How hard is this to learn and understand

[BooQueefius]

Title

[Halala]

You forgot about usual OMG NERF XXX NATION IT'S TOO OP!!111ONEONEONE

[Gloryhawk]

Well, this game is probably the best example of the Bushnell's Law: easy to learn, hard to master! :) Just read the wiki about the basic concepts (trade, army composition...), spend at least a couple of hours on youtube and you are ready to go! Do your first game as the Ottomans, easiest country of the game.

[Halala]

You simply need to get hang of it. Watching tutorials and/or reading guides might help but can beat your own experience. Just play an easy nation like already metioned Ottomans or maybe Portugal (isolated from enemies) and play around with everything, test it. Then try different country which seems interesting for you, repeat it over and over again and you won't notice when you're conquering world as Ryuku.

Also use the wiki often, it's really helpful.

[shoki]

hard

[Kayeka]

After about 250 hours of game time, I finally feel confident in my ability to crash and burn only two out of three times.

[Alpaca Rotorvator]

Do you have any experience at all with other grand strategy titles? If yes, then it will be moderately hard, since this is probably paradox's most simple title mechanicswise and some concepts carry over, if not then it'll be pretty hard.

[<Proper_Namekey>]

A lot of it is luck too.

[Camerons101]

Originally posted by <insert proper namekey>:

A lot of it is luck too. :mailedfist:

If you NEED luck you're either playing an incredibly small country completely surrounded by larger ones, or just playing the game wrong.

[Ketraar]

I disagree its easy to learn. Lots of very important info is rather ubscured and unintuitive to obtain. Once you know where stuff is located and what does what, then you have learned the game and can go about mastering it.

I suggest watching turial videos (quill18, Arumba just to name 2) have lengthy playlists with various degrees in insight. Every bit helps, even after 400h playing (and added DLC) I find the need to catch up on things and have so much more to understand.

I value the difficulty as a good thing.

MFG

Ketraar

[Zodiac]

Originally posted by Kayeka:

After about 250 hours of game time, I finally feel confident in my ability to crash and burn only two out of three times.

Best answer of all time!

[barkingamer]

Not very hard to learn, most importantly you need to be able to chain wars all the time and put a few merchants in valuable trade nodes and that's it

Basically war monger and try not to ♥♥♥

[Nunder]

Lets see the game is simple in that troop movement isnt super crazy and the tutorials do a ok job giving the BARE minimum. But its a game that requires time to get used to because there is such a density to the mechanics...I would say the hardest game concept to get ahold of is how to make money with the obvious culprit being trade(lots of modifiers and such) and production maybe also production(trade goods, production development, and goods produced). Outside the myrid of game concepts and paths(Country Ideas, Idea Groups, and Policies) the games gives you to learn there are other thing to get a hold of that only come by playing the game....

Things such as the most opertune time to strike someone, how much should/could you take in land in a war, etc. but I would say the hardest thing to learn is when to be agressive, when should you be peaceful, and when it amkes sense to take a huge risk. That is something I still dont have a grasp on even after almost 600 hours.

TLDR: The Wiki is now your new religious text, watch DDRjake to learn how crazy the masters of the game are, and finally play on ironman as early as you can and persue a achievment.

[X8CY ◢ ◤]

https://youtu.be/ACx7UM5FSvU?list=PLUoTkKw8Mb8bICFglzKByyUPT8aLZywrJ

i was wandering the same thing, i watched this tutorial (not my channel before people say self promoter) and it really helped me get into the game 4 hours into castille 1454 and i feel that everything happended i understood what happended

[Silver Felyne]

Paradox games usually require a visit to the wiki, since Tutorials and experience aren't always the 100% best ways to learn.

I'd say it's not too difficult to understand, but pretty difficult to play right.
There are a lot of "Snags" that you'll hit when learning, such as not understanding why the enemies can always beat you in 1-1 combat (Usually because the AI will almost never attack you on unfavorable terrain).

I really enjoy the game, but it's not for everyone.