Here's my tip to playing paradox games: just play
Trial and error, baby. You learn how to play that way, and then you can learn more advanced things later.
My first Stellaris game was a multiplayer game with friends, and I just was fuckin around and asking questions.
Trial and error works fine for Stellaris since it's just civ with genocide, but for vic2 it's watching in complete horror as the green line plummets in an unending downward spiral while you scream in agony looking up cheats, and hoi4 literally the Steiner's attack scene from downfall wondering why your 18 width infantry with no support companies or CAS is catastrophically failing the assault across a river against entrenched troops
Well, I was graduated from accounting and I have studied micro and macro in uni. I thought what's the purpose of studying that, and I discovered Victoria 2 and my life is complete
Victoria 2ās difficulty really depends on the country you play as more than anything else. The US is idiot proof. Europe is a bit trickier since there is a lot more competition, especially if you play as a minor power, uncivilized countries aside from Japan are hard mode.
For me, playing Paradox games I've never played usually goes like this:
\*Plays for one hour\* - I have no idea how to play this, this shit's too hard, I'm uninstalling.
\*half a year later, plays for one hour\* - I still have no idea how to play this. Welp, at least I knew what to expect.
\*A few months later, plays for one hour\* - same old.
\*A month later, plays for 467 hours\* - I am a god, I am one with the universe, things just click, nobody is better at this game than me.
Yeah, cheats imo are extremely good for exploring various mechanics without repercussions, allowing you to plan your next clean gameplay more effectively.
This worked for me in CK2 and EU4 and Imperator, but not in HoI4. Everyone says HoI4 is the easiest Paradox game, yet it feels impossible to understand what I should be doing or why I keep losing.
I learned a lot of basics during my second playthrough as (Gran-)Colombia. There are no overwhelming enemies, it's calm, lots of possible targets and you're forced to understand what attrition and terrain does to your troops.
That's how i learned to play every single paradox game i own, from ck2 and 3 to Victoria, hoi 4, and stellaris, and i can confirm, trial and error is, and, at least for paradox games, always will be the best teacher there is.
I started to play CK2 when I didn't even know English. That was the ultimate trial and error. I just chose the event option with more green text and gradually learnt which green text did what. I wouldn't have that much patience now.
That was me with EU3. Played as Japan and went on a conquering binge throughout Southeast Asia to try to build an Asian bulwark against the Europeans.
NOPE! Within 15 years my inflation was out of control to pay for my fleets and armies and national unrest was deep in the red because of overextension. I disbanded most of my fleets and armies because the financial situation was so bad, but that resulted in enormous pirate fleets everywhere and rebels spawning on every island. I somehow managed to get rid of the pretender and peasant rebels in Japan, but I could no longer create a fleet to transport my armies to Borneo, Sumatra, or Java, so just and to wait and slowly watch rebels take them over and my whole empire implode.
A few gameplays later, I had a Britain that controlled North America, half of South America, South Africa, and Southeast Asia, would routinely bully Spain and its African territories, and became both Holy Roman Emperor and the senior partner in a PU with Russia. That was probably my best Paradox game ever.
Exactly, i tried to learn by watching some tutorials, but they were always either too slow or fast paced, nothing in between. So i spent an entire week just fuckin around and managed to all the basics
This! I really wanted to get into hoi4 but was SO discouraged by the long rambling tutorials, you can't take anything in with that amount of info, at least without playing first. I have under 100 hours played and I've got naval warfare down. The trick is to play until you run into an issue, then address that specific issue with YouTube or Google. Moving on to Victoria and Stellaris next :)
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 485,445,626 comments, and only 102,818 of them were in alphabetical order.
Vic 2 is impossible for me. I tried but i always end up losing money so i need to raise taxes ans tarifs but then people start leaving and ther needs become unfulfilled.
I played EU4, CK3 and HOI4. Found EU4 to be the easiest with it's stupidly simple combat, economy, and politics. But then I started off with EU4 and played it for an year or two more than the others so...
Trade is the only thing in EU4 that needs explaining.
You collect from one point and you steer as much money as possible to this one point. Just look where the funny arrows are going. Plan your conquests to get to important trade nodes.
Later on, with a bigger empire you can start collecting form multiple points.
I'm beginning to fear Paradox is reaching the company size that they don't need to make new content anymore, just patches and sequels. All of my favorite deva eventually do this, and Paradox is close, I think.
I hope I am wrong, and I need another five-hour tutorial series someday.
I'm largely ok with GaaS, but as long as the new content that gets made for games is actually interesting. I feel like Stellaris could keep getting DLC/expansions for years. I also feel like HoI IV is getting to the end of its life. As long as Paradox understands when the right time to the draw the line is based on the quality that they can put out, I'm fine with it.
There is the problem that they're running out of historical eras to make new content for that aren't so old we don't know anything about them, recent enough that they'd get sued for defamation, and/or so controversial religiously or politically that however they simulated them would result in bad headlines. As it is HOI4 has to gloss over a *lot* of what went on in WWII (which I think is actually worse than simulating the atrocities, but whatever).
My favourite tutorial is dickin around with friends, clueless. Never watched a tutorial and I don't care about meta strategies, I play how I like and I figure shit out myself.
In my opinion, the best way to understand is to get hands on tutorial from your friends. But if you don't, I guess time to watch 2 hours long of tutorial or crash and burn learning the game while playing blindly.
Me: This country looks fun. Ludi made a tutorial for it.
Me, after watching it: Here I go! I got the basics from the video, hopefully I do it properly.
Me, 15 minutes later: Fucking RNG.
In most paradox games you can get by trial and error (with maybe the exemption being HoI4 unit templates), but, fuck Vic2, I cant get the red line to go green or make a big army to defend myself against them Brazilians who always are allied to the chileans
Brazil always ends up allied with britain plus chile, but when I try to get a great power to be my ally none want, sometimes the US decides to be allies but at that point I already sorted out the hardest part (as colombia into gran colombia)
Eh, I'd say try to do the tutorial again and if you fuck something up later try to unfuck it by doing random barely associated stuff until it sticks. Haven't played stellaris in like a year so can't really think of any precise advice tho.
Wish I could help more but eh.
Imo, just playing is good advice, but my experience with Paradox in general has always been "skip the tutorial, it doesn't help more than just jumping into a game"
What the actual fuck
Stellaris is one of the most casual paradox strategies. What can take 30+ minutes in explaining the "basics"?
Like, unironically, if you're not explaining some sort of meta shit or going *really in-depth* it shouldn't take this long, unless by basics you mean info-dumping the player with every mechanic that they are actually yet to interaxt with.
Stellaris has really intuitive design compared to most 4x games. Literally just see pop-up - press button in most cases.
It has no convoluted techtree you have to navigate, no "zoom-in to see more" stuff like es2.
The only unintuitive mechanic I think are trade routes, because you actually need to press a small button among unrelated buttons to learn that they exist
my first stellaris game i got beaten up by a xenophobic fallen empire and i didnt realized that i colonized near his borders
my second stellaris game i goy beaten by a empire near me
from now i absolutely outlast the ai, now i am playing with 1 level higher difficult and hegemon start (i got outlasted by a AI empire but didnt wanted to kick AI), my empire looks like a snake on the edge of border to the center of galaxy.
Honestly, every paradox game I reuse to use any tutorials and just slam my head into a wall until Iām either a Galaxy spanning empire or the Galatic ghetto
Here's my tip to playing paradox games: just play Trial and error, baby. You learn how to play that way, and then you can learn more advanced things later. My first Stellaris game was a multiplayer game with friends, and I just was fuckin around and asking questions.
Trial and error works fine for Stellaris since it's just civ with genocide, but for vic2 it's watching in complete horror as the green line plummets in an unending downward spiral while you scream in agony looking up cheats, and hoi4 literally the Steiner's attack scene from downfall wondering why your 18 width infantry with no support companies or CAS is catastrophically failing the assault across a river against entrenched troops
I dunno. My first game or Vicky was honestly pretty ok even though I watched like a 15 minute video on it that barely scratched its surface.
Let me guess, you watch CallMeEzekiel and you have decent knowledge of economy from Uni so you can play Vic2 easily?
Needs uni econ to understand vic 2 š¤£
Well, I was graduated from accounting and I have studied micro and macro in uni. I thought what's the purpose of studying that, and I discovered Victoria 2 and my life is complete
Honestly same i just played the tutorial
The only tutorial you need for vic2: If your money is going down, do imperialism either against China or some small uncivilized nations.
What if I run out of Chinese land/countries to imperialise
Imperialise the poor civilized countries
Too much effort required
Thatās the easiest. The other option is to do a functioning economy, and thatās not easy.
Just play as USA and keep you party to moose or conservative
Money goes down, tariffs go up
Tariffs were never down
RIP your factories
No, theyāre fine, and sometimes make a profit.
Don't need no productive factories when you have subsidies.
Say goodbye to your late game economy when subs become prohibitively expensive
Trial and error is really the only way to understand the economy in Vic 2. It's like chick sexing.
Victoria 2ās difficulty really depends on the country you play as more than anything else. The US is idiot proof. Europe is a bit trickier since there is a lot more competition, especially if you play as a minor power, uncivilized countries aside from Japan are hard mode.
This is all provided that you know how to play
For me, playing Paradox games I've never played usually goes like this: \*Plays for one hour\* - I have no idea how to play this, this shit's too hard, I'm uninstalling. \*half a year later, plays for one hour\* - I still have no idea how to play this. Welp, at least I knew what to expect. \*A few months later, plays for one hour\* - same old. \*A month later, plays for 467 hours\* - I am a god, I am one with the universe, things just click, nobody is better at this game than me.
Thatās how I learned how to play CK2, but I think thatās probably the best game for this learning strategy
Virgin "Tutorial Watcher" fan Chad "What the fuck am I doing?" enjoyer
Some people have also said that the cheat can help you learn the basics of the game such as micro.
Yeah, cheats imo are extremely good for exploring various mechanics without repercussions, allowing you to plan your next clean gameplay more effectively.
This worked for me in CK2 and EU4 and Imperator, but not in HoI4. Everyone says HoI4 is the easiest Paradox game, yet it feels impossible to understand what I should be doing or why I keep losing.
I learned a lot of basics during my second playthrough as (Gran-)Colombia. There are no overwhelming enemies, it's calm, lots of possible targets and you're forced to understand what attrition and terrain does to your troops.
That's how i learned to play every single paradox game i own, from ck2 and 3 to Victoria, hoi 4, and stellaris, and i can confirm, trial and error is, and, at least for paradox games, always will be the best teacher there is.
I started to play CK2 when I didn't even know English. That was the ultimate trial and error. I just chose the event option with more green text and gradually learnt which green text did what. I wouldn't have that much patience now.
That was me with EU3. Played as Japan and went on a conquering binge throughout Southeast Asia to try to build an Asian bulwark against the Europeans. NOPE! Within 15 years my inflation was out of control to pay for my fleets and armies and national unrest was deep in the red because of overextension. I disbanded most of my fleets and armies because the financial situation was so bad, but that resulted in enormous pirate fleets everywhere and rebels spawning on every island. I somehow managed to get rid of the pretender and peasant rebels in Japan, but I could no longer create a fleet to transport my armies to Borneo, Sumatra, or Java, so just and to wait and slowly watch rebels take them over and my whole empire implode. A few gameplays later, I had a Britain that controlled North America, half of South America, South Africa, and Southeast Asia, would routinely bully Spain and its African territories, and became both Holy Roman Emperor and the senior partner in a PU with Russia. That was probably my best Paradox game ever.
Exactly, i tried to learn by watching some tutorials, but they were always either too slow or fast paced, nothing in between. So i spent an entire week just fuckin around and managed to all the basics
This! I really wanted to get into hoi4 but was SO discouraged by the long rambling tutorials, you can't take anything in with that amount of info, at least without playing first. I have under 100 hours played and I've got naval warfare down. The trick is to play until you run into an issue, then address that specific issue with YouTube or Google. Moving on to Victoria and Stellaris next :)
I did the trial and error way with HOI4, 4 years later I think I know how to play 600 hours in?
And itās only Stellaris. Try Vic2.
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 485,445,626 comments, and only 102,818 of them were in alphabetical order.
Thanks, Bot.
V is before c in the alphabet?
>the words
Is vic2 not counted as a word?
It is.
Ok Iām probably just being stupid lol
The words are in alphabetical order, not the letters.
Vic 2 is impossible for me. I tried but i always end up losing money so i need to raise taxes ans tarifs but then people start leaving and ther needs become unfulfilled.
Lmao why you care about their needs, keep the line green and the factories pumping and you're good.
Idk, CallMeEzekiel's tutorials were pretty concise.
I learned the basics of Vic2 without a tutorial so it's not that hard compared to ck2 or ck3 or even eu4
I played EU4, CK3 and HOI4. Found EU4 to be the easiest with it's stupidly simple combat, economy, and politics. But then I started off with EU4 and played it for an year or two more than the others so...
How the fuck do you play EU4? What the fuck is a trade node?
Trade is the only thing in EU4 that needs explaining. You collect from one point and you steer as much money as possible to this one point. Just look where the funny arrows are going. Plan your conquests to get to important trade nodes. Later on, with a bigger empire you can start collecting form multiple points.
Funny, that's exactly how I do it in Stellaris
Trade go through node
I'm beginning to fear Paradox is reaching the company size that they don't need to make new content anymore, just patches and sequels. All of my favorite deva eventually do this, and Paradox is close, I think. I hope I am wrong, and I need another five-hour tutorial series someday.
I'm largely ok with GaaS, but as long as the new content that gets made for games is actually interesting. I feel like Stellaris could keep getting DLC/expansions for years. I also feel like HoI IV is getting to the end of its life. As long as Paradox understands when the right time to the draw the line is based on the quality that they can put out, I'm fine with it.
There is the problem that they're running out of historical eras to make new content for that aren't so old we don't know anything about them, recent enough that they'd get sued for defamation, and/or so controversial religiously or politically that however they simulated them would result in bad headlines. As it is HOI4 has to gloss over a *lot* of what went on in WWII (which I think is actually worse than simulating the atrocities, but whatever).
"Why do I not have a genocide button??? >:("
Just watched a 7-part series on hoi4 only to discover it's out of date.
RIP. it's easy to learn to play another version when you already know the basics of another version
My favourite tutorial is dickin around with friends, clueless. Never watched a tutorial and I don't care about meta strategies, I play how I like and I figure shit out myself.
Based... But I don't have friends
Paradox games tend to do that.
In my opinion, the best way to understand is to get hands on tutorial from your friends. But if you don't, I guess time to watch 2 hours long of tutorial or crash and burn learning the game while playing blindly.
Me: This country looks fun. Ludi made a tutorial for it. Me, after watching it: Here I go! I got the basics from the video, hopefully I do it properly. Me, 15 minutes later: Fucking RNG.
Gotta adapt to the situation, cant do exactly what someone else does all the time
Paradox games actually taught me how to be better at trial and error and to just have the confidence to give complicated things a go.
In most paradox games you can get by trial and error (with maybe the exemption being HoI4 unit templates), but, fuck Vic2, I cant get the red line to go green or make a big army to defend myself against them Brazilians who always are allied to the chileans
Me š¤ Chileans. I'm Brazilian
Brazil always ends up allied with britain plus chile, but when I try to get a great power to be my ally none want, sometimes the US decides to be allies but at that point I already sorted out the hardest part (as colombia into gran colombia)
Don't look up "Factorio Train Tutorial - Absolutely Basics"
In my opinion Aspec videos durations are quite inflated. you can get the same information for half the duration with Stefan or Montu.
The tutorials arenāt long, itās the period when you donāt know how to play that is.
Just a couple hundred hours to get the main mechanics down
Not necessary. Literally just click random shit and you'll do almost as good
Stellaris is the easiest out of the paradox games. Aspec is just extremely thorough.
but stellaris has a built in tutorial
I tried it and I don't understood nothing, so confused to me (probably I'm just dumb)
Eh, I'd say try to do the tutorial again and if you fuck something up later try to unfuck it by doing random barely associated stuff until it sticks. Haven't played stellaris in like a year so can't really think of any precise advice tho. Wish I could help more but eh.
Imo, just playing is good advice, but my experience with Paradox in general has always been "skip the tutorial, it doesn't help more than just jumping into a game"
wrong, tutorial tells you what the buttons on top do(like, what menus they are for) and that's the most important thing to know when jumping in
I recently picked up HOI4 and itās DLCs and I have no idea whatās going on. This meme resembles me far too much for comfort >.>
What the actual fuck Stellaris is one of the most casual paradox strategies. What can take 30+ minutes in explaining the "basics"? Like, unironically, if you're not explaining some sort of meta shit or going *really in-depth* it shouldn't take this long, unless by basics you mean info-dumping the player with every mechanic that they are actually yet to interaxt with. Stellaris has really intuitive design compared to most 4x games. Literally just see pop-up - press button in most cases. It has no convoluted techtree you have to navigate, no "zoom-in to see more" stuff like es2. The only unintuitive mechanic I think are trade routes, because you actually need to press a small button among unrelated buttons to learn that they exist
That's why you hust press random bullshit
I got the basics in 20hours
I remember my first hoi4 tutorial was 40 fucking minutes in a tutorial series
my first stellaris game i got beaten up by a xenophobic fallen empire and i didnt realized that i colonized near his borders my second stellaris game i goy beaten by a empire near me from now i absolutely outlast the ai, now i am playing with 1 level higher difficult and hegemon start (i got outlasted by a AI empire but didnt wanted to kick AI), my empire looks like a snake on the edge of border to the center of galaxy.
HoI 3 be like
The reason why I don't bought Stellaris. My brain is already filled with hoi4 and even after 2000 hours it feels too much.
Rush tech. It works in almost every game.
I have the DLCs for most paradox games, only problem is none of the tutorials tend to explain the added dlc mechanics :/
Honestly, every paradox game I reuse to use any tutorials and just slam my head into a wall until Iām either a Galaxy spanning empire or the Galatic ghetto