So I've had an idea percolating in my head for a while now. The "big four" Paradox games - CK, EU, Vicky, and HoI - are all very similar in some important ways. I think it would be possible to simply merge the games together, and make a single proper game of grand history. It would be somewhat more complex than the current games individually, of course, but I think it would still be tolerable for the sort of people who play Paradox games in the first place. Also, with a couple of minor new mechanics, I think it can be expanded to cover periods of time outside the 1066-1948 range, particularly the fall of Rome. Let me explain what I mean.
The game that I'd take from most directly would be Victoria 2, particularly the RGO and POP mechanics. In fact, I think this could probably be made into a Victoria 2 mod if someone had enough time on their hands. The only major change would be that culture and religion would be more malleable - you'd add Missionaries to convert POPs, and you'd include cultural drift, including intentional assimilation and the ability for cultures to splinter(which is obviously necessary for a 2000-year timespan). I'd also make things like plagues more common and more devastating, because they really were historically, and I'd make RGOs have diminishing returns to population. I might also allow multiple RGOs per province, to allow for things like the discovery of coal and oil and to let POPs shift a bit more smoothly.
For technology, I think that an entirely new system would be best. I would take technology largely out of the hands of the player - you can try to tilt it one way or another, but it's the inventors who advance your tech, not the King or President. This would make it possible for some techs to actually be bad in the short-term(e.g., ones that make peasants more restive) without just having players skip them. Further, technology will have an upkeep requirement - generally something akin to EU3's Tradition mechanics, but cash or POP requirements for some. For example, if you have no naval tradition, some of your naval technology may actually disappear, and if you have no bureaucrats in your empire, you won't be able to keep your government technologies functioning. This makes Dark Ages possible - if your nation gets too badly beat up for you to keep educating the leaders of tomorrow like Rome did, or if you de-emphasize science in favour of mysticism like Islam did, you will regress. It won't be common, but it can happen.
The economy will be a bit of a Vicky/EU4 hybrid. I've actually been mentally modelling my ideal trade system on Railroad Tycoon 3 for a while, but it seems from the dev diaries that EU4 will do something that is similar but better-tailored to Paradox games, so I'm going to use that as my example instead. Trade will also include infrastructure levels, though there'll be a lot more than the 6-10 levels games have featured so far(after all, there's a lot more than 10 steps between interstates and cow paths), and infrastructure will have a cash upkeep. The production and consumption model will be mostly taken from Vicky, though Vicky's factories will be a late-game thing - almost all manufacturing will be done by artisans up until the Industrial Revolution. I also intend for "Life" goods to be taken far more literally, with a big population growth malus for not meeting them. Also, on the topic of production, slavery would get modelled a lot more literally than it has in other games - it should make quite a lot of economic sense in the premodern world, and be modelled complete with population getting stolen from one place and deported. But since slaves will get no efficiency growth from technology, it'll stop making sense around the time of the Industrial Revolution. Likewise, aristocrats buffing RGO output is near-irrelevant in Vicky, but it ought to be powerful in the Renaissance era.
The complete feudal model of CK is obviously too complex to include, but I think that you can roll a lot of that into a much simpler, more generic, and perhaps more interesting, system. Basically, ideologies, classes, religions, cultures, political parties, major nobles, important generals, and whatnot can all be modelled under the heading of "Factions". Most major nations would have a dozen or so, each with its own power level and desires. Feudal states in particular will have a ton of major noble factions(the usual ones, plus all the dukes and princes), which should model how much of a hash they made of their governing. Each POP will also generally have a preferred faction. The player would keep unhappiness down by currying the favour of the various factions, but if the factions get unhappy, they can rebel. For example, a popular general in an unstable state will have a narrow POP base, mostly soldiers and officers, but they'll be extremely hard to put down if they rise(and they might just take you out in a coup d'etat). Conversely, a peasant rebellion may have a broad base of support, but it'll be a chew toy for your army, though you'll be sad about killing all your workers.
Similarly, the complete brigade-level modelling of HoI is just not going to happen, but there's room for a decent combat model up to at least WW1, and I think WW2 could be done non-terribly. Basically, it'd look a lot like late-stage Victoria, but with some extra unit types. To keep things sane, there'd be a cap on how many active unit types you can use(based on tech and tradition) - you might only have 3 types of soldier in the Dark Ages, but you could have a dozen in WW2(you could even keep the dozens of choices HoI has, but the player would probably only pick one type of tank to have and not four).
The upshot of this, I think, would be a game that can model a lot of real historical trends that very few other games capture adequately, while being interesting over a span of 2500 years. It'd be pretty complex, but not unreasonably so, and it'd save us all the trouble of writing any new savegame converters for at least a month.
The game that I'd take from most directly would be Victoria 2, particularly the RGO and POP mechanics. In fact, I think this could probably be made into a Victoria 2 mod if someone had enough time on their hands. The only major change would be that culture and religion would be more malleable - you'd add Missionaries to convert POPs, and you'd include cultural drift, including intentional assimilation and the ability for cultures to splinter(which is obviously necessary for a 2000-year timespan). I'd also make things like plagues more common and more devastating, because they really were historically, and I'd make RGOs have diminishing returns to population. I might also allow multiple RGOs per province, to allow for things like the discovery of coal and oil and to let POPs shift a bit more smoothly.
For technology, I think that an entirely new system would be best. I would take technology largely out of the hands of the player - you can try to tilt it one way or another, but it's the inventors who advance your tech, not the King or President. This would make it possible for some techs to actually be bad in the short-term(e.g., ones that make peasants more restive) without just having players skip them. Further, technology will have an upkeep requirement - generally something akin to EU3's Tradition mechanics, but cash or POP requirements for some. For example, if you have no naval tradition, some of your naval technology may actually disappear, and if you have no bureaucrats in your empire, you won't be able to keep your government technologies functioning. This makes Dark Ages possible - if your nation gets too badly beat up for you to keep educating the leaders of tomorrow like Rome did, or if you de-emphasize science in favour of mysticism like Islam did, you will regress. It won't be common, but it can happen.
The economy will be a bit of a Vicky/EU4 hybrid. I've actually been mentally modelling my ideal trade system on Railroad Tycoon 3 for a while, but it seems from the dev diaries that EU4 will do something that is similar but better-tailored to Paradox games, so I'm going to use that as my example instead. Trade will also include infrastructure levels, though there'll be a lot more than the 6-10 levels games have featured so far(after all, there's a lot more than 10 steps between interstates and cow paths), and infrastructure will have a cash upkeep. The production and consumption model will be mostly taken from Vicky, though Vicky's factories will be a late-game thing - almost all manufacturing will be done by artisans up until the Industrial Revolution. I also intend for "Life" goods to be taken far more literally, with a big population growth malus for not meeting them. Also, on the topic of production, slavery would get modelled a lot more literally than it has in other games - it should make quite a lot of economic sense in the premodern world, and be modelled complete with population getting stolen from one place and deported. But since slaves will get no efficiency growth from technology, it'll stop making sense around the time of the Industrial Revolution. Likewise, aristocrats buffing RGO output is near-irrelevant in Vicky, but it ought to be powerful in the Renaissance era.
The complete feudal model of CK is obviously too complex to include, but I think that you can roll a lot of that into a much simpler, more generic, and perhaps more interesting, system. Basically, ideologies, classes, religions, cultures, political parties, major nobles, important generals, and whatnot can all be modelled under the heading of "Factions". Most major nations would have a dozen or so, each with its own power level and desires. Feudal states in particular will have a ton of major noble factions(the usual ones, plus all the dukes and princes), which should model how much of a hash they made of their governing. Each POP will also generally have a preferred faction. The player would keep unhappiness down by currying the favour of the various factions, but if the factions get unhappy, they can rebel. For example, a popular general in an unstable state will have a narrow POP base, mostly soldiers and officers, but they'll be extremely hard to put down if they rise(and they might just take you out in a coup d'etat). Conversely, a peasant rebellion may have a broad base of support, but it'll be a chew toy for your army, though you'll be sad about killing all your workers.
Similarly, the complete brigade-level modelling of HoI is just not going to happen, but there's room for a decent combat model up to at least WW1, and I think WW2 could be done non-terribly. Basically, it'd look a lot like late-stage Victoria, but with some extra unit types. To keep things sane, there'd be a cap on how many active unit types you can use(based on tech and tradition) - you might only have 3 types of soldier in the Dark Ages, but you could have a dozen in WW2(you could even keep the dozens of choices HoI has, but the player would probably only pick one type of tank to have and not four).
The upshot of this, I think, would be a game that can model a lot of real historical trends that very few other games capture adequately, while being interesting over a span of 2500 years. It'd be pretty complex, but not unreasonably so, and it'd save us all the trouble of writing any new savegame converters for at least a month.
