- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Controversial gaming opinion: video games are good.
What are controversial gaming opinions you have?
- Location
- Russia
Admittedly, historically, honor Is Actually Just Like That.
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sure, I don't have any objection to a specialized game built around this idea. I just object to the idea that it must be like that for moral reasons. It's just a particularly trite and facile form of moralism.
Ignoring the context of a discussion doesn't exactly make for a good argument. I'm not saying that it's never good to have unwinnable factions, I'm talking about Paradox style games.
If you apply even an ounce of charity to my argument it becomes obvious I'm talking about mandating this feature. It's fine to have specific games built around it, what's bad game design is expecting every game to be like that.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Now this I can get behind
- Location
- Sydney
I assure you Shahanshah it is of vital importance that we journey west to sack Rome.
- Location
- Nunya, Arizona
Then you misused "fundamentally bad design" rather impressively
Which is, like. Okay? It happens. But the discussion definitely seemed to be ranging beyond just paradox games, and even then it's not like nazi germany is baked into paradox style design, so if you meant bad design for certain styles of WW2 games specifically, it might have been better to clarify it, heh.
- Location
- Sweden
I will admit I don't see the contradiction here? The difference between the two is that archery is used to kill on the battlefield, while assassination is done by stealth outside an actual battle. It's dishonourable to kill someone when they are not prepared to fight, same reason one might consider killing someone in a duel acceptable but not, y'know, just cutting someone down in the middle of the street.
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The discussion was purely about whether it's good to mandate that a faction fail for moral reasons instead of player enjoyment. If you don't see how that's intrinsically bad game design that's not on me.
That's obviously the only thing I was talking about. Come on.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
I think part of the issue is that, say, the SovU has to deal with the impacts of the purges on the nation and the significant debuffs that come from that, while having Hitler on your team gives like... inherently positive bonuses last I saw.
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Let's not move goalposts, "Nazi Germany should face more problems then it currently does" is not the same position as "Nazi Germany cannot be allowed to win".
Addressing the former does not make for a worse game, the same is not true of the latter.
Sarissa
OwO
- Location
- Washington, D.C.
The game makes zero distinction between using archery on the battlefield and in stealth.
Muhkat Lomorki
Draconic Sorcerer
Okay, for the record, the game I was thinking of is Age of Wonders 4, which is in my opinion a pretty fun 4x fantasy game that I enjoy a lot. This also, however, applies to both Age of Wonders 3 and Age of Wonders: Planetfall, which are the other games in the series I have.
However, it has a very weird moral principle where while it is evil to trespass into other player's territories (unless you are at war), declare unjustified wars, pillage improvements, raze cities or migrate your own people in while expelling the current residents, it isn't immoral to vassalize cities or absorb them into your empire. This means, while massacres and genocide are definitively evil, it doesn't apply the label to less directly hostile, but still imperialistic, actions. Not only that, but even if you play as an evil faction, you can still get plenty of benefits, although you will have to commit to playing the part of the villain.
However, it has a very weird moral principle where while it is evil to trespass into other player's territories (unless you are at war), declare unjustified wars, pillage improvements, raze cities or migrate your own people in while expelling the current residents, it isn't immoral to vassalize cities or absorb them into your empire. This means, while massacres and genocide are definitively evil, it doesn't apply the label to less directly hostile, but still imperialistic, actions. Not only that, but even if you play as an evil faction, you can still get plenty of benefits, although you will have to commit to playing the part of the villain.
Hykal94
Orange Estus Kitteh
- Location
- Firelink Shrine
So I haven't played Ghost of Tsushima or anything, watched an LP years ago heard its coming out on Steam sometime later. While there are certainly good reason to criticise the depiction of Mongols in-game (most of the soldiers the Japanese would be fighting would be Chinese and Korean conscripts, which as I understand it, doesn't really exist in-game), the thing that really vexes me is how they apparently don't use horse archery??
You know, the Mongols. Not using horse archery. The player can, but the Mongols don't? I mean come on guys. Mount and Blade figured this out in 2008.
You know, the Mongols. Not using horse archery. The player can, but the Mongols don't? I mean come on guys. Mount and Blade figured this out in 2008.
13th Bee
Worker
- Location
- Tennessee, USA.
The issue is that the game actually goes quite heavy on distorting things such that Germany can win. This isn't "make things ahistorical so that the Nazis can't win", it's "make things ahistorical so that the Nazis can win." For example, Paradox actively balances the game so that if the AI is left to itself, Germany beats the Soviet Union. Or how France is massively nerfed in a lot of ways so that Germany can consistently and fairly easily conquer it.
Having Germany be a "can you last longer/game the game enough to win" option would be fine. Right now they're an easy option.
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hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Yeah like... France surrenders to Germany at 90% VP held. Not 'Germany holds 90% of their VP', when FRANCE 'only' holds 90% of its VP. If Germany breaks through the Maginot line or, as it did historically, swings through Belgium instead France folds pretty much instantly.
In a way that makes sense. The whole game is designed around Germany being the fulcrum around which the early and midgame swings but...
Feels bad fam. Feels real bad, especially when compounded with things like Germany not really having non-fascist alt-hist paths. There's a very ugly sort of determinism to the whole thing.
- Location
- Russia
Every Paradox game should have a built in option that randomizes the map with completely non-historical factions, provinces, etcetera. Even if it comes at the expense of certain pre-programmed historical events.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think the point is that if you made Nazi Germany face as many problems as it historically should, it would lose like, 95% of the time or something really high like that. It's less about the morality of Nazis winning and more about the morality of claiming something false (which also supports the Nazi narrative).
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
I think one of the things that makes HoI4 so... controversial ? I guess ? is that what I, for example, play it for and what PDX designed it as is somewhat at odds. I don't play HoI4 as a game where I fight wars, really, I play HoI4 as a althist emergence machine. The 'war' part is almost the least interesting thing about it, and that's weird right ? It's a game that tries to be a WW2 simulator, I should care about the war parts and enjoy the war parts, but when I play HoI4 I find I do that more on sufferance than anything else, and what's interesting is the bit where a better - or worse ! - world's in birth.
Which is also why I almost exclusively play EaW anymore and have left the base game largely behind.
So when you come at HoI4 from a 'wargame' perspective you need Germany to kick it off and do similarly well to history, well, you don't NEED that but it's the most obvious starting gun for something that looks a good bit like WW2, but from a althist perspective that's not neccesary. The conflict could just as well come from the USSR or the US or Britain or France, even some more minor power kicking off a cascade of casus foederis situations, and Nazi Germany neither needs massive AI bonuses nor even EXIST then.
Which is also why I almost exclusively play EaW anymore and have left the base game largely behind.
So when you come at HoI4 from a 'wargame' perspective you need Germany to kick it off and do similarly well to history, well, you don't NEED that but it's the most obvious starting gun for something that looks a good bit like WW2, but from a althist perspective that's not neccesary. The conflict could just as well come from the USSR or the US or Britain or France, even some more minor power kicking off a cascade of casus foederis situations, and Nazi Germany neither needs massive AI bonuses nor even EXIST then.
Axslashel
I am a pessimist not a realist.
- Location
- Land of the Midnight Sun
Breaking the game by playing pacifist Germany seems kind of fun though.
- Location
- Somewhere in the stacks
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's weirdly deterministic in weird ways, i.e. that Germany must beat France, but is not guaranteed to lose the war in entirety despite the fact that by 1942 with both the USSR and the USA on the opposing side, it becomes only a matter of time before Germany loses.
RimWorld players enslaving everyone under the sun to harvest blood and organs, turn into slave soldiers, sell to the Empire for honor points so they can be powerful space wizards or just outright ritual sacrifice to Cthulhu:
*tips my human skin cowboy hat*
*the smile is as wide as the brim*
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I don't think it would be realistically possible without, in effect, events outside their control making it easier for them (e.g. fascist America under Buzz Windrip). Is that something you'd call "abnormal?" Because such events might be within the envelope of the possible for the game, without being the typical sequence of events.
I did just fine with communism any number of times...?
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4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Oh I mean like... say you're playing nazi germany and you click the button that means major nations go down their 'historical' pathways then nazi germany should be turbofucked rather than very capable of winning.
Tithed_Verse
Vainglorious
- Location
- Iowa
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Technically, by certain definitions promoted by social psychologists, a game has a win condition and/or a score keeping method, but a toy does not.
So Paradox games are arguably toys, not games, but Civilization games are games, not toys.
grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
- Location
- NERV-Mercia
- Pronouns
- Traditional/Animate
Several Paradox games have scorekeeping methods, and Stellaris in particular has an explicit win condition.
Tithed_Verse
Vainglorious
- Location
- Iowa
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Fair point. I accidentally dropped the word 'some' and meant to say 'some paradox games'
That's my error. Apologies.