New Paradox game soon to be announced?

[Nikolai]

Now, this is somewhat old news, but a guy over at Paradox forums met a woman working for Paradox some time ago, and this is what he posted

This is the greatest day of my life. Never have i been so happy about anything, anytime.

What has happend to poor ol me? Well, i found myself on the subway, going into the city of Stockholm with a couple of friends. We started to discuss diffrent Paradox games such as Crusader Kings and HoI(2). We stated how exited we where on this new production and so on.

All of the sudden, as of nowhere, this woman approches. Se says something like:
I have been sitting here and listening to you, and i just have to speak, you see i work with distributing Paradox games(later we read on her card that she was the Product manager on Pan Vision, which i belive most of you know what company that is anyways). We discussed the games and she seemed pleased that we liked the games. Although my dumb dumb brother complained some about the patching that it should get speeded up. What the problem with you?! You got the chance of almost tuching the source of the game and you complain, kinda corny if you ask me.

Anyhow for a few minutes we discussed some rather nice subjects like the games. I have always thought that only nerd worked with computer games, now it turns out that a rather normal woman does the same. Which is more or less something that suprises me. Now, to drop the real bomb on us she said:
I happen to sit on some give aways, send me an E-mail and i will send you a package.

Stunned i said, what? Are you kidding with me? She obviusly said no and gave us her card. I will send her an E-Mail right after i post this, at least that is my plan!

Now, ever since, i have been going around with adrenaline pumping all over my body.. because.. she told us some really neat ****!!

LIKE FOR EXAMPLE!! In Sweden(Scandinavia?) HoI 2 will be realsed BEFORE christmas of 2004! Not in the Spring of 05. This was more or less really good news for me, but the most intriguing thingie was.. she told us..

That Paradox is currently working on some TOP SECRET game, and that the details will be relased in a few weeks. Hohoo!! Bet ya didnt know that..

Shiete, i took me like 30 minutes to get over this small gathering, i mean... i almost crap my pants, this **** can only happen to people like us, in Sweden, at a night like this.

****ing hell, what a night.. now i wont be able to sleep.. thank you Pan vision and Pardox, HELL.. its my sister birthday today and when she gets up i will have to congratulate her, and well frankly.. i will not think about my sister now.. "making fun easier".. i almost crap my pants...

Nothing more is confirmed about the possibly new game so far as I know of, but nothing is said against it either, so we can always hope...

I for one hope it is EU3, but as Johan has said it'll come in 2007 earliest, the odds are against it I guess.

[Grumbold]

I'm praying for a decent ancient-era game (not just a Rome simulator, which is all anyone else ever makes.)

[General Ludd]

We don't need no stinkin' ancient-era game. There's enough of that already.


What we need is a cold war game, or even just an all encompassing modern-era EU.

[Nikolai]

As long as it's not Conan... They have the rights for him...!

[pg]

i wonder if paradox has it in them to do eu3 right since it seems like nothing since eu2 has been as well recieved. i've only played eu2 though so what do i know.

i'd love a modern era game, but iirc paradox is semi-politically correct so a lot of interesting history/gameplay would be left out. i still think it'd probably be a kickass game though(if keep abstract enough).

[Grumbold]

Afaik HoI has been their biggest seller during the time period it has been out, hence HoI 2 being done a.s.a.p.

They've had the Conan rights for ages and all I've seen is that console game that seemingly had nothing to do with them. I'd be interested in a Hyboria wargame game along the lines of CK blended with the old miniatures campaign rules. I wonder if they bought it then bogged down trying to make anything work. Who would buy a licence only to sit on it for years?

[Nikolai]

I think they are planning to licence it off or something. Or so the roumors say... Oh, and btw: EU3 wont come untill 2007 earliest according to Johan.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by General Ludd
We don't need no stinkin' ancient-era game.

Yes we do...

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by General Ludd
We don't need no stinkin' ancient-era game. There's enough of that already.

Name a good one then

All we get is battle games like Medieval Total War. Paradox could do a whole lot better.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Grumbold


Name a good one then

All we get is battle games like Medieval Total War. Paradox could do a whole lot better.

If you consider Medieval Total War to be 'ancient era', then Paradox has already made Crusader Kings.

[Grumbold]

I meant the emphasis on like. Rome Total War is coming.

EU is chronologically a lot closer to present day than Ancient Greece, Egypt, Persia and the like.

We've had a lot of modern/cold war political simulators attempted in the last few years and they have all failed. I can't see Paradox being able to magic it onto a compelling format either given the pretty crude level of their political AI systems to date.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I meant the emphasis on like. Rome Total War is coming.

EU is chronologically a lot closer to present day than Ancient Greece, Egypt, Persia and the like.

We've had a lot of modern/cold war political simulators attempted in the last few years and they have all failed. I can't see Paradox being able to magic it onto a compelling format either given the pretty crude level of their political AI systems to date.

I wouldn't call the diplomacy in Paradox games 'crude'. It may not be perfect, and there is room for improvement, but the alternatives are worse. HoI doesn't have any meaningful diplomacy, but it's mostly a straight forward war game so that's understandable. Victoria, the next most modern game of theirs, has a very nice diplomatic system. Along with some of Victoria's economic systems (simplified and improved a bit, and abstract the pops) and HoI's research and strategy, I'm sure that they could make an awsome modern era game.

[General Ludd]

Super Power is the only one I can think of...

[Grumbold]

I'll have a stab but most of these are only known to me through bad reviews:

Republic the Revolution
Global Domination
The Political machine
Political Tycoon
Global Power
MAD: Global thermonuclear Warfare
Superpower

coming in 2004:

Superpower 2
Supreme Ruler 2010


ON Paradox politics:
HOI can't even get the Japanese into the war properly
CK politics sucketh most royally
Vicky seems very event driven and EU2 is so-so but would I want this system to try and deal with the Middle East situation without mass invasions left, right and centre? Heck, no! There would need to be lots and lots more subtleties built in to manage a modern game that was not set up like HoI to lead into a major war.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I'll have a stab but most of these are only known to me through bad reviews:

Republic the Revolution
Global Domination
The Political machine
Political Tycoon
Global Power
MAD: Global thermonuclear Warfare
Superpower

Most of these aren't even remotely in the same genre.

Republic the Revolution is a political game where you don't leave the city scape.

Global Domination I don't know, but google brings up a risk re-make.

The Political Machine is another politics game, and it hasn't even been released as far as I know so you really shoulnd't be calling it bad.

Political Tycoon, a knock off of the previous I imagine.

Global Power is the same as Super Power, which is I think the only EU-esque game on this list, and it was indeed a failure.

Mad: Thermonuclear war I haven't heard of, either. But it looks like simplistic cheese game that doesn't take itself seriously.

ON Paradox politics:
HOI can't even get the Japanese into the war properly
CK politics sucketh most royally
Vicky seems very event driven and EU2 is so-so but would I want this system to try and deal with the Middle East situation without mass invasions left, right and centre? Heck, no! There would need to be lots and lots more subtleties built in to manage a modern game that was not set up like HoI to lead into a major war.

They wouldn't transplant a political system from one of their other games. Every game they make has a new focus and brings a certain area of gameplay to a new limit. With HoI it was warfair. With Victoria it was economics. With Crusader Kings it was dynasty and lineage. A Modern era game would no doubt further develope the political system with the subtleties required, and then some.

[Grumbold]

That was my point. they have not demonstrated the ability yet to create a strong political AI, or a military AI when it has to consider naval invasions around the globe as opposed to large land fronts which HoI is not too bad at.

Political Tycoon is a superpower game btw. I looked for modern political games since that was the loose description of what you wanted. I avoided pure wargames, of which there are many. If you want to stick strictly to narrow genres, then there are zero ancient era games to about two modern, unless one of you can name one

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Grumbold
That was my point. they have not demonstrated the ability yet to create a strong political AI, or a military AI when it has to consider naval invasions around the globe as opposed to large land fronts which HoI is not too bad at.

Before they made HoI they hadn't demonstrated the ability to replicate modern warfair. That didn't mean that theyc ouldn't do it. I am absolutel confident that if they where to make a modern era game that they would pull it off fine, with satisifactory politics.
And the naval AI has gotten extremely good, by the way. The AI in both Victoria and HoI regularily plans out effective naval invasions.

Political Tycoon is a superpower game btw.

I googled.. it's another half serious one.

I looked for modern political games since that was the loose description of what you wanted. I avoided pure wargames, of which there are many. If you want to stick strictly to narrow genres, then there are zero ancient era games to about two modern, unless one of you can name one

Oh please, there's dozens of roman era games.

I don't even pay attention to them and I can list a bunch. Legion, Ceasar, ... and there are two others that I can think of but can't remember the names of.

[pg]

i hate it when apolyton posts part of your posts twice even though you only wrote it once...

anyhow, i agree they might have trouble in a future setting especially once the game couldn't be purely driven by historic events. you could make events for a future game that'd be believable but it'd be tough as you'd have to cover to many plausible occurances.

all that said in eu2 the ai is braindead but that doesn't stop the game from being fun. in eu2 i play to accomplish goals. i imagine a modern era game would be the same even if it had bad ai. ai has never been paradox's strong suite the gameplay systems and settings have been imo.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Oh please, there's dozens of roman era games.

I don't even pay attention to them and I can list a bunch. Legion, Ceasar, ... and there are two others that I can think of but can't remember the names of.

I think you've forgotten what my original post was. A Roman RTS with little soldiers beating each other over the head isn't what I want any more than Command & Conquer is what you want.

Nikolai, what worries me is a braindead AI with a nuclear button. I can see AI America invading a dozen different countries around the globe, all inadequately, then going nuclear as soon as an opponent gets the bomb.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Grumbold


I think you've forgotten what my original post was. A Roman RTS with little soldiers beating each other over the head isn't what I want any more than Command & Conquer is what you want.

Legion and Ceasar aren't RTSs....

Nikolai, what worries me is a braindead AI with a nuclear button. I can see AI America invading a dozen different countries around the globe, all inadequately, then going nuclear as soon as an opponent gets the bomb.

Actually... that doesn't sound too unrealistic.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Legion and Ceasar aren't RTSs....

Ceasar 1-3 were city building sims with minimal RTS combat. Would simcity 1-4 be modern empire games for you then?

Legion is Rome-centric and does involve simplistic little soldier battles. It was the one Slitherine game I was stupid enough to buy.

[lord of the mark]

So we have one Superpower, a failure, versus Legion, also a failure and not really the equivalent of a Paradox game.

Seems like BOTH cold war and Roman era are ripe.


I assume by Roman era youre talking starting with rise of Rome, so that seleucids, Ptolemies, Carthage, Persian/Parthians are all powers.

Cold war, also, you need to get the period right. Id think around 1948 (more than one power with Abombs, jets dominate air war, fascism out as important political system, 3rd world nationalism on the rise, Islamism as yet unimportant) to sometime in late 80's -early '90s (precision bombing and other military apps of high tech, communism dying, aggressive 3rd world nationalism in crisis, Islamism important, regional transnational instutions like EU growing) would be the natural endpoints. Post-89 is already a different world.


An era that I think would do well with a game like this would be the "dark" ages - 400CE( AD to y'all) 1000 (or 1066 to tie in to CK) lots of big empires fluctuating - Byzantines, franks, arabs, steppe peoples, slavs, etc. Really a much more fluid map than later - lots of interesting alt history possibilities.

[pg]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I assume by Roman era youre talking starting with rise of Rome, so that seleucids, Ptolemies, Carthage, Persian/Parthians are all powers.

yeah, of course, that's the best period. a roman game would be hard to do though because what happens if the romans get conquered? that was a very real possibility many times in their early history.

it'd also be fun to play attila, not die, then go on to found an empire.

Cold war, also, you need to get the period right. Id think around 1948 (more than one power with Abombs, jets dominate air war, fascism out as important political system, 3rd world nationalism on the rise, Islamism as yet unimportant) to sometime in late 80's -early '90s (precision bombing and other military apps of high tech, communism dying, aggressive 3rd world nationalism in crisis, Islamism important, regional transnational instutions like EU growing) would be the natural endpoints. Post-89 is already a different world.

if they did a modern game i'd like to see after wwii to today. ending it in 89 or whatever just because the ussr is gone would be a turn off to me. personally i'd be most interested in a simulation of today's world.

An era that I think would do well with a game like this would be the "dark" ages - 400CE( AD to y'all) 1000 (or 1066 to tie in to CK) lots of big empires fluctuating - Byzantines, franks, arabs, steppe peoples, slavs, etc. Really a much more fluid map than later - lots of interesting alt history possibilities.

this doesn't appeal to me as much because everything was fluid like you said. really probably too fluid.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I assume by Roman era youre talking starting with rise of Rome, so that seleucids, Ptolemies, Carthage, Persian/Parthians are all powers.

Personally I would prefer to start considerably earlier but have the Roman era as the late scenarios. All the ancient games we get are Roman ones. If you go for starting it as an game very light on events (like CK) then you can concentrate on generic game mechanisms for the rise and fall of empires.

For a more flowing game where the country (or tribe) you play waxes and wanes I'd be interested in seeing something that started even as early as 2,000 BCE. That doesn't mean that the grand campaign must run for 2600 years. Each game could have a capped end date.

If the game could capture some of the magic of the boardgame Barbarian, Kingdom, Empire it would be great. There you try to maximise your power at all times but you know that you are fighting entropy all the time. Your score will be an aggregate of your success over time because the natural tendency is to rise, flourish for a time then crash, hopefully to rise again.

[strategy]

Never heard of Barbarian, Kingdom, Empire before - can you give us a little more info about it?

I would comment on the stuff about Roman games, but what would be the point? My opinions on the matter are well documented elsewhere.

Regards,

Michael A.

[Grumbold]

BKE is/was produced by Icarus Games. You start as a barbarian tribe that grows tribal units like you do in the civ boardgame by expanding and doubling. You create basic military units by merging tribals. They can move and fight but draw no income from captured cities.

Once the tribe gets to a certain size it becomes a kingdom which draws tax money from owned towns and cities, has a full gamut of military units to choose from and a leader. Each turn they roll on an event table and get modifiers depending on the number of turns they have been a kingdom and money paid into administration. The longer they have been a kingdom the more likely they will become an empire.

In empire mode it becomes very hard to maintain a mobile military and most forces convert to strong but immobile garrisons, ready for the next wave of barbarians to come sweeping down upon. Whenever you choose you can abandon your failing empire and become a new fledgeling barbarian tribe.

The game is essentially limitless. Your score is your total income throughout the game. In a computer version you probably would not restart as a new tribe but rank your score on your achievements from birth to collapse. It would be fun to play a game where collapse - or at least major rises and falls in fortunes - is almost inevitable, unlike the EU style where players can ride out almost anything.

[strategy]

Sounds like an interesting game despite the (no doubt) heavy abstraction.

On the computer, the only thing close to it that I recall is the old classic Annals of Rome, where you started out as Rome in 273 BC, and had to build up the Empire first as a Republic and later in the Principate, eventually to become the target of wave after wave of invasions from the Goths, Vandals, etc. while at the same time fighting civil wars. Surprisingly, this usually led to the eventual demise of one's Empire (if one even got as far as to establish one). The goal of the game was to survive as long as possible, and I think a game could last until 1200 AD or so (with each game turn between 1-25 years). Very simple (text based, IIRC), but very good game, IMO.

The trick with such a game, I guess, would be to hold people's attraction to it. Most games don't scale very well as the player's empires grow, and combined with the traditional "steam-roller" effect, most such games get dreadfully boring after the first expansion period.

[Grumbold]

I remember playing Annals of Rome - on the Spectrum I think. As you say, a game with that scope would need to be simple or scale up to allow the micro game to manage itself if it is to successfully scale from owning a province or two to a full empire. Something that games like HoI could badly do with imho...I hate babysitting the airforce in particular.

[strategy]

Actually, Antik Games/Galilea's Great Invasions sounded like something that would have had this kind of scope - as I recall, the idea was to have the player taking over successive waves of the barbarians invasions against Imperial Rome.

Difficult to say whether it will ever be done though, given Galilea's rumored collapse.

[Grumbold]

It sounded intriguing (despite blasted Rome being the centerpiece again) but the sorry fiasco of Pax Romana looks like it has sunk it before it began.