Probably the worst, because CA can’t dream of creating a strategy campaign that reaches anywhere near the depth of a Paradox game. If Paradox makes a Crusader Kings but with RTS battles anything like Medieval II? It’s over for CA
Actually, there is a game called Knights of Honor II: Sovereign. It's Crusader King with TW battle. I got a lot of fun with it but then It become repetitive. But it's most likely due to the size of the Devs team. If Paradox takes over, I have high hopes for it.
The Best, either they die off which wouldn't be a bad thing considering they are only able to produce terrible money grabs anyways, Or they actually try to compete again and we get a better game from CA. There is no losing there.
This would be amazing considering I find myself playing Paradox games a lot more than total war these days. I crave those deep 4X mechanics you find in paradox games campaigns, where as Total War’s campaign map mechanics feel like hollow and useless things to do in between battles basically
Exactly the same here basically... It started off in 2018 when I got HOI4 for 20€ and was scared I was gonna regret it, 5 years later and its my most played game alongside all the other staple Paradox games with easily over 4000 hours all in all combined. Not just because of the deep mechanics but also because of the sheer modsupport for Paradox games, unlike CA games which have cut down on Mod support over the years. I have always said this and will continue too, Mods are the future of gaming.
Wish I could get into them. There's far too much to learn, and I just don't want to deal with learning all the systems. I do love depth, but they're just not very beginner friendly. I remember starting my first one and was like bro, this is too much. Haven't touched it since, and it's been years.
@@sub7se7en tbh, the best thing to do is to pick an era you are interested in, (so Crusader Kings for example if you like the Middle Ages) and wait for a brand new one to come out if the current game in that series is already a few years old. Paradox games are easier to learn before tons of DLC and new mechanics are added onto them, significantly cheaper as well lol. So right now, I’d say Victoria 3 is the most accessible Paradox game and EU4 the least. It might be expensive to get all the DLC, but HOI4 is honestly the most simple imo of the Paradox games. Spending an hour or 2 on UA-cam watching tutorials will get you to a decent place vs the AI on normal, and trial and error will teach you the rest
Start with CK3 for the most beginner friendly Paradox game Id say, and mostly they share alot of similarities across the games, so once youve mastered CK3 it should be really easy to get into EU4 for example because of said similarities.@@sub7se7en
I feel like all the blunders CA has made recently has immensely decreased the risk of making a total war competitor. Im betting a lot of the community is willing and ready to try out a competitor if one is announced/released.
Hence why Manor Lords is getting so much interest. If Paradox came out with something or a DLC for CK3 to add real time battles, that would be amazing and I would happily give it a try. Massive difference is Paradox actually listens to the community and takes advice/feedback on board. Unlike CA.😊
The Ultimate Generals/Admirals franchise is moving to fill this space. They already have better realtime battles than Total War and it looks like their next entry is moving towards upgrading their previously on-rails campaigns to operate more like a Total War campaign.
@@presiyanyankov8869i'm normally skeptical of "(game)-killer" comments, but Ultimate General Revolutionary War is looking sharp I'm curious to try it. I feel like I havent loved a TW game since Shogun 2
If paradox wanted to enter the total war battlefield genre I think a good first step would be if the battles were represented by various squares and rectangles artistically done to look like a general looking over a map moving his pieces. That way their existing game engine could probably handle it and it would be unique with an emphasis on strategy. You know the same types of squares you see in those history UA-cam channels showing how battles unfolded
Paradox makes real time campaigns so armies would need to work a lot like spacecraft do in Stellaris. This might be accomplished by only giving each of the 3 wings of an army rudimentary commands, while you can train your troops to use certain tactics. This would result in mostly AI on AI battles but would be far more realistic when compared to reality as telepathic orders are a bit much. Armies would likely have lengthy skirmish phases which would be the interaction armies have if one side chose not to stand and fight (Actually catching an enemy army wasn't all that easy throughout history). This would work well with fortifications as they would provide safe places from where you could harass larger armies and devastate their logistics.
Honestly, this is what I was expecting Vic 3's warfare to be like on launch except the macro orders would be set by you and the micro carried out by the AI generals, but Paradox fumbled the bag. I do think it has potential however
I’ve just started played CK2 and man that game is so complex and there’s so many things to do! I literally had to spend hours searching for answers and learning how to play the game😅 but now that I understand it, I’m having so much fun with it because it’s so immersive. It made me realise how behind TW is in terms of the campaign gameplay. If Paradox decides to work on real time battles, CA is finished.
If Paradox decide to work on real time battles, they will inevitably cut back on campaign depth because they don't have unlimited resources and have already been releasing arguably unfinished, streamlined games to save time and money lately. Just like CA.
@@barryb90 yeah the UI of CK2 is abysmal, it feels like the developers never actually played the game , some things are in such random places and so tiny buttons🙄
@@theheatinferno8420 i don't really like action games but you can already do that, mod that combines crusader kings 3 and the battles are on bannerlord. if that's your gig then you shoud try it.
It would be really interesting to see a paradox total war game, I personally seem to play paradox games more than total war games nowadays. At the time of writing this comment I have 960 hours in Stellaris and only 370 hours in napoleon, both of which being my most played titles from Paradox and CA respectively.
It is a mistery to me why CA never took inspiration from paradox games (quite the total opposite frankly). Even from a financial perspective, paradox grand strategy games nearly all (stellaris, HoI4, EUIV) have sold more units than Total war warhammer 2, the best selling CA game... Now imagine paradox doing real time battlefield battles in a Warhammer 40k universe, I think it would destroy not only Creative assembly, but also the whole gaming world.
Paradox should take advantage of lack of a newer medieval title from CA. Imagine slightly more casual Crusader Kings with real time battles. That would the nail in the coffin for CA.
thats like saying what if only elephant can fly, thats gonna be a sight to be seen, LOL, all cpmpanies have their sweet spots and areas they dont know how yet, you just can have it all
@@orbit1894 there is games like X4: Foundations who is close to Stellaris or Knights of Honor II: Sovereign close to CK3 with total war mix up. why are not more popular? maybe it miss the CA and Paradox name on it
@@liran547 Only that there are no real ways to have flying elephants. Video games on the contrary are made often by taking inspiration from other great games, it is doable, and it is even recommended. I'm a dev myself and without taking notes from the best of my genre I wouldn't be able to make a decent product. I don't say that it's weird that games have flaws, I say that I don't understand how CA never chose to take inspiration from paradox titles, when it is one of the main critics of their recent games (campaign not deep enough) while paradox is the clear winner of that very critic.
Paradox is not better than (current) CA when it comes to monetization. However Paradox updates tend to be thorough and popular so if I have to choose between the two...
Well, you have to pick your poison: 1) Many years of essentially free support for your game, financed by the sale of one or two $10 - $30 DLCs per year that expand the original gameplay mechanics and keep it fresh. 2) A "new" $60 game every one or two years that's actually just a reskinned version of the old game with marginally improved (or potentially worse) gameplay.
I respect Paradox games a lot! But the fact that i have to take in consideration 30 fucking million things to start playing it, is an absolute deal breaker. On the other hand, Total War games have become increasingly easy and simplistic. There is no middle point. If someone finds the sweetspot between these 2 game styles, will become the new king.
I would be interested to see what PDX makes of a Total War style game, I think it's a given that their strategic campaign will be pretty high quality, but they're relatively inexperienced on the real time tactics front, so the RTT side of things might leave players wanting, at least until they find their footing and update or add things to a second Total War style game.
Paradox as a publisher is probably one of the worst. Lamplighter's league was even bigger flop than Pharaoh. Vampires the masquerade bloodlines 2 is stuck in development hell. The star trek game was just a poor and cheap reskin of Stellaris
I've actually been attempting to learn how to use unreal engine because I want to make games of my own. I'd be doing it in my free time as a hobby if I ever manage to learn it as well as blender for making my own models to use in game. I kind of want to try making a total war style game but at the same time I have a certain... mental image of a strategy game I've not really seen anyone make that I want to create. If I ever manage to make a game I'm posting it for free on steam cause why not?
dont think I could offer anyone help. I can open unreal engine, and navigate the tabs but thats about it. I've just in the past couple weeks started learning the system.
@@atomicLord97 Cheers. It's not even really about your skill, more so your motivation. I'd hate the idea, which you seem to be passionate about, to go unrealised because you resigned early due to lack of experience and feeling overwhelmed,
Paradox already have their "Total War" games in a literal similar ways. It's called King Arthur RP Wargame 1 & 2. Unfortunately, it's not up to the standard for proper RTS & RPG games, so the franchise practically buried by both Paradox & the RTS community.
Worth pointing out that Paradox actually did publish a couple of "larger campaign with real-time battles" style games back in 2009/10. East India Company and Commander: Conquest of the Americas. Both games dealing with the age of sail and featuring fairly decent real time naval battles (not unlike those in Empire TW but I remember liking EIC's a bit more than Empire); made by the same studio on the same engine. Given that the studio was relatively short-lived and the games fairly obscure I imagine neither of those games were particularly successful financially, although that was quite a while ago now and both of those were a bit different in style than what TW does (I never played the second game, but EIC was a pretty simple game focused on trade and I understand the other was pretty similar but with a few added features) so IDK how much bearing their experience with those games has on Paradox's decision making these days. Also worth considering is that Paradox's recent forays into things outside of their niche have been very mixed. Cities Skylines and Age of Wonders are the obvious successes, but their other attempts to branch out have mostly not gone terribly well (Empire of Sin and Lamplighter's League both kind of flopped) so they may be somewhat wary of spending big money (which a Total War rival would need) on anything for a little while. I do think Paradox taking a swing at CA is probably the only thing that could make CA seriously question themselves and reevaluate their approach though. It would take a bit of a miracle for an indie game or something by a smaller publisher to really do well enough to cause players to abandon Total War en masse, and Paradox is the only relatively large publisher I could see trying to pull it off, unless *maybe* 2k and Firaxis decided to get creative again (I don't think it's even remotely likely, but they're the only other decently large studio/publisher in the strategy genre and Sid Meier has done all sorts of different stuff in the past so it's more plausible than, say, EA or some non-strategy publisher trying it)
The ONLY problem I have with Paradox games is that there are too many small details to keep in mind while playing their games. Sure one can call "skill issue" here and I agree to an extend, however even in their tutorials there are plenty of things that are not explained all that well for new players like in HOI4. It is kind of overwhelming until you get to understand or at least familiarize yourself with some of these details, however even then it will take MANY hours to fully get them. As of today I have yet to understand HOI4 entirely, like how to properly place defensive and offensive lines without randomly my units not going where I want them. and I am pretty sure that the navy requires a degree in nuclear science to understand. Nonetheless I cannot deny that their games are fun, and would like to see a total war kind of game from them.
It took me a while to understand total war three kingdoms and then be able not only to understand but to use the mechanics on an strategical way. I only imagine how complicated can get on a paradox game
@@adisokolovic Well, yes that is true but...hang on a second how did you... Do you have 100% intel in my country??? Umm give me a moment I need to make a call..... Hello, Operator? Yes, I would like to leave a message for the head of the NKVD.
"Life by You" is another upcoming game where Paradox makes forays into genres that have been dominated by other studios in the past (Maxis with The Sims). I think Paradox listens very carefully what ppl like to see in games and act accordingly if they can; yes Cities Skylines and Life by You isn't directly made by Paradox. Maybe it is possible to make a cooperate effort. Paradox programs the strategic part while someone else dedicates its team to the tactical battles. Or maybe Paradox should try to make a game like Ultimate General and try to at first gain experience in that field to later incooperate that experience into something akin to Total War. Try to hire some ppl who have worked or are still working at CA and build up a team just dedicated to tactical battles. I would love to fight battles in Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis. Hearts of Iron IV... actually I think it is good to leave it like it is. Seems pointless with the high number of small battles taking place along the whole front. Controlling that directly would be nightmare.
the game will be shit, the Sims market is cornered heavily and not that big while cities skylines just had a very disastrous launch that eroded fanbase trust in paradox further, throw onto that prior fuckups like vic3 and i can say with certainty a total war a la paradox will be utter garbage multiple patches in if it gets even updated a year or 2 after
@@felixmustermann790 Ehhh paradox doesn't really have a history of abandoning their games though, and the sims market is still there. I think it's likely to be a lot of women playing those types of games though with low player concurrent counts but a lot of purchases
@@felixmustermann790I think for cities skyline II , their problem a bit big similar market system in vic3 that ruin other part in game (they use a lot of time for them in setup that due to market complication in reality and have less time to develop another mechanic in game.) and cities skyline II problem is smooth game vs. graphic especially how much detail they need to do? (GTA problem) and abandon game that is flagship game of colossal studio, that never be their option since very start since studio survival belong to this game. In case Imperator: Rome, It maybe it maybe too much time to polish the game or pdx need to swap team to develop vic3.
I mostly play on the campaign map in Total War games anyway, so I absolutely don't need RTS battles in Paradox games. What I would welcome is a Paradox game that borrows a few pages from Total War campaigns in terms of clarity and visualization.
Pure fantasy. But hypothetically speaking, I play a lot of paradox games. They are literally busted when they drop, like it’s a common meme that you are a beta tester when you buy the game until the first few patches. I also think one of the bigger limiting factors is that paradox games are a massive drain on the average machine. Adding in a real time battle would really gatekeep the game to higher end PCs which is unprofitable. In my opinion
True, right now it is cpu hog machine. Later it would require both a top tier GPU and a top tier cpu. Not to mention buggy releases. Best would be if they Collab. Though next to impossible
paradox has to enter the total war field regardless. the community will welcome anyone who makes the attempt at total war for the community knows what it is required for it to work. and will be quite forgiving of other studios who make the attempt cause anything to get CA off there ass's and step up will be welcome.
As nice as an Paradox grand strategy game paired with a Total War battle is a nice dream, but it might alienate some players for the reason they liked the different franchises. Total War's draw (at least for me) was the tactical battles, and relative light empire management. I don't need to get into the nitty gritty details of running my empire.... Paradox ( I play HOI) is definitely more into the nitty gritty details, spawned from my days of playing Rise and Fall of the Third Reich back in the day (including table top version). A game combining both will ofcourse statisfy those of us that want and indepth stratagy game with great tactical combat representation, the learning curve and time investment to play might turn off some players. Personally I would love to see Paradox start off by creating a small tactical battle game, so they can get some experience and be a direct competitior to TW in the area they are most different and TW is better known for, and slowly merge that into their grand stratagy game model....
@@Eerik_Arvonen And that's the difference that some people like. When I'm really bored, I go for HOI and manage everything.... for a quick battle or two, I go to TW, and not really having to worry about my empire too much. If a game comes out with both combined, I'm sure will make some strategy game players very happy, but might end up disappointing those on the wings of both sides.... It would be too management heavy for those that are more into tactical battles. For me TW is a great tactical battle game, I tried men of war, and found it to be too micro managing to be really fun, if you want the fight to go your way. Cheers. :)
Further competition in this field is an absolute win. Paradox buying CA wouldn't do anyone any good. I genuinely forgot about Imperator. I tried so hard to like it, but damn.
Not just unrealistic but entirely disconnected from reality. The nightmare of trying to make a roster for units from around the world and trying to make them play differently without just giving them different stats is one huge issue. The other is building an rts battle simulator from the ground up, which some people seem to think is a walk in the park
@@globalelite3042 How in the hell did modders do that for like Medieval 2, and a big studio couldnt do it ? I mean, when you say "play differently", swordsmen are still swordsmen. Different stats, better use in some situations because of those stats. But its still swordsmen
@@mimmim13aivca and modders attempts to make varied rosters never ends up working. There is no value in light troops once you can field heavy troops. It might be interesting if light troops could run faster and have more stamina or could more easily disengage combined with mobile skirmishers to drag and whittle heavy units away. This to me is more interesting than this sword unit has less armor but much better melee defense so theyre gonna beat mine so i have to rear charge them. The balance i am talking about takes both game mechanics and a lot of fine tuning which is hard when you have 1000s of units. Otherwise the current model is just a slugfest with whoever brought the better frontline skirmishers and cavalry etc. which is realistic but also uninteresting. It doesn’t challenge you to think outside the box like hannibal, but rather just to build the best pokemon card deck.
@@globalelite3042 what you describe is basically med 2 mod SSHIP. Running faster is engine limited tho. Have CA actually do something, and its possible. There is use to light units. Cause when your heavy units get shred of by crossbow, you want to use less of them. If your point is that there should be no meta, then yeah, its an utopia. And I mean, no need to have 1000 units. Games like Warno and wargame series do a very good job to fine tune some good rosters with many different units. But its cold war era. In médiéval time, French swordsmen and HRE swordsmen are pretty much thé same. You just have some unique units here and there
I think Paradox and Creative Assembly should find a way to work together to support cross-functionality between their titles. A great example of this at work from smaller developers is Automation and BeamNG Drive. The developers of those two games added support where you could port the cars you designed in automation and drive them around in BeamNG. Value was added to both games and the developers saved themselves from a huge headache trying to develop something they had no experience with.
Paradox only needs to buy Game-Labs to have everything it needs to do land, naval battles, and the combination of both. Putting together the missing features in the Admiral of Age of Sail (a game that could have contributed much more than it did) and with the land and naval combat part of landings, plus the games about the civil war in the USA, little else is needed, just to create units depending on the depth and era or eras to be implemented.
maybe you should follow up this video and broaden the concept as Game Labs and their Ultimate General Civil war / Revolutionary War have made good strides in the campaign aspect and arguably nailed the tactical battle aspect far better than CA ever did for TW. To me a combo of Paradox Campaign with Game Labs seems like its the pinnacle in both the campaign grand strategy and implementation of tactical battle. How some of the GL aspects can be broadened to sword and spear and bow combat of different eras is one grey area. Also GL may have the best naval combat out there also !
I’d like if they released a real time tactical medieval game that uses CK3 assets that can merge with regular CK3 like Crusader Wars/Crusader Blade that was just as moddable as CK3 so we can get RTS battles for CK3’s best total conversions like LOTR Realms in Exile, AGOT, Godherja, and After the End.
One safe way they could to that, without commiting to a full game, would be adding experimental battles as a free optional DLC to one of their grand strategy games, to test the features. EU4 would be perfect for that as there are very few unit types. A mod of CK3 already allows playing battles in M&B2 Bannerlord, an entirely different game from another studio. So their engine could definitely accomodate an in-house battle add-on. When it comes to the depth of the campaign, Paradox already runs circles around TW. So all they would need for a first try would be a decent enough battle system, on par with R1TW for example (not that it has become much better in later TWs anyway), to become a mortal threat for CA who has been stagnant for so long.
It really is a mystery to me why we don’t have a Medieval 3. The only thing I can think of is that the failure of Thrones scared the bean counters up top from ever agreeing to a new medieval era game. Then again, they somehow greenlit Pharaoh after the limited success of Troy.
Because it wouldn’t make tons of money by pandering to fantasy nerds and CA/SEGA only wants to focus on hero characters and mechanics now. They don’t want realism, makes it harder to sell you DLC and faction packs.
Tech debt accumulated over 2 decades alongside experienced devs long gone from the company. All later titles are cash-grab reskins easy to make for current inexperienced devs, just like modders can, while the rest of CA management spends several years thinking about adressing that tech debt or not. Luckily people finally had enough and closed their wallets to CA. IF these last massive failures from CA can't get their heads straight, nothing ever will. I personally hope CA gets a proper competitor in the genre, as competition has and always will be an amazing drive for someone to do better and faster. Just to use a horrible example - Arms race when nations are at war.
@@ImaginaShip basically, they foresee the backlash that would happen with their policies. With how they monetize total war now, they’d have to lock real countries/factions behind pay walls. Imagine Medieval 3, but you can only play England, France, the HRE, The Byzantines, and Egypt. Oh, you want to play as the Turks? $20. You wanna play as Castile or Aragon? $20. Wanna play as Novgorod or Muscovy? $20. Poland, Scotland, Venice, Mongols, etc same thing
A game with Paradox Campaign depth like CK or EU, and with Total War battles... ooh man.. that would be literally incredible. All it takes it to scale the world to include all continents, like Paradox games did and put that diplomacy and management depth 👌 from CK and EU now you just made a perfect Singleplayer strategy game, now add Total War battles on that so that every battle is played by you, and you did it. THE BEST strategy game series are born. Knight of Honor tried to do that, but Campaign is not that much in depth and battles sux. But still, something like that is a perfect try.
Paradox doesn't even have to make the RTS battles better than TW... they could make them similar and would still destroy Total war since they have in-depth, massive campaigns, better diplomacy, true strategy, and organization of your kingdom/empire, something which TW has on a very basic level...
It's a post I made in Paradox forums that why Imperator Rome failed (or Europa Universalis Rome before it) and why Victoria 2 was sucessful. To make it short Paradox grand strategy works to simulate large battles +100'000 soldier fighting, when generals are less important than quality of troops and numbers. In EU4 you can simulate the 300 000 ottomans fighting in a campaign aroung balkans or persia, but in total war you have a max of 20 units per general (less than 4000 soldier). In roman times a legion (early 10'000, later 5000 solsier) usually fought alone, and remember that Caesar made his whole campaign with 4 legions (~20'000 man) so to simulate it, total war style is perfect. On the contrary the 350 000 soldier armies of Napoleon, or the Boer war, or WW1 and WW2 cant be simulated properly with Total War style. In Empire or Napoleon Total war you can snipe the best general with their max 20 stacks. We know that these are game, but when we value them is by history acuracy, and reasonable simulation, like everyone was not happy about removing the population of Rome TW from Rome 2, or not having supply of armies etc, etc. CA made a huge mistake with Pharaoh, they could have made the new mechanics of creating new cities, like it was common at that time, and would have been a great deal to include it in an Alexander TW (stand alone like Attila TW), I think it was a miss oportunity.
Would love for something like ck3 with total war style battles. One thing paradox could do is hire some former or even current staff of CA to boost their potential for implementing total war style battles. That way they wouldn't be starting completely fresh. Granted they'd be using a difficult engine with their own challenges. But having staff with knowledge in the area of AI management and the battles would help immensely for getting things off the ground. Paradox have really taken over as my favourite strategy game developer, and I'd love to see them succeed with a total war battle implementation into their games.
A game like this already exists, it's called Airships: Conquer the Skies. It's a grand strategy game with 2d total-war inspired battles, and has elements of sprocket. It's a hidden gem but it's very good, it's multiplayer is also somehow more stable then paradox multiplayer.
If they could come up with a good varied and satisfying battle engine with good ai. (This is the difficult part) the huge benefit is that they can add it to every single one of their existing franchises. It would have the potential of being an income multiplyer for paradox. The exodus of so many total war employees could also be a golden opportunity. However, there is no doubt that they would have considered this already so there will have to change a few minds within paradox before doing it meaning compromises are highly likely.
You said introducing tactical battles into your game is very expensive because it requires a lot of detailed 3D modeling for all the different units... But here's a crazy but workable idea: What if instead of highly detailed models, the battles would be fought by blocky, minecraft-style soldiers? That could even allow for more customisation of your armies potentially, with players being able to create their own, low-effort skins like players do in Minecraft.
A combo of Anno meets grand tactician civil war, where you pick where to build based off resources or terrain and maintaining logistics, but in a less tedious fashion, with real time battle would be sweet. On a big scale like empire total war.
I don't think Paradox is going to compete with total war outright anytime soon. What I can see happening however is Paradox putting more emphasis on the battles in all their games, as that's by far the weakest point of every Paradox game out there. Not real time battles mind you, just improving the systems they currently have. For example take a look at Endless Space 2's battles when compared to Paradox'. In Endless Space 2 the battles are fully automated by the AI, just like Paradox, but you can actually see the battle in real time(albeit outside of your control) and the player still has some influence by being able to choose certain tactics and of course the ship and formation compositions. If Paradox manages to perfect that, as in battles that are still automated but allow for enough meaningful player influence their games would be so much better and it will arguably be enough to bring a significant portion of the total war community over to Paradox even without that final step of going into real time battles.
If they do it, it should be it's own thing. If I wanted the obsessive level of campaign chores to do that exist in Paradox games, I would play one of those. I don't, so I play Total War. TW: Three Kingdoms level of campaign complexity is the absolute most I want out of a Grand Strategy + RTS battles game. Honorable mention to Knights of Honor II: Sovereign - They got the best balance of strategy depth to having to pause often/play at 50x speed just to get any resources to get things done, but their battles are inelegant.
I'm imagining what might be if we had the real time tactical battles from the Game Labs studio made to fit onto a Paradox strategy game. Game Labs might also be a more realistic buy out or partnership goal than Creative Assembly for Paradox anyway.
Hi Andy, once again you came up with exactly the right topic at exactly the right time :) Personally I really don't like grand strategy with too much complicity & depth, I find it boring, which is why I have never bought any Paradox games to date. I cut my gaming teeth on the Age of Empires series (but NOT AOE IV), Cossacks & other similar titles (still playing Cossacks III). so I'm far more interested in the RTS battles. I guess the best thing Paradox could do IF they decide to venture into TW like gaming would be to develop a game that CA haven't tried yet, like a PIke & Shot Era perhaps. I guess it's now just a case of ... Watch This Space & see what occurs :)
Paradox can do this if they team up some strategy game / campaign team with the developer of Mount&Blade. The latter has the engine for being better than TWs currently (and bannerlord already has some strategy viewports for top-down battle management and such).
Paradox Interactive likes to take measured risks. They have launched and supported a huge number of licences in different genres (turn-based RPG, 4x, fantasy/post-apo management, space conquest, etc), always with the aim of creating the new 'Immortal game'. We can see with CK3 and Victoria 3 that they've learnt the lessons of Imperator, and EUIV is also being used as a test for a number of experiments (subscriptions, addons, etc). I think Paradox could simply embrace a small studio willing to experiment (like they helped M&B1 for a while and now C Prompt Game), but would be reluctant to create the team themselves from scratch. Or they could wait for a team of developers at home to feel confident enough to propose the project. In reality, if a studio comes knocking on their door with a serious project, they'll probably give it a try.
Paradox tinto is testing out new mechanics with the newer DLCs like zones of influence, export grain, eyelets, modernization, etc, so imo the best bet for something like this to be added in any capacity would in EUV, since people complain a lot about the combat in EUIV due to dice rolls, or a title after that
Paradox can easily pull of a total war like game. (Former TW modder/Ultimate General Dev) Darth is currently doing it. A total war like game doesn't need to be as visually on par as the current total war titles, the game mechanics just need to be similar but better than total war. I think Paradox will most likely invest on small game dev studios instead of Paradox itself. Like you mentioned, Paradox most likely will continue to develop their core grand strategy games. Hopefully Paradox will publish Darth's Ultimate General games in the future. But I'm not sure if it's advantageous for Darth's dev studio.
Paradox published Mount and Blade. And honestly i've played so much total war that i'd honestly prefer something a little different. A Bannerlord type battle with medieval 2 type campaign would be amazing. A Field of Glory 2 battle engine with a total war type campaign would be so very very interesting to see.
I put this in another comment, but I’m going to make an independent one to summarize some good ideas into one comment. Paradox could distinguish themselves in the total war genre by: A. Make command and control a feature, not a limitation. You as the player should be excited that you just instituted the Marian reforms or Gustavus Adolphus’ regimental system. You should be excited that your cavalry is now using bugle signals. You should be excited that you have signal flags, or battlefield radios. These advancements should directly impact your AI army’s ability to more quickly and efficiently carry out your will. Orders should not be telepathic, you should not be able to tell a specific cohort to “brace for impact” at exactly the right time of a cavalry charge. Instead, orders would be like telling a Chess AI “Open with Queen’s Gambit”. As the battle goes along, you then decide “let’s castle now.” or “I see an opening to develop a winning position, let’s start trading pieces.” How good your army’s command and control technology, drill, and techniques determines how quickly and efficiently the orders are carried out. B. Simplified graphics. I don’t need total war graphics. I need a clear way to see what is going on. Make it look pretty, but as long as it creates the “General in the field commanding his army” feel. This can help abstract ideas related to technology, techniques, etc. You don’t need to see an actual Testudo form. You just need to know your men are in Testudo. I don’t need to see my cannon’s loading and firing grapeshot. I just need to see the results against the abstract enemy formation that indicate to me that the cannons actually loaded and fired grapeshot. As many others have said, there are a lot of UA-camrs who go over historical battles using icons and tiles. I think that would be a great way to simplify the “graphical” side of things. Once the novelty of zooming into to look at the mixture of Corinthian vs Phrygian style phalanx helmets of my hoplites has worn off, what I care about is the unit icons and where they are, and what they are doing. whether they exist, or are flashing white indicating to me they are about to run and I need to reposition another unit to fill the gap before it is too late. Except my opponent has battlefield radios and I neglected to research past “battlefield runner” so it’s probably going to be too late.
We've been getting the same TW game each time with slightly different game mechanics. No innovation or creativity at all. Remember when each Total War release was a big deal? Medieval to Rome? Rome to medieval 2? Medieval 2 to Empire? It wasn't always a homerun but it sure was always something new and innovative, and in the process they created timeless classics.
It is not by Paradox, but there are Field of Glory: Empires and Field of Glory 2. The first one is 4X strategy game about Ancient times (310 BC to 190 AD, so almost the same time span as Rome Total War). The second one is a tactical turn-based game. And you can "forward" the battles from the first to the second natively, as the games published by the same publisher (Slitherine).
Imagine too, if they took the mods, and made the start date for CK3, like Rome one, go all the way to late medieval or even like Napoleonic, and added all the total war stuff. It be like three total war games in one.
This limey is out of his mind if he thinks Paradox is going to save anything let alone a genre They're actively destroying a newly purchased IP with Vampire
as someone whos always been interested in total war but ahs never tried it (hopefully I will soon!) one thing that *really* turned me off of the TW games was how all the animations in battles are super over-the-top, like its a movie or a fantasy show/game.. i think if paradox made a TW-type game where characters moved and fought more realistically (visually) it'd be a big pull factor
I think you raise a lot of the main issues with this idea in the video. If Paradox were to attempt this, it would likely be as a publisher, not a developer. The up front costs of jumping into a project like this are massive (far more so than a civ-like) and in an era where many Paradox games are struggling and even failing and there is a general downturn in the industry as a whole, I just don't see risks like this being taken. They don't have the teams, they likely don't have the money, and any product they do put out probably won't be as good as Total War, especially since Paradox has a nasty habit of releasing games before they're ready and patching them through DLC. Not to mention that people who think just because Paradox develops a game that means it will have the same mechanical depth as something like HoI4 and battles at least as good as TW are deluded. Paradox is a smaller studio than CA, so to expect them to be able to put out a substantially bigger project with no prior experience is absurd.
Ive been a massive total war fan and that has naturally made me cross paths with paradox games too, but idk man, i really dont feel it with paradox games. I deeply wish they would make something more total war like because if they successfully did it they would pull quite a few former total war players out of retirement like myself
Real time 1:1 armies battles will be hard to make with no experience. So unless they invest serious time and money in this, they should start small, like the "chess-like" battles in Shogun 1 and scale up from there. Honestly, as long as it feels cool and the AI is a challenge, that would be amazing already.
That's still incredibly difficult to do, you know. I mean yes, we can expect this level of effort from a studio as big as PDX but still. Shogun 2 looks beautiful and achieving this level of graphical fiselity, let alone actual beauty, is no small feat.
En spennende tanke! Digger Paradox og spillene deres, men vokste opp med Rome total war og CA. Tror litt konkurranse virkelig er bra for sjangeren, CA må steppe opp gamet sitt. De siste spillene har vært helt okei, men slår ikke Rome I og II-, Napoleon, Empire og flere av de eldre utgivelsene. Fortsett med det fantastiske innholdet du pumper ut ;)
My money is on the underdog... Ultimate General! If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out their latest title: Ultimate General American Revolution. - I wish Total War would go in that direction.
You know I play a lot more of paradox games nowadays but my favorite total war game is Shogun 2. If CA never makes a good total war again I will always have Shogun 2. But if paradox got into this type of game I’d give it a try.
Paradox have some issues like dlc pricing however at the same time i dont personally care about that, if your lower on momey just purchase 1 dlc per paycheck. If paradox make a total war type game i honestly think it will impact CA Very heavily, i own all total qar games and they really dont feel much different to each other, i love the battles they are incredibly fun however i get bored so fast due to the campiagns feeling so shallow. A joint game would be incredible paradox working on the campaign and CA working in the battle maps and army models.
![WONDER WEAPONS World Conquest [HOI4 Götterdämmerung]](/img/n.gif)
If Paradox comes up with their own "total war", then this would be the best thing to ever happen to CA (or the worst)
Or the best for CA/Sega because their shitty money greedy people would may shut up.
Probably the worst, because CA can’t dream of creating a strategy campaign that reaches anywhere near the depth of a Paradox game. If Paradox makes a Crusader Kings but with RTS battles anything like Medieval II? It’s over for CA
Actually, there is a game called Knights of Honor II: Sovereign.
It's Crusader King with TW battle.
I got a lot of fun with it but then It become repetitive. But it's most likely due to the size of the Devs team.
If Paradox takes over, I have high hopes for it.
The Best, either they die off which wouldn't be a bad thing considering they are only able to produce terrible money grabs anyways,
Or they actually try to compete again and we get a better game from CA.
There is no losing there.
That's a very old game but was remade a few years ago.
This would be amazing considering I find myself playing Paradox games a lot more than total war these days. I crave those deep 4X mechanics you find in paradox games campaigns, where as Total War’s campaign map mechanics feel like hollow and useless things to do in between battles basically
Exactly the same here basically... It started off in 2018 when I got HOI4 for 20€ and was scared I was gonna regret it, 5 years later and its my most played game alongside all the other staple Paradox games with easily over 4000 hours all in all combined. Not just because of the deep mechanics but also because of the sheer modsupport for Paradox games, unlike CA games which have cut down on Mod support over the years. I have always said this and will continue too, Mods are the future of gaming.
Agreed. Paradox games are just so much deeper and engaging.
Wish I could get into them. There's far too much to learn, and I just don't want to deal with learning all the systems. I do love depth, but they're just not very beginner friendly. I remember starting my first one and was like bro, this is too much. Haven't touched it since, and it's been years.
@@sub7se7en tbh, the best thing to do is to pick an era you are interested in, (so Crusader Kings for example if you like the Middle Ages) and wait for a brand new one to come out if the current game in that series is already a few years old. Paradox games are easier to learn before tons of DLC and new mechanics are added onto them, significantly cheaper as well lol. So right now, I’d say Victoria 3 is the most accessible Paradox game and EU4 the least. It might be expensive to get all the DLC, but HOI4 is honestly the most simple imo of the Paradox games. Spending an hour or 2 on UA-cam watching tutorials will get you to a decent place vs the AI on normal, and trial and error will teach you the rest
Start with CK3 for the most beginner friendly Paradox game Id say, and mostly they share alot of similarities across the games, so once youve mastered CK3 it should be really easy to get into EU4 for example because of said similarities.@@sub7se7en
City builders are not a sub-genre of grand strategy. They are each sub genres of the wider strategy/simulation genre.
Yeah
City builders are a sub-genre of civilization builders. Neighborhood builders are a sub-genre of city builders.
@@sub7se7en touché 😆
City builders are a syncretic sub-genre of strategy (particularly resource management) and simulation games.
@@sub7se7enTouché indeed lol
I feel like all the blunders CA has made recently has immensely decreased the risk of making a total war competitor. Im betting a lot of the community is willing and ready to try out a competitor if one is announced/released.
Hence why Manor Lords is getting so much interest. If Paradox came out with something or a DLC for CK3 to add real time battles, that would be amazing and I would happily give it a try. Massive difference is Paradox actually listens to the community and takes advice/feedback on board. Unlike CA.😊
I’ve got my eye on ultimate general, very impressive for a small studio.
also consider that as we type paradox is developing a competitor to civilization
@@tony1kenobi468Ultimate admirals dreadnlughts is pretty good if youre into the naval stuff and/or ship building
The Ultimate Generals/Admirals franchise is moving to fill this space. They already have better realtime battles than Total War and it looks like their next entry is moving towards upgrading their previously on-rails campaigns to operate more like a Total War campaign.
Lol no
yeah hell no, especially Admiral.
@@presiyanyankov8869 - lol yes. UGCW is has better battles than any TW game
@@presiyanyankov8869i'm normally skeptical of "(game)-killer" comments, but Ultimate General Revolutionary War is looking sharp I'm curious to try it.
I feel like I havent loved a TW game since Shogun 2
UGRW genuinely has one of the most fun Campaigns I've ever played and I can't wait for it to get finished
If paradox wanted to enter the total war battlefield genre I think a good first step would be if the battles were represented by various squares and rectangles artistically done to look like a general looking over a map moving his pieces. That way their existing game engine could probably handle it and it would be unique with an emphasis on strategy. You know the same types of squares you see in those history UA-cam channels showing how battles unfolded
Gives me Fire and Maneuver vibes, I like it
I would love a game with that style🎉
There is a game similar to what you said. The game name is Winter Falling
This is actually how battles in Victoria 2 work, although you don't have any control over them
Eu4 in the battle menu as well. But I do wish we could have the option to do turn based battles In eu4
Paradox makes real time campaigns so armies would need to work a lot like spacecraft do in Stellaris. This might be accomplished by only giving each of the 3 wings of an army rudimentary commands, while you can train your troops to use certain tactics. This would result in mostly AI on AI battles but would be far more realistic when compared to reality as telepathic orders are a bit much. Armies would likely have lengthy skirmish phases which would be the interaction armies have if one side chose not to stand and fight (Actually catching an enemy army wasn't all that easy throughout history). This would work well with fortifications as they would provide safe places from where you could harass larger armies and devastate their logistics.
100% correct.
Honestly, this is what I was expecting Vic 3's warfare to be like on launch except the macro orders would be set by you and the micro carried out by the AI generals, but Paradox fumbled the bag. I do think it has potential however
I’ve just started played CK2 and man that game is so complex and there’s so many things to do! I literally had to spend hours searching for answers and learning how to play the game😅 but now that I understand it, I’m having so much fun with it because it’s so immersive. It made me realise how behind TW is in terms of the campaign gameplay. If Paradox decides to work on real time battles, CA is finished.
CK3 interface is so much easier to use and it's much better.
If Paradox decide to work on real time battles, they will inevitably cut back on campaign depth because they don't have unlimited resources and have already been releasing arguably unfinished, streamlined games to save time and money lately. Just like CA.
CK2 is wonderful. I have restored the roman empire two times in my in my campaings. Love the game
@@barryb90 yeah the UI of CK2 is abysmal, it feels like the developers never actually played the game , some things are in such random places and so tiny buttons🙄
@@barryb90CK3 is wide as an ocean and deep as puddle. Not a serious grand strategy
In my mind, this is the perfect game. If done right. It would basically just be adding visuals to the battles that already happen in CK3.
well visuals are nice like in stellaris but it's still just number crunching visualized. tw battles are much, much more.
I would hope the battles would be more similar to Mount and Blade, than Total War or Stellaris.
@@theheatinferno8420 i don't really like action games but you can already do that, mod that combines crusader kings 3 and the battles are on bannerlord. if that's your gig then you shoud try it.
Sounds like a terrible ideal.
@@theheatinferno8420there's a mod that combines Bannerlord and Crusader Kings 3
It would be really interesting to see a paradox total war game, I personally seem to play paradox games more than total war games nowadays. At the time of writing this comment I have 960 hours in Stellaris and only 370 hours in napoleon, both of which being my most played titles from Paradox and CA respectively.
It is a mistery to me why CA never took inspiration from paradox games (quite the total opposite frankly). Even from a financial perspective, paradox grand strategy games nearly all (stellaris, HoI4, EUIV) have sold more units than Total war warhammer 2, the best selling CA game...
Now imagine paradox doing real time battlefield battles in a Warhammer 40k universe, I think it would destroy not only Creative assembly, but also the whole gaming world.
Paradox should take advantage of lack of a newer medieval title from CA. Imagine slightly more casual Crusader Kings with real time battles. That would the nail in the coffin for CA.
thats like saying what if only elephant can fly, thats gonna be a sight to be seen, LOL, all cpmpanies have their sweet spots and areas they dont know how yet, you just can have it all
@@orbit1894 Well there is the CrusaderBlade mod
@@orbit1894 there is games like X4: Foundations who is close to Stellaris or Knights of Honor II: Sovereign close to CK3 with total war mix up. why are not more popular? maybe it miss the CA and Paradox name on it
@@liran547 Only that there are no real ways to have flying elephants. Video games on the contrary are made often by taking inspiration from other great games, it is doable, and it is even recommended. I'm a dev myself and without taking notes from the best of my genre I wouldn't be able to make a decent product.
I don't say that it's weird that games have flaws, I say that I don't understand how CA never chose to take inspiration from paradox titles, when it is one of the main critics of their recent games (campaign not deep enough) while paradox is the clear winner of that very critic.
Ah yes a Total War game with dlc worth over 300 euros.
That's Warhammer 1,2 and 3 with all its DLCs.
yeah 3 different games. paradox does it with one@@Proud2bGreek1
I agree why would we want a total war where you have to spend so much money for all that dlc and no ca doesn’t even come close to the greed of paradox
plus the game would need a few years to be decent. launch states from paradox games could be alphas for other game
@@scrollexdestiny Right because Warhammer was playable and good at launch?
Imagine a WW1 Hearts of Iron...with real-time battles. Would love to see that. Defenses built on the campaign map show up in the battle.
there's a game 'the great war western front' def not as deep as hearts of iron on the campaign level but it's there.
There was a mod for it years ago.
Try out the new game the great war: western front by petroglyph.
@@jhnshep it's rather basic, flawed and the ai is kinda stupid. But yeah, it exists, it's an okay experience
I KNOW we're all hating on total war here, but theres a mod for Napoleon: Total War called "The Great War"
Making a total war style game would be a herculean task for paradox.
Paradox is not better than (current) CA when it comes to monetization. However Paradox updates tend to be thorough and popular so if I have to choose between the two...
Well, you have to pick your poison:
1) Many years of essentially free support for your game, financed by the sale of one or two $10 - $30 DLCs per year that expand the original gameplay mechanics and keep it fresh.
2) A "new" $60 game every one or two years that's actually just a reskinned version of the old game with marginally improved (or potentially worse) gameplay.
@@nicoj9984 essentially yes.
Paradox doing the map and CA doing the battles would be heaven
I respect Paradox games a lot! But the fact that i have to take in consideration 30 fucking million things to start playing it, is an absolute deal breaker. On the other hand, Total War games have become increasingly easy and simplistic. There is no middle point. If someone finds the sweetspot between these 2 game styles, will become the new king.
I would be interested to see what PDX makes of a Total War style game, I think it's a given that their strategic campaign will be pretty high quality, but they're relatively inexperienced on the real time tactics front, so the RTT side of things might leave players wanting, at least until they find their footing and update or add things to a second Total War style game.
Paradox as a publisher is probably one of the worst. Lamplighter's league was even bigger flop than Pharaoh. Vampires the masquerade bloodlines 2 is stuck in development hell. The star trek game was just a poor and cheap reskin of Stellaris
And Stellaris is getting worse with every DLC
They could be the worse publishers but when they do strategy they are pretty good
CK3 shits on every Total War for the last 8 years
If they make a total war with ck3 elements it would be phenomenal
@@theheatinferno8420 CK2 sure but definitely not CK3
I've actually been attempting to learn how to use unreal engine because I want to make games of my own. I'd be doing it in my free time as a hobby if I ever manage to learn it as well as blender for making my own models to use in game. I kind of want to try making a total war style game but at the same time I have a certain... mental image of a strategy game I've not really seen anyone make that I want to create. If I ever manage to make a game I'm posting it for free on steam cause why not?
Broken Rampart Entertainment is using Unreal Engine for the spiritual successor of Medieval 2 he’s always looking for help
dont think I could offer anyone help. I can open unreal engine, and navigate the tabs but thats about it. I've just in the past couple weeks started learning the system.
Quick tip from fellow dev: don't make it your first project. Trust me.
I appreciate the advice, thank you sir/ma'am.
@@atomicLord97 Cheers. It's not even really about your skill, more so your motivation. I'd hate the idea, which you seem to be passionate about, to go unrealised because you resigned early due to lack of experience and feeling overwhelmed,
Paradox already have their "Total War" games in a literal similar ways. It's called King Arthur RP Wargame 1 & 2. Unfortunately, it's not up to the standard for proper RTS & RPG games, so the franchise practically buried by both Paradox & the RTS community.
Worth pointing out that Paradox actually did publish a couple of "larger campaign with real-time battles" style games back in 2009/10. East India Company and Commander: Conquest of the Americas. Both games dealing with the age of sail and featuring fairly decent real time naval battles (not unlike those in Empire TW but I remember liking EIC's a bit more than Empire); made by the same studio on the same engine. Given that the studio was relatively short-lived and the games fairly obscure I imagine neither of those games were particularly successful financially, although that was quite a while ago now and both of those were a bit different in style than what TW does (I never played the second game, but EIC was a pretty simple game focused on trade and I understand the other was pretty similar but with a few added features) so IDK how much bearing their experience with those games has on Paradox's decision making these days. Also worth considering is that Paradox's recent forays into things outside of their niche have been very mixed. Cities Skylines and Age of Wonders are the obvious successes, but their other attempts to branch out have mostly not gone terribly well (Empire of Sin and Lamplighter's League both kind of flopped) so they may be somewhat wary of spending big money (which a Total War rival would need) on anything for a little while.
I do think Paradox taking a swing at CA is probably the only thing that could make CA seriously question themselves and reevaluate their approach though. It would take a bit of a miracle for an indie game or something by a smaller publisher to really do well enough to cause players to abandon Total War en masse, and Paradox is the only relatively large publisher I could see trying to pull it off, unless *maybe* 2k and Firaxis decided to get creative again (I don't think it's even remotely likely, but they're the only other decently large studio/publisher in the strategy genre and Sid Meier has done all sorts of different stuff in the past so it's more plausible than, say, EA or some non-strategy publisher trying it)
The ONLY problem I have with Paradox games is that there are too many small details to keep in mind while playing their games. Sure one can call "skill issue" here and I agree to an extend, however even in their tutorials there are plenty of things that are not explained all that well for new players like in HOI4.
It is kind of overwhelming until you get to understand or at least familiarize yourself with some of these details, however even then it will take MANY hours to fully get them. As of today I have yet to understand HOI4 entirely, like how to properly place defensive and offensive lines without randomly my units not going where I want them. and I am pretty sure that the navy requires a degree in nuclear science to understand.
Nonetheless I cannot deny that their games are fun, and would like to see a total war kind of game from them.
If it makes you feel better, even Paradox developers don't understand how navy worked in HoI4. That's why you spam Subs and Naval Bombers.
Skill issue
@@Sb-bn9xn *Sigh*
Knew it.
It took me a while to understand total war three kingdoms and then be able not only to understand but to use the mechanics on an strategical way. I only imagine how complicated can get on a paradox game
@@adisokolovic Well, yes that is true but...hang on a second how did you...
Do you have 100% intel in my country???
Umm give me a moment I need to make a call.....
Hello, Operator? Yes, I would like to leave a message for the head of the NKVD.
considering Creative assembly took ideas/Inspiration from paradox to make three kingdoms they might not enjoy the moment paradox does a TW style game
wait what, what do you mean? I played both but Im not sure which part you are talking about
@overlord3083 the diplomacy and relation ratings so you can balance trade deals etc etc
ah you meant diplomacy, got it @@tootall9942
@@tootall9942so that is why diplomacy in 3k was so good
The real question is how long before someone mods manor lords to have battles in the thousands?
"Life by You" is another upcoming game where Paradox makes forays into genres that have been dominated by other studios in the past (Maxis with The Sims). I think Paradox listens very carefully what ppl like to see in games and act accordingly if they can; yes Cities Skylines and Life by You isn't directly made by Paradox. Maybe it is possible to make a cooperate effort. Paradox programs the strategic part while someone else dedicates its team to the tactical battles. Or maybe Paradox should try to make a game like Ultimate General and try to at first gain experience in that field to later incooperate that experience into something akin to Total War. Try to hire some ppl who have worked or are still working at CA and build up a team just dedicated to tactical battles. I would love to fight battles in Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis. Hearts of Iron IV... actually I think it is good to leave it like it is. Seems pointless with the high number of small battles taking place along the whole front. Controlling that directly would be nightmare.
the game will be shit, the Sims market is cornered heavily and not that big while cities skylines just had a very disastrous launch that eroded fanbase trust in paradox further, throw onto that prior fuckups like vic3 and i can say with certainty a total war a la paradox will be utter garbage multiple patches in if it gets even updated a year or 2 after
@@felixmustermann790 Ehhh paradox doesn't really have a history of abandoning their games though, and the sims market is still there. I think it's likely to be a lot of women playing those types of games though with low player concurrent counts but a lot of purchases
@@felixmustermann790I think for cities skyline II , their problem a bit big similar market system in vic3 that ruin other part in game (they use a lot of time for them in setup that due to market complication in reality and have less time to develop another mechanic in game.) and cities skyline II problem is smooth game vs. graphic especially how much detail they need to do? (GTA problem) and abandon game that is flagship game of colossal studio, that never be their option since very start since studio survival belong to this game. In case Imperator: Rome, It maybe it maybe too much time to polish the game or pdx need to swap team to develop vic3.
@@prodbasedmystikParadox basically abandoned Imperator: Rome . Granted they did come back to it very briefly with a beta update.
if paradox added 2d tactical battles like what we see in bazbattles and KnG, it would already be mind blowing
I mostly play on the campaign map in Total War games anyway, so I absolutely don't need RTS battles in Paradox games.
What I would welcome is a Paradox game that borrows a few pages from Total War campaigns in terms of clarity and visualization.
Pure fantasy. But hypothetically speaking, I play a lot of paradox games. They are literally busted when they drop, like it’s a common meme that you are a beta tester when you buy the game until the first few patches. I also think one of the bigger limiting factors is that paradox games are a massive drain on the average machine. Adding in a real time battle would really gatekeep the game to higher end PCs which is unprofitable. In my opinion
True, right now it is cpu hog machine. Later it would require both a top tier GPU and a top tier cpu. Not to mention buggy releases. Best would be if they Collab. Though next to impossible
paradox has to enter the total war field regardless. the community will welcome anyone who makes the attempt at total war for the community knows what it is required for it to work. and will be quite forgiving of other studios who make the attempt cause anything to get CA off there ass's and step up will be welcome.
ultimate general revolution is maybe a good competitor early acces released today on their website, not on steam though
Fucking serious?! THANK GOD!
I hope it happens... I mean I'm not a fan of paradox's monetization tactics, but I sure love their games.
If Paradox Manages to marry their campaign map with total war's real time battles
it will be like the second coming
Competition in a free market is always good for the consumer.
As nice as an Paradox grand strategy game paired with a Total War battle is a nice dream, but it might alienate some players for the reason they liked the different franchises. Total War's draw (at least for me) was the tactical battles, and relative light empire management. I don't need to get into the nitty gritty details of running my empire.... Paradox ( I play HOI) is definitely more into the nitty gritty details, spawned from my days of playing Rise and Fall of the Third Reich back in the day (including table top version). A game combining both will ofcourse statisfy those of us that want and indepth stratagy game with great tactical combat representation, the learning curve and time investment to play might turn off some players. Personally I would love to see Paradox start off by creating a small tactical battle game, so they can get some experience and be a direct competitior to TW in the area they are most different and TW is better known for, and slowly merge that into their grand stratagy game model....
The empire management would not need to be as deep as it is in their other games, just deeper than it is in TW, which is barebones.
@@Eerik_Arvonen And that's the difference that some people like. When I'm really bored, I go for HOI and manage everything.... for a quick battle or two, I go to TW, and not really having to worry about my empire too much. If a game comes out with both combined, I'm sure will make some strategy game players very happy, but might end up disappointing those on the wings of both sides.... It would be too management heavy for those that are more into tactical battles. For me TW is a great tactical battle game, I tried men of war, and found it to be too micro managing to be really fun, if you want the fight to go your way. Cheers. :)
Further competition in this field is an absolute win.
Paradox buying CA wouldn't do anyone any good.
I genuinely forgot about Imperator. I tried so hard to like it, but damn.
Have you tried IR since 2.0?
@@olivenkranz naw it's been a year or so since the last time I tried it. I may try it again, because the era is what keeps me going back again.
can't wait to get to turn 50 and have to wait 10 minutes to move on to turn 51
Lol
This is a great idea that also seems unrealistic
Not just unrealistic but entirely disconnected from reality. The nightmare of trying to make a roster for units from around the world and trying to make them play differently without just giving them different stats is one huge issue. The other is building an rts battle simulator from the ground up, which some people seem to think is a walk in the park
@@globalelite3042 How in the hell did modders do that for like Medieval 2, and a big studio couldnt do it ? I mean, when you say "play differently", swordsmen are still swordsmen. Different stats, better use in some situations because of those stats. But its still swordsmen
@@mimmim13aivca and modders attempts to make varied rosters never ends up working. There is no value in light troops once you can field heavy troops. It might be interesting if light troops could run faster and have more stamina or could more easily disengage combined with mobile skirmishers to drag and whittle heavy units away. This to me is more interesting than this sword unit has less armor but much better melee defense so theyre gonna beat mine so i have to rear charge them. The balance i am talking about takes both game mechanics and a lot of fine tuning which is hard when you have 1000s of units. Otherwise the current model is just a slugfest with whoever brought the better frontline skirmishers and cavalry etc. which is realistic but also uninteresting. It doesn’t challenge you to think outside the box like hannibal, but rather just to build the best pokemon card deck.
@@globalelite3042 what you describe is basically med 2 mod SSHIP. Running faster is engine limited tho. Have CA actually do something, and its possible.
There is use to light units. Cause when your heavy units get shred of by crossbow, you want to use less of them. If your point is that there should be no meta, then yeah, its an utopia.
And I mean, no need to have 1000 units. Games like Warno and wargame series do a very good job to fine tune some good rosters with many different units. But its cold war era. In médiéval time, French swordsmen and HRE swordsmen are pretty much thé same. You just have some unique units here and there
I’m holding out hope that manor lords will be a sort of CK3/total war cross over.
BTW there is the ultimate general / admiral series. Where armies have realistic sizes but are presented from a higher vantage point.
I think Paradox and Creative Assembly should find a way to work together to support cross-functionality between their titles. A great example of this at work from smaller developers is Automation and BeamNG Drive. The developers of those two games added support where you could port the cars you designed in automation and drive them around in BeamNG. Value was added to both games and the developers saved themselves from a huge headache trying to develop something they had no experience with.
As a paradox fan i want the total colapse of CA
Paradox only needs to buy Game-Labs to have everything it needs to do land, naval battles, and the combination of both. Putting together the missing features in the Admiral of Age of Sail (a game that could have contributed much more than it did) and with the land and naval combat part of landings, plus the games about the civil war in the USA, little else is needed, just to create units depending on the depth and era or eras to be implemented.
maybe you should follow up this video and broaden the concept as Game Labs and their Ultimate General Civil war / Revolutionary War have made good strides in the campaign aspect and arguably nailed the tactical battle aspect far better than CA ever did for TW. To me a combo of Paradox Campaign with Game Labs seems like its the pinnacle in both the campaign grand strategy and implementation of tactical battle. How some of the GL aspects can be broadened to sword and spear and bow combat of different eras is one grey area. Also GL may have the best naval combat out there also !
I’d like if they released a real time tactical medieval game that uses CK3 assets that can merge with regular CK3 like Crusader Wars/Crusader Blade that was just as moddable as CK3 so we can get RTS battles for CK3’s best total conversions like LOTR Realms in Exile, AGOT, Godherja, and After the End.
They should co op Paradox -campaing and Creative assembly - Battles.
I'd just love to fight my EU4 battles in something like Total War battle, that would be a game of my childhood
I feel like the Ultimate General series is gonna sneak up and be the main competitor in about 5 years.
Very excited for American Revolution. Hope he makes a Napoleon game someday.
If this happens, this will be the best thing in strategy gaming history 🎉
Well at-least the 100s DLC will have content...
One safe way they could to that, without commiting to a full game, would be adding experimental battles as a free optional DLC to one of their grand strategy games, to test the features. EU4 would be perfect for that as there are very few unit types.
A mod of CK3 already allows playing battles in M&B2 Bannerlord, an entirely different game from another studio. So their engine could definitely accomodate an in-house battle add-on.
When it comes to the depth of the campaign, Paradox already runs circles around TW. So all they would need for a first try would be a decent enough battle system, on par with R1TW for example (not that it has become much better in later TWs anyway), to become a mortal threat for CA who has been stagnant for so long.
It really is a mystery to me why we don’t have a Medieval 3. The only thing I can think of is that the failure of Thrones scared the bean counters up top from ever agreeing to a new medieval era game. Then again, they somehow greenlit Pharaoh after the limited success of Troy.
Because it wouldn’t make tons of money by pandering to fantasy nerds and CA/SEGA only wants to focus on hero characters and mechanics now. They don’t want realism, makes it harder to sell you DLC and faction packs.
Tech debt accumulated over 2 decades alongside experienced devs long gone from the company.
All later titles are cash-grab reskins easy to make for current inexperienced devs, just like modders can, while the rest of CA management spends several years thinking about adressing that tech debt or not.
Luckily people finally had enough and closed their wallets to CA. IF these last massive failures from CA can't get their heads straight, nothing ever will.
I personally hope CA gets a proper competitor in the genre, as competition has and always will be an amazing drive for someone to do better and faster. Just to use a horrible example - Arms race when nations are at war.
@@ragnarok6521 Even with the crazy learning curves, I've started playing the Paradox games and found them more enjoyable.
@@the_undisputed_king_5395 no argument here
@@ImaginaShip basically, they foresee the backlash that would happen with their policies. With how they monetize total war now, they’d have to lock real countries/factions behind pay walls. Imagine Medieval 3, but you can only play England, France, the HRE, The Byzantines, and Egypt. Oh, you want to play as the Turks? $20. You wanna play as Castile or Aragon? $20. Wanna play as Novgorod or Muscovy? $20. Poland, Scotland, Venice, Mongols, etc same thing
A game with Paradox Campaign depth like CK or EU, and with Total War battles... ooh man.. that would be literally incredible. All it takes it to scale the world to include all continents, like Paradox games did and put that diplomacy and management depth 👌 from CK and EU now you just made a perfect Singleplayer strategy game, now add Total War battles on that so that every battle is played by you, and you did it. THE BEST strategy game series are born. Knight of Honor tried to do that, but Campaign is not that much in depth and battles sux. But still, something like that is a perfect try.
Paradox doesn't even have to make the RTS battles better than TW... they could make them similar and would still destroy Total war since they have in-depth, massive campaigns, better diplomacy, true strategy, and organization of your kingdom/empire, something which TW has on a very basic level...
We want Total Halo Wars!
It's a post I made in Paradox forums that why Imperator Rome failed (or Europa Universalis Rome before it) and why Victoria 2 was sucessful. To make it short Paradox grand strategy works to simulate large battles +100'000 soldier fighting, when generals are less important than quality of troops and numbers. In EU4 you can simulate the 300 000 ottomans fighting in a campaign aroung balkans or persia, but in total war you have a max of 20 units per general (less than 4000 soldier).
In roman times a legion (early 10'000, later 5000 solsier) usually fought alone, and remember that Caesar made his whole campaign with 4 legions (~20'000 man) so to simulate it, total war style is perfect. On the contrary the 350 000 soldier armies of Napoleon, or the Boer war, or WW1 and WW2 cant be simulated properly with Total War style. In Empire or Napoleon Total war you can snipe the best general with their max 20 stacks.
We know that these are game, but when we value them is by history acuracy, and reasonable simulation, like everyone was not happy about removing the population of Rome TW from Rome 2, or not having supply of armies etc, etc.
CA made a huge mistake with Pharaoh, they could have made the new mechanics of creating new cities, like it was common at that time, and would have been a great deal to include it in an Alexander TW (stand alone like Attila TW), I think it was a miss oportunity.
Would love for something like ck3 with total war style battles. One thing paradox could do is hire some former or even current staff of CA to boost their potential for implementing total war style battles. That way they wouldn't be starting completely fresh. Granted they'd be using a difficult engine with their own challenges. But having staff with knowledge in the area of AI management and the battles would help immensely for getting things off the ground. Paradox have really taken over as my favourite strategy game developer, and I'd love to see them succeed with a total war battle implementation into their games.
Check out the Crusader Blade mod.
I think of paradox wants to grow and expand it needs to do something and hopefully they take on total war
A game like this already exists, it's called Airships: Conquer the Skies. It's a grand strategy game with 2d total-war inspired battles, and has elements of sprocket. It's a hidden gem but it's very good, it's multiplayer is also somehow more stable then paradox multiplayer.
If they could come up with a good varied and satisfying battle engine with good ai. (This is the difficult part) the huge benefit is that they can add it to every single one of their existing franchises. It would have the potential of being an income multiplyer for paradox. The exodus of so many total war employees could also be a golden opportunity. However, there is no doubt that they would have considered this already so there will have to change a few minds within paradox before doing it meaning compromises are highly likely.
You said introducing tactical battles into your game is very expensive because it requires a lot of detailed 3D modeling for all the different units... But here's a crazy but workable idea: What if instead of highly detailed models, the battles would be fought by blocky, minecraft-style soldiers? That could even allow for more customisation of your armies potentially, with players being able to create their own, low-effort skins like players do in Minecraft.
Well a true comptetitor is inevitable. how quickly they come to fruition will be up to CA and how hard they drop the ball in the future.
A combo of Anno meets grand tactician civil war, where you pick where to build based off resources or terrain and maintaining logistics, but in a less tedious fashion, with real time battle would be sweet. On a big scale like empire total war.
I don't think Paradox is going to compete with total war outright anytime soon. What I can see happening however is Paradox putting more emphasis on the battles in all their games, as that's by far the weakest point of every Paradox game out there. Not real time battles mind you, just improving the systems they currently have. For example take a look at Endless Space 2's battles when compared to Paradox'. In Endless Space 2 the battles are fully automated by the AI, just like Paradox, but you can actually see the battle in real time(albeit outside of your control) and the player still has some influence by being able to choose certain tactics and of course the ship and formation compositions. If Paradox manages to perfect that, as in battles that are still automated but allow for enough meaningful player influence their games would be so much better and it will arguably be enough to bring a significant portion of the total war community over to Paradox even without that final step of going into real time battles.
If they do it, it should be it's own thing. If I wanted the obsessive level of campaign chores to do that exist in Paradox games, I would play one of those. I don't, so I play Total War.
TW: Three Kingdoms level of campaign complexity is the absolute most I want out of a Grand Strategy + RTS battles game.
Honorable mention to Knights of Honor II: Sovereign - They got the best balance of strategy depth to having to pause often/play at 50x speed just to get any resources to get things done, but their battles are inelegant.
Honestly if Paradox just had a 2-D style battle system like Sandrhoman's battle breakdowns that allows some personal control that'd be cool.
I'm imagining what might be if we had the real time tactical battles from the Game Labs studio made to fit onto a Paradox strategy game. Game Labs might also be a more realistic buy out or partnership goal than Creative Assembly for Paradox anyway.
I know they have that mod which merges Attila total war and ck3 but an actual game Like that from paradox would be amazing.
I am surprised you didn't mention Knights of Honour 1 and 2. Very similar in scope and context.
Hi Andy, once again you came up with exactly the right topic at exactly the right time :) Personally I really don't like grand strategy with too much complicity & depth, I find it boring, which is why I have never bought any Paradox games to date. I cut my gaming teeth on the Age of Empires series (but NOT AOE IV), Cossacks & other similar titles (still playing Cossacks III). so I'm far more interested in the RTS battles. I guess the best thing Paradox could do IF they decide to venture into TW like gaming would be to develop a game that CA haven't tried yet, like a PIke & Shot Era perhaps. I guess it's now just a case of ... Watch This Space & see what occurs :)
Paradox can do this if they team up some strategy game / campaign team with the developer of Mount&Blade. The latter has the engine for being better than TWs currently (and bannerlord already has some strategy viewports for top-down battle management and such).
Paradox Interactive likes to take measured risks.
They have launched and supported a huge number of licences in different genres (turn-based RPG, 4x, fantasy/post-apo management, space conquest, etc), always with the aim of creating the new 'Immortal game'. We can see with CK3 and Victoria 3 that they've learnt the lessons of Imperator, and EUIV is also being used as a test for a number of experiments (subscriptions, addons, etc).
I think Paradox could simply embrace a small studio willing to experiment (like they helped M&B1 for a while and now C Prompt Game), but would be reluctant to create the team themselves from scratch. Or they could wait for a team of developers at home to feel confident enough to propose the project.
In reality, if a studio comes knocking on their door with a serious project, they'll probably give it a try.
Paradox tinto is testing out new mechanics with the newer DLCs like zones of influence, export grain, eyelets, modernization, etc, so imo the best bet for something like this to be added in any capacity would in EUV, since people complain a lot about the combat in EUIV due to dice rolls, or a title after that
Paradox can easily pull of a total war like game. (Former TW modder/Ultimate General Dev) Darth is currently doing it. A total war like game doesn't need to be as visually on par as the current total war titles, the game mechanics just need to be similar but better than total war.
I think Paradox will most likely invest on small game dev studios instead of Paradox itself. Like you mentioned, Paradox most likely will continue to develop their core grand strategy games. Hopefully Paradox will publish Darth's Ultimate General games in the future. But I'm not sure if it's advantageous for Darth's dev studio.
Paradox published Mount and Blade. And honestly i've played so much total war that i'd honestly prefer something a little different.
A Bannerlord type battle with medieval 2 type campaign would be amazing.
A Field of Glory 2 battle engine with a total war type campaign would be so very very interesting to see.
On the third crusaders there is a mod that allows you to play battles in Atilla total war with the 1212 AD mod
I put this in another comment, but I’m going to make an independent one to summarize some good ideas into one comment.
Paradox could distinguish themselves in the total war genre by:
A. Make command and control a feature, not a limitation. You as the player should be excited that you just instituted the Marian reforms or Gustavus Adolphus’ regimental system. You should be excited that your cavalry is now using bugle signals. You should be excited that you have signal flags, or battlefield radios. These advancements should directly impact your AI army’s ability to more quickly and efficiently carry out your will. Orders should not be telepathic, you should not be able to tell a specific cohort to “brace for impact” at exactly the right time of a cavalry charge. Instead, orders would be like telling a Chess AI “Open with Queen’s Gambit”. As the battle goes along, you then decide “let’s castle now.” or “I see an opening to develop a winning position, let’s start trading pieces.” How good your army’s command and control technology, drill, and techniques determines how quickly and efficiently the orders are carried out.
B. Simplified graphics. I don’t need total war graphics. I need a clear way to see what is going on. Make it look pretty, but as long as it creates the “General in the field commanding his army” feel. This can help abstract ideas related to technology, techniques, etc. You don’t need to see an actual Testudo form. You just need to know your men are in Testudo. I don’t need to see my cannon’s loading and firing grapeshot. I just need to see the results against the abstract enemy formation that indicate to me that the cannons actually loaded and fired grapeshot. As many others have said, there are a lot of UA-camrs who go over historical battles using icons and tiles. I think that would be a great way to simplify the “graphical” side of things. Once the novelty of zooming into to look at the mixture of Corinthian vs Phrygian style phalanx helmets of my hoplites has worn off, what I care about is the unit icons and where they are, and what they are doing. whether they exist, or are flashing white indicating to me they are about to run and I need to reposition another unit to fill the gap before it is too late. Except my opponent has battlefield radios and I neglected to research past “battlefield runner” so it’s probably going to be too late.
We've been getting the same TW game each time with slightly different game mechanics. No innovation or creativity at all.
Remember when each Total War release was a big deal? Medieval to Rome? Rome to medieval 2? Medieval 2 to Empire? It wasn't always a homerun but it sure was always something new and innovative, and in the process they created timeless classics.
If the battles are serious sims and not TW junk, maybe.
I don't think paradox will do it, but the folks that make Ultimate General I could forsure see taking over the genre
It is not by Paradox, but there are Field of Glory: Empires and Field of Glory 2. The first one is 4X strategy game about Ancient times (310 BC to 190 AD, so almost the same time span as Rome Total War). The second one is a tactical turn-based game. And you can "forward" the battles from the first to the second natively, as the games published by the same publisher (Slitherine).
Imagine too, if they took the mods, and made the start date for CK3, like Rome one, go all the way to late medieval or even like Napoleonic, and added all the total war stuff. It be like three total war games in one.
This limey is out of his mind if he thinks Paradox is going to save anything let alone a genre
They're actively destroying a newly purchased IP with Vampire
i hope in the future there would be a game mix of total war, mount and blade and crusader kings
as someone whos always been interested in total war but ahs never tried it (hopefully I will soon!) one thing that *really* turned me off of the TW games was how all the animations in battles are super over-the-top, like its a movie or a fantasy show/game.. i think if paradox made a TW-type game where characters moved and fought more realistically (visually) it'd be a big pull factor
I think you raise a lot of the main issues with this idea in the video. If Paradox were to attempt this, it would likely be as a publisher, not a developer. The up front costs of jumping into a project like this are massive (far more so than a civ-like) and in an era where many Paradox games are struggling and even failing and there is a general downturn in the industry as a whole, I just don't see risks like this being taken. They don't have the teams, they likely don't have the money, and any product they do put out probably won't be as good as Total War, especially since Paradox has a nasty habit of releasing games before they're ready and patching them through DLC.
Not to mention that people who think just because Paradox develops a game that means it will have the same mechanical depth as something like HoI4 and battles at least as good as TW are deluded. Paradox is a smaller studio than CA, so to expect them to be able to put out a substantially bigger project with no prior experience is absurd.
CA is a midget compared to paradox, tf you talking about.
Ive been a massive total war fan and that has naturally made me cross paths with paradox games too, but idk man, i really dont feel it with paradox games. I deeply wish they would make something more total war like because if they successfully did it they would pull quite a few former total war players out of retirement like myself
It really makes me wonder if Paradox has approached Darth Vader's Game-Labs to publish his Ultimate General/Admiral titles.
Real time 1:1 armies battles will be hard to make with no experience. So unless they invest serious time and money in this, they should start small, like the "chess-like" battles in Shogun 1 and scale up from there. Honestly, as long as it feels cool and the AI is a challenge, that would be amazing already.
I hope they do it. Even graphics at the level of Shogun 2 but bigger armies would be more than enough.
That's still incredibly difficult to do, you know. I mean yes, we can expect this level of effort from a studio as big as PDX but still. Shogun 2 looks beautiful and achieving this level of graphical fiselity, let alone actual beauty, is no small feat.
Age of Wonders and Triumph Studios are owned by Paradox interactive.
I want Eugen and Paradox to smash HOI IV and SDII together into the greatest WWII strategy game ever
En spennende tanke! Digger Paradox og spillene deres, men vokste opp med Rome total war og CA. Tror litt konkurranse virkelig er bra for sjangeren, CA må steppe opp gamet sitt. De siste spillene har vært helt okei, men slår ikke Rome I og II-, Napoleon, Empire og flere av de eldre utgivelsene. Fortsett med det fantastiske innholdet du pumper ut ;)
I think that Paradox will focus on encouraging modders to make total war like additions in their existing games and even hire a few of them
I watched Mano Lords. Is simply charming. Grapchics at least is way better than anything i saw to date. Is a combination of Anno 1800 and Stronghold.
My money is on the underdog... Ultimate General! If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out their latest title: Ultimate General American Revolution.
- I wish Total War would go in that direction.
You know I play a lot more of paradox games nowadays but my favorite total war game is Shogun 2. If CA never makes a good total war again I will always have Shogun 2. But if paradox got into this type of game I’d give it a try.
you should do a video on Winter Falling! it's an interesting take on medieval RTS battles
Paradox have some issues like dlc pricing however at the same time i dont personally care about that, if your lower on momey just purchase 1 dlc per paycheck.
If paradox make a total war type game i honestly think it will impact CA Very heavily, i own all total qar games and they really dont feel much different to each other, i love the battles they are incredibly fun however i get bored so fast due to the campiagns feeling so shallow.
A joint game would be incredible paradox working on the campaign and CA working in the battle maps and army models.