I never could get into Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis. I generally love grand strategy and play a ton of things like Civilization but for some reason Paradox’s maze of menus and mechanics never seems to click for me.
ck isn’t so much grand strategy to me as it is a game of thrones simulator. The game is WAY less fun if you try to play it optimally. Trying to generate a mad syphilitic king who married his horse and is trying to become the leader of a black magic cult is WAY more interesting.
I’m the same. On paper, Stellaris sounds like a game that could be my all time #1. It has everything I love in games, but my lord … the learning curve. I have tried it three times now and I could just never get over it. It’s like it’s not even a curve lol, it’s a flat straight up vertical wall.
For me part of that is that they massively rejigger the game mechanics all the time. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as they’re trying to improve game rules, but if you learn to play the game as it works one way and then there are some major changes in how things work, it means that you have to do a mental reset (especially if you don’t start a new game realizing that things are now working differently, so you don’t realize that you need to reset). And it’s a game where you need to understand how things work and plan ahead using that understanding, so not knowing what you don’t know is kind of a liability.
EDIT: That being said, of all the Paradox games that I own, Stellaris has definitely been the one that I’ve gotten the most enjoyment out of.
honestly i think having been in on the ground floor makes things easier. its way easier to learn the changes to mechanics you already understand than it is to learn mechanics that were designed to be, in almost all cases for Stellaris, more complicated than the original, already complicated mechanics.
This was my problem trying to get into it after MegaCorp. Suddenly production went from a familiar mechanic like in Endless Legend or Civ to a convoluted mess with all the branching resources. One day I’ll get back into it…
Paradox put a lot of effort into making Ck3 more accessible, and I think largely succeeded. of course its still a massively complicated game, but strategy fans are generally willing to put up with that. its being obtuse and impenetrable and confusing that’s the problem
I never could get into Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis. I generally love grand strategy and play a ton of things like Civilization but for some reason Paradox’s maze of menus and mechanics never seems to click for me.
I would recommend checking out EU4 again. It’s an amazing game if you like history.
CK series is much more of a family simulator than country simulator, so that takes a bit of getting used to
ck isn’t so much grand strategy to me as it is a game of thrones simulator. The game is WAY less fun if you try to play it optimally. Trying to generate a mad syphilitic king who married his horse and is trying to become the leader of a black magic cult is WAY more interesting.
Yeah, most of my time I’ve been trying to spawn the child of Satan. (Monks & Mystics expansion)
If you ever want to try getting back into EU4, Red Hawk’s videos may help it click: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRedHawk/videos
Cheers, I’ll remember that for next time.
I’m the same. On paper, Stellaris sounds like a game that could be my all time #1. It has everything I love in games, but my lord … the learning curve. I have tried it three times now and I could just never get over it. It’s like it’s not even a curve lol, it’s a flat straight up vertical wall.
For me part of that is that they massively rejigger the game mechanics all the time. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as they’re trying to improve game rules, but if you learn to play the game as it works one way and then there are some major changes in how things work, it means that you have to do a mental reset (especially if you don’t start a new game realizing that things are now working differently, so you don’t realize that you need to reset). And it’s a game where you need to understand how things work and plan ahead using that understanding, so not knowing what you don’t know is kind of a liability.
EDIT: That being said, of all the Paradox games that I own, Stellaris has definitely been the one that I’ve gotten the most enjoyment out of.
honestly i think having been in on the ground floor makes things easier. its way easier to learn the changes to mechanics you already understand than it is to learn mechanics that were designed to be, in almost all cases for Stellaris, more complicated than the original, already complicated mechanics.
This was my problem trying to get into it after MegaCorp. Suddenly production went from a familiar mechanic like in Endless Legend or Civ to a convoluted mess with all the branching resources. One day I’ll get back into it…
I tried to get into CK2 because I also love grand strategy and I could not be bothered to learn it.
Then I tried CK3 and for whatever reason, I found that one a lot not approachable and I have hundreds of hours in it now.
Paradox put a lot of effort into making Ck3 more accessible, and I think largely succeeded. of course its still a massively complicated game, but strategy fans are generally willing to put up with that. its being obtuse and impenetrable and confusing that’s the problem