That sounds awesome. On one hand, yeah, everything is better multiplayer with friends. But on the other hand, that sounds awesome anyway. I’m jealous of people who have friends willing to put in the time to learn and understand a Paradox game, and the patience to deal with the drawn-out pacing. The payoff seems like it would be so worth it. How amazing would it be to play through Crusader Kings 2 with four or five of your best gaming buddies?
-Tom
Crusader Kings 2 isn’t my bag, but I did have a lot of fun playing it with a friend. I was some minor king while he played a duke in my court. The intent was to play coop but things got derailed after I married off my daughter to him, he developed the Lusty trait, a taste for the torture chambers, and then his hunchback son started plotting against him (with the support of the crown, naturally! :)). Good times!
I’ve had a blast with Stellaris co-op too. Roleplaying in Stellaris is a lot of fun, solo or with friends. It’s not so much about making all the optimal decisions for me, it’s “what would my xenophobic and fanatically religious hate-Snails do in this situation?” which can lead to some really entertaining and/or disastrous situations. Throw in a friend doing the same and it can result in some real hijinks!
I actually think one of the strongest things about the Paradox grand strategy games is playing them multiplayer with friends. Turn based stuff is simply too ponderous for most of my friends, being able to set a Paradox game to an agreed upon speed and just go while you chat on Discord is really a lot of fun. I actually prefer Warhammer 2 as a single player experience, but multiplayer campaign just isn’t the same level of fun as Stellaris, EU, or HoI can be.
It almost goes without mentioning that all 4X games start feeling incredibly easy against the AI past a certain point unless they are cheating beyond reason. Playing Stellaris single player is only really interesting to me as an exercise in efficiency. Can I conquer an 800 star galaxy on Commodore no later than 2300, for example. Self-imposed victory conditions. Against your friends you can house rule anything that you dislike (we generally ban any species that begins the game with Total War Casus Belli, because either you unite against that player from the beginning and destroy them ASAP or they eat the other players one by one and snowball quite rapidly), you get to play against reasonably difficult and cunning opponents that aren’t cheating, and you get to chat on Discord while doing so.
Edited to add: I have no problem whatsoever with cheating AI’s, otherwise all the 4X games I’ve enjoyed single player over the years would have been even more of Map-painting simulators than they already are. It’s just nice to test your strategy against other people on a level playing field and seeing how successful it is rather than the strategies you craft to defeat AI.
All-night multiplayer Paradox games sounds like some kind of heaven. It’s kind of amazing to me that I used to play multiplayer until the wee hours.
They put a bunch of guys in a real castle and had them play eu4.
Sounded amazing.
I’d enjoy a day or days long epic 8 player AoW 3 game ☺
You guys make me want to play it multiplayer. Now I just need to find some friends that play :-\
There is a Discord group you can join on Reddit, I’m not on my home PC so I don’t have the link handy, but it’s pretty active and I’ve had fun with the games I’ve played on there. A quick search should turn up the address, though, if you aren’t too nervous speaking to strangers. My limited experience with it was quite positive, though.
Stellaris faction, garage band, or an ironically named racing team sponsored by the local Klan?
-Tom
Yeah, it’s like when they came out with a second season of Fortitude. WTF??
Thanks. When I think I have grasped the game better, I’ll look into playing with friendles online.
I know this isn’t the Paradox forum, but you guys are helpful so I’ll ask if this is a bug or am I misunderstanding fleet command limit. I’m in year 2231 and I’ve researched Destroyers (+10 command limit) and just finished Space Combat (+20) but yet the game only shows I have 22. Any idea what’s going on here? I didn’t see this in the first few games I played.
Your issue here is that Fleet Command Limit and Naval Capacity are two different things. Fleet Command Limit is the maximum amount of ships you can have in any one fleet, whereas Naval Capacity is a soft-cap on how many ships you can have overall. At some point, your Naval Capacity number should be much higher, but it doesn’t look like you’ve done any Fleet Capacity research or built any anchorages.
The easiest way to immediately raise your naval cap would be to upgrade an outpost to a starbase and add some anchorages (+4 each, later on you will research a building that makes them give +6 each). Remember that Naval Capacity isn’t actually a hard cap, when you go over it your ship upkeep increases by a % based on how far you are over. Fleet Capacity is actually a hard cap, and there aren’t any buildings that increase it.
Anyways, working as intended. Don’t bother building the Anchorages until you are planning on going over 22 Naval Capacity, as they do cost a bit of upkeep.
No such thing happened. They only made one season of Fortitude.
-Tom
Search better, there’s two seasons
Wrong! As I said, they only made one season of Fortitude.
-Tom
P.S. One, I tell you! Just one!
There are four lights.
@MisterMourning Oh yeah, now I understand. I guess I understood it… that’ll teach me to game when I’m tired. Big thanks!
Alternate opinions:
Plantoids adds art (skipable);
But it’s good art; get it on sale
Leviathans adds space monsters and traders (cool, but not essential);
Disagree; essential at sale prices
Uptopia adds “megastructures” (space habitats, ring worlds, etc.) and hive minds (skipable);
Late game stuff so if you’re like me and usually restart before you get there then skippable
Humanoids adds a new ship design (skipable);
Agreed, unless you prefer Star Trek people in make-up kind of aliens.
And now a question: I will never play as a robot empire (personal preference). Is Synthetic Dawn worth it to me as a single player only?
I would say no, skip.
Look, why don’t you take your nerdyman Star Trekker references to a more appropriate thread about some dopey science fiction game or something?
-Tom
