This is a wonderful game (95%)

[Wenatchee Willie]

I downloaded the game a couple days ago, and have been playing almost non-stop since then. Very addictive, always waiting for the next upgrade and such.

I love the naval battles, challenging but so immersive.

This is one of the best strategy games I've played. A great gaming buy.

 

[Forris]

I'm thinking about buying it, can you inform me a little about what you think is best?

I'm very fond of "Europa Universalis 3", can you compare that to this game (if you have played it).

One thing I can tell for certain is that I love the music

 

[delra]

The level of complication is much lower than EU3 but on the other hand you have those fancy naval battles at least I can't have enough of. Now that I don't play the campaigns any more (got back to Eu3 again while waiting for HoI3 patch...) I still will jump in time to time into the game to squash a few SOLs.

I would hire NG to do naval combat for Vicky 2 if I were Johan.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

I would hire NG to do naval combat for Vicky 2 if I were Johan.

Then let's thank the god(s) above that you are not.

A real time multiplayer (>2) game operating on the strategic level is not the place for an essentially tactical minigame - or am I betraying my lack of knowledge of EIC here?

 

[delra]

Well, you would still have auto-resolve...

And seriously, even with simplest naval combat on tactical level, Paradox would sell the Total War amount of copies, not usual Paradox amount of copies...

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Well, you would still have auto-resolve...

Set to automatically resolved every single battle in MP without asking or it would be worse than useless.

And seriously, even with simplest naval combat on tactical level, Paradox would sell the Total War amount of copies, not usual Paradox amount of copies...

Surely you are joking. Why on earth would a simple and cheap tactical naval component (not that any genuinely new component is ever cheap) bring in that significant group of people who play the Total War games for their generally good tactical component coupled with a skin thin strategical layer?

And if you are thinking of a tactical component that is actually close to being competitive with those seen in other games, including graphically, you are talking about a very significant investment in development costs in the hopes of beating other companies at their own game, at the cost of weakening your own brand.

What, exactly, would the benefit to Victoria 2 (a grand strategy game heavily focused on class struggle, economy, and the rise of nationalism) be that would make such an investment be a good idea?

 

[delra]

First of all I don't buy the argument about not adding something because it doesn't fit into multiplayer. It's like you demanded Vicky to have only one game speed cause you use only one in multiplayer games. It's a niche inside a niche this whole multiplayer crowd and they shouldn't be treated as a serious obstacle preventing from introducing a new feature into the game. They already agree on one speed, they can agree on autoresolve too.

What would the benefit be? Did you read my post? The benefit would be INTRODUCING TACTICAL LEVEL IN NAVAL COMBAT.

 

[unmerged(7509)]

What would the benefit be? Did you read my post? The benefit would be INTRODUCING TACTICAL LEVEL IN NAVAL COMBAT.

Peter is absolutely right. Tactical combat has absolutely nothing to do with Victoria. Victoria is possibly the deepest and most complex strategy game Paradox has ever made, and tactical battles have absolutely no place in a game of that type.

 

[Ionus]

Peter is absolutely right. Tactical combat has absolutely nothing to do with Victoria. Victoria is possibly the deepest and most complex strategy game Paradox has ever made, and tactical battles have absolutely no place in a game of that type.

I think you used too many absolutes. It leaves me thinking you might be exagerating your case. The name is Victoria and the period is also known as the "Colonial Wars" or the "Little Wars". It was not a time for major engagements like Trafalgar or Jutland. The largest land engagement, The American Civil War, has small naval engagements. I remember thinking when I first saw the title, "ah at last...native bashing ! Red coats versus the Zulu !" But Victoria creates trouble where there is none and ignores all the skirmishing. EIC could fit in. An iron clad/monitor taking on a few frigates. The invasion force battle during the Opium Wars.

I would have been happier if Victoria had small scale wars with only Britain as a European power. I dont think it is the right era for "the deepest and most complex strategy game Paradox has ever made".

 

[unmerged(7509)]

I think you used too many absolutes. It leaves me thinking you might be exagerating your case. The name is Victoria and the period is also known as the "Colonial Wars" or the "Little Wars". It was not a time for major engagements like Trafalgar or Jutland. The largest land engagement, The American Civil War, has small naval engagements. I remember thinking when I first saw the title, "ah at last...native bashing ! Red coats versus the Zulu !" But Victoria creates trouble where there is none and ignores all the skirmishing. EIC could fit in. An iron clad/monitor taking on a few frigates. The invasion force battle during the Opium Wars.

I would have been happier if Victoria had small scale wars with only Britain as a European power. I dont think it is the right era for "the deepest and most complex strategy game Paradox has ever made".

You're absolutely right about the absolutes. English is not my first language, so my vocabulary is not the biggest.o

I think Victoria is a very good game, and it has been improved a lot by Revolutions and various mods. I'm an economics geek, so I don't mind the complexity of the economic model or the POP managing, however they could cut back on the micro management, which I'm sure they will in Vicky 2.

It is certainly possible to fight small scale wars in Vicky, and I have no doubt they will make small wars more common in Vicky 2, where I expect many of the predetermined wars such as the Crimean War etc. will no longer be event driven.

My only point in this discussion was that I see no place for tactical combat in a game like Vicky.

Anyway this part of the forum is supposed to be about EIC, so I'll stop talking about Vicky now.

 

[ComradeOm]

The name is Victoria and the period is also known as the "Colonial Wars" or the "Little Wars". It was not a time for major engagements like Trafalgar or Jutland

Jutland falls within the Vicky timeframe...

Edit: Not to mention Tsushima

 

[unmerged(59077)]

Jutland falls within the Vicky timeframe...

Edit: Not to mention Tsushima

...and Trafalgar falls just one major war prior to the start. I don't see what his point was?

 

[Ionus]

My point was it is a hundred years or so without major sea battles...Trafalgar at one end and Jutland at the other. Yes, WWI is included at the end of Vicky. Do you program a game for the exception or the rule ?

 

[Ionus]

You're absolutely right about the absolutes. English is not my first language, so my vocabulary is not the biggest.o

My only point in this discussion was that I see no place for tactical combat in a game like Vicky.

My apologies..I thought it was your first language because you spoke well...I have a problem with native english speakers who allow superlatives to be used in everything.

I accept your point as valid. My point was EIC was criticised for being 'small' and that was what I wanted from Vicky.

In general, I would like to see the Total War series more like Paradox games, and Paradox games more like Total War. I think there is a happy middle ground but it riles the strategists whenever it is suggested.

 

[unmerged(59077)]

My point was it is a hundred years or so without major sea battles...Trafalgar at one end and Jutland at the other. Yes, WWI is included at the end of Vicky. Do you program a game for the exception or the rule ?

I guess the Sino-anything wars, the Russo-Japanese war, and the Spanish-American wars don't count? Latin American Independence wars? Danish-Prussian wars?

So, post-Trafalgar:

How about Navarino? Raid of Sinope? Athos? Dardanelles? Lissa (1811)? Raid on Kopenhagen? Lake Erie? The other Lissa? The both Helgolands?

In fact most wars of the period involved naval actions, some of very significant scale.

 

[Ionus]

No, the spanish american wars do count...as points for me. The average battle was less than 5 gunships per side. As also do the Latin American wars, "Sino-anything wars" and the Danish-Prussian Wars, and the Battle of Helgoland. Some isolated battles during these wars had up to 10 ships per side.

Navarino was big but was hopelessly one sided. Sinope was about 10 per side.

In WWI we have another Helgoland, but as I said about Jutland, this is at the end of the period. As it is causing concern, I will clarify by adding I dont think WWI should have been in Vicky1. It was too much of a stretch with the one tactical resolver for battles.

I will withdraw post Trafalgar, because what I meant to say was post Napoleonic and pre WWI. You list Athos, Dardanelles, Lake Erie, and Lissa which were all during the Napoleonic wars but were hardly of importance compared to Trafalgar.

You are correct when you say "In fact most wars of the period involved naval actions," but I never said there were no naval battles. Simply from the point of view of grand strategy, they could be represented in a game (not historically simulated) by EIC in a Vicky2.

IMO, to be a naval battle of a "very significant scale", it should have large fleets and a contestable outcome. One of those you mentioned counts - the Russo-Japanese naval engagement - and then it only counts in theory. In practice it was heavily onesided and can be ignored for the purposes of a game.

So there were only two well within the specified timeframe. The Russo-Japanese war (which I would right off in Vicky2 along with WWI and stick to colonial wars, as the name suggests) and Navarino, a battle where something like 20 western ships beat 4 times their number, and most of these were small ships. Neither of these two can be said to be a good fight that would make an enjoyable game.

 

[unmerged(59077)]

I think then you're looking for something that is always rare, rather than rare in the time period.

Huge squadrons clashing with contestable outcomes was always the exception rather than the rule, and as ships became more powerful, it became rarer. The Anglo-Dutch wars and various Baltic and Mediterranean galley-centered actions definitely fit your basic idea, but even in that period, where all ships were smaller, enormous engangements were relatively rare.

Basically...no naval game ever should have tactical combat, because large squadron engagements are in fact rare regardless of time period.

 

[delra]

Stacking penalty would help reducing battles to a reasonable size.

Also, I doubt they will do naval battles in Vicky2, I only wrote it would be cool if eventually (next few years) Paradox games got tactical level battles.