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How did you get to Paradox games?

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I was browsing through the games boxes in the store back in the day, and bumped onto two titles that looked interesting in the empire building genre: Europa Universalis and Imperialism. That was later followed by HoI, EU2, HoI2, Victoria and CK. Of all these, I think I've played EU2 the most, by far. Skipped the EU3/HoI3 stage, as at the time my PC hardware wasn't powerful enough to run them on. Right now I've EU4, HoI4 and Stellaris in Steam.

In fact, the Paradox games were the one and only reason I even have a Steam account ;)
 
I actually saw a copy of EUIII on the shelf at Office Depot or one of those places, which generally don't carry any kind of decent games. But I gave it a shot, was hooked, and uh... Well, just look at all my icons.

I have a similar story with Total War games, too. I found a copy of Shogun Total War for $7 at a Big Lots and the rest is history.
 
I was a big fan of Rome Total War. In 2006, i was disappointed by Medieval 2 Total War (just about a minor details: characters gained 1 year every 2 years... yes, sometimes disappointment come with small changes ^^). One year later, i read the (good) test of EU3 in PC Jeux (PC Gamer in France) and so... i.. downloaded EU... Ok, ok, ok, sorry... I wanted to confess this since years :oops:.

At the end of 2008, after In Nomine (and hundred of hours of enjoyment), i bought the complete edition (i still love the illustration, it was my desktop for years):

331715eu3cesrb.jpg

Today, looking at my icons, i think paid my debt to Para ^^.
 
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Three or four years ago, was playing a lot of Banished. Someone posted a screenshot in the Steam hub that was amusing (teacher and student villagers living in the same house), and someone commented that they didn't know this was Crusader Kings II. I had heard of ckii, went looking for it to figure out why they had said that, and now I have a metric arse ton of paradox games in my Steam library.
 
I was reading the Wikipedia article on Catharism when CKII caught my eye in the "in popular culture" section. It sounded interesting, so I took a closer look at it and bought it later on sale.
 
Started with CK2 which i bought on sale shortly after release. Before i had only ever played Rome: Total War and Medieval 2 as well as Knights of Honor (published by Paradox). One of my main problems with these games was that they never had the ability to play a campaign in MP which CK 2 offered. Shortly afterwards i also bought EU 3 which i also liked but found much harder to get into.
 
I put a few hundred hours into the Civ II and a little to Civ before that. Put plenty of time into games like Ceasar and it's sequels. It seemed as though their was an inevitable progression of the quality of video games that I was able to just take for granted. Came across PDX games in the form of EU. Close to fifteen years and in it's current iteration I think it's the best game of all time. They went from strength to strength for me with crusader kings, hearts of iron their dlc policy. I'd play anything Paradox and I'm really grateful (even if I act like a child when HOI gets delayed :oops: ) to them for the enjoyment they've given me. I'm not the easiest person to please, yet I'm a loyal Paradoxian.

Wish I could be there at PDXcon, have a great time!
 
Around the time EU4 was first released, I started to see streams and let's plays of it on YouTube. I was never really into watching people play games but watching people play Paradox games was pretty fun. A few months after EU4 was released (let's say November 2013), I bought it. The next year, I bought CKII during a steam sale. I bought Victoria II shortly after that. Then last year, I bought both Stellaris and HOI4 on Day I. I've probably put CAD$500+ (at a minimum) into Paradox games since 2013, which is the most I think I've ever given to a single developer.

It's weird. I've been actively playing strategy games since I was 10-11 (in the late 1990s), but I never even heard of Grand Strategy until EU4. Now the five Paradox grand strategy games I have in my Steam library have more hours played than the rest of my fairly large Steam library combined. EU4 is about to pass Civ. V as my most played game (Civ. V is about 1700 hours, EU is about 1650 hours).
 
I was searching for a game that had a whole world map and with the ability to play and expand an empire on the map. I came across EU3.
 
icedt729 said:
I actually saw a copy of EUIII on the shelf at Office Depot or one of those places, which generally don't carry any kind of decent games. But I gave it a shot, was hooked, and uh... Well, just look at all my icons.

I have a similar story with Total War games, too. I found a copy of Shogun Total War for $7 at a Big Lots and the rest is history.
Click to expand...
This is literally how I got into grand strategy games too lol. Found some old Roman battle RTS (forgot the name) at Office Depot and later found EU3 at my GameStop a couple years later.
 
I bought Hoi I (one) when I started working in 2006 Back then I bought every old game that was available and did not require muscle memory and reflexes. Especially ones I used earlier. As a poor Hungarian student I was not able to afford paying for software, as an engineer in Denmark there was no reason to cheat so I started purchasing.
 
I really like Strategic and 4X games : Civ 4 (with mod Rise of Mankind : A New Dawn 2.0 (still in dev ^^)) and Total War (Rome 1&2, Medieval 2, Shogun, Attila). But Paradox was completely an unknown company for me, even if i already known EUIV and CKII by name, and see some Cities Skyline gameplay...

One day, 2 or 3 days after the release of Stellaris, i found a gameplay on youtube. It was a 30min video... but after 10min of video i was already checkout the purchase of Stellaris - Galaxy Edition. The last 4X space game i played was Space Empire V. I tried Stardrive when it's come out but my PC wasn't good enough at this time... and i totally forget the game when i bought/build a good one. Maybe one day i will try Endless Space 2 (because i really like Amplitude also ^^)...

Now i play also EU IV (a bit expensive with his dlcs... :( ) and i just started HoI 4 (in order to wait April 6, Bank/Utopia <3 ).
 
The first game that kind of push me away (which wasn't paradox fault) that i play from paradox was Hoi2 demo where it was Ardennes Counteroffensive scenario at the of age around 12 which i was pretty stupid back than because i thought it going be like other rts games where build unit and gathering resource in the area. But that pretty much slap in the face due fact i keep send troops to their death and being out flank by allied forces almost pretty much let me drop a paradox for good.

Couple years later the game that actually will put me into wanting to more play paradox games was Victoria 2 that game and the fact i was getting into history. I got to say it was great in my opinion expect the bugs before the patch came out (so many rebels at every province in Russia X_X). It wasn't shocking that i went back and try demo for Hoi2 again got to say it was pretty cool to rethink about my past mistake and change my plans of attack. Not like rushing in blind and expecting new flesh troops will come. Still i thankful that paradox created these type of game for us all to enjoy.

P.S still waiting for Victoria 3 >.<
 
I always loved strategy games. Starting on Warcraft 2, Starcraft I discovered how nice is to organize your army and attack enemies. After that I looked for something more complex and found Civilization. I played a lot of Civ and I felt "it´s time to look for something more complex". Looking at Google I found Paradox games and Crusader Kings II.

From there I played HOI 3, Europa Universalis and all another Paradox games. Now I can´t go back anymore.
 
A friend of mine gave me his copy of Europa Universalis in the year 2000. I played it and had never seen a game like this before. Since then I'm a fan of the series and many other PDS games. Wow time is running fast...
 
I was bored of Civ III, and saw EU2 in the bargin bin. Being a youthful teenager, it was well within budget so I bought it.

Instead of leading a fake German empire from the dawn of time to the future, throwing Panzers into spearmen like a badass, I was ruling over the HRE (something I didn't know anything about) as the glorious Habsburgs (had no idea who they were) and loving it.

It was like Star Wars Rebellion, but historical! My love of 4x began waning that day, and I was instantly converted to Grand Strategy. But it didn't just change my gaming life, EU2 is responsible for me getting a degree in history, with a focus on German history.
 
Well it was a mix of things. I always liked RTS games, though I kind of dropped of that wagon after Warcraft III. Also, during the late 90's and early 00's my friends and I were really into the board game Axis and Allies. So circa 2002 either though my RTS or A&A hobbies, and I don't really recall where, I read about a strategy game where you could "play any country during the WW2 period". I thought that was crazy and the name stuck with me for several years: 'Hearts of Iron'. Later in 2009, again I don't remember where, I read that HoI III was about to come out so I gave it a try and here I am.
 
Used to go to CompUSA as a teen to imagine how cool it would be to becable to afford the games on the shelves, and EU2 was one of them. I eventually had the budget for it amd bought it around 2003 or so. From there... hooked.
 
I was bored to death and when search for something new I thought 'Hm, EU3 looks like nice strategy game, let's give it a try'
It was...I can't remember exactly, probably around 2010 (at least HTTT was there already, that's for sure)
Now, it's PDX is life, PDX is love:D
 
I've been interested in World War 2 for years and browsed Steam in early 2015 for deep strategy games on that theme. The then-upcoming Hearts of Iron 4 seemed to be everything I wanted.

When the release was delayed, I decided to bridge the gap with Crusader Kings, which I knew by name from random articles I had chanced to read. Then Paradox kicked Blizzard Entertainment from my personnal #1 publisher spot :)
 
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