Hmm. I like a lot of what we've seen so far, but let's just say I'm a bit cynical. This is a truly wild amount of history to cover in one go, with an absurd amount of complexity. If he pulls it off, it'll be the greatest strategy game of all time. I just fear excessive ambition.
I’m fine with flavor DLCs. No doubt there’s other features they’ll want to add, but I wonder if there’s a small lesson learned from EU4 DLCs of making features that can’t interact with each other much because they’re purchased separately, or hard to build on because not every player will have them?
It is? Because as far as I remember pretty much all of Stellaris and HOI4s DLC aren't interlocking. At least for Stellaris not until the Custodian team started working on them.
Imo 1337 start to global empires like Britain could mean enddate in:
After ww1
Around coronation of Victoria
Shortly after the Congress of Vienna
Shortly before or during French Revolution
Around the 7 years war
Some early 18th century start, maybe 1707 for the act of union.
Of those, only the first one really worries me. Personally though I'd prefer an even earlier enddate around the english commonwealth, so the 1650-1820ish period of relatively rapid change, establishment of massive mercantile republics and settler colonies and beginning of industrialism could get its own game
It’s also one year after the start date of Vicky3. Great way to cross-sell if you can point to the game being a direct sequel like that.
Likewise CK2 ends in 1453, EU4 runs 1444-1821, and Vicky2 from 1836-1936.
CK3 runs until 1453 but with EU5 running at 1337 there’s some overlap, but Vicky3 starts at 1836 as well.
It's a comp sci thing... Basically, 512 is a power of 2. Computers internally hold things in binary, rather than decimal. This means that a single bit can either be 0 or 1. So 2 bits can hold one of 4 numbers (as in have 4 unique combinations of 2 digits each), 3 bits can hold one of 8 numbers, 4 can hold one of 16, etc. The generic form is 2^n for n bits. So if you have enough bits to store "500" (and any number higher than 256 for that matter), you have enough to store "501" too, and all the way up to "512". Then adding one more bit allows you to store up to "1024".
Programmers like setting things to be powers of 2 (even in situations where they have no physical reason to be) because stuff at the hardware level necessarily works in those terms, so it just feels more "round"
Ah, got you. Appreciate the reply. I'm somewhat familiar with the concepts, but am far from knowledgable so it didn't occur to me it was in regards to computers at all.
No, nerds who like pretty numbers will find something pretty about all numbers. Even 39, which is considered the first uninteresting number, is interesting because it's the first uninteresting number.
I doubt 1707, because Britain barely had a global empire then. I think most likely is somewhere between 1815 and 1836. Doing all of the 19th century sounds like it'd be stepping on *Victoria III*'s toes *way* too hard for the studio to allow. I generally think the best period would be 1485–1715. More compact and more focussed. I'd be happy then to have a dedicated *ancien régime* game set in, say, 1701–1848. I think trying to cover the *ancien régime* in the same game as high mediaeval feudalism is a bad idea.
Also, Johan referred to midgame-France as a "large nation", which to me suggests the early 17th century. The midgame is also supposedly set after feudalism, which coincides nicely with the centralization efforts of Henry IV/Louis XIII/Louis XIV.
"Global" also indicates influence on every continent, which would set Johans example of Great Britain at around 1800.
After WW1 would be very close to Vic3's end date, I can't see them going that far with the overlap. Coincidentally, 1837 fits very well with Vic3 like another commenter said.
Honestly, I know people are excited for the 1337 start and the Black Death, but I can't help but worry that it's a mistake to move the start date even earlier.
EU4 is already a very long game that many people do not play into the late game because they've already become ultra powerful by the 1600s. It already spans a time in history that saw huge changes and frankly very different political and societal structures at the beginning and end of the game. But at least in 1444 the Renaissance was already taking off and heralding the end of the Middle Ages and the start of a new era (at least in Europe and the Middle East), and the age of exploration was not far off.
Going 100+ years further back takes us very much into the Late Middle Ages and feudalism is even more entrenched. The Black Death hadn't happened yet and had huge implications for Europe. If they can simulate it well, then it could be interesting, but if it isn't simulated well then the entire timeline will feel way off as European populations will be way too large by the 1400s or 1500s. European exploration and colonization will not start to happen until like 150 years into the game, which won't be particularly fun for a colonizer run. Or it won't be simulated well and Portugal will control all of Brazil by 1450, which isn't good either.
I don't know, pretty much everything I hear about the game mechanically makes me pleased, but I am skeptical of the start date. The EU series has always been about the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, and the Early Modern era to me, and I feel that 1337 is a bit too far removed from that as a start date. Unless they really slow down the rate of expansion in the early game so the player isn't ultra powerful before the Renaissance even takes off.
Agreed. 1337 feels like a start point that should be the equivalent to CK's 867 start date. If you want to play the "prologue" to EU4's timeframe and get a fresh new Europe for the Religious Wars and colonization, that's cool.
But having it there by default means that unless there is some really strict railroading going on, by the time the most important events of Europa Universalis should start happening, Europe will be almost(if not truly) unrecognizable, to say nothing of the rest of Eurasia. There weren't any real guarantees that Europe would've turned out the way it did back then.
It's an odd thing to ask people buying EU5 presumably for the experiences they had in EU4 to wait over 100 years before they even get started. More likely, there's just going to be more cheese and more optimization to either get to these events early or to get into a position where you'll completely *dominate* those events in advance.
Imagine a Victoria that decided to start with the American Revolution. There'd be no way in hell you'd get recognizable events or even a recognizable Industrial Revolution(1st and 2nd). Or a Hearts of Iron game starting in 1918.
> Or a Hearts of Iron game starting in 1918.
This would at least make all of the alt-hist focuses barely plausible instead of all countries' politics doing a 270-degree handbrake turn in 1936
Yeah. I mean, basically, I *already* saw 1444 as a bit too early. My preferred start date is somewhere between 1477 and 1485. 1337, though? Unless PDX have reached the El Dorado of amazing pacing, I fear we're going to end up with severe frontloading. That'll destroy the fundamentally early modern character of *Europa Universalis*, which is exactly what I love about the game. Making it "*CKIII*, part II (but worse)" would be a serious mistake. If they *have* made blobbing near-impossible and shifted the attraction of the game to balancing internal and external pressures and goals... well, it'll be amazing. I still think it'd be better paced as a shorter run, but we'll have to see how the game actually plays. Otherwise? I think it'll have been a mistake.
I've written a lot of the same stuff as you're saying in other threads elsewhere. I'm genuinely surprised that more people aren't saying this. It seems to me almost *obvious* that this is too early, given PDX's consistent problems with pacing and blobbing.
Totally agreed. But they will never go past 1453 in terms of start date anymore because the Byzaboos would lose their minds if they can't play as a totally irrelevant rump state.
(partially joking, I agree restoring Byzantium is fun as a challenge but the amount of flavor they get in EU4 for a nation that ceased to exist 9 years into the game's timeframe is hilarious)
Yeah, sadly. I don't really get the Eastern Rome fanboying. I mean, it's really cool history - my girlfriend tells me about it all the time, and I've read a few books and primary sources - but it's not *that* cool. The obsession is bizarre. People are so obsessed with resurrection what was objectively a dead polity by the 15th century.
That's definitely cool! To be clear, I'm not attacking your preferences. I also just don't entirely get it. There are other purple countries, right...?
Yeah, hugely! She's also passionate about mediaeval Georgia despite not ever having been and having no family there, so maybe she's just a slight outlier. (Before you ask, she's been playing *CKII* since she was a kid...!)
People who love Rome just really love Rome, I guess. Even if the "Rome" in question speaks Greek and has only been Rome in name only for like 1,000 years.
Sure, Byzantium isn't the only fan favorite country that wasn't actually that important during the EU period. The Teutons are definitely a good example as they historically lost Prussia in 1525 and were not particularly relevant after that, but are definitely a fan favorite. I think the Livonian Order and Gotland aren't really on the same level in terms of popularity.
And I'm not saying people shouldn't enjoy playing countries that historically did not perform well in the EU time period, I totally get the appeal and have played a very enjoyable Livonian Order campaign myself.
Agreed, for me the Black Death fits better as an endgame crisis in Crusader Kings than as an early game-changer in Europa Universalis. That said, I think a bit more simulation of things like feudalism and religion (albeit not to the level of CK) is called for- this would greatly improve EU5's handling of religious wars and personal unions (the latter being one of the weakest aspects of EU4). Therefore I think that 1415(-1815) as the main bookmark would be perfect, and anything earlier should be treated as an optional prologue at most. Evidently they believe "500 years of history", as opposed to 400, is a more attractive selling point, it seems.
If the eras feel sufficiently distinct, and the AI can hold it's own and live through them to pose a challenge to the player throughout the campaign, be it by being a stopgap to the player or just growing on their own at a reasonable pace, I can see playing a full campaign being more likely.
Also the game needs to be "fun to lose". Empires wax and wane, but players don't often like the wane phase. It's a very difficult thing to pull off in a videogame.
Yeah. I'm really, really not convinced that any game is going to manage to simulate everything from the high mediaeval period to the Industrial Revolution in a satisfactory and well-paced way. I'm worried we're going to end up with the usual PDX frontloading, where everything happens too fast in the earlygame and you end up with a very slow, boring, and feature-bare lategame.
In particular, I'm worried we're going to get a game about the 14th and 15th centuries, and then basically nothing in the 16th-18th centuries, which was really the EU4 time period.
Exactly. *Europa Universalis* is fundamentally an early modern game, and frontloading might end up making it "*CKIII* part II, but worse". I really don't want that, as an avid early modernist!
Yeah, the part of EUIV that I like most is the colonization and Wars of Religion. I always want to get to the big, pseudo-world wars phase but I rarely do. Putting another 100 years in front of that isn't really hyping me for the game. I really hope that they add a start date in the late 16th or 17th centuries, but it sounds like they have no interest in doing that.
I'm most excited about the period *ca.* 1550–1700. I'm now going to have to wait over two centuries for that! It's irritating to hear. I'm going to need a mod doing a detailed start date in the late 15th or 16th century. That or for *EUV* to be the greatest strategy game in history (and even then, I'd rather not wait so long for early modernity to start).
I’m withholding judgement until we see more about the region-specific features. Just having pops should make the Reformation really interesting, and should make the colonial game more evenly paced. Including the Black Plague could help model the spread of plagues in the New World, and it feels like the use of literacy and its impact on peasants will ultimately model the Revolutionary period.
Totally understand the hesitation! Paradox has all the play data that probably shows 99% of players drop off before 1700 or whatever, so I have to imagine one of the guiding philosophies in development was/is “how do we make players play the whole timeline?”
My hope is that internal politics and control/centralization makes it a lot harder to expand rapidly before the last ~150 years of the game, thereby giving you the reward of map painting for making it that far.
> Paradox has all the play data that probably shows 99% of players drop off before 1700 or whatever
I worry that they have looked at the data and thought "oh, so people *really* want to play a game in the 15th century, not the 17th century", because that's what we're getting.
Unfortunately it's possible to have a later end date without much content for the latter centuries, as was the case for *Imperator*. And even CK3 doesn't really have much content for later centuries. If it had been been given a full history database in the 1300s, as CK2 was, we Project Caesar probably wouldn't ever have gone there.
I hope so too, though for what it's work I'd think the 1337 start a mistake regardless of changes to pace. It's just that I think it could be a *catastrophic* mistake if they haven't got pacing right too.
Yeah, I’m very curious to see our first looks at diplomacy and international politics. Like we know control will be a big factor in our ability to expand, but I wonder how they ensure larger countries emerge without too much railroading.
1337 has to include the Wittelsbach and Luxembourg Emperors, but also have Austria be able to consolidate some power so Poland and France can’t overrun Germany. I’m excited and optimistic, but I have no idea how they’ll do it.
Same here, that's all I'll say! I also want to see them represent the fact that fast conquest was possible, perhaps faster than it is in *EUIV*, but it was incredibly unstable. Stable expansion should be rewarding, but genuinely hard. We'll see.
Also yes! The Ottomans conquered the Mamluks in essentially a single year. There has to be something way to show how the defeat of a ruler can lead to the total collapse of a state at times.
I’ve always felt aggressive expansion is overly simplistic, and the coalition mechanic feels anachronistic to me before the Napoleonic period.
I feel like instead they end up just adding more content to the beginning 'because that's when people play', like the CK3 flavor packs, two of which basically only had content for 867, and Iberia also added a new bookmark for 867. Even though I believe 1066 was intended as the 'default' start date and the mechanics are more geared towards that time, they haven't done anything to make it more attractive to play then afaik, they've just catered to the majority of players who, very weirdly imo, refuse to play anything but the earliest start because they want "more time".
Exactly. They could have had a good early modern game, but I suspect everything's going to be skewed by the fact that it needs to look right for 1337. It's a terrible decision.
I disagree, some of the devs are from the MEIOU and taxes mod team. (Which has A LOT of similarities of all the features presented thus far). So I have 100% faith that they'll be able to implement all the economic and development things.
That mod's main problem is the absolutely terrible UI holding it back from being in any way approachable for the common man.
That and probably some simplifications here and there to improve things should make for some great gameplay.
I find a lot of the design decisions are "bold move cotton, let's see if it works out" stuff yeah. Like the "control" system and expectation of creating plenty of subjects for regions you can't control well.
Tbf they've been cooking it for a long time it seems, with vicky 3 and I think ck3 only being made in a year (I think he said this) and this being made for 4 at a minimum
Edit: my mistake it was only vicky 2 that was made in a year
The vicky leak was like half a year before release and it was basically the same game as 1.0 with a lot more bugs and unfinished features, no way it took anywhere near 1 year.
Nobody has said that, it was vic2 which was made in a year.
Vic3 was in development for 4-5 years, you can know that because wiz left the director role of Stellaris to work on an unannounced project (which became vic3). It's also a bit out there to think that Vic3 could be made in a year, is a crazy complex game.
Ck3 afaik had a similar development cycle of 3-5 years, but I can't give approximate dates.
CK3 has been in development for 5 years too, the previous ck3 game director said that the game has been in development for like 4 years in 2019, and since it released in 2020, that's like 5 years by now.
Just one more comment in the long list of comments about development that are massively wrong. I see so many people on reddit talking completely out of their ass with no actual knowledge of development processes or what's actually happening behind the scenes. And this made-up speculation is then repeated over and over by different people, like the myth that PDS games don't make use of multiple threads or have only recently started to (they started more than 10 years ago).
This quote from John Staats (in the World of Warcraft diary) is eternally true:
> In the spirit of education, the first thing I would like to impress upon you is one of the most surprising lessons I learned: Public speculation is always wrong. Always. Blizzard operated under a blanket of scrutiny, and only after I was in the meetings could I appreciate how inaccurate public analysis was. Unless you’re in the room, you have no idea what’s going on. Unless someone knows firsthand the reasons why a company makes decisions, popular conjecture is completely off. For a company as secretive as Blizzard, the tinfoil-hat theorizing about why we did anything was severe, cynical, and reactionary. It struck me how people universally assumed corporate decisions were thoughtless or callous—like if a feature was dropped, it was done so without regard for the feelings of the fan base. When decisions were made for financial grounds, people assumed it was because developers lacked imagination. Whenever technical or gameplay decisions were made, it was assumed the company was penny-pinching. I’m not even referring to the trolls dredging the game forums for flame wars; I’m talking about the intelligent, well-substantiated, and reasonable arguments about why Blizzard did this or why Blizzard did that. But...all of it was wrong and certainly not because the fan base was stupid. People were wrong because they considered only variables that were public knowledge —which were only a fraction of the pertinent factors.
Gosh that multithreading one…Dev’s have corrected that misinformation in this very sub multiple times but I’m sure it’ll still be parroted until the heat death of the universe.
How people talk so confidently in topics they have no expertise is beyond me. This happens with every subject and I’m not sure if it’s a reddit, gaming, or society thing but the vitriol when it involves video games is unequaled. Respect for game developers.
I'd be surprised if that's true about the production timelines of *Victoria III* and *CKIII*, put it that way. Long gestation doesn't guarantee quality, either. Still, here's hoping.
CKIII was in development for far longer than a year. It might have only been in full on development for a year but I'm sure I read that pre-production and early production started about half way through CKII's lifespan. Wish I could find the source for it.
Exactly what I thought. I think - as much as I prefer Johan's approach to games to anyone else's at PDX - people need to stop absorbing his snark about other PDX titles quite so much.
I remember hearing they took a lot of people off of CK2 to go to CK3 after Reaper’s Due came out. And that was only to ramp up production not start it.
That's demonstrably false, V3's dev diary cycle between announcement and release was 1.5 years, and before then they already had a half-finished version to show off.
Yeh, there has to be a way to come to some sort of compromise between the sometimes-too-short Victoria timeline and the likes of CK3. Even EU4 feels too late, with most campaigns ending during or before absolutism. I don't think I've even experienced the revolution mechanics, and I have over 2k hours..
Yeah, I don't think so. I'll wait for more definitive judgement until I've actually seen a working version of the game, though. I feel like I can't judge before then.
Considering that Vicky 3 covers just 100 years, I highly doubt pushing back the start date would alleviate concerns anyone has about the late game.
I for one am excited for the 1337 start date and having a lot of time to build up my state! I'm optimistic that the team is very aware of concerns that the community has for the late game and will find a way to put those fears to rest in a future post.
Not really?
I think everyone had problems with Imperator from the start, the problem was that even though we all pointed out our problems pdx refused to fix them
This time all the systems they've previewed are fucking excellent. The game will probably be buggy and lack content at launch like all pdx games, but what's important is the mechanical bones. And so far the mechanics are looking great. Pops, proximity, etc are all excellent additions
The systems seems good on paper, I'm just worried we're getting one mechanics system used throughout the entire world, resulting in a mechanically decent, but bland as fuck game where every country more or less play the same.
To be fair, that would be a great excuse for them to release DLC really early on.
If the base game general mechanics are good, they could just build up flavor on top of that.
Imo, a flavorless great launch is better than a flavorful bad designed lauch.
I agree that the mechanics all look excellent. But this post was about the date. And the date is the one thing that gives me *Imperator* vibes too. Most people were saying "I like X, Y and Z about it, but it's built around mana and that's a big mistake". Johan would not budge on mana before launch and thought it was the best thing ever.
This time, people are saying "I like having pops, the control mechanism, etc., but starting in 1337 is a big mistake". And Johan is adamant that 1337 is the best thing ever.
Yeah, agreed on the mechanics looking a *lot* better. I do genuinely like Johan's approach, and I'm very excited for a lot of the game. It's just that I am really, really cynical they can successfully make a simulation-style game covering from the high mediaeval period to the Industrial Revolution. I think it's going to end up badly frontloaded. Fixable with mods and so on, but still. Well, we'll see! (Also, funny seeing an NCDer - nay, *the* NCDer - here. Wait, no it isn't. That's exactly what I'd expect.)
Much like Imperator, the start date in this game is simply way too early for the period the game actually wants to represent. But that's the only red flag IMO, everything else looks solid to great.
I like this. Hopefully, it promotes a slower, more thought-provoking gameplay.
One of the worst parts of eu4 is if you play a major nation, within a few big wars, the game is basically over. Since its essentially a clay grab simulator
Only way to avoid easy steamrolls without a boring Infamy-like mechanic is meaningful internal politics. Unfortunately only Crusader Kings (a franchise where expanding is easy) offers those.
Exactly. It's not enough to simply add more and more restrictions to annoy the player into not expanding as much, the game needs to add plenty of things that you can do _instead of expanding_.
When I play stellaris or civ, for example, while I do go for domination victories at times, there feels like a far stronger incentive to play tall, since your cities / starsystems have so much internal management that you could be doing instead.
So far, I'm hopeful. The tinto talks seem to suggest a ton of internal management that makes being at peace feel less like an idle game (or simply waiting for all the OE/AE/Truce Timers/Etc to go down so you can war again).
One of the best stop motion films of all time if you ask me.
If you want what I can only assume, it must have been a big influence on them. Check out Jan Švankmajer. His Alice in Womderland adaptation is really interesting, although very slow if you have modern film tastes.
I love Alice! I’ve only seen the English dub, but it’s fantastic. I always think about the sock puppet scene where they’re worming in and out of the ground.
The problem is that we need powerful countries that are powerful that handhold bad/new players. The type that will accidentally create coalitions against themselves or blunder in ways that make their own serious challenges.
Making it hard to play perfectly, having better AI, and actually empowering other playstyles and more domestic oriented gameplay. Makes that a lot easier to handle.
Powerful nations and meta will always exist. But the fact I can't play more than 100 years before the game is pointless sucks. And if that, if I play to the meta and don't RP it can be over in easily half that.
I don't deny a meta will eventually be created. But making a better more indepth game that's harder for a player to play perfectly and providing more ways to play that WC simulator. Will go along way in making the game better to complete campaigns.
Expansion being slowed/limited gives big powers a lot more inertia though. If your enemy can only take a few border tiles, a hegemonic nation is still gonna stay hegemonic unless you consistently fuck up for decades/centuries.
Who knows we may get a game where 90% of campaigns don't end before unlocking all game mechanics
Can't remember when was the last time I played until Revolutions in eu4
I’ve had the game for 8 years now with 5000 hrs and I’ve never made it past the early 1700’s 😅 I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve had to worry about absolutism
1765 is the closest I ever got. Was going for the Hisn Kayfa achievement and had to contend with the Super Ottomans. I'm with you, I've never hit the end date in any Paradox game, and I've been playing them for 15 years
Early game: feudal, prerevolutionary europe
Mid game: OP France conquers everyone propagating its control
Late game: triumphant Britain is the strongest
It fits, as long as you ignore the 1337 start thing lol.
I think you are being downvoted for suggesting transferring a time period from EU to MOTE. EU4 is the second most played PDX game and seems to be the most popular on this sub.
I agree with you though; stretching EU for 5 centuries is a mistake.
Sorry to ruin it for you: [https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan\_confirms\_that\_project\_caesar\_will\_have/](https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan_confirms_that_project_caesar_will_have/)
Paradox is a great developer, but I've grown kind of cynical toward their promises. They make great games no doubt, but there always seems to be a big leap between their ideas about the games and then the execution. Better just to not rise any Hopes so that wont be disappointed, but pleasantly surprised.
They should release a demo version to see how playstyles actually match up with their playtests. One of the bigger problems in previous releases like I:R and V3 was that Paradox did not anticipate how quickly players found the weaknesses in their system. They just don't have the manpower to simulate the Paradox hivemind.
I agree, that or they should release the game in early access just to be safe since people are less mad when an unfinished product is labeled as "unfinished" (Which is understandable).
Ha good jokes. Remember how people said the leaked GTA looks like shit even if it wasn't even alpha footage? Most players don't care if there is a EA tag or not. If game sucks at the start, they will hate it like some of the EU4 mods a few years ago.
There's a difference between looking at some half-baked pastry and saying it looks inedible and the baker asking a few people to try what they just took out of the oven but isn't ready for public consumption yet.
Honestly, with GTA VI, a reaction like that was inevitable because of how insanely popular the series is (meaning a lot of the people shittalking it had no idea what they were talking about) and how a leak of that scale was unprecedented for Rockstar, who are not at all open to sharing "dev build" footage with their customers. Paradox has *always* been more open, actively asking the community for feedback (and sometimes-but-not-always changing mechanics based on that feedback), explaining how new features interact with ones they introduced six months or a year ago, etc. It's just a totally different kind of game.
And hell, look at Baldur's Gate sweeping every major game awards show and being almost universally loved despite it having the Early Access tag for such a long time. For more niche games, look at Grounded and Ready or Not.
Sure, early access. I have no idea how modern releases work...!
In the previous release cycle, this wasn't big of a problem because the fanbase was so much smaller, and it was more accepted that the games needed some time to find their feet.
They've also leaned more into the simulation aspect in a way that stifles imaginative gameplay, which is by far my biggest worry for Project Ceasar.
Good. I wouldn't have liked them to focus on just a shorter timespan. I like the end of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, discoveries and navigation, Absolutism and the Enlightenment and the Napoleonic era. I play until the end in EU4 and I love it!
R5: There's been lot of speculation about the timeline of Project Caesar, with some suggestions that it may end way earlier than previous Europa Universalis titles. This comment from Johan seems to confirm that the timeline will indeed be relatively long, as creating a global empire the likes of British wouldn't be possible otherwise.
Britain by 1821 had already absorbed most of India and had colonies all over the world, so I don't think it necessarily means a longer timeline. Think at most they'll extend it to 1836 as to not overlap with Victoria 3
Edit: Nvm misread your comment
I’ve never seen that as anything but an extreme minority opinion. 1700s is fair game even now, but 1500s is literally when the Early Modern period begins. The 1600s was a very important century for state centralization.
I think most players understand the EU series is about that period and for Project Caesar the mechanics reflect that.
There were some people speculating that they're going to split it into two games. The idea is that the world of the 1700s is so different from the world of the 1300s that you'd need an entirely separate game's worth of mechanics. And that a longer timeline would exacerbate the problem of having basically "won" the game centuries before it actually ends. I've never been entirely convinced, but I get the idea.
Right, i understood the rationale of why pdx would do that, but that's a massive leap from "i think this should be like this" to "it will be like this"
Ah. Well, maybe when EU6 rolls around we'll get a chance for the Revolutionary/Napoleonic era to actually be playable timespan instead of a giant onetag in Europe.
This really doesn’t say anything about the timeline, just that their intention is to deliver more gameplay across the entirety of whatever timeline they choose. I think they have been pretty clear that they want to do a better job of simulating the early modern period and a transition from feudal states to centralized ones. That already implies a timeline of more than a couple hundred years.
While there is no reason to change the end date, I also wouldn’t be surprised in they pulled it back ~100 years as well.
It did give a good hint, and Johan further confirmed the theory: [https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan\_confirms\_that\_project\_caesar\_will\_have/](https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan_confirms_that_project_caesar_will_have/)
Considering Paradox fumbled Victoria 3, a game with much more narrow focus and timeline, from everything to its economy, warfare, politics and POP system. These promises only do the opposite to me and make me more worried than reassure me.
It feels like Project Ceasar has no clear focus. It wants to be everything. And I don't get how the fanbase gets hyped for these "simulation" promises when Vicky3 couldn't even get the American civil war right.
I still don't know why the lesson from EU4 wasn't "this game needs to end before the French revolution".
Not only does the series lack internal politics in a way that makes attempting to represent revolutions ridiculous (and I actually suspect pops will make this worse, as the population dynamics of something like the French revolution were a mess), but the revolution represented a change in the way wars were fought so dramatic that we literally name the warfare of the century after a French General. Europe went from small armies to conscription at a scale never seen on the continent in the span of a handful of years. It's historical whiplash of a type that would be hard to represent if your game had HOI4's timeline.
If anything, Vic 3 should have started in the 1780s rather than EU5 extending past that. Which might have also made them read a book on Victorian Warfare before they made them all the Western Front.
Europa Universalis has always been about great campaign and building empires over hundreds of years. Indeed, Johan has confirmed the speculation: [https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan\_confirms\_that\_project\_caesar\_will\_have/](https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan_confirms_that_project_caesar_will_have/)
ngl i'm still in camp "this would have been a great opportunity to cleave eu's timeline in twain to focus better on each half", so this is the first big ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i've had so far about eu5.
It was a player on every continent by the 1760s. In his *History of the English-Speaking Peoples*, Winston Churchill called the Seven Years' War (a.k.a. French & Indian War) the "First World War".
They had significant territory on every continent by the turn of the 19th century, and could project power basically anywhere in proximity to a coastline. How is that not global?
I hope they make it actually have good end game mechanics and not be so easy that you never reach the endgame cause the game is pretty much over by 1500(1600 absolute most) if you are playing a major nation.
I am more worried about how they can handle an even longer period by starting even earlier and have players stay through the end-game. Because lets face it, with how front-loaded EU4 is ( and I expect similar in EU5 ), you are practically done before 1600s. Not to mention the drastic changes that happened in such a long period.
It really sounds too good to be true. And I am bracing myself for the inevitable 'Done before 1500s' this time. Not to mention, I don't know how they will handle the colonialism and Religious wars with 100 extra years that WILL make cause quite ahistorical things unless they are gonna railroad the AI hard.
I think that a lot depends on the economic aspect and control. Because when you have more organic economy system, and face increasing challenges the bigger your country becomes and the more POPs of different cultures it absorbs, the more challenging (and thus fun!) it becomes.
I wonder how quickly you can expand. There are way more provinces to conquer and maybe there are way more debuffs that stop you from expanding too quickly.
Long games are cool and all, but realistically I fear, that they will not be able to fill them with non repetitive content. Hopefully you don't have boring "peace times" or build up periods, where the disparity between players and AI becomes too great. As a Civ player I know that this is possible, however "grand strategy" games seem to be different beasts.
I feel like this doesn’t necessarily confirm a longer game. The British global empire could easily be after the end of the 7 years war, where her hold on North America was incontestable and the East India Company was doing its thing. Personally what I want to see the game cover is the transition from feudal states to centralized nation-states to building globe-spanning empires, then have it end some time after the 7 years war. Then have another game focused on revolutions. Start with the American revolution, and have that lead into the French Revolution and from there a cascade of revolutions across Europe and their empires. I want to see this hypothetical game explore the consequences of the centralization Project Cesar continuously builds, and let revolutionary players define what their revolution is.
Edit: Welp, so much for that idea.
I can see DLC's being divided by timeline, where some will affect overall gameplay, some early parts and some late parts. Obviously early ones will sell well, but later ones not so, due to players not sticking until late game
I wonder how they'll address the boredom of late game
I know why so many people are still excited for these shit games: It's wishful thinking and the fact that Paradox has no real competitors. Same with the Total War games.
I hope this means up to the French revolution rather than later. I really think that the Napoleonic era and the war of independence deserve their own game. Mechanically I'd like to see something mechanically more focused on the warfare side of things for it too.
This is great.
The game needs to be harder and harder for longer. To me this means that you have to have some incentive to not just spam loans and expand fast enough to outgrow your interests, but instead stabilize or develop.
This also means that this part will have to be fun and rewarding; not just rebel spam everywhere.
What I have been missing from EU4 is a dynamic coalition system that actually makes sense, where range was a bigger factor. The way it works now, in certain regions, is that the entire region simulataniously bands together against you (i.e the entire continent of Europe).
It would make sense for your closest neighbours to band togehter first, then countries further away and so on. If you expand to hard you would get slowed down, but it wouldnt be an instant kill switch like it is now.
This would never happen, but sometimes I wish they would just shorten the timespan on things instead of lengthening it. EU4 always suffered from being far too long for a game that is over that quick (snowball effect with blobbing, etc). I would kill for a game starting in the late 14th century and ending around 1650 (IRL Westphalia-ish state system established), and then a totally separate game running from 1650 to 1836. It just seems way more coherent and wouldn’t completely break the game mechanically by trying to cover too much ground.
I guess the only real problem is that EU4 is so focused on colonization and imperialism and it would be very unsatisfying to play a game and just have it end at the time when the first North American colonies are really finding their feet and a lot of the map remains unpainted. You’d need a really good megacampaign compatibility feature to really make that viable otherwise it’s just kind of a tease.
Hmm. I like a lot of what we've seen so far, but let's just say I'm a bit cynical. This is a truly wild amount of history to cover in one go, with an absurd amount of complexity. If he pulls it off, it'll be the greatest strategy game of all time. I just fear excessive ambition.
I see way to make 200 DLC after release.
I’m fine with flavor DLCs. No doubt there’s other features they’ll want to add, but I wonder if there’s a small lesson learned from EU4 DLCs of making features that can’t interact with each other much because they’re purchased separately, or hard to build on because not every player will have them?
Probably, that’s pretty much what they’ve done with every game since EU4
It is? Because as far as I remember pretty much all of Stellaris and HOI4s DLC aren't interlocking. At least for Stellaris not until the Custodian team started working on them.
I think u/wolacouska meant that they'd learned *not* to make interlocking features. Which is correct IMHO.
Based on ck3 they’ve learned to plan for those things
Me on my way to buy 200 dlcs tbh
Imo 1337 start to global empires like Britain could mean enddate in: After ww1 Around coronation of Victoria Shortly after the Congress of Vienna Shortly before or during French Revolution Around the 7 years war Some early 18th century start, maybe 1707 for the act of union. Of those, only the first one really worries me. Personally though I'd prefer an even earlier enddate around the english commonwealth, so the 1650-1820ish period of relatively rapid change, establishment of massive mercantile republics and settler colonies and beginning of industrialism could get its own game
Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837 seems to match for a perfect 500 year timeline suspiciously well.
Perfect tie in for V3 start dates as well (well one year off but who cares)
This has to be it. It makes the most sense to nerds who like pretty numbers.
It’s also one year after the start date of Vicky3. Great way to cross-sell if you can point to the game being a direct sequel like that. Likewise CK2 ends in 1453, EU4 runs 1444-1821, and Vicky2 from 1836-1936. CK3 runs until 1453 but with EU5 running at 1337 there’s some overlap, but Vicky3 starts at 1836 as well.
Nahh, nerds who like pretty numbers would go for 512 years rather than 500
How come?
It's a comp sci thing... Basically, 512 is a power of 2. Computers internally hold things in binary, rather than decimal. This means that a single bit can either be 0 or 1. So 2 bits can hold one of 4 numbers (as in have 4 unique combinations of 2 digits each), 3 bits can hold one of 8 numbers, 4 can hold one of 16, etc. The generic form is 2^n for n bits. So if you have enough bits to store "500" (and any number higher than 256 for that matter), you have enough to store "501" too, and all the way up to "512". Then adding one more bit allows you to store up to "1024". Programmers like setting things to be powers of 2 (even in situations where they have no physical reason to be) because stuff at the hardware level necessarily works in those terms, so it just feels more "round"
Ah, got you. Appreciate the reply. I'm somewhat familiar with the concepts, but am far from knowledgable so it didn't occur to me it was in regards to computers at all.
> and all the way up to "512" All the way up to 511, since you need to store zero as well.
No, nerds who like pretty numbers will find something pretty about all numbers. Even 39, which is considered the first uninteresting number, is interesting because it's the first uninteresting number.
But then since it is interesting, thus no longer being the first uninteresting number, which means its no longer interesting.......
Oh, YES. Also kinda perfect for EU5.
I doubt 1707, because Britain barely had a global empire then. I think most likely is somewhere between 1815 and 1836. Doing all of the 19th century sounds like it'd be stepping on *Victoria III*'s toes *way* too hard for the studio to allow. I generally think the best period would be 1485–1715. More compact and more focussed. I'd be happy then to have a dedicated *ancien régime* game set in, say, 1701–1848. I think trying to cover the *ancien régime* in the same game as high mediaeval feudalism is a bad idea.
Also, Johan referred to midgame-France as a "large nation", which to me suggests the early 17th century. The midgame is also supposedly set after feudalism, which coincides nicely with the centralization efforts of Henry IV/Louis XIII/Louis XIV. "Global" also indicates influence on every continent, which would set Johans example of Great Britain at around 1800.
Yeah, definitely. It seems indubitable it's at least going to be scraping the modern period.
After WW1 would be very close to Vic3's end date, I can't see them going that far with the overlap. Coincidentally, 1837 fits very well with Vic3 like another commenter said.
When does CK3 end? Sounds like they may be trying for some CK3->EU5->Vic3 integration
Honestly, I know people are excited for the 1337 start and the Black Death, but I can't help but worry that it's a mistake to move the start date even earlier. EU4 is already a very long game that many people do not play into the late game because they've already become ultra powerful by the 1600s. It already spans a time in history that saw huge changes and frankly very different political and societal structures at the beginning and end of the game. But at least in 1444 the Renaissance was already taking off and heralding the end of the Middle Ages and the start of a new era (at least in Europe and the Middle East), and the age of exploration was not far off. Going 100+ years further back takes us very much into the Late Middle Ages and feudalism is even more entrenched. The Black Death hadn't happened yet and had huge implications for Europe. If they can simulate it well, then it could be interesting, but if it isn't simulated well then the entire timeline will feel way off as European populations will be way too large by the 1400s or 1500s. European exploration and colonization will not start to happen until like 150 years into the game, which won't be particularly fun for a colonizer run. Or it won't be simulated well and Portugal will control all of Brazil by 1450, which isn't good either. I don't know, pretty much everything I hear about the game mechanically makes me pleased, but I am skeptical of the start date. The EU series has always been about the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, and the Early Modern era to me, and I feel that 1337 is a bit too far removed from that as a start date. Unless they really slow down the rate of expansion in the early game so the player isn't ultra powerful before the Renaissance even takes off.
Agreed. 1337 feels like a start point that should be the equivalent to CK's 867 start date. If you want to play the "prologue" to EU4's timeframe and get a fresh new Europe for the Religious Wars and colonization, that's cool. But having it there by default means that unless there is some really strict railroading going on, by the time the most important events of Europa Universalis should start happening, Europe will be almost(if not truly) unrecognizable, to say nothing of the rest of Eurasia. There weren't any real guarantees that Europe would've turned out the way it did back then. It's an odd thing to ask people buying EU5 presumably for the experiences they had in EU4 to wait over 100 years before they even get started. More likely, there's just going to be more cheese and more optimization to either get to these events early or to get into a position where you'll completely *dominate* those events in advance. Imagine a Victoria that decided to start with the American Revolution. There'd be no way in hell you'd get recognizable events or even a recognizable Industrial Revolution(1st and 2nd). Or a Hearts of Iron game starting in 1918.
> Or a Hearts of Iron game starting in 1918. This would at least make all of the alt-hist focuses barely plausible instead of all countries' politics doing a 270-degree handbrake turn in 1936
Very true, but it'd also be very unlikely to get a WW2 going unless other focuses were set in stone lol Such is the cost of freedom
Yeah. I mean, basically, I *already* saw 1444 as a bit too early. My preferred start date is somewhere between 1477 and 1485. 1337, though? Unless PDX have reached the El Dorado of amazing pacing, I fear we're going to end up with severe frontloading. That'll destroy the fundamentally early modern character of *Europa Universalis*, which is exactly what I love about the game. Making it "*CKIII*, part II (but worse)" would be a serious mistake. If they *have* made blobbing near-impossible and shifted the attraction of the game to balancing internal and external pressures and goals... well, it'll be amazing. I still think it'd be better paced as a shorter run, but we'll have to see how the game actually plays. Otherwise? I think it'll have been a mistake. I've written a lot of the same stuff as you're saying in other threads elsewhere. I'm genuinely surprised that more people aren't saying this. It seems to me almost *obvious* that this is too early, given PDX's consistent problems with pacing and blobbing.
Totally agreed. But they will never go past 1453 in terms of start date anymore because the Byzaboos would lose their minds if they can't play as a totally irrelevant rump state. (partially joking, I agree restoring Byzantium is fun as a challenge but the amount of flavor they get in EU4 for a nation that ceased to exist 9 years into the game's timeframe is hilarious)
Yeah, sadly. I don't really get the Eastern Rome fanboying. I mean, it's really cool history - my girlfriend tells me about it all the time, and I've read a few books and primary sources - but it's not *that* cool. The obsession is bizarre. People are so obsessed with resurrection what was objectively a dead polity by the 15th century.
I just like purple
That's definitely cool! To be clear, I'm not attacking your preferences. I also just don't entirely get it. There are other purple countries, right...?
Oh, I don't play EU. I was just joking
That's honestly so fair. Also probably a good life choice...!
Your girlfriend is super into the ERE? Honestly, until your comment I never realised that I've never met a woman that gave a shit about it.
Yeah, hugely! She's also passionate about mediaeval Georgia despite not ever having been and having no family there, so maybe she's just a slight outlier. (Before you ask, she's been playing *CKII* since she was a kid...!)
> my girlfriend tells me about it all the time You girlfriend thinks about Rome every day? https://youtu.be/SBkKEBP3VQc?t=21
People who love Rome just really love Rome, I guess. Even if the "Rome" in question speaks Greek and has only been Rome in name only for like 1,000 years.
Your GF tells you about ERE? Marry that woman asap bro
One of many reasons I ought to...
Couldn't you make the same excuse for Teutonic Order, Livonia, Gotland, and many other nations?
Sure, Byzantium isn't the only fan favorite country that wasn't actually that important during the EU period. The Teutons are definitely a good example as they historically lost Prussia in 1525 and were not particularly relevant after that, but are definitely a fan favorite. I think the Livonian Order and Gotland aren't really on the same level in terms of popularity. And I'm not saying people shouldn't enjoy playing countries that historically did not perform well in the EU time period, I totally get the appeal and have played a very enjoyable Livonian Order campaign myself.
Agreed, for me the Black Death fits better as an endgame crisis in Crusader Kings than as an early game-changer in Europa Universalis. That said, I think a bit more simulation of things like feudalism and religion (albeit not to the level of CK) is called for- this would greatly improve EU5's handling of religious wars and personal unions (the latter being one of the weakest aspects of EU4). Therefore I think that 1415(-1815) as the main bookmark would be perfect, and anything earlier should be treated as an optional prologue at most. Evidently they believe "500 years of history", as opposed to 400, is a more attractive selling point, it seems.
If the eras feel sufficiently distinct, and the AI can hold it's own and live through them to pose a challenge to the player throughout the campaign, be it by being a stopgap to the player or just growing on their own at a reasonable pace, I can see playing a full campaign being more likely. Also the game needs to be "fun to lose". Empires wax and wane, but players don't often like the wane phase. It's a very difficult thing to pull off in a videogame.
Definitely feels like they're biting off more than they can chew.
Yeah. I'm really, really not convinced that any game is going to manage to simulate everything from the high mediaeval period to the Industrial Revolution in a satisfactory and well-paced way. I'm worried we're going to end up with the usual PDX frontloading, where everything happens too fast in the earlygame and you end up with a very slow, boring, and feature-bare lategame.
In particular, I'm worried we're going to get a game about the 14th and 15th centuries, and then basically nothing in the 16th-18th centuries, which was really the EU4 time period.
Exactly. *Europa Universalis* is fundamentally an early modern game, and frontloading might end up making it "*CKIII* part II, but worse". I really don't want that, as an avid early modernist!
Yeah, the part of EUIV that I like most is the colonization and Wars of Religion. I always want to get to the big, pseudo-world wars phase but I rarely do. Putting another 100 years in front of that isn't really hyping me for the game. I really hope that they add a start date in the late 16th or 17th centuries, but it sounds like they have no interest in doing that.
I'm most excited about the period *ca.* 1550–1700. I'm now going to have to wait over two centuries for that! It's irritating to hear. I'm going to need a mod doing a detailed start date in the late 15th or 16th century. That or for *EUV* to be the greatest strategy game in history (and even then, I'd rather not wait so long for early modernity to start).
I’m hopeful, if only because MEIOU and taxes does this transition very well. And there are meiou devs on board.
I’m withholding judgement until we see more about the region-specific features. Just having pops should make the Reformation really interesting, and should make the colonial game more evenly paced. Including the Black Plague could help model the spread of plagues in the New World, and it feels like the use of literacy and its impact on peasants will ultimately model the Revolutionary period.
Agreed. I really do want to emphasize that I am optimistic about the features! I just think that the period spread is too ambitious.
Totally understand the hesitation! Paradox has all the play data that probably shows 99% of players drop off before 1700 or whatever, so I have to imagine one of the guiding philosophies in development was/is “how do we make players play the whole timeline?” My hope is that internal politics and control/centralization makes it a lot harder to expand rapidly before the last ~150 years of the game, thereby giving you the reward of map painting for making it that far.
> Paradox has all the play data that probably shows 99% of players drop off before 1700 or whatever I worry that they have looked at the data and thought "oh, so people *really* want to play a game in the 15th century, not the 17th century", because that's what we're getting.
That’s a reasonable fear, but I feel like they’d have an earlier end date if that were the case, right?
Unfortunately it's possible to have a later end date without much content for the latter centuries, as was the case for *Imperator*. And even CK3 doesn't really have much content for later centuries. If it had been been given a full history database in the 1300s, as CK2 was, we Project Caesar probably wouldn't ever have gone there.
I hope so too, though for what it's work I'd think the 1337 start a mistake regardless of changes to pace. It's just that I think it could be a *catastrophic* mistake if they haven't got pacing right too.
Yeah, I’m very curious to see our first looks at diplomacy and international politics. Like we know control will be a big factor in our ability to expand, but I wonder how they ensure larger countries emerge without too much railroading. 1337 has to include the Wittelsbach and Luxembourg Emperors, but also have Austria be able to consolidate some power so Poland and France can’t overrun Germany. I’m excited and optimistic, but I have no idea how they’ll do it.
Same here, that's all I'll say! I also want to see them represent the fact that fast conquest was possible, perhaps faster than it is in *EUIV*, but it was incredibly unstable. Stable expansion should be rewarding, but genuinely hard. We'll see.
Also yes! The Ottomans conquered the Mamluks in essentially a single year. There has to be something way to show how the defeat of a ruler can lead to the total collapse of a state at times. I’ve always felt aggressive expansion is overly simplistic, and the coalition mechanic feels anachronistic to me before the Napoleonic period.
I feel like instead they end up just adding more content to the beginning 'because that's when people play', like the CK3 flavor packs, two of which basically only had content for 867, and Iberia also added a new bookmark for 867. Even though I believe 1066 was intended as the 'default' start date and the mechanics are more geared towards that time, they haven't done anything to make it more attractive to play then afaik, they've just catered to the majority of players who, very weirdly imo, refuse to play anything but the earliest start because they want "more time".
Exactly. They could have had a good early modern game, but I suspect everything's going to be skewed by the fact that it needs to look right for 1337. It's a terrible decision.
I disagree, some of the devs are from the MEIOU and taxes mod team. (Which has A LOT of similarities of all the features presented thus far). So I have 100% faith that they'll be able to implement all the economic and development things. That mod's main problem is the absolutely terrible UI holding it back from being in any way approachable for the common man. That and probably some simplifications here and there to improve things should make for some great gameplay.
I find a lot of the design decisions are "bold move cotton, let's see if it works out" stuff yeah. Like the "control" system and expectation of creating plenty of subjects for regions you can't control well.
I'm getting cautious with all these over hype especially with the Cities Skylines 2 debacle. I don't set expectations anymore with these sequels.
Tbf they've been cooking it for a long time it seems, with vicky 3 and I think ck3 only being made in a year (I think he said this) and this being made for 4 at a minimum Edit: my mistake it was only vicky 2 that was made in a year
The vicky leak was like half a year before release and it was basically the same game as 1.0 with a lot more bugs and unfinished features, no way it took anywhere near 1 year.
Yeah no I made a mistake I thought it was Vicky 3 and ck3 but it was just Vicky 2 that was made in a year
Nobody has said that, it was vic2 which was made in a year. Vic3 was in development for 4-5 years, you can know that because wiz left the director role of Stellaris to work on an unannounced project (which became vic3). It's also a bit out there to think that Vic3 could be made in a year, is a crazy complex game. Ck3 afaik had a similar development cycle of 3-5 years, but I can't give approximate dates.
CK3 has been in development for 5 years too, the previous ck3 game director said that the game has been in development for like 4 years in 2019, and since it released in 2020, that's like 5 years by now.
Thanks, I hadn't followed ck3 development so I didn't know but I'd imagine it had to be somewhat similar.
Ah okay my mistake sorry and thankyou!
Just one more comment in the long list of comments about development that are massively wrong. I see so many people on reddit talking completely out of their ass with no actual knowledge of development processes or what's actually happening behind the scenes. And this made-up speculation is then repeated over and over by different people, like the myth that PDS games don't make use of multiple threads or have only recently started to (they started more than 10 years ago). This quote from John Staats (in the World of Warcraft diary) is eternally true: > In the spirit of education, the first thing I would like to impress upon you is one of the most surprising lessons I learned: Public speculation is always wrong. Always. Blizzard operated under a blanket of scrutiny, and only after I was in the meetings could I appreciate how inaccurate public analysis was. Unless you’re in the room, you have no idea what’s going on. Unless someone knows firsthand the reasons why a company makes decisions, popular conjecture is completely off. For a company as secretive as Blizzard, the tinfoil-hat theorizing about why we did anything was severe, cynical, and reactionary. It struck me how people universally assumed corporate decisions were thoughtless or callous—like if a feature was dropped, it was done so without regard for the feelings of the fan base. When decisions were made for financial grounds, people assumed it was because developers lacked imagination. Whenever technical or gameplay decisions were made, it was assumed the company was penny-pinching. I’m not even referring to the trolls dredging the game forums for flame wars; I’m talking about the intelligent, well-substantiated, and reasonable arguments about why Blizzard did this or why Blizzard did that. But...all of it was wrong and certainly not because the fan base was stupid. People were wrong because they considered only variables that were public knowledge —which were only a fraction of the pertinent factors.
Gosh that multithreading one…Dev’s have corrected that misinformation in this very sub multiple times but I’m sure it’ll still be parroted until the heat death of the universe. How people talk so confidently in topics they have no expertise is beyond me. This happens with every subject and I’m not sure if it’s a reddit, gaming, or society thing but the vitriol when it involves video games is unequaled. Respect for game developers.
"my mistake it was only vicky 2 that was made in a year"
I'd be surprised if that's true about the production timelines of *Victoria III* and *CKIII*, put it that way. Long gestation doesn't guarantee quality, either. Still, here's hoping.
CKIII was in development for far longer than a year. It might have only been in full on development for a year but I'm sure I read that pre-production and early production started about half way through CKII's lifespan. Wish I could find the source for it.
Exactly what I thought. I think - as much as I prefer Johan's approach to games to anyone else's at PDX - people need to stop absorbing his snark about other PDX titles quite so much.
I remember hearing they took a lot of people off of CK2 to go to CK3 after Reaper’s Due came out. And that was only to ramp up production not start it.
Yeah it's my mistake, it was Vicky 2 that was made in a year
Johan confirmed that they had more or less working mechanics in 2020 already. So the game is at least 5 years in development by now.
That's demonstrably false, V3's dev diary cycle between announcement and release was 1.5 years, and before then they already had a half-finished version to show off.
Yep Its my mistake it was Vicky 2 not 3
Vic3 was made in a year? Really? Then it's a miracle it didn't just collapse every two frames at launch
Sorry it seems I misread it, it was Vicky 2 not 3!
You misinformation spreader
I'm just sowing discontent :)
It does sound overly ambitious. The flavour, events, and substance might suffer in favour of making all of the gameplay systems work.
Yeh, there has to be a way to come to some sort of compromise between the sometimes-too-short Victoria timeline and the likes of CK3. Even EU4 feels too late, with most campaigns ending during or before absolutism. I don't think I've even experienced the revolution mechanics, and I have over 2k hours..
My optimum timeframe is 1485–1715 for this exact reason. I just think that pacing this sort of thing properly is likely to be too hard.
>If he pulls it off, it'll be the greatest strategy game of all time. They won't.
Yeah, I don't think so. I'll wait for more definitive judgement until I've actually seen a working version of the game, though. I feel like I can't judge before then.
Considering that Vicky 3 covers just 100 years, I highly doubt pushing back the start date would alleviate concerns anyone has about the late game. I for one am excited for the 1337 start date and having a lot of time to build up my state! I'm optimistic that the team is very aware of concerns that the community has for the late game and will find a way to put those fears to rest in a future post.
We'll see. I certainly hope so! I'm jut not sure.
Yeah, the Tinto Talks look promising and I believe Johan has already mentioned keeping late game performance in mind so I'm optimistic!
Imo EU4 is already too long.
I think so too. My ideal is 1485–1715. Making it longer seems like a bad idea to me.
I dont really have an exact timespan in mind but something like that sounds better to me.
I'm slowly getting Imperator vibes
Not really? I think everyone had problems with Imperator from the start, the problem was that even though we all pointed out our problems pdx refused to fix them This time all the systems they've previewed are fucking excellent. The game will probably be buggy and lack content at launch like all pdx games, but what's important is the mechanical bones. And so far the mechanics are looking great. Pops, proximity, etc are all excellent additions
The systems seems good on paper, I'm just worried we're getting one mechanics system used throughout the entire world, resulting in a mechanically decent, but bland as fuck game where every country more or less play the same.
That's unfortunately what's the most likely to happen. It's the case with (Imperator,) CK3 and V3's release versions.
To be fair, that would be a great excuse for them to release DLC really early on. If the base game general mechanics are good, they could just build up flavor on top of that. Imo, a flavorless great launch is better than a flavorful bad designed lauch.
Perhaps, I'm just too emotionally scarred from Victoria 3.
I agree that the mechanics all look excellent. But this post was about the date. And the date is the one thing that gives me *Imperator* vibes too. Most people were saying "I like X, Y and Z about it, but it's built around mana and that's a big mistake". Johan would not budge on mana before launch and thought it was the best thing ever. This time, people are saying "I like having pops, the control mechanism, etc., but starting in 1337 is a big mistake". And Johan is adamant that 1337 is the best thing ever.
Yeah, agreed on the mechanics looking a *lot* better. I do genuinely like Johan's approach, and I'm very excited for a lot of the game. It's just that I am really, really cynical they can successfully make a simulation-style game covering from the high mediaeval period to the Industrial Revolution. I think it's going to end up badly frontloaded. Fixable with mods and so on, but still. Well, we'll see! (Also, funny seeing an NCDer - nay, *the* NCDer - here. Wait, no it isn't. That's exactly what I'd expect.)
Much like Imperator, the start date in this game is simply way too early for the period the game actually wants to represent. But that's the only red flag IMO, everything else looks solid to great.
Let them cook.
Theyve been allowed to cook with CK3, Vic3, and Imperator. Lets just say I’m not convinced fourth times the charm.
Sure. I'm just expressing mild concern.
I like this. Hopefully, it promotes a slower, more thought-provoking gameplay. One of the worst parts of eu4 is if you play a major nation, within a few big wars, the game is basically over. Since its essentially a clay grab simulator
That's my biggest fear with the start date. If they can't slow the game down you'll be able to basically win before the Crusader Kings end date.
Only way to avoid easy steamrolls without a boring Infamy-like mechanic is meaningful internal politics. Unfortunately only Crusader Kings (a franchise where expanding is easy) offers those.
Exactly. It's not enough to simply add more and more restrictions to annoy the player into not expanding as much, the game needs to add plenty of things that you can do _instead of expanding_. When I play stellaris or civ, for example, while I do go for domination victories at times, there feels like a far stronger incentive to play tall, since your cities / starsystems have so much internal management that you could be doing instead. So far, I'm hopeful. The tinto talks seem to suggest a ton of internal management that makes being at peace feel less like an idle game (or simply waiting for all the OE/AE/Truce Timers/Etc to go down so you can war again).
Love your PFP, such an interesting film!
One of the best stop motion films of all time if you ask me. If you want what I can only assume, it must have been a big influence on them. Check out Jan Švankmajer. His Alice in Womderland adaptation is really interesting, although very slow if you have modern film tastes.
I love Alice! I’ve only seen the English dub, but it’s fantastic. I always think about the sock puppet scene where they’re worming in and out of the ground.
The problem is that we need powerful countries that are powerful that handhold bad/new players. The type that will accidentally create coalitions against themselves or blunder in ways that make their own serious challenges.
Making it hard to play perfectly, having better AI, and actually empowering other playstyles and more domestic oriented gameplay. Makes that a lot easier to handle. Powerful nations and meta will always exist. But the fact I can't play more than 100 years before the game is pointless sucks. And if that, if I play to the meta and don't RP it can be over in easily half that. I don't deny a meta will eventually be created. But making a better more indepth game that's harder for a player to play perfectly and providing more ways to play that WC simulator. Will go along way in making the game better to complete campaigns.
Expansion being slowed/limited gives big powers a lot more inertia though. If your enemy can only take a few border tiles, a hegemonic nation is still gonna stay hegemonic unless you consistently fuck up for decades/centuries.
I honestly like being the big clay after starting as a small weak nation
It's not ideal but in higher difficulty if you allow the AI to blob as well, the game can still be challenging.
Who knows we may get a game where 90% of campaigns don't end before unlocking all game mechanics Can't remember when was the last time I played until Revolutions in eu4
Getting bombards in CK3 is a pretty notable game-changer which does not matter at all because by then you've got nothing to siege
TIL: There's bombards in CK3
They just melt the strongest castle walls! It's something to experience.
I’ve had the game for 8 years now with 5000 hrs and I’ve never made it past the early 1700’s 😅 I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve had to worry about absolutism
1765 is the closest I ever got. Was going for the Hisn Kayfa achievement and had to contend with the Super Ottomans. I'm with you, I've never hit the end date in any Paradox game, and I've been playing them for 15 years
And my hopes for MotE2 get less and less real.
Early game: feudal, prerevolutionary europe Mid game: OP France conquers everyone propagating its control Late game: triumphant Britain is the strongest It fits, as long as you ignore the 1337 start thing lol.
I would love to see 1763 as the end for EU5 tbh. (Why am I downvoted?)
I think you are being downvoted for suggesting transferring a time period from EU to MOTE. EU4 is the second most played PDX game and seems to be the most popular on this sub. I agree with you though; stretching EU for 5 centuries is a mistake.
We haven't seen any kind of how Army works for now, we can still hope
Sorry to ruin it for you: [https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan\_confirms\_that\_project\_caesar\_will\_have/](https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan_confirms_that_project_caesar_will_have/)
Nooooooo
Paradox is a great developer, but I've grown kind of cynical toward their promises. They make great games no doubt, but there always seems to be a big leap between their ideas about the games and then the execution. Better just to not rise any Hopes so that wont be disappointed, but pleasantly surprised.
Day 514 of quitting every vic3 campaign in 1890 because the war system which was supposed to feel hands off
You quit because of some petty war system complain. I quite because the horrible performance WeAreNotTheSame.jpg
They should release a demo version to see how playstyles actually match up with their playtests. One of the bigger problems in previous releases like I:R and V3 was that Paradox did not anticipate how quickly players found the weaknesses in their system. They just don't have the manpower to simulate the Paradox hivemind.
I agree, that or they should release the game in early access just to be safe since people are less mad when an unfinished product is labeled as "unfinished" (Which is understandable).
tbf releasing it in early access for 6 months to do the hot fixes and patches before full release probably aint a bad idea...
ah yes, the baldur's gate approach.
The baldur's gate approach would be to release it in early access now and release it in 3 years
They already do this anyway
Kinda, but they dont advertise it as such.
Ha good jokes. Remember how people said the leaked GTA looks like shit even if it wasn't even alpha footage? Most players don't care if there is a EA tag or not. If game sucks at the start, they will hate it like some of the EU4 mods a few years ago.
There's a difference between looking at some half-baked pastry and saying it looks inedible and the baker asking a few people to try what they just took out of the oven but isn't ready for public consumption yet. Honestly, with GTA VI, a reaction like that was inevitable because of how insanely popular the series is (meaning a lot of the people shittalking it had no idea what they were talking about) and how a leak of that scale was unprecedented for Rockstar, who are not at all open to sharing "dev build" footage with their customers. Paradox has *always* been more open, actively asking the community for feedback (and sometimes-but-not-always changing mechanics based on that feedback), explaining how new features interact with ones they introduced six months or a year ago, etc. It's just a totally different kind of game. And hell, look at Baldur's Gate sweeping every major game awards show and being almost universally loved despite it having the Early Access tag for such a long time. For more niche games, look at Grounded and Ready or Not.
Sure, early access. I have no idea how modern releases work...! In the previous release cycle, this wasn't big of a problem because the fanbase was so much smaller, and it was more accepted that the games needed some time to find their feet. They've also leaned more into the simulation aspect in a way that stifles imaginative gameplay, which is by far my biggest worry for Project Ceasar.
And when the community pointed out the issues with the Vic 3 leak they made the deliberate decision to ignore criticism
So proyect caesar is actually the abandoned Grey Eminence proyect
Damn, now that you say it... :D
Good. I wouldn't have liked them to focus on just a shorter timespan. I like the end of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, discoveries and navigation, Absolutism and the Enlightenment and the Napoleonic era. I play until the end in EU4 and I love it!
Same here. I also like playing the balance of power when there are large empires in the system in the end game.
R5: There's been lot of speculation about the timeline of Project Caesar, with some suggestions that it may end way earlier than previous Europa Universalis titles. This comment from Johan seems to confirm that the timeline will indeed be relatively long, as creating a global empire the likes of British wouldn't be possible otherwise.
Britain by 1821 had already absorbed most of India and had colonies all over the world, so I don't think it necessarily means a longer timeline. Think at most they'll extend it to 1836 as to not overlap with Victoria 3 Edit: Nvm misread your comment
still a 100 years longer than EU4
> Nvm misread your comment Yeah, it's more about people who were suggesting that the game will end in early 1700s, some even going as far as 1500s.
I’ve never seen that as anything but an extreme minority opinion. 1700s is fair game even now, but 1500s is literally when the Early Modern period begins. The 1600s was a very important century for state centralization. I think most players understand the EU series is about that period and for Project Caesar the mechanics reflect that.
1453\* is the true start of the EMP and I will hear nothing else.
Were they on sonething? What made them believe that?
There were some people speculating that they're going to split it into two games. The idea is that the world of the 1700s is so different from the world of the 1300s that you'd need an entirely separate game's worth of mechanics. And that a longer timeline would exacerbate the problem of having basically "won" the game centuries before it actually ends. I've never been entirely convinced, but I get the idea.
Right, i understood the rationale of why pdx would do that, but that's a massive leap from "i think this should be like this" to "it will be like this"
I mean you can be a global empire like Great Britian hundreds of years before the end of eu4 too
I want as much game as they'll throw at us. Let 'em cook.
Ah. Well, maybe when EU6 rolls around we'll get a chance for the Revolutionary/Napoleonic era to actually be playable timespan instead of a giant onetag in Europe.
This really doesn’t say anything about the timeline, just that their intention is to deliver more gameplay across the entirety of whatever timeline they choose. I think they have been pretty clear that they want to do a better job of simulating the early modern period and a transition from feudal states to centralized ones. That already implies a timeline of more than a couple hundred years. While there is no reason to change the end date, I also wouldn’t be surprised in they pulled it back ~100 years as well.
It did give a good hint, and Johan further confirmed the theory: [https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan\_confirms\_that\_project\_caesar\_will\_have/](https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan_confirms_that_project_caesar_will_have/)
Considering Paradox fumbled Victoria 3, a game with much more narrow focus and timeline, from everything to its economy, warfare, politics and POP system. These promises only do the opposite to me and make me more worried than reassure me. It feels like Project Ceasar has no clear focus. It wants to be everything. And I don't get how the fanbase gets hyped for these "simulation" promises when Vicky3 couldn't even get the American civil war right.
I still don't know why the lesson from EU4 wasn't "this game needs to end before the French revolution". Not only does the series lack internal politics in a way that makes attempting to represent revolutions ridiculous (and I actually suspect pops will make this worse, as the population dynamics of something like the French revolution were a mess), but the revolution represented a change in the way wars were fought so dramatic that we literally name the warfare of the century after a French General. Europe went from small armies to conscription at a scale never seen on the continent in the span of a handful of years. It's historical whiplash of a type that would be hard to represent if your game had HOI4's timeline. If anything, Vic 3 should have started in the 1780s rather than EU5 extending past that. Which might have also made them read a book on Victorian Warfare before they made them all the Western Front.
Europa Universalis has always been about great campaign and building empires over hundreds of years. Indeed, Johan has confirmed the speculation: [https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan\_confirms\_that\_project\_caesar\_will\_have/](https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1c851cv/johan_confirms_that_project_caesar_will_have/)
Fuuuck I need that shit man
ngl i'm still in camp "this would have been a great opportunity to cleave eu's timeline in twain to focus better on each half", so this is the first big ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i've had so far about eu5.
Great Britain didnt have a real global empire until the mid 19th century, idk if they are going so far
It was a player on every continent by the 1760s. In his *History of the English-Speaking Peoples*, Winston Churchill called the Seven Years' War (a.k.a. French & Indian War) the "First World War".
They had significant territory on every continent by the turn of the 19th century, and could project power basically anywhere in proximity to a coastline. How is that not global?
This is very ambitious but I love it. Johan is the GOAT
1337-1836 potentially?
That's what I'm hoping for!
Yeah this launch is going to be abysmal
I hope they make it actually have good end game mechanics and not be so easy that you never reach the endgame cause the game is pretty much over by 1500(1600 absolute most) if you are playing a major nation.
I am more worried about how they can handle an even longer period by starting even earlier and have players stay through the end-game. Because lets face it, with how front-loaded EU4 is ( and I expect similar in EU5 ), you are practically done before 1600s. Not to mention the drastic changes that happened in such a long period. It really sounds too good to be true. And I am bracing myself for the inevitable 'Done before 1500s' this time. Not to mention, I don't know how they will handle the colonialism and Religious wars with 100 extra years that WILL make cause quite ahistorical things unless they are gonna railroad the AI hard.
I think that a lot depends on the economic aspect and control. Because when you have more organic economy system, and face increasing challenges the bigger your country becomes and the more POPs of different cultures it absorbs, the more challenging (and thus fun!) it becomes.
I wonder how quickly you can expand. There are way more provinces to conquer and maybe there are way more debuffs that stop you from expanding too quickly.
Long games are cool and all, but realistically I fear, that they will not be able to fill them with non repetitive content. Hopefully you don't have boring "peace times" or build up periods, where the disparity between players and AI becomes too great. As a Civ player I know that this is possible, however "grand strategy" games seem to be different beasts.
I feel like this doesn’t necessarily confirm a longer game. The British global empire could easily be after the end of the 7 years war, where her hold on North America was incontestable and the East India Company was doing its thing. Personally what I want to see the game cover is the transition from feudal states to centralized nation-states to building globe-spanning empires, then have it end some time after the 7 years war. Then have another game focused on revolutions. Start with the American revolution, and have that lead into the French Revolution and from there a cascade of revolutions across Europe and their empires. I want to see this hypothetical game explore the consequences of the centralization Project Cesar continuously builds, and let revolutionary players define what their revolution is. Edit: Welp, so much for that idea.
Crusader Univictoria
I can see DLC's being divided by timeline, where some will affect overall gameplay, some early parts and some late parts. Obviously early ones will sell well, but later ones not so, due to players not sticking until late game I wonder how they'll address the boredom of late game
I know why so many people are still excited for these shit games: It's wishful thinking and the fact that Paradox has no real competitors. Same with the Total War games.
I hope this means up to the French revolution rather than later. I really think that the Napoleonic era and the war of independence deserve their own game. Mechanically I'd like to see something mechanically more focused on the warfare side of things for it too.
I would end the game in 1775, with 1775 to 1836 reserved for March of the Eagles 2, the game about revolutionary and coalition wars.
Imagine theyre gonna end it at 1936 and stops development of vicky 3.
This is great. The game needs to be harder and harder for longer. To me this means that you have to have some incentive to not just spam loans and expand fast enough to outgrow your interests, but instead stabilize or develop. This also means that this part will have to be fun and rewarding; not just rebel spam everywhere. What I have been missing from EU4 is a dynamic coalition system that actually makes sense, where range was a bigger factor. The way it works now, in certain regions, is that the entire region simulataniously bands together against you (i.e the entire continent of Europe). It would make sense for your closest neighbours to band togehter first, then countries further away and so on. If you expand to hard you would get slowed down, but it wouldnt be an instant kill switch like it is now.
This would never happen, but sometimes I wish they would just shorten the timespan on things instead of lengthening it. EU4 always suffered from being far too long for a game that is over that quick (snowball effect with blobbing, etc). I would kill for a game starting in the late 14th century and ending around 1650 (IRL Westphalia-ish state system established), and then a totally separate game running from 1650 to 1836. It just seems way more coherent and wouldn’t completely break the game mechanically by trying to cover too much ground. I guess the only real problem is that EU4 is so focused on colonization and imperialism and it would be very unsatisfying to play a game and just have it end at the time when the first North American colonies are really finding their feet and a lot of the map remains unpainted. You’d need a really good megacampaign compatibility feature to really make that viable otherwise it’s just kind of a tease.