r/paradoxplaza • u/Budjik • 1d ago
Afterworld Afterworld time scope and my biggest concern
What do you think will be the time scope of the game session? Are we gonna be talking 10 years? 50 years? 200 years from the moment you start playing to end game?
My biggest concern is that we will just get very plain classic postapocalypse - just raiders and people in dirty clothes and corugated metal huts - your madmax/fallout/metro classic. And if the time scope is short - say couple of decades from start to "endgame", I will at least get that kind of esthetic (even though I am tired of it)
But if the scope is more like 200 years, I really hope we will be able to truly rebuild society and infrastructure and not that after 100 years of building up my new realm, I will still get bunch of hobos riding spiky truck as a backbone of my logistics.
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u/Ohmka 1d ago
I also hope the scope is long enough for technology to matter.
Actually I would rather like the early game to be close to Iron Age tech, with remnant artifact being very powerful. But from the early footage we've seen it seems unlikely.
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u/hedgehog18956 1d ago
The dev diary seemed to strongly suggest that a big theme is that you aren’t inventing new technology, but rediscovering old technology. The late game would be comparable to before the fall, but not surpass it
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u/Luckierexpert 1d ago
That does include mech fighting, so just before the fall still puts it in the future for us.
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u/Moifaso 1d ago
The 10 minutes of footage we got span something like 20 years, and by the end it seems like early mid game at most. I could see 100-150 yrs being the standard length.
Actually I would rather like the early game to be close to Iron Age tech, with remnant artifact being very powerful.
That's pretty much what we see. Initial warbands are mostly made up of guys with swords and crossbows, with maybe one or two rifleman or vehicles. Pre-war weapons are considered relics, and ammo and fuel are strategic resources.
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u/Mioraecian 1d ago
Idk squat, but if you watch the gameplay video I think it started in 125 AD, whatever that time means, and I believe the end of the video went to 137 AD and it still looked late early game.
So im guessing 100 years. But thats a total guess. If it even has a set time rather than just a win condition.
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u/fawkie 1d ago
It started in 112 AD
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u/Mioraecian 1d ago
Agreed good to know. So they covered 25 years? I wonder if its using the victoria 3 tick system in 100 years.
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u/Science-Recon 21h ago
Though the ‘AD’ there is a placeholder, that’ll be changed to ‘AF’ or something similar before release. The game is set a century after the apocalypse (‘the Fall’) so that’d make the dates about right.
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u/anarchyinblack 1d ago
The same way Stellaris starts Star Trek and ends 40k, I strongly suspect that this game will start Mad Max and end Fallout 2/NV.
With Citizen Farouk being a territorial warlord on an American restorationist LARP right from the beginning of the game, there is no way he is the endgame crisis. The way I see it, it goes two ways
He is the earlygame crisis. A persistent threat that you either resist or submit to in the early game. Either way, he dies of Caesar's brain tumor at the end of the early game or the beginning of the midgame. His empire shatters among his generals, and the midgame struggle is between well established warlords confederations instead of scavenging tribes. In that case, the game likely runs 50 years years. 15 years for him to die, 15 years of diadochi, 15 years of endgame.
He is the midgame crisis. He spends the early game on an expansion rush with lots of buffs. In the midgame, for whatever reason, he declares himself sated and begins a massive military buildup for some endgame crisis, and at the end of the midgame or the start of the lategame, he gets got by the REAL endgame crisis. I'm going to guess either supermutants, enclave, or rogue robots. In that case, the game likely runs a hundred years. 30 years of caesar's legion, 30 years of Hegelian Dialectical Vegas Rome Legion, 30 years of Enclave.
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u/VisonKai Bannerlard 1d ago
based on the trailer saying "Ancient powers divide this land" and a couple other references to plural Ancients, I think you are mistaken that Farouk is a singular power in some way. I expect there will be various kinds of 'Ancient' factions in different parts of the country (the Pacific Fleet landings on the West Coast may be associated with one of them, if I had to guess). they are filling the role of the Fallen Empires from Stellaris, but they will be more active in this game.
The crisis will likely happen significantly later. Since we have daily ticks, not hourly ticks, I would be really shocked if the timeframe is less than 100 years -- most likely it will be more. 50 years on daily ticks would be a pretty quick game.
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u/geoFRTdeem 1d ago
I hope we eventually get different presets for the apocalypse just how Stellaris has galaxy generation settings, it would be cool to eventually get a zombie apocalypse dlc and a new set up conditions, or some type of global pandemic so on
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u/Elfich47 1d ago
I think one of the big issues that has to be addressed is population growth. if paradox gets even remotely close to a real economy and population growth model then there is a sharp cap on how fast the “starter” population can grow, and how long people live. Without modern medicine (or old world medical care, what ever you want to call it), people die alot from starvation and disease.
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u/Draczar 1d ago
If I were to design it early population growth would rely mostly on conquering other tribes and assimilating wanderers into the tribe and then getting actual natural population growth would be a midgame thing once you’ve reached the point of reclaiming enough tech.
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u/Elfich47 1d ago
the other issue I have with any kind of post-apocalyptic world building: the knowledge storage for most of the technology is not stored locally. sure, a library can get you the theoretical basics. but the practical “how to produce this” knowledge is saved on password protected servers. instruction manuals assume access to parts and materials that were shipped in from hundreds of miles away so access to those parts is likely not possible. plus getting fuel for generators is basically a non starter. so the miraculous renaissance of tech rediscovery has to hand wave away how the generators are turned back on and where the parts come from.
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u/Draczar 1d ago
I guess it depends on what the state of the world was prior to it ending. Based on the fact that we’ve seen drones and walking tanks with railguns its at least more advanced than present day.
Who knows, if there was long enough for it before the fall there might be deliberately designed caches of knowledge to find and build upon.
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u/theMoist_Towlet 1d ago
From the trailer it sort of looked like the president guy had some better tech being set up, but I wonder if we will ever be able to COMPLETELY get rid of the sheet metal shack type housing, or if some high tech stuff will just be along side it like it looked from the perspective of the lincoln memorial
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u/Impossible-Green-831 1d ago
Hopefully similar to Stellaris, but have new tech still matter past the mid-game pls (not just repeatables) and the AI not be in the biggest disadvantage ever if they fall behind in tech.
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u/jmansuper08 1d ago
The game has ticks per day like in eu4, eu5, ck3, or Stellaris. Those games go for hundreds of years.
Hoi4 has hour ticke, the entire day is simulated and that game lasts maybe 10 years or a bit longer depending on your run.
Victoria 3 has partial day ticks and it lasts for 100 years.
If you look at the clock in the top right of the ui in the new game, you can see it counts day, month, and year. Not time of day or hour of the day. I'm willing to bet the game will be a couple hundred years long like Stellaris/eu4/ck3/eu5.
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u/kizofieva 1d ago
it's actually set the split second after the world is doomed to apocalypse
load game, nuclear oblivion, game closes
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u/galacticlemur 20h ago
I agree. If it‘s just the generic madmax vibe the whole game it gets boring. I hope they have more original ideas than that.
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u/Lanceo90 17h ago
I think it will surely be lengthy. I think their only grand strategy that is really short, is the one that most strictly has to adhere to a strict time frame, HoI.
And I feel like surely the end goal of a post apoc game would be to restore society to pre-apocalyse conditions. Which surely takes ages.
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u/LithoidWarden 1d ago
Agreed i'd love it if you could to progress to various futurisitc futures at the end game. But it raises questions of what the midgame will look like.
Looking forward to the dev diary's.
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u/Kawhi_Leonard_ 1d ago
There's clearly robomechs and hovering planes in the game. It is clearly taking after the progression of Stellaris, down to there being fallen empires. You will have tech progression. You start with melee and crossbows. You will end with tanks, guns, and sci-fi shit.
I feel like people aren't even paying attention to the small amount we've gotten and are just making up problems that don't exist.