The real paradox is why I keep paying for these games
No Paradox, an army of peasants armed with pitchforks lead by a 20-30-15 general does NOT beat a professional force twice its size lead by a 100-100-100 general who is also the king just because "the terrain is to their advantage" (the battle was fought on a plain with me having x10 their cavalry).
This game is the biggest project Paradox ever put out, so naturally the blunders must match the size of the game.
Lets start from the good things tho:
- The size of the game is mind-blowing. Locations actually differ from each other, with different population size and type, religions and cultures. It gives you the real challenge of building an empire - how do you manage different cultures that more often than not don't really get along together? When picking a kingdom to play as (like Castille for example) you really feel the size of it, unlike eu4.
- The economy is really fun to manage. The buildings you build in each location have actual effect on its population and the surrounding areas. Build an iron mine in one place, and unemployed pops will start migrating there to seek work, allowing you to develop said location further. Its fun to manage the economy and population that way - and there are so many different types of buildings that effect the location and pops in so many different ways.
- Situations and event are more polished than eu4, by far imo. The different situations add much flavor to the game, giving you more purpose to the playthrough. Different situations get different mechanics and buffs/nerfs, forcing you to actually navigate the situation and interact with different countries that are involved.
Now lets talk about the bad things with the game:
- The military mechanic is the worst ever to be put out by Paradox. As I said before, and I said it about VIC 3 too (I feel they carried the mechanic from there), developing your army will have ZERO effect on the battlefield. This was not an exaggeration - my professional army that is more advanced than the enemies peasant levies, led by the king himself who is 100-100-100 stats LOST to a pack of peasants armed with basically their fists and nothing more. For that, Paradox, ♥♥♥♥ you. You can send an army of 100,000 Kratoses against an enemy coughing baby and that mf will kill ALL OF THEM.
On top of that, the moment you call your allies to arms, they are replaced by the most retarded AI I have yet to see. They will constantly march into the depths of enemy lines in small stacks, starve there and then get picked apart one by one by the enemy, reducing all of you warscore for some stupid battle. Your vassals will refuse to obey your directions too - set them to whatever military behavior you want, the only thing they will do is suicide against the enemy. I guess they yearn for death or something.
- Diplomacy: essentialy imported 1:1 from EU4. almost no changes were made to the diplomacy mechanics, that can be boiled down to 4 actions: improve relations, build spy network, insult and declare war (which you should do only against countries that have like 1/100 of your manpower, otherwise you will lose most battles and get a white peace at best).
- Optimization: Is the target audience of this game is NASA itself? Why is my computer, that runs games like COD at a solid 60 fps can bearly handle this excel spreadsheet disguised as a game? wtf? This is just absurd. It takes a month irl to complete a month in-game. Paradox, get a grip please.
- AI: in general, the AI is braindead. I saw how Britain, having 100,000 troops deployed lost to Scotland, having 3,000 troops deployed, god knows how. Allied AI as I said will only hinder you in wars. During the reformation, the AI pope tried to lower its own papal authority - thank god the Holy Roman Emperor opposed that (??????!!).
All and all, I can't say this game is trash because it really isn't, but the problems with it are major and sometimes it becomes just a chore rather than a game. The military system needs not a fix or a patch, but a COMPLETE OVERHAUL as it is broken beyond any repair, and for a game that pushes you to use military to your advantage its just sad tbh. Same with diplomacy.
5/10 imo. Can't wait to pay 10 times it release price in dlc's that will slowly make this game actually fun like they did with eu4.
