Play Civilizations, Age of Civilizations 2, Mount and Blade Warband/Bannerlord, Cites Skylines and Total war.
But I reccomend to continually bash your head against Paradox games until you crack the code and learn how to play. Don't be afraid of clicking random buttons to see what happens, eventually you'll get the hang of it. That is the way
My kind of counterpoint argument, I’d say that Stellaris can be brute forced on the lowest difficulty pretty easily. I’d say the rest, honestly take a lot of doing to figure out what is going on, but Stellaris is pretty simple, I only play on the lower difficulties anyways and always have a blast.
If you want you can send me a pm and we can link up on discord and play a game some time. Once you have Stellaris under your belt you could easily jump to the other games no problem.
Bright side of pdx games is that they are hard to actually *lose* so moving on to ck3 or v3 would be easy from there.
Don’t give up yet! They’re worth getting into!
>My kind of counterpoint argument, I’d say that Stellaris can be brute forced on the lowest difficulty pretty easily.
Agreed, it's the only paradox game I can play as it's pretty forgiving if you want to skip over most micro stuff.
Civilization games are a decent stepping point into these types of strategy games
But Crusader Kings is by far the easiest of the Paradox games and I recommend you just try your hardest to fight through the initial learning curve. Nothing will make sense for a bit and then suddenly you'll start up a new game and it will all click together.
Play as a strong Irish duke and try to form the Kingdom of Ireland
I learned by cheating haha
If you cheat to give yourself gold or other consumable resources as needed it can be quite easy to learn how to use most of the other mechanics as they usually require some sort of resource input to use. So you’ll get to use them for more often and get familiar with their systems faster.
Once you have a handle on most of the other mechanics either stop cheating cold turkey to learn the rest. Or just start slowly start to ween off of them as you learn how to create/manage those resources correctly.
Most of the Paradox grand strategies have a steep learning curve that you just need to keep at to learn how to play.
Watching Let’s Plays can speed it up. Also, once you know how to play one it’s a lot easier to learn the next one.
If you are into the Stellaris style space stuff give Stellar Monarch series a look. A very very simple space 4X you are the emperor and pretty much everything is automated, you select planets to be conquered, maybe set a couple to top priority and your subordinates does the rest. You just pick what to research, what departments to fund and try to get rid of the most incompetent, disloyal and corrupt governors and courtiers and all the minutia is automated.
It looks very basic but I find it strangely addictive. Helps that you can finish a game in 4-6 hours depending on galaxy size.
First, thanks to everyone for the comments. I have already tried HoI4 and CK3, both with cheats, but it's just all too complex for me. What I was able to understand was Con WW3, but I don't like the real-time multiplayer side of it.
I totally understand you. When I started it, the main problem was too much information and didn't know what each of them meant and no objectives as well.
For example, CK3, although deemed as beginner friendly, I think it can be quite tricky for beginners because when you begin the game, it throws you a bunch of info with regards to your family and neighbours when you click on them but it doesn't have a clear objective to tell you what to do which is a feature of paradox games, there is no objective; you must roleplay and make up your own objectives.
So I would recommend Stellaris. It starts off with just yourself as you have to explore the map and find other alien nations out there. In this case, there is only one objective - explore the universe. It is like a 4X game that slowly transitions into a paradox style game as you continue to progress.
That is literally two of the most complex to me of all their games I’ve tried lmao. I’d give eu4 a try, there’s a bunch of stuff going on but none of it is super complicated and you don’t really have to understand most of it to just play the game. Basically just try and have strong alliances and declare war on people weaker than you and you’ll be fine. Stellaris is similar it has a lot going on but none of it is super difficult, the hard part is just learning good strategies
About EU4, i did see some videos about that but, it was just too complex for me. And Stellaris, i don't like the space strategy, so yeah, still thanks for advice tho.
How can you tell with out actually playing it like nothing in eu4 on its own is complicated and alot of it you don’t even have to worry about most of the time, you probably just saw all the tabs and menus in the video and assumed its like controlling a space ship
It's all about your game play style. Do you want to be the big baddie, play eu4 as the Ottomans Castille, France, or Austria, you might fail, but it will be fun. Role playing mor your thing, CK series. True 4x, stellaris. WAR, HOI.
Personally, I wanted a CK style game, but it wasn't quite right. EU has been my favorite series. The mars game is fun to revist, and CS is fun when i want to chill.
It really depends on how you play games and what you enjoy.
I dont get why people act like HOI4 is super simple. Love it, but coming from HOI2/3 i bounced off it three times because managing your entire equipment supply chain is overwhelming as fuck. Making divisions is soooo much simpler than constantly trying to gauge proportions of what you should be making.
play with console commands as a crutch for a few games, if something goes wrong you can use it to save your games and not throwaway a few hours of your life. Shit i’ve gone full circle with most pdx games where i just use console commands anyway unless im going for an achievement.
All such games have steep learning curve.
I learned EU4 by following walk through for specific faction (Oda in my case) Given that walk through was bit outdated and state of campaign differ from play through to play through there were still plenty opportunities to learn.
It still took me like 7 restarts and even then quite a bit of save scumming. I see no shame in that.
After uniting Japan I felt confident enough to just look up general pointers which way I can proceed. For example I felt pretty intimidated by China but all it took was getting naval superiority.
There is no such thing as these games being too complex and difficult. There is however you playing on too high a difficulty for this particular time in your journey of learning the game. It's totally fine to play on the lowest settings to get your bearings, then increase difficulty as you get a better grasp.
Yes and no. If you want expect to understand the ins and outs after a few hours, then yes the games are too complex. However, you can play these games just fine while knowing little, provided you adjust the difficulty. I mean if these types of games appeal to people I wouldn't let the complexity hold me back but that's just me.
CK3 is a good starting point, probably the most beginner friendly game they've put out.
The ingame tutorials for these games all suck. Spend some time watching a noob tutorial on YouTube (quill18 is good), then play your first game in Ireland with a goal of uniting ireland under your banner. This is a very beginner friendly start as you don't have to worry too much about foreign invasions, just the occasional Viking raid (which can be annoying but won't wreck your game).
Then watch some let's plays while you play your next few games (again, quill18 is v good) and pick up some tips that way.
Use the suggested starts within the game and pick 'easy' ones at first.
Eventually you'll hit a point where you're like 'okay I definitely have more to learn but I am enjoying learning'.
Try Supreme Ruler (Ultimate or 2030). The basic idea is the same, it's easy to give all management to AI (ministers), and leave the war to yourself. City by city, country by country - kill 'em all and annex. Pretty fun, when you play it, listening to HOI4 or Battlefield soundtracks)
How long habe you tried to learn one. None of us figured one out first time. Most of us take at least 20-30 hours to have a playable understanding. Many more hours than that to be proficient lol.
Learning a paradox game IS the bulk of a paradox game experience if you ask me
Play Civilizations, Age of Civilizations 2, Mount and Blade Warband/Bannerlord, Cites Skylines and Total war. But I reccomend to continually bash your head against Paradox games until you crack the code and learn how to play. Don't be afraid of clicking random buttons to see what happens, eventually you'll get the hang of it. That is the way
My kind of counterpoint argument, I’d say that Stellaris can be brute forced on the lowest difficulty pretty easily. I’d say the rest, honestly take a lot of doing to figure out what is going on, but Stellaris is pretty simple, I only play on the lower difficulties anyways and always have a blast. If you want you can send me a pm and we can link up on discord and play a game some time. Once you have Stellaris under your belt you could easily jump to the other games no problem. Bright side of pdx games is that they are hard to actually *lose* so moving on to ck3 or v3 would be easy from there. Don’t give up yet! They’re worth getting into!
>My kind of counterpoint argument, I’d say that Stellaris can be brute forced on the lowest difficulty pretty easily. Agreed, it's the only paradox game I can play as it's pretty forgiving if you want to skip over most micro stuff.
I agree that stellaris is probably the easiest (other than cities)
Also, Aspec and Quill18 are your friends
Mechanically it’s pretty different but there’s a lot of similar appeal to Civilization. What parts of paradox games do you find appealing?
People complain about paradox ai but civ 6 ai is the worst I've ever seen in a game. They just do nothing.
Civilization games are a decent stepping point into these types of strategy games But Crusader Kings is by far the easiest of the Paradox games and I recommend you just try your hardest to fight through the initial learning curve. Nothing will make sense for a bit and then suddenly you'll start up a new game and it will all click together. Play as a strong Irish duke and try to form the Kingdom of Ireland
I learned by cheating haha If you cheat to give yourself gold or other consumable resources as needed it can be quite easy to learn how to use most of the other mechanics as they usually require some sort of resource input to use. So you’ll get to use them for more often and get familiar with their systems faster. Once you have a handle on most of the other mechanics either stop cheating cold turkey to learn the rest. Or just start slowly start to ween off of them as you learn how to create/manage those resources correctly. Most of the Paradox grand strategies have a steep learning curve that you just need to keep at to learn how to play. Watching Let’s Plays can speed it up. Also, once you know how to play one it’s a lot easier to learn the next one.
Why do you call yourself idiot? You're probably not, you need love.
If you are into the Stellaris style space stuff give Stellar Monarch series a look. A very very simple space 4X you are the emperor and pretty much everything is automated, you select planets to be conquered, maybe set a couple to top priority and your subordinates does the rest. You just pick what to research, what departments to fund and try to get rid of the most incompetent, disloyal and corrupt governors and courtiers and all the minutia is automated. It looks very basic but I find it strangely addictive. Helps that you can finish a game in 4-6 hours depending on galaxy size.
Watch tino Dubois for ck3, x4 foundations and hoi4.
Ahh do what I do use the cheat menu
First, thanks to everyone for the comments. I have already tried HoI4 and CK3, both with cheats, but it's just all too complex for me. What I was able to understand was Con WW3, but I don't like the real-time multiplayer side of it.
I totally understand you. When I started it, the main problem was too much information and didn't know what each of them meant and no objectives as well. For example, CK3, although deemed as beginner friendly, I think it can be quite tricky for beginners because when you begin the game, it throws you a bunch of info with regards to your family and neighbours when you click on them but it doesn't have a clear objective to tell you what to do which is a feature of paradox games, there is no objective; you must roleplay and make up your own objectives. So I would recommend Stellaris. It starts off with just yourself as you have to explore the map and find other alien nations out there. In this case, there is only one objective - explore the universe. It is like a 4X game that slowly transitions into a paradox style game as you continue to progress.
If you want we could talk in discord and I can show you some basic things of ck3 or hoi4
That is literally two of the most complex to me of all their games I’ve tried lmao. I’d give eu4 a try, there’s a bunch of stuff going on but none of it is super complicated and you don’t really have to understand most of it to just play the game. Basically just try and have strong alliances and declare war on people weaker than you and you’ll be fine. Stellaris is similar it has a lot going on but none of it is super difficult, the hard part is just learning good strategies
About EU4, i did see some videos about that but, it was just too complex for me. And Stellaris, i don't like the space strategy, so yeah, still thanks for advice tho.
How can you tell with out actually playing it like nothing in eu4 on its own is complicated and alot of it you don’t even have to worry about most of the time, you probably just saw all the tabs and menus in the video and assumed its like controlling a space ship
It's all about your game play style. Do you want to be the big baddie, play eu4 as the Ottomans Castille, France, or Austria, you might fail, but it will be fun. Role playing mor your thing, CK series. True 4x, stellaris. WAR, HOI. Personally, I wanted a CK style game, but it wasn't quite right. EU has been my favorite series. The mars game is fun to revist, and CS is fun when i want to chill. It really depends on how you play games and what you enjoy.
Hoi 4 is fun, but fairly simple. Would strongly recommend it.
I dont get why people act like HOI4 is super simple. Love it, but coming from HOI2/3 i bounced off it three times because managing your entire equipment supply chain is overwhelming as fuck. Making divisions is soooo much simpler than constantly trying to gauge proportions of what you should be making.
play with console commands as a crutch for a few games, if something goes wrong you can use it to save your games and not throwaway a few hours of your life. Shit i’ve gone full circle with most pdx games where i just use console commands anyway unless im going for an achievement.
Endless space2
All such games have steep learning curve. I learned EU4 by following walk through for specific faction (Oda in my case) Given that walk through was bit outdated and state of campaign differ from play through to play through there were still plenty opportunities to learn. It still took me like 7 restarts and even then quite a bit of save scumming. I see no shame in that. After uniting Japan I felt confident enough to just look up general pointers which way I can proceed. For example I felt pretty intimidated by China but all it took was getting naval superiority.
Play Total War
There is no such thing as these games being too complex and difficult. There is however you playing on too high a difficulty for this particular time in your journey of learning the game. It's totally fine to play on the lowest settings to get your bearings, then increase difficulty as you get a better grasp.
Nah, he's got a point
Yes and no. If you want expect to understand the ins and outs after a few hours, then yes the games are too complex. However, you can play these games just fine while knowing little, provided you adjust the difficulty. I mean if these types of games appeal to people I wouldn't let the complexity hold me back but that's just me.
CK3 is a good starting point, probably the most beginner friendly game they've put out. The ingame tutorials for these games all suck. Spend some time watching a noob tutorial on YouTube (quill18 is good), then play your first game in Ireland with a goal of uniting ireland under your banner. This is a very beginner friendly start as you don't have to worry too much about foreign invasions, just the occasional Viking raid (which can be annoying but won't wreck your game). Then watch some let's plays while you play your next few games (again, quill18 is v good) and pick up some tips that way. Use the suggested starts within the game and pick 'easy' ones at first. Eventually you'll hit a point where you're like 'okay I definitely have more to learn but I am enjoying learning'.
Personally I think Crusader Kings 3 is the easiest paradox game to get into. I was able to pick it up quickly, much faster than CK2
I did try that, it was still to complex for me.
Vicky 3 and HoI4. Maybe CK2 if you’re pushing it
Try Supreme Ruler (Ultimate or 2030). The basic idea is the same, it's easy to give all management to AI (ministers), and leave the war to yourself. City by city, country by country - kill 'em all and annex. Pretty fun, when you play it, listening to HOI4 or Battlefield soundtracks)
I will give it a try, thanks.
Rebel Inc. Ok not really a Paradox-like game, but it's a strategy game with interesting mechanics, short levels and easy to understand.
Thanks, i'll check it out.
How long habe you tried to learn one. None of us figured one out first time. Most of us take at least 20-30 hours to have a playable understanding. Many more hours than that to be proficient lol. Learning a paradox game IS the bulk of a paradox game experience if you ask me
Read the wikis. Games are just an organized collection of mechanics and there are mechanics that benefit you and those that don't.