When is Paradox going to make their most grand game yet?

[Rhend]

I'm talking, when are you all going to make a game that essentially ends up combining Imperator Rome mechanics and timeline with Crusader Kings, with Europa Universalis and then Hearts of Iron?

I know I know, that would cut into revenue from those games. But, that's what most of the fans of those games really want to see, a strategy game spanning thousands of years, instead of a few hundred, with different and new emergent technological advances along the way.

After that you all could even start to incorporate elements of Cities Skylines for internal development and then eventually bring us towards and into a Stellaris future for future DLC's or parts 2, 3 etc of the game.

To me, all of this would be the natural evolution of Paradox strategy games.

 

[Liquid Ghost]

Ever seen that Simpsons episode when Homer designs a car that has all the things he wants and it turns out a disaster? Your game idea reminded me of it.

 

[Rhend]

Ever seen that Simpsons episode when Homer designs a car that has all the things he wants and it turns out a disaster? Your game idea reminded me of it.

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lol, so, you think a game that basically starts at the beginning of their titles and spanning all the time period instead of multiple games doing the same makes you think of a disaster? Cool, thanks for your opinion.

 

[grommile]

I'm talking, when are you all going to make a game that essentially ends up combining Imperator Rome mechanics and timeline with Crusader Kings, with Europa Universalis and then Hearts of Iron?

Never, because such a project is fundamentally unfeasible, at a level that is hilariously obvious to anyone who has actually sat down and thought about it properly instead of just gone "hey guys wouldn't it be cool if (insert fever-dream here)?"

Like, there are compelling practical reasons why the Civilization franchise's game mechanics work basically the same in 2000 CE as 4000 BCE.

 

[Rhend]

Never, because such a project is fundamentally unfeasible, at a level that is hilariously obvious to anyone who has actually sat down and thought about it properly instead of just gone "hey guys wouldn't it be cool if (insert fever-dream here)?"

Like, there are compelling practical reasons why the Civilization franchise's game mechanics work basically the same in 2000 CE as 4000 BCE.

It's very easy to say it's fundamentally unfeasible, without actually going into why you believe that. Now, if you had said financially unfeasible, I'd be more apt to agree with you. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

 

[grommile]

It's very easy to say it's fundamentally unfeasible, without actually going into why you believe that.

Like everyone else I've seen trot this suggestion out over the years, you haven't given your readers any reason to believe it is feasible.

You're all like "wouldn't this be cool?" with no regard for whether it's practical for the lead designer to hold the design vision in their head. (And someone has to, because the whole point of this exercise is that it's one game.)

Also, you annoyed me by talking like your personal preference is the majority view

 

[DebbieElla]

Stay civil please.

 

[Kovax]

My "dream game" would be a GSG with the ability to play out individual engagements on a tactical level (for example, Mount & Blade combined with Crusader Kings, or else Hearts of Iron with land, naval, and air battle sims). To me, the down side of tactical games is that there's no underlying purpose behind the battles, it's just "grinding" for the sake of it. The down side of GSGs is that you're totally disconnected from what is going on at the individual level, playing the "spirit" of a country or faction instead of a person in the midst of the events. I know it's highly impractical to combine them in the same game, since each "half" of the game would require the work of a full game, so I don't expect it to happen. The best I could hope for would be linked games, so you could play out the battles from the GSG in the tactical game. I believe Slitherine's "Field of Glory" and "FoG:Empires" work that way, but I would have to say that Paradox has much deeper and more detailed GSGs than theirs.

As for expanding the timeframe, if you can't conquer most of the world over the timespan of the EU series, then you're not really trying. Adding a few hundred more years for the player to abuse the poor AI really doesn't excite me. There are converters to more-or-less continue your campaign in the next time period's game, but I don't find them compelling because I've already practically "won" by that point. I quit campaigns long before the end in most cases, because there's no longer any real challenge once you're bigger than the next three competitors combined. Another century of boring whack-a-mole against rebels would be pointless to me. You may feel otherwise, but I don't see a need for it.

 

[AppoX]

It would be unfeasible. Though I know its likely impossible, I'd like something like that - obviously none of the time-periods would be as in-depth as in their respective games, but it could be fun if they went with the CIV series approach of far greater abstraction and gamification - but with that could it really be called a Paradox GSG? Fundamental game systems would need to change after all.

If they tried it anyway using the Paradox formula it would be simply too long - you can conquer the world in EU4 easily. In Imperator you can become unstoppable within 200 years, in most of Paradox games you can get unstoppable really quickly, if the game had such a long timespan most of the game-time wouldn't even be played since by the time of getting industry mechanics ala Victoria in 1800 you should have a conquered the world by playing conservatively, you wouldn't even see HoI style modern war. Anyways HoI-style gameplay wouldnt work on a day tick, if the game is 2500 years long an hourly tick would be impossible, even a day tick for game updates might be a bit much, but if you had a weekly/3 day tick that would require a fundamental redesign of some of the Paradox systems. Realistically speaking it would just end up being a barebones game since the focus would have to be split on many different eras ending up with no great content & gameplay anywhere.