead the dwarf will do what it decides to do when it decides to do it, and the player is left catering to the AI in order to avoid having them break down completely and start goin* completely off script. You might want that wall destroyed but if your dwarf has gone insane from your terrible working conditions it ain’t happening.

[@matthewj5333]

Great video. I played Vic 2 for hundreds of hours. Eventually you learn every mechanic and basically do what you want. I also enjoyed in vic2 the mechanic that off you go free market it runs completely autonomously. I felt sad the market was completely under player control in vic3 regardless what the settings were. Just different systems were basically stat modifiers and sometimes you can’t move a slider all the way.

[@asneakychicken322]

I remember having this discussion with a friend of mine about these games and similarly Total War, and remember the "spirit of the nation" specifically coming up as a good way of expressing the player's role. You're above the government, making decisions for and that affect heads of state and the highest ranking generals, and over vast lengths of time. And also the omniscient levels of information and instant and granular control you have that would make any general or statesman green with envy. That's why I also find games such as Grand Tactician: The Civil War interesting in the way it handles agency and control, from order delays, whether on the battlefield or campaign map, taking minutes or days for your orders to be received and acted upon respectively, receiving reports from your subordinates about coming into contact with only an estimate of the enemy strength, and the ability to delegate command to the AI different formations to save on otherwise insane micromanagement, whether it's from Brigades to Corps, where they follow your broad planning strokes of where to deploy but leaves the rest up to them, all really helps give the player a sense of place as actually being in the shoes of the commander of the army and not some god-like figure.

[@Franimus]

You sir would make a great game designer!

[@wimmer3324]

EU4 warfare absolutely has a degree of tacical depth, especially in the mid-to-lategame when you are microing millions of troops. If you played mp with people of varying skill level you would definetly have noticed that. Properly preparing your country for war (and even player diplomacy) by stacking modifiers in your favor is a part of that. It's not remotely realistic but definetly more complex than what you showed in that ridiculous example. Removing "player autocracy" would eliminate any possibility for expressing skill differences between opposing players and make mp pointless (like what happened with Vic3). It's a game not a history simulator. The historical map is the framework within wich the gameplay takes place and can just as well be replaced by a fantasy version (like in Anbennar, the most popular overhaul mod for EU4). You could make the same "player autocracy" argument about the Total War games but they would have never been as successful if you could only autoresolve every battle.

[@SomeInfamousGuy]

I want a history simulator. I hate how gamey and unrealistic Paradox games are, like having Sami and Finnish in the Nordic culture group in EU4. If you know any good history simulators that cover hundreds or thousands of years then let me know and I'll stop playing Paradox games.

[@ha2kon539]

Nice video

[@fluff_thorrent]

I ran head-first into this when I was confronted with sectors in Stellaris, I almost reflexively started looking for mods to be able to keep planets under my direct control, rather than ceding them to the AI. Very good video!

[@ac4694]

Dude, you made me play Hoi4 again. Great video

[@kekero540]

“Sometimes roleplay *is* bad choices” the AI is just roleplaying clearly.

[@aapjeaaron]

Obscuring information is a very difficult thing to do right in strategy games. Especially grand strategy games because access to clear information is vital to learning these games. You do not want players to need to train themselves to get a intuitive understanding on where to expect a nation to stand by first needing to have played hundreds of hours and having failed in the enough myriads of ways you can fail before gaining that understanding. I do not think this is engaging or desired game play design. We see this in the recurring frustrations of players in games like imperator that obscures enemy troop count. Even though you can go trough their entire empire and count the amount of accepted pops they have. Of Vickie 3 diplo play. Where it is very obscure whether another nation will join a diplo play. Or like you dedicated a good amount of your own video on, vicky II rebellions.

[@090giver090]

Back in the Europa Universalis 1 and 2 days information about whether or not another country would accept your diplomatic offer was hidden from the player. There was a lot of negative response from players about this "shooting in the dark" to make Paradox show the expected outcome in EU3. A lot of players were still unsatisfied as they wanted to know what they needed to do to get what they wanted, so starting from EU4 onwards the tooltips started to show not only projected outcomes but the full list of modifiers that affect said outcomes.

[@jobo5300]

It is difficult but possible. Especially if you make the way to obtain the obfuscated information interesting. One big thing lacking in most strategy games is a model of intelligence networks. Instead you just get it all on the ledger. Getting this information can be a very interesting active game component. For an example of one such mechanic you can look to hoi4's spy system. It isn't the pinnacle of information gathering gameplay but having to judge what countries are interesting and infiltrating their departments to gain intel is much more engaging than reading the same information from a ledger. I also think your point about less information making a game harder to learn is the wrong perspective. Another perspective is this: If we obfuscate more information, the game should also be designed around the player having less information. Thus, a new player isn't required to pass a huge amount of unnecessary info and can instead focus on the few important bits of info available.

[@the11382]

Having advisors for new players would help, otherwise you can have the amount of "ledger info" bound to advisor stats.

[@Waitwhat469]

@@the11382 Advisors was my first thought too. It could arguably be diegetic too.

[@JonWilde2105]

@@jobo5300 The problem with obfuscated data is that it falls into three sets - a) data you need to know to make good decisions b) irrelevant nonsense and c) info that would be optimal to know but isn't reasonably required to make good choices. Games already obfuscate the third set (fog of war, location of enemy armies) by default. If you obfuscate the second set (i.e. names of the enemy ships) the obfuscation is meaningless. If you obfuscate the first set (what can I reasonably expect to happen if I do X) it frustrates the player. Player's feel progression and accomplishment because as they become experienced they understand the "right" choice based on the data they have. They know from the data what is happening, often why it is happening and what they can do to affect events. That is the payoff for a player - in games that promise players the fantasy of effecting grand events, the player can. Good player's are good because they read and use the data better. Absent data, the player choice becomes irrelevant. It might make some artistic point against the great men of history narrative but it's far less interesting for the player whose reduced to an observer of developments the game doesn't show him, let alone allow him to influence. Some sort of information discovery mini-game might be entertaining, but it seems like it should be the theme of a strategy game in its own right (like a cold war era spy strategy game?) with all the systems developed around it. Not tacked on as an irritating obstacle the player has to navigate in their grand strategy/map painting fantasy wargame.

[@Crazy_Diamond_75]

As SOON as I saw this title, I had to click on it. This is something I have internally complained to myself about for the last several years in regards to management and strategy games. I've only just started the video, but I am very excited to hear your thoughts on the topic.

[@TristanSSanto]

In my opinion, what makes war fun in games like HOI4 is the planning that comes with it. It's more than just moving troops on map with your mouse or with a battleplan, you are able to choose where you want to break through a on the front, you are able to plan defensive lines along rivers and montains and make encirclements, that's why its fun. I know Victoria 3 is not primarily a war game, but warfare cannot take a back seat, especially in a game that covers confilcts like World War One, the German Unification Wars, the Taiping Rebellion and the American Civil War. I want to be able to do much, much more than just tell my generals to attack or defend across an entire front.

[@vereenigdeoostindischecomp9932]

Also it is fun to manage the army directly as a break for the excel spreadsheet of Economy. All the wars i did in Vicky 3 where boring and nothing more then a footnote. I never actually wanted to go to war as it was a chore boring and just annoying.

[@thequickrundown721]

Please make a video about Hearts of Iron 4 and how the "Fascist" government type in terms of gameplay offers the greatest level of gameplay interaction. In the same vein, how the "Fascist" government type in Vic2 is the "best" because it allows for the most possible player control over the most things.\ and how it creates morally dubious incentives for the player. for example, if you choose to be "fascist" while playing as Argentina in hoi4, the primary gameplay being experienced is aligning yourself to Third Reich Germany, rather than instantiating the horrors of fascism on your own population. Ideology is just diplomacy.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

If I ever get around to (indeed, decide to actually do) a semi-planned video on the nature of "historical atrocity" in these games, that is certainly a point I'd want to bring into it.

[@Mussonigger]

Yeah Fascism is OP in any game of paradox, because paradox knows that the Fascist State is the most efficient State ever created.

[@beepbop6542]

Well mainly fascism only really exists in the timeframe of HOI4 (and a little in Vicky), which is far more focused on warfare and production than it is on economics or politics. I don't se your point about "gameplay interaction" in HOI4 though, all the governments have about the same level of mechanics. And obviously a more authoritarian government will give you more control.

[@thequickrundown721]

@@beepbop6542 Which is what I mean. The more authoritarian and autocratic the player is, they are almost always more rewarded than if they deferred powers. Fascism in Vic2 being the "best" ideology because it gives the most player control; absolutism usually being a completely flat bonus in the players favor the more of it they gather in eu4. The player is incentivized to be a tyrant despite eu4 and vic2 explicitly giving you more "liberal" methods of ruling your country.

[@thequickrundown721]

@@Mussonigger Clearly not lmao, every fascist state was riddled with corruption, infighting, redundant organizations, and other inefficiencies.

[@kozobrody1240]

While I understand where you come from with regards to ledgers, I do love the ledger from Victoria II, and I propably have more fun reading it than actually playing the game, because it fills my innate autistic urge to have full information about the world at a given time, which is precisely the reason why I use most of my free time to study history. I never used it to help me with my gameplay, I just love learning about the alternate world me and the AI have created. I like paradox games because I treat them less as games, and more as weird alt-history simulations, with Vic2 being an especially cool, marxist one

[@dylanwfilms]

I have like 4000 hours in Eu4, with about 3000 of those hours from spectator games i leave on after messing with some shit, and when you described the gameplay as conducting the history of a particular country it gave me insight into why i enjoyed so much using the spectator mode - because its a similar gameplay impulse just expanded

[@johannsergl9102]

Okay, I have a couple of points. 1. An example concerning Player autocracy, agency and player types: One of the most interesting instances of this was for me the release of Conclave for CK2. It made your vassals desire a spot on the council, and they had, based on their traits, interests and opinions and how the kingdom should be run. If they disagreed with you and you acted against them, they would like you less, which would destabalize your country. If you were a child, you couldn't act against their will at all. This included some of the core player options, like declaring wars and Granting land. I loved this system, and most of my friends hated it. I liked the stories in council politics, my friends saw the fun and freedom they had with the game severely restricted, often by random chance, with no way out, over decades of in game time. 2. Widening the view on player agency and narrative: I love tabletop roleplaying games. I GM them frequently. In fact, I design systems for them (non-commercialy). Player agency, player freedom, and player choice - and when to take it away - and how this shapes the narrative is one of the most crucial aspect of both the systems and the game itself. Player agency is bound in a couple of forms here: A. The GMs word is law. In a way, all player agency is lent. The GM is, in a way, the ultimate autocrat, have ultimate agency - but they are not recognized as an agent in the system itself. They are an arbiter, not a player. They are bound by a social contract: They serve the player, to manufacture for them an enjoyable narrative experience. Their own enjoyment should stem from them partaking in their players enjoyment. B. Domain of control. The control of the player is linked to character actions, reactions, and emotions. They are placed in a larger environment out of their control. This is similar to how you control "France" in a Paradox game, while the AI controls all that is not France. C. Random chance of failure. This is the soft realm between a simple "Yes" and "no" where most of the game takes place. There are a few other possible limitations, but I'll stop here for now. When you speak of "Player Autocracy" I understand this as a question of how absolute the players control is in what is agreed to be their domain. In pen and paper, I (mostly) follow one simple rule when interfering in a players domain: my interference should ultimately further a players enjoyment. This mantra has some obvious problems for implementing it into a pc game: I can make a case by case decision, a game cannot. I may still be wrong, but I can also roll a choice back, or modify it. (Which may be a case for safe and reload, or even an implementation of options for the player to avoid outcomes post-fact.) Your usage of the word "autocracy" points to a different problem entirely, however. It points to morality: how should games be? The mantra of player enjoyment is called into question, and, in my eyes, rightfully so. A Painting should not only be pleasing to the eye, it should convey a broader meaning, should aim to challenge and change its observer. Only then, I think, can it have artistic intent. And what the sense of sight is for a painting is the sense of agency for a player. How a game limits players experience of agency (and the outline of their domain of agency) determines the meaning conveyed. For grand strategy, it comes back to the question you raise at the beginning of the video: If the player holds ultimate control, who should the player be? Who holds control, and who should hold control? And if certain agents hold control, what happens? In my eyes, a good outcome for Grand Strategy is political / historical satire. (I'll point to the comment of the SwedishmafiaMemeCorporation for this.) Furthering understanding through a showcase of agency and aims, and contextualizing this into modern ethics. Democracy does not have to be the best system in game - but non-democratic systems should rear their ugly head, and the cruelty and violence of these systems should be depicted. The tragic, and often senseless cost of war, the social impact of despotism, the travesty of colonialism - they have to be commented upon. I was most impressed with Victoria when I found myself sabre rattling in the concert of European powers, because I was worried about my personal prestigue - fully knowing the path it may lead to. 3. The forbidden topic I have to disagree here for a bit, especially regarding Vic2. For the multiplayer community it is an excellent war game. Player diplomacy changes the game massively. You say that for them the war system is the core game mechanic, which all others serve - and to an extent that is true. But I would argue that the war system bows to the system of diplomacy. For this community, the new war system in Vic3 made the game simply unplayable, unsuitable to their style of play. I think that anger is a very understandable reaction. They waited for a very, very long time to see improvements to a game they loved - and got a game that was, fundamentally, not for them, not even tangentially. I know that Hoi4 is not for me, and that is fine. It does not have the narrative focus I seek. But if CK3 would have been a pure war game, with bare bones narrative possibilities, I would have been gutted. You also mention that the war system is unchanging and does not adapt to the era - in Multiplayer Vic2, that is simply incorrect. It's systems mimics the change from free moving armies and large scale battles of the 19th century to the stagnant fronts and trench warfare of the 20th better than any game I know of. It is in my eyes truly an achievement, and this dynamic system is why I think many love this game. (I would point to this spudgun video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iKWsYYuFhbyNgac (esp. 6:00 to 12:00 and the war analysis from 14 min onwards as a good example.) Overall, a very good video.

[@charmyzard]

"Player autocracy." Meanwhile half the playerbase: "Help my biggest interest group is about to rebel and I have an arch-enemy next door about to attack me."

[@InritusOO]

Great video. Your discussion on internal politics and absolute information reminds me of something that is often heavily simplified in these sorts of games. Namely, corruption. Usually it exists as a malus to players' income (e.g. tax waste in Victoria 3 or just a plain "corruption" modifier in some Total War games). The player knows both exactly how much they're supposed to make and how much is missing. Plus, without the simulation of rogue actors, a player's nation is still in lockstep with the player's decisions despite the penalties, which can often be brute-forced away or solved with the press of a button. Which ends up making authoritarian/repressive government choices in these types of games more efficient than they often are historically. I do understand why developers are hesitant to go further, since capturing the spirit of corrupt institutions and individuals while still being fun is a conundrum even I don't have the answer to. For example, if in HOI4, a division that appears fully equipped to the player can turn out to only have 80% of their equipment because the soldiers misplaced/sold all it off and didn't report it. A "realistic" scenario, but absolutely infuriating to the player since now the game is effectively lying to them. And that's before getting into the performance issues of setting up how the computer has to interact with the system as well. I guess that's why I find Crusader Kings vassal gameplay more fun compared to other Paradox titles. There's the ability to be the treacherous vassal secretly plotting your liege's downfall, or just being a load that wants all the protection of being a vassal while contributing absolutely nothing to your liege's issues. Similarly, as a liege, players have to worry about what they're vassals are doing, how much land they have, who they're friends with and so on. But as you said in the video, that's because Crusader Kings leans heavily into the internal side of things.

[@jwb_666]

Seeing how well player led countries usually fair, autocracy is the best

[@RubyMissleLauncher]

cant wait to listen to this banger as I go to sleep tonight

[@OnlyKarlos]

The greatest issue in the paradox strategy games is that players need to have SOME agency while at the same not having ALL the agency. At least to me, the most fun games and mechanics are those on which I have some control over things, but they are not absolute. Think of HOI4 or Stellaris intel: you don't know exactly how strong a nation is unless you have spies there getting that information for you. Spies that can be captured, that can launch operations to sabotage the enemy internally, etc. It's more fun to not have it all in a convenient ledger (cof cof EU4) and instead having to go get it. It gives more things the player can do, more things to think about, more strategies and decisions to be made. Preventing the player from building because your ruling party has Laissez Faire in Victoria 2 wasn't fun because you were at the mercy of the AI now. It was infuriating to see them always building terrible factories doomed to go bankrupt or letting factories that are vital to you and your economy go bankrupt. You're more often than not getting screwed when you don't have that control. Similarly, allied AI in EU4 can be frustrating at times because there can often be situations where you're depending on them to do something, so when they make a suboptimal decision like abandoning a siege or never landing its troops you get mad. The player feels frustrated when it feels it doesn't have any control over anything. If you felt a game was rigged, would you keep playing it? For how long? There needs to be a balance of player agency, of AI competence, of many, many other things but most importantly it needs to be made clear what's going on and why. The fun in strategy games comes from making strategies, executing them and dealing with the outcome of it. The player can be put against insurmountable odds if it knows it's still possible to win, if it can see paths ahead, if it can make a strategy or plan and execute it. Encircling troops and/or cutting off the supply from a large army in HOI4 is satisfying because it's strategy. Taking a small country and making it into a large empire is fun because you were strategic to do it. It was fun because you had tools and you made something with it. Without the tools, it wouldn't be fun. Without player agency it's not a game, it's just spectating. It's not fun to spectate your economy into the gutter in Vic2. It wasn't fun spectating your armies in early versions of Vic3. Spectating isn't fun.

[@Thespecimen1991]

I mean it's just more fun. I hate playing V3 with laissez-faire because the ai will over build dogshit buildings in the wrong states and you can't downsize them. If more of the game was like that it would just be frustrating

[@CarlLevitt]

This gave me flashbacks to the capitalists building another clipper ship factory in vicky II.

[@hjuy4049]

So you just want a spreadsheet simulator where you can perfect every single detail?

[@shitpostazzi]

Excellent essay!

[@brandonzzz9924]

I have been making a lot of these points on the V3 discord for months now. My main similar thread throughout all my arguments has been "V3 is a simulator. As the player, I do not want to directly control (or need to manually click buttons, in many cases) every aspect of my country." This isn't to say that I don't want control over certain features, like construction, but I would rather have a very shallow effect on a broad scope of functions; for construction this would mean that I don't personally build each building as a player, rather I set economy level effects into motion to alter how the ai runs itself. This would allow for a game with no player interaction to be similar to history with minor variance, as the majority of actions are due to many interconnected factors that are at a baseline value until the player pushes them to change. If I want my country to industrialize faster, I should start with currying favor of the Industrialists to pass legislation that gives tax breaks or favorable tariff agreements to mines, while stabilizing the radicalization of the Rural Folk by increasing government services to balance the exploitation of their land. Every action would have the potential to affect dozens of other game systems in very small ways that build up over time, rather than just building more mines with the Hand of God. To me, it feels that the player has too much autocracy in a few areas, and no impact or even potential to meaningfully interact in other areas. Pops and IG's should run the country, I should just steer them in directions using their own mechanics, not overriding or eliminating their impact. Even the most autocratic rulers in this time, like the Russian Tsars, had little to no direct personal control outside the capitol.

[@TheQballChannel]

On the Anarcho-Liberals front, it can be defined as just a hardcore libertarian faction. No, it wasn't a mass followed ideology in the victorian era, but the ideas and writings did exist at the time.

[@PlatinumAltaria]

There are questions of how plausible such an ideology is. Like if there are no limits on corporate action then won't corporations eventually become the equivalent of states, rendering the whole thing a weird form of oligarchy?

[@martenkahr3365]

@@PlatinumAltaria It depends on how the rest of the anarcho-capitalist society sees the transition of a corporation or a cartel into what is functionally a government. Mainly: whether or not they see it as a threat to the continued existence of the anarcho-capitalist society. Even in an anarcho-capitalist society, there are limits to corporate action, but they are not some black-letter laws imposed by government fiat and a monopoly of force. They are emergent limits imposed by the self-interest of other corporations in the society, taking advantage of a lack of a monopoly of violence while it still exists. Essentially a crab pot effect: if any corporation looks like it might be getting big enough to claim a monopoly of violence, other corporations would have no option but to cut it down to size (potentially with violence) while they still can.

[@MrGoldfish8]

​@@PlatinumAltariaNot even remotely plausible, especially at the time. The modern state developed specifically to maintain capitalism, to enforce bourgeois property with state violence. Peasants weren't happy with their land being taken, or being forced into the cities, and early workers weren't happy when bosses started telling them when to work.

[@user-rw8yy2yp3w]

Paradox games are visual novels Change my mind

[@KingKharibda]

Visual novels aren't games, they're books!

[@user-rw8yy2yp3w]

@@KingKharibda i mean, if your good enough it can feel like books with rng

[@MyUsersDark]

I've been thinking a lot about this. I find it funny how in CK (at least in the third) whenever your ruler dies, it says "You died", while you keep living as the heir instead. I also have been thinking about how much the player has control of the state, as you mentioned. However, I tend to just think that this is how games are made. They're games, not simulations, really. Still, you do bring up good points nonetheless. Nice video!

[@Franimus]

I love the balance struck by railway empire 2 and transport fever 2, where goods and towns respectively will still change with or without direct player intervention. In RE2 goods are transported slowly to meet demands via alternative means, and the player progresses by improving or optimizing the transport. Similarly for TpF2, players can build roads but not buildings, so there is a sort of collaboration between the player and the AI for how towns develop.

[@ernimuja6991]

I like Victoria 3’s and Ck3 simulation of empire decay. In EU, HOI4 and Stellaris the bigger you get the stronger you get. Once early game is over, there is realistically no way to lose. Ck3 and Victoria 3 are different on the other hand. There IS strength in getting bigger but there’s also great weakness. In CK 3 the bigger you are the more taxes and levies you get but also the greater risk of revolt from your nobles. Empires usually rise and fall the way they did in real life. A set of great leaders create the empire and then a couple of idiot leaders, child emperors, and then you lose the empire. Also if you don’t actively manage the empire and get lazy, things will fall into dysfunction. Victoria 3 is also the same although not as hard as ck3. The bigger you are the more demand your nation will have and you need to balance all kinds of interests, demands and production lines. One mistake and your budget is broken beyond repair, your people are demanding revolution and your army is in shambles. Victoria 3 also does not have a linear growth to power. You can be a country with a high gdp but that doesn’t mean your army is big or your arms industry is either. So you can be a paper tiger empire.

[@alexzero3736]

Victoria 2 did it better.

[@mikel9138]

Vic3 is a shit game and it wont change in the future

[@chralexNET]

I think what you've written is something that many games can learn from to improve their balancing, replayability and freshness, I've thought of it myself often especially to include it in genres other than strategy.

[@mikel9138]

@@chralexNET The problem is that companies would rather, focus on profitability which hurts the game in the long run than actually improving it in the first place.

[@TheDeadmanTT]

Sir, I bearly have any control in my life. Let me have this.

[@cnarcetinceviz901]

Hello from Turkey.

[@ntnima]

Thanks a lot for the content! I've been reflecting on PDX GSG design and would tl;dr my thoughts as: These games are the strategy equivalent of Immersive Sims. They are Map based Immersive Sims. They have a lot of map interaction with a great deal of systems that spin based on their own system rules. The player inhabits s sometimes very diffused avatar, which I conceptualize as a 'governmentality'. A governmentality is a cluster of mechanics which the player can use to push against the game systems in pursuit of different game state outcomes. Supporting a Sardinia to form Italy as a way to hinder Austria is the sort of thing you'd do in something like Thief, if you were to bait a monster in the path of a guard in order to get around. Typical Immersive Sims have the player inhabit an idividual, so their scope s much more intuitive and matches a lot of pre-existing expectations. But in PDX games, I think CK is the only series that sits so neatly defined - the nucleus of focus is the ruler, then the player is playing the governmentality of their dynasty, the army serving their ruler, the culture and religion of their ruler, and so on further outwards into increasing abstraction. In HoI the focus is the frontline, then the units, then the homefront. In EU it's the security of expansion that's the focus and the geopolitical GO-like posturing and maneuvering. Imperator feels like EU with more internal shenanigans in the veins of CK or Vicky. To me, Vicky feels a lot more like it's own thing atm, as it puts the player in a very broad puppet master role. I'm in the camp where a few more points of friction would be a way to add more fun challenge and most importantly more feeling of reactivity of the world systems. One of the hallmarks of immersive sims is that their systems are designed to react and to aknowledge the player's actions - the player feels seen and is replied to by the game which is a source of excitement for players, and is a sort of interactive dialog. We play chess to see how the game replies. If the game is too passive or if there are no really interesting or good replies, then it'll feel like an dialogue not worth pursuing with the game. This idea brings us nicely to the wargame dymension which is often a central source of gameplay in these games. I think this is because positional gameplay is accessible to a lot of players and easy to participate in. The gameplay dialog of province or front based war is: I see your troops there, I raise you some troops here, how do you reply? (repeat until war concludes). War is dramatic and stakes are high. Because of this heightened sense of clear scope and stakes as well as how seemigly easy it is to grasp the problem space (ironically I think HoI is the game where war is hardest to fully comprehend because of how deeply developed it is), war can easily take a central position in the focus of these games - and when it is not afforded it, the audience (understandably so) questions it.

[@g.ricepad9470]

Rosencruetz’s another banger

[@Nikiboo32]

the anarcho liberals always struck me as "just ancaps"

[@pablolongobardi7240]

I keep hearing that it's easy to make a overly good ai, however in games like civ difficulty level relies on handicap

[@Laezar1]

it's easy for some specific tasks. For exemple making a godlike fps AI is extremely easy. For a strategy game some elements can be super easily optimized while other are really hard to make AI that make even sensible decisions. As a general rule the more victory is decided by crunching number, rapid decisions and precise input the easier it is to make a good IA, the more it's decided by longterm planning, socialization and decisions with unclear outcome that require good heuristic and understanding of context the more your AI is going to make decision that make no sense or seem completely arbitrary or like self sabotage.

[@pablolongobardi7240]

@@Laezar1 that's what I thought! Civ ai sucks!!

[@newpaperyes]

Very good analysis.