Summary

Review

Crusader Kings 3

Obviously, I quite enjoyed the role-playing aspects of CK3. I was sad when told that this was the height of that and that it would be downhill from there. In particular because I think they marry the two aspects well, though I can imagine the roleplaying is not quite as notable if you're not taking turns. You want to make the most of the time you're given. It does make me wish they would inject a bit more of it in the other games. Not necessarily the specific ruler drama. I understand that simply no longer makes sense to focus on most of the time given the scope and time period of the future games. But I think there's plenty of opportunity for drama no matter what era you're in. And in CK3, I feel that roleplaying serves a purpose. It really supports the warring and strategy-ing you're doing to grow your kingdom. They work together to create a cohesive whole.

Europa Universalis 4

I like how much this game was Europe being Europe. The getting into the nitty gritty of vassals and the relationships between countries. I really hated Paradox putting their thumb on the scale for no reason. If that hadn't been so evident...I would've really given them more points. But as it was they were extreme bastards and it really left a sour taste in my mouth.

Victoria 2

Very much showed its age, but I feel like it's got good bones. Would've like to have done the new one, but oh well. Of course Alba's sole intent at all times is to sate its hunger. But just judging the game on its own merits, I thought it was interesting the idea of having a strategy game where the primary aim is to create an economy out of thin air before anyone else can. I think the biggest missed opportunity was I wished there was some more variety to the little popup messages and newspaper articles. I really like the newspaper, but a lot of it ended up being copy-pasted paper to paper which made us less inclined to read them. Good theming, needed more actual text. Also, I particularly enjoyed the general hoity-toity holier-than-thou voice the narration is done in. Very savages savages barely even human. Also, "they're coming right at us". Good stuff, but like I said really could've used a bit more work put into filling out the general corpus of text the game pulls from. Seeing the same exact events happen literally dozens of times each was silly.

Hearts of Iron 4

I greatly appreciate that for once in this series Paradox said, "Be free my child, make war." An appropriate time for it of course, but quite satisfying. Mostly because of the simple comparison to how much we were shackled in previous games but even so. I feel this one in particular would've been the most appropriate time for some CK3-style roleplaying. When you think of WW2, are the various countries' leaders not one of the big things that come to mind? Why can't we have big meetings with our allies and work out invasion plans and such? Well, I guess Alba wasn't really about that at this point in the megacampaign. But you know what I mean. Perhaps have to work on speeches and announcements in some capacity and that has an effect on morale and such. I think there could've been an extra level to things that I would have appreciated. Just seems like a bit of a missed opportunity. I want the roleplaying and politicking to support the strategy.

Stellaris

Stellaris felt very unfocused to me. Like there were a number of different systems that weren't quite working together. Or rather, that later systems felt strangely bolted on to earlier systems. I really enjoyed the beginning of the game. There was some great weirdo sci-fi stuff happening. Like matching CK3 and at times exceeding it. I liked the little text adventures and found it fun rolling the dice to see what wretched space nonsense was gonna happen. But there was a change about a third of the way through. The little stories started to not matter at all. And it was more the big wars. But the problem was the wars felt really bad to me. A not insignificant portion of the time I was watching the screen, with no real idea what's happening. And that just kinda went on for like 45 minutes. There was a "war" but there was no tactile feel for who was winning or losing it. It felt very disconnected. My assumption is that the beginning of the game had been refined over time whereas the mid to late game systems hadn't gotten as much love. Or perhaps simply more work was put into the first third or so from the very beginning. Not sure. But there was definitely something off to me on a game dev level. I would think becoming Palpatine would be a wonderful opportunity for some events, but seemingly nothing at all. Very weird. They had a bunch of events at the beginning of the game that connect to where you are in the process of becoming a spacefaring civilization. Those events support the things you are doing in-game. But then it just completely drops the idea after a point. I get it, it gets complicated the open nature of the game at that point. In the beginning, you've either found no one or are talking to, at most, a handful of other aliens. Easier to plan around and guide the experience. But to be fair, that's a self-created problem. It just really stood out how little of a direction you're given mid to late game. And how in-game text seems to just stop supporting what it is you're doing. Again, no drama events after becoming High Ruler of all the galaxy? Very weird.

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