It’s going to be more ‘EUIV Meets Rome’ than ‘CK2 Meets Rome’ - Apparently Johan and Henrik (the main CK2 guy) both put forward design plans for this game, Johan’s being more EUIV/Wargame-y and Henrik’s being more rooted in characters and CK2 design.
Since Johan’s won out, I think the character stuff is going to be light touches compared to what happens in CK2. You’re still the “embodiment of a nation” vs. a specific in-game character with a dynasty. Characters will probably be more akin to agents in Total War games.
It’s still super early though - this won’t be out till 2019 which is why the trailer doesn’t show anything.
I don’t disagree, at the same time given the scope of the game they have to design a roughly even experience for all nations at a basic level. It’s not like the original RTW where they only really gave Rome interesting stuff and every other faction had to make do.
I imagine it’ll be like EUIV in the sense that nations of Rome’s ‘type’ might get special, character-led mechanics, but we’ll find out as time goes on I guess.
It’s the trade-off question isn’t it - do you double-down on Rome and make everyone else feel a bit ‘meh’ by comparison, or do you try and design an experience that’s more consistent through-out?
EU:Rome wasn’t Paradox’s best game, but it has a lot of fans that have been wishing for a sequel for over ten years.
For people who really enjoy Paradox grand strategy games, a new title is pretty exciting. Especially with the long tail of post-release development work their current model uses, a new franchise or full sequel isn’t terribly common.
Cool. I never played EU:Rome so I wasn’t sure if there were some totally unique gameplay ideas that were shelved but missed. I really thought they’d be announcing a new Vicky game.
Personally, I was hoping for Victoria 3, even though they said ahead of time they wouldn’t be announcing it. I’m not too interested in most Rome games, but the time period they’ve chosen is different and the level of detail displayed so far looks pretty impressive.
The rise and fall of the republic is so much more interesting than the empire. The problem is that there are a lot of political changes during that period, and as said before, it’s either going full on on a Rome-first approach or risk diluting the interesting parts and making everything too generic.
Vicky and EU are certainly what they do best, disregarding sales. CK a close second. Stellaris third. The Worldbuilding RTS Simulator approach never fits WW2 just right…
Both are also predating their biggest growth period. I remember days before CK II blew up the world, when Sengoku has just been released and was portending good things. Their UI elements are notably tougher. I went back to Vicky after years, and despite having hundreds of hours in the old engine it was tough to break through again.
So those sales numbers can’t tell the whole story. Their audience is far larger today than it was then. Paradox had yet to have a million seller at that point.
In a week they received over 10,000 beta applications for this game. That is pretty impressive considering you have to essentially write an essay on the application form!
They claimed to have tested the engine in 64bits and found it slower - which isn’t surprising, it’s not a blanket improvement.
I’m pretty sure the have no intentions of wasting 5 years to do a brand new engine for no reason, though.
Is the rumor I have seen (on Reddit?) that the guy who did the economic model of Vicky 3 left the company and none of them can can figure it out now, true? That wouldn’t stop them from doing a new version obviously, but maybe they don’t think they can top 2?
