A Complete Beginner's Guide To Paradox Grand Strategy Games in 2022

Stellaris forevah!

Seeing that every Paradox Game hasd a focus on something specific, i'm wondering what the focus was in Sengoku.

Very generic reviews with little substance.

war in victoria 3 is a shame. It is not fun not being able to do physical strategy with your armies

imagine one of these games with total war battles. CA and paradox should talk!

Paradox games may have war in them. But since Darkest Hour, they no longer make actual 'wargames'. Hopefully Matrix will enter the real-time, grand strategy market. There are literally an army of players waiting.

Bro I played all and all are masterpieces

I have over 200 hours in hoi4, you’d probably be spect me to write a positive review on it but the game is just missing some core mechanics. First, the only way to finish a war is to either completely capitulate a country or have a white peace focus (like the soviets and the Finnish). There’s also no coring mechanics despite cores being a major part of the game. As you should expect with all paradox games the dlc is 75% of the game, without the dlc the game is just straight up bad. After around 20 hours of playing I find myself playing on mods to cover for the unpolished situation the game is in. Yes I know that some of these complaints could be due to the 14 year period you are restricted to, but honestly is that an excuse for lacking critical features that every other game like this has?

HoI3 in many aspects is better than HoI4, you should include it. And Victoria 2 is better in any aspect, than Victoria 3.

Vic2

I don't think Hoi4 is honestly that hard to learn tbh, at least in the base game historical is railroaded and hence predictable and easy, and non historical is easy because it throws the balance off. Pretty much learned it within 20 hours

I have 2350 hours in HOI4 and still dont understand the navy mechanics XD

I have mastered hoi4 and have almist 1.7k hiurs i. It i want to learn eu4 next

I really wanted to get into it paradox games, the learning curve is just a bit much for me, considering the limited amount of time I have to game between work and my marriage. I’m gonna keep periodically giving CK3 and HOI4 a go, but the total war series is what I always end up falling back on.

No civilization 6 ?

What games let you to build a dynasty like ck3 ?

I think its time to people give Imperator Rome a chance its been 3 years since release ,there is great mods, patches fixed he game and on top of that game is litterally free compared to other paradox games. Worth a try imo.

I mostly agree with this list but putting HoI4 at a 5/5 difficulty is ridiculous. Its by far the easiest paradox game to learn, far easier than eu4 at least

I played only hoir from these games and after only 200 hours without any tutorials, i actually understand every aspect and the game is boring because when you know everything about this game then its so easy. There are a lots of people doing world conquests with small countries like panama or smt. Once u know at least 70% of the game, then its pointless to play if you dont have f.e. friends to play vs. AI is horrendeously stupid and cannot build supply hubs for some reason.

doesnt mention the older games

Great, now I want to play them all -.-

Stellaris; drawn in by the sound track and the exploration. Bored by the sameyness and micromanagement.
HOI4; may eventually be good, but Africa breaks it.
Imperator; would love a good game for this period, but the mechanics don't really reflect the period. A missed opportunity / go back to the drawing board.
EU4; generally good, though not without faults.

i think most popular should be stellaris .because not everyone love history.

I am by no means a complete beginner but I’m interested because I’m starting to get into Victoria, leaving imperator as the only game I don’t know how to play yet

Less of a guide and more like an “introduction”

HoI 4 ftw <3

Im always torn. Stallaris was my first, and I played it a Lot - Until I didnt lol. EU4 was the same, I put about the same play time into both. CK3.... really didnt take to it at all. Not sure why, butI just didnt. Im on the fence about trying HOI4 or vic3 - part of my thinks HOI might be the better fit due to not being taken with CK3 - Vic 3 seems closer to that than the others?

how can someone do war you cant control armies?

My only Paradox game is HOI4. I tried to get Vic 2 but I don’t have a Windows,I have a Mac for gaming and Vic 2 is only for Windows.

EaW.

what is the best game if i want to play the german reich?

Honestly Crusader kings is one that EVERYONE should at least try and spend enough time becoming competent in it because it's just such a good game and it's nice that CK2 is free as it means more people can get introduced to it. As for the rest I always found HoI4 the one I could spend hours and hours and hours on compared to say EU4 which I would get bored after 20 mins because it's got a great pacing to it and simplicity that allows depth not to be overwhelming. You can be good at it without having to learn every little nook and cranny and so you can enjoy it more easily.

This is probably just me but CK3 was way harder to learn compared to HOI4, I didn't think HOI4 was hard to learn but then again I have over 200 hours on it.

Very old, but you forgot Sengoku. Actually pretty fun game!

I used to play a lot of their games, but their DLC churn became ridiculous, so I gave up. I dont play any of their games now aside from aftermath.

If you like to patch games, use fam made stuff and never get them ready to play any Paradox product is great!

Good video, but this one is on me: I can't get into Paradox's games. I tried. I should love ALL of them - I'm a huge history buff (I think, I hope) and I like all the periods they cover: the Roman Empire, the medieval world, the pre-modern times, the world wars and I even absolutely LOVE sci-fi; I tried all of their titles and I can't, for the love of me, get through them - anyway I play them, I feel like I'm working, looking at excel spreadsheets, tables and balancing taxes, price rates and pivot tables. And the Universe knows I get more than enough of that at my job.
Anyway, as I was saying, this is on me, but I still highly enjoy other's people enjoyment when they describe these games, like you did in this video. Cheers!

Andrew's Take

I want to see PDX take on fantasy like a Sword and Sorcery Grand Strat would be fun to see.

did you really said hoi is harder than eu4 ???

Thank you for this; videos of this quality for 4X games are as rare as 4X games themselves.

My fav's. are CK3 and Stellaris <3

ck3 is my new vice

I only play Stellaris, HOI and CK, I've never heard of Imperator or Victoria, and I've sort of just disregarded EU since I rarely hear about it. But after hearing your opinions, I'll definitely try EU next.

After years of trying but failing to get into EU or CK series I finally fell in love with HoI4. Then I easily got into Stellaris, since that's more of a 4x type of game which I'm used to. I'm thinking of picking up Imperator or Vic 3 this week on sale, but it sounds like they are more like EU and CK, so I'm not sure if I'll like them.

Fyi steam paradox sale and Xbox sale going on

Will of the nation in late game Vic3 purely means more oil, oil at all cost, lost 3 million men in a 4 year long war over the Persian oil fields with practicaly half the globe is always worth it.

We are need paradox grand strategy with fantasy theme.

I like to playing Victoria 3, but this game is so heavy for my Laptop, so many lag and frequently crash in the late game. I don't know why it's because the poor optimization or my laptop just not good enough. For comparation my laptop can run other heavy game easilly, but not Vic3