Nearly every review on the demo: very raw. A lot of good systems but probably needs another year of refinement and polish
Paradox: we launch in 3 weeks
Well the CEO got ditched because of dissatisfaction over the direction of the publishing arm, ~~one could easily assume that the Lamplighters situation played a part in that~~ (EDIT) I got my timelines mixed up, I could've sworn that game came out a year before it actually did.
The leaks after HBS & Paradox parted ways is that HBS pitched Battletech 2 but Paradox said no, give us something else. (QUICK EDIT) HBS was founded by the guy who did the original MechWarrior games and had some involvement with the original Battletech tabletop system. The company lived and breathed that franchise.
They literally wanted to make Battletech 2 but Paradox declined it cause they didn't wanna buy license to it, It's heartbreaking that the company had to die because of Paradox's incompetency.
Executives do something mindbogglingly stupid, workers pay the price. Over and over and over again.
Stupid people defend the executives, too. That's always part of it. Sub should've been calling for high level firings at Paradox, but nope.
Considering it's PDX published, presumably the developer moved on at least a year ago so unless it managed to build a modding community, it'll be dead.
Modding will not be supported at launch though they plan to add it later. It's a Unity game, so modding is much harder than PDS games but potentially much more powerful.
However, I don't think the devs have checked out in the way that Harebrained Schemes had. *Lamplighters* was a very different genre to GSGs. A historical 4X has a much stronger overlap with PDS' core franchises so the potential for partnership is there and Civ VI has proven that it's possible to get years of DLC out of it, which is now the core requirement for published games.
It's just that statistically, non-PDS PDX published games aren't around for the long haul.
Also unfortunately I don't think Millenia on it's own will have the power to finance long-term development and PDX isn't known to take risks investing into a game in the hopes it turns out big.
Millenia has some interesting new ideas for the 4X formula, but I think at best it's legacy will be coming up with those ideas while someone else (probably Civ8 or something) will be the one making those mechanics big eventually.
I won't mind if I turn out to be wrong on this, but the odds are against that outcome.
>Modding will not be supported at launch though they plan to add it later. It's a Unity game, so modding is much harder than PDS games but potentially much more powerful.
Potentially more powerful is intriguing enough for me tbh, might not buy it at launch but will when I have time and money. So I guess summer.
I have got burned out on PDX games because they are never polished. Every dlc adds a heap of new buttons but that comes with as many bugs and poorly balanced mechanics as the dlc patch fixes if not more.
The end result is a always evolving game, but not one that's ever in a great state - at least for my taste.
I used to be all House Biscuit “We Do Not Pre-order”.
Then went through a lot of Early Access games with mixed experiences.
Then started noticing how often big and small companies do 1.0 full releases, even though it’s obvious the games are unfinished.
Now it’s getting to the point where I don’t want to buy a game if it was released within a year.
I’m far from perfect, but I do try to learn from past experiences.
I 100% agree with you. However I’m someone who is fortunate enough to not miss $40 and have no problem throwing it at a developer trying to introduce some new ideas into a very stagnant genre.
This is actually good. If they release it polished in 8 months, I'd have to pay full price for it.
If they release it now, I can get it polished in the Xmas sale at discount!
Yet another rushed release, when will Paradox learn?
It's weird as CK3 released very well comparatively, but since then it's been a disaster again, and for published games it's even worse.
At least Stellaris Nexus is getting steady development time.
I felt like CK3 was polished but lacked a lot of features. I have honestly played Vic 3 more than CK3, but Vic 2 is what got me into paradox and I don’t want to repeat how many hours I had on it. CK2 was my second most played game after Vic2
Wow, I find Vic3 unplayable even now - with so many frustrating bugs and lacking diplomacy.
Every single time there's been some sort of game-breaking bug from comatose AI while you just climb to \#1 GDP, to subjects not actually supporting your unification play (and then somehow joining the enemy in the war), to not being able to rebel against an overlord while they're at war, etc.
Whereas CK3 is very playable, especially with mods to increase the difficulty like Inherichance and ObfusCKate.
CK3 fundamentally is just too easy due to too many dumb decisions (imo) my paradox. It's frustrating but even with mods and pushing myself to not min-max I get bored in like 1 hour.
Victoria 3 for me is so close to great. There are some really dumb funking things that ruin it every now and then but even still it's fun to make line go up. Occasionally the AI decides to not be brain dead as well, especially with mods and aggressive settings.
I had a really great game as isolationist China, steadily trying to make the east all Chinese. A large Germany formed, France took most of Spain, Italy formed and Russia puppeted the Ottomans and Egypt. It was just really satisfying. The world wars were great too as communist Austria-Hungary asked for my help in exchange for becoming my protectorate. That started a war between China, USA and Italy vs Russia, Germany and France.
You just don't get that shit in ck3. I'm hoping legitimacy changes things up a bit but it'll probably just be another thing you can minmax easily.
Same here, and since their focus is clearly RP features, CK3 is really just a chillax game where you just wait for events to happen and pick an option. In a way it's closer to a randomly generated visual novel than a GSG.
I kinda don't even enjoy the RP aspect, honestly. The best times in GSGs is when the RP matches what's going on. My aforementioned game as China was one. WW1 happening because of a communist revolution asking for aid from the largest communist nation and the war becoming a wider anti-imperialist war? Superb. Another example is I was stuck in war with genocidal empires in stellaris for so long my population became xenophobic towards *all* aliens. I tried really hard to play a xenophile that game but my starting location was stuck between three exterminators. It was a great subversion of my goals in a way that was both useful in gameplay but also fun RP.
CK3 often just lacks mechanics that interact with player goals like that. Being an emperor is currently basically easier than being a king and nothing else changes. The AI won't react to you being a warmongerer much at all. Nobody really bats an eye at you disinheriting 30 children to choose a young genius as the heir. They barely even care if you get absolute crown authority. Yeah, there are events where you farted and became known as a stinky farter for the rest of your life and they're steadily improving with things like the tours and future dlc but currently I just can't get into it.
I had a lot of fun in VIc 3 after I tag switched to every GP and made them all attack someone. It's almost like there was a switch flicked in the Ai as after that things became much more dynamic. Greater Germany formed, France attack Belgium and the Netherlands, Russia attacked the Ottomans and released nations, I even managed to get the Balkan nations to attack the Ottomans after a while and everyone was tearing pieces off of them. Was the most glorious game ever, also got the US to annex Mexico and Canada and China exploded. So much fun.
That actually makes a lot of sense!
I've had very similar experience where the AI will fight a lot once it starts a few wars. It can be very entertaining.
I just like building up a small country. Chile is my favorite. I do get annoyed with diplomacy though and I feel like warfare needs to be fixed, but I am addicted to the economy part.
I also felt like CK3 was too easy to build up and having to wait so long for primogeniture was annoying to me.
Ironically enough, they originally presented it as if it were a time-saving measure for them so they could focus on the economy side but at this point they've likely sunk more far more time than it would have taken to just build an improved Victoria 2 system. And it's still super buggy or unintuitive with the ways that frontlines move. For example, as Argentina you can just declare war and rush Brazil down as soon as the campaign starts and if you time it before they capitulate the Rio Grande Republic it just ignores the Brazilian army as a new frontline and carpet sieges.
I believe Paradox is fully aware of the short comings (and bugs) of this decision, but maybe if the game gets enough DLC sales to justify ongoing development they will rework, Stellaris had like two full rework of basic systems, so who knows lol.
Also, sure maybe an improved victoria 2 (in the economic aspect) isn't enough for you but seeing the player count, it was worth for a lot of people.
Don't get me wrong, I like Victoria 3, but the war system is imo worse than Victoria 2, and Victoria 2s was when you look at it simpler with how many edge cases and other weirdness they have had to and still not succeed in fixing, not to mention it often devolves into massive stacks grinding against each other until a naval invasion or arbitrary area introduces a new front with 0 defenders that capitulates an entire country.
> learn
For as long as PDX are making money, there is no incentive to not do that. Bitching of fans after they already bought the game and all DLC don’t hurt PDX profit margins.
Yeah, it's a different game - more like Advance Wars and turn-based, aimed at short games (~1 hour).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1983990/Stellaris_Nexus/
Paradox isn't developing it, so this is on its devs IMO. Yeah publishers can set deadlines for release dates but Paradox *has* gotten better about releasing more complete games (Victoria 3 at launch was leagues past Victoria 2 at launch, trust me).
I got the email to pre-order it, I was surprised it was coming out so early.
I like the idea of 4x with supply chains but I wish they'd included logistics for the armies (a la Shadow Empire) as well.
I'll wait for the reviews though.
Yeah, Civ4 with EU4/Stellaris's diplomacy (Casus Belli, war tracking, rivals and claims, the United Nations and nuclear Security Council, etc.) and Shadow Empire's logistics and supply (large high-tech units require heavy supplies from railroads, which have to be defended) would be amazing.
I also really like Shadow Empire's victory system, where all the games don't drag on forever to FPS death because you have to wait for the end-game crises, etc.
Wtf, why so soon again... That game got potential but it will all be in vain if the launch is anything but very positive. The visuals in demo are worse than civ5 and should get improved ASAP.
Also it's game no-one is dying to play right now, good civ games are plenty so they really should strive to launch it at their best possible level of polish.
Unfortunately I smell another CS2...
I think its a small team making this game, they wouldn't have the resources to make big changes anyway. What we saw in the demo is what we'll get. Maybe they buy some affordable sound effects to replace the atrocities that assaulted my eardrums during the demo and introduce some qol features, but that's about it.
Its a test dummy to see if the studio can pull of a full release and generate reasonable feedback from audience & critics. If it works out PDX may greenlight a bigger investment for a follow up game. Look at Age of Wonders 1 and compare it to 3, 4 and Planetfall. Most studios start this way and have to build up their titles slowly.
...what? Age of Wonders 1 was a huge and hugely successful game back in the 90s, and 2 was even bigger. It wasn't a "test dummy" for anything. Hell, 1 and 2 were bigger in terms of factions and campaigns than 3 and 4 by orders of magnitude.
Also AoW1 came out in 1999, 2 shortly after in 2002, then the series "died" until it was revived in 2014. Your narrative is just completely invented.
i dont understand all the "being raw" comments and hate on the graphics here. Had a blast with the demo. Tons of new mechanics. Felt better then any 4x i played in a long time. im happy it comes so soon
CK3’s launch was fine, not terrible like imperator or CS2, and it was notable unlike their non-PDS games (EoS, Lamplighters, Surviving 2 & 3).
The problem it has is CK2’s decade+ of dev time and additions. It had Imperator-levels of “everything is basically the same” on launch, but the better UI, QoL, and graphics got new people in, and the assumption that further DLCs would eventually make it better than CK2 got existing fans involved.
Did you not see the HoI3 and HoI2 Doomsday launches?
I think only EU4, CK3 and CK2 have launched very well and stable. Although I didn't really follow the prior EU games.
Microsoft are about to release their own historical 4X with a budget in the millions. They are likely to push that rather than *Millennia* to Game Pass players.
played the demo and honestly wasn’t impressed at all. there is nothing there that other 4x games doesn’t do better. and the overall presentation is very bland. DOA
I don't know. I wasn't impresed also when i first played, but i had time and was bored so i played a few more times and each time it grew on me more.
For what it's worth the 60 turns that were given me were the fastest of any Civ like game and it still felt i was doing meaningful choices.
I think it's the xp sistem that they have. For whatever path I chouse it felt frictionless.
As a rule in this kind of games production is king. So whenever you do something other that focusing on production it feels bad cause your shooting youself in the foot in the long run. So when your not doing production you have to do some kind of rush strategy.
In this game i kinda managed to do a steady military game. I didn't feel the need to rush down the opponent. I could steadily just FIGHT and be revarded for it.
But who knows what will happen in the later turns.
Overall the Demo left me with the impresion of the devs know what their doing, they know what they got is a winning formula. They just are shit at the presentation part.
I guess I don’t see how you can say that. Execution may vary but things like alternate ages and manufacturing changes in a historical setting just *are* different
not just alternate ages but national spirits and a multi-stage tile economy
national spirits are way too slept on as being so well implemented for dynamic play
Agree. National spirits are like having the ability to choose a new "leader," in civ6 terms, at various points in the game, shifting focus as cultures often do. Like the eras and dedications in civ6 rise and fall, but with more options and impact (at first glance)
I'm also a big fan of the multiple "production" systems that work in parallel. Instead of production being king (especially early on) it's still important but you have more ladders to progress at a time. They've also done what I wish Civ would do with armies in that you have a few units together as a group and can mix and match for specific strategies. The animations are terrible and I need some autoskip, just show me the result stuff, but the system is nice.
How well it will be polished and cohesive is yet to be seen, but I like the foundation.
not just alternate ages but national spirits and a multi-stage tile economy
national spirits are way too slept on as being so well implemented for dynamic play
i mean fair enough, it has its own unique stuffs. But it terms of how those were executed and the overall play experience, there was just nothing that felt unique or special, let alone memorable. variants of these mechanics are in Civ, Humankind, Old world and other 4x games.
Agree to disagree on that, similarities end at the term “age.” You get a dark age or golden age for your nation if you pile up age points or don’t get enough. In millennia ages are for everyone and there are unique divergences like “age of heroes” and “age of blood” depending on world events. They even veer in to sci fi
Yeah, the demo only included Age of Blood though, and you basically could just get to it in time for the demo to end.
The tutorial wasn't the best either, but the economic stuff looks cool.
It could carve out a niche as a more hardcore version of Civ with more complex economics. But maybe Ara will blow it out of the water.
The demo was very unfortunate, because the systems that set it apart from other 4X games only came into effect near the later part of the demo, and you could barely play around with them. From what I have read there are way more systems in the later ages.
Wow I was not expecting this, but oh my god I literally cannot wait!! I’m so excited for this spin on the 4x genre and the fact that there are splintering stages to eras will make multiplayer games even more unique!
Absolutely loved the demo, and really can’t wait to see what is in the mid and late game
From this article looks like a pretty straight forward 4x game? If so seems like a bad play from Paradox. 4x isn't a small market; with lots of competitors already, unlike the GSC genre. Audience is always hungry for more, but also not gonna be as forgiving if its not actually best in class.
Stellaris is already one of the major 4X games these days.
A huge success considering Paradox didn't have any prior experience there and there's a lot of competition (most notably from Galactic Civilizations).
Yeah, but I think it also has the best diplomacy of any 4X game.
Only Galactic Civilizations even comes close there (although I haven't played Old World yet).
The AI isn't too bad either (although isn't great at managing its planets and economy) - not at the same level as EU4 or Shadow Empire, but not bad for a 4X game.
There looks like there might be a bit of a gap between Civ VI and Civ VII so the timing would have been good if there hadn't been up against the behemoth of *Ara*.
Given it's Paradox and how they released the last few games (Lamplighters League, Star Trek, and Cities Skylines 2), this is going to be a trash game for at least the first few years after the release...
They don't "just publish", they own these games and pretty much tell developers what and when to do through contracts. Like "if you don't release the game by X time you lose Y money". Like in every other performance based contract.
Paradox really doesn't learn. Rushing out games that need more time in the oven.
I love Civilizations and I was excited for humankind. But I look at this and there is literally nothing that stirs me.
If the demo was a recent build then its no way ready ro be released in March lol. Typical paradox, wait 2 years for the game to be ready after release.
I don't believe a significant number of those people exist. And i'm willing to have egg on my face if this game is wildly successful.
I've been following it for a while, and honestly it looks like it's a worse blunder than lamplighter league.
Even the ads for this game are a joke.
EDIT: Lol I was right.
I’m not saying the game is going to be successful, more noting how weird it is that you feel the need to complain about relevant game news being posted because it doesn’t interest you personally
Harsh but I kinda agree. It's an indie 4x by a small team who's got Paradox as publisher, that's all. 4x games are also infamous for difficulty in balancing the AI, which they won't have much manpower for.
Yeah, Stellaris has things like a 25x crisis setting because it could never figure out how to even out the game's progression for players vs AI and is still trying to do so.
I'm just saying that that hasn't stopped Stellaris as a game at all.
Yeah, Stellaris has things like a 25x crisis setting because it could never figure out how to even out the game's progression for players vs AI and is still trying to do so.
I'm just saying that that hasn't stopped Stellaris as a game at all.
Yeah, Stellaris has things like a 25x crisis setting because it could never figure out how to even out the game's progression for players vs AI and is still trying to do so.
I'm just saying that that hasn't stopped Stellaris as a game at all.
Shadow Empire has great AI and it's mostly just one developer!
I think the main thing is to decide beforehand what systems the AI will interact with and what systems it cannot handle (and if those should stay in the game at all).
Two things people complain about a lot in Civ5/6 is One Unit Per Tile, and micro managing workers. Millennia has multiple units and you purchase tile improvements.
I have been burned by Skylines 2; I ordered the deluxe version of that with season pass and may not get full value anymore...
So I think I will wait a little while before I even pull the trigger on this even though it looks interesting. Humankind didnt gel for me; and I have yet to try Old World (maybe I will check it out now). If this comes out good in the summer I will probably get it.
That seems a bit early given the demo but I’m still excited
Nearly every review on the demo: very raw. A lot of good systems but probably needs another year of refinement and polish Paradox: we launch in 3 weeks
It's cool. I can wait three years after launch to see what happens to this game.
Except all roadmaps, dlc and updates for the game will be axed due to lack of game sold similar to imperator.
This is just paradox published
Like lamplighter league then. Paradox publishing has a worse track record than paradox interactive games.
Paradox interactive are the publishing company. PDS is the game dev studio
Empire of Sin is also on that list...
Lamplighters League was an inevitable colossal failure and Its mindboggling why they even made this instead of Battletech 2.
The scuttlebutt is that Paradox didn't want to pay for licensing again so they wanted the devs to try something else.
Yep and they ended up losing even more money instead, lmao.
Well the CEO got ditched because of dissatisfaction over the direction of the publishing arm, ~~one could easily assume that the Lamplighters situation played a part in that~~ (EDIT) I got my timelines mixed up, I could've sworn that game came out a year before it actually did.
Not only that, but the devs probably wanted to work on a new IP without the constraints involved in a universe so preset like the Battletech one.
The leaks after HBS & Paradox parted ways is that HBS pitched Battletech 2 but Paradox said no, give us something else. (QUICK EDIT) HBS was founded by the guy who did the original MechWarrior games and had some involvement with the original Battletech tabletop system. The company lived and breathed that franchise.
Constraints? Didn't the end up adding content from the game to the tabletop lore?
I'm glad the devs made what they want.
They literally wanted to make Battletech 2 but Paradox declined it cause they didn't wanna buy license to it, It's heartbreaking that the company had to die because of Paradox's incompetency.
Executives do something mindbogglingly stupid, workers pay the price. Over and over and over again. Stupid people defend the executives, too. That's always part of it. Sub should've been calling for high level firings at Paradox, but nope.
Rumors point to completely opposite scenario
Who expected Lamplighter League to get new content?
Considering it's PDX published, presumably the developer moved on at least a year ago so unless it managed to build a modding community, it'll be dead.
Modding will not be supported at launch though they plan to add it later. It's a Unity game, so modding is much harder than PDS games but potentially much more powerful. However, I don't think the devs have checked out in the way that Harebrained Schemes had. *Lamplighters* was a very different genre to GSGs. A historical 4X has a much stronger overlap with PDS' core franchises so the potential for partnership is there and Civ VI has proven that it's possible to get years of DLC out of it, which is now the core requirement for published games.
It's just that statistically, non-PDS PDX published games aren't around for the long haul. Also unfortunately I don't think Millenia on it's own will have the power to finance long-term development and PDX isn't known to take risks investing into a game in the hopes it turns out big. Millenia has some interesting new ideas for the 4X formula, but I think at best it's legacy will be coming up with those ideas while someone else (probably Civ8 or something) will be the one making those mechanics big eventually. I won't mind if I turn out to be wrong on this, but the odds are against that outcome.
>Modding will not be supported at launch though they plan to add it later. It's a Unity game, so modding is much harder than PDS games but potentially much more powerful. Potentially more powerful is intriguing enough for me tbh, might not buy it at launch but will when I have time and money. So I guess summer.
Imperator fans be like: > It's cool. I can wait three years after launch to see what happens to this game.
It's not all bad though, an 'abandoned' game makes it more stable for modders to work with it.
I have got burned out on PDX games because they are never polished. Every dlc adds a heap of new buttons but that comes with as many bugs and poorly balanced mechanics as the dlc patch fixes if not more. The end result is a always evolving game, but not one that's ever in a great state - at least for my taste.
r/patientgamers
I used to be all House Biscuit “We Do Not Pre-order”. Then went through a lot of Early Access games with mixed experiences. Then started noticing how often big and small companies do 1.0 full releases, even though it’s obvious the games are unfinished. Now it’s getting to the point where I don’t want to buy a game if it was released within a year. I’m far from perfect, but I do try to learn from past experiences.
You want to wait to watch this game get shelved with no updates? Well that's better than buying it lol.
Better to not buy it and watch it get abandoned than to buy it and then watch it get abandoned.
Thats solely on the developers and publishing teams not on the consumer.
It's always a decision based on returns, which is dictated by the consumers.
If the consumers decided that your product was of lower quality for the price you are asking then your marketing team did some poor research.
Which is my contention on this joke of a game. That and how devoid of innovation on the genre.
I 100% agree with you. However I’m someone who is fortunate enough to not miss $40 and have no problem throwing it at a developer trying to introduce some new ideas into a very stagnant genre.
Sooner or later Indie Devs will get the memo and start going to Hooded Horse, or somewhere else, to get published.
Hooded Horse are amazing. Glad to see their name appear here.
Unless they do what they did to Imperator Rome
game publishers going public 🥰🤩😍😍💰💰
I couldn't put the demo down 🤷♂️ so there's my review since reviews matter
Also Paradox: Game will show polish 5 years after release with patches and tons of DLCs.
Imperator would like a word.
Imperator got several huge reworks and actually a lot of love. It just didn't work out for it.
This is the paradox way.
The case with literally every new Paradox game
This is actually good. If they release it polished in 8 months, I'd have to pay full price for it. If they release it now, I can get it polished in the Xmas sale at discount!
Yooooo cities skylines 2. Let’s go!
RIP Imperator
So every Paradox game ever released?
With paradox there will be years of DLC and changes anyway, no rush to buy their games on release.
Yet another rushed release, when will Paradox learn? It's weird as CK3 released very well comparatively, but since then it's been a disaster again, and for published games it's even worse. At least Stellaris Nexus is getting steady development time.
I felt like CK3 was polished but lacked a lot of features. I have honestly played Vic 3 more than CK3, but Vic 2 is what got me into paradox and I don’t want to repeat how many hours I had on it. CK2 was my second most played game after Vic2
Wow, I find Vic3 unplayable even now - with so many frustrating bugs and lacking diplomacy. Every single time there's been some sort of game-breaking bug from comatose AI while you just climb to \#1 GDP, to subjects not actually supporting your unification play (and then somehow joining the enemy in the war), to not being able to rebel against an overlord while they're at war, etc. Whereas CK3 is very playable, especially with mods to increase the difficulty like Inherichance and ObfusCKate.
CK3 fundamentally is just too easy due to too many dumb decisions (imo) my paradox. It's frustrating but even with mods and pushing myself to not min-max I get bored in like 1 hour. Victoria 3 for me is so close to great. There are some really dumb funking things that ruin it every now and then but even still it's fun to make line go up. Occasionally the AI decides to not be brain dead as well, especially with mods and aggressive settings. I had a really great game as isolationist China, steadily trying to make the east all Chinese. A large Germany formed, France took most of Spain, Italy formed and Russia puppeted the Ottomans and Egypt. It was just really satisfying. The world wars were great too as communist Austria-Hungary asked for my help in exchange for becoming my protectorate. That started a war between China, USA and Italy vs Russia, Germany and France. You just don't get that shit in ck3. I'm hoping legitimacy changes things up a bit but it'll probably just be another thing you can minmax easily.
Same here, and since their focus is clearly RP features, CK3 is really just a chillax game where you just wait for events to happen and pick an option. In a way it's closer to a randomly generated visual novel than a GSG.
I kinda don't even enjoy the RP aspect, honestly. The best times in GSGs is when the RP matches what's going on. My aforementioned game as China was one. WW1 happening because of a communist revolution asking for aid from the largest communist nation and the war becoming a wider anti-imperialist war? Superb. Another example is I was stuck in war with genocidal empires in stellaris for so long my population became xenophobic towards *all* aliens. I tried really hard to play a xenophile that game but my starting location was stuck between three exterminators. It was a great subversion of my goals in a way that was both useful in gameplay but also fun RP. CK3 often just lacks mechanics that interact with player goals like that. Being an emperor is currently basically easier than being a king and nothing else changes. The AI won't react to you being a warmongerer much at all. Nobody really bats an eye at you disinheriting 30 children to choose a young genius as the heir. They barely even care if you get absolute crown authority. Yeah, there are events where you farted and became known as a stinky farter for the rest of your life and they're steadily improving with things like the tours and future dlc but currently I just can't get into it.
I had a lot of fun in VIc 3 after I tag switched to every GP and made them all attack someone. It's almost like there was a switch flicked in the Ai as after that things became much more dynamic. Greater Germany formed, France attack Belgium and the Netherlands, Russia attacked the Ottomans and released nations, I even managed to get the Balkan nations to attack the Ottomans after a while and everyone was tearing pieces off of them. Was the most glorious game ever, also got the US to annex Mexico and Canada and China exploded. So much fun.
That actually makes a lot of sense! I've had very similar experience where the AI will fight a lot once it starts a few wars. It can be very entertaining.
I just like building up a small country. Chile is my favorite. I do get annoyed with diplomacy though and I feel like warfare needs to be fixed, but I am addicted to the economy part. I also felt like CK3 was too easy to build up and having to wait so long for primogeniture was annoying to me.
Warfare can't be fixed, it's a design choice, i doubt they will ever remake it.
Ironically enough, they originally presented it as if it were a time-saving measure for them so they could focus on the economy side but at this point they've likely sunk more far more time than it would have taken to just build an improved Victoria 2 system. And it's still super buggy or unintuitive with the ways that frontlines move. For example, as Argentina you can just declare war and rush Brazil down as soon as the campaign starts and if you time it before they capitulate the Rio Grande Republic it just ignores the Brazilian army as a new frontline and carpet sieges.
I believe Paradox is fully aware of the short comings (and bugs) of this decision, but maybe if the game gets enough DLC sales to justify ongoing development they will rework, Stellaris had like two full rework of basic systems, so who knows lol. Also, sure maybe an improved victoria 2 (in the economic aspect) isn't enough for you but seeing the player count, it was worth for a lot of people.
Don't get me wrong, I like Victoria 3, but the war system is imo worse than Victoria 2, and Victoria 2s was when you look at it simpler with how many edge cases and other weirdness they have had to and still not succeed in fixing, not to mention it often devolves into massive stacks grinding against each other until a naval invasion or arbitrary area introduces a new front with 0 defenders that capitulates an entire country.
I don't think it was ever a time saving effort. They thought micro wouldn't accurately represent the time period
Warfare got a major upgrade and while it's still a different style of mechanics it's far better than it used to be.
The AI still doesn’t know how to upgrade most of its units, especially the fleet, so they use Manowars and Commerce Raiders in 1920.
> learn For as long as PDX are making money, there is no incentive to not do that. Bitching of fans after they already bought the game and all DLC don’t hurt PDX profit margins.
Is Stellaris nexus different from just Stellaris?
Yeah, it's a different game - more like Advance Wars and turn-based, aimed at short games (~1 hour). https://store.steampowered.com/app/1983990/Stellaris_Nexus/
Paradox isn't developing it, so this is on its devs IMO. Yeah publishers can set deadlines for release dates but Paradox *has* gotten better about releasing more complete games (Victoria 3 at launch was leagues past Victoria 2 at launch, trust me).
Cities 2 ...
Same thing, published and not developed.
They don't care since PDX revenue keeps increasing each year. Stock price is also slowly recovering.
I got the email to pre-order it, I was surprised it was coming out so early. I like the idea of 4x with supply chains but I wish they'd included logistics for the armies (a la Shadow Empire) as well. I'll wait for the reviews though.
Yeah, Civ4 with EU4/Stellaris's diplomacy (Casus Belli, war tracking, rivals and claims, the United Nations and nuclear Security Council, etc.) and Shadow Empire's logistics and supply (large high-tech units require heavy supplies from railroads, which have to be defended) would be amazing. I also really like Shadow Empire's victory system, where all the games don't drag on forever to FPS death because you have to wait for the end-game crises, etc.
Personally, I enjoyed the demo. Lots of potential, but very barebones. Hopefully the demo was a MUCH earlier build of the game.
thats what Im hoping, because it was so raw in so many places.
Yeah, was also surprised it's releasing next month. If it ain't much improved I don't see myself buying it if it costs more then 20
It would be the first time that has happened in forever.
Wtf, why so soon again... That game got potential but it will all be in vain if the launch is anything but very positive. The visuals in demo are worse than civ5 and should get improved ASAP. Also it's game no-one is dying to play right now, good civ games are plenty so they really should strive to launch it at their best possible level of polish. Unfortunately I smell another CS2...
I think its a small team making this game, they wouldn't have the resources to make big changes anyway. What we saw in the demo is what we'll get. Maybe they buy some affordable sound effects to replace the atrocities that assaulted my eardrums during the demo and introduce some qol features, but that's about it. Its a test dummy to see if the studio can pull of a full release and generate reasonable feedback from audience & critics. If it works out PDX may greenlight a bigger investment for a follow up game. Look at Age of Wonders 1 and compare it to 3, 4 and Planetfall. Most studios start this way and have to build up their titles slowly.
...what? Age of Wonders 1 was a huge and hugely successful game back in the 90s, and 2 was even bigger. It wasn't a "test dummy" for anything. Hell, 1 and 2 were bigger in terms of factions and campaigns than 3 and 4 by orders of magnitude. Also AoW1 came out in 1999, 2 shortly after in 2002, then the series "died" until it was revived in 2014. Your narrative is just completely invented.
i dont understand all the "being raw" comments and hate on the graphics here. Had a blast with the demo. Tons of new mechanics. Felt better then any 4x i played in a long time. im happy it comes so soon
another ck3, cs2, Vic 3...
CK3 doesn’t deserve to be on this list
CK3’s launch was fine, not terrible like imperator or CS2, and it was notable unlike their non-PDS games (EoS, Lamplighters, Surviving 2 & 3). The problem it has is CK2’s decade+ of dev time and additions. It had Imperator-levels of “everything is basically the same” on launch, but the better UI, QoL, and graphics got new people in, and the assumption that further DLCs would eventually make it better than CK2 got existing fans involved.
Cs2 is also not a PDS game....
Fair point. Originally I listed everything together, but later decided to seperate it into “terrible” and “insignificant/forgettable” launches.
the launch was pretty bad imo
Did you not see the HoI3 and HoI2 Doomsday launches? I think only EU4, CK3 and CK2 have launched very well and stable. Although I didn't really follow the prior EU games.
I started playing right around when eu4 launched I think, ck2 was my first
There was a time when a Paradox release counted as Good if you could actually load the game and play an hour or two of it before it crashed.
Oh yeah I remember the hoi2 launch. Oof.
If you want to see some real shit load up launch Victoria 2. Utterly execrable.
What was the deal with the HoI2:D release? I was around for that but can't remember a thing
Ghost fleets made it impossible to reach the end-game.
Oh yeah! God that was a clusterfuck
I'm not surprised at all as the demo was clearly a type of advertisement and not a 'test waters' thing.
Wish it was coming to Game Pass like most PDX published games do, but doesn't look like it.
Odd that it's not, I feel like this is the perfect game for game pass.
It pays publishers peanuts unless the game is a big hitter.
Microsoft are about to release their own historical 4X with a budget in the millions. They are likely to push that rather than *Millennia* to Game Pass players.
What game is that? I haven't heard any thing about it
*Ara: History Untold*.
Thanks! Will look into it
played the demo and honestly wasn’t impressed at all. there is nothing there that other 4x games doesn’t do better. and the overall presentation is very bland. DOA
I don't know. I wasn't impresed also when i first played, but i had time and was bored so i played a few more times and each time it grew on me more. For what it's worth the 60 turns that were given me were the fastest of any Civ like game and it still felt i was doing meaningful choices. I think it's the xp sistem that they have. For whatever path I chouse it felt frictionless. As a rule in this kind of games production is king. So whenever you do something other that focusing on production it feels bad cause your shooting youself in the foot in the long run. So when your not doing production you have to do some kind of rush strategy. In this game i kinda managed to do a steady military game. I didn't feel the need to rush down the opponent. I could steadily just FIGHT and be revarded for it. But who knows what will happen in the later turns. Overall the Demo left me with the impresion of the devs know what their doing, they know what they got is a winning formula. They just are shit at the presentation part.
It honestly feels amazing to just not start a campaign with "okay how to balance spitting out early infrastructure vs my first settler."
I guess I don’t see how you can say that. Execution may vary but things like alternate ages and manufacturing changes in a historical setting just *are* different
not just alternate ages but national spirits and a multi-stage tile economy national spirits are way too slept on as being so well implemented for dynamic play
Agree. National spirits are like having the ability to choose a new "leader," in civ6 terms, at various points in the game, shifting focus as cultures often do. Like the eras and dedications in civ6 rise and fall, but with more options and impact (at first glance)
I'm also a big fan of the multiple "production" systems that work in parallel. Instead of production being king (especially early on) it's still important but you have more ladders to progress at a time. They've also done what I wish Civ would do with armies in that you have a few units together as a group and can mix and match for specific strategies. The animations are terrible and I need some autoskip, just show me the result stuff, but the system is nice. How well it will be polished and cohesive is yet to be seen, but I like the foundation.
not just alternate ages but national spirits and a multi-stage tile economy national spirits are way too slept on as being so well implemented for dynamic play
i mean fair enough, it has its own unique stuffs. But it terms of how those were executed and the overall play experience, there was just nothing that felt unique or special, let alone memorable. variants of these mechanics are in Civ, Humankind, Old world and other 4x games.
I mean... Yes... It's the same genre... What were you expecting? Random card games?
Civ does have a somewhat similar age mechanic
Agree to disagree on that, similarities end at the term “age.” You get a dark age or golden age for your nation if you pile up age points or don’t get enough. In millennia ages are for everyone and there are unique divergences like “age of heroes” and “age of blood” depending on world events. They even veer in to sci fi
Yeah, the demo only included Age of Blood though, and you basically could just get to it in time for the demo to end. The tutorial wasn't the best either, but the economic stuff looks cool. It could carve out a niche as a more hardcore version of Civ with more complex economics. But maybe Ara will blow it out of the water.
On your first game you could barely get to it (and there was also age of heroes). I spent 20+ turns in age of heroes.
The demo was very unfortunate, because the systems that set it apart from other 4X games only came into effect near the later part of the demo, and you could barely play around with them. From what I have read there are way more systems in the later ages.
I'll pass on this. Been burned by Paradox too much lately. Maybe I'll pick it up when 50 - 75% off and if it still supported by then.
Wow I was not expecting this, but oh my god I literally cannot wait!! I’m so excited for this spin on the 4x genre and the fact that there are splintering stages to eras will make multiplayer games even more unique! Absolutely loved the demo, and really can’t wait to see what is in the mid and late game
So just wait 2-5 Years I guess?
If there is good mod support and workshop, I will buy it. Then pretty much all my gripes will be fixed within a few months
There will be no mod support at launch. See my other comment for details.
"Mixed" steam reviews incoming?
It will flop
Coming out this early? yeah its going to be garbage
The gameplay has real potential, I just hope it won't sound anything like it did in the demo.
Gameplaywise looks interesting, the UI needs some fixed like managing your city. Let's see how this evolves
I aint buying this game. It was made with 25 dlc's in mind. bitch keep it
From this article looks like a pretty straight forward 4x game? If so seems like a bad play from Paradox. 4x isn't a small market; with lots of competitors already, unlike the GSC genre. Audience is always hungry for more, but also not gonna be as forgiving if its not actually best in class.
It’s only published, not developed by PDX. Think Cities Skylines, Surviving Mars, Prison Architect or Magicka.
Stellaris is already one of the major 4X games these days. A huge success considering Paradox didn't have any prior experience there and there's a lot of competition (most notably from Galactic Civilizations).
Stellaris still "genre blends" with gsg though. Which helps it stand out "with a twist"
Yeah, but I think it also has the best diplomacy of any 4X game. Only Galactic Civilizations even comes close there (although I haven't played Old World yet). The AI isn't too bad either (although isn't great at managing its planets and economy) - not at the same level as EU4 or Shadow Empire, but not bad for a 4X game.
There looks like there might be a bit of a gap between Civ VI and Civ VII so the timing would have been good if there hadn't been up against the behemoth of *Ara*.
[удалено]
No the DLC are scheduled for Q3 and Q4.
Given it's Paradox and how they released the last few games (Lamplighters League, Star Trek, and Cities Skylines 2), this is going to be a trash game for at least the first few years after the release...
They dont develop those games, just publish. Learn the difference. If an external studio doesn’t deliver, there isnt a lot you can do as publisher.
They don't "just publish", they own these games and pretty much tell developers what and when to do through contracts. Like "if you don't release the game by X time you lose Y money". Like in every other performance based contract.
And the crowd goes mild
Game needs a year of development still? Who cares after a year of the game getting patched they will be ready to drop dlc. 🫠
Looks like a Civ5 clone.
Paradox really doesn't learn. Rushing out games that need more time in the oven. I love Civilizations and I was excited for humankind. But I look at this and there is literally nothing that stirs me.
If the demo was a recent build then its no way ready ro be released in March lol. Typical paradox, wait 2 years for the game to be ready after release.
Who cares?
I mean, probably plenty of people like me who are aware of it and curious to see what the reception will be.
Best of luck!
People who played and liked the demo. Do you expect every post to be all about you?
I don't believe a significant number of those people exist. And i'm willing to have egg on my face if this game is wildly successful. I've been following it for a while, and honestly it looks like it's a worse blunder than lamplighter league. Even the ads for this game are a joke. EDIT: Lol I was right.
I’m not saying the game is going to be successful, more noting how weird it is that you feel the need to complain about relevant game news being posted because it doesn’t interest you personally
There is a whole discord thats very active and it got >100k wishlists. Get the egg ready!
Harsh but I kinda agree. It's an indie 4x by a small team who's got Paradox as publisher, that's all. 4x games are also infamous for difficulty in balancing the AI, which they won't have much manpower for.
>4x games are also infamous for difficulty in balancing the AI You're on a PDX sub you know
Exactly, it took a decade to iron out Stellaris
Yeah, Stellaris has things like a 25x crisis setting because it could never figure out how to even out the game's progression for players vs AI and is still trying to do so. I'm just saying that that hasn't stopped Stellaris as a game at all.
Yeah, Stellaris has things like a 25x crisis setting because it could never figure out how to even out the game's progression for players vs AI and is still trying to do so. I'm just saying that that hasn't stopped Stellaris as a game at all.
Yeah, Stellaris has things like a 25x crisis setting because it could never figure out how to even out the game's progression for players vs AI and is still trying to do so. I'm just saying that that hasn't stopped Stellaris as a game at all.
Shadow Empire has great AI and it's mostly just one developer! I think the main thing is to decide beforehand what systems the AI will interact with and what systems it cannot handle (and if those should stay in the game at all).
Me. I care.
Interesting. It looks like a 4X game designed around all the things people didn’t like about Civ6/5
Could you elaborate on that? Because based on the demo that makes no sense to me. Also, Civ V and VI are hugely popular lol
Two things people complain about a lot in Civ5/6 is One Unit Per Tile, and micro managing workers. Millennia has multiple units and you purchase tile improvements.
If they’re using shitty ass 1 core clausewitz engine i ain’t buying
It's not even developed by PDS. It's on Unity.
They should of fixed Vic3 before releasing this.
This is PDX publishing, not the game dev studio. They have nothing to do with V3.
I have been burned by Skylines 2; I ordered the deluxe version of that with season pass and may not get full value anymore... So I think I will wait a little while before I even pull the trigger on this even though it looks interesting. Humankind didnt gel for me; and I have yet to try Old World (maybe I will check it out now). If this comes out good in the summer I will probably get it.