Strategy Games thread - CIV, Paradox Series, Endless, Total War, etc.

Saturated Fats

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Jan 24, 2007
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Hi all,

Thought that it would be a fun idea to try and gather all of the (surely numerous) strategy gamers that frequent HF into one thread, where we can discuss the games we're playing, coordinate multiplayer, and chat about upcoming releases.

I'll start by sharing the 'First Look' video that Paradox posted on their YT of Crusader Kings 3. As a huge Paradox franchise nerd (with the exception of Imperator: Rome), I'm jazzed on CK3 being the first in what I hope is a wave of the next gen. or Paradox franchises. Their core cluster (Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis, Victoria, Stellaris) are some of the best supported and most thoroughly engaging game franchises I've ever played. Can't wait for this one

 
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Commander Clueless

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I never really got into Crusader Kings II, despite all the good things I used to hear about it.

Crusader Kings III looks like it might be worth diving into - particularly since I believe it is launching on Xbox Game Pass, and I already have an active subscription. :laugh:

Also, while we are on the subject of strategy games, I'm still waiting for significant price drop on Total War: Three Kingdoms....
 

Osprey

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I, too, have never gotten into Crusader Kings II, despite giving it a try on a few occasions. I'm sure that I'd love it if I invested the time but I have a larger backlog and less patience than I used to :laugh:.

I've been playing Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection. It's one of the best remasters that I've ever played. I forgot how tough C&C's missions are.
 
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saluki

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Not really.

The essence of Civ is building cities and that takes time. When you play Civ you're playing the long game.
 

Osprey

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Is there a way to play Civ that doesn’t turn into a 30 hour experience?

Playing on the lower difficulties helps a lot. When the AI nations don't pose as much of a threat, you can conquer them more easily.

After that, you can speed it up by turning on all of the automation options. For example, let the computer decide what each city should build next instead of prompting you each time. There may also be an option to prevent the game from asking what to do with your idle units every turn. If not, you can always manually put them to sleep. You could also turn off advisors so that they aren't bugging you. There may even be a way to automatically accept or reject all trade requests. Basically, the less micromanaging that you need to do before pressing the Turn button, the faster the game will go by.

Of course, you lose some of the fun and strategy by playing on the lowest difficulties and having the AI take care of more and more things for you, but, if you want a quicker game, you're probably after a more casual experience, anyways.
 
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filip85

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Currently playing Strategic Command World at War. Very good and addictive game.
 

Commander Clueless

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I, too, have never gotten into Crusader Kings II, despite giving it a try on a few occasions. I'm sure that I'd love it if I invested the time but I have a larger backlog and less patience than I used to :laugh:.

I've been playing Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection. It's one of the best remasters that I've ever played. I forgot how tough C&C's missions are.

I was hard into C&C when it launched. Such a great game (or games, rather). One of my all time favourites.
 
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Osprey

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I was hard into C&C when it launched. Such a great game (or games, rather). One of my all time favourites.

Yep, I was, too. I even created two multiplayer maps that ended up being included in a popular map pack (that I found that you can still download). It's hard to believe that that was 25 years ago.
 
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Jovavic

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With Civ VI, you can choose which age to start, you can go into the Modern Age, if you so choose. You can change the size of the map to tiny and change the max number of turns, there are a few ways to speed things up, but you might also miss some of what makes the series special.
 
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PK Cronin

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I've been playing Iron Harvest during their beta a little bit. I'm about halfway through the campaign they have available (I think) and it's just alright. Haven't played any multiplayer yet though. It's an interesting game, I like some of the units, but it's a little clunky and long winded at times. Anyone else playing it?

 

Commander Clueless

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Yep, I was, too. I even created two multiplayer maps that ended up being included in a popular map pack (that I found that you can still download). It's hard to believe that that was 25 years ago.

It's pretty crazy.

I remember seeing screenshots of the remaster and thinking they didn't update much....and then you boot up the game and it starts in old graphics mode.......:laugh:

Imagination is a heck of a thing.
 
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Commander Clueless

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On the subject of strategy games, Frostpunk: On the Edge launches this month.

While not a typical strategy game, I've been in love with the survival city builder since it's launch back in 2018 and, if you ask me, it keeps getting better with the DLC.

On the Edge is the final expansion, and I'm looking forward to diving back in.
 

Osprey

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It's pretty crazy.

I remember seeing screenshots of the remaster and thinking they didn't update much....and then you boot up the game and it starts in old graphics mode.......:laugh:

Imagination is a heck of a thing.

Yeah, I didn't realize how much they updated the graphics until I got in a mission and started toggling back and forth between old and new. Usually, I'm not a guy who wants much change to graphics (that goes for remasters and for graphics mods), because I re-play games mostly for the nostalgia, so it says something about how good the remaster is that I don't mind the new graphics at all and have actually been playing with them. Whereas the old 320x200 graphics looked OK on 15" monitors in 1995, the same blown up on 27+" monitors today is pretty rough. I briefly switch to them every now and then out of curiosity, but I actually play the missions in the new graphics because they're a lot easier on the eyes (not just in resolution, but animation fluidity). I probably never would've guessed that I would prefer the new to the old. As you touched on, though, the new are close enough to how we remember the game, which I suppose is what nostalgia is and what matters more.
 
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Chubbinz

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I have been playing Total War Saga Troy today. I can't believe it was free. They must have a ton of DLC planned down the road to try and gouge people with.
 

Desdichado93

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I too have tried to get into Paradox CKII, EUIII and EUIV but never understood their greatness, too much restrictions and you are not allowed to this you cant do that.
Paradox's games focus much on causus belli and etc, and in CKII I wasn't even allowed to declare war on another nation because it was neutral.

I wish there was a hybrid of EU and total war, imagine HOI IV where events/directions countries would be more random (optional), lets say a facist USA which would invade Canada and Mexico
where Germany and Japan would go democratic and join efforts with Europe to invade North America to liberate the occupied countries.
 

RandV

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Just getting into the 'grand strategy games' and not RTS, in terms of gameplay Paradox probably does things best... except for the pricing and packaging options which is just a mess and makes it that much harder to get into. I sunk about 30 hours into CK2 and it was pretty good but have a hard time really getting into it. I did get EUIV the other week when it was $1 package on humblebundle so may finally get around to that sometime. I sunk some time into Solaris but while it sucked me in the initial exploration phase once you more or less have discovered everything the game.

Civ generally tends to be my go to series, with Total War secondary. Thinking about the topic recently and all the games available perhaps the biggest problem these games run into is if you think of an online match focused game like Starcraft at the point where the losing side says GG and checks out in a typical single player strategy game you often still have a long way to go before the game says 'okay you won'. Sometimes a very long time, I don't want to know many hours I spent my last Civ game playing a huge map on immortal with some whacky mods from the point where I caught up to and quickly blew past the leader until I finally wrangled out a diplomatic victory.

It's a big problem in strategy games that's very hard to solve where for most of the game the experience is great but you hit that tipping point and the rest of the game is just cleanup. I suspect that Paradox games bypass this by sticking to more focused end game objectives depending on who you play rather than just 'conquer the world'.
 

RandV

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I too have tried to get into Paradox CKII, EUIII and EUIV but never understood their greatness, too much restrictions and you are not allowed to this you cant do that.
Paradox's games focus much on causus belli and etc, and in CKII I wasn't even allowed to declare war on another nation because it was neutral.

I wish there was a hybrid of EU and total war, imagine HOI IV where events/directions countries would be more random (optional), lets say a facist USA which would invade Canada and Mexico
where Germany and Japan would go democratic and join efforts with Europe to invade North America to liberate the occupied countries.

What I've always wanted is...

Civilization: Total War

That aside, one of the benefits of the Paradox combat system is while it's a lot more boring when you add gameplay elements to the combat like in Civ or Total War the AI just can't keep up with a good human player. It takes away from the "Grand Strategy" element when you're pretty much going to win every battle and every war. I just wrapped up a battle in Rome 2: TW attacking a settlement where the odds gave me a small sliver of yellow on the strength bar (the overwhelming red being the AI's strength) and completely wrecked them.
 
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I recently discovered a game called Northgard which is available on Steam and Origin.

It is pretty decent however I can't figure out how to keep my happiness up.
 

Jovavic

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I don't like how I'm labeled a warmonger in Civ6 when they are ones declaring war. It's not my fault my troops are at the ready and I take a few cities, they started it lol
 

Teemu

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I don't like how I'm labeled a warmonger in Civ6 when they are ones declaring war. It's not my fault my troops are at the ready and I take a few cities, they started it lol
Civ has a awful model where the base game is basically broken and you need to buy the expansions if you want it patched. This is fixed in one of the expansions.
 

Papa Francouz

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I recently discovered a game called Northgard which is available on Steam and Origin.

It is pretty decent however I can't figure out how to keep my happiness up.
Northgard is great! I haven’t played it since Early Access, but breweries were OP for happiness in that game, and you always need, like, 2 of them. Plus I think there’s a blessing you can choose to up happiness.

I will say that happiness was the hardest thing to balance in that game. You either have too much or too little, and I never found out how to struck a balance.
 

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