Why does late game suck?

Later Game = Bigger Number... right?
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Video Chapters:
0:00 - 0:52 Intro
0:52 - 4:00 Hearts of Iron IV
4:00 - 10:29 Stellaris
10:29 - 16:56 Crusader Kings II
16:56 - 23:47 Europa Universalis IV
23:47 - 23:52 Outro
See you next Video!

[@LemonCake101]

Want to make my late game better? Financial Support is appreciated, please help pay of my debt here: ko-fi.com/lemoncake101 Discuss the video in my Discord here: discord.gg/bSs2e9YsFv

[@teaser6089]

22:30 I agree, I would love to have such a feature for Stellaris too

[@algebraizt]

“And Alexander wept, for he saw there was about 1000 more worlds to conquer but his CPU could handle about 10”

[@LemonCake101]

Yup!

[@MrFazerlogin]

Trueee

[@Follower_of_Yeshua]

It Sucks, Because you have Become to Strong and the Most Difficult thing is Not Falling Asleep.

[@sasi5841]

Or getting bored

[@yeeyee5057]

Or ignoring the lag

[@Follower_of_Yeshua]

​@@yeeyee5057 With My Potato PC, i Just Stop Pausing late game because the Game Already Does it For me.

[@Seal_Enthusiast_]

@@Follower_of_Yeshua When the grand strategy game decides it would rather be turn based.

[@australiananarchist480]

@@Follower_of_Yeshua Btw in English we only capitalise proper nouns (meaning specific things, such as "the blue country" vs France) and the first letter in a sentence.

[@Sliphantom]

The reason late game sucks is because there's no entropy. By the end of the game, especially in EU4, most of the land has been gobbled up by huge blobs with colossal militaries - the kind that would require an impossibly efficient hive-mind bureaucracy to run and keep stable. Rebellions are a joke, and internal instability doesn't scale up with the size of the empire, even if it conquered multitudes of other peoples to get there. There are other issues such as late-game lag and micro which make it annoying, but I think the biggest issue with lategame in most of the Paradox titles is that there are no mechanics that inherently counter snowballing.

[@cosmo1851]

this tbh. Everything everywhere always just blobs out.

[@Augustus_Imperator]

yes, I remember when I used to play the earlier versions I took my time, did my thing, and by the first century AI nations did almost nothing, and I quite liked it because I was deliberately slow to war or conquer things myself to make it more realistic, having some chill time in micromanaging things. the new AIs within 20 years from start are snowballing already and will make them impossibly hard to fight within 60 if not running to gobble up everything. sad really.

[@Dreadnote-pf7of]

Yeah, and this is why CK is better and endgame than most Paradox games, because usually you HAVE some entropy in your big kingdom-empire. And if you not careful - it could cramble with every king death.

[@boozecruiser]

@@Dreadnote-pf7of Yeah but the upshot of that is that you don't get a single nice border

[@TheSuperappelflap]

It would still suck if there were constant civil wars to limit the blobbing. Then you get Rome 2: Total War. You dont want Rome 2: Total War. It may sound like a good idea on paper, but trust me, it is not.

[@ghostrangerz8273]

“And Alexander wept, for he saw there was no more worlds left to conquer.”

[@Ved000000]

I thought he wept because he realized there were other worlds in space that he would never get to conquer in his lifetime, and conquering a single one is barely noteworthy in comparison. >This may originate from Plutarch's essay On the Tranquility of Mind, part of the essays Moralia: Alexander wept when he heard Anaxarchus discourse about an infinite number of worlds, and when his friends inquired what ailed him, "Is it not worthy of tears," he said, "that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have not yet become lords of a single one?"

[@alexpacheco2031]

F 😂

[@detachedobserver]

"HoI4 is not intended to be played past endgame" >Looks at Turkey's focus tree "I'm not sure, buddy"

[@LemonCake101]

>Turkey is not intended to be played

[@detachedobserver]

​@@LemonCake101 fair point

[@MarkhasSteelfort]

@@LemonCake101 But they are the biggest 'What if' of WW2. I think Paradox definitely intended on some alternative scenarios. Otherwise it would be boring.

[@eget4144]

Whats up with Turkey's focus tree?

[@Frostenheim]

​@@eget4144It's so long and railroaded that by the time you're ready to do anything, the game is basically half-over

[@Pioneer_DE]

Problem with every Strategy late game: -Game is too slow -Player is too powerful -AI spams units -Everyone is allied with everyone causing 1 minor war to escalate into total war (WW1 RP) -There is nothing more to do (Focus tree, research etc) -There is nothing more to build

[@v44n7]

also UI and most game mechanics are not designed for late game. Hoi4 in particular after 45' its just crazy mess, same with stellaris

[@commisaryarreck3974]

Stellaris is only good modded UI mods, ACT and preferably megaengineering at the very least Then watch the game melt like it already does around midgame since paradox has never heard of the term optimization and thinks it's a slur against developers

[@Pioneer_DE]

@@v44n7 IRC hoi4 even has a bug that when you have too much equipment there's a stack overflow and you'll go into the negative.

[@lisaruhm6681]

@@commisaryarreck3974 well, the optimisatzion issues come afaik mostly from the changes to pops.

[@ottar3402]

This is why we have mods and in hoi 4 nobody are allowed to allay or guarantee independence etc and its like playing on easy mode as i only have to stack supply and tanks at what ever border and conquer everything 1 by 1 by 1

[@freddekl1102]

For all 5 people that care, Imperator is actually fun up to the end-date, mainly cause without try-hardism even for Rome it's a challenge to reach max historical borders or WC, and with anything weaker it's a never ending cycle of build-up, line-go-up and assimilation and you actually have to put effort in keeping your country together to limit just blobbing everywhere

[@LemonCake101]

I care! But yeah I talked about the games I had the most experience in, and Imperator is outside that domain.

[@rislavtherighteous2226]

@@LemonCake101you should give it a shot, imperator has a mechanic to let ai control your armies, with you designating what strategies it should prioritize (siege, battles, defense, reinforcements, scout)

[@LemonCake101]

@@rislavtherighteous2226 oh I know, I have played the game just not for over a hundred hours, and I love that mechanic: shame its not in Eu4.

[@Ragatokk]

Why do people keep lying about imperator? It's still horrible. Migration mechanics for example give you instant land and population for nearly free.

[@Nerazmus]

Not really tho. Even if you are mediocre, you can get historical borders long before the end date.

[@domehammer]

I got a modest 1.5k hours in Stellaris and the biggest issue with the game I have is there are a ton of super fun A.I personalities that you will NEVER see. What you gotta do is make a bunch of custom empires following the wiki to get them to spawn with specific personalities. Fanatical Befrienders and Metalheads are wild but you've probably never seen them spawn naturally. A bunch of AI personalities require not just specific ethics but the founder species to have specific traits. So whenever I play Stellaris I have a bunch of custom empires forced spawn so I see variety every game. It also means unless I'm also playing a megacorp only two max will spawn in the galaxy. For reference Metalheads are so aggressive they usually die, they don't care about being stronger they will just attack. A devouring swarm has 3x aggressiveness while Metalheads have that at 10x. What I want most in Stellaris is a shattered galaxy option where galaxy is broken into chunks connected by hyperlanes but not to other chunks. Only way to reach the other chunks of galaxy being wormholes, gateways, jump drives, and the catapult.

[@LemonCake101]

I should give those custom AI's a go, I normally have my random empires made but also created to never spawn.

[@domehammer]

@@LemonCake101 You'll want to make sure home system is just random for any custom empire you want to see spawn as game won't spawn two empires with same home system option. Even if the option is just star type, just spawns those once. Also since custom empires are saved on a text file you can easily just clean out empires or my favorite fully swap out custom empires. I have a set of custom empires for when I just want humans spawned in the galaxy. Since is some weird stuff when you only have one species. I remember in older version of game fanatic purifiers being fine with you if they shared your founder species.

[@LemonCake101]

@@domehammer Sounds like a cool game idea actually, humanity only Galaxy.

[@koolguy751]

​@domehammer they still are "fine" with you, but you still have the negative diplomatic hit (unless you too are a purifier), which I guess doesn't matter if there's Xenos in the galaxy.

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

The various AI personalities still play way too similar to one another, a Migratory Flock is basically identical to a Federation Builder. Hegemonic Imperialists also arguably need their materialist side split off. Sadly AI personalities have seen no major work done to them since Synthetic Dawn.

[@ziggytheassassin5835]

Stellaris would be at its best late game if it didnt slow down so much. World killers, megastructures, the endgame crisis, and late game diplomacy like galactic custodian etc is actually really cool. War in heaven is a game killer tho because usually most of the map joins a single federation.

[@TheEmolano]

My main problem with Stellaris is that it's really hard to catch up if you're behind. Like a single war the player won will completelly take an IA empire out of the campaing.

[@D10N_022]

Yeah, I have never played past 2500 because I just get bored waiting 10 minutes for my fleet to jump from one system to another

[@vuaddd]

​@@D10N_022 ++

[@iamaprochingfast1000]

@TheEmolano It's not that bad, since if you're weak, you can easily befriend the better AI and much of their science with a pact. Or just beat them with a raw, un-upgraded fleet.

[@antoineguerrier2965]

I'm certain that world killers' sole purpose is reducing endgame lag.

[@connortheandroidsentbycybe7740]

At least with PDX, no one plays it, so PDX don't pay attention so no one plays it and so on

[@LemonCake101]

A self fulfilling prophecy indeed

[@lsthero5863]

In ck3 they have the mongols and the black death as endgame. And the crisis of stellaris are cool

[@user-pe8yi9uh7d]

​@@lsthero5863gigastructures ftw

[@wotanvonedelsburg1610]

​​@@lsthero5863you forgot the sunset invasion oh wait you Spike from ck3

[@teardeem]

@@lsthero5863 I wouldn't call the mongols endgame, but idk, they're also very easy to beat if you know how to win a war

[@sean4929]

Real paradox game moment: "I only have a bit of experience in this game" 500 hours lol

[@henryasselin123]

I've got like 150 on Victoria 3 and still can't grow my gdp per capita

[@sean4929]

@@henryasselin123 once you have a basic level of industrialisation mass construct buildings that create things for export, good ones are luxury furniture and luxury clothing, canned food also isn't bad. But there's plenty of youtube tutorials out there that will help you in more depth.

[@kurosu-samaklipleri7090]

Oh you have 2000 hours in Hoi4? Explain me what is hard attack soft attack breakthrough is and how naval navy works? *absolute silence*

[@algebraizt]

@@kurosu-samaklipleri7090 Oh you're no longer a beginner in Hoi4? What is every province's combat width?

[@lisaruhm6681]

@@algebraizt what is a navy?

[@sld1776]

The biggest problem with Hoi4 late game is that it's generally way too easy. You stabilize the frontline gain air superiority logistic bomb their trucks and trains and just right click past Moscow or something. It just takes about 6 months preparation to unstuck a frontline.

[@LemonCake101]

True, but it also doesn't help if you are trying to fight in say South America...

[@dirkoftheblaze2352]

@@LemonCake101Usually at that point your industry is so OP that supply hardly matters, spam hubs/tracks/ports/airbases/trucks/convoys. The biggest obstacle is patience (and your PC).

[@LoLaSn]

AI is way too wack in hoi4

[@katanabluejay]

NATO tactics be like

[@maciekGTR]

Why won't people just play on Expert AI? It makes the entire game and especially late game quite hard and fun to play since the AI isn't braindead

[@pogusmogus3573]

remain calm all province tierlist endures lemon cake will suffer i finally was early again there is much to be done

[@pogusmogus3573]

here before 1000 dolar comment

[@LemonCake101]

How are you here so early every time, the dedication is insane: I am sad for I have only one heart comment to give.

[@jeffpenner7083]

​@@LemonCake101well you SHOULD be sad about not doing the province tierlist lemon. Every fan is asking for the same thing

[@jeffpenner7083]

For the record I'm on an airplane. That's why I'm late.

[@LemonCake101]

@@jeffpenner7083 if every fan asks me to jump of the bridge, doesn't mean I should do it.

[@Ragatokk]

The two big once: It's slow to compute, and there is no army automation.

[@Archduke_Astatos]

A huge issue with HOI4 (this is the paradox game Ive played the most) late game is that by 1945, even in mods, 99% of the time you're either so powerful nobody can touch you or you're neck deep into a war that you've been fighting since 1941 or earlier and it's slowly draining the life out of you, the games way of saying "fuck off and touch grass".

[@cc0767]

we really just need a better peace system. Let me play as a minor, take an island I want and peace out instead of having to capitulate the allies, US, Canada, Brazil, India, somehow japan and idk what.

[@Archduke_Astatos]

@@cc0767 Maybe they could redo the conditional surrender system, since it's never usable.

[@Ronin.97]

@@cc0767 Yeah the peace and war system is only geared towards a "World war" type of system. Even though there are obviously smaller wars fought in HOI4. Especially annoying in say the OWB mod having this "World war" system like that in the fallout universe ruins it sometimes With the Caesar's Legion faction especially. They definitely need a new peace deal system. If Germany IRL took out the French, English, and then the Russians and controlled all of Europe/North Africa I'd think the US would do everything in it's power to save itself instead of refusing to surrender so they can save some governments in exile.

[@wisemankugelmemicus1701]

Me with a 1986 save file

[@puransu20]

by the late game, the AI just shows that they're really bad at the game. In EU4/Imperator, once you've done your missions (they're always overloaded with buffs for the players) the AI just doesn't know what to do with their army/manpower even if they outnumber or outdevelop you. In CK, it's ridiculous how easy the late game is because you're blobbing even when you're actively not trying to because of how your vassals can sometimes just inherit land outside your realm even at the highest crown authority. Not to mention all the super soldiers you can come up with your retinue/knights. The Victoria games are the only ones that have somewhat interesting late games, especially Vic 2, because 1) the game ends arguably early when it's just about to be boring and you're about to cruise on gas attack tank/plane and battleship stacks and 2) there's guaranteed world-altering Great Wars to mix things up that sorta compares how well you've been doing against other nations and puts a nice ending to how you've been slowly building your nation internally.

[@XochiCh]

Omg, I HATE blobby Vassals in both Ck2 & 3, here I am, trying to build a nice realm, maybe a little bit of tall, with neat borders, focusing on internal politics while trying to spread my dynasty, and doing some RP… then there is this bastard of a vassal that somehow in less than 5 years blobbed so hard, his realm is now twice as big as the kingdom itself, and has horrible border-gore snakes running from Moscow to Timbuktu and is a complete pain to deal with.

[@perpetual_suffering1458]

Kinda disagree with your take on victoria 2. I love the game but it's so rare for me to get past 1900s. The game gets more and more tedious as it progresses because you've got larger armies and larger armies come with more tedious micro. Plus the endgame is always a slaughter against the AI because its so stupid, great wars consist of you waiting in your territory as the dumb ai marches half a million army doomstacks into your territory that you can just encircle and end the war in just a few months

[@exantiuse497]

CK2's issue is that succession is supposed to be a strong anti-blobbing mechanic (claimants, opinion penalties on new rulers, gavelkind) but so much power has been added to the player that it is trivial to counter the succession penalties and continue consolidating and blobbing until you rule an unstoppable realm and have +100 opinion with everyone all the time

[@jamescai3490]

i feel like its the opposite for vic2, every time i play into the late game every war just plays the same since the ai does the same braindead attacks and bleeds their army like in hoi4

[@AbstractTraitorHero]

@@perpetual_suffering1458 I tbh don't even really fight war in victoria, just get way too enraptured watching pops change and stuff.

[@borginburkes1819]

CK2 has the best endgame because the game is so random that literally anything can happen. No two play throughs are exactly the same in CK2.

[@LemonSouce2018]

+ barely any border gore

[@DrClock-il8ij]

​@@LemonSouce2018lol ck2 is border gory asf and it gets worse with every earlier startdate. Ive had the mongol empire have it's capital in a single enclave in greece

[@lordcypher5889]

CK2 is probably the current best PDX game simply because it's the most fun and chaotic.

[@CivilizedWasteland]

only thing i hate about ck2 is how easy it is for the ai to kill you with plots no matter the percentage, yet i have like 300 plot power and it could take 10 years to kill someone.

[@WladylawGomulka]

@@CivilizedWasteland and in ck3 ur invincible

[@wintermute5974]

Crusader Kings has some other advantages over the other paradox games. The game allows for lots of kinds of expansion and map painting that don't involve directly conquering other places through systems like conversion, placing relatives on distant thrones, or the merchant republic trade post mechanics. It also gives you the opportunity to wildly shake up how you're playing even very late in the game. It also shares something like the 'crisis' system from Stellaris, what with the Mongols in the late game (and the more controversial Aztec Invasion slightly earlier if you play with it). In one of the most memorable campaigns I played I spent the first 3/4s playing as a ventian trading family, slowly building up the family palace and crushing the other merchant republics in the mediterranean while playing a careful diplomatic game with the islamic world, then I joined a crusade late in the game with a small force, did way better than expected and almost accidentally ended up becoming king of jerusalem. Suddenly I was playing with all the standard feudal mechanics and had a totally different set of priorities. It was great, and not really possible with any other pdx game.

[@LemonCake101]

No for sure, its insane how well Ck2 handles the lategame, although it can mean that if you are trying to blob, it can get very frustrating.

[@electricVGC]

Victoria 2 modded fixed it by having the dismantle and making sure the late game was often still challenging, but not painful - as well as trying to diplomat your way into great wars. Even then, some don't pay

[@electricVGC]

Also yeah paradox games are not hard but it's a question of if you understand how to win

[@LemonCake101]

I have quite a limited experience in Viccy, but it does seem a popular choice for this discussion!

[@chihieunguyen8477]

yeah I play divergence and late game is super fun when dozen of great war, comm.unist and fas.cist state show up and it become a battle royale in the last 36 year of the game :))

[@Crimsononon]

@@LemonCake101 it happens because victoria 2 has an anti spam system: - the soldier population, which limits the army - infamy, single war goals - 8 factories per state and craftsman population the only thing that ruins it is the population numbers, especially if there's various different cultures, because it will start lagging, but it doesn't get unenjoyable, just really, really slow with mods like GFM which have a lot of provinces, therefore lots of population

[@loudgoat5241]

I remember Vicky 2 on the old computers back in the day the late game had the potential to be fun, it was just a problem that time would literally stop.

[@delayed_control]

I like how the end-game strategy in CK2 is to breed the Kwisatz Haderach

[@LiminalQueenMedia]

Yeah pretty much

[@JM-mh1pp]

I mean... you are not wrong

[@Dogman262]

Lategame Mount & Blade Warband is brutal slogfest of conquering every single siegable place on the entire MAP

[@JoeZombie-nq7qj]

Whiel your lords constantly change allegiance. That is the worst part.

[@aca347]

Same with Bannerlord. That game is only fun when you are a merc.

[@MT-iw6sl]

@@aca347*Loads new run *Starts beating up bandits *Becomes tier 2 mercenary *Starts to snowball *Joins faction *Get way more powerful *Try to manage severely mentally challenged AI *Get frustrated/bored after a while *Not play again for 6 months

[@QuisUtDeus828]

​@@MT-iw6sl are you me? I just went through my 3 week bannerlord phase a month ago 😂

[@karlpeterson3748]

In a more general game design sense it’s because the developers have less knowledge of what resources a player will have and it becomes harder to build a “puzzle” that feels rewarding to solve. I can create a box with a lock on it and ask you to solve a math problem to get the solution, and that’s fine, but if the reward is worth it and you have other tools (say, a hammer or a laser cutter), the math problem simply won’t be solved. To put this in terms of paradox (and eu4), the developers only know what countries exist in 1444. They can’t script big wars, they can’t force the league war to actually be 30 years, and there’s no real way to have a fun gameplay mechanic involving incompetent rulers that so often ruined nations in this timeframe. Any lategame challenge that has any difficulty can be known and planned for (think, revolutions or the commonwealth noble revolt) and it makes these challenges significantly less challenging. There can’t really be generic challenges because something like +10 global unrest is going to function a lot differently depending on your size and strength and it’s going to feel unrewarding to play through. I definitely think there are solutions, limiting player expansion to a reasonable level so that they don’t reach a state where they can plan for everything is one of them and I hope eu5 slows down the rate of expansion in the early game to both match history and make the game more engaging

[@LemonCake101]

Fair! You are not wrong, but that doesn't mean I still can't hope for improvements.

[@skycaptain95]

Except that all of your second paragraph was solved by the focus tree + historical focuses system in hoi4

[@phobics9498]

​@@skycaptain95There is no second paragraph bro

[@XochiCh]

@@phobics9498 Second paragraph starts at “To put this in terms of Paradox”

[@TheSuperappelflap]

But with years of patches and DLC, it is possible for developers to see how people play the game in practice and adjust for that. Lets say I see that a lot of players are choosing to use a laser cutter instead of going the route I intended which is solving the fun math problem. Then I can do things to motivate the player to go the intended route, rewarding him for opening the box without damaging it, or move the laser cutter further up the tech tree so that it becomes worthwhile to solve my math problem to get whats in the box sooner. And then I can design a new puzzle that you can use the laser cutter on later.

[@simona1001]

CK:s RP elements also adds to the games longevity. When I get bored with developing my empire and dynasty I can just start a love affair with the pope, turn my family tree into a bush or start worshipping Satan.

[@maxbreiling4929]

The stellaris talk is why I miss sectors from the pre 3.0 days. Being forced to only directly control 5-8 planets directly (as a hard limit) and having to turnover the rest to AI control was actually super good at limiting the amount of micro and created a cooler space empire type of feeling. Obviously they changed it because the AI couldn't keep up with the 3.0 economy for like 3 years of development and I like the toys from 3.0+ we've gotten esp the galactic community mechanic but damn that pre-3.0 sweet spot for stellaris was such a fun rewarding experience from start to finish

[@nathanielknight1838]

yeah, the micromanagement while having 1 million troops deployed and waging three simultaneous wars is tedious. Like you've said, you'll will, you're too strong too lose, but chasing their 200k doomstack isn't fun and waiting for 30 lv 8 to be sieged down while the RNG gods won't give you anything beyond a 2 star siege general is just sucky. Also, the attrition while standing around because no province even provides a half full with stack so you basically gotta slice them in 4 and then slap them back together again and then detach all siege units / artillery or take insane amounts of attrition AND then watch that like a hawk in case doomstack just wipes your artillery only stack. It's so tedious and not rewarding because taking 3 provinces with 30 dev each is neat I guess but I already have 15000 dev so going to war with Spain, France and Austria for 3 lousy provinces is just exhausting. Especially with the goddamn AE in Europe which is just insane and then forces you to fight even bigger slower wars just for tiny gains.

[@LemonCake101]

Basically... this. You exaggerated here, but I mean I also exaggerate chronically in my videos.

[@randomlyfunny6047]

Is this ck3? I’ve been playing it as Ireland or as a vassal in England and that part about “small gains” is so real cause trying to form Britannia when the max I can do is form a claim of fuckoutofnowhere after a wait time of 2years is annoying

[@TheCamCat777]

@@randomlyfunny6047 this is EU4, but the principle is the same across almost all Paradox games (Minus HOI4, total war all the way)

[@rayke0344]

I disagree, why play a strategy game and get mad when you have to think about micromanaging your troops?

[@randomlyfunny6047]

@@rayke0344 it’s just the fact that there’s so many troops it gets a bit annoying to chase down death stacks, I for one play ck3 (cause it was free for PlayStation plus) and chasing down that one army that is similarly sized to yours is tedious when it’s usually ur only army because it’s still early game. But I see your point about micromanaging in a micormanaging strategy game

[@TheCarloCarlone]

The problem I have with stellaris is that by the time I finish my ring world, I don't need a ring world anymore

[@sirwilczek1813]

CK2 is challenging at all times cause it takes one bad RNG roll to just fall apart and I love it

[@fje_grg]

not it doesnt? Ck2 is super easy if you know what your doing

[@sirwilczek1813]

@@fje_grg And then none of your wives decide to have a son

[@fje_grg]

@@sirwilczek1813 ? if you live past 25 you will have a son. your just malding cause your bad

[@aca347]

@@sirwilczek1813that’s why you never do male-only succession

[@supermansuperman3047]

I've always liked vic2's endgame, as time is really strict/punishing in that game, so you reach it often, and there's a lot of barriers to conquering, so while you *could* wc, it's not common for you to pull away entirely for the entire part of the game. Only civ5 can pull a high quality end like that in my experience.

[@LemonCake101]

Fair enough! Infamy though is not the best of mechanics IMO.

[@seffor]

civ 5 is so peak

[@wintermute5974]

Also the vic 2 endgame is often less about conquering the world than it is about breaking the world economy or manipulating pops to meet some arbitrary goal.

[@echoes5476]

​@@wintermute5974ethnic cleansing

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

@@seffor I LovE FoUr CiTy EmPiReS

[@KerbalRocketry]

HOI4 late game i think can be summed up by; nukes main use is for destroying stacks of aircraft all at once

[@oldylad]

I get why they did nukes that way, but I hate it. They’re cool with slaves for historic accuracy, but the terrifying power of nuclear bombs is too much? Nukes have to be relegated to melting guns and planes and destroying roads?

[@XochiCh]

@@oldylad I hate how easy it is to nuke something in HoI4, and how unimportant/uneventful it is, both nukes in Japan were so terrible, that the country still has PTSD to this day, almost 80 years later.

[@exoticbreadstick8661]

@@XochiCh i get them not implementing methods that target region pop, just thinking of some of the edgelords that would really get off on that kind of thing.

[@XochiCh]

@@exoticbreadstick8661 I mean, we have culture conversion in Ck2/3 and Eu4, I’m pretty sure more than one edgelord has already replaced Armenian culture with Turkish in a game, or Irish with English, or Georgian with Russian, or Ukrainian with Russian, etc.

[@cc0767]

​@@oldyladpeople always have this criticism with nukes in Hoi4 but they completely fail to understand early nukes were simply not all that strong. Even US war planners who prepared for a potential war with the soviets post WW2 estimated it would take 3 nukes per city to actually destroy it. Mix in duds and other technical defects and you need to send 5. A province/tile in hoi is also pretty big. Yet a single nuke lets you absolutely destroy the org of however many divisions are in that tile. If anything nukes in hoi 4 are WAY too strong, people just have the wrong expectations because they picture cold war era bombs.

[@harz632]

22:00 This is why VIcky 3 war is so hands off, trying new ways of handling the aspect of gameplay without making it into a micro fest like every other paradox title. And I can respect their effort, even if the system itself might not be that great to many, at least they are trying and looking for an alternative.

[@williampaabreeves]

not the game people wanted, but the game we needed

[@jRsqILVOY]

The issue is the crazy micro just comes from managing trade and production methods instead...

[@harz632]

@@jRsqILVOY honestly, never really had a issue with micromanaging trade, but I prefer to play as much autarch as I can or take over places that have what I need. I get the production method though, at the very least there should be some toggle that you can press to switch between keeping production method when conquering something or automatically switching to the most common production method in the country. But yeah, if factories could swap production method when it would be more beneficial to do so would be great.

[@williampaabreeves]

@@jRsqILVOY biggest issue for me has been stability. cant stop the damn thing crashing. sometimes its fine until 1890s, other times cant even get into the 1860s

[@adisca2k]

Problem is that they made it a bit too hands off. Watching the ai launch a battle for northern wasteland while the capital is occupied broke my mind. And they also made a few questionable decisions, like the entire frontline freezing over 1 battle, instead of having multiple in parallel. And locking a battle in, with no reinforcements whatsoever implemented. I am monstly pissed that calling russia in a war made me lose it. With their high division count and poor troop quality they took 90% of the battles, offensive and defensive (in my homeland), and lost them all against a severely outnumbered but higher quality army, while my good quality troops just sat around and left my entire nation get occupied. I don't even know if they improved it, I just closed the game and haven't opened it since.

[@thomasross6824]

Vic II has one of the best late games, colonization, crises, great wars, new ideologies all make the late game feel much more unique than the early game

[@SlimeJime]

Vic 2 has good systems, but colonization is mid-game, and crises exist the whole time. Unfortunately, the way it came together seems to have been accidental, and paradox hasn't or can't take that design experience forward

[@thomasross6824]

@@SlimeJime I’m pretty sure crises can only trigger at a certain point in the late 1800s onwards. I don’t remember exactly when. I guess you’re right that colonization is mid game, I feel like that breaks it up well though to the point that most of the early game is focused on continental politics, the mid game is focused on colonization, and the late game kinda blends the two with more frequent crises and the chance for great wars to start. I agree though they haven’t been able to replicate it, partially because I think that’s just not the type of game they want to make anymore

[@saint4life09]

Vicky II is genuinely the only PDX I (used to is more accurate now tbf) actually play from start to finish. Yet all of their subsequent games are both a mix of way too simplified, ridiculously unoptimised, and unrealistic, that it becomes an absolute slog to even get close to their late game.

[@EbonySaints]

What always kills my late games is the tediousness and the sheer micro involved if you're doing a WC. I've had three or four runs recently where a WC was doable and one where it would have been absurdly easy, but remembering all the clicking, the speed 2 or 1'ing, and the holding down s while constantly selecting my armies to get ready to lag while carpet sieging 100 provinces'ing really disincentivizes me, especially since I already have the achievement for that and a one faith. The point where I quit is usually when coalitions auto-disband. The game knows that it's over, I know that it's over. The only thing saving them is just the sheer boredom of shift-clicking the army consolidate button while I lose 100k men sieging the fourth level 8 fort for a five province minor and it doesn't matter since I have over 3 million because I spammed soldiers houses.

[@siriondil4739]

I’ve played Paradox games since 2017, at some periods more strongly than others, but the only game I’ve ever actually finished is Victoria 2 (several times actually). I remember following the Victoria 3 dev diaries early on they were like “there are more ticks so it’s about the same length as the other games” and I was like “why would you ruin the best part about Victoria 2?”. I wish there was a game that was just like 1648-1821 because I do love the 18th century but getting there in EU4 takes forever and whatever country you will have played by then will be unbeatable anyway.

[@SlimeJime]

Really true, the short timeframe of Vic 2 helps it a lot

[@yurie2388]

Why do you have to pick a 1444 start?

[@hoppy78]

My Empire after conquering the Galaxy: Yippee! My Empire after building all the megastructures: Now what.

[@justdoitlater9507]

it propably also matters how curated an experience can be. having events like the 100 years war at the start of eu 4 is possible, as the devs can control for most of the parameters at the start of the game. if you put that in 100 years later it is very possible that some countries are global empires or don`t even exist anymore. so the later the events are happening the more generic they have to be, as the devs don`t know the situation in which they happen.

[@oldylad]

They should do more events like CK2 (don’t recall if other games have things like this) wherein, though it’s fictional, you can encounter Robin Hood anywhere. Have more events that at most are locked to continent like Europe that theoretically work anywhere taken from history, actually, like the start of revolutions in EU4. Instead of giving France in particular the French events, give it to any nation that fits certain criteria, like heavy debt and a low monarch power king. Basically, curate by turning historical events generic, as honestly many of them further from the start date are so far from our real history that my French empire that controls Britain, Spain and France having these events while being fabulously wealthy and having a great king doesn’t make much sense

[@TheNathanNS]

I think for Hearts of Iron IV it's because the game typically revolves around a massive scale war, and the first part of the game is more or less building up your country, researching tech, establishing yourself diplomatically, maybe establishing more to your empire, bully smaller countries without problem and choosing your path (ie communist, monarchist etc) , it's always very chill yet slow at the beginning because massive scale wars aren't happening. You may have a micro-minigame to keep your eye on (ie Stalin's paranoia) but early game is always slow while you and the AI make their choices. Mid game is when the massive war breaks out, WW2 (or 1, or 3 if playing Great War or Millennium Dawn), countries have chosen focuses to go to war and their alliances for this save, and now you may find yourself in that war, maybe you started it as a major, maybe you're a minor who wants to build their empire. Either way, the war is now on, they're occurring left right and center, you enter the war and spend the next few hours at war, the action has started to pick up intensely, and you don't have as much of time to really focus on building alliances or whatever, the war is now the foremost part of the game. Late game is when the war's over. Maybe you won, maybe you lost. But the war is over. Germany/UK/USA/USSR (take your pick) and their allies are now defeated, and even though tensions are still sky high, there's a strange sense of peace, the defeated are usually split and puppeted between the victors, and by the time it's over, most countries focus trees are completely done, there is nothing to do really do anymore, except research or maybe try and integrate your winnings from war. Given that most games in HOI4 do last a good few hours, I also feel like there's a feeling of "thank god that's over", once you're done too.

[@wintermute5974]

Stellaris feels like it just has a general pacing problem baked into the concept, the game can't fully accomodate the epic space opera feeling it wants to create. It wants to be a game about the first emergence of spaceborne civilization, where there's a mad scramble to discover and colonize the galaxy, but it also wants to be a game about vast warfare between galaxy spanning empires. But it can't do both of those things, maintain the epic space opera feeling and be played at a scale/timeframe that's actually fun/functional at the same time, one of those aspects needs to be sacrificed.

[@LemonCake101]

I would love an 'advanced' Stellaris start, with some basic technology and planets already colonized. There is a console command for it, but an ironman version would be amazing.

[@chapter_brother5437]

that's why I ussualy do "space opera" after I closed the game. I can be as efficient as I want while playing the game, and when I am about to do boring and repetitive tasks (or trying to sleep) I make "lore" for the situation. If I am playing as "sleeping monster" hive mind for example I ussualy make scenarios that my fellow Xenos would make as reaction to my actions. Maybe it's on Galactic Federation scale, maybe it's Empire-wide, maybe even both if I have interesting idea about it. Say I just claimed and then conquered entire civilization in just but a single war while being this "sleeping monster" entire time. Imagine chaos it would inflict on everyone else living close to my borders. Imagine how political enemies would use that fact in their own "games" in Galactic Community against each other. Would you try to unite everybody under one banner? Your banner? Or would you try to get political influence by becoming the hive's patron and guide to the Galaxy? Or would you influence the hive itself/it's neighbors to destroy your enemies weakening both sides? Etc. Etc.

[@zealgaming8161]

Sometimes it succeeds. I remember a game I had where around 50 years after start, an driven assimilator empire had for some reason gone rogue and had conquered a third of the Galaxy. Lost that game in the end after years upon years of fighting after it obtained jump drives and started to jump it's ships into my territory all over the place.

[@potato88872]

You can get this "massive warfare" that you talk about but they are very rare

[@iamaprochingfast1000]

You can by adding more ai in a map making war/politics more of a challange

[@HeavyGuyFP]

Loved the video! Absolutely not relevant, but your mention of the Abbasids doing literally everything reminds me that once upon a time I saw the Abbasids get taken over by a Chinese Adventurer, become the Shun Empire (with a hideous bright pink map colour) and then promptly detonate a decade or so later. CK2 was a different breed of game, man.

[@LemonCake101]

Classic Ck2

[@sanguisbumb6138]

I’d say because the problem is trying to make entropy fun. Most people don’t like seeing what they’ve built up crumble overnight. It’s a hard thing to balance.

[@SlimeJime]

There are a few games which arrange themselves around end-game crises, like Frostpunk, or this obscure game called Burned Land. But paradox as a developer doesn't seem to be able to do it, maybe because all their mechanics are so abstracted. When they do add mechanics that try to simulated periods of decline, it ends up perceived as just another number to manage. The best sort of entropy is CK entropy, so long as you aren't powergaming or playing with powergamers. Breeding a line of superhumans leads to a boring game, but squabbling over scraps is more fun

[@adisca2k]

This makes me think about the court and country disaster. It is by all means a disaster, but it gives a buff if you beat it, so I just go for it in every game. Yeah you don't need really need the buff, but it is a nice side challenge that has you sabotaging your own country and trying to get out of it on top. They could have implemented more things like this, giving you the possibility to break the country yourself with the promise of a reward. Like letting the dutch revolt fire, but beating them with 100% warscore would annex them and accept all their cultures for free. Maybe give more nations a war of the roses type disaster that gives your dynasty some buffs. Or maybe an event that releases all your subjects for a permanent diplo slot. Things like that.

[@thatcow86]

See: CK players trying to speedrun primogeniture as fast as possible.

[@QuisUtDeus828]

​@@SlimeJime or like the plague mechanic that is just tedious it doesn't add anything really fun or compelling its just a flat out negative. Tbh that's the main problem with CK3 DLC. Nearly everything is just a negative if you use it

[@SlimeJime]

@@QuisUtDeus828 it's such a questionable thing to make dlc yeah. I don't mind the mechanic in isolation, but in combination with a pricetag and the general lack of compelling interactions in that game its very disappointing

[@sharplydressedrabbit3604]

I love starting new Stellaris games, but it gets tiring so damn quickly. I always set midgame start date as early as possible.

[@Weiswolfe]

what kills mine stellaris endgame is onbly the lag

[@zealgaming8161]

This why I only play xenophobe. No pop lag if there's no pops left after I cracked their worlds.

[@iamaprochingfast1000]

You should try to play multiplayer. I always loved the early game, trying to get good borders with chokepoints, but with still good planets, making the early game less of a chore and also adding more strategy.

[@elcazador3349]

It's simple really. None of these late games have lemon cakes as a trade good.

[@LemonCake101]

True! Someone did make a mod replacing the gold icon with my pfp, thankfully it died on the workshop with 3 installs

[@imoutoconnoisseur]

W-would that be slavery?

[@elcazador3349]

@@imoutoconnoisseur It would be pastry.

[@deuslaudetur2451]

@@elcazador3349OWO

[@brocklee4005]

"And Alexander wept, for his campaign had too much late-game lag to conquer."

[@Pullapitko]

I would say that all strategy games suffer from the fact that microing doesn't scale up. It's fun to micro a few planets in Stellaris, but later you are still microing planets, you just hava way too many of them. In EU4 you are microing provinces, even though you have the best tools available in any game to do that, you are still microing provinces even when you own half the planet. The amount of microing shouldn't go up as the game progresses, you should have to micro different things than in early game.

[@Idk-cb5qg]

Any game with a mission tree, or technology tree will have a bad late game. To get around this we first need much better artificial intelligence.

[@Malo-os9kk]

This is a pretty common problem with 4X Strategic games, and we can find it anywhere from total war to stellaris to civilication. One game I do think handles this very well is Total war: Shogun 2 that has a defined end goal and when you get close to it the entire map turns against you. It really helps with the pacing of the game, which is where 4x games often strugle

[@CivilizedWasteland]

One of the great things about Victoria 2 is the game is meant to be played to WW1. Its like the early game build up of hoi without the forced tedium. If you play with certain mods the ai is actually capable and the end game will be really fun.

[@medievalist8441]

Crusader kings 2 near end game is like history got spat on wall and someone tried to rearrange it

[@HamzaCultt]

Victoria 2 got it right. The late game adds content that will actually massively affect the game such as new ideologies, scramble for africa, technologies such as gas, tanks etc and great wars. The early game actually feels like a build up period which you get to use in the late game via the great war mechanic

[@PatPremium]

Wow you got BLESSED by the algorithm. Was lange währt wird endlich gut. It's an idiom meaning that something you did for a while will eventually pay off. Congrats!

[@user-dy2cl1ss8d]

GERMANEN LOKALISIERT🗣️

[@55ziomal55]

Speaking out of recent experience with late game, Stellaris returning after a long break to check out Cosmogenesis. After reaching the last stage I thought it would soon end, it's been 3 irl days since then, and it's still not over, purely because of the lag. Over the course of the death war with the rest of the galaxy my empire has ballooned to unsustainable proportions with over 15000 pops living in it. Can't purge them fast enough, and the Horizon Needle is only packing up like 3-4 planets a year. My solution to the late game Stellaris even if it's just "bigger number wins" is precisely that, big Death Wars against the entire galaxy against you because it's fun to fight them, but unfortunately it always ends the same way, game slowing down where you just can't actually finish it. The lag from everything you take becomes unsustainable, and it's purely a game engine problem. It just doesn't matter how good your computer is, you'll always experience this lag, because Clausewitz Engine wasn't built for the current iteration of Stellaris. It was built for a much simpler game where you FTL directly into the enemy capital and win the war after a handful of battles. Stellaris as a game is just unfixable and I would much rather prefer if they made Stellaris 2 at this stage.

[@LemonCake101]

Pretty much: I mean Stellaris started as a reskinned Eu4, and they basically kept that reskin going...

[@Mario53415]

What map settings? I know this is just a bandaid solution but I've found that medium map, with 2600-ish as the endgame year reallyyy helps to curtail the lag, mostly just small microstutters start to occur by the mid 2550s

[@commisaryarreck3974]

The horizon needle is my lag reducer I don't care about the research. It just kills pops faster after my mega army lands and deports everyone on the planets. Maximizing collateral damage of course I regularly almost go baklnkrupt since my Dyson sphere literally cannot support the amount of energy consumed by the quickest purge option available All fun and games till you hit -34K energy a month and have built Dyson swarms everywhere you can I could end the game, but I'm nice and OP I want to face the bloody crises.

[@55ziomal55]

@@commisaryarreck3974 Finally finished it last night, I was at -130k energy per month towards the end it was a race against time until bankruptcy

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

In EU4 the coalition mechanism only works up to a point, where you're so strong you scare off coalitions. Then nothing will be strong enough to stop you, while being invulnerable (oh no the enemy holds all my lands on that continent... still 10% of my empire, I can still launch massive counterattacks at their heartlands and steamroll them).

[@grahamturner2640]

Similar story in Vic3. There are runs where I’ve become so powerful, nobody calls in their Allie’s when I attack them.

[@ScarletHistory]

I think that a little ice age in eu4 that actually has an impact on economies and armies, rather than just a price change for two goods, would be something that could shake up the midgame. It could even have a larger effect on bigger nations in other to pose a challenge to states who have blobbed early game.

[@thekey1175]

CK2 is also good in that as the game goes on the world becomes more populated creating lag until the black death when it gets reset

[@alexcaffri9091]

i get this problem in every Civ ever too, only the early game is ever interesting. The late game just feels like clicking through the results of my earlier decisions

[@wytzevanderveer6351]

A mod that I enjoy for hoi4, "Kaiserreich", has various small improvements to make the late game less tedious. There are soft-capped unit counts that are generated from the amount of factories you have, for example. It's a bit funny, but the more I revisit the mod, the more I've come to this conclusion: The late game is very unfun with no limits. Either becauase the AI will keep building into the sky, or you can get lazy and complacent, and just toss manpower into the grinder until you get your win. Unit limits force you to blend together a unique mixture of specialization and diversification. There's still some "unlimited" aspects like equipment production, and honestly, maybe there should be some type of limit to that too. If "I were to build my own hoi4", I'd ensure that there are at least soft limits to just mindlessly fielding armies.

[@saint4life09]

Kaiserreich is better, but still not perfect as it has to works within the limits of an extremely flawed game. Even with the limits it still suffers from the same issues. I feel mentally scarred from the last Germany game I played, having to fight through Burma and into Thailand with Japan and Siam having 7+ divisions on every single province, including the jungles, despite huge encirclements. They produce and capture so much equipment through the game it's impossible to make them losing units really mean anything, and just continuously produce planes so by 1945 you have to have thousands of planes no matter what to have any chance of competing in multiple air zones.

[@ATR2400-2]

“End your game at a reasonable time” *Me who played from 1912 to 2001 with the Great War mod* “No”

[@hotandsillycinnamonrollget6697]

Late game stellaris is fun if you play with gigastructures and have a NASA computer like I do.

[@ntwilson312]

In my personal experience (having only played HOI4 and Stellaris mind you) its because it always comes down too "Im not strong enough, dont have enough resources and have to just sit my ass down and wait for the right moment to strike during the games LAGGIEST period" OR "Literally no one can kill me and i cant be fucking bothered to waste my life on a world conquest that feels more like a chore than fun gameplay"

[@ethantaylor9613]

What always bugs me about Stelaris is that it *tries* to give you all sorts of soft power and none-military options, but dominant strategy is to play like an apocalypse prepper so you don’t die when the 2-300K Unbidden fleet appears next to your home system.

[@sasi5841]

15:21 lmao thats certainly a unique version of the man v. Bear thing

[@LemonCake101]

Here to give the best advice, a month late as always!

[@KraNisOG]

Personally, in Stellaris, I hide in my territory and let the end game crisis delete half the empires and then destroy the crisis so I can get back to my spreadsheet simulator with better performance.

[@leninlover6457]

I agree that Micro is what kills Eu4 late game. Its so frustrating fighting wars with 250k+ on both sides and you see a random army behind your lines sieging you provinces and destroying the prosperity you spend so long building up, then you gotta go send a stack to attack them, they run somewhere random and then come back and do it again

[@rayke0344]

Manage your stacks better

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

My fondest military memory in Stellaris was back in the day, the far off ally to my hostile neighbour unlocked stargate travel and dumped a fleet in the middle of my empire. My own were deep in the enemy territory and my borders fortified. My response was to tell my three biggest shipyards to work overtime building Harrower star destroyers (battleships). I caught the entire enemy fleet between two and one star destroyers, and the obscene health, armour and shielding of my ships meant that they crippled the enemy fleet of corvettes and destroyers, sending them into a panic. You can't do that anymore, as for unknown reasons they committed the worst crime in sci fi naval battle depictions. They increased the scale, substantially. You no longer see individual ships deploy starfighters and fire weapons, you see non-distinct blobs shooting messy special effects at each other.

[@Thunderstar7]

I just enjoy late game stellaris bc I like being able to roll things and I generally take the game slower at the start bc I’m usually just relaxing. I get into the rp of it even when I’m playing alone so that gets me through the early slog

[@pmaster1238]

Eu4 endgame is like taking candy from a baby. You feel good and cool while doing it. But you feel its way to easy.

[@Natos07]

genuinely love to see you do well. nice video

[@amilavxilmen5632]

1. Lag 2. You are too OP

[@kriegerkorps]

Ottomans only having 300k? They get to 600k really quickly whenever I play. I actually get to the year 1700 a lot, and never have a "breeze" beating a 800k army France. Perhaps I am simply really bad at the game. On a side note, I would actually really like some CK2 videos. (Not just because I suck)

[@andreamarino6010]

Just create an army with as many artillery regiments as army width. Stick some infantry into it and then just launch it to the enemy, you're gonna win 100/100. If you feel inferior in army quality just spam military ideas

[@LemonCake101]

Its 300k after losing 4 wars to you ;)

[@ThePoutinePrince]

I think the single Alliance mechanic (which Vic2 and Vic3 have), which is then removed in the late game is one of my favourite lategame features. It makes choosing alliances in the early game very strategic, and then makes giant wars possible in the late game with all of your fancy toys your big economy has built. It also makes backstabbing / changing alliances a real thing.

[@thebigjp533]

A big thing for all of these I feel is common is performance. In HOI4 it’s 1942 onward, in EU4 it’s the Protestant war, but there’s a certain point where they start really chugging… I didn’t realize how big performance was a factor in how long I played saves after I sunk a bunch of money into my pc

[@dougthedonkey1805]

Even on a minuscule scale, like Polytopia, the problem still exists

[@onethreeify]

games are fun as long as you don't know how well you'll do. i come from the sid meier's civ franchise and it's the same problem there as in eu4/hoi4/vic3: about 20% into a game, you get a feeling for if you're gonna "win" or not. 30% into a game, you know for sure if you'll win or not. i had a suggestion to add a game mode where you add a dynamic ai buff like the "lucky nation", but you scale it massively based on distance and how well the player is doing. so, to use a simple example: if you play as austria and conquer 3k development in europe by 1550, a random country in east asia, e.g. korea, will get ridiculous buffs which will enable them to get 3k dev in east asia, and a random country in africa like kongo will also get 3k dev, and so on. so as you've conquered europe, you know have a massive enemy in asia and a massive enemy in africa. and in north america and south america. i mean you can't artificially add 3k dev to africa, but my point is that maybe the kongo troops get like 150% discipline to make up for a bad economy. it doesn't have to be development only. it can be land attrition, higher tech, more gold, more manpower. a bunch of stuff. the point is that in this game mode the game would adapt to your own skill as the game progresses. it's not that the ai gets 100% bonus on all stats from the start, because then you still have the problem of knowing that you've won when you've played 50% of the playthrough. it's that the game adapts to how well you're doing. obviously you'd have to tweak it a lot, and i know a bunch of changes i'd propose for civ5 and civ6 and i don't really know exactly how it could be best implemented in paradox games yet, but i really think it's a game mode that can't be too difficult to implement and that could add a lot of replayability. play as byzantium and crush the ottomans by 1480? the dynamic ai buff notices and suddenly timurids gets buffs and is able to form persia by the time you've reached the middle east. conquer persia? india is united with +1 enemy attrition. conquer india? qing has united china. as i said, i come originally from civ5 and civ6, and the amount of games where i've had a strong inkling by turn 40 that i would win, that i knew for certain that i would win by turn 80, and still have the game go on to like turn 500... well, it's only been like 3 times and those times have all been to confirm that the game does indeed get boring once you know that you've won. idk exactly how to implement any of this in paradox as i've played sid meier for like 10 years and only paradox for 1 year, but for sure a dynamic ai mode would be something i would want to play provided it was planned and executed by guys who knew the game well and knew what type of buffs are fun to play against edit: as a side note: of all games listed i feel like vic3 is the biggest offender. does anyone else agree? it starts in 1836 and i literally don't know why i should play beyond 1855. every. and yet the time period covers the Great War. why on earth is there not a massive mega war in the late late game? it is the perfect game to have a super fun late game.

[@LemonCake101]

Excellent write up! I would prefer this setting to be optional, but I can see it being quite cool, or a unique challange.

[@knightlypoleaxe2501]

Victoria 3 could've been fantastic for having supermassive Great Wars... if there was a good war system. Instead of including a system that's something optimized like from HOI4, the devs decided to reinvent the wheel, arrived at a triangle, and are slowly adding a corner until the ride isn't bumpy.

[@onethreeify]

@@LemonCake101 yep, it would definitely have to be an optional set up or a mod!

[@TheSuperappelflap]

Warhammer Total War has your lucky AI buff idea. Depending on which nation you play, theres a random chance that one of your main rivals will get massive buffs to army quality in autoresolve. So they easily defeat all the AIs around them and blob half the map in 100 turns. The problem is that the AI isnt any smarter, so when you eventually get to them, its not really harder than normal to defeat them, it just takes longer because they have half the map. So you will be fighting a death war against 50 nearly identical enemy stacks with your standardized optimized identical stacks that you constructed specifically to counter this faction and it is still very boring. Most people dont play campaigns past turn 50. Conquering the whole map of about 600 settlements takes several hundred turns if you dont use exploits.

[@hiptoptoe4847]

Damn that tannu tuvan WC was slightly faster than mine (1960s for mine)

[@LemonCake101]

I actually tried to find yours, but I couldn't: if its worth anything, that one was done on a very modern patch.

[@FaustsKanaal]

"The intended endpoint, defeat Germany". Meanwhile well over half of players are playing as Germany.

[@azarisLP]

HoI4 players: "Late-game 1945 sucks because the enemy just pops out stupid unit counts." Imperial Japan: "First time?"

[@Lottililex]

5:39 Sounds like Civ games on Deity difficulty lmao

[@Speedster___]

Late game eu4 (only one I really play besides maybe Stellaris but Stellaris is imo actually good) is actually fun if you have a goal. Once you have that goal the fun decreases

[@LemonCake101]

Goals are the way

[@tentativelonginus1036]

The best way to play paradox game is to achievement hunt or playing your favorite nation until you’re satisfied. Achievement hunting gives you an objective goal to accomplish, once you’re done the run is over. Wanna play something new? See the achievement list and pick one that’s fun, wanna do a long play through? Rebuild Roman historical borders.

[@parkergiele]

The cool thing with Crusader Kings II is that things can go wrong really quickly, even when it seems as though you're on top of the world.

[@tadposting9505]

I watched a redhawk video and my wife asked. "Is that the cake?" I knew immediately she was talking about you, so according to her you sound like redhawk, congrats I guess

[@LemonCake101]

Damn, I am moving up in the world!

[@Magicbalist]

every time i stopped playing eu4 was because my armies got too large and micro intensive. at some point i tried to emulate giving ai control of my armies by going into obs and basically playing coop with the ai, it atleast kept me playing for a few more years.

[@karwosolnerwosol3612]

Because it's not about destination, it's about memories we made along the way

[@festamonroe]

late game hoi iv turns into 1984's eternal war

[@teebob21]

We have always been at war with Eastasia, Winston.

[@sasi5841]

There are some games where the late game is the most exciting part (as in RPGs like witcher 3 or kingdom come deliverence, or turnbased game like TW:Attila)

[@zwest400]

I somewhat like Paradox endgames as they are enjoyable. In the total war franchise, I lose interest in the endgame quickly as it is you, the dominant faction, mopping up the corners of the map. Edit: the Paradox game aren’t enjoyable, more in playable with somewhat of a variation between each game.

[@LemonCake101]

Nothing is less fun then playing as England and marching across the desert for 5 turns to take 2 random settlements. At least you can 'win' with like 60% provinces owned sometimes.

[@spinophrenic3775]

Shogun 2 has the Realm Divide mechanic which means all AIs suddenly realize you're the strongest faction and team up against you so you get this nice finish line challenge

[@chrisriverata1917]

Hoi4 endgame is rough without mods tbh

[@TheGuardianofblind]

​@@spinophrenic3775 I always hated that mechanic though, as it throws all the diplomacy out of the window. Shogun is supposed to have some support, not everyone is suddenly against you. I often get bored at the point realm divide comes in, as fighting 10 meaningless battles per turn just gets boring fast. Realm divide works great in Fall of Samurai expansion though, where it turns into civil war between imperial and shogunate clans

[@Krzyzak199X]

I recommend Against the Storm, this is a strategy roquelike so end game will never ever be boring.

[@seekernomanjango]

The one point I'd add to hoi4 is a lot of the achievements paradox is now adding require near to a world conquest as a small country which almost always takes you deep into the late game even when played aggressively.

[@doubledaredangames]

Oh my goodness. Please paradox introduce the ai army feature for EU4😮😮😮

[@LemonCake101]

I would love it, believe me!

[@BrokenAxles9]

The solution to late game (Eu4) being boring is just to not reach it by accidentally getting all of Europe in a coalition 20 years in and having to start again

[@sanzyboy3952]

Improving your capital tech in Ck2 is important because universities can contribute a lot for that tech to be spred out to other counties not just the first one which is why I really like to build cities more than everything in my building slots

[@comedyshortsgamer5688]

Love this channel,, you deserve way more subs

[@LemonCake101]

Thanks!

[@ThatRossiKid]

They should just add really good content only available in the late game. People will play if there is a reason.

[@LemonCake101]

More content good

[@terraopg8259]

It does not. I love late game.

[@LemonCake101]

Preach

[@martinlisitsata]

This is a great example of the idea that succeeding is more rewarding than success

[@raxit1337]

This video is going viral! NIce to see new, small creators. Liked and subbed :)

[@LemonCake101]

Yeah the view count really popped off it seems! Can't complain.

[@lesnoyelf228]

"Literally unplayable states" This is Victoria 2 in a nutshell. By 1910 even the beefiest PCs struggle to keep going, 1 in-game day takes like 30 seconds. Not even going to mention ENDLESS VIRTUALLY ETERNAL rebellions

[@carltonbauheimer]

I have NEVER had trouble with Vic 2 performance. VIC 3 on the other hand, it runs so slowly for me I struggle to make it to the 20th century, never mind finish a game.

[@annurissimo1082]

Some other commenters have pointed it out already, but I think Vicky 2 endgame is amazing compared to other Paradox games (coming from someone who played Stellaris, Crusader Kings, HOI4, Imperator, Vic and EU4, albeit not in equal amounts.) The expansion opportunities are often so limited in that game, due to limited CBs and war opportunities, plus of course the highly restrictive peace deals (I don't find infamy to be that bad of a mechanic. Similar to AE. Perhaps even what AE should have been... Considering Vic 2 is "the age of the balance in Europe," it makes sense that countries would literally die to preserve balance) you don't really become too powerful to have fun. ESPECIALLY if you didn't play a Great Power, you're not going to be rolling over anyone, any time soon. Another thing that Stellaris and HOI4 suffer from is weird combat in the late game. It's just a grindfest where you throw everything you have while mainting air superiority, especially in MP (or in the case of stellaris spamming whatever is the meta at the time and deathstacking around), while Victoria 2 doesn't really change the combat too much over time. The economy and technology don't break or become useless either (seriously, who cares about "Advanced Rockets" and stuff in HOI4? Wunderwaffe?), because they're either highly important upgrades for unlocking some huge boost to your nation, giving you a bunch of prestige or giving flat bonuses. There's pretty much no niche techs, unlike HOI4, where you just spam gun, spam tank, spam a few plane, grind for doctrine, 7-2s and whatever. The point is, Victoria 2 is the perfect game. That is all.

[@LemonCake101]

That's fair; the reason Viccy 2 didn't get much of a mention is I had enough examples, and I don't have the most extensive experience with that game in fairness.

[@annurissimo1082]

All good my man, just pointing out my own experience in comparison to yours.

[@Stoikor]

I enjoy playing smaller nations in HoI4, and the problem with late game is when you grow into a real power and deal with everyone who is an actual threat you have that one annoying country across the ocean or the pond and you never had naval production before defeating everyone else, so now you are stuck in a waiting game while you are making bathtubs so you can actually land on them and finish this. Thats the boring part.

[@fiyum333]

for me, the thing about big entities vs. small entities is that big entities have a lot more variables to account for and much more to manage, but small entities can typically be molded into whatever holding pattern you want.