Bought this recently since this was on sale and holy cow is this game in-depth and complex or what?? LOL


I'm still playing the tutorial as the Italians in East Africa and I've learned a lot so far but I feel like it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Was about to buy it during the sale but had a few runs at "lets play tutorial" over youtube and I felt it was a bit too deep for me.
(was looking at "Fascist Sweden" and it made me a little uncomfortable haha but I guess it's part of the game)
DBond should love this

I'm enjoying the game but this is most definitely NOT a casual game. Think of this game as being similar to taking a high level college course on how to run a total war national economy and military strategy.

Yeah, that's the Paradox way

When HOI 4 was announced I was excited, and as release drew near I was even more so. I had planned to buy it. These sorts of games are what I like. But then two things happened. The first was that the release was poor. I didn't play it, but based on what I read I saw that there were some serious issues with how the AI performed in the campaign. So that put me in to a wait and see mode that has stretched to today. Maybe it's much better now?

The second was my love of Paradox faded due to what I feel is a terrible DLC policy. I was a big Paradox fan boy for years. Crusader Kings, HOI 3, Victoria, Stellaris and EU IV are all games I like. EU IV is surely my favorite grand strategy game. The Paradox formula produces great strat games. But the DLC policy began to put me off, until I was anti-Paradox. I'm not one to flip flop usually but that's how I began to feel. So while I think about picking up HOI 4 every time it goes on sale, I just never pulled the trigger.

What I always wished for was a detailed AAR thread here at SimHQ. I am a member at the Paradox forums and you can get a lot of info there, but there's a certain sense of entitlement and hyper-critical posters which lead to wildly disparate views and you're left with a lot more info but no closer to really knowing the state of the game. Strategy games are not too popular around here and most threads have a few comments posts, but nothing detailing game play and mechanics. The game's been out two years and we've never had any thread about a HOI 4 campaign. Maybe I'll still pick it up at some point.

Here's a thread from around the time the game was released

http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4267636/1

Actually i find Paradox's dlc policy to be very good. First of all, they support their games for many, many years. CK2 is 7 years old. With every dlc, there's also a free update for the vanilla game. It means that even after 10 dlc, vanilla is still very playable. Anyone can start playing CK2 today without buying any dlc. Same goes to EU IV. There's ton of content in them and with those regular, free updates, the game is much better than at the beginning. If you get hooked then you can start getting the dlc. Plus most of the dlc are theme based (certain nation or part of the world). If you're not interested in that theme, you can easily skip it. They're also quite cheap and go on sale every 2-3 months. This is how i look at it.

I think that's great man, and I hope you continue enjoying the product for many years. Sincerely.

My position is in no way based on Paradox continually supporting their games. That fact has always been the cornerstone of my very vocal support of the company.

And I haven't played CK2 in years, so I don't feel able to comment specifically about the DLC for that game as I only bought a few. But for EU IV, my favorite, and what I feel is the finest, strategy game of all time, I sing a different tune. Discounting sales (and they are fairly frequent), the full EU IV game now costs $200. On sale, it drops to $150.

You say CK2 vanilla is fully playable. I'll accept that as face value. But for EU IV, while vanilla is 'fully playable', is it really? It becomes such a mishmash of conflicting mechanics. Want to transfer occupation during war? Gotta pay for that!

I'll offer a concrete example of why I rail against it and the notion that you can simply pick and choose the DLC that appeals to you. A few years ago Paradox released a DLC called Common Sense. In it, you gained the ability to spend monarch points on province development. A couple years later they introduced another DLC called Rights of Man with a mechanic called Institutions. So lets assume you purchased the later DLC but not the earlier one. Well, it turns out you cannot gain institutions without the ability to develop the provinces. Hmmm

I also feel the DLC is overpriced for what it is, with exceptions.

I'm not here to talk anyone out of anything, or even bash Paradox. But as a long time customer I've grown disillusioned over the company's DLC policy and I think it needs to change. I have ideas on how I think it should be done, but I'll spare everyone the dissertation.

I was looking at things from a new player perspective mainly. That's why i think all their games are playable as vanilla because there's so much content and learning that you don't need the dlc which makes these games even more complex. Only after you get to know it well, which can easily take tens of hours, you can start thinking about the dlc. I would never recommend to a new player getting the whole package.



Please don't! I'll gladly see your point of view on that

I've hijacked PMs thread enough already, but essentially I think that the best way to do it is to incorporate over time older DLC in to the base game. Particularly so when later content requires earlier DLC to function correctly and completely. There's more to it but that's the jist of it, among other things

This is common, that after time a company will combine their base game and DLC in to a Game of the Year Edition or similar, and sell it at close to the price of the original game, albeit with the additional content.

Paradox makes great games, and I like many of them. They are a cut above the usual dumbed-down fare. Their ability to make complicated mechanics feel intuitive is virtually unmatched. They realize however that their customer base is fairly narrow, and they have set their policies up to extract max money from existing customers. They are in business to make money, yes, but I think they go a bit far with it. Just my take.