The GRANDEST strategy game of all

[Cousin Cletus]

We Paradox fans love your grand historical games and the tried and true (and enjoyably complicated) system they have utilized since EU began all those years ago. I personally feel a sense of pride in knowing that I have mastered a system that would confuse a phD-holding mathematician. The short, keep the games coming and don't change a thing. But what's next?

I keep noticing on all the forums for EUIII, Victoria, HOI3, etc., everyone continuously asking "when is the new expansion coming out?" The modding community is dedicated and telented, and works wonders. However, I secretly wish for you great folks at Paradox to give us what I know all of us in the Paradox community really want...a historical strategy game in the grandest scale.

You have almost all of the historical eras covered, in a period stretching from the Rise of Rome to the Second World War. So what about before and after that? Why keep making new expansions when you can just go all out? We all want, and you know we all want a game that begins at the beginning of civilization and ends, well, who knows when? Is something like this in the future for Paradox? The ultimate grand strategy game?

I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but I'm pretty new to the forums, so I apologize for beating the proverbial dead horse.

 

[CaptRobau]

What a great way to spend your first post on these boards!

I've thought about such a game too. Maybe not starting at the beginning of civilization but rather beginning in 0 AD and ending in 2000 AD. I'd imagine a mix of Victoria 2 and EU3.

It'd be a very hard game to make. Lots of research, lots of balancing.

Isn't Civilization sort of this game but turnbased (this would be real-time I assume?)

 

[Brownbeard]

Also, Spore was supposed to be epic and revolutionize strategy genre, but in the end was pretty much made of epic fail.

Grand strategy games work best when the timeline is within one technologic paradigm.

 

[delra]

I prefer the focus they put into each era and how each game is about the same but from a different angle. Rome and CK2 put a lot of attention to characters, EU3 is a massive land grab in its essence, Vicky is all about population and economics, and HoI is just pure war fun blasting stuff and blitzing. I don't think they could do a really detailed game if they went in it from ancient times all the way till modern era. Instead of having each of the angles depicted in more detail in one of games, we'd have a gigantic game taking weeks to finish and lacking attention and detail throughout the whole gameplay.

What I'd like Paradox to do would be making a modern times or a close future game. Supreme Ruler kind of a game, blobs fall apart and world starts fighting for whatever resources are still left on the planet. Instead of ripping off real history, would be fun to see them to try to make up some history of their own.

 

[ComradeOm]

Grand strategy games work best when the timeline is within one technologic paradigm.

Why make one game when you can make four or five?

And to the OP, welcome to the forums!

 

[LeeDub]

Such a game would have to have an evolving interface. Not just gfx changes, whole new tabs would have to appear and disappear as time progresses. The rules themselves would be modular, as would warfare, with for example aerial ops coming into play when planes are advanced enough (and military theory capitalises on it) - and that could happen in 1750 or 2350, depending on how technology progressed during the game.

Overall, this would be the game to end all games, and also impossible to make, let alone balance or keep playable and enjoyable throughout the timeline. And it would likely require flawless programming, else bugs and horrible performance cripple it from the very beginning.

You have your next project, Paradox.

 

[Alexspeed]

I fear to make such a game playable you would have to sacrifice a LOT of details and complexity.

But i agree its a tempting thought, and i know if anyone is up to the challange... then its Paradox =)

 

[LodovicoAriosto]

I would rather prefer a more focused game - for example 30 years war. Sweden had a good time back then after all...

 

[DvD-IT]

Isn't Civilization sort of this game but turnbased (this would be real-time I assume?)

Which is why I don't like Civ. Too abstracted to even capture the feeling you're toying with a civilization.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

Also, Spore was supposed to be epic and revolutionize strategy genre, but in the end was pretty much made of epic fail.

True. Although the creature creator was still bloody brilliant.

They should have just made an entire game around that, and left the rest of the superfluous turgid rubbish in the dustbin...

 

[Psychedelic Sou]

It would be hard to put enough detail in each of the era's featured. For example: If you somehow manage to follow a fairly historical path and end up with World War II, how will you simulate Blitzkrieg? You can't just let people go about and conquer provinces in the early period, because then the entire world would get raped within a matter of weeks. But having to besiege forts in every single province is a bit too much for the World War II era. It would force the developers either to develop a mega engine (which would take years) or to make the gameplay very generic.

If it were possible to make such an engine, however, I'd love to see such a Grand Strategy game. But If I'm more realistic, I'd like Paradox to work on some good savegame converters so I don't have to spend alot of time trying to get an EU3 game into Vicky 2, or a Crusader Kings (2? ) game into EUIII.

 

[Wildy]

I thought this was an advertisment for MMtG.

And i also wouldn't like a civ-style paradox game.
The beauty of each Paradox Games is that they capture so well the essence of that time period and that each are different in their own ways.
If Paradox makes a civ-like game it will probably have a 5 year-development schedule and will have to make concessions upon concessions to make all time periods work.

What i really want is an RPG made by Paradox.

 

[Baldamundo]

Whilst I quite like the idea of having a game with the scope of Civilization I can easily see that it would be an incredibly difficult, expensive, and probably unworkable sort of an idea if they were going to make it worth having. Spore, for instance, promised us a unified, open ended, game of everything, and they delivered pretty much exactly what they promised - the only problem being that (as they had essentially told us already) it was just bad remakes of some classic games joined together with editors. Unless Paradox spent about twenty years making it it would just end up feeling like a lot of substandard Paradox games stuck together.

In short: it would be too resource intensive to do well, and thus Paradox ought to wait until in time they reach their inevitable complete dominance of the market, buy out EA Games and Microsoft, and have the whole population of Sweden working for them (just wait, this will all happen in good time). Then they can do it and do it well.

 

[CatalanNation]

Also, Spore was supposed to be epic and revolutionize strategy genre, but in the end was pretty much made of epic fail.

Grand strategy games work best when the timeline is within one technologic paradigm.

So true, I felt like dumb while playing Spore, what a waste of time. The funniest part was the cell stage. lol Other games like Civilization have had more success in recreating entire mankind eras, but the result is not precisely historical or plausible at all, is simply a divertimento. I prefer to concentrate in one period at each game, it allows more depth and dedication into the single issues of each era.

 

[kabash]

ZOMG I started Grand Campaign at 0AD as SPQR and reformed into HRE at 10th century, now its 1650 and Zoroastrian Mameluke Caliphate is colonizing South America, and SPQR rebelled from Serbian merchant republic, this game is soooo broken!!!1111

Is this have something to do with "crucify Barabas" choice I made at some event at first century????

 

[Sir_Robert]

Not just one game but three or more. What about something like Conquest of Americas, Civilization Colonization, TW with Victoria it would be seprated into different games so the first one you start out as a tribe and try build things and try to become a leader this would be a mix of Role playing and historical grand stragey different from Civ and TW by adding a personal feeling like in the begining you would only be one person and try to estabish a tribe with the other natives that are with you the game will test your skill at politics and see if you could build a great nation from the start like how egypt and the babylonians had to do. After they name you king or emp. you get more things to do. War is constent but very easy as you would only use home guards and no standing army as that didn't happen until greece and rome...Thats where the game would end at the rise of Rome after the Civil war. so around 40-30BC or before decission could be later. the next game would be from the Emp of Rome to it's fall and at the start of the mid. evil eras. thats the third and the next would be the Revolutions to WWI and finally WWII which we don't need as we have EU VIC AND HOI so those would be skip and we make the finally which would be Cold war and after to modern and future events.

These games would have different as you wouldn't just rise and conquer the world in the BCE or early CE, as you gain strength you will have problems historicaly that nations like eygpt and others like persia and Greece tribes did so you may fall but it will allow you to chose the nation that takes over like events would tranisfer you over. just like in history when the Babylonians where conquered that nation would fall and you whould then play as the people who conquered them. unless you want to play someone different which you get to pick. Also you may cause revoltuions to happen if you play harshly toward you people or if you are weak and need a military revolutions would happen and replace you so by an event you will chosse which revolter to play as. So if this happen in say the Roman era you may get to pick say Caesar or the Republic or you may want to creat a new revolter type.

I have a lot more ideas so thats not all i just got writers block.

PS: I know that there is alot of grammer errors and bad spelling sorry but i suck at grammer and spelling.

 

[unmerged(61166)]

Also, Spore was supposed to be epic and revolutionize strategy genre, but in the end was pretty much made of epic fail.

Grand strategy games work best when the timeline is within one technologic paradigm.

I would agree. Spore seemed to have no concise focus. It was an eclectic mixture of different elements compiled into one game. Because of the lack of concision however, the game and each of its stages lacked depth. Each stage was mediocre, and the entire game highly repetitive without any real focus.

What is needed is a balance of concision and depth, IMO. I would prefer a game that focuses on a specific time era.

 

[Narwhal]

I probably would not play such a game. A game starting in year 0 has virtually NOT a chance to have a year 1000 looking like what it really did, even very grossly, and I am not speaking about 1900.

Furthermore, why would technology, culture or whatever evolve the same way. Simple example - if Rome never collapsed, or if the Byzantine had taken Western Rome and had held it, would we have seen feodalism, and thus would we have seen Marxism several centuries later ? Probably not.

 

[Ipsissimus]

I wouldn't like a civ-style paradox game.
Paradox games are great the way they are and Civ V look really good so we already have two great companies working on what they do best.

If only paradox could create a post-apocalyptic or a fantasy game( Imaging how cool it would be to wright a Troll AAR :rofl...

 

[Stuckenschmidt]

Civilization does the best job possible for a strategy game that spans all eras. And as far as RTS is concerned I`m still playing "Rise of Nations", that has a really good campaign.

I agree, that Paradox should focus on one single era per game. And maybe an AI that doesn`t have to cheat like hell.