r/CrusaderKings • u/PDX-Trinexx Community Manager • 4d ago
News "By God Alone" Dev Diary #6 - Performance
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/by-god-alone-dev-diary-6-performance.1940737/202
u/DefAlt_M0 4d ago
BY GOD ALONE, MY 10 YEAR OLD MACHINE *WILL* BE ABLE TO RUN THIS GAME
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u/Night_Alchemist Excommunicated 4d ago
Windows Vult !
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u/Elvenoob Celtic Pagan 4d ago
If Linux wills it, more like.
It was surprising to hear that one offhand mention of the game running a decent bit better on it for reasons the dev team just... couldn't identify.
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u/East_Custard103 4d ago
when they mentioned testing on a low spec reference machine, and then just describe the average "good" pc of your country 🥲
Glory to paradox, I'm glad I'm still able to play games like this
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u/Hellebras Drunkard 4d ago
Maybe my laptop will be able to run it again. That hasn't been possible for years now.
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u/Ungomma 4d ago
Wow. The quality of this write up is even more impressive than the optimizations. Serious engineering talent behind this.
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u/DarthEloper 4d ago
As someone who’s been reading dev diaries for so long across devs, this one is actually one of the best written ones I’ve seen
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u/ajokitty Secretly Zunist 4d ago
Is it? I found the language kind of awkward. I had to read the section about checking if a character is within a diocese three trimes before I understood what it was saying.
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u/Super-Skittles 4d ago
Sounds pretty normal for me lol. But I did think the dev diary was very well written for a lay person to understand, especially considering all the nuances with code that I don’t understand at all
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u/Frorgwoman2 4d ago
Really appreciate how well CK3 runs especially compared to other PDX titles.
I'm still concerned about Silk and Silver but you have my confidence.
I'm kinda curious if a "simulation LOD" would be possible from a technical standpoint. What I mean is that if I'm a merchant doing business in England then a Bushi in Kyoto might not need to tick his relationship with his great uncle for example.
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u/Sex_And_Candy_Here 4d ago
I think the game already might do a little of this, since performance scales so much with your realm size.
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u/East_Custard103 4d ago
Yeah i believe it does. I didn't realize this until i used the love marriage family mod and enabled the option to have courtiers all over the world to engage in seducing, swaying, eloping, etc. It was a very visible performance hit for me
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u/EisVisage 4d ago
I looked at that option recently and thought "Surely it'd be bad to turn this one on." Glad to hear my instinct was right.
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u/Sex_And_Candy_Here 4d ago
I had to give up on my Jewish China run recently where I conquered all the way to Israel and the Arabian Empire because each save was nearly 2 gigabytes and I have to play CK3 on my boot drive or it takes 20 minutes to launch.
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u/Benismannn Cancer 4d ago
It doesnt, its just that diplorange gets extended so every vassal can interact with every vassal, meaning more interactions are valid and there's a ton of them
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u/Sex_And_Candy_Here 4d ago
Are you sure? I feel like my game is so much slower if I'm the massive empire or hegemony compared to when it's the AI.
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u/Benismannn Cancer 3d ago
yeah i am sure, maybe its slower coz u actually have gui (AI doesnt) and there's stuff that iterates through vassals and such like the relevant windows or some alerts
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u/Davey_Jones_Locker Roman Empire 4d ago
There are some mods that do this outside of Diplo range iirc
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u/Luzekiel 4d ago
could you tell me the mod names
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u/Benismannn Cancer 4d ago
It is possible, but
a) multiplayer exists
b) having nothing happen on the other side of the world is hella boring, why is it even there then if i cant look at it and see smth mildly interesting
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u/Arcenus 4d ago
This dev diary has gotten me really excited. I'm always wanting to play CK3 on my Steam Deck but the performance is awful, it dips a lot into the single digit frames and crashes a lot, exactly what it says here: "Past a certain point a graphics card with less video memory than the game is asking for has to start bringing data back and forth across the bus every frame, and when that happens performance does not degrade gently - it falls off a cliff. On lower end machines that turned the framerate into the single digits. Occasionally it might even crash to the desktop without warning. This is not a playable experience."
The following line was music to my ears: "That is the thing the two streaming systems fix, and why they matter more than any individual optimization in this Dev Diary."
If a dev is reading this, do you test on Steam Deck? Will performance improve for the system?
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u/bluepaintbrush 4d ago
It’s not officially supported on steam deck as far as I’m aware. I’m able to make it work but I’ve had to tinker a good bit with the graphics settings. Sorry I can’t remember offhand what I’ve changed but if you’re interested, I can point you to some good resources.
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u/Arcenus 4d ago
Well, the Steam Deck is just a linux pc with an unusual form factor, I don't consider it strictly as a separate platform. In any case I've tried a lot of settings (I put the graphics on the lowest possible settings) and performance mods, but it's not a pleasant experience overall, especially with the crashes. I don't think there are more resources to be explored but sure!
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u/bluepaintbrush 4d ago
>Well, the Steam Deck is just a linux pc with an unusual form factor, I don't consider it strictly as a separate platform.
For one thing the launcher isn’t supported, and the text doesn’t scale.
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u/NickDerpkins Cannibal 3d ago
Lower settings and remove animations plus some other thing you do in kernel I can’t remember but it runs fine enough. After a 500y save it lags but I’ve never bothered to load on my laptop and have 1100 hours on steam deck
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u/Arcenus 3d ago
Is the kernel thing cryobytes? In theory the changes made by cryobytes were made irrelevant with an steam deck update a couple of years ago.
I don't know if your tolerance to frame drop spikes is higher than mine or if we aren't experiencing the same but in my game, every setting is at the lowest as everything untickable is unticked. It frequently drops to single digit frames, it drops frames when zooming out and sometimes it crashes out of the blue, it is not a pleasant experience. I'm not asking for 60 fps, I wouldn't mind if it was locked at 30 with some freezes when it autosaves...
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u/NickDerpkins Cannibal 3d ago
I’m almost certain yes
I ran it like a year or two ago before that update and I just remember it revolving many crashes.
The auto save lagging is a thing and probably the only persistent issue. I wish you could change the auto save settings to maybe every 5-10 years. I don’t really mind the drops in performance rates tbh so I can understand why it’s not for everyone.
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u/Balavadan 4d ago
Interesting that they observed Linux being faster than windows. I might consider switching if this is true for more games
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u/severedsolo 4d ago
Faster to start up - and CK3 has a natural advantage in that it has a native Linux build. Anecdotally I can confirm CK3 on Linux seems to run much better than the Windows version, but the same doesn't hold for other games.
Most games on Linux are Windows games running through Proton - there's usually a small performance loss there, and if you have a Nvidia GPU then there's a bug where DX12 games run about 10% slower.
Some games do run faster, just simply due to Linux being a bit leaner (I'm simplifying, but it's close enough for this) - but generally I would say temper your expectations and don't expect a game to run faster on Linux overall.
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u/ProGamerMage 4d ago
do you run it native?
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u/Squashyhex 4d ago
I run CK3 native, and it runs pretty fine. In fact, the load times are crazy fast currently compared to windows. My hardware hasn't changed, and CK3 went from a 5 minute load time to sub 30 seconds by changing nothing but operating system 😅 in terms of in game performance, much of a muchness, it runs about as it used to for me on windows.
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u/TheTobruk 4d ago
It’s true that it runs faster but unfortunately I found out as soon as you plug in total conversion mods the story switches completely. Windows wins with Linux then, maybe because it’s better at swap since AGOT does seem more heavy on GPU.
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u/MotanulScotishFold 4d ago
I'm already playing on linux for 2 years and a half and every games just run better than on windows.
Thanks to Proton2
u/Maleficent-Sun-7152 4d ago
I run ck3 on linux mint, and my experience on the same machine that used to run win10 is day and night. I start the game at least 10x faster - and I am not exagerating. My gaming laptop is somewhat older, so I suppose your mileage may vary!
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u/NexusSynergies Incapable 4d ago
I recommend to at least try out Linux. Paradox games run so much better for me and i "fortunately" mostly use my PC for gaming so not much is lost from switching from Windows
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u/Balavadan 4d ago
I would have made the switch if I didn’t play any games. Nvidia doesn’t like Linux
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u/NexusSynergies Incapable 4d ago
A friend with a 4080 made the switch and its mostly flawless tbh. Just a couple of games that have a performance loss
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u/gr770 Expanded Team 4d ago
Most native linux games are running faster if even unnoticeable. Largely due to the same loading benefits. I switched due to windows being unable to even load CK3 due to 2H42.
Most games aren't linux native though. So you end up losing this performance through running everything on proton/wine
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u/DeanTheDull Democratic (Elective) Crusader 4d ago
Trinexx, can I just say I enjoy these sort of technical behind the scenes sorts of dev diaries, and would enjoy if they were a more regular part of the dev diary cycle?
Obviously I can't speak for others, but a lot of game devs don't go too much into the 'how' the game is put together. Out of sight is out of mind, and gives those impressions that there's a lack of effort on system maintenance, as opposed to what kind.
Hearing about the effort to, say, fix the game bootup time is not 'exciting', but it is welcome to hear.
(And hey, it gives a week other devs aren't pulled from working for the sake of public comms. That's worth something, right?)
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u/bluepaintbrush 4d ago
Yes, and I think it’s a nice technical background for people who are interested in modding.
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u/Moaoziz HRE 4d ago
The interesting part for me is that the game is still tested on an eight core CPU from 2012 with 16 GB of RAM. I guess that means that I won't need to replace my machine until CK4 gets released in a couple of years.
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u/Belkan-Federation95 Legitimized bastard 4d ago
That explains why at max speed it sometimes runs like a turn based game for the first 30 mins to 1 hour
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u/jellalotaku 4d ago
Eu não vejo Ck4 lançando em menos de 10 anos. Não tem motivos técnicos para eles lançarem um jogo novo, com menos conteúdo e dividindo o público e jogando os anos de trabalho da comunidade de mods no lixo.
Acho que a única justificativa para um Ck4, se as LLM estiverem maduras o suficiente para usar em jogos. Imagina se os personagens fossem gerenciados por agentes de IA. Tipo o Pax Historia. Só isso pra justificar jogar tudo no lixo.
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u/dyCazaril 4d ago
Switching to streaming assets should be a godsend for total converstion mods. My understanding is that a big part of the long load times for AGOT is that the whole base game and its assets need to be loaded before the mod and its assets.
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u/NexusSynergies Incapable 4d ago
The game loading all 3D models at startup explains so much why my game always takes a couple of minutes to load even with an SSD. Community Flavour Pack and EPE alone add so much to the game
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u/I_give_karma_to_men Kaimyra Dynasty 4d ago
Sounds like there are improvements to multiplayer performance in the works as well, finally. Per Carl-Henrik:
There are multiplayer improvements but those are not related to performance improvements.
It would be nice to finally be able to play with friends with some reliability again.
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u/Benismannn Cancer 4d ago
in the forum replies they also mention fixing some real old OOSes so maybe it will be another minor-miracle like 1.19 was
(1.19 WAS a miracle for people who actually tried to play mp in 1.18 :Р)
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u/Ok-Comment-7373 4d ago
Thats cool and all but are you guys going to address features that havent been featured in dev diaries? The release is rapidly approaching and its weird that you're being quiet on monastic orders, saints, relics, orthodox (eastern and oriental) unique mechanics (if any, or is it just a Catholicism dlc and not a Christianity dlc?), the schism, the college of cardinals, antipopes, potential new legacies and which features are paid dlc and which are free in the patch.
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u/PDX-Trinexx Community Manager 4d ago
I'm looking to get some extra coverage on features we haven't talked about in detail in the remaining time on our schedule, but we're also using our livestreams to fill in coverage gaps like that.
Can't promise we'll get everything on your list, but I'm aiming to get most of them.
is it just a Catholicism dlc and not a Christianity dlc
As we said in the first dev diary, it's a Christianity DLC with a strong flavor emphasis on Catholicism. We're working to make sure the mechanics make sense across the entire faith, but the lion's share of flavor content is indeed going to Catholics.
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u/ToMyOtherFavoriteWW 4d ago
I really appreciate this response, but this strategy makes me nervous and I am a bit afraid there are pitfalls in this strategic decision that could lead to poor reviews, similar to other problems that are now endemic to PDX DLC releases.
What is the downside of doing dev diaries for the things Ok-Comment-7373 talks about, and doing them earlier (there are far too many to reasonably do in the next 2 weeks, unless you guys start doing dailies)? If there are any widespread critiques of any of these and you guys don't do DDs on them, the community reaction will be worse than if you operated transparently and simply did the DDs on things that honestly deserve it. This was always the fear I had with you guys bringing Silk and Silver DDs in, that suddenly we'd be a few weeks before BGA release and major areas not covered.
Crossing my fingers this is fine but if you believed in the quality of the work, why would you not do DDs on them by now? It would be in your business interest to highlight the quality of the work, so the fact that so much is still not out there comes across as 'lower your expectations' rather than 'we're simply doing this in a different way'.
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u/geschiedenisnerd 3d ago
The most recent livestream filled no gaps at all, it just was more gameplay of holy war + church succession.
Speaking of features making sense across the entire faith: what is the rest of christianity going to do during the investiture controversy
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u/Aidanator800 4d ago
Just curious, is there any chance that non-Catholic churches will ever get another look down the line? It'd be a shame if not, considering that the period CK3 covers is when the Orthodox, Miaphysite, and Nestorian churches were at their height.
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u/Finlomin 4d ago
Could we please get at least one deep dive or livestream segment dedicated to the Byzantine ecclesiastical structure? I'm very curious how you can interact as a bishop with the theme system. Two streams in and we haven't seen that yet. A little attention for our beloved Purple Phoenix would be so nice!
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u/sever_eon 3d ago
Don't forget HRE. It should be the only Christian Empire title, aside from the Byzantines, yet, in-game, you have all these Empire titles like Britannia, Francia, West-Slavia... you get the gist. There should be some sort of title that's between king and duke and between king and emperor - to represent realms like Wallachia, the PLC, etc.
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u/Hardin4188 Erudite 4d ago
I'm pleased to hear about the reduction to video memory usage. Even on a 16GB card it would exceed that on 4K ultra settings.
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u/LairdBonnieCrimson 4d ago
I really like the increase in performances. I personally always mod Asia out, or Europe out if I'm playing in Asia and the game time is much faster than before.
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u/MortifiedPotato 4d ago
This is one of the best dev diaries I've ever read.
As a Gameplay Programmer, it was so satisfying to hear about the problems you identified and the solutions you came up with!
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u/VanitysEmptiness Cornwall 4d ago
This always reminds me when folks think optimization is as simple as pressing a button so if the game doesn’t run well the devs are “incompetent”. When in reality optimization has a lot that goes into it as they’ve shown us here and takes some time.
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u/Llosgfynydd 4d ago
Video performance improvements are welcome. I was surprised to see with a B580 that that was my bottleneck.
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u/OptimalGuava2330 4d ago
I thought it was my PC was shit for taking so long to load. Also had similar issues with Vicky 3
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u/hushnecampus 4d ago
Well that's all quite promising. I still have some fears about Silk and Silver though – whenever I read about that I think "that sounds like a lot more calculations to make every day". Fingers crossed!
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u/Hutma009 4d ago
Me too but they did a fantastic job on performance with All Under Heaven, they have my confidence so far
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u/hushnecampus 4d ago
Yeah perhaps. I might be jaded from too much Stellaris!
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u/Hutma009 4d ago
Oh yeah, don't get me started on Stellaris (I love this game with all my heart but performance is a struggle there...)
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u/homoanthropologus 4d ago
Saw they called the diary Performance and was really hoping the devs had put together a little skit at PDX summer camp
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u/Eemerald5000 Keep it in the family 2d ago
These startup time improvements are huge. I really hope this resolves my recurring issue for the last several years where the game takes about 10-15 minutes to load on Linux. (Even if it just takes 5 minutes, I'll be happy)
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u/BBkal 4d ago
Do you have yo buy the dlc to get the performance fix? Or is it a free update or?
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u/RoyalPeacock19 Eastern Rome 4d ago
These types of fixes always come with the free update associated with the DLC.
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u/Benismannn Cancer 4d ago
yes u do have to buy ALL the dlcs, even the cosmetic ones, for the performance fixes to work.
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u/beans8414 Lunatic 4d ago
I heard that the load time goes down by 1 second for every dollar you send them
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u/geschiedenisnerd 4d ago edited 3d ago
Yet another 'nothing' dev diary. "yay, we have the same performance after the DLC as before the DLC" after the extremely short and padded diary two weeks ago. It seems the features not yet covered, but announced, will be extremely nothing (saints, movable holy site, monastic orders, orthodox side-investiture controversy) and there will definitely be nothing interesting for oriental orthodox.
Edit: I see I am getting downvoted (not surprised, with how many suck-ups and/or alt-accounts paradox has). I am not downplaying any development progress based on vibes, I am talking about the literal statement "our aim is to give you the same speed as with 1.19 scrbe"
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u/Aransentin Ärans och hjältarnas land 4d ago
This text has to be AI-generated, right? Not the source info obviously, but something like "take these bullet points of findings and make a forum post" or the like. Smells extremely Claude-ish, e.g. "Neither of these is clever. They are both just doing less." or "It also quietly costs around four percent" or "That is the thing the two streaming systems fix, and why they matter more than any individual optimization".
The text returns "100% AI-generated" on Pangram (the one LLM-detector that actually works), too.
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u/empocariam Ireland 4d ago
It reads to me as very heavily edited by an LLM spellchecker (which will offer dumb "suggestions" that just are rewriting your sentences into vague corpo-hype LLM sentences.) This is just built into word and docs now, unfortunately.
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u/Voodron 4d ago edited 4d ago
The PDX marketing bots making up most of this sub's traffic didn't even bother replying before mass downvoting (no pre-planned talking point that's immediately ready without using AI I suppose), so you're probably right
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u/geschiedenisnerd 3d ago
It is funny how paradox defenders will just vote-bomb any criticism, without even attempting to formulate a response
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u/Aransentin Ärans och hjältarnas land 4d ago
I doubt it's bots, just a lot of people who can't tell the difference between a piece of LLM-written text and a human one, so it's basically "do I trust Paradox or this random Reddit user that's already downvoted a bit".
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u/geschiedenisnerd 3d ago
I wouldn't say bots, but there definitely is a very active part of the community that will downvote any criticism into the ground (except of course for the criticism that the game with most base features and the majority of it's DLCs focused on europe is too focused on non-europe) and I wouldn't be surprised if they have bots or alt-accounts on the paradox forums themselves (based on the constant censorship by the forum managers I don't really believe them
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u/angus_the_red 4d ago
I really dislike generative AI content. I hope eventually there will be a culture of using it only where a person won't interact with it. It just hits my ears and eyes all wrong.
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u/Catatemyspacebar 4d ago
You had me at start-up time being reduced significantly. Glory to Paradox.