So is this the next generation of Paradox games?

[King]

I think HOI3 was the shift. It really broke with the games that had gone before - and it ended up being a spectacular failure at launch. But it seems to me that lesson is what got us a good reboot of the Victoria franchise and then the stellar reboot of the CK franchise. All the stuff HOI3 got so wrong is what CKII gets so right; it's much more personal and immersive, where HOI3 went in the opposite direction even compared to the relatively clinical HOI2.

This is true for a different reason. HoI3 was our most abitious game ever, but sadly we simply tried to do too much. The effect was a release that was interesting to say the least. The lesson we have learnt it tone down our scope and put more emphisis on quality. You saw that in Victoria 2 and in CK2 we nailed it. We have a similar goal with EU4, if you want a radical rework of every single feature you are going to be disapointed in EU4.

 

[King]

So is this the same old engine with some more tweaks?

When was the engine last built bottom-up, and when can we next expect this to be done?

By the way, I can't wait, EU3 is by far my most played game ever, but you got to realise, that when you are this in love, you need it all!

Building a new engine is a very heavy investment for a company. At the moment we feel we get a lot out of improving our existing engine rather than trying to build a new one. Just look how far our maps have come since EUIII. So our goal at the moment is to get more out of our current engine and so we can invest more time and effort into the actual games themselves.

 

[Zoft]

Clausewitz is ever evolving and we are implementing big changes/additions for every new version. Therefor a statement like "same old engine with some more tweaks" is incorrect because the changes/additions we implement are much more than simple tweaks. We are not really limited by Clausewitz.