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How did you get to Paradox games?

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Victoria 2 was my first Paradox game and remains the one I love and play the most, this was from before it's expansions.
I don't exactly remember where I saw it first. I had been playing Total War games at the time when I discovered Paradox and loved them. Now even though I own several Total War games, (though nothing newer than Shogun 2 as they look like utter gutter trash to me) I can't see them as anything other than inferior.
Hell I had to buy Victoria 2 twice as the copy I ordered never came and the people I ordered it from ignored me.
 
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I had maybe 14 years. I had always loved History and strategy games. I was playing Civ IV a lot around that time, and regularly read civfanatics forum. One day, I saw someone posting a map, drawn by him, of his Japanese Empire in EU III. It wasn't even a screnshot, but the shape of the borders caught my attention. I had played Civ IV with historical mods, but I wanted something more. I googled, liked the game and bought it on Steam.

I wasn't able to get into the game. I didn't understand it. But A House Divided was announced/released around that time, and I bought Vicky II. I ABSOLUTELY loved that game, and since then... Well, you can see how many games I have under my avatar xD
 
First Paradox game was CK2 for me, though the first time I ever saw the Paradox name was with Mount and Blade. Regardless, I was looking for a new strategy game on Steam and from what I remember it was either on sale or on my discovery queue. Remember my first reaction after watching the trailer was "Nah, that looks a little too involved for my taste". For whatever reason though I looked back at it a day later and saw that there was a demo and that the system requirements fit my system at the time.

Next thing I know, I'm playing the demo and saying to myself "I have no clue what the heck I'm doing". Yet once again, I found myself taking another look at it maybe a week later. Tried it again, and despite still not knowing really what I was doing I could see the potential in the characters. I started watching Youtube videos from Arumba and Shenryyr religously and it finally came all together. Been hooked ever since, and I eventually picked up EU4, Vicky 2, Stellaris (first time I ever pre-ordered a game), and then HoI4. Adding the hours all up, I've spent somewhere around 2k hours between them all since I first started playing back in 2013. On top of that, I've been checking the forums at least once a day since 2014.
 
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I never had any known love for strategy games I was more into sports games (football manager, Fifa ect, and stuff like skyrim, assassins creed. One weekend pdx had eu4 free for the weekend I thought what the heck I'll try it. It was tough in the beginning but I was hooked, completely out of my comfort zone but I loved it and got it straight on the Monday. It's now two years later and I'm 2000+ hours and I've not looked back
 
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I bought the first Hearts of Iron used back in college. Maybe 2003, 2004? I didn't really do anything else until EUIV, which I never really got into (and consequently don't display my badge for it) but CKII pretty much gripped me harder than Dwarf Fortress.
 
Woifee said:
I was in a Total War forum discussing what I want from Medieval TW 3. Wrote something about dynasties, vassals, marriage...

Then they told me there is a game like this allready.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this. I was complaining about Empire Total War's diplomacy...or lack thereof...on the Total War forums and someone pointed me to EU3. Never looked back.
 
I been made redundant, and had some time on my hands. I got eu 1. If I hadn't had so much time on my hands I would probably have given up. The original was so hard to learn... How much easier paradox games have become (in a good way not dumbed down). And bless the forums best game community ever.
 
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Played TW since Medieval 2 and played Civ 1 and 5. After a review of HoI 3 as a complete Edition on GameStar.de I tried it. Didn't really got into it. Capitulated to the interface after like 10mins.

Later tried Vanilla Vicky2. I had some fun, couple of hours but Infimy system was just to punishing and Military to complicated.

But now Paradox was on my watch, played CK2 right at release as Ireland, had lots of fun. Played more used CK2+ extensivly. Later, I think around Old Gods I bought the complete Package up until this points.

Still was mostly an on/off relationship. Played dozens of hours but then didn't play for months. Also performance got really bad over time, which only now Reapers Due Patch fixed.

But now I was Paradox hooked. Waited 2Weeks before Release of EU IV, read up on it, played the prerelease demo lots, bought the game at release and every single DLC for EU IV after this. Spent 1444h+ in this game, also played CK2, Vicky2 Complete, and now HoI 4 and Stellaris.
 
I got linked to the "Audacity of Hope" AAR on the EU3 forums from TVtropes and was immediately interested, but turned off by the graphics and UI and sliders. Then I saw that there was EU4 with a better UI and fewer sliders!
 
i got indroduced to PI games thanks to my uncle, who despite 20+ years in the USAF had somehow become a PC gamer, and had shown me HOI 3 (this was early 2012 when paradox was still very much niche and never advertised). i'd always wished i knew if there was a game like what HOI was and was so happy when i found out about it. i've been hooked on paradox's games ever since. just ask anyone who frequented the EvW forums years ago, i must've been the most overactive person on that subforum :p
 
I had a 50% off CK2 voucher in my steam inventory for months, maybe years. I rarely check my steam inventory so I'm not entirely sure how long it was sitting there or where I even picked it up. Regardless, I checked out the steam page, thought it looked ok but not my cup of tea. I played a lot more RPGs than strategy games. Eventually, as the code was expiring and I fell in love with the medieval via my superb lecturer, I decided to take the plunge and picked it up. Within a week I had all the DLCs at the time (Old Gods was the latest I believe). Now I'm hooked with these games.

Here's to many more years of Paradox keeping their money vacuum placed securely in my wallet!
 
I played a fair bit of Civ V, but it annoyed me how unrealistic the borders would look. I then seen EU:IV on steam store, and thought it looked perfect.
 
For me it was a mix, I played Civ from 1 til SMAC, but I kinda wanted more, and a friend casualy asked if I would like a game where I could kill my children, jail my parents, and wage war on Sweeden (I'm Norwegian). Told him to explain what the hell he was on about, and the rest is is kinda history...
Expet for SMAC that will always have special place in my heart, I see CIV as the playmobil edition of historical games these days...
 
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Elothan said:
For me it was a mix, I played Civ from 1 til SMAC, but I kinda wanted more, and a friend casualy asked if I would like a game where I could kill my children, jail my parents, and wage war on Sweeden (I'm Norwegian). Told him to explain what the hell he was on about, and the rest is is kinda history...
Expet for SMAC that will always have special place in my heart, I see CIV as the playmobil edition of historical games these days...
Click to expand...

but norway still never managed to conquer sweden *sad trombone* :p
 
aruon said:
but norway still never managed to conquer sweden *sad trombone* :p
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Good thing, we might have been stuck with Skåne...
 
I played world conqueror 2 and european war 2 for some time before I found some obscure thumbnail of EU3 on youtube while looking for bootleg documentaries. I didn't start with EU3 or CKII. I played Victoria, EU2, and CK because that's all my computer could handle.
 
4x gamer who starting hearing rumours of a game "so vast and epic" it would put Distant Worlds to shame.

Found my way to paradox forums and to my love affair with Stellaris.

I can't wait to see what 2017 will offer.
 
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