I think that Victoria 2 and CK2 are definitely some of the hardest to learn pdx games, but HOI4 is close to the top.
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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I’m kind of unusual with this. I found CK2 really easy to pick up, and Vic 2 not much harder, but to this day I don’t get how Stellaris works, and that’s supposed to be an easy paradox game…
Funny, considering that CK2 and Vic 2 don't really have any good in-game tutorials, just walls of text to teach you the game (mostly why I couldn't get into hoi3 when I tried to, though that may also be from the general complexity of that game)
I've never had any issues with CK2, Vic2 or Stellaris. But EU4? No fucking idea what I'm supposed to be doing.
I can definitely play Stellaris, but I don't think I can win Stellaris. It's a pattern for me with long-running strategy games that have definite win conditions - I can often play competently enough to comfortably avoid defeat well into a game, but when it comes down to sealing the deal in the endgame, there's some crucial mistake I made or aspect I've neglected that leaves me in an unwinnable position.
It's part of why I never really got into Civilization. More recently it happened to me when I tried playing Terra Invicta, when it turned out I had needed to seriously scale up my combat capabilities far, far earlier than I had been.
Ironically I think it's made games like EU and CK easier for me to pick up. Simply surviving counts as a success state, so it doesn't actively punish the player as much for playing suboptimally (at least past the point of absolute basic competency), which lets me get a feel for the mechanics and strategies at my own pace.