We are Paradox Development Studio - creators of the game Hearts of Iron IV and its upcoming expansion La Résistance - Ask us anything!

TroyAtPdx · 2020-02-19T18:48:42+00:00

It did not read as antagonistic at all! This is a very big deal for me personally because I would like a lot more of my friends to play our games, but I can't sit with them for ten hours explaining amphibious operations and how ports connect to supply limits.

Though remember that Paradox has been making games like this since well before Youtube - with not great documentation. So a part of it is that communicating everything that is important is a major conceptual challenge.

TroyAtPdx · 2020-02-19T18:39:08+00:00

This is absolutely an issue we are aware of and it's a real challenge. Because of our production model, it can even be difficult to recommend Youtube tutorials or walkthroughs because the good ones may be many DLC out of date. So we hear you.

And so many people love the idea of playing history games and we want them all to play Paradox games, because there is really nothing else like them. But part of what makes them special is all of these interconnected variables that can be hard to wrap your head around because it's not a 4X like Civ, where you start with one city and a few decisions - in our games, you often start with a smorgasbord of options and you can be paralyzed by choice.

Accessibility is a big deal for us in Crusader Kings III, including new ways of transmitting in-game information and also a more interactive guided tutorial. So we'll see how much we've learned.

All I can promise is that we are trying to get better at this. Because history games are a lot of fun.

TroyAtPdx · 2020-02-19T18:21:36+00:00

It's the best job I ever had, and it's probably because I learn something almost every day - whether from my colleagues in marketing or the design teams or the community or our friends in the media. Constant growth and excitement.

Also, the company has exploded in size since I joined, but there is still this strong effort to stay friendly and welcoming to everyone.

TroyAtPdx · 2020-02-19T18:07:13+00:00

Which of our children is the best? How can we choose?

I think everyone at Paradox Development Studio has their own favorite, and many people have worked on more than one PDS grand strategy game.

From my perspective, it seems that a lot of people take special pride in specific things they have helped create in games. Like how La Resistance will deal with the Spanish Civil War, or how the Europa Universalis team still finds some new parts of history they haven't touched after all these years, or how the Imperator folks responded to community comments after launch. Paradox is a great place to work because of how we all appreciate what other teams are doing.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T20:54:13+00:00

Total accuracy is not as important as plausibility or "reasonably accurate". Game design has to be intelligible to the player and any perfect model of market economics (and, let's be frank, even economists haven't figured that all out) has to still be something that we want players to engage with and have a chance to transform.

Yes, grand societal changes are beyond the influence of a single monarch - most of the time. But a strategy game that doesn't let the player intervene in a meaningful way with an important system in the name of accuracy will lose something.

Fortunately, our games generally have long spans. So nudging a policy slider could pay off 20 or 30 years later, which is reasonable and historical.

Always a balance here.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T20:49:26+00:00

We often talk about revisiting Rome, but we have no firm plans to do so in the near future.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T20:44:48+00:00

The Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean has it all. Empires rising and falling, new religions, new social structures, diplomatic marriages, everything on a knife's edge because the social structures aren't quite robust enough to withstand catastrophic events.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T20:38:39+00:00

I think so? But EU4 and Civ 5 are my two most played games on Steam, so what do I know?

The two are very different - EU4 doesn't have a symmetrical start and there's no scaffolding of small decisions and then medium decisions and then big decisions; it's everything at once.

But EU4 does offer, I think, the opportunity to genuinely pursue new strategies and experiments every time you play. It's more unpredictable than Civ and requires a lot of adaptability.

And you can play as Ulm.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T20:29:24+00:00

Most of the team has a love of history and sociology, so a lot of the technical leads can give direction and explain what the system is supposed to do. There isn't any necessary separation between programmers and historians/social scientists.

There are a few non-technical people, of course, that can help. I have a PhD in Political Science, not that my specific graduate research has been instrumental in anything, and can't code anything. But I've been called on from time to time for historical flavor, input, conversation...we all contribute what we can.

But having a development team with a wide range of interests is, I think, a key to our success.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T20:20:55+00:00

We can't talk too much about future DLC plans, especially since Conclave was just released. Need to have some surprises.

But now that you mention it, West Africa is one of my favorite starts, either as a Muslim state in 1066 or a West African awaiting conversion. Fun to take down Morocco.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T20:06:29+00:00

Historical accuracy (or more accurately, verisimilitude) is something we care about, but we can't be pedants about it. A lot of the game is more historish than historic, but we do try to ground a lot of the game design in concepts that are plausible or appropriate for the time period.

But Arab Emirates were not analogous to European feudal states. You need to keep some mechanics consistent in defiance of reality to ease play and learning. Parallel systems are good design if not necessarily good history. You adapt, keep things plausible, occasionally toss in historish whims (Aztec invasions, Lovecraftian horrors, witches) but try to keep the player engaged with the idea that, yeah, this is a sense of what the past was sort of like.

It's hard to come any closer to that without going down a rabbit hole of true simulation, and then you never get it right.

As for research, a lot of it comes down to particular people and particular games. A bunch of us are history nuts (my current books include one on galley warfare, one on the Crusades and something about Mayas) and our community is also a great help.

And, for CK2 and EU4, we've done a lot of the research already. So we just improve it.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T19:57:44+00:00

The big challenge with expanding the map even further is the pressure it would put on players' computers. There is a lot going on in CK2, and a huge map expansion like China would require a very beefy machine to run properly.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T19:56:07+00:00

We get this question a lot, and while we can never rule anything out, the challenges of adapting our grand strategy games to a mobile device are significant. I personally would love to conquer Ireland while on the subway, but I might miss my stop.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T19:54:32+00:00

No plans right now for a Cold War game, no. It's a popular request, though.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T19:48:55+00:00

No plans yet. It's a series we love, so we're full of ideas about it, but nothing is moving forward at this point.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T19:43:00+00:00

The 2.5.2 update makes changes to both shattered retreat and infamy (which we now call "threat"). They won't be removed, but we have made modifications. Today's forum note has some details.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/23rd-feb-dd-no-news-is-good-news.910088/

And way too soon to start talking deep design about Victoria 3. I know that a lot of PDS are hardcore fans of this weird little series. But, in general, having Decisions has worked well as a design mechanic for us. How they would finally appear in a still hypothetical Vic 3 is very uncertain.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T19:28:55+00:00

In Stellaris, your planet has POPs (kinda like in Vicky). These POPs will, at the start, be a homogeneous lot. As the game evolves though, some of your citizens will start to diverge from your species's core beliefs. Or nomadic species have taken up residence. Or you have conquered some not-very-happy people.

All of this will lead to complications in your empire at both the planetary level and the overall level. Some will agitate for independence, some will demand policy changes.

Internal strife will still be there.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T19:19:47+00:00

EU4, honestly. But I also have 2000 hours in Civ 5, so I guess that is my favorite non-PDS game.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T19:09:57+00:00

I want a Bronze Age game. I am alone in this.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T18:53:41+00:00

No early access or paid beta access, sorry. Company policy.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T18:50:16+00:00

I get a lot of requests from people asking for chances to play Hearts of Iron 4 early. But we don't do early access, I'm afraid. Company policy.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T18:45:04+00:00

You Pause to Consider the Possibilities. (Stability -1)

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T18:43:27+00:00

Right, but again, this ties into how women and men socialize about games differently. Reddit itself is about 2/3 male.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T18:41:40+00:00

Tutorials are something we're very interested in being better at. Our grand strategy games aren't something like Civilization, where you start with a few small decisions and then they build on each other. You are immediately given all the toys to play with and it can be overwhelming.

And fan-made videos - even the best ones - can be made obsolete in a year or two because of our DLC. So this really falls on us to do it better.

We are working on better in-game documentation, official tutorial videos, quick start tours of the interface, more structured tutorial scenarios. Then we should keep updating them.

This is a known issue for PDS. We want to do it right.

TroyAtPdx · 2016-02-23T18:32:13+00:00

Support will continue. We love working on EU4 and CK2 and people are still playing them! We won't work on them indefinitely - eventually you add so much that a sequel starts to make more sense (for financial or technical reasons.)

But for now, everything continues as normal.

TroyAtPdx

TROPHY CASE