New Paradox Games Start Dates

Paradox Interactive over the past few years with their new games has slowly weeded about at developing many start dates or scenarios for their games. From CK2 and EU4 with almost unlimited start dates, to just one in VIC3, Two in Hoi4 and two in CK3 (Not to mention one in stellaris but that is less of a fair comparison). Overall this trend comes down to a few major things for Paradox that they feel they need to change from eu4 to vic3.

P.S: Let's try to hit 6500 subscribers!

Title: Why Paradox Games Have Less Start Dates
Topics: A video on why paradox games have slowly begun to have less start dates. Starting on in a change in development in eu4 and ck2, to modern day changes with hoi4, ck3 and vic3. Especially with the vic3 launch (but not related to stellaris haha)

Video Script:
One trend that has slowly persisted its way into paradox interactives game design, is the decrease in start dates. When looking at the older generation of paradox games, start dates seemed to be boundless, ck2 for example had almost infinite, with every day for centuries playable, eu4 similarly set up the same standard of thousands of different moments playable. I will say that this is a bit of a overexaggeration, while those dates were playable, they were not fully fleshed out like a few ck2 dlc start dates (867, 1066 etc…) or eu4 with 1444. But even games like victoria 2 had two start dates, 1836 and 1861, and hoi3 had many different periods and scenarios. When you compare that to newer paradox games, ck3 has two start dates, unlike the higher amount of playable dlc dates in ck2 and the infinite scenarios they made unrelated to updates and dlc. Vic3 has one start date compared to two from vic2, and hoi4 only has two start dates compared to hoi3. Now why would paradox move away from more content for players. I few major reasons appear obvious with some investigation. Firstly, the many start dates of eu4 or ck2 did not really work well, they were not properly fleshed out, were quite buggy and many were just placeholders on the map, which did not feel as the game intended to be with the full start dates like 1444 with eu4. A second major reason is the time and effort it takes to make more start dates. Whenever you update the game you need to or should update these dates (not like they really updated the dates with each eu4 update), and this takes significant time, especially where now eu4 just has many broken scenarios. Similarly, the initial development of one or two quality start date seems to be more important to paradox’s devs and can save time in releasing a new game such as vic3, where they only have to worry about one scenario instead of many. Finally, one thing that really has permeated throughout games like hoi4 and ck3, is the development of in depth mods that make up for the lack of start dates. Mods can cover time period that never would have been included in the older games start dates, for example the modern era or ww1 for hoi4, but also modders can spend there own time fleshing out scenarios which would have been in hoi3, like ensieg has done for hoi4. Making quality experiences that include new features and even things that the devs would not have added to the games. Especially for victoria 3 and how it may effect vic 3 gameplay. Overall, start dates in paradox have slowly trended down because of the time it takes to the develop them, the quality of the many start dates, and how modders can make better experiences most of the time than the devs could for all but a few of the start dates.

#paradoxinteractive #paradoxstartdates #victoria3 #vic3 #eu4 #stellaris #hoi4 #ck3 #paradoxinteractivedlc #ck2 #vic2 #vic3war #startdates

[WonderProductions]

Paradox Interactive over the past few years with their new games has slowly weeded about at developing many start dates or scenarios for their games. From CK2 and EU4 with almost unlimited start dates, to just one in VIC3, Two in Hoi4 and two in CK3 (Not to mention one in stellaris but that is less of a fair comparison). Overall this trend comes down to a few major things for Paradox that they feel they need to change from eu4 to vic3.

P.S: Let's try to hit 6500 subscribers!

[deusvult]

Pdx just knows the modders will make them for them.

[fredrickvonstien]

New start dates are made to show off new mechanics, pdox have found people might play these newer dates once before returning to the earliest date. Ck2 and eu4 have very high number of start dates up to the end date since you can directly set the start date in those games, I honestly need to give the oldest start dates in ck2 a shot.

[alexandruscarlat]

In eu4 we ONLY use 1444. I don t think i have ever seen someone use the other ones (which also never ever get updates)

[ZunamiRevert]

There is however a really great mod that can put you back all the way to 1648 in Vicky 3. It's amazing and adds a lot of flavour. Props to the devs for allowing the community to go wild with the mods.

[geoDB.]

I mean the new update pretty much confirms that CK3 is getting a new start date in its next DLC

[repippeas]

The problem is that every update forces paradox to update a ton of start dates that nobody uses, if they add one province to eu4 for example, they have to update it changing hands throughout 400 years and the apropriate dev, religion and culture changes. This was something that was fine in games like Vicy2 or hoi3 where there would only be a few patches/dlc but the newer games like EU4 or Ck2, Paradox found they were wasting hours and hours of precious dev time on a system nobody used. Plus, more start dates means less flavour content targeted at each region. I much prefer the new system of 1/2 start dates that are more fleshed out, and mean Paradox can create the best possible start date, than a half dozen half-good start dates.

[Hatsuzu]

769 is best start date because Hellenism and Zunism still live...

[Redflamesanimation]

I hate that they removed the Timeline bar from ck3. Like the one ck2 had you could make your own custom start date And they removed that. i just wish they add it back

[Mkrause]

With each paradox release more and more is taken out and to me at least there’s literally no reason to play ck3 or Vic 3 over ck2 or vic2

[kurtsmaps]

EU4 has unmatched start dates. In my opinion: the best and strongest release ever launched by Paradox

[ziggytheassassin]

In fairness, how often do people actually start at a different date in eu4. I have 1500 hours on it and i could probably count the non 1444 games on my hand.

[chikkennuget]

Wait who plays the other start dates in eu4?

[zed]

So what game has most start dates (without any dlcs included) ?

[Pigraider]

I don't think it's possible for EU 4 to have only one start date... I think we will get completely new earlier start date that will completely shift how you play the game (1300 something) probably traditional 1444 and I think one for 7 years war, but will see

[racot]

Eu 4 may have many start dates but they are not playable . Not tested . In ck2 you can play every scenario may favorite was after 4 crusade as latin empire because you so many bloodlines you still can participate in crusades and North crusades are coming soon just as Mongols.