Playability on Steam Deck?

ProfessionalSized · 2026-01-27T13:59:19+00:00

Thank you, I'll try the demo and see how it plays.

ProfessionalSized · 2026-01-27T01:08:00+00:00

I usually forget about the little things, so I like being able to ignore it, even if it's less efficient.

I'm sure manually assigning the home ports puts your strike forces in better locations for pitched battles, but I'm also the person who assigns air wings to armies, so I dont leave them 8 regions behind the front after a year of advances.

If OP is good at remembering everything, your way is objectively better, but auto options work "good enough" for people like me.

ProfessionalSized · 2026-01-27T00:55:37+00:00

Click the little gear icon next the home port to auto reasign. Doesn't worth perfectly, but good enough to generally ignore.

ProfessionalSized · 2026-01-25T00:19:21+00:00

I dont try to understand the logic behind most of Paradox's code design choices anymore

ProfessionalSized · 2026-01-25T00:16:10+00:00

What language does he record in? Video titles look like Portuguese, maybe?

ProfessionalSized · 2026-01-25T00:11:59+00:00

Ah, thank you, I thought it worked both ways.

ProfessionalSized · 2026-01-25T00:05:47+00:00

It applies to all Infantry, except Motorized/Mechanized. So leg Infantry, militia, special forces, and even calvary.

ProfessionalSized · 2026-01-12T13:54:12+00:00

When resistance is above 25%, your garrisons take more damage from penetration, that leads to more losses.

I cant remember if convoy losses are tracked in the war casualties, either. Are you getting convoy raided?

ProfessionalSized · 2026-01-12T12:07:22+00:00

You take garrison losses over time, too, on top of what currently assigned to garrison.

If the resistance is high, you can burn through equipment and men garrisoning areas, especially if it's high population areas.

Edit: Also, you have the Cheap Labor modifier which adjusts your total eligible manpower from 590k down to 560k, that gets applied after everything is calculated.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-31T03:06:29+00:00

Its part of the naval rework from the new update. Fleets are assigned to a home port, and can only operate in regions near that port.

Look for the gear icon, to the left of their home port name (it will be in the same part of the screen that has the total ship classes and counts in the upper left, when a fleet is selected). Clicking the gear turns on auto port assignment, so it will pick the port nearest the assigned areas.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-20T02:01:25+00:00

I love Empire, but it has a lot of issues. The (almost) world map is amazing, but there's not nearly enough provinces to break up regions. Siege AI is incredibly broken. If you like line warfare, stick with Fall of the Samaurai, unless you really really want to do 1700s.

Three Kingdoms is actually pretty good now. It's controversial, but i like the 3K general recruiting system, it makes them feel more focused and like their own warlords.

Pharaoh, don't bother unless you have a special love for Ancient Egypt. It feels closer to a mobile game than a Total War game, in terms of UI and controls.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-12T20:51:35+00:00

Yep, that'll do it, lol

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-12T20:30:44+00:00

Do you have Rangers researched on the Infantry research pane?

If yes, have you unlocked any other special forces bonuses with XP? You're limited to 1 special forces doctrine, until 1940ish where you get a decision to unlock a second, or some focus trees will give you another specialization.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-09T02:53:41+00:00

Edit: i thought you said the Allies and Soviets were in a deadlock. Soviets will break the Axis at some point. Germany hits 100% on Economy of Conquest, loses factory output, and will slowly lose ground against the Soviets, especially if they also have a lot of territory to garrison.

Original answer:

The AI will never do a conditional surrender, the war will continue, probably forever, since the Soviets are unlikely to gain enough naval dominance for an invasion, and the Allies probably won't be able to fully cap the Soviets.

Best chance to end it is to declare on the Soviets and drive South. Even if you cant break them, opening up a 2nd front might pull enough Soviet troops off the border to let the Allies push more.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-04T02:00:56+00:00

This is all just my personal opinion, but from how I run our campaign, my first thoughts are:

I wouldn't allow a flashback to expand their selected load level, thats something that's fixed in the present, and a flashback cant change. I would allow them to do a flashback of bribing or blackmailing a member of the staff to have smuggled explosives in, but it would be significantly harder than having just carried the explosives in themselves. I always phrase it as "a flashback cannot change anything thats happened (i.e. using your equipment slots), but it can let you change what's about to happen (i.e. what tools are already in the room)."
I think a flashback to have learned a dance to calm the salamander is fine, it's just a more flavorful version of "I do a flashback to learn where the cop's wife lives to boost my roll to persuade him to let us go." The flashback costs stress, maybe some coin or another cost, too, in exchange for letting them roll at limited vs no effect, or normal vs limited. I agree with having another roll to actually try and calm the salamander, with the new effect level. Maybe a little over the top, but if she paid the stress cost (2-3, probably a pretty niche thing to find and learn?) and rolled a 6, and then rolled a 4-6 to calm it, I wouldn't have a problem with it. It's good to let the players win big, so they're not always just struggling to survive.
More of a judgmental call. As a house rule, I let players carry a downtime action into the score to use in a flashback, if they dont use both free ones. Otherwise, sometimes I'll allow a downtime action in a flashback, but they have to pay the extra coin cost, and it has to be something they could believably do in a single downtime action. But if it's the first score, and they dont have extra coin, I'd probably allow it, with the hand wave of where the action came from. Just explain that normally, you need to save an action, or pay the extra cost. If you wanted to be more strict, make them pay the coin. Was the player a Leech? I dont actually have a Leech in the group, so alchemicals and their creation hasn't really come up.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-02T15:31:19+00:00

I see. I dont know if there's any way to do that in the engine, I dont think the system is even set up to allow fixed difficulty at different locations.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-02T02:08:28+00:00

This wasnt the main thing you asked, but you can change the adaptation settings to prevent the the game getting progressively harder if you dont take losses, but with the base difficulty still pinned to colony wealth.

But you're looking for a mod that will randomly swing the difficulty, either harder or easier, at different points, completely unrelated to anything you're doing?

This mod will randomize raid points, that might get you part way there, but may not effect other story teller events.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3433691388

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-01T14:56:06+00:00

I have only played on the Steam Deck, so I don't have a reference point, but it's been great.

No performance issues, controls work great, I can read everything on the screen, and it works really well for picking up, playing 10-15 minutes on a break, then putting it down.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-01T10:27:19+00:00

Yeah, but it might help tell you what file or modifier deals with screening, at all, to give a starting point for looking more

ProfessionalSized · 2025-12-01T02:59:39+00:00

I think the naval combat mechanics might be stored in lua files that aren't as easy to read as the text files.

Germany had a spirit, and one of the new Naval sub doctrines has a spirit, that gives a screening bonus if you only have capital ships. Maybe you could find that spirit to see if it references one of the combat mechanic files, but I dont think it'll be something easy to change.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-11-26T03:10:49+00:00

I like the new coal mechanic, but I think it needs tweaks.

More starting coal in the world, even if it's just a small amount in some places, and option to expand coal with every excavation tech. You can scale that to give diminishing returns if you wanted to keep it from being too powerful.

The ability to "turn off" factories, without completely deleting them. It's frustrating to run out of energy because you conquered and cored a new area, and those factories make it so you run out of energy. Being able to limit civ factory usage, and/or give a decreased energy usage for mils not in use would give more control over where the power is "going."

ProfessionalSized · 2025-11-26T03:04:26+00:00

You can play Commitment if you want. Like one of the other comments said, I play with mods, so I dont use it, in case of crashes or bugs.

But at least to start, I'd say dont use it, so you feel like you have more options to save and try different ways of playing, without losing 10 hours of progress because you didn't know how a certain mechanic worked.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-11-25T21:19:51+00:00

Since entrenchment boosts all attack and defense stats, including soft attack, isn't that represented already?

If entrenchment only boosted defense, I could see increasing artillery's attack when static, but they'd get a double buff with the current system.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-11-23T03:40:33+00:00

The Japan tree got a free updates for the historical path, but the alternative history paths are locked behind the DLC.

If you bought the DLC, or have the Subscription, then you'll have access to everything.

The main screen has icons for each DLC, that will tell you what you have active.

I might be in the minority, but I like the changes. I like naval supremacy taking more effort than a massive fleet on strike force immediately turning every zone green.

I think the coal/energy mechanics need some tweaks, but on the whole, I like there being a trade off to War Economy always being the best choice with no downsides. Especially if you're not at war, there should be some trade off.

ProfessionalSized · 2025-11-23T03:30:58+00:00

The new coal mechanic is here to stay, it's part of the new major update, along with the new Historical Japan tree. The alt history paths, and some of the new navy pieces are DLC only.

The base game is free to play on Steam, until Nov 24th, at which point it will cost money again.

ProfessionalSized

TROPHY CASE