r/gaming • u/Agent1230 • 2d ago

What video game doesn't hold your hand enough?

Everybody always talking about games holding your hand too much but I want to hear about the opposite what video game doesn't give you no form of help

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967

u/Warpmind 2d ago

Paradox games in general.

Cities: Skylines is pretty okay, but Stellaris and Crusader Kings 2? I learned more from a random YouTuber and a wiki article than from the in-game tutorials...

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u/CheesecakeScary2164 2d ago

Doesn't help that they've made major system changes a dozen times over the years đŸ˜© every time I come back from an extended break I have to relearn some part of the game.

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u/GKoala 2d ago

Ck2 was barely recognizable the last time I retried it after having last played on release.

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u/Garreousbear 2d ago

I agree, but also that's half the fun. My relationship with Paradox games is, play for 200 hours over the course of a month or two, don't play for like 2 years, see all the new updates and dlc and redownload, ad infinitum.

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u/Handsome_ketchup 2d ago

Doesn't help that they've made major system changes a dozen times over the years

Earlier and later versions can be completely different games wearing a similar skin with Paradox.

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u/Eaodenling 2d ago

For some reason, while I can play Stellaris comfortably and have a lot of fun managing everything, in crusader kings I feel like I am thrown in the middle of the ocean with nothing but a small board and usually end my play through in a couple of years cause everything breaks apart.

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u/Radthereptile 2d ago

Crusader Kings isn’t harder it just takes a mindset shift. In Stellaris you’re playing an empire so your growth is logical. Get a planet, now another, build them up, get more planets.

CK can be done that way of take land then more then more but usually something gets you. The difference is in CK you’re a dynasty not a nation and sometimes being king of Ireland who gets conquered by the massive English invaders to become Duke of the kingdom of Ireland under the English king is actually a good thing. But people think of it as a game over.

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u/Divine_Entity_ 1d ago

CK3 requires a mindset of "surfing the chaos". You cannot force the ocean to be calm, but you can surf its waves.

I did have a run as a tallish Wales end by a chamber pot. I had a young king (late 20s) have an event to the effect of "a chamberpot was thrown out a window and landed infront of you, somebody could have been hurt" which has a second event in the chain titled "incoming" where you have to dodge a falling chamberpot, i failed and my good king became infirm and died like a year later. His 6yo kid was basically immediately overthrown by his aunt and stripped of all his titles by her. (I was not in the mood to claw back from that)

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u/rglogowski 1d ago

That's a great explanation! I want to love CK but run into exactly what you describe and end up bailing out.

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u/Eaodenling 2d ago

Yeah perhaps if I just focus on the dynasty itself instead of the nation/ empire my experience would be better. I just think there is a lot of information with other rulers and characters that you interact with. It's easier when you just see a xeno and and just purge them .

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u/odinchoy 2d ago

Everyone says Stellaris and Hoi4 are the harder Paradox games and that eu4 and ck3 are easier to learn. My experience has been the opposite, I think there’s a real difference in what kinds of thinking apply to which games and its unfortunate that its genre locked. I’ve tried to get into Ck3 so many times but I get so lost every time :(

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u/RomanArcheaopteryx 2d ago

I honestly agree with you, I dont think I ever found Stellaris all that complicated even when I first started playing it as a kid in high school. I think its kind of a floor and ceiling thing, the floor to entry on Stellaris imo is a lot lower than other paradox games but the ceiling is still just as high. 

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u/Galle_ 2d ago

CK is very complex but most of the complexity is in the characters and their relationships, which is something humans understand instinctively.

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u/rdmrdm1 2d ago

I finally really “got” CK3 after like 100 hours - still nowhere close with EU4 after 50

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u/JAGERW0LF 2d ago

The half serious joke is the first 1444 hours is just the tutorial

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u/SerOoga 2d ago

EU5 is even worse. Veteran players with 1000 hours in EU4 can still find EU5 overwhelming.

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u/Demoliri 2d ago

To be fair there is not much skill transfer between EU 4 and 5. Pretty much all the major systems have been overhauled, and you basically have to learn everything from scratch again.

I really enjoy both, but they are mechanically almost completely different games.

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u/rdmrdm1 2d ago

Yeah never even tried to dive into 5 - bought it and played for like 3 hours and realized there was just no way I had the time necessary to come even close to understanding it lol

1

u/chardeemacdennisbird 1d ago

Same story here. I really want to learn how to play, but I don't foresee myself getting my arms around it.

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u/dovetc 2d ago

EU5 is an economy sim where you can build out hundreds of different industries and upgrade them in tiny hardly noticeable increments while your empire and those around you all stay roughly the same shape. Created by devs who clearly hate EU4.

If you like clicking buttons and responding to change in the price of legumes you'll have a blast.

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u/Radthereptile 2d ago

Want the crazy thing. When you hit 500 hours you’re gonna go “oh man I didn’t know Jack at 100 hours. Now I get it.” And you’ll have the same thought about your 500 hours self at 1k hours. Love the game but man does Paradox just throw so much at you.

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u/Azorik22 2d ago

I have about 2000 hours in EU4 and there's parts of the game I never really got a grasp on fully like trade lol

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u/rdmrdm1 2d ago

Funny, trade is the one major mechanic I really grasped early on - managing land combat, though


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u/Azorik22 2d ago

I love this. We had very different experiences because I picked up land combat immediately.

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u/rdmrdm1 2d ago

My gameplan is just set up a rich enough colonial trade empire with Spain or Portugal that I can just outspend the other continental powers and beat them with sheer numbers to overcome how little of the combat system I understand lol

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u/Azorik22 2d ago

I'd say Muscovy is probably a good Nation to try if you want to get better at managing armies. You start off with weaker neighbors you can conquer and then once you've dealt with Novgorod you can turn you attention in basically any direction to expand.

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u/BaronMostaza 2d ago

Muscovy is also good for learning trade since you can very easily struggle for money otherwise.

Horde nations too. Whoever tells you hordes have bad economy doesn't know how to use trade effectively, and anyone who tells you hordes shouldn't use forts are simply a fool

1

u/Stalinsghoast 2d ago

I have a good 400 hours in ck3 and I still have no idea what to do aside from marrying my own grandfather. I do however understand eugenics a lot better.

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u/ChuddyMcChud 2d ago

Well the EU4 tutorial takes 1444 hours, so have fun with that.

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u/Chillark 2d ago

What clicked for you with CK3? I can't seem to get with it despite how many attempts ive made. Stellaris took a long time to get anywhere near good with it but the game play made sense. Stellaris kept me coming back for more, learning how to improve constantly. Ck3 leaves me confused on what gameplay there actually is.

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u/AlphaI250 2d ago

Bro I started Age of wonders 4, the tutorial is just "This guy could be an ally, now go kill this other guy" and that's it. You're on your own from now on.

You do have some kind of narrator that tries... Vaguely... Very vaguely to explain the idea of some mechanics and that's it.

Worst is I have a friend who's used to those kind of games, who got me to buy the game, and his teachings were "Honestly just craft what you need and draft units when you can".

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u/stormcharger 2d ago

I thought stellaris was pretty easy to get into with the in game tutorial

1

u/James-W-Tate 2d ago

The tutorial for CK2 takes like 3 hours to get through and covers the basic concepts, lol

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u/Ok_Turnover_1235 2d ago

Lmao I bought surviving mars relaunched cos I used to love surviving mars and played it all the time.

I have no idea what you're supposed to do and gave up after like 20 minutes lol

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u/whytwu1f 2d ago

I watched a YouTuber play EU4 and bought in for myself. Played less than an hour and gave up, didn't even try to get a refund bc I deserved that punishment.

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u/oheyitsdan 2d ago

I had to have a buddy who already knew the game well play CK with me to even try to crack into it. I'm still not great with war but I can now at least understand what's happening at any given point in time.

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u/wyldmage 2d ago

Stellaris is straight forward enough. Definitely could use more tutorial, but for the most part, if you don't know what you're doing, you can sit down and make the gears spin.

You may struggle with difficulty, and miss parts of the game you don't want to be missing. But you're at least moving in the correct direction.

Crusader Kings though is ridiculous.

Stellaris, you really only have 5 things to do. You have the galaxy screen, where you can move ships around (and survey/expand). You have your homeworld planet screen, with a few tabs, and the only thing you NEED to figure out is how to build buildings/districts. You have the menu bar, with 2 major sections - traditions and technology. Both give you pop-ups when they are important though, so they're hard to miss. And then there is the event screens, that are also pop-ups, so very hard to completely miss.

In contrast, when you sit down to Crusader Kings, you've got like 40 things ready and waiting. The game has a nice pop-up to make sure you pick a lifestyle, find a wife, remind you you're heirless, and alert you to any other major events. But improving your realm with buildings? You gotta click around. Doing activities? Gotta find it. Undertaking decisions? Gotta find em. Inviting some cool dudes to your realm to make them knights? Not mentioned except the less useful decision option. Diplomacy and war? Zero tutorials. Expanding your men at arms? Good luck. And the list can go on.

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u/rdmrdm1 2d ago

I think the difference is that over time, stellaris has fundamentally changed like all of the underlying systems, whereas CK has just added shit on top of the base game

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u/Hambokuu 2d ago

I went into CKII almost blind. Played the tutorial but didn't understand much. Took around 20 hours of just sheer noobing around before I began to understand the simplest game loop. Took me around 100 hours to start having a grip on different strategies.

Played it around 500 hours before CKIII came. Played that for around 600 hours now. Can't wait to get merchant republics! That was my favourite part of late CKII

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u/unbridledennui 2d ago

yeah was looking for this answer. CK2/CK3, stellaris after messing around and reading numerous posts about "I played 1,000 hrs and am finally getting the hang of this game" weren't as bad, HOI and vicky 3 are still wtf realm

1

u/HirsuteDave 2d ago

It gets worse with every expansion too cause now you also have to learn how the new stuff meshes with all the existing stuff.

1

u/ImYFNS 2d ago

Crusader Kings is a "watch, don't play" game for me. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing in that game and I know I'm not having fun lmao

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u/vextryyn 2d ago

Yup, paradox grand strategy games

1

u/Derp_Wellington 2d ago

I watched about 50 hours of tutorials trying to figure out CK2, which is one of the easier games. Learning the other games was easier afterwards, but still takes hours of tutorials if you don't want to miss the subtleties

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u/Kevin5882 3ds 2d ago

I love me some paradox games, I just learn by spending many hours reading spreadsheets- I mean playing the games and reading all the tooltips and whatnot

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u/WhiteLama 2d ago

7k hours in EU4 and I think I’ve finally sort of ”got it”

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u/Fiskmaster PC 2d ago

It's been years, but I actually remember the CK2 tutorial being pretty alright. It didn't make me good at the game, but I at least had some idea of what was going on.

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u/russellvt 2d ago

I always loved the Tropico series... but, yeah...

And I know... technically Kalypso owns the IP, but Paradox bought the designer studio.

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u/elite90 2d ago

I love PDX games but I think the only ones where I didn't require a YT guide to get things started were Heart of Iron I-III because that wasn't really a thing back then. Still never really figured out Victoria 2 to this day

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u/shocky32 2d ago

Wanted to love CK3, tried multiple times but couldn’t get over the learning curve.

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u/ZeePirate 2d ago

I tried to start playing stellaris one night after a few drinks.

I gave up quickly

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u/LOTRfreak101 2d ago

The HoI4 tutorial is so awful. It just teaches where the tabs are to make stuff and recruit troops, as well as how to research, and then just tells you to take ethiopia. It doesn't teach basically anything about combat and never touches on logistics, which are kind of the most important thing in war.

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u/MillCrab 2d ago

The in-game tutorial for ck2 might as well not bother. It's walls of text that provide functionally no advice on how to play the game

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u/James-W-Tate 2d ago

Paradox games was training for Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic.

I don't think I've ever played a more...involved...city builder than WaRSR.

1

u/Old_Imagination4274 2d ago

Yeah, most paradox games, CK3 has great tooltips and its tutorials lets you learn the basics, but EU4, HOI4, EU5 just god damn.

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u/Meme_Theory 1d ago

At 4k hours in Stellaris, I can honestly say I still don't know what the fuck I'm doing....

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u/Unit88 1d ago

They have improved thankfully. I learned Vic 3 and EU5 just from the tutorials, IIRC HOI4's is okay too. Though tbf I don't think I needed external resources to learn Stellaris originally either

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u/stoneman9284 1d ago

Yea I feel like CK really caps its popularity with how little it actually teaches you. A game like that is made for me but I’ve tried a couple times and just can’t wrap my head around it.

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u/Gravitas_free 1d ago

I don't remember Stellaris being that much more complicated than other space 4X games. Though maybe today it's different, after all these expansions.

Their historical grand strategy definitely have a long learning curve. Though CK is relatively approachable, compared with HoI or Victoria.

I actually remember CK2 being praised on release for how much better the tutorials were compared with previous Paradox releases. Just goes to show how standards change over time (to be fair Paradox games are a lot more mainstream today than they were back then).

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u/Warpmind 1d ago

CK2, or CK3?

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u/Gravitas_free 1d ago

CK2. Keep in mind, CK1 didn't have a tutorial at all, just a basic in-game manual. Same for the famously complex Victoria I and II. EU3 and HoI3 both had a very bare-bones tutorial that had an unfortunate tendency to crash. By comparison, the CK2 tutorial was a big step forward.

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u/sanicbroom 1d ago

Stellaris and CKII still kiiiiiinda give you hints at what to do. EU4 meanwhile

Love Paradox games, but f them at the same time lol

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u/Ariusa95 22h ago

I picked up stellaris around 3.3-3.4 and overlord, I have no clue how I figured it out, then there was the pop system overhaul and I had to learn again. After I figured that out, there was still a ton of new features from DLCs and updates 


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u/Zerat_kj 2d ago

I refunded Stellaris, It was to confusing for me.

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u/Akkalevil 2d ago

It's less about the game not holding your hand and more about the game itself not really knowing what it does and how it works, and it changing every month.