Recent reviews by Nocobo27

Great game! Really fun!

Short but very enjoyable

I was surprised how invested I got into this game. Two Thumbs up!!

To preface this review and to make it clear that I am not a newcomer and that I do not give out reviews lightly I would like to give a little background to my history with Paradox games in general. I have bought and played every paradox game that they have released with an exception for the original Europa Universalis. My favorites are Crusader Kings 2 and 3, Hearts of Iron 2 and 4, and Victoria 2. I am very experienced at playing Paradox games and Victoria 2 was my introduction to them all the way back in 2010 when I would constantly replay the demo because of its time limit and my lack of funds.

To say this game is frustrating and repetitive is an understatement. The warfare is bland, simple, and unenjoyable but could have been acceptable if other aspects of the game had been at least a little engaging so it could be a distraction while war is left on autopilot. At present warfare is something you do in the game not because it is enjoyable and makes you feel accomplished, but because you must in order to compensate for an incompetent AI that cannot produce the goods necessary for trade to be an actual option.

Diplomacy at first glance looks like it would be an impressive system but in actuality its barebones and hollow. It basically boils down to clicking the same option repeatedly and just waiting out a timer for your action to go through. Once that timer is up it is impossible to change anything. You cannot join existing wars on the side of new allies, and you cannot add more war goals as a conflict rages on to just name a few issues.

The economy is the most expansive part of the game and for good reason. In the first few hours when you are trying to figure out the system it can be really fun trying to decipher this economic puzzle box. Once those hours were up, I began to see major cracks in the foundation that led to major issues. One of them is that due to the decision to get rid of stockpiles and only have buy and sell orders it makes it so that your economy is teetering on the edge of faceplanting if you make one misstep in expanding the economy.

The UI is abysmal in that it is too small in some places and its too big in others. Some information is behind menus and tooltips I would never have expected and inconvenient to see. This problem would be worse if you had to use most of the UI, but you really only play the game 90% of the time in two different menus which are a pain to switch between.

Culture doesn’t matter, religion doesn’t matter, class doesn’t matter, and politics doesn’t matter. Most of the Interest group don’t matter either because you really just need to put the group you want in charge for the reform you want and then just wait out a dice role that could take a day or the entire game to change.

I never give detailed reviews on anything ever so I hope you can forgive me for my subpar wordsmithing and less than detailed analysis. There are more issues I have with this game, but I do not have the time nor capacity to arrange these thoughts into words. If you get anything from this review, I hope you got the logical and emotional output that has seeped from my brain which I have tried to smear onto my keyboard in a cogent fashion.

All is not lost but the prospect of paid expansions as an avenue of making this game any fun to play rubs me the wrong way.

4 out of 10

Great Game

like MGS V but ♥♥♥♥♥♥

really good

Really nice.

good

!