If Paradox made a geopolitical simulator based on the last few decades what would that look like?

[Lady Lacroix]

While everyone is hyped for a potential Vicky3 release I'm over here silently hoping for a cold war modern day geopolitical simulator. There are games like this on Steam but what would a Paradox version look like? When would it start? How granular would it be? What major conflicts and historical events would the game focus on? How would recent and current events be reflected through the game? Consider this place for speculating readers and perhaps dev answers if they feel interested.

 

[ponpon8623]

I do not know about other things, but from 1953 to 2018 if it is dealing with the modern era from the Cold War, it is appropriate for the internal affairs mechanism to add some policies and simulation mechanisms to the eastVSwest system I think that it is appropriate.

 

[dayalu]

I'd want it to mostly involve espionage and Media manipulation. Lots of CIA KGB MI6 and Mossad type stuff. Playing groups against each other to further the State.

 

[Truewhit]

This topic comes up every damn week and the answer is simply it will never ever happen.

 

[sreckom92]

Playable nations: Superpowers, Powers and countries with (somewhat) realistic potential to become Powers.
-Soviet Union, United States;
-China, France, India, Japan, United Kingdom, West Germany;
-Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Yugoslavia;
That's 21 countries, with a few more/less perhaps. (Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden)
Rest are unplayable.

Game would progress like this:
-Stabilize your country
-Out-compete your neighbors in production & trade, and become an important player in the world economy
-Join a military alliance and influence/destabilize minor nations
-Spy everything
-Fight local and proxy wars
-Destroy (or not) the world
-Build a colony ship /s

Differences from HOIIV:
-Wars would be simpler.
-Construction and buildings would not be much different, although it would be more optimized for civilian economy.
-Trade and production would be more complex, but not too much.
-Internal politics would be present on a simplistic level.
-Technology would be similar, but on a larger scale.
-Diplomatic interactions would be significantly improved.

Bread and butter of the game would be diplomacy and technology development and race.

 

[Greene]

CK2, EU4 and Vicky 2 have this feeling to them because they depict a history we perceive as being so far removed. The Cold War is very recent in comparison.

In other words - we know how the Viking Age shaped Western Europe and led to the formation of modern day Russia. We know how William’s conquest of England led to a series of wars between England and France. We know how Colonialism affected the entire world and its effects are very much visible to this day. We are aware of the implications of the Protestant Reformation. We are aware of 19th century Imperialism, British hegemony and all the events that lead up to WW1 and the Russian Revolution.

But with the Soviet Union having fallen less than thirty years ago, are we still fully aware of the implications of the Cold War? Perhaps not being able to see the full picture might hinder players in their quest to reshape history.

 

[BeauNiddle]

It would have to have MAD - mutually assured destruction - otherwise you're not simulating the Cold war you'll be simulating a Hot war in which case you might as well play HOI4.

So the game would have to be push your advantage as much as possible until the bombs drop. Which wouldn't make for very interesting game play. Players would either work out the flaws in the AI and thus always push the advantage or 50+% of the player base would just die and thus not be interested in replaying.

The spying, the Starwars /project Orion style programs, the Bay of Pigs all seem fascinating in hindsight but it would be almost impossible to create an atmosphere where they actually felt necessary. Being the Spy would be great. being the guy back at base who gets the result of the spy would be dull. He rolled snake eyes and started WW3, GAME OVER.

 

[yerm]

Its conceptually a really good environment for Paradox to apply itself to NON-war designing. Diplomatic, espionage, economic, etc features could see military as a last, failed, and bad last resort. Basically ending up at war is a punishment as much or more as an opportunity.

I feel like a lot of devs have these cool ideas for games that don't manifest because the games are built on military expansion. Like reading eu4 dev comments I could just feel the desire for all this cool stuff that inevitably had to conform to their map painting game in the end. A cold war game could let some of this stuff come out.

In practice the game will be one big balance nightmare. Socialism will end up next to abortion on the banned topics list. Using the word buff and a Balkan country's name in the same sentence earns an infraction. Mentioning Donald Trump a permaban.

I'd love this game.

 

[coffeelingfine]

This may just be me but I don't think the Cold War/modern setting makes for a very interesting game.

 

[Fallofthepurple]

A game that is set to start during the Cold War period leading up to now would first and foremost need a very well designed espionage system (and everything that surrounds it).

That alone would be a mammoth task since, in my opinion, most games that have an espionage feature it always feels tacked on and is barely more than a nuisance most of the time.

 

[Yankee112]

The Clausewitz Engine is built around two functions- 1) moving your armies around the map and 2) conquering provinces. Both these functions are largely irrelevant in a cold war/modern era setting, so it would be a completely different game than CK, EU, HoI etc.

The core functions would be politics, nuclear brinkmanship and to a lesser degree espionage. Neither of these functions are core functions or deeply represented in any existing Paradox games and require fundamentally different mechanics and structures than the Clausewitz engine offers.

 

[Cameron122]

A "modern day" PDX game IMO should start in the early 90s and end after the present day, like into the 2090s with some low level solar system colonization. I don't see the map painting of previous games really working unless it was in a sphere of influence/alliance map mode.

 

[Yevardian]

CK2 - but with multinational corporations.

You'd have territories, succession disputes, vassal companies, a 'papacy' in the IMF or WTO, mergers, war profiteering, infamy/AE, religions (ideologies and political support), sweatshops, assassinations, McNukes, mercenaries, the works.
You'd have culture specific mechanics like Chaebols, areas of interest, degree of government penetration, advertising etc.

Actually... though this started as a joke, the more I think about it the more I think this is the perfect idea for a new PDX title...

 

[Dr. B]

I just dont see a game being released that mirror todays society. Would be way too politically sensitive.

A game where your policies affect the % of womens rights compared to men? Where globalism and free trade is compared to nationalism and cultural identity? Human rights vs might makes right? Actually that could be a very cool game.

But if EUIV were magically time-travelled to year 1500, the Paradox staff would be burned at the stake for blasphemy. Historical games belong in history.

 

[Yevardian]

Some sort of alternate cyber-punk dystopian present day might do it, idk. I'm not really interested in seeing another EU/CK/VIC iteration.

 

[Fulmen]

If Paradox made a geopolitical simulator based on the last few decades what would that look like?

It'd need POPs, and that'd mean including many things involving certain types of POPs that Swedes generally aren't particularly fond of talking about, or even acknowledging, let alone representing in a video game.

Besides that, a GSG involving the last few decades would warrant so many different mechanics bundled onto one platform that developing such a game while retaining quality just isn't feasible at this time. For comparison one can look at the shit show that is HoI4's singleplayer experience. If they can't get a game about WW2 involving roughly a decade right, they have no chance of getting a game about the late 20th and early 21st centuries right. Getting such a game right would require hundreds of times the work they've put into HoI4.

 

[Draky]

It wouldn't exist. Beside the obvious complexity, which everyone acknowledges, let us not forget that most of diplomacy is not conducted in the open. And in many cases, we'll probably never will know what were Khomeini's plans towards the Soviet Union, or what unfolded in the Sino-Soviet relations in the year that immediately predated the split.

 

[Byamarro]

Yes, please.
This niche of grand strategy games remains empty as hell. There's few ancient titles, none of them in any way reasonable.

 

[t6.28]

Obviously the focus should be mostly on internal politics and diplomacy. I'd which for it to be more of a simulation than a game. This means, first of all, that there should be pretty much no flat modifiers. Implementing a policy shouldn't give you a magic +10% something, rather its consequences should be completely modelled by its effect on incentives - and hence behaviour - for the POP AI. As there are too many options for policies and treaties to possibly add them all to the game separately, I'd suggest they add some sort of policy editor where you can get your hands dirty and write a script to build your own policies and treaties by specifying a number of conditions and effects to be triggered when they are met - or, probably, have some visual editor allowing you to "drag and drop" your own policies together more easily. The only problem I see with it is that it is probably difficult to get the AI (both of your POPs and countries you offer custom treaties to) to work with them correctly.

 

[aono]

If Paradox made a geopolitical simulator based on the last few decades it would looks badly.
You see, problem is, we're kinda agree what's what in CK2 period, in EU4 period, even in Vicky period. HoI already is in the field where reliable data is wonky and subjective, but we still have "basic idea" about it. Cold War data would be subjective as a hell, and without any solid foundation to build narrative would fail.
Just in case - it's not about political sensitivity, not really (I mean, it's really a thing, but I don't believe it's a good reason not to do something). It's lack of solid narrative for the game to be something but very niche game.