Has generative AI and GPUs progressed to the point where a company could train a gen AI to run on the GPU to be the opponent? I believe the cloud AI subscriptions would be cost prohibitive, but if a free model was built into a game would that work, likely with reduced graphics and number of opponents. If this not possible with Afterworld, could it be in the next major game?

I can't open any of the paradox websites, it just shows a white screen. Has anyone else encountered this? How do I fix it?

Update: Solved, it was an issue with my browser. Thanks everyone

Fair skies Dustlanders!

We return with a monthly update video today, talking with devs about what we've shown in the last month and answering a few questions too.

Hi all! I'm a big Football Manager player (thousands of hours) and I want to try a proper resource management / grand strategy game for the first time. I've never touched a Paradox title.
What I love about FM is the long-term planning, optimizing systems, and seeing my decisions pay off over many seasons. I'm less interested in pure war gameplay and more in building something and managing the numbers behind it.
I'm torn between:
Europa Universalis (IV or V?)
Crusader Kings III
Victoria 3
Questions:
-Which one would you recommend as a first Paradox game for someone with my background?
-Which has the most "real" resource/economy management?
-How steep is the learning curve for each, and are tutorials enough or do I need videos/guides?
-Is there another Paradox game (or a similar one from another studio) I should consider instead?

I'm playing on PC and I'm fine with a steep learning curve if it's rewarding. Thanks!

I don’t really know how to explain this but I’ve been trying to get into Victoria 3 for the longest time as on paper I should love it. I have over a thousand hours in Victoria 2, I love the time pyramid, I enjoy the more in depth politics in 3 and the law system (though I believe Better Politics Mod is the best iteration of it) but despite all of that I just can’t get into it and I feel like It’s sorely missing features that made Victoria 2 great, to the point where since launch I do concede that I didn’t want Victoria 3 or then one we got at least. I want a successor to Victoria 2 instead.

The most glaring example of this is warfare which is still bad and ironically is micro-intensive despite being designed to not be micro intensive whilst losing much of the player agency, making wars feel unfair and a pain to fight. Geopolitically I barely feel anything happening, governments may change sure but this is the era of the height of European imperialism, yet by 1900 you often still see the map looking like it did in 1836 where the Europeans usually don’t scramble Africa and Germany and Italy often don’t form, I’m not opposed to these things happening sometimes but it seems to happen all the time.

This and the insular focus on your country really gets to the crux of my issues though. Victoria 3 doesn’t feel like a game about the Victorian era, it lacks a lot of the events, geopolitical currents and conflict that made the Victorian era what it was. Instead it feels more like one of those mods for HOI4 where all the mechanics are the same and a little window dressing was added, but the map was painted to look Victorian and that’s it and as such little actually changes or happens. Victoria 2 by contrast (especially with things like the crisis system and the AI being focused on regaining cores and the like) it feels like a game about the Victorian era, where diplomatic realism and realpolitik matter as dies the things happening beyond your borders. Hell even with small mechanics like the newspapers you can at least notice what has changed.

That brings me to my assertion about the two games. Victoria 3, despite all of it’s good changes to the economy and political system is ultimately a game about markets and specifically domestic markets and historical materialism (to the point I’d even call the game Marxist to some degree, especially since the only lens pops are describe are according to their class instead of things like ideology and it treats them as an amorphus binary where all pops think alike or generally do). Victoria 2 meanwhile is a game about empire and imperialism. The market exists as do politics but more often than not the market naturally inclines you to engage in imperialism either directly via conquest or via the spheres of influence as you want to lock down precious resources as fast as possible. You feel like you won big when you lock down the rubber in the Congo or a large chunk of oil production, I just don’t really feel that in regard to Vic 3.

In summary, I do want Victoria 2 2. I think there are cool aspects about Victoria 3 but I play paradox games because I want strategy games about geopolitics with market mechanics added and not vice versa

The third part of military historian Bret Deveroux's analysis of HOI4, this time focusing on politics