Did you just call the Paradox games "simple?"
Did you just call the Paradox games "simple?"
His arguments are fine. When he says that Paradox games are simple its not meant as by features or complexity of the gameplay, but by the sheer amount of code it takes to make Rome 2 work compared to a paradox game. While I do love Paradox game, the term "Spreadsheet game" fits them very well, they're basically just spreadsheets like; You do X action and Value Y is changed by +2" Not a lot of errors can occur from this, Rome 2 is far more complex below the hood.
Last edited by Radzeer; October 18, 2013 at 06:59 PM. Reason: language adjustment
In the Tim Heaton interview he claims creative assembly is so independent they run marketing internally at the studio. I don't know where the myth that it's all a big sega conspiracy comes from.
edit: just for clarification I'm sure what OP is talking about is a publisher thing, but it is a little comical they're reduced to using e3 awards to sell the product like that is any judgement on the final game. Too bad they can't use all those bloated reviews they paid good development money on.
Last edited by Rasic; October 18, 2013 at 11:26 AM.
TW's scale doesn't even come close to that of Paradox. You'd know that if you had played any of their grand strategy games (HOI3, fx). Also any product is prone to defects, epsecially if the designers are careless/lazy, so dont try to excuse CA's failure by claiming they had too complex features, because by all accounts it's clear that Rome II is a backstep in innovation - not that I expect you have any clue what that really means.
Your memory is selective, isn't it ?
Let's go for a shameless copy of my reply to the same statement formulated by you in a different thread.
Edit : I could not say it better Rasic. Despite Tim Heaton affirmation I believe it is the exact opposite and SEGA allows CA to do most of the marketing work for the simple reason that CA have no independence toward SEGA. Just look at the man, freshly recruited from EA and already at the head of CA. There no upper post than studio director so nobody from CA could had recruited him. The decision could only come from SEGA.
And CA's pet lapdog comes yapping on the forums again, i have been forced to post this because im sick of the silly comments you have been leaving here. Who on earth put the word 'paradox' and 'simple' in the same sentence? Point aside TWR2 is beyong bugs, its gameplay design is flawed due a company that is stuck with metacritic loving managers.
Paradox games are just as huge as TW games, just because you dont get the flashy graphics when you fight a battle doesnt mean less effort has been put into the game, or is it any smaller in scope.
Your posts are becoming tedious with their repetiviveness and your defence of CA is clearly flawed. Please revise your opinions, play Rome total war 1 with mods and finally have that eureka moment when you realise those mods is what TWR2 should have been with updated graphics.
I agree with you david - and thats the point. CA wil not listen to its customer base, a large part of their previous games sold soley on the merits of RS2 SPQR TATW SS and many more, surely they should clock on theres obviously SOMETHING they are doing right that CA could be missing?
Paradox's scale is entirely different. For one, Paradox is - as mentioned - basically a spreadsheet simulator. The game works on doing 'x' makes 'y' happen. In fact, Paradox is pretty easy to mod, even I can do it, given you just change some 0's to 1's to enable some disabled features (i.e. allowing females to lead armies), or to make things more expensive/better, you just change some numbers.
Meanwhile Total War is not a 'do x and y happens', there are far more complex variables involved. Just in battles alone, the engine needs to first track every single unit - every single unit has its own stats, so your unit of 120 men is 120 separate things the game is tracking. All 120 men also have their own pathfinding programming to run through. Then when this 120 man unit engages another unit in battle, the game has to compare the stats of which of the 120 men are actually engaging the enemy, and make sure their pathfinding plays nice - and if they die, make sure the un-dead ones move forward and look at their stats.
And that's just looking at 120 men. When you consider you can have over 10,000 units on the map, that is an insane number of variables and statistics the game has to track. The battles alone are far more technically complex then a Paradox title, where the battles are basically: "The one with more numbers wins." 19000 troops against 20000? The 20000 will probably win. The calculations for battles in a Paradox game are significantly less complex.
Yet more Total War "fans" complaining about tiny things in the game and blowing them way out of proportion to make the game seem worse. It's like you guys wanted to, and enjoy, complaining.
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Favorite TW: Medieval 2 / Rome (XGM Mod) / Rome 2
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"A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool, because he has to say something." ~Plato
You are so very wrong it makes me wonder if you have, in fact, played and modded Paradox grand strategy games much. Their games are not a "'x' makes 'y' happen" "spreadsheet simulator"; and your basis for believing that it is, because it's "pretty easy to mod" has absolutely nothing to do with it. Their games have a different focus; which is grand strategy, hence their genre. Their battles are simplified because it is not their focus. And even their simplified battles aren't "19000 troops against 20000? The 20000 will probably win." situation. Their combat simulator takes into account unit types, faction and unit technology, leader skills and traits, and a myriad of other factors... Just because it doesn't show you specific units battling it out on the battlefield doesn't make it simple; and in fact, that assumption is far from the truth.
I've been modding and playing Paradox games for years, ever since I got the gem that was Hearts of Iron 2. Modding these games, you'll find that their AI programming, while not perfect, is light years beyond any that CA has ever deigned to produce for any Total War game; period. That fact that you can easily mod their games isn't because the games are 'simple'; but simply because Paradox from the beginning has made a commitment to making their games easily moddable by anyone without needing specialized tools because the game data is locked away behind encryption.
Total War games have never been strategically complex games; their focus is on battles, not civilization building. I've played Total War games since the original Medieval; and the best the default CA AI has managed to be is inept; even though the CAI for the much simpler Medieval campaign could be surprisingly brutal at times. But oh were the battles fun to play. Even Rome 2 battles, with it's braindead AI, can be a thing of beauty at times. In the end, comparing Paradox and Total War games is like comparing fruits and vegetables: they're similar but fundamentally different.
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools" - Thucydides
It was not my intention to compare the games on equal footing - I was merely comparing their coding. Total War's coding is significantly more complex then a Paradox titles. I have played a few hundred hours of CK2, and in my experience, the larger army almost always wins. The exception being if the smaller army has a significant number of heavy cavalry - but anyone who has played CK2 knows all about the "Muslim Doomstacks" which ensure the Crusades never succeed due to the 38k roving army that stamps out everything the Crusaders can muster.
The two games have very big differences and focuses yes, but Total War is just technically and coding-wise, far more complex. The more complex the code is, the more prone it is to bugs. Just the way it is.
Not it is not. Stop trying to make that assumption; it shows you're obviously not a programmer. Just because a game has flashier lights doesn't automatically give it 'significantly more complex' coding. I too have played over 600 hours of CK2, the game you're using as an example, and I've modded the hell out of it too. Having a larger army does not in any way guarantee a victory. Those 30k+ doomstacks you're referring to are easily destroyed after a few decades with tech upgrades from Western powers; because in CK2, as in history, the Muslims of that era were more technologically advanced than the Westerners. You have to play catch up to have any chance of taking down one of the biggest empires in the game at that time. You are trying to use the battles from a game that is not focused on battles to make your point; while ignoring the other far more complex areas of the game such as the dynasty system, provincial system, character management... you know, the things that make a game like CK2 a grand strategy game.
And referrencing a comment from your previous post about why you think Total War games have more complex coding: pathfinding is one of the simpler elements to program; much simpler than say, AI programming. I don't have access to CA's code; but I can tell you that they're not programming pathfinding for 120 men. They're programming pathfinding for the unit; those 120 men are linked to that unit and follow where the unit's reference goes. At the most, with Rome 2, pathfinding is working on 80 units; not 80x120. Doing it the way you're suggesting isn't just inefficient, it's downright ridiculous to waste resources that way; something I don't CA (or any other game company in their right mind) would do.
Your assumptions are false and you should probably take some programming lessons before making broad claims like you've been doing.
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools" - Thucydides
I love how people go bonkers about a game still be marketed after release (shocking I know) in a sub forum that is about that very same game. Did anyone actually think that just because you are unhappy with the release, that they actually would stop marketing that game? Really?
"Tell people that there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you.
Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."
-George Carlin
I like how people are saying Paradox games aren't a spreadsheet game because reasons. You get to know the end result of most actions in static numbers before you even act on them. Oh, you want to break that King's title? That means all these people won't like you. They aren't bad games, I actually like what I have played and watched of them, but they are a much "simpler" game in terms of cause and effect.
Well I'll give paradox one credit at least they release games that work unlike CA.
On the whole TW versus Paradox, at the very least TW welcomes newcomers (with adequate tutorials), while Paradox just takes a dump on the newcomers (with their dismal tutorials). CKII? Worst "job" ever!
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