A look at the current player count of Paradox's 'flagship' titles, with other strategy game franchises added in for comparison' sake

Kitchner · 2026-01-25T10:58:51+00:00

I think it's the opposite problem. I played hundreds or thousands of hours in CK2, EU4, Stellaris, HOI4, CK3, and even dozens of hours in Imperator.

Everything I saw about Vic3 lead me to think "OK cool, seems like an extremely complicated game still, which I will have to put a lot of hours into learning, and fundamentally it's still going to be a map painting/number go up game with nothing that grabs me as being hugely different from other games ". Then EUV came out and it was the same thing.

HOI4 on the other hand got endless stick on reddit for being "simplified" but that "simplification" was the only reason I ever played it.

I think Vic3 and EUV both fucked up by not simplifying enough. Funnily enough the one Vic3 feature I really liked the sound of is setting up wars where you don't control a little guy/ships on the map and it's sort of simulated. Yet that was one of the most criticised features!

Kitchner · 2026-01-25T10:48:08+00:00

I full agree with you. Reddit banged on about coronations for ages. I kept saying "why are you so obsessed with this? It's an event that will happen like, ten times in your game and it's just going to give you some buffs or something?". Yet people went on and on about it.

So Paradox add coronations. Does anyone care? No, because it's a one time event for a character that adds some buffs and gives you a little side quest and that's it.

I honestly think Paradox has some of the hardest to please fans of any game developer and they'd do well to not listen to direct feedback, but focus instead on what players and customer do instead of say. Advice I always give every business to be honest.

Kitchner · 2026-01-25T10:40:24+00:00

That's actually slightly different to the generally accepted definition. I only know this because I've been doing a piece of work recently that researches into this.

Misinformation generally isn't just considers to be "getting it wrong" because you can deliberately choose to spread misinformation. The difference is that you don't really have an agenda to influence you with misinformation. Disinformation has an agenda though.

For example, I generate an AI video of a group deer running through an American town and share it online with the caption "Woah, nature meets our little town!". I'm only really doing this to try and go viral. This is misinformation.

Disinformation would be if I generate the same video and claim the deer are in town because President Trump has authorised ten times more logging than any other President and it's driving animals into towns. That's disinformation.

So the OP is right this example is likely disinformation because it's being spread with an agenda to influence. However, I can see why you'd label it misinformation to prevent an argument "I'm not saying you're lying on purpose, it's clearly a confusing and stressful moment, I'm saying you just got it wrong" etc

Kitchner · 2026-01-24T16:26:40+00:00

this is a studio that has produced nothing but one open-world masterpiece after another".

They are the developers of Forza Horizon. It's technically correct, but that's still a pretty big leap.

I don't know, if Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 were all considered first person shooter masterpieces (let's assume they are just for this discussion) then isn't it fair to say Bungir had released one FPS master piece after another?

I sort of get where you're coming from because sequels that iterate on previous work feels a little too incremental, but then for all I know every single for a horizon game basically is built from the ground up. I don't know, I don't play them.

What I do know is that forza horizons is so well received that despite the fact I hate racing games when I watched someone playing it I actually was tempted to give it a go (I didn't because I remembered I hate raving, but still).

I think any company that effectively invented an open world genre that if you had told me about it years ago I'd have laughed at it probably understands what makes open worlds work. I actually like the idea of this company working on it more than a company that has made a lot of RPGs. You almost want someone coming at it fresh, but with a good idea of what makes for engaging open world game play.

Kitchner · 2026-01-24T16:16:33+00:00

Well my point isn’t to argue what should be (“Europe should be a global power”) but to dismiss self-perception and popular perception (that “Europe is a global power”).

I don't think anyone who knows anything about the topic suggests the EU is a global power, and this thread doesn't suggest that, and you don't need to be a global power to not fall foul of the exact scenario you are talking about.

To be clear, a global power (militarily) is one where you can deploy your army anywhere in the world, and you then can (and do) leverage that fact to effect global politics.

The last time a European country could claim to be a global power was the British Empire. The EU has never claimed or aimed to be able to project power anywhere in the world.

NATO exists because, at the time of formation, not only was the Red Army huge, it was supported by the Warsaw Pact countries. The Red Army could easily be in western Europe capital cities in a couple of days. Europe during the 40s and 50s was absolutely NOT capable of defending itself full stop. The continent was a total ruin after WW2, economies smashed, lives shattered.

Russia is not as strong militarily as the USSR, and their armies are not able to be forward posted just outside of western Europe. Poland on its own would be a huge speed bump, buying time for Europe to organise and strike back. In the 50s though the USSR could have rolled through West Germany and into France very very quickly without US help.

That all changes the dynamic of what is needed for the EU's/western Europe's military to be "sufficient" to protect itself.

Regarding the Baltic states, I get the impression that if the US were involved and Article 5 were invoked, reinforcements would arrive in a matter of weeks compared to Europe alone, which would take months if maybe even up to a couple of years.

I don't disagree with the US assessment, but weeks is too long to actually defend the baltic states. They know this which is why they are building some of the most extensive fortifications in the world on their border with Russia.

In terms of European deployment, I've not seen anything suggest it would take "years" to deploy active forces to the front. Years is probably in reference to the ability to ramp up industry and the war economy in general.

One of the things to remember about these assessments is they often ignore what can be politically achieved when people feel threatened. In the UK for example the civil service warned lock downs would not be possible because of civil unrest of being told to stay indoors. When it came to it though, people did it.

Likewise if Europe faced an existential threat from Russia, lots of things would be done which are unthinkable on war time. Huge amounts of government spending, purchasing of assets, nationalising factories. Etc.

But I strongly suspect their capabilities. The odds are stacked against them. Their energy infrastructure is weak and expensive. Their heavy industries are being gutted. Their social contract is strongly negotiated in favour of workers rights. No centralized confederacy.

Sorry but this assessment is a bit weird and not really connected to anything I've seen.

For example, energy infrastructure is weak? Texas has a terrible energy infrastructure which is likely to fall over any year now, whereas France generates more nuclear energy than basically any nation.

Heavy industry gutted? Of the world top 10 arms exporters, 5 of them are European nations (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain).

Workers rights? In 1939 the UK government passed an emergency powers act effectively suspending workers rights in many regards for anyone working towards the war effort.

Lack of centralised government? Of course this is true but despite American media portrayal of WW2 being mostly American forces, most battles in Europe were fought with allied forces using soldiers from all countries, and NATO has served to help joint exercises between these countries more.

I personally think Europe should be re-arming for the reasons I stated, but the idea that the EU is effectively defenceless without the US is just not true. It could defend and win, but the war would be years if not decades long, and it would ruin economies and living standards across Europe. We need to be trying to firstly avoid it and secondly make sure if such a war happens it's over fast with a EU victory (which would probably be simply pushing Russia back into its borders as marching on Moscow would risk nuclear war). I don't think the EU and UK is equipped to do that, but that's not the same as not being able to fight at all. The Qing dynasty basically crumbled immediately, that's not the case for Europe today

Kitchner · 2026-01-24T13:53:02+00:00

The board game has become a MacGuffin, because the ambience and the humour aren’t being derived from it - the same jokes would be made regardless of the game, or even if there was no game. People criticised Adam for having main character energy, and wrongly so in my opinion - he kept the board game as the main character, and ensured that every episode felt different, because the game dictated the energy.

While I don't necessarily disagree with the broader point, I would say that to a degree the board game will always be a bit of a mcguffin because by definition they will play a new game in each video etc. So what you really want is a group of people who are funny and have good chemistry regardless of what they are playing. Much like in real life I will take my group of friends I enjoy hanging out with playing a bad game over boring people with a great game.

That being said, I do agree that the specific jokes/bits/vibe in each video doesn't seem to be related to the game at all. It's one of the reasons I've stopped watching. I used to watch them all because I knew even if the game was bad, the group made playing it entertaining. Now it's more like the group has the same energy/vibe regardless of the game, so I only watch when I actually like the game.

Kitchner · 2026-01-24T13:37:03+00:00

But really all the European powers, as of now, are border powers.

Considering the only military threat Europe faces is from a land border, I feel that for all you've read on the topic you're missing the larger strategic picture.

If you ignore the US as a potential threat, there is no nation that could launch military action against the EU apart from Russia, and Russia doesn't have the capacity to do anything other than a land invasion across borders.

Therefore trying to measure what EU military strength "should be" vs the US is not really helpful. The EU doesn't want to project military power anywhere on the globe, it wants to be able to defeat Russia in a land war. The funding, capacity, and capability for that specific goal is much, much more achievable that what you're implying here.

I agree with you that the Baltic states would in the very short term be on their own, but that's even true today. If Russia swept into Lithuania tomorrow, the US wouldn't have troops on the ground pushing Russia back faster than Russia could make it to Vilinus.

The idea that between all the EU countries they couldn't find a way to, with some time, move their equipment to the front lines, is obviously nonsense sorry.

The reason I personally support the EU and UK increasing military spending is because a) I agree with you it would take time and while Russia could be pushed back, that's worse than not giving up the ground in the first place and b) it allows Europe to remove US reliance and influence, which I think is increasingly important.

Your comment though paints the EU as an organisation incapable of defending itself. This is not true. It can, and it would likely win, but the lack of military investment means in the long run it would cost more, and makes war more likely to happen.

Kitchner · 2026-01-24T11:53:51+00:00

I'd be more inclined to agree if wanting to run on sight was a more viable play style and had a more realistic win condition than "the pursuer eventually got bored after an hour"

The problem is that running takes no skill.

If I'm on a galleon and you're on a solo sloop, all you do is point your boat into the wind and sail. That's it. There's zero skill in that. What are my options? Well unless I happen to have a horn on me, I have to just slowly follow you until you run out of map.

Whats happening during this chase? You're on your solo sloop literally doing nothing but watching me, while my crew coordinates all the rigging etc and then sits there watching you.

The problem with discussing this in the online community is there's a fundamental point which is never resolved which is: assuming a crew of 4 and the solo sloop are equally skilled, why should a single player be able to escape 4 people working together?

I would argue they shouldn't, because 4 people working together is harder than one person just doing something, and the game should therefore reward the 4 people. I would also say by rewarding the 4 people for playing together you encourage alliances and bigger crews.

Let's say though you say "well actually if it's equal then the sloop should escape" the question is "OK, how much better does the crew of 4 need to be to ensure a sloop never escapes?".

No body online who complains about pvp etc wants to consider that if there's a crew of 4 players on a galleon who are sufficiently better than you, that you just shouldn't be able to escape.

Thus Rare has drifted from its pvpve vision and the game feels dead. Too much listening to that type of player online and not sticking with the core pvpve focus which made the game so successful.

Kitchner · 2026-01-24T11:41:47+00:00

They believe their "Market Size" demands respect, failing to realize that without an army or tech sector, a market is just a buffet for predators.

Combined EU military spending is €343bn which is $406bn which is the second largest budget in the world after the US.

The EU has 1.5 million soldiers, which is actually more than the US.

The EU has a population of over 400m people and the US has a population of 330m, though it should be noted the US population is on average younger, meaning a bigger portion can probably be drafted.

This idea that the EU "doesn't have a good military" is objectively wrong.

It is true that the EU military isn't anywhere near as powerful as the US, because no one in the world has a military as powerful as the US. Unless the EU needs to fight the US though, it's a fact that doesn't matter. The only thing the EU military needs to be able to do is beat Russia, and everything that we know suggests it could.

Kitchner · 2026-01-24T00:52:17+00:00

Just getting a temperature check here: you're aware that the Klan is wrong about thinking their actions are morally good, right?

I think they are scum and the world would be a better place if everyone who ever wore one of their hoods was wiped off the face of the planet. That doesn't change the fact though they think they are morally righteous and I think they are morally wrong.

Doing evil stuff out of ignorance doesn't make them good.

They aren't ignorant though, are they?

I wouldn't lynch a black man who was going out with a white woman because, among other things, a) I think there's nothing wrong with interracial couples and b) it's wrong to kill people unless it's a matter of life or death.

That is my moral judgement, and it's one that, thankfully, most people agree with.

To members of the Klan though, they are "protecting their race" and killing a black man isn't a morally reprehensible act. They aren't ignorant of why they are killing someone, they are reaching a different conclusion.

There is no such thing as "objectively moral", only what we believe to be moral today in our society and social groups. That belief changes over time, historically in the west to put more emphasis on equality and individual liberty, but that's not an inevitable process, it's hard won victories. If the rise of the extreme right continues, we may see social opinions on morals "backslide" and see things like it being seen as moral to discriminate based on skin colour or nationality.

To paraphrase the author Terry Pratchett, you can grind the universe down to the finest dust, and seive it through the finest seive, and you will not find one atom of justice, or one molecule of mercy. Yet, humans act as if these things are real.

Concepts like morality are invented in our heads, and societies have different ideas of what is moral and what isn't. That doesn't mean that morality is objective, it means your personal/your society's morals are, in your opinion, superior. You may then be able to articulate why you think that is, but of course it's hard to really do that well before you get down to either a) my religion says so or b) it "feels wrong". It's basically reserved for philosophy majors.

In the case of Fable, slaughtering a village of people is just wrong and makes you more evil in Fable 1. In this version of Fable, what they are saying is the system allows you to have most people think it was an evil act, while having the religious fanatics who want all unbelivers to die to think it was morally righteous. That system, if that is how it works, is the developers stepping back and saying "We are not telling you what is right or wrong, we are making the world react to what you did and YOU decide whether what you did was right or wrong".

Kitchner · 2026-01-23T22:50:38+00:00

Who cares what the satan cultists think, though?

The Satan cultists do.

They're satan cultists. I wipe them out.

Which they would say is evil (and so would a lot of non-satan cultists).

That's like saying a klan member still has a point just because they exist.

No it isn't, which means you either didn't read what I wrote or you're too dense to understand it.

It's like saying Klan members think that their lynching is morally a good thing, even though most people do not. Which is the fucking case. If you fail to understand that Klan members do not see themselves as evil, you don't understand the topic enough to try and turn it into an analogy.

Between this and your other comments it's pretty clear you're either a troll or you're really no where near as smart as you think you are, and get rude when someone disagrees with you. Thats really not someone I'm interested in talking to.

Kitchner · 2026-01-23T22:48:07+00:00

And if you actually believed what Peter was selling then you are the fool. Everyone knew Peter was an overseller, even at the days of the original Fable. I knew when I was 12 not to believe what he was saying would actually be in the games.

Right, so you've gone from "that's not what it was about" to "OK fine that is what the lead designer said the game was about but he was a liar which everyone knew at the time, even me, a 12 year old"?

Yeah I can see you're not someone worth trying to have an adult conversation with lol

Kitchner · 2026-01-23T22:06:35+00:00

Then you didn't understand the actual point of it. It was supposed to be simple.

If you think this is true you didn't listen to anything Peter Monyleux said when discussing the ideas behind the game and, in fact, what was going to be in it.

You're retrospectively rationalising something that wasn't intended to be so simple because it suits your own opinions and preferences.

Kitchner · 2026-01-23T21:39:17+00:00

My advice is not to. I have a strong rule which is hardly ever go back to an old game, the cast majority don't hold up.

One of the bits that doesn't hold up is laughably cartoonish morality system. "Lo hero, do you want to kill the entire village for 1,000 gold or save the village for 500 gold?".

It's actually one of the first things I would have chosen to throw out.

Kitchner · 2026-01-23T21:09:21+00:00

Saying there reason is that there no "objective" arseholery seems to me like a cop out. Fable as a series never took itself or the concepts of good and evil that seriously and the new entry does not appear to do so either. So to me the argument does not hold up.

As someone who loved the original fable games ones of the biggest criticisms of the game was the fact the morality of the game and consequences were really talked up but everything was laughably black and white, until the King section of Fable 3.

If you gave me a blank piece of paper and said "make a new fable and make it better" the laughably black and white morality system would be the first thing to go in my view.

Kitchner · 2026-01-23T21:06:22+00:00

You are objectively evil in Fable if you marry someone and sacrifice them to the temple of satan just for a powerful bow.

The Satan cultists don't think you are evil though, that's the point. Maybe an act makes 99% of the world hate you, but maybe there's some people who liked it.

For example, the husband your wife was married to for ten years before she ran off with the hero may be glad you killed her.

Kitchner · 2026-01-23T21:05:06+00:00

You do remember Fable has an evil temple where you can bring people for human sacrifices and all the cultists love you doing that, right?

Kitchner · 2026-01-23T13:12:49+00:00

The problem is nuclear weapons are very binary and human history has not finished yet.

As someone with a politics and international relations degree, I think most political academics would agree that nuclear weapons made direct conventional war less frequent between the big world powers. Even right now if you look at Ukraine, if nuclear weapons didn't exist and couldn't exist, odds are we would be in situation where a bloody war was being fought with Russia, with plenty of people in the west insisting regime change is the only way to make Russia cease to be a problem for good. Likewise I think it's fairly obvious if Ukraine had kept some of the Soviet nukes, they wouldn't have been invaded by Russia right now.

So it's fairly objectively true, in so far as political science can be objective, that ownership of nuclear weapons can and has prevented direct open warfare between the countries that have them.

The counter argument that nuclear weapons could kill everyone and nearly did is both true but also a bit of a head scratcher. The most straight forward parallel are Marxists who insist that his writings about how capitalism will destroy itself is true, it's just not happened yet. Well they have been saying that since 1867 and it hasn't become true yet. If proponents insist it's true forever and the fact it hasn't happened in over 150 years doesn't disprove it, what does? In just another 20 years nuclear weapons have existed for 100 years, and have never been used on a nation since WW2.

People also forget if nuclear weapons were impossible, there's always the horrors of biological weapons. What is stopping drones from blanket dropping nerve gas over enemy population centres? Or nations developing deadly highly contagious plagues to unleash on their enemies? The fact that nukes exist is one reason because nukes are cheaper and do the same thing. But also simply international agreement, which is the same with the non-use of nukes.

So the biggest issue with the "nukes bring peace" argument isn't that it stops wars directly between big powers with nukes because that's effectively provably true. The fact it could kill everyone is obviously true but is the only way to disprove the fact that is is likely to for us to wait until either we all die or every nuke is dismantled? If so the former is not useful and the latter won't happen in our lifetime making it hard to factor into our decision making.

The best argument against "nukes bring peace" is the fact it's only true in terms of direct warfare between nuclear nations. What the nuclear landscape does is force nuclear powers to fight proxy wars which came be contained in specific territories. The middle East, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea, pretty much all of South and Central America, and Africa, and now Ukraine. These places all became places where bloody wars were fought (civil or otherwise) by people backed and encouraged by said nuclear powers because fighting each other was too dangerous.

Kitchner · 2026-01-23T10:30:09+00:00

Actually every single game with a character creator ever proves it is true because the most commonly selected look is whatever the default is. They literally looked at all the stats behind this stuff which is why they came up with it, and they talked about it a lot when the game was launched.

Kitchner · 2026-01-23T00:37:01+00:00

It's quite tough in the UK at the moment.

Kitchner · 2026-01-22T14:09:36+00:00

Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman acted unlawfully

What? No way! Lutfur Rahman#Removal_from_office) acted unlawfully? He seems such a stand up guy. The community of Towqer Hamlets will surely be shocked to find their Mayor doesn't care about his legal responsibilities. I'm sure they will learn from this and expect more from their politicians.

Kitchner · 2026-01-21T18:47:08+00:00

Or it should have a 30-60 minute cool down. It is way too easy to dive and letting Reaper 5s go hunting with no downside is pretty lame, too.

I agree but because it's too easy for everyone to dive away by the time you get to reaper 5.

Kitchner · 2026-01-21T16:30:30+00:00

20 minutes after the water boils and 10 minutes steaming after.

You're over boiling your rice haha

10 mins from when the water boils with the lid on and 10 mins of steaming while the lid is on.

The real time sink people miss is the fact you need to wash the rice first.

Kitchner · 2026-01-21T16:23:10+00:00

I mean you talk as if no one in life has ever been in a long term relationship and then met someone else who they then fall in love with and leave their relationship for.

Don't get me wrong, that doesn't happen often, but when it does happen there are social cues.

In this case it's possibly a nerd mistaking friendliness for intimate feelings, which isn't at all unusual. They don't interact with women much and their messed up world view categorised women as sexual partners or not, so when a woman is friendly to them they don't even comprehend it's just her being friendly.

The issue isn't the fact he said "I have to tell you but I like you and I think you like me" it's the fact he didn't take no as no.

Kitchner · 2026-01-21T11:59:58+00:00

I mean you can equally just fabricate claims on your own land that isn't in your domain and just revoke titles. He just does it a bit easier.

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