berto wrote:Speaking of EU3 only, I think that if you viewed that game from an insider's, modder's perspective, you would not be demeaning its potential depth.
Not the thread to open such can of worms, but frankly, after extensive modding efforts, I've yet to see the EU3 engine producing plausible historical results...producing anything with more elaborate mechanism than mainstream real time PC strategy game, giving a feeling to depthness to player, yes... Giving the real indepth born from the confrontation of the reality of the time....Paradox has definitly made the choice of the sandbox model, based on justifications of various valours blending Turtlelove's fiction to glimpse of more elaborate historical studies revolving around the what-if, but the real point is whatever the game, as released, any minor country will conquer the world in single player game. And to counter that, Paradox invented totally irrelevant concept: badboy, nationalist revolts, to cite the most outrageous, which have a n historical value equal to 0. Afrer that, modders are struggling as they can to produce, with often extreme talent, plausible results, by sometimes disabling the engine curse, and I think here to some colonization schemes implemented on a mandatory manner.
I could cite the totally insane economical Victoria model, the HOI2 impossibility to model adequatly the impossibility for some nation to get the industrial basis necessary to get fully mechanized armies, their last Roma effort describing antic colonization schem like the European colonization in Africa since 1880.
The real Paradox problem is they got a game engine reasonably suited for the Renaissance period with EU1, by scraping most of the advanced feature of the EU boardgame. Then they decided they were game designers and historical experts with EU2. They were right on the first point ( even if they took then the curious habit to deliver games unplayable until the fifth patch or a serious modding effort).
But frankly, their historical vision is about the same then peplum is to Antiquity.
And whe you have played one of their games, except some slight changes you have played the next: same mechanism, same strategies, same impotent AI...
Some will say AGEOD engine to be the same.... but personnaly, I find much more differences between AACW and BOA or WIA. Both, even with their shortcomings, are as delivered pointing out the real differences in the way to wage war between 1750 and 1860...supply, command, relative role of infantry, cvalry, artillery is taken into account and depicted.
And here the subtle differences which are the real depth of strategic thinking are at last arousing..
And from a strict modder point of view, Paradox scripting is certainly richer than for AGEOD ( but the margin is reducing) but I can attest it's much more simpler to get the planned result in an AGEOD game than in a Paradox one, because the engine is more robust and more predictable.
Now, can of worm closed. I said what I wanted. You're certainly right to get a different feeling, but I gear mine to be almost my definitive point of view about this swedish company.
, but OK, I will respect that you want to keep this thread to its purpose. I also guess that AGEOD don't really want (based solely on my experience from the Matrix boards) to go into deteriorating discussions about potential competitors.
