Do Paradox games count as "Triple A"?

[XYN]

There is more complexity and deep in picking 5 heroes in Dota game than any PDX system.

I don't know if it is sarcasm or not, but on the professional or at least somewhat competitive level - absolutely.
Top teams compete in Dota 2 for prizes of millions of dollars and take it very, very seriously. They have coaches and elaborate strategies and ever shifting meta.

Anyway. I get confused when people say that Paradox games are especially deep and complex. It is an unpopular opinion but: no, I think they are not. And they never were. They are mostly just map painters. Just like Johan said.

The same goes for "incredible level of historical detail". No. They have enough historical detail for fun, history-inspired games, but by no means they are very accurate.

That said, they don't *have* to be deep and complex to be fun. And they are certainly fun.

 

[Wenceslaus II.]

very complex and deep gameplay with heavily refined mechanics that usually develop for years beyond release, while being fairly frugal in other areas of development. There are some exceptions where they develop games that go for broader appeal.

Sounds a lot like Firaxis, tbh.

 

[Jaang]

Paradox isn't a triple aaa studio because they don't make games that are going to appeal to a wide enough audience , find your typical gamer and try to explain hoi4 division comps, Victoria 2 economics or eu4s trade system to them.

Even complex triple a games like xcom or civ 6 have nothing on paradoxes titles.

Exactly. After playing EU4 and CK2 for a long time, watching a friend of mine play Civ6 felt like a chess player watching someone play a game of tic-tac-toe with really pretty graphics.

Now, mind you, I used to enjoy the heck out of Civ, Civ2, CivIII, and CivIV... before the cursed abomination that was Civ5. Basically, the Civ games kept getting more complex, and getting deeper and deeper game mechanics over time... until someone decided that the game should be dumbed down enough so that 2nd graders could play. Sad.

 

[Steel_atlas]

Sounds a lot like Firaxis, tbh.

Exactly. After playing EU4 and CK2 for a long time, watching a friend of mine play Civ6 felt like a chess player watching someone play a game of tic-tac-toe with really pretty graphics.

Now, mind you, I used to enjoy the heck out of Civ, Civ2, CivIII, and CivIV... before the cursed abomination that was Civ5. Basically, the Civ games kept getting more complex, and getting deeper and deeper game mechanics over time... until someone decided that the game should be dumbed down enough so that 2nd graders could play. Sad.

Firaxis was the chosen one, they were supposed to bring balance to the gaming industry, not destroy it.

 

[Kyberia]

Triple-A isn't really a definition of quality, but of development spending. It's hard to put a finger on a threshold amount because most AAA games spend 5+ years in production, during which time inflation and recession really play havoc with any cost trends you might try to graph, but I'd say that today, a game would probably have to cost $100 million or more to count as triple-A.

 

[SSA]

Paradox games are niche, rather than AAA or Indie. They appeal to people that enjoy the Grand Strategy genre, but outside of that demographic, there isn't many people who know much about Paradox. If you compare this to a powerhouse like Nintendo and maybe EA, they are more well known, and develop games for huge audiences.

Paradox isn't exactly Indie because even though it doesn't have the biggest audience, it still has the direction to create games with bigger budgets: (just look at Stellaris).

 

[Telenil]

I don't know if it is sarcasm or not, but on the professional or at least somewhat competitive level - absolutely.
Top teams compete in Dota 2 for prizes of millions of dollars and take it very, very seriously. They have coaches and elaborate strategies and ever shifting meta.

Anyway. I get confused when people say that Paradox games are especially deep and complex. It is an unpopular opinion but: no, I think they are not. And they never were. They are mostly just map painters. Just like Johan said.

The same goes for "incredible level of historical detail". No. They have enough historical detail for fun, history-inspired games, but by no means they are very accurate.

That said, they don't *have* to be deep and complex to be fun. And they are certainly fun.

Let's take a group of PC-gamers at random. Make them play a number of hours on EU4 or CK2. What proportion will, in your opinion, call those games 'simple'?

Chess rules are not complex - you can fit them all on a few A4 sheets and children can understand them. But it is a deep game, in that these simple rules spawn very elaborate strategies.

It can be argued that Paradox games are not particularly deep, from a competitive perspective: if you only wanted to win in a CK2 game, you would pick the strongest realm, press a NPC's claim to your opponent's realm and beat him with mercenary doomstacks until his dynasty is totally landless.
But not complex? You still learn how some mechanics work after hundreds of hours, even if you are paying attention.

 

[Arnulf Floyd]

Paradox games were not fully AAA, they are designed mostly for grand strategy gamers and historical nerds despite CK2 attracts many RPG fans or Stellaris bring sci fi players. Regarding complexity, these games were more complex than other PC strategy games, but not deep as chess because people can cheat easily if playing on easy and choose strongest nation for blobbing world. AI not is enough smart to understand same things as human players.

 

[Keizer Harm]

Does an imbalanced startdate imply lack of depth? If you play Shattered World, does it then become deeper than chess?

 

[Telenil]

Does an imbalanced startdate imply lack of depth?

Keeping my definition of 'deep' as "spawning elaborate strategies in a competitive environment", I think lack of balance implies lack of depth, but a game with a mildly asymetrical start can still be balanced. Starcraft Brood War comes to mind.

If you play Shattered World, does it then become deeper than chess?

I don't play chess, but I doubt it. With PdX games the sandboxes they are, competitive PdX gaming would be about finding the most brutal ways to cheat from all the DLC tools added over the years.

HoI4 might have more competitive potential than the others, if only because it is not as open-ended, but you would need to close a lot of loopholes.

 

[Keizer Harm]

With PdX games the sandboxes they are, competitive PdX gaming would be about finding the most brutal ways to cheat from all the DLC tools added over the years.

Which is how you define depth, isn't it? Leaving aside outright exploits for a moment - EU4 contains so many buttons for modifiers to different effects, if you were to lock a number of people in a room, playing it competitively against each other, wouldn't the meta quickly become very complex? (and HoI4 too contains a lot of them, but I do not play that so I can't comment on that right now)

Or is game depth a property of the gamer culture as much as the game? Since we do not have extremely competitive EU4 players, that I know of.

 

[Telenil]

I think most of the buttons would become useless once a strategy has been figured out. The optimal strategy would probably be some unstoppable abuse of the rules - say, in EU4, debase currency to the corruption limit for more mercs, then keep trucebreaking until the enemy has been completely annexed and end the game before 1500. Maybe you could have some meta around that, but I don't think it would be like EU4 as we all imagine it.

 

[sreckom92]

Double A game, triple A fun.

 

[Bouchart]

The difference between AAA games and non-AAA games is the marketing budget.

 

[TheCheeseMaster]

Triple A isn't well defined but Paradox games definitely aren't it. Triple A is goliath marketing departments, mainstream flagship console exclusives, and overpaid unnecessary voice actors who are real actors. Paradox is niche and not really a big shaker in the games industry.

 

[frolix42]

If I see a non-mobile game advertised on network TV, that's probably a AAA game. PDS is a ways from that.

 

[Ivashanko]

I don't know if it is sarcasm or not, but on the professional or at least somewhat competitive level - absolutely.
Top teams compete in Dota 2 for prizes of millions of dollars and take it very, very seriously. They have coaches and elaborate strategies and ever shifting meta.

Anyway. I get confused when people say that Paradox games are especially deep and complex. It is an unpopular opinion but: no, I think they are not. And they never were. They are mostly just map painters. Just like Johan said.

The same goes for "incredible level of historical detail". No. They have enough historical detail for fun, history-inspired games, but by no means they are very accurate.

That said, they don't *have* to be deep and complex to be fun. And they are certainly fun.

I think you (and I and most of the people here) are a hardcore gamer, and are making a mistake when you use your rubric to judge whether games are complex/deep or not. My guess is the majority of peoplw who have played Paradox games are complex and deep, and if we forced everyone in the world to play the vast majority would find them to be too complicated and too deep.

Now, I'm the kind of person who only plays the more hardcore and involved mods (Black Ice, MEIOU and Taxes, MMtM, CK+, Vicky 2 D/0 POP mod etc) because I find that the mods make the games even more complex and enjoyable, so, yeah, I'm fairly hardcore myself. But I don't think we should use our standards to judge these games.

 

[Etrutian]

I think most of the buttons would become useless once a strategy has been figured out. The optimal strategy would probably be some unstoppable abuse of the rules - say, in EU4, debase currency to the corruption limit for more mercs, then keep trucebreaking until the enemy has been completely annexed and end the game before 1500. Maybe you could have some meta around that, but I don't think it would be like EU4 as we all imagine it.

My favorite was EU3 Holland Tech Advantage. Rush Muskets and you can paint the map against even France.

 

[AjayAlcos]

A crude generalisation, but I would say that compared to how many people they have creating content for a title - Paradox dev's put more individually and intellectually in their work compared those from other studios. That's despite the relative scarcity in resources, both in personnel and in finances, that they can afford to devote to a single project. Though thats just my two cents.

 

[pedrito_elcabra]

Sounds a lot like Firaxis, tbh.

Are we talking about the Firaxis handling of the Civ series?

I have always loved the Civ series, but I wish Paradox took it over. Post release development on those titles is very limited, they get a couple DLC each and that's it.

Two years after release Civ6 still feels incredibly crude, I think actually today Civ5 still has a larger active multiplayer community than Civ6 because of how bad the latter is. It's all shiny graphics and talking heads and voice acting with very, very little substance. It is still a strategy game, but just barely.