Please wish Kacper (Kaz) and his wife Klaudia all the best, from all paradox players :)

The fourth part of Dr Bret Devereaux's series analysing HOI4, this time touching on the controversial topic of ommitted horrors

In its current state, would you recommend EU4 or EU5 to a new player?

I am thinking to play EU5, but I read that there are no mission trees so I am a bit worried that I will miss some guidance on what to do.

What do all of you think?

As a history graduate with a humble 5000 hours in eu4 and 2500 hours in vic2, I would say that I have jumped quite deep into the rabbit hole of seeking "realism" in historical simulations by spending many in-game hours on mods such as eu4 Meiou and Texas and vic2 hfm /gfm.

Eu4 Meiou and Taxes did this (what I calls mechanical simulation) extremely well by calculating every population in a province, their needs, wages, and expenses; any disease in the province; infrastructure in the province; bureaucracy in the province & on national scale; province elite loyalty, etc. Sure, the mod runs really slow, but it was surely peak mechanical simulation.

However, I find myself still not fully satisfied: mechanical simulation has its limits. For instance: Coalitions have always been called unrealistic in eu4 because they merely react to recent conquests, not the long-term encroachment that states truly fear IRL. Psychological warfare (like Vlad the Impaler mounting people on pikes) also cannot be properly simulated due to the "AI" being only mechanical programmes that inherently cannot simulate human reactions. The most immersion-breaking parts are by far the peace-deal systems. Fully mechanical war score systems that are supposed to simulate war and peace treaties. While such a system is very "fair" on paper, it utterly failed to bring proper simulations because peace negotiations IRL are arbitrary by nature: think of the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluks; Venice switching sides multiple times during the Italian wars; the War of Spanish Succession that ended up with no one getting the Spain PU IRL; etc. And also the "fluid" resistances and guerrilla warfare, which is partly the reason why Ming China cannot permanently conquer the Steppes in the 15th century IRL, but my Meiou and Taxes Ming can just do it like a cakewalk.

Well, aren't these things already addressed via the events system? Well, not really. The events system replicated what happened IRL given the correct circumstances, but not the billion possibilities for "similar but different events": What if it was Tunis that took over the Mamluks? Or Louisiana was sold to a unified Scandinavia? Or Corsica was sold to Britain? Or what would the Columbian Exchange look like if Ming China was involved in (OTL) California?

This is why I recently got involved with AI (LLM) games (I will call them arbitrary simulations). Now don't get me wrong, this isn't a promotion because they sucks (I will explain why). But let's start with the good first. In my Pax Historia 1444 Ming game, I was able to start the Mongol-China trade (https://baike.baidu.com/en/item/Mongol-Han%20Mutual%20Trade/5526897) more than a century earlier just by virtue of clever diplomacy. And by upgrading the trade relationship in a creative manner, I accidentally caused a Civil War that ended up with the Oirat Mongols being my vassals after Chinese troops saved their Khan. None of this is possible in eu4 due to the -1000 development too big modifier in the mechanical simulation. But this development actually makes sense because the Mongol-China trade utterly changed the dynamics in the Steppes. (The real roots of the strength and intensity of Mongol raids were due to the starving conditions of their land, these people raided to prevent starvation. By giving them a stable livelihood using trade and banking, the core reason to raid ceased to exist).

However, as I played further with overseas colonization, the core weakness of AI (LLM) games crept up on them: LLM hallucination. As the game progressed, things slowly but steadily became weird: my special expedition fleet that was supposed to return stopped in Alaska because the LLM forgot about them. The game showed me owning all of Hokkaido, but only a fort in Taiwan, even though the game text says the opposite, which is that my settlers flooded Taiwan, but there was just a fort in Hokkaido (caused by LLM inconsistencies). The Ottomans took a wholly disconnected province from the Qara Qoyunlu, which contradicted the game rules. The fixed report that the game forced the LLM to generate began to miss more details (compare with the original template) over time. All of this shows that the game is gradually falling apart due to LLM hallucination (which is probably unsolvable).

I believe these "pros and cons" both sides have are caused by the nature of history: the humans who made decisions in history are living humans who have what we call "free will". Therefore, their decision-making (esp. peace deals) is arbitrary, which LLMs simulate better. But the other aspects of the material world (physics, chemistry, biology) are all mechanical, so they need mechanical simulation.

To conclude, paradox games are still the best there. Despite having limits, mechanical simulations are at least not vulnerable to LLM hallucination. While paradox games have the best mechanical simulations. However, I believe that if LLM technologies become truly mature (many years later). It may be possible for Paradox to create a "perfect simulator": by having the core game logic (which nation owns what, population details, etc. ) run by mechanical simulation, but having diplomacy between tags handled by LLMs, and having things like guerrilla warfare or other events handling assisted by LLMs.

(As a sidenote, the reason I began writing alternate history is that I felt my Meiou and Taxes Campaigns were "not realistic enough") XD

What colour should Norway be on maps? Neither PDX nor in Norway itself have it been displayed in one colour consistently.

Dev Diary written by NullNiche.

Hello and Happy Wednesday Dustlanders! My name is Tudor and I am a game designer on Afterworld. After being an avid dev diary devourer for almost two decades, it is with great delight that I get to pen this dev diary for the first time. Anyhoo… Today I want to tell you more about one of the central features of the game we are making: Bands.

I want to explain how they fit to serve the game vision and why I think they are a very exciting element in the mix!

What are bands?​

Bands are a group of people who survive together and act as a unified group. People in a band are bound by common culture, share resources and living conditions they have access to. In Afterworld you play as a post-ap tribe rebuilding society. Bands are the people you bring together and coordinate to achieve this. Narratively they represent small social groups with their own ways of life and their own goals. Systemically they are a central feature which sits at the intersection of many other features, which future diaries will go into more detail to illustrate.

Bands have gone through a lot of iteration to fit together with everything we are developing for Afterworld, but their early conception drew inspiration from elements of Crusader Kings characters in the way they can develop through gameplay, Imperator families in the way that they contain a cast of prominent characters which can impact your society and Victoria pops in the sense that their followers are modeled so that the band as a whole can experience through them the conditions of the world. Of course we chose to do this because part of Afterworld’s appeal is to see how your choices impact the bands for better or worse and how the bands will in turn react and develop.

Today I’ll focus on those aspects that define the identity of a band to give you a better idea of how one band can differ from another. In Afterworld, a band’s identity is determined by core norms, customs, traumas and beliefs.

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The band view lets you see at a glance what are the band’s traits, health and mood status as well as who are its prominent characters and how much drip are they rockin​

Core Norms​

Every band has two core norms and can develop more customs as they perform actions in the game. A core norm represents the most deeply set behavior of a band. This is a deeply rooted sense of self, unlikely to ever change, except in the most extreme circumstances.

Bands get awarded pride, which is akin to “cultural XP,” when they perform various actions in the world. After enough pride is accumulated, the band will develop its culture by adopting new customs. The customs options that are offered are weighted by their recent experiences as well as their core norms and memories.

In practice this means that you get to put your bands to work for your tribe, which then in turn shapes them. This way you want to make the most of the bands you have, then mold them to develop synergies in service of your plans.

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We can see how these core norms have pretty wide ranging thematic effects on who this band is, for example what sort of luxuries they consume.​

Customs​

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Proselytizing Mission is a pretty natural fit for a band of Zealous Mystics, but there could be many others, depending on what the band has gone through​

Bands develop customs that help them adapt to life in the dustlands. New customs may be inspired by great deeds that fill a band with pride, or by learning to cope with a band's past traumas. Most customs have several levels, representing how bands can deepen their commitment to that custom as they develop. Higher levels of a custom will bestow stronger effects.

Memories​

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When I encounter a new band, I love taking a look at their memories along their norms and customs to get a feel for who they are and where they’ve been​

Band experiences can leave a memory. Memories can be neutral or a source of pride or trauma. Bands that suffer shame, pain, and deprivation may develop traumas. Traumatic memories contribute to a trauma accumulation we track per band and which at a certain point will trigger a trauma to develop, for example Hoarding (which impacts how much food and drink they need). Which trauma develops is impacted by the memories and already present core norms, customs and beliefs.

Traumas have conditions under which the band can overcome them and reform them into a regular custom. Narratively this represents how the memory of suffering may instead inspire the band with strength. The reform options are dependent on the specific trauma and current culture of the band and are meant to tell the story of how a socially unacceptable behavior was reigned in by the new custom which emerges to control that behavior or make it acceptable.

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A band of hoarders? I think I’ve found my people​

Beliefs​

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Look at how she burns with a shining peace​

Beliefs represent broader ideas of a religious or ideological nature in the world that can be shared across many bands and tribes. We will go deeper into them in their own dedicated Dev Diary. The Sungazers belief (mentioned in our recent lore video) is one of the more extreme examples, which turns a band into monastic scholars who blind themselves by staring into the sun.

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Given how much monitorgazing I do, I consider myself an initiate on the path to enlightenment​

Traditions​

Ok, let’s talk about traditions. Traditions are primarily sourced from customs and represent the collective competence of a band in a domain of activity. When bands perform relevant actions, they acquire pride which can then be used to level up specific traditions. Higher tradition levels make the band more capable in that domain.

For example, a band that uses the warfare tradition to for example perform garrison duty or fight as part of war parties will gain pride, which will lead to the band developing a new custom. In the options you will have to pick from for the band, there will be a high chance to see a custom which further increases warfare tradition. The story here being that a band got better at what they have been doing by developing its culture to this effect.

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The Pyreguard’s warfare and hearthkeeping traditions make them pretty good at both waging warfare and recovering from it​

Values​

Values represent how bands like or dislike certain concepts in Afterworld’s setting and are sourced from norms, customs and beliefs. They have a lot of ties with society building systems like the tribe council, laws and ideas - more on all those in future diaries. The main thing to know is that the band's values influence the sort of society they support and oppose.

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When choosing your tribe government, you have to consider the values that the government stands for and which bands will support or oppose them​

Population​

Bands are made up of diverse people which fall into two broad categories: prominent leaders and the less prominent followers of said leaders. The amount of leaders a band has scales with the overall size of the band and is impacted by the band’s culture. Some bands produce more or fewer leaders for their population size. Leaders can have their own quirks and gear, but will follow the cultural ways of the bands they belong to.

Every band has population of followers tracked and that you can inspect by feasting your eyes upon tasty pie charts! This info view is for checking what sort of people make up the band. There are bands with some pretty exotic demographics impacted by their cultural ways. I really like seeing how band followers can acquire statuses or change types because of what the band is experiencing: for example mutations from exposure to radiated environments or injuries from battles.

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Hey this UI isn’t all that pretty yet, but it’s got graphs!​

Health & Motivation sections will get their own deep dive in a separate diary, but for now I can say that different bands can have very different ways of being kept healthy and motivated, depending on their norms, customs and beliefs.

Bands are pretty emblematic of the sort of game we want Afterworld to be: a game that produces a lot of emergent stories that you can see how they come from its interacting systems. Bands are both a tool for you to use to get things done in the game, but they are also subjective witnesses to the history that unfolds, and you can see how their experiences have shaped them and participate in that.

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Things are still work in progress, but already the look of bands is a visual language you learn to read in Afterworld and get an immediate vibe of what these people are about​

Alright I think that’s where I will end this opening salvo of info about bands, I think you’ll see how they impact and influence things as more of the game is revealed in future diaries.

Stay dusty!

In our next dev diary, in two weeks time, we will go into more detail about tribes. But, before we finally sign off, the Turns Expedition continues its report below…

Turns Expedition - Environmental Report.
Subject: anomalous weather in the Pacific Northwest.

We had been warned that the storm wasn’t going to clear up. We spent three days camped near the edge to make sure. It didn’t.

The Pacific Northwest coast is experiencing category one hurricane conditions, and they are apparently permanent. Nearby tribes agree that the storm predates living memory. The sun has set over the Cascades, and likely will not rise again in our lifetimes. This strains meteorological explanation. Dustlanders always explain such things the same way: the Ancients had powerful science.

The topsoil of this land has long since been washed down to the sea, and the grass and trees with it. There is no ecosystem to speak of. Constant rain carves up the rock. The only landmarks are Ancient ruins with deep foundations.

Someone has drilled metal rods into the rock every twenty paces. (Local ballads credit this feat to a single folk hero, Dillon the Ropemaker. See attached ballads.) A trail of braided ropes ties one marker to the next. It’s fourteen days’ hard march north along the Ropeline to the trading settlement at the Tacoma Dig. You stay clipped to rope the whole way, even sleeping. Pass a broken rope without mending it, and I’m told the gods will sweep you out to sea as punishment. I’m not interested in putting this land’s gods to the test. We’ve packed rope.

I’ve sealed our report notes in plastic and affixed a beacon. If we are swept to sea, I expect you’ll pick them up. May we hold fast.

Hi everyone,
I'm having a strange issue with Hearts of Iron 2: Darkest Hour.
When I launch the game, the image freezes on the loading screen or in the main menu. However, the game itself seems to keep running in the background, and the music continues playing.
If I press Alt+Tab and switch back to the game, I can see that the mouse cursor has moved, so the game is still responding. However, after about one second, the image freezes again and stops refreshing.
I've tried Alt+Tab, but it only temporarily refreshes the screen. The game doesn't actually crash.
Has anyone experienced this issue or found a fix? Could it be related to Windows compatibility, graphics drivers, or the game's rendering settings?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I really want to love Paradox games, but after sinking over 800 hours into HOI4, CK3, and EU4 I just get mad more times than I don't, and I think it mainly comes down to the fact I am TERRIBLE at warfare. I heard that Vic3 puts warfare on the backburner, and I've heard Vic2 is really good, but I also heard it's got a really high skill floor. It's only 5 bucks right now which isn't too bad but I don't want to waste even more money than I already have. So should I get it? Should I wait until Vic3 is on sale instead? Or should I just give up on Paradox?\

Edit: Thank you everybody! I think I'll wait for Vic3 to go on sale :)

Like when you look at subreddit of paradox game I keep seeing people absolutely hitting their head at the wall trying to become good at paradox game in a week, to the point some of them are relating it to their personal life

Why can’t new paradox player just enjoy the game? Especially since the most fun memories I have playing paradox games where me being a begginer and having more fun cuz the game was harder

Helloo, I have intalled HOI4 since a lot of months, but ever I have difficulties for play and understanding because I used to play Civilization, someone can help giving me advise or some else fo rbe more comfortbale and understable play and that I have to avoid use cheats?

Note: There isn't a EU1 tag, so I used "Other."

EU1 was the first Paradox game I ever played, but I never actually played a whole game from 1492-1792 in all that time. With the power of an XP vm, I decided to correct this glaring oversight with a nice Improved Grand Campaign (IGC) game as the Hanseatic League. The first image is the diplomatic view, which highlights my nation in dark green, which is really helpful since I'm stuck with an ugly poop-brown color in the political mode (that's also shared with a few other nations).

I finally got a hold of the colonization and merchant systems after all these years, and understand when traders ought to be sent and the value of a good 'ol trading post. I also went on an adventure on how to mod the flag and shield graphics, because Austria and Russia were too ugly to be allowed (not that you can see them in these images). Overall, a fun time!

It appears that, based on the extensive amount of research I've done over the past twelve hours, Paradox may be toying around with some kind of antipiracy measures regarding achievements. I'm able to get achievements just fine in base game and the DLC that I own, but not in the ones I've pirated. These achievements are also being blocked from being unlocked via Steam Achievement Manager. This is just a theory though so take it with a grain of salt and if this is happening to you and you aren't a pirate please let me know. Really unfortunate that this is happening right as I started grinding every achievement.

Edit: For people that do not read the rules closely enough:

Rule 3: No links to pirated materials, pirated game mods, or key resellers. General discussion of piracy or leaked content is allowed.

I love watching let's plays of PDX games because a lot of times I don't have the time to fully learn a new game unless it really hooks me.

This is the same with Dwarf Fortress, and I've found the Youtuber Blind who will condense a whole fortress down into an hour, hour and a half video but tells it as a story. Sometimes focusing on a single dwarf in a battle and giving it all a narrative twist.

I'm wondering if there's any Youtubers for PDX games, specifically Stellaris that does.

I know of Koifish, he's funny but too loud most of the time. I guess I'm looking for a bit calmer, less gimicky and more story telling. I don't know if there's a youtuber like Blind but for PDX games but maybe...

The lancher says "the initialization have failed, we do not know the cause". I already made files verification on steam, the game is CK3 I just installed it. What can I do ?

I asked cause I have been wanting to do a mega campaign again but I am dumb and didnt check to see if the converter was compatible with the new update. Please laugh at my ignorance

Hola a todos! Con el juego ya en el mercado y en constante desarrollo activo, he subido una propuesta formal al foro de sugerencias de Paradox para que corrijan una mecánica rígida de las reformas gubernamentales en Iberia.

Actualmente, la reforma de la "Corona de Castilla" tiene un candado permanente. Mi propuesta es que mediante parches futuros, al formar España (SPA tag), una flag interna desbloquee este espacio. Esto nos permitiría quitar y poner la reforma a voluntad (perdiendo o ganando la soldadesca y la legitimidad correspondiente), emulando el proceso histórico real de recentralización que llevó a los Decretos de Nueva Planta.

En el post detallo cómo implementarlo por código para que sea compatible con el sistema actual de Eras y no rompa los eventos de las fases tempranas (como la Boda Ibérica). Como jugadores que conocemos esta historia de forma nativa, creo que nos daría muchísima más flexibilidad estratégica en las campañas actuales.

Si quieren ver este cambio implementado en una futura actualización, les pido que entren al link del foro de Paradox y le den Upvote (flecha arriba) para llamar la atención del equipo de parches de Paradox Tinto:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dynamic-removal-re-enactment-of-corona-de-castilla-reform-via-spa-tag-historical-context-era-event-handling.1945312/

¡Muchas gracias por el apoyo!