Have you ever played a grand campaign? How long did it take to get through all the games? How did you keep things interesting along the way? Did you switch tags, or stick with the same one for the centuries?
I've tried a couple times to do a Kingdom of Jerusalem grand campaign, but things fell apart for me in EU4. One time it was dull because I was too big, and the next attempt had my work get much busier and I had to set it aside.
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CK2 to Stellaris?
Sure. Or stopping at HOI4.
But it seems kind of weird to not take your results out into space with Stellaris.
The thing that triggers me the most with 'Grand campaign timelapse videos' is that some I've seen end up not putting the #1rworldpower in space, but instead going out of their way to create 15 human factions dispersed across space.
WHY?
putting the 2nd and 3rd as lost colony origin empires sounds fun tbdesu
To avoid the humans either getting cannibalized by random aliens or dominating, which would happen each and every time.
This
Imperator to Stellaris.
t. played Paradox games for thousands of hours but have never actually reached the end date in any game because they become too easy but still always changed the end date to 9999 because I don't like feeling rushed.
Played EUiv Spain all the way took me a week or something wars with Britain was quite fun however colony maintenance and independence wars got quite boring in the late game but not TOTAL WAR TIER BORING
These games take too long. Wasted too many hours not finish campaigns. Word to the wise; proceed with caution. Finish your damn game quick.
Victoria 3 can be finished lightning fast
Is Vicky 3 even worth it for a grand campaign?
vicky 3 is only worth it if you're constipated.
>Victoria 3 can be finished lightning fast
You mean in making a lightning fast dash for the toilet becasue you are about to have VIOLENT EXPLOSIVE DIARRHEA?
If I start in CK3 I get fricked by some funny visual novel events and get mad
If I start in EU4 I win by the end date and there's no point in going over to Vic
See, I think what appeals to me the most is industrializing a country that I built in CK2. But EU4 is such a slog to get thrown the whole game.
The only time I had fun with those was when I barely understood any of the games so I didn't blob or the ai stood up to me with coalitions, if you know how to play any of the games you will either complete wc by ck2 or if you limit yourself you will be so tall it won't even become a boring game fast, the only other way to have fun is buttfricking some nation than tag switiching to rebuild them
What do you think are the best starts/countries/regions to play as? It needs to be dynamic or interesting enough to play centuries there.
I think the ideal might be picking 'random country' every time you start, Then try to topple your no doubt blob of an empire.
I once played a Rome restoration CK2 game with the WTWSMS mod from 476 to 1444 with the intend to then port it on EUIV.
Playing 1000 years of the same CK2 run makes you want to have a nice day late game.
In the end anyone relevant in Europe was somewhat related to me.
The only real big issue you need to take into consideration when doing a mega campaign is self limiting your blobbing and ambitions as well as "fixing" the ai's. Too many grand campaigns get done where by the time you leave eu4 the world is controlled entirely by like 4 gigantic blobs. You need to continually handicap yourself to never be the number 1 power throughout the game and to always break down the ai superpowers. If you don't you will run into the situation as mentioned above where it just gets completely boring and devoid of interesting things.
Basically, set a goal for each game and heavily modify the ai borders by making up your own lore between each game in order to keep things fresh and interesting.
Look chaps, its time to face the facts. The Victoria 3 mess just proves that Paradox has been caught with their PANTIES DOWN! Yes! With their PANTIES DOWN AROUND THEIR ANKLES! My God...
I know, I know, I was just as shocked as everyone else. But the truth is out. Yes. Paradox has been revealed as a pack of CROSS DRESSERS! Yes. That's means they wear WOMEN"S PANTIES! The sicks fricks.
But not only do they cross dress but they also dropped their PANTIES when they were designing Victoria 3. Now just think about that for a moment. What does that mean? Yes. Yes. That means they were having SEX while they were making Victoria 3. What was supposed to be the newest bestest and most wonderful iteration of our beloved Victoria was in fact created while they were indulging in shameful acts of SODOMY while being dressed in WOMEN"S CLOTHING! Oh the Humanity!
How can any of us play Victoria 3 now we know that 3 buttons probably came into creation while some balding fat bearded slob with appalling personal hygiene was moaning like a b***h and sweating like a pig while having non-hetrosexual sex, while also coding, with his WOMAN'S PANTIES draped around his ankles!?!?! Its unthinkable!
No. No. Its no good even pirating the game. No decent, law abiding, good God-fearing person can play Victoria 3 now. It is now tarnished, morally corrupt, and stained with semen. If you play Victoria 3 you will surely go to Hell.
I've considered it, but the problem is usually by the mid point of any game you've already won so hard there's no real reason to complete that run. There's not blobbing and then there's just afking for decades so you can achieve your goal in the next game instead of the current one for no real reason.
I had this situation worst in ck2 for my grand campaign attempts. I played as Sweden in ck2, united Scandinavia, and just kind of waited around for a few centuries. In eu4 I snagged a little more Baltic territory to complete the "home empire." The rest of the game was building a colonial empire and trying to keep a balance of power in Europe. It was still kind of dull. And annoying.
>France gets dogpiled
>Help France recover
>France eats into Iberia
>End French alliance
>France gets dogpiled
>Help France recover
Repeat ad nauseum
I did a 769 to end date CK2 game once, and my greatest luck was that at some point, the game glitched and made a bastard the emperor, and gave me 150 years of fun time reuniting my empire over decade long civil wars.
hoping to
Tell us more. Who are you planning to play as?
I can hardly withstand playing more than two hundred years on either eu or ck now imagine an entire campaign of all their games, no fricking way, only games I play till the end is vic and hoi, the rest is just pointless
I can barely finish a ck2game without conquering europe, no idea how you would have any fun with that by the end of eu4 campaign
planning one, do you start with imperator lads?
I'd start in 1066 at the earliest. Maybe even later
It's baffling to me why anybody thinks this would be fun. You either become a superpower in the first game, making the rest of the already easy games completely trivial, or you just afk through the whole thing to avoid becoming too strong. Sounds amazing.
I think the idea of it can be appealing. I really do want to take that crusader state into vicky and see how it industrializes, if the monarchy can hold on to power or if revolutionaries will seize power.
But the execution is boring as sin, like you described.
My plan is that when I’ve achieved what I want in each game, I tag switch to another place. This has the double effect of gimping my main power with AI decisions and building up a new power or two that will be more challenging later.
I did CK2>EU4 and you described it perfectly. Blobbing isn't super fun, but having toy soldiers chase each other around a map is why these games stopped being fun for me in the first place. I think they've run their course with me.
CK2 and CK3 are more flexible games, so you can find fun and engaging things to do that impact the world without blobbing.
I wonder if it'll be any more fun with a county roulette type mod for every game
You know, the ones that change your tag to some random one once every X years
My contract ends this week and I’m gonna do a grand campaign to celebrate. I’m going to do CK2 > EUIV > Vic 2 > Hoi4 > Stellaris, but I could swap out CK2 for CK3, though I kind of want to play a merchant republic because I like being a naval power.
My choices are
Ireland, which I’ve played before a lot tbh
Romanian or Kievan Rus, which I’ve never done
Zoroastrian Persia, which I’ve done in CK3 but I hear is better in CK2
I hear there are some cool counts in the HRE, which I’ve never touched in either CK game
I’ve been itching to try Africa again, especially Ife, but that would probably lock me into CK3 since I hear Africa is abysmal in CK2.
Nordic countries are my comfort zone but I want to get out of it a little.
I tried to do a mega-campaign when CK2 came out, but decided not to. I had been playing as Bogomilist Lithuania and wasn't excited to do the campaign. I also tried to do a multiplayer mega-campaign with an online group. We made it through CK2 and played a bit of EU4 - maybe a century. It was alright but we needed to do heavy editing to make it balanced.
Victoria 2's AI is busted so mega-campaigns don't really work past EU4. Conflict in that game is driven by events and the political crisis feature, so good luck getting organic wars. Plus the game is balanced to have ~8 roughly equal powers, which is almost certainly not how your mega-campaign will actually look.
I'm waiting for EU V to release. I hope that it has 3D models much like CK 3 and Victoria 3 so that you can export your ruler between games.
Just play civ 3. You can see your leaders change clothes.
I played it before and I enjoyed it to an extent but I found the diplomacy to be lackluster.
You have to massively handicap yourself somehow. to keep it interesting for that many years. Very possible with CK, plenty of options for RP handicaps, but once you get to EU4 its like uh what now. I can handicap myself based on monarch stats but the second there's a decent ruler on the throne there's nothing stopping me from swallowing up tons of land, and nothing stopping me from easily holding onto that land after he dies
While it's not a grand campaign, I see many of you complaining that EU4 is too easy.
Give a try on EU3 with EU3Plus/EU3+ mod or WAMMO. My experience playing those mods was much superior than playing EU4, especially on managing the country and fighting wars (battle are much more decisive, as tech increases the cost of armies substantially).
why would I?
the end game in every paradox game is fricking boring.
I did this over 15 years ago with like 12+ people and turned it into a Lets Play on a forum that no longer exists. We did:
>CK1 > EU3 > Ricky > HOI2
It was fun, but I'm 33 now and absolutely do not have time for that kind of shit anymore.
I have a few ideas for megacampaigns, but to be honest I get bored playing CK2 and tend not to finish the whole chain of games unless I pick a late start date in CK2.
That said, would love feedback on my ideas or to hear which sounds most interesting.
1) Ireland beginning in 769, with the goal of uniting all the remaining Celtic peoples under one banner and ejecting the Anglo-Saxons from Britain before going on to establish a colonial empire based upon trade rather than conquest.
2) German Republic. Begin as the Hanseatic League, establish a strong merchant republic throughout northern Germany, then stage a revolt against the HRE and begin building a greater German Republic, while colonizing north America, with the eventual goal of averting the world wars as we know them by toppling the empires and establishing republics throughout Europe, undoubtedly leading to new and different world wars.
3) Mongol Khanate run in which a stable Eurasian empire is established, China is conquered, and the New World is organized as a Mongol protectorate with many native nomad tribes under my banner as subjects, to prevent Europeans from conquering the continent.
4) Zoroastrian Persian run, in which we attempt to survive the onslaught of Islam, break free of the Caliphate, reestablish Zoroastrian Persia, and then destroy Islam while forming a greater Persian colonial empire in east Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia.
These all sound pretty good.
1) If it was me, I'd play as one of Arthur's descendants and do the game as the Welsh. Make England Welsh Again. Then unite the Celts/Gaels and make your trade empire.
2) Not my first choice, but having an eu4 experience dedicated to toppling/changing governments will give you a way to expand without blobbing.
3) I think this is the weakest and would be a dull playthrough. If I were doing this, I'd start ck2 as Ghenghis, go for a world conquest (or as much as possible) and then break up the world into new khanates led by bastards & relatives. I'd also be sure that province culture changes would be turned off in ck2. Then, come eu4, you have all these khanates around the world that would hopefully collapse under nationalist uprisings. Get to see how the Khanate of Hispania tears itself apart.
4) I've thought about this one myself, and while it sounds fun, I think it would get boring quickly. You'll probably have the standard grand campaign problem of being the greatest power by the end of ck2.
To further clarify what I'd do for the mongol playthrough: I'd avoid having all the world run by the Borgijin dynasty by giving thrones to cousins, bastards, and in-laws. And I'd probably console command those new mongol rulers to have the local religion, with maybe a few exceptions here and there.
I'll admit they were mostly off the cuff ideas. I was trying to come at it from an alt history perspective. Pick a point of divergence and then see how the world plays out. I do really like the idea of an Arthurian restoration like you described.
I suppose they do all have the problem of building a powerful nation up, but there are ways to curtail that by having self imposed limits.
What would you suggest for a long campaign like this then?
these all suck
>1) uk game but green with colonial blob
>2) ebin groBgermaniums but a republic with colonial blob
>3) horse nomad blob with added colonial blob (horse nomads love colonial empires)
>4) le ebin remove kebab with colonial blob
these all sound interesting
You also can't go wrong from a count -> country leader/emperor story. Do it within the Byzantines, Abbasids, or HRE. Hell, you could try to recreate the good ol' hapsburg dominion from that one ck2 start where they're just a count in either swabia or switzerland
I remember reading an aar back in the day where someone did that. Started as the Hohenzollern count in CKI, played through EU3, Vic2, and a very heavily modded HOI2/DH if I remember right. Back when autists spent a year modding the games so they could have events and country names that were germane to the lore of their run.
Maybe that is one of the problems with trying to do a megacampaign now. Previous Paradox titles were somewhat easier to mod through the event system, whereas current titles are more of a hurdle, so creating a fun and engaging story all the way up through HOI4 is harder. I say that as someone who has never tried to mod HOI4 so I could be wrong, I know it has many overhaul mods.
The key is collapse of empires. You do a megacampaign, you install mods or make your self If you are capable.
>but muh heckin empirinoooooo
That's the point anon, it's a fricking megacampaign, empires usually last 250 years max historically. They disintegrate over time. Same shit with megacampaigns, you are supposed to have big empires fall and have smaller shits fill the void until they collapse too. Until you reach end game eu4 victoria 2/3 then u start your industrialisation and even then empires are supposed to get destroyed after ww1.
What mods allow the collapse of empires? There's HIP for ck2 which has decay but it's a magic number where you can be an emperor tier king and not have any decay as long as you don't press the funny button. EU4 had a few collapse mods but they're all outdated now unless there's newer ones, and I haven't seen a single v2 mod with dynamic collapses, it's only through the dismantle cb.
Ok, here's an idea.
Start ck2 in 769 and jump around as necessary with the goal of eliminating all Abrahamic provinces by the end of the game. You can do it however you like, but several religious blocs is preferable, like a Hellenistic Mediterranean, a Norse Northwestern Europe, Zotoastrian Arabia, etc.
In eu4 and after... play whoever is most interesting.
Are there any ck2 starts with playable Hohenzollerns? I know they exist as barons in Swabia at several start dates.
Shit man I typically stop a Victoria 2 game by 1910 or so. Sometimes 1890-ish, which is barely more than halfway through. I couldn't do a megacampaign.
Paradox games are just bad at maintaining a challenge. Your early game is generally active and engaging and dynamic, you've got goals and difficult stuff to overcome. Then your power snowballs and you run out of challenging obstacles and you've got your target borders and that's it, nothing left to do.
Two main problems with Paradox games:
- Instability of larger / more diverse realms isn't modelled very well. Victoria 2 comes closest due to the way unaccepted cultures work, but still miles off. The main issue is that Paradox games don't really model internal government structures and organizations. You can't have an effective rebellion because there is no modeling of, say, paramilitary buildup. You can't have a specific provincial government work towards rebellion, quietly, and then have that unit of a nation break away or even cooperate with other rebellious areas to try it at the same time, etc.
- Although it's alleviated with core gains, for the most part in Paradox games your expansion is checked with unidirectional badboy/infamy/AE points that are acquired whenever you expand but not depleted when you contract. You have X amount of infamy you can spend without getting dogpiled, and if you lose a war or rebellious subregion then you've basically lost the infamy you paid to initially acquire them, and are permanently behind; you have to spend more to get them back. This encourages players to very carefully avoid ever losing, and treats loss of war, rebellion, etc, as an overall semi-permanent fail state. It encourages them to reload and not live with setbacks. An expansion check model that's more about AI assessing your overall threat level would be preferable.
I think this might be a neat idea to learn the games in this series I haven't played yet
Who would y'all suggest to start as with this in mind?
The thing about a grand campaign is that you'll be in your home region for around 1000 years, so it has to be interesting and dynamic. And the best way to do that is, either, play tall (which can get very boring during ck2) or use a collapsing empire mechanic mod.
I've had fun with my Jerusalem run. Once I had Outremer, I greatly limited expansion and focused fully on rp. It was fun. Now in eu4, I'm basically becoming the equivalent of the Ottoman empire, as I'm becoming the big blob of the Eastern Mediterranean. After I take out Byzantium (Jerusalem missions call for it), I'll try to snag North Africa, maybe parts of Somalia and Kenya. I don't know if I should take Persia or expand into India, however. Thoughts?
PS - I'll have very little coal in Vic2, so that will be a good obstacle.
Are you at the 30 years war event?
Not yet. I'm thinking about learning how to change a province's region to make Jerusalem part of Europe - for the purpose of participating in a league war.
I guess I should also mention that part of the eu4 rp is to support the papal states (I'd love for them to unite Italy) and be friendly-ish to France (as though we had a historical friendship, seeing as they're my parent country) without just helping them steamroll Europe.
Follow up question.
If I wanted to help Japan turn Catholic as a western empire, what are my options? Just fund a daimyo that hopefully converts?
When I tried a Grand Campaign, for Eu4 I just ended up playing for the first 150 or so years and then going into Observer mode until 1821. I think either that or tagging over to different countries is the only way to reach Vic2 without being completely overpowered.