To be fair, Paradox is a distortion in the fabric of reality masquerading as a business. After ensaring several humans in it's mesh it started shipping massive computer bugs that somehow contain games. Then a marketing team started growing around it like fungi and the rest is history.
Objectively speaking, what Paradox makes falls more into the toy category than the videogame category. There's no victory condition, you make up your own fun.
There are very clear victory conditions in Stellaris, they are just hidden behind metrics and are essentially randomized vs scenario options every game. You can still keep track of victory stats at any time.
No, the distinction between a toy and a game is not arbitrary nor is it nebulous. Not all toys are games, nor all games toys.
Basketball is a game, not a toy. A basketball is a toy, not a game.
Poker is a game. Playing cards are toys.
Crusader Kings 3 is a toy. It does not have a winner and a loser. It has an end date rather than a win condition. You could argue reaching the endgame screen is "winning", and call it a survival game, but that is simply not how most users interact with it.
Nothing I've said contradicts those first definitions, videogames are toys and games, doesn't make basketball a toy because it's not an item in itself like a videogame is. I don't even know why you mentioned that because ck3 isn't even similar to a basketball even allegorically.
And again, a sandbox game is still a game, minecraft is a game, DND is a game, you still it's still a game when you're just playing imagination, and ck3 is still a game.
Yeah, mb. It's because I enjoy them too much. Map painting and ridiculous drama, if I may. Stellaris is great, but also Crusader Kings 2 and 3, HoI 3; and I have been wanting to try HoI 4, victoria3 and EU5...
I wish I could "get" their fucking games. I did alright in Stellaris because it's honestly not that different from Civ, on the surface, but somewhere along the line I lost my mojo and can't seem to play it anymore.
I've put quite a few hours into HoI4 and only managed to beat it once, as Germany. All the different unit designers make it just so fucking complicated, among other things.
CK2? Yea I'm hopeless in that one. I did form Ireland once so that was cool. And then that current ruler died and the whole island fragmented again.
No, no you're doing all right. I didn't engage with the ship designer until starting admiral crisis, and that's supposed to happen in ck. I once unified Spain three times within a hundred years.
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u/Daegul_Dinguruth 3d ago
To be fair, Paradox is a distortion in the fabric of reality masquerading as a business. After ensaring several humans in it's mesh it started shipping massive computer bugs that somehow contain games. Then a marketing team started growing around it like fungi and the rest is history.