What would you like, apart from "N + 1"?

[ModZero]

I'm kinda thinking Transhuman Space as well (AI rights!), but yeah, Expanse is a pretty obvious source, and magical reactors (and whatever epoxy they're using to reinforce the asteroids for spin-up) are good narrative moves. I really like that the settings have a clear transformation theme to it, and it's something I feel other Paradox game have, and Stellaris kinda lacks.

 

[Zaltys]

Another vote for a properly moddable fantasy spinoff of CK2.
CK2 is pretty nice, but it has too many innate limitations that make it unsuitable for high fantasy settings.

The previously suggested early Fallout-style post-apocalyptic game also sounds interesting. I'm completely bored of post-apocalyptic games that take the setting too seriously, and would rather play something like Fallout 2 or Gamma World instead.

 

[neusaap]

There are many awesome ideas in this thread; something that seems awesome to me is Victoria-HoI hybrid that spans from july 28 1914 to july 2014; Victoria 2's pops, politics and economic system combined with HoI4's combat system. The player starts in world war one. The 20th century will form the ideologies so rather than everything being prescripted, if you live through an october revolution it will be up to you whether your ideology will be communism like OTL or more like Kaiserreich's syndicalism or instead a totalitarian form of socialdemocracy (preserving the free market but with significant regulation and a welfarestate but no democracy). On the other hand you may also have a march on Rome and then you can make your own form of it too and creating your own democratic Fascism should be possible too. Ofc you would be able to name your ideology as well and war will of course not be the only way of spreading it

Your ideology will be part of a group and they may also become hostile within a group (OTL Trotsky vs Stalin).
The groups will probably be democracy, Fascism, monarchism and socialism; monarchism and democracy already start out with several brands, fascism and socialism still need to be defined.

Your goals in the game differ by the type of ideology you have, democracy seeks to make every country in the world democratic (any subideo but democracies can't attack everyone because the demos doesn't like wars for nothing); monarchism is about preserving the monarchies of the world until 2014, with the possibility of spreading it by puppeting other countries (perhaps also spreading your dynasty); socialism wants every country to be your brand of socialism and Fascism's success is if you have something like 90% of your cultures pops all provinces with your culture a majority, being a great power and being at peace (perhaps having this many colonies as well).

Every kind of ideology will be it's own playstyle (socialism will first revolve around inciting revolts, then if the fires die down you'll need to help yourself, Fascism is more oldschool map painting, democracy is defending the world order (in a dire enough situation with another ideo) and monarchism means you'll be defeating revolutions, either by force or by building up a ln autocracy seeming like a democracy and then helping other monarchies follow your path

 

[TenshiN]

Either a Grand Strategy that does the reversal and makes the player play as the bane of all blobs - the Rebels, or something that centers on South-East Asia as this region is horribly under-represented in the gaming industry in general.
Seeing how differently PDX might tackle the Ancient China theme compared to Koei would also be pretty awesome, but it is really unlikely.