Europa Universalis 3.Finally some more Paradox game bros!!!
EU3 is my favourite Paradox game. I've never played HOI or its derivates and I'm not so keen on Vicky 2, but things seem to be improving. It stills sems extremely complicated to me, though. Wouldn't you agree EU3 is the greatest?
By the way, the Byzantines are one of the best choices for building a global empire in my opinion. Loads of cores covering Greece and all of Asia Minor as well as parts of some Balkan states if I recall correctly.
I've played this one game (I've completed two as the Eastern Romans which is their proper name) where I owned al of Italy and Lombardia (from France), most of the Caribbean islands, Australasia (all of it), most of Africa apart from west Africa, all of Russia (reconquered from the Golden Horde), practically all of the Balkans except for northern Hungary and Croatia, modern-day Estonia, Prussia and Ireland.
What are you finest achievements in the game? Tell me all about them!
Vicky 2 seemed to excite the paradox community and caused lots of hype but after a month of release it died off a little.
The vast majority of my interest in history and internal understanding of history stems from paradox games. I've managed to remember almost every bit of history I've learned from such games while not so much of actual taught history.
Europa Universalis II was a good history teacher with all the historical events. EUIII is just a generic strategy game sandbox. It is pretty boring as vanilla, Magna Mundi totally saves it. I'm definitely going to buy Magna Mundi the game. Regarding their new games, I look forward to CK2, but it will likely fall short again, mainly offering sandbox enviroment and mods will provide the real content. Regardless, as Paradox is the only of its kind in making strategy games like that, they earn all the monetary support they can get.Honestly, I disagree with the Magna Mundi statement. I realise I'm in the minority in this, but I really didn't like Magna Mundi, and I really enjoy vanilla. It's the game I've spent most time on, ever.
Honestly, I disagree with the Magna Mundi statement. I realise I'm in the minority in this, but I really didn't like Magna Mundi, and I really enjoy vanilla. It's the game I've spent most time on, ever.
No, I like the challenge of building up a country from a few provinces. I've never managed a world conquest, and doubt I will for some time. I really enjoyed playing as Georgia and spending 30-some years getting the upper hand on that little horde next door. I enjoyed turning the Papal States into the Middle East. I loved turning Munster into the America-spanning, China crushing monster-Ireland it became.
Is it worth getting HoI 2 if I already have 3? I didn't like 3 that much because of how much it steers you but WW2 still interests me.
Opinions may differ, but i'd say yes. However "yes" ONLY if you get Doomsday + Armageddon, and not the vanilla. Possibly with a mod called DAIM. You're in for some epic worldshaping and history being re-written.
The Paradox AI is very good mind you, much better than in 3, but still has some holes. DAIM turns it into something more.. worthy.
Some people love HoI3 though, and one should respect that too.
I tried it, as Portugal, which should, theoretically, be okay. Did horribly. There's too much to look after, too much added with not enough guides on what the fuck everything does. I don't want to have to deal with some religious minority getting a bit pissy while my tiny army is ganking an army 3 times its size. I don't want to have to deal with all that crap. I want a fun sandbox, not a perfect simulator.No, I like the challenge of building up a country from a few provinces. I've never managed a world conquest, and doubt I will for some time. I really enjoyed playing as Georgia and spending 30-some years getting the upper hand on that little horde next door. I enjoyed turning the Papal States into the Middle East. I loved turning Munster into the America-spanning, China crushing monster-Ireland it became.
I think all those things are possible and 600% more fun in MM. :P
I tried it, as Portugal, which should, theoretically, be okay. Did horribly. There's too much to look after, too much added with not enough guides on what the fuck everything does. I don't want to have to deal with some religious minority getting a bit pissy while my tiny army is ganking an army 3 times its size. I don't want to have to deal with all that crap. I want a fun sandbox, not a perfect simulator.
How about Arsenal of Democracy and the Darkest Hour? I haven't played them, but a friend is fapping to the Darkest Hour. I think HOI3 had potential, but it was too big to chew at one bite for Paradox. I like the idea of subordinate AIs, I'd like it even in Europa Universalis, so I could, say, let AI handle colonial warfare. Too bad it didn't work out too good.
Some people love HoI3 though, and one should respect that too.That'd be me and that other guy from Burkina Faso.
Seriously, I really loved the HQ AI system that they implemented. Finally there was no need for micromanaging the armies. Finally you could feel like you're running a country, not being some sort of a hivemind.
Europa Universalis II was a good history teacher with all the historical events.
Why do generals die off so early? They serve for about 5 years and then decide to die.
Short and drunk, probably.
Actually, I stayed Munster for quite some time. I owned most of the US before I sailed over and took the rest of Ireland from them. It was just sheer luck that they didn't swallow me up before that.
Is it worth getting HoI 2 if I already have 3? I didn't like 3 that much because of how much it steers you but WW2 still interests me.To be honest I liked HoI2 with the expansions way more than the base of HoI3. I'm not sure how HoI3 is today but HoI2 Complete is fairly cheap and a lot of fun.
I wonder what an ethnic Irish-Asian looks like.
Not really. In the end, a gamer is left with a few more keywords to blurt out like "Council of Trent!" but is far from understanding the actual history. That comes from studying primary sources, the writings and other evidence left by people from that era. A game is just a game, and surrenders to fun gameplay 95% of the time.
I love PI games and I own almost all of the games they developed themselves. One thing that pisses me off is the fact that you need expansion for each game to be really great. Their base games suck most of the times. It's almost like it's a strategy: remove some great features and content from your base game to sell it for $20 a few months later.
Really?? I thought the character system in EU: Rome was garbage. There was no sense of lineage or "major families" or anything, beyond a field in the cahracter info that stated what family they belonged to. It felt totally random.
How many divisions should I keep around, roughly speaking? I'm playing as Yemen, having 2 divisions on Socrota and 2 on the main land, as well as a total of 4 ships. I could disband my transports probably, but I'm afraid that disbanding any of my land units will mean I won't be able to respond to revolutions.
This, the majority of people don't really have access to things that make them interested in history. It's video games that have always given me an interest in history. Simply the ability to see things from the point of view of any one historical group, whether it be the Capet dynasty, the trading nation of Oman, industrializing America, and so forth is essential a great teacher of history. Playing Eu2, and even Eu3 to an extent, taught me about underlying trends and key events, like the protestant reformation, European contact, imperialism, and most importantly why all these things were done with how the leaders felt about the events unfolding.Not really. In the end, a gamer is left with a few more keywords to blurt out like "Council of Trent!" but is far from understanding the actual history. That comes from studying primary sources, the writings and other evidence left by people from that era. A game is just a game, and surrenders to fun gameplay 95% of the time.
You need to get someone interested in history first, before he is willing to even consider anything like that. All good teachers are those, who make the taught subject fun. That is what EUII did. Besides, you can hardly call studying primary sources something most people do, heh. Not even basic university-level history courses do that.
Vicky 2 is IMHO about one major change away from being balanced. The economy is inherently imbalanced, meaning that money tends to pool in rich pops and countries while large parts of the world suffer from inadequate liquidity (i.e. the depression of 1836.) It's a very unstable situation and there are plenty of ways stability could have been introduced: currency exchange stabilization, a working finance system, flexible consumer demand or even just factories not buying inputs for sea-dumping (which would allow for comparative advantage to keep them profitable). It seems to me like the team never consulted with an economist because then they would have realized that they were creating a very unstable equilibrium.
Now, that being said, it might not make for a good game. If that's the case, then yes, Paradox probably should of done a better job. I'm just saying that if Paradox is very in-depthly simulating a shitty economic system, you can't turn around and berate them when the economies of the world are shit.
Would it be better to get HoI2 first or go straight for AoD?
Definitely, AoD is basically HoI2 with all expansions and then some.Would it be better to get HoI2 first or go straight for AoD?
IMO, you'd be better off saving money and going straight for AoD.
Now, that being said, it might not make for a good game. If that's the case, then yes, Paradox probably should of done a better job. I'm just saying that if Paradox is very in-depthly simulating a shitty economic system, you can't turn around and berate them when the economies of the world are shit.
While it's true that the economy of the Victorian era was deeply broken, it was broken in a different way then the game portrays. While it's true that the big dogs pulled a lot of shenanigans in this era, there is such a thing as an equilibrium. In Vicky 2 if a country can't export because say it's prestige is too low, it's population starves because it lacks the money to buy either foreign or domestic foodstuffs. In the real world, if a country isn't exporting, it's going to stop importing stuff because the exchange rate is going to make imports prohibitively expensive. Additionally, while it's possible for a country to not have enough gold to keep foreign creditors placated and cause a panic, it shouldn't experience a Vicky2 style depression of 1836. If there isn't enough gold for the domestic market to function, prices would drop (well sorta*) until you reach a new price level where the amount of gold would be sufficient.
* This point is more complicated what with sticky prices and wages and whatnot but two things here. First, they were less sticky in the 19th century. And secondly, paper money would probably come to the rescue, with banks and governments being able to issue new paper until there is enough for the market to function. Again, foreign investors wouldn't be reassured but the domestic market would function with there being enough currency for transactions.
Plus there's sea dumping which is absolutely immersion breaking. I can understand that paradox didn't want to bother with a huge number of stockpiles. But factories go into the red buying inputs for outputs they are just going to throw away anyway. Nobody in the 19th century ever entertained such a silly thought. And it happens even if you are playing a planned economy. In Vicky 1 you were communist even if you were capitalist. In Vicky 2 you are capitalist even if you are communist.
But still, I think that there is a lot of promise in Vicky 2. With the PDM mod the world economy works, albeit at the price of making things a bit easy. But I believe that with about 1 major reform to the way that money flows through the world economy, the system would work.
If you have HoI 2, I recommend trying out the the RandRoad Mod (http://bellsouthpwp.net/A/l/AlenlorDRot/). It creates a new world with random countries (up to 157, though my comp can't really handle that), with different sizes, randomized techs, leaders, number of units, etc. It's quite fun. There's also a similar mod for HoI3 which seems even better. The AI is kinda over-aggressive though, which can be annoying.
Best game I've had with that was an Imperial Russia that covered South America, half of North America and a chunk of Africa. I allied with the Dutch (South Asia) and tiny Lebanon (centered around Washington DC) and fought against Cambodia and Nepal over China. T'was fun.
I just got Vic 2, but when I start it up, it goes to the intro and crashes to the desktop. It's still running fine, but Windows says it's not responding and kills it. Any help?Compatibility mode, lastest patch, and all that stuff already done? How about disabling desktop composition?
That might help.I just got Vic 2, but when I start it up, it goes to the intro and crashes to the desktop. It's still running fine, but Windows says it's not responding and kills it. Any help?lastest patch
Sorry for double post, but nope. Updated, ran every mode, and after the intro it crashes. It's still running in the background and playing music and Windows kills it. Starting to piss me off.Not really sure what could be causing it other than the standard fare, try searching the paradox forums.
First, restart your computer. Second, if that doesn't work, uninstall and reinstall the game.Done. Done. Everytime I run it, a new temp file crashes it. It's then deleted so I can't figure anything out. -_-
What, exactly, is the error message you're getting?AppName: v2game.exe AppVer: 0.0.0.0 ModName: v2game.exe
Shhhh.
Everyone else who has it can play it just fine. I tried everything, everything associated with the game. Reinstalled it, restarted. Nothing works. I'm about to rage and beat the shit outta my computer in a fit. The random Temp txt file thing is normally a windows problem, but that doesn't help me any.
This is a silly question but do you have d3dx9_35.dll (or even d3dx9_41.dll)? For some strange reason Paradox only uses DirectX 9.0C instead of more advanced versions of DirectX.
It lasted about a second longer when I closed Steam and then started doing it again. It crashes when I get to the main menu. I always get the wierdest bugs.Shhhh.
Everyone else who has it can play it just fine. I tried everything, everything associated with the game. Reinstalled it, restarted. Nothing works. I'm about to rage and beat the shit outta my computer in a fit. The random Temp txt file thing is normally a windows problem, but that doesn't help me any.
I had a crash on start-up yesterday, the game started working again when I closed steam. Do you have Steam running?
[systemsettings.cpp:155]: System memory: 2048MB
[systemsettings.cpp:157]: CPU speed: 2411MHz
[systemsettings.cpp:164]: Number of processors: 4
[systemsettings.cpp:175]: CPU type: x86
[systemsettings.cpp:207]: OS: Windows XP Service Pack 3 Build: 2600
[graphicssettings.cpp:130]: Graphic Adapters:
[graphicssettings.cpp:135]: 0: ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series
[graphicssettings.cpp:152]: Checking for multi-sampling support:
[graphicssettings.cpp:163]: 2 samples supported.
[graphicssettings.cpp:163]: 4 samples supported.
[graphicssettings.cpp:163]: 8 samples supported.
[graphicssettings.cpp:178]: Using Adapter [0]:
[graphicssettings.cpp:184]: Succeeded to create a device [D3DCREATE_HARDWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING].
[graphicssettings.cpp:226]: Graphics device: ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series
[graphicssettings.cpp:227]: Graphics driver: ati2dvag.dll
[graphicssettings.cpp:232]: Driver version: 7171
[graphicssettings.cpp:249]:
Dumping all gfx info:
DeviceIdentifier: {D7B71EE2-2B9A-11CF-F66A-5A75A1C2CB35}
VendorId: 4098
DeviceId: 26842
SubSysId: 1431311685
Revision: 0
DriverVersion.HighPart: 393230
DriverVersion.LowPart: 662531
[graphicssettings.cpp:299]: Instancing supported.
[graphicssettings.cpp:317]: Video memory amount: 1342MB
[graphicssettings.cpp:320]: Support for T&L found.
[graphicssettings.cpp:323]: MaxSimultaneousTextures: 8
[graphicssettings.cpp:324]: MaxVertexBlendMatrices: 4
[graphicssettings.cpp:325]: MaxVertexBlendMatrixIndex: 0
[graphicssettings.cpp:327]: MaxSimultaneousTextures: 8
[graphicssettings.cpp:328]: MaxTextureBlendStages: 8
[graphicssettings.cpp:329]: Support for Anisotropic filtering found.
[graphicssettings.cpp:332]: Max Anisotropic filtering: 16
[graphicssettings.cpp:333]: Anisotropic filtering set to: 0
[graphicssettings.cpp:337]: Vertex Shader version: 3.0
[graphicssettings.cpp:342]: Pixel Shader version: 3.0
[main.cpp:232]: HoI3 Version Apr 6 2011 : 17:30:12
[main.cpp:294]: Collecting files (GAME_REPLACE)
[main.cpp:318]: Blobing files
[main.cpp:339]: Init Text Database
[internationalizedtext.cpp:1237]: Create table
[internationalizedtext.cpp:1239]: Create text database
[main.cpp:341]: Text Database Done
[main.cpp:369]: Creating application...
[main.cpp:429]: Init Application...
[eu3application.cpp:220]: Initialise Defines
[eu3application.cpp:227]: App Init
[eu3application.cpp:242]: App Init
[eu3application.cpp:268]: Cursors Defines
[eu3application.cpp:296]: Sound...
[dxmusic.cpp:39]: Init Music
[dxmusic.cpp:45]: Graph done 0
[dxmusic.cpp:51]: Control done 0
[dxmusic.cpp:57]: Seeking done 0
[dxmusic.cpp:62]: Event done 0
[dxmusic.cpp:67]: Music done 0
[DirectSound.cpp:36]: Init DirectSound
[DirectSound.cpp:54]: Sound initialised with result 0
[DirectSound.cpp:64]: Coop Level Set. Result: 0
[DirectSound.cpp:86]: Sound Init Done
[eu3application.cpp:345]: Initialise Graphics...
[graphics.cpp:148]: Direct3D Created
[graphics.cpp:259]: Not using multisampling.
[graphics.cpp:279]: Creating device with: D3DCREATE_HARDWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING
Fullscreen=yes
RefreshRate=60
Resolution=1024x768
[graphics.cpp:332]: Failed! Trying desktop resolution: 1776x1000 and default refresh.
Yeah, I've changed the res to 1776x1000, but it refueses to change. Any help?For the record, warfare in Victoria 2 is severely bugged. Great Britain can recruit Indians into their main army, and since the population of India is so dense, the soldier population grows continuously, regardless of how much money they invest in the military. Which means, they have absurdly large armies on every border province, like fifty armies of fourty thousand each along the American/Canadian border alone.Sounds realistic to me, the UK didn't own half the world for no reason ;)
The same effect happens in China. Once a line in Technology is crossed, the population explodes out of control, and no investment in the military is necessary anymore to have the population of soldiers constantly grow, such that China can recruit absurdly large armies. There are mods that take care of this, I think. One way Great Britain is reigned in is by turning The British Raj into a separate political entity under British vassalage, so the British isles don't benefit directly from the massive populations.
For the record, warfare in Victoria 2 is severely bugged.
Same problem different game. EU3. It won't except any resolution. Grahpics Card is : ATI HD Radeon 5500 Series. It won't use any of my resolutions. :P