Do you think Paradox should do more "HoI like" games?

[Temudhun Khan]

By HoI like, I mean games focusing on a short period of times rather than centuries. When you looks at HoI4 mods, you can see a lot of them focusing on a specific war (World War One, the Napoleonic Wars, the Thirty Years War, etc.) and it's understandable: It's currently the only Pdx game of its kind with an active community (I know March of the Eagles exists, but it looks like it was already old news when it came out).
The problem is, aside from the fact that those mods are not necessarily up to date or even finnished in their prime version, HoI4 is a game about World War 2, with mechanics and interfaces adapted to World War 2, and a game intended to represent a certain time period from the beginning could easily be more immersive and relevant. On the other hand, we all know game developement is a business and people working in it doesn't live sustaining on pleas for a Victoria 3 game alone (though it might be two thirds of Paradox employees current diet), so it won't happen or won't be given as much attention as other games if the market isn't there.
So I'd like to know if people here would be interested in such games, and if so, which time periods would interest you more? And would it be global conflicts (World War One, Seven Years War...) or more local ones (Third Crusade, Wars of the Diadochi, American Civil War...)?

 

[minke19104]

March of Eagles bombed. Doubtful if they would make short time period.

 

[Temudhun Khan]

But did it bomb because it was a short time period game, or for other reasons?
And would gamers necessarily associate other short time period games from Paradox to March of the Eagles' flop? Or to Hearts of Iron? Or neither?

 

[minke19104]

It has already been discussed to death here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/american-civil-war-grand-strategy.844594/

 

[Cameron122]

A Hearts of Iron game taking place in our solar system with nations and mega corporations fighting for stellar supremacy

Port over to Stellaris once you unify Sol

 

[Woifee]

No.

WW2 works because it's WW2.

 

[Warchild421]

I wouldn't mind a "random world" to fight with WWII weaponry over. But that's not really what PDX does. They don't seem to mind a little randomized bits, like the "new world randomizer" in EU4, but they try to keep it the earth mostly historically accurate. at least in shape even if they let us play with diplomacy.

 

[DominusNovus]

Speaking as someone who never touched March of Eagles, I was turned off by the limited map scope, rather than the limited time scope.

 

[Temudhun Khan]

Yeah, the limited time scope isn't necessarily a problem when the unit of time is hours rather than days (like Heats of Iron) but I know what you mean. However, global wars like World War One or the Seven Years war wouldn't have this problem.

 

[FOARP]

But did it bomb because it was a short time period game, or for other reasons?
And would gamers necessarily associate other short time period games from Paradox to March of the Eagles' flop? Or to Hearts of Iron? Or neither?

Poor coding and game-quality was also a factor, sorry to say. But as you may have noticed, these can both be fixed if the launch of a game is a success.

There's loads of things I would like to see done Paradox-style (WW1, ACW, Cold War) but the fact that they've either failed to do them, or others have tried to do them and not been massively successful, probably indicates that Paradox wouldn't be able to make a success of them either.

 

[I Have Low Eyes]

Trench warfare game civil war and or ww1

 

[Jamey]

As far as I know, Paradox's narrow focused games (outside of HOI4) are among their lowest selling: Sengoku, Rome, and March of Eagles.

Sengoku and Rome both felt to me like more limited versions of their other games with different period and culture themes. They both had things going for them, but ultimately didn't satisfy me (and, as I have played hundreds of hours of Rome Total War mods, I really wanted to like Rome).

March of Eagles really came close to being fun in some ways, but it was too complex in the wrong ways (e.g a ton of nearly identical units) and similarly too simple in others for my taste. It had some interesting ideas, but ultimately wasn't satisfying either.

What I find compelling about the Hearts of Iron series is that each nation plays differently and that you can try different solutions to the same problems if you play the same nation. It also has all the weight of WW2, which is near enough in time that most of us know someone who was involved in it in one way or another.

I feel like a focused game like any of these needs to have some aspect of it be especially compelling. I feel like Paradox hasn't been great about hitting the mark with that on this type of game. I got enough enjoyment out of each to not regret my purchase, but I do think that they have generally done better with their big Grand Strategy titles (including HOI).

 

[Temudhun Khan]

Rome covered several centuries and even the land area wasn't that limited, considering CK2 didn't stretch further on release. I wouldn't consider it a "HoI like" game.

 

[safe-keeper]

Besides from my dream of a more tactical HOI game where you fight individual battles and command smaller units like battalions or companies, I'd love a World War I HOI game.

 

[jmpveg22]

Early Cold War Period 1946-1976

 

[yourworstnightm]

WW2 works because it's WW2. No other single war/ short period really have the same pull (and I have never understood why HoI has it in the 1st Place. It's about fighting the same war again and again).

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

Sengoku and Rome both felt to me like more limited versions of their other games with different period and culture themes. They both had things going for them, but ultimately didn't satisfy me (and, as I have played hundreds of hours of Rome Total War mods, I really wanted to like Rome).

Rome covered several centuries and even the land area wasn't that limited, considering CK2 didn't stretch further on release. I wouldn't consider it a "HoI like" game.

I've only played EU:Rome for a couple of hours, but it felt HoI-like because the main conflicts seem to be fairly set in advance. There's only so many different ways that Rome can fight Carthage, just as Germany can't ever ignore the Eastern Front. By contrast, in CK2 I currently have a Khazar queen of England & Andalusia; in EUIV my England couldn't get footholds in India, so ended up expanding into South America. There's just so much replayability. And as others have said, WW2 is WW2: in many ways it's the founding myth of the Western liberal world. Westerners care about D-day in the same way that Shia care about the events around the life of Ali. EU:R tried to compensate for the limited number of countries by allowing you to role-play Roman internal politics, but the EU heritage meant that wasn't the core of the game.

If PDX went back to the classical era, they might do better if they started much, much earlier. The rise and fall of the Babylonians, Assyrians, and multiple rounds of Egyptians, knowing that Greece and then central Italy was likely to explode in the endgame (the Romans become the equivalent of CK2's Mongols, the looming threat hanging that you must prepare for). Keeping your Hittite empire or Jewish OPM alive through all of that would add a lot more replayability. The Civilization IV supermod Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (now Dawn of Civilization) has a stability system that means empires rise and fall in a dynamic and semi-historical way, which would work well in the ancient era.

Alternatively, you could make a good CK2-style game that's almost entirely within the Roman empire (and it's successor states), because the political system was so personality driven and many Westerners vaguely know that a Consul is a different category of thing from a Cassius. But that would be even more niche & harder to sell.

 

[creativitypersonified]

I think there needs to be a balance. Super stretched time periods like eu4 and crusader kings 2 cause a mess in the late game and stop beeing appealing after some time. On the other hand very short time games like hoi4 get repetitive much faster than their counterparts and hoi4 in particular is too barebone ( though that is not only down to the timeline ) The short timeline also limits the developers ability to provide new content. Something with the span of 100-250 years could get the best of both worlds. Of course it's all down to implementation.

 

[Gutie]

A Hearts of Iron game taking place in our solar system with nations and mega corporations fighting for stellar supremacy

Port over to Stellaris once you unify Sol

>Mega Corporations in space
EVE the strategy sim? Caldari much?

Divided Earth like now but a bit in the future with the solar system in play. Might be really chaotic to implement in one seamless map. Might require two maps to be much easier to code/run. That way you could essentially run the Solar system map highly similar to Stellaris, excluding Mars....which would be capable of having more than one faction. InB4 Martian War DLC for full fledged mars map. With Earth on the other.

They can go lower on the gfx and theyd probably be able to make more content with it too. Clauswitz 1 is a functional engine, i really don't care if i can see high-def oceans/clouds and such tbh, I just want a game that works well and isn't buggy asf (looking at you HOI3 -_-) .

Either way, i'd be a lot more keen on a game that runs like Darkest Hour being put out there reflecting current/near future. Don't need to have flashy gfx and such to make it a good 4x/Grand Strategy. Basically have Pdox put out something for 21st century than isnt a trainwreck like SR2020/ColdWar.

Get the guys that did Darkest Hour to whip up a game that runs on the old Clauswitz 1 engine that works well, has tons of events/content that people can scoop up for cheaper than a full priced game and it'll sell. I'd buy into it myself. I've played more DH in the past year than almost all Pdox titles combined this year, and I don't even have achievements to hunt down, like CK2/EU4 does and I'm all over it.