Vic3 is harder to learn than HOI4 and Stellaris

[Doe_36]

or is it just me?

[EJR]

I find it more difficult to play out of all Paradox games, but that is because I suck at games that are economic simulators. Just got back into it yesterday and found myself... lost in the game's mechanics.

[Alex]

- Stellaris gets more complicated with every DLC, so by the time when you get them all, you'll need the equivalent of a PhD in intergalactic administration. Not to mention how labyrintine the UI is.
- HOI4 is rather easy to get into, but very difficult to master. At least the DLC integration is better, and the UI is far more streamlined.
- Victoria 3 is still in its beta phase, and they change the rules with every update. Furthermore. the development process is akin to blind trial and error, so it is indeed very hard to get into.

[EJR]

Originally posted by Alex:

- Stellaris gets more complicated with every DLC, so by the time when you get them all, you'll need the equivalent of a PhD in intergalactic administration. Not to mention how labyrintine the UI is.

As someone with 1300+ hrs of playtime in Stellaris, I wouldn't say that the game is that difficult, I would argue that it falls under the same vein as HOI4 but on a lesser degree. It wasn't until I got 100-200 hrs in when I was finally able do everything near perfectly and know how to actually manage my empire; it wasn't until 150 hrs in when I found out how to change the citizen rights of the aliens in my borders.

[6ap6apblckaAa]

My take is that HOI4 is the hardest, then Stellaris, and only then Vic3.

[Alex]

Originally posted by EJR:

As someone with 1300+ hrs of playtime in Stellaris, I wouldn't say that the game is that difficult, I would argue that it falls under the same vein as HOI4 but on a lesser degree. It wasn't until I got 100-200 hrs in when I was finally able do everything near perfectly and know how to actually manage my empire; it wasn't until 150 hrs in when I found out how to change the citizen rights of the aliens in my borders.

Well, it was part joke, and part criticism regarding the UI. Every update and every DLC added new levels to it, until it became a multilayered mess. You have like half a dozen sub-menus, on every system. They really needed to overhaul it.

Besides, 1300 hours is almost half a bachelor's degree already ;)

[Belisarius]

How would you place EU4 in this ranking?

[Alex]

Originally posted by Belisarius:

How would you place EU4 in this ranking?

Third place on paradox' greed scale, below Stellaris and CK2. You need at least half the DLCs to play it properly, and the price is still far too high.

[6ap6apblckaAa]

Originally posted by Belisarius:

How would you place EU4 in this ranking?

If you are talking about learning difficulty, I would place it at the most difficult.

[EJR]

Originally posted by Alex:

Originally posted by EJR:

As someone with 1300+ hrs of playtime in Stellaris, I wouldn't say that the game is that difficult, I would argue that it falls under the same vein as HOI4 but on a lesser degree. It wasn't until I got 100-200 hrs in when I was finally able do everything near perfectly and know how to actually manage my empire; it wasn't until 150 hrs in when I found out how to change the citizen rights of the aliens in my borders.

Well, it was part joke, and part criticism regarding the UI. Every update and every DLC added new levels to it, until it became a multilayered mess. You have like half a dozen sub-menus, on every system. They really needed to overhaul it.

Besides, 1300 hours is almost half a bachelor's degree already ;)

Honestly I can handle the many menus and micromanagement the game has, I just want Paradox to stop releasing major updates that screws everything up.

Originally posted by Belisarius:

How would you place EU4 in this ranking?

Personally I find it either the second or easiest game to learn.

[Scheneighnay]

personally I've found it to be the easiest Paradox game to learn, and the only one I feel I really understand at all.

[VoiD]

Stellaris is hands down the hardest paradox game, there's a reason for adding a new lowest difficulty in a previous patch after some AI tweaks, the game itself isn't hard to understand, but the AI is somewhat competent, which puts it ahead of everything else.

EU4 is kind of similar to Stellaris, it's very easy to learn & understand, but the AI is somewhat competent, so defeat is a possibility

Vic3 might be the 2nd or 3rd hardest, depending on how much you value a competent AI vs the learning curve, the AI is kind of passive/dumb and doesn't grow it's economy properly, sure, but the game itself is extremely complex and no single variable is isolated, getting to understand the economy and how to take advantage of it, how to extract money from it, or even understanding IF you want to extract any money from it takes quite a bit of time and effort, a previous patch have also shown that Paradox could make the AI far more threatening, and the game far more interesting, if they wanted to. But they rolled back to the current passive state.

CK2 was an odd one, it probably had THE steepest learning curve out of all paradox games, but once you learn the game it really isn't that hard, which is a shame

HoI4 is easy to understand & easy to play, I've played from the start and I don't think I can remember ever losing on that game, some scenarios can be more challenging than others, like trying to survive as poland or france, but overall the game is much simpler than it looks and the AI doesn't understand the battlefield at all.

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And then there's CK3, CK3 transcends difficulty, since it is literally zero there is no way to measure it against any other game, no game in the world was ever made that's this easy or broken, so it doesn't even count, and doesn't show up on any lists. The game needs massive reworks on nearly every one of it's core features to be considered a game.

[Scheneighnay]

Originally posted by VoiD:

a previous patch have also shown that Paradox could make the AI far more threatening, and the game far more interesting, if they wanted to. But they rolled back to the current passive state.

Still a ways off from an actual serious AI I think.
Their threatening AI was from artificially inflating stats while the AI still has no idea how to play the economy.

It's most evident in the minor powers where the AI just keeps building and building long after it ran out of workers to occupy anything that it's building.
I believed as well that it's completely incapable of updating its production methods until I took a state from Venezuela and noticed that for some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason its tooling workshops were making crude wooden tools with a rotary valve engine.

[shiggies713]

Mostly agree with VoiD though I'm not sure about stellaris, to me it seemed about on par with the others. Hoi4 is probably the easiest of the bunch and ck3 is a hot mess.

[Mo0on]

Hard disagree. Stellaris is a mobile game in comparison.

[glittma]

I wouldn't mind the complexity if there was a proper tutorial.

I never would have gotten anywhere without help from folks here, but I'm also stuck on stuff folks on here haven't been able to help me with.