Chuds will tell you Paradox went "woke." Casual fans will tell you this is the only Paradox game they're interested in. Hardcore fans, minus the chuds, (which are quite vocal) skew positive, with a not insignificant amount calling this the greatest thing Paradox has ever released.
I'm in the latter camp. I have over 1,000 hours in both Europa Universalis IV and Hearts of Iron IV respectively, and another half thousand minimum spread across their other games. The appeal to Paradox is that nobody else is really making games like them, and for good reason. These are massive games attempting to cover vast periods of complicated world history, all while giving the player a wealth of options for guiding a country through these eras. People often compare Paradox to Civilization, but really, that series is an abstraction only one tier above Risk. Paradox games are another simulationist beast entirely. Some have tried, most have failed, and only one has succeeded.
Crusader Kings III is the first grand strategy roleplaying game (I don't count CK2 because the base game is a demo that only lets you play as Christians with 1/5th the content of a DLC buyer, but that might count if you manage to get the full game). You can do just about anything in this game. On YouTube you'll likely see a bunch of streamers doing "incest" runs to see just how tainted their bloodline can get, but this is streamer bait. The most fun you'll have is scaring the absolute shit out of the Ethiopian lords under your magical albino dynasty by executing anyone remotely brave or strong enough to contest your rule. Or carving out a Hellenic paradise in the middle of the Mediterranean and slaughtering any Abrahamic who dares to invade by dumping all of your savings into fortifications and the fact that they have nowhere to run when they land. Or deciding you're going to single-handedly reverse the effects of the Northern Crusades through effective application of schizophrenic warlords.
All of this while being either a historical figure or custom character (let's be honest, the game is a lot more fun with the latter) that grows, learns, loves, and will likely die before they can witness the extent of their empire. Really, there are so many viable ways to build a character and play CK3. Even when you play as a lord with only a tiny sliver of land in the Balkans, there's always some sort of scheme or plot you can plan to claw your way up. Or maybe you're content with living modestly, and you just tend to your domain and serve your overlord loyally while assassinating that other micro-lord from across the way that insulted you at a wedding.
The craziest thing is that most of my experience is from the first month of release. Paradox, a company well-known for releasing unfinished games and putting the actual content in later updates and DLC's, actually made one of the most intriguing, indepth, and unique games in any genre remotely close to it ON RELEASE. You do not realize how unprecedented this is until you have almost 3,000 hours in their games.
I'm in the latter camp. I have over 1,000 hours in both Europa Universalis IV and Hearts of Iron IV respectively, and another half thousand minimum spread across their other games. The appeal to Paradox is that nobody else is really making games like them, and for good reason. These are massive games attempting to cover vast periods of complicated world history, all while giving the player a wealth of options for guiding a country through these eras. People often compare Paradox to Civilization, but really, that series is an abstraction only one tier above Risk. Paradox games are another simulationist beast entirely. Some have tried, most have failed, and only one has succeeded.
Crusader Kings III is the first grand strategy roleplaying game (I don't count CK2 because the base game is a demo that only lets you play as Christians with 1/5th the content of a DLC buyer, but that might count if you manage to get the full game). You can do just about anything in this game. On YouTube you'll likely see a bunch of streamers doing "incest" runs to see just how tainted their bloodline can get, but this is streamer bait. The most fun you'll have is scaring the absolute shit out of the Ethiopian lords under your magical albino dynasty by executing anyone remotely brave or strong enough to contest your rule. Or carving out a Hellenic paradise in the middle of the Mediterranean and slaughtering any Abrahamic who dares to invade by dumping all of your savings into fortifications and the fact that they have nowhere to run when they land. Or deciding you're going to single-handedly reverse the effects of the Northern Crusades through effective application of schizophrenic warlords.
All of this while being either a historical figure or custom character (let's be honest, the game is a lot more fun with the latter) that grows, learns, loves, and will likely die before they can witness the extent of their empire. Really, there are so many viable ways to build a character and play CK3. Even when you play as a lord with only a tiny sliver of land in the Balkans, there's always some sort of scheme or plot you can plan to claw your way up. Or maybe you're content with living modestly, and you just tend to your domain and serve your overlord loyally while assassinating that other micro-lord from across the way that insulted you at a wedding.
The craziest thing is that most of my experience is from the first month of release. Paradox, a company well-known for releasing unfinished games and putting the actual content in later updates and DLC's, actually made one of the most intriguing, indepth, and unique games in any genre remotely close to it ON RELEASE. You do not realize how unprecedented this is until you have almost 3,000 hours in their games.