Next title from Paradox announced

[General Ludd]

Stockholm Feb 3, 2005 – After much secrecy and the successful dodging of various infiltration attempts, developer and publisher Paradox Interactive finally revealed today that their next title under development is Diplomacy®! Hailed as one of the best board games in the world, Diplomacy® is being developed on a new engine that will cater for classical board game features as well as new fresh ideas based on the approved game design.

“We are all huge fans of the original board game Diplomacy® and want to stay true to the identity and feel, that makes the game so unique”, says Fredrik Lindgren, Director of Marketing and Sales at Paradox Interactive. “At the same time the vision and ideas we are working on are strong enough to bring Diplomacy® into the new millennium which will most definitely attract a new generation of players as well as the true Diplomacy® veterans.”

Paradox licensed the worldwide rights to bring Diplomacy® to the interactive arena in July 2004 and has since been working on the project. The development team behind Diplomacy® is known for specializing in strategy games and has such successful titles behind them as the Europa Univeralis® and Hearts of Iron™ franchise.

The game is scheduled for release on the PC platform in Q3 or Q4 2005.

I'm not sure this is a good thing. Now, I've never played the board game, but from what I understand it is quite simplistic. What could a game based on it possibly offer that the other Paradox games don't already cover? Except, perhaps, a more simple and casual "beer and pretzels" sort of game - which I don't think would appeal to much of Paradox's fanbase at all... certainly not me, anyways.

[General Ludd]

I suppose one possible route it could take is a focus on multiplayer, which might be promising.... even if it does come at the expense of a more simple game.

[Nikolai]

EU was also a boardgame Paradox extended quite a bit, so I am not sure if this is so bad after all. I've understood that this game probably will be quite MP friendly, I only hope the SP will be good, as that is my main plaing field. I've more or less never played Mp in my life.

[Dinner]

Diplomacy is without a doubt my favorite board game ever. How can this not be good?

[adi321]

it might be hard to make an AI machiavellian enough for sp.

[Dinner]

I imagine this will be a lot like Activision's old version of Diplomacy from the early 90's. A strategy game with no negotiations since you can't really negotiate with a computer. Instead there were a set number of offer types you could send to each AI player (like become allies, nonaggression, etc...) but it always seemed completely random.

This game will only be successful if there is some damn good MP which is more stable then all the other MPs Paradox has made to date. On the upside Diplomacy is not a complicated game so it shouldn't be to hard to keep people in synch.

[General Ludd]

This game will be built with a completely new engine, by the way (which supposedly will have 3D support). From what I understand the engine used in most of paradox's was "decommisioned" with HoI2 I hope the new one can stand up to it.

[pg]

I actually own the board game but I've never played it. I really don't see how Paradox could make this into a good computer game. Diplomacy isn't something a computer AI can do that well.

[Dinner]

I agree and I also own the board game (though I haven't played for years). The best thing they can do is set up a system where human players can meet and play because the AI will never be up to the challenge. You still want the AI to exist since there may not always be 7 human players but the AI is a poor substitute.

[Grumbold]

Yup, looks like the first Paradox game I won't be buying. I don't like wholly mechanistic games and Paradox definitely have not demonstrated the capability to deliver the sort of AI needed to make this work except as an all-human player game.

[Dinner]

And the big problem is all of their multiplayer games have been very buggy and unstable. Currently HOI2 is barely functional with five players unless the speed is at very slow.

[Standup]

I tend not to play multiplayer so i can't see me buying this either. The whole point of diplomacy is the backstabbing and tellings lies to your friends. I can't see an AI providing the same challenge or, more importantly, fun. Without this you're left with very basic combat and practically no resource management.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by General Ludd
This game will be built with a completely new engine, by the way (which supposedly will have 3D support). From what I understand the engine used in most of paradox's was "decommisioned" with HoI2

well getting 6 games out of one engine (if you count EU and EU2 as seperate games) is pretty good leveraging, dont you think? I presume this means that after Diplomacy, they will build a new engine for EU3, and use that for subsequent EU type games. Or could they possibly be planning on using the Diplomacy engine for subsequent games?

[Dinner]

I imagine that since Paradox is a small company any engine they design will be used for multiple games.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I imagine that since Paradox is a small company any engine they design will be used for multiple games.

you'd think so, but im wondering if an engine suitable for diplomacy, would be suitable for the next gen. of the mainstream Paradox series - i hope theyre not abandoning the EU/HOI/Vic type of game.