Recent reviews by RANNY ME BOB BOY

I PLAYED IT SO YOU DONT HAVE TO - HUGE congratulations to Paradox for creating the worlds very first Strategy game that for some reason has no Strategy in it!

- Very little Replayability
- Embarassing lack of flavor
- Repetitive Gameplay
- Dumbed down Warfare (seriously whoever suggested this system should be fired)
- Dumbed down Economy
- Worst Paradox AI so far despite removing Units
- AI Actively annexes territory it doesnt connect to like Hoi IV upon release
- Decentralized Nations such as in Africa cannot be played at all
- Painfully small amount of Decisions to choose from
- Dumber Diplomacy, no more joining an ongoing war
- Map Painting is easier than any game ive ever played despite promises by the devs to the contrary (Now i guess we know why they showed as little warfare in their streams as possible)
- Tedious Trade Mechanics (and for that matter Tedious game altogether)
- Event Spam worse than Victoria II
- $50 for an unfinished and frankly barebones Game
- 99% of the game is queuing buildings
- I cant even consider this a strategy game, as no actual Strategy is included within the gameplay
- There is genuinely a huge lack of content, Gameplay from the first 10 minutes to first hour in does not change at all as all of the huge changes dont actually alter anything
------ This one goes out to all the People that decried and insulted everyone who had concerns with this pile of trash before it got released
+ Soundtrack is fantastic
+ I do genuinely like the map and new graphics
+ Easier "Focuses" compared to Victoria II, aka i can easily promote migration or national values in a state
+ Unlike Victoria II i can tab out without issue
+ It gave me the motivation to actually write a lengthy review
+ It was mildly more interesting than looking out of a window

In a Nutshell - Unless you like sitting around doing nothing all game then dont buy it until a huge Stellaris-like overhaul which changes the entire game to something worthy of the designation "game". I dont know why Paradox insists on removing the gameplay from its games but this felt like a queuing simulator no matter who i played as and it was quite honestly the blandest experience i have had in any video game to date. The Game screams identity crisis to me, on the one hand it wants to be an economic and society simulator and yet ultimately what you get is this really content-poor experience where the economy is somehow less fleshed out than Victoria II and in fact feels more a cheap knockoff of the Anno 1800 system. Despite removing the biggest black hole for Paradox AI (Warfare) the AI is in no way improved over any previous title and in fact i would argue it is a lot worse given the AI makes bizarre choices to send its entire Army to some obscure country while losing to a major power. The game lacks content, it lacks love and above all it lacks any resemblance of a strategy experience. Overall it feels like a Paradox game where they removed half the content, made the other half harder by getting rid of important features and then slapped a major pricetag on it because its a game most of us never expected to get made. IF this was not a Victorian era game, IF this was not made by paradox, IF this was not part of their grand strategy series then maybe i could accept this actual lack of content and purely lazy design.

Lets kick off Warfare by quoting Bismarck, one of the most famous German leaders of this period : "...it is not by speeches and majority resolutions that the great questions of the time are decided but by iron and blood."

WARFARE - If like me you were looking for a continuance of the Victoria Series or indeed the typical Economy/Warfare balanced game you get accustomed to with Paradox then you came to the wrong place friend. In fact i would argue you couldnt be further from what you are looking for since this has perhaps the least warlike system of conflict i have ever seen in any Strategy game that i own. First the good news, a baby could understand it. Now the bad news, a baby would cry if you handed him this pile of crap because warfare is boiled down to 3 buttons and constant monotonous dice rolls in which you have no influence whatsoever. No i am not exageratting, in their quest to make the worst war system in any strategy game to date they have removed ALL player inputs into warmaking. Your AI General chooses the worst possible terrain to fight in and sends his smallest army against the enemy? Well guess you lost because your number is smaller than the enemy one. Conflict can quite simply be boiled down to who has more Barracks and thats virtually it, if there is in fact deeper mechanics at play well then call me sally because i sure cant see it. One huge issue i saw in the first 10 minutes was that if you occupy a colony the original owner can continue to colonise new provinces meaning you have to constantly come back to occupy them. The Peace System which they patched in Hearts of Iron over a year ago is still fresh in mind here as the AI will annex territories that make no sense, like Egypt annexing Macedonia from the Ottomans within 5 years of the game start. America decided to visit Africa with a vengeance and within 10 years had conquered around a third of west africa.

This is actually one of the unique times where i can point to Imperator Rome as an improvement because they actually had a system that pandered to both philosophies here. You could either let the AI run around and fight for you, or you could micro and decide precisely where he goes. Rather than do any of that they claimed to have spent the majority of their time creating a system that in simple terms mimics a mobile game. You click your army, you click on the enemy country and if your number is bigger than them well there you go you won thats all there is to it. Risk, Civilization and as already mentioned Anno 1800 all despite not carrying the same clout as a "paradox grand strategy game" somehow does better than whatever this junk is. I dont even think its insulting to call it that either because clearly little to no actual effort went into this system, it genuinely feels like it was designed and programmed in one single day by a game named Steve that they pulled in off the street. Let this be a lesson to any game studio making a similar title, the removal of warfare is not an acceptable replacement for a sufficiently programmed AI. I will admit though i should have seen the warning signs when the legions of youtubers throwing out positive praise of the system at conveniently the same day and same time of day no doubt due to the stipulations in their agreement with paradox for pre-release copies.

Diplomatic plays were touted as a great alternative to war but they are not tense whatsoever because without the threat of a challenging war as something to occur if it fails, it makes it nothing more than a formality that seems cool at first but the more you do them the more you feel its really hollow. They are also painfully easy, the puppetry system for example as long as you puppet a non great power you can annex them within 5 years. This is a problem because Spain for example is a power that loses its great power status and as say France you can puppet and then annex them in an extremely quick fashion which definitely should not be the case. By simplifying things and removing the risk from warfare they have gone in the completely opposite direction by making map painting easier.

Builds a transport network the likes of which the world has ever seen, makes millions every day from careful planning with airports and trains leading to a map wide network. Figures out 9 hours into the game i forgot to replace a horse and carriage so its now causing traffic jams with my modern buses and trucks. 10/10 would time travel again

Sailed into the middle of a convoy so they cant hear my signature amongst the other ships, torpedo 5 merchant ships and a carrier and slip away like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Sub ace the likes of which the world has never seen. Proceed to die to depth charges from a cheap 5 dollar beaufighter...

10/10 would hear my sailors scream "WE ARE GONNA DIE" time and time again.

I watched my friend Dan get sucked out of the window while flying at 400kmh, it was very funny.

RATS EVERYWHERE

When i teamkilled my friends with flamethrower i knew this game was my favourite.

There is nothing more fun than you and a stranger missing all your shots at each other for at least three minutes only for him to accidentally walk into a bear trap and die. 10/10

YES this game requires xbox live, now thats out of the way if you can see past that its actually an extremely addicting experience of making life better for your little community of people. Gunplay is great and just as you'd expect has some downsides in the form of noise or even jamming in some pretty bad situations. For me my gun jammed as i opened the door to an infested garage and proceeded to get ripped to shreds by atleast 20 zombies.

10/10 skipped tutorial and made liquid sludge, perfect flavor and body. Seriously though its really nice to be able to just throw together your own little blend and then see whether or not its actually worth anything. You should probably do the tutorial though so you dont end up mixing 10kg of hops with water and expecting a delicious brew.

10/10 i definitely recommend it, its pretty easy to come to grips with even if it seems much at first and for the love of god the Vassal creation system is beautiful. Territory transfers with your Vassals are also extremely easy unlike certain other games in the genre *cough*hoi iv*cough* and being an avid paradox fan myself i found it very refreshing and fun. I always find myself coming back to it at least a few hours a week especially with the easy map editor.