Paradox Grand Strategy: Tim Cook? How many divisions has he got?

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Enjoy: Apr 18, 2009

Watching the devs talk about Mare Nostrum territories makes me feel Bamboozled

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPFTT7h6voo

# ? Mar 13, 2016 09:38

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 01:22

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

I thought Shams Jorjani was the name of the Eurovision contestant. That would have been even better.

# ? Mar 13, 2016 12:17

Torrannor: Apr 27, 2013; ---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Westminster System posted:

So Sweden just chose some awful-come-medicore contestant for Eurovision.

Is however relevant, you know what to do. Even if it means relocating. On the hellish plus side, you can relocate to Australia, considering they are part of Eurovision now.

It can hardly be worse than the wholly unremarkable pop song that won last year. I wanted Australia to win :argh:

I've caved and bought Stardrive 2 just to sate my 4X space addiction, and I generally like the ship designer, but it's a bit too overloaded. Ordnance, power capacitors, individual armor plates, fuel tanks, etc. That's too much. It seems as if Stellaris avoids the over-cluttering. The best similar ship designer was definitely in Ascendancy, which is pretty sad since the game is over two decades old.

# ? Mar 13, 2016 13:12

vanity slug: Jul 20, 2010

pdxjohan posted:

Shams is not exactly a gamedesigner.

He'll do.

# ? Mar 13, 2016 15:37

Westminster System: Jul 4, 2009

Torrannor posted:

It can hardly be worse than the wholly unremarkable pop song that won last year. I wanted Australia to win

Swedish discount Beiber would try and prove you wrong.

I really think Paradox should invest in a realistic Eurovision simulator. Only they could accurately portray such a crazy system.

# ? Mar 13, 2016 17:27

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Westminster System posted:

Swedish discount Beiber would try and prove you wrong.

I really think Paradox should invest in a realistic Eurovision simulator. Only they could accurately portray such a crazy system.

Paradox clearly wants to make a Cold War game, but has not yet found a way to balance warfare vs. the threat of nuclear Armageddon. The solution is clear; to excise all warfare from player control, and make a game centered around the more civilized replacements for warfare, such as the World Cup, the Olympics, and Eurovision.

# ? Mar 13, 2016 18:04

Ghost of Mussolini: Jun 26, 2011

Paradox Interactive's Sepp Blatter's Sporting Boardroom Simulator - a Rome II DLC pack

# ? Mar 13, 2016 21:29

Ms Adequate: Oct 30, 2011; Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling

pdxjohan posted:

Shams is not exactly a gamedesigner.

You say that like I care. Just make Rome II.

Torrannor posted:

It can hardly be worse than the wholly unremarkable pop song that won last year. I wanted Australia to win

I've caved and bought Stardrive 2 just to sate my 4X space addiction, and I generally like the ship designer, but it's a bit too overloaded. Ordnance, power capacitors, individual armor plates, fuel tanks, etc. That's too much. It seems as if Stellaris avoids the over-cluttering. The best similar ship designer was definitely in Ascendancy, which is pretty sad since the game is over two decades old.

The best ship designer was in Space Empires V.

# ? Mar 13, 2016 21:34

Fintilgin: Sep 29, 2004; Fintilgin sweeps!

pdxjohan posted:

Shams is not exactly a gamedesigner.

Hey, we're not the ones who just made a legally binding tweet. V :shobon:

# ? Mar 13, 2016 22:23

Randarkman: Jul 18, 2011

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Paradox clearly wants to make a Cold War game, but has not yet found a way to balance warfare vs. the threat of nuclear Armageddon.

Some sort of system based off the World Tension mechanic from HoI 4 is probably the way to go, along with a way to measure countries' nuclear deterrence towards each other.

Start with removing actually using nukes from warfare in the game, at least for the most part. Instead every country would have a Nuclear Deterrence value calculated against each other. This would be based on the number of nuclear weapons you have capable of striking the country in question, also modified by stuff like whether these are store deployed from missile bases, submarines or strategic bombers. Stuff like missile defense systems and Star Wars programs and such would reduce the Nuclear Deterrence of other countries towards you. If the value of two countries' Nuclear Deterrence each exceeds a certain threshold (modified by size of country, number of cities and such) then the result is Mutually Assured Destruction.

Second, incorporate a version of HoI 4's World Tension mechanic and maybe rebrand it as a "Doomsday Clock" or something else thematically fitting. When the Doomsday Clock fills up (or strikes 12 in this case) the result is nuclear armageddon and the game is over. The Doomsday Clock would fill up from several causes such as:

A country in a superpower's sphere of interest or alliance network descending into civil war involving in some way the other block
War involving one or more nuclear-armed countries (modified further by Nuclear Deterrence)
Stationing military units, including nuclear weapons, close to a country that has nuclear deterrence against you
Embargoing or blockading countries or allies of countries that have nuclear deterrence against you
Conducting covert actions against countries or allies of countries that have nuclear deterrence against you and being caught
Enlarging military alliances that include nuclear-armed countries
Research into technology that reduces a country's Nuclear Deterrence against you becoming known to the public, as well as constructing and deploying such technology, the same would apply to work on a "dead hand" or "doomsday device"-type weapon becoming known before its completion.
Random events (drunk submarine captains, meteorogical satelites being mistaken for missiles and such)
War that would result in MAD automatically fills out the Doomsday Clock and should not be possible to manually declare.

Onto this you would add a kind of crisis resolution system that can be used to reduce the progress of the Doomdsay Clock. Say a country could attempt to negotiate a point of dispute with another country either by open diplomacy through the UN which would present more general and long-term solutions that apply to other countries rather than just the ones directly involved (such as nuclear, or general, disarmament treaties) or through secret diplomacy which give larger, but more short-term reductions (for instance by ending military deployment in an allied country or handing off spies and agents which would incur a reduction in espionage efficiency or value against a country).

Making that last system of crisis management and resolution flexible, deep and fun would really be the key to a Cold War game which should be largely about diplomacy and espionage rather than warfare.

Randarkman fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Mar 13, 2016

# ? Mar 13, 2016 23:26

NoNotTheMindProbe: Aug 9, 2010; pony porn was here

My uncle owns shares in Paradox and he says that the next Paradox IP will be called Australian Senate Estimates Committee Simulator. hth

# ? Mar 13, 2016 23:31

Demiurge4: Aug 10, 2011

I think a Cold War game where you play as the CIA or the KGB would be a fun take on the genre. You're not gonna go to war anyway because that means nuclear annihilation so just go full proxy with the intelligence services.

# ? Mar 13, 2016 23:37

V for Vegas: Sep 1, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER

NoNotTheMindProbe posted:

My uncle owns shares in Paradox and he says that the next Paradox IP will be called Australian Senate Estimates Committee Simulator. hth

gently caress that's some risky poo poo.

# ? Mar 13, 2016 23:40

NoNotTheMindProbe: Aug 9, 2010; pony porn was here

^^^ A sample event:

code:

A Senator for West Australia accuses you of spending too much money on chairs for executive officers in your department.  How do you respond?

a: Question the Senator's manhood

b: Accuse the Senator of having a relative who owns a competing chair company

c: Say nothing but secretly re-direct departmental spending away from West Australia and to other states instead.

quote:

Colde war game stuff

That game already exists. It's called Twilight Struggle.

NoNotTheMindProbe fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Mar 13, 2016

# ? Mar 13, 2016 23:40

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

The problem with a Paradox Cold War game is the way it treats countries as fundamentally much more equal than they were.

You could make a really good cold war game if you were willing to make a very explicitly 2-player game ala Twilight Struggle.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 01:21

Randarkman: Jul 18, 2011

Panzeh posted:

The problem with a Paradox Cold War game is the way it treats countries as fundamentally much more equal than they were.

You could make a really good cold war game if you were willing to make a very explicitly 2-player game ala Twilight Struggle.

You could maybe maybe do a compromise version of this by making certain actions and mechanics solely available to superpower countries, of which there should be only 2, somewhat in the same way that great powers in Victoria can do more stuff than other countries (adding countries to their sphere of interest, intervening in crises).

# ? Mar 14, 2016 02:02

The Cheshire Cat: Jun 10, 2008; Fun Shoe

Randarkman posted:

You could maybe maybe do a compromise version of this by making certain actions and mechanics solely available to superpower countries, of which there should be only 2, somewhat in the same way that great powers in Victoria can do more stuff than other countries (adding countries to their sphere of interest, intervening in crises).

Another reason why I think some future potential Victoria sequel should extend through WW2 into the Cold War rather than ending in the 1930's. The Cold War was basically just imperialism taking on a new form and Victoria's focus on politics and economics would be a natural fit.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 02:11

Communist Zombie: Nov 1, 2011

Randarkman posted:

You could maybe maybe do a compromise version of this by making certain actions and mechanics solely available to superpower countries, of which there should be only 2, somewhat in the same way that great powers in Victoria can do more stuff than other countries (adding countries to their sphere of interest, intervening in crises).

Superpowers shouldn't inherently be limited to two countries, just for modding/alt hist possibilities. Such as stalemated WW2 turned cold war, where germany, japan, russia, usa, (and britain?) are considered superpowers.
And I think that existing superpowers should try to prevent another one from rising up- and that there should be a clear and high threshold/proportion for becoming one so that you wont have countries dipping in and out of superpower status constantly like in vicky with great powers. A country losing or gaining superpower status should be a rare major event in a game, outside one completely crushing another.

Communist Zombie fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Mar 14, 2016

# ? Mar 14, 2016 02:21

BillBear: Mar 13, 2013; Ask me about running my country straight into the ground every time I play EU4 multiplayer.

I think you'll need the ability to play opposing political parties and guerrilla forces with a proper guerrilla warfare system.

God drat such a game would own.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 02:36

DStecks: Feb 6, 2012

BillBear posted:

I think you'll need the ability to play opposing political parties

I have always wanted to play Walter Mondale Simulator, yes

# ? Mar 14, 2016 02:52

Vivian Darkbloom: Jul 14, 2004

I mean you could sort of play as a shadow cabinet, making theoretical policies that won't get enacted? I'm not sure how that's a game, unfortunately.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 05:31

WhiskeyWhiskers: Oct 14, 2013

Vivian Darkbloom posted:

I mean you could sort of play as a shadow cabinet, making theoretical policies that won't get enacted? I'm not sure how that's a game, unfortunately.

Or the far more effective strategy of never coming up with alternate policy.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 06:15

Horsebanger: Jun 25, 2009; Steering wheel! Hey! Steering wheel! Someone tell him to give it to me!

I once had a brainwave about a Crusader Kings 2 character-esque game involving spy agencies for the Cold War.

The "world" kind of plays on its own with AI. Each human player (and I guess AI players) takes on the role of the head of a spy agency. The players subtlety impact the world around them with their actions rather than "control" the country.

It would have a kind of inheritance system like in CK as well (ie, politburo for the Soviets, Congress for USA).

I thought it would work well with traits, for example an enemy spy who is a drunk could unintentionally spill out secrets and thus his spymaster would either have him somewhere he couldn't do damage or have him killed, where as the seducer trait was pretty amazing to create James Bond-esque scenarios.

Was just a thought I had one day, as I started to think about it more and more I realized how hard game design is and gave up :P

Twilight Struggle is an amazing game though, I try to play a game of it every fortnight.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 06:20

Sindai: Jan 24, 2007; i want to achieve immortality through not dying

That made me think of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic:_The_Revolution

I never played it but I remember the previews promising the world.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 06:26

Pakled: Aug 6, 2011; WE ARE SMART

Shadow President is a fun old game. I once had a game where the USSR and China nuked each other to death.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 06:33

Bel Monte: Oct 9, 2012

Demiurge4 posted:

I think a Cold War game where you play as the CIA or the KGB would be a fun take on the genre. You're not gonna go to war anyway because that means nuclear annihilation so just go full proxy with the intelligence services.

So, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cCLJieV9IY the game.

I'd play it.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 07:27

Tahirovic: Feb 25, 2009; Fun Shoe

You all missed the point where cold war mechanics actually apply to the ESC.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 08:47

Enjoy: Apr 18, 2009

Sindai posted:

That made me think of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic:_The_Revolution

I never played it but I remember the previews promising the world.

It wasn't very good.

I don't think they planned out the target audience very well, it was basically the Sims in a post-Communist setting

There were no ideological components, it was purely about the party politics and winning elections, and the violence was very cartoony. The worst you could do was intimidate people by beating them up, and there was no possibility of insurrection even though the government had tanks and soldiers marching around (they just beat people up too)

Enjoy fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Mar 14, 2016

# ? Mar 14, 2016 09:52

Star: Jul 15, 2005; Guerilla war struggle is a new entertainment.; Fallen Rib

Enjoy posted:

It wasn't very good.

I don't think they planned out the target audience very well, it was basically the Sims in a post-Communist setting

There were no ideological components, it was purely about the party politics and winning elections, and the violence was very cartoony. The worst you could do was intimidate people by beating them up, and there was no possibility of insurrection even though the government had tanks and soldiers marching around (they just beat people up too)

If I remember correctly I thought it was quite okey though a bit shallow (and not at all up to the massive hype). Kinda like a friendlier, somewhat easier Gangsters. And on a related note, I wanted to see who made Republic and happened to note that the guy who founded the company now works with the AI that beat the Go champion. Worlds collide.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 10:44

Kersch: Aug 22, 2004; I like this internet

Is there a schedule for when the PDS news is coming out during GDC week?

# ? Mar 14, 2016 13:10

Tendronai: May 7, 2008; My worst nightmare. It's a dream I have. I'm in a square cell, glass walls, just me and a little castle.

http://www.pcgamer.com/watch-the-stellaris-pc-gamer-weekender-presentation/

40 minute presentation of a 'near complete build' of Stellaris just went up.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 17:41

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Tendronai posted:

http://www.pcgamer.com/watch-the-stellaris-pc-gamer-weekender-presentation/

40 minute presentation of a 'near complete build' of Stellaris just went up.

WHY WHEN I'm AT WORK WHYY.

Oh wait I am trying to not be hype for the game because there are a few things about it that I dont think I'll like aaaaaag I'm torn.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 17:44

Sulphagnist: Oct 10, 2006; WARNING! INTRUDERS DETECTED

What is this "near complete" nonsense without a release date. :colbert:

# ? Mar 14, 2016 17:52

Ham Sandwiches: Jul 7, 2000

Antti posted:

What is this "near complete" nonsense without a release date.

People have pointed out that Stellaris will be out by April / May for a while, others pretend like it's still unclear.

Pencil it in for May according to the Steam release sorting.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 17:54

Empress Theonora: Feb 19, 2001; She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.

But if Stellaris comes out before HoI IV all my LP plans are in tatters!!! Tatters, I say!!!

# ? Mar 14, 2016 17:56

Sulphagnist: Oct 10, 2006; WARNING! INTRUDERS DETECTED

Rakthar posted:

People have pointed out that Stellaris will be out by April / May for a while, others pretend like it's still unclear.

Pencil it in for May according to the Steam release sorting.

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

# ? Mar 14, 2016 18:00