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DAM_Hase

Every Paradox Game feels broken right now (RANT)

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Hi Folks. Let me preface by saying that I just did my first 100 hours of EU5, playing a trade focused Netherlands. For those who don't know: Many trade-related doe not work properly, so I might just be a little frustrated.

I did not expect a bug-free experience, but I also did not expect the game to be this unfinished and outright broken after several months after release. These issues will also not be attended in the upcoming "Rossbach"-Update.

The issues in question are:

  • Maritime Presence is not working. When you google it, you find a lot of players saying that fleets do not patrol and only sit in one sea tile, but that is just a misconception, as others point out. I can live with that. There was also the issue that a lot of sea tiles are just not patrollable, and the game does not explain why. After several hours of testing and researching, i found out, that you need to have special buildings in the coastal province next to it. But even after building those, it still seems arbitrary.
  • Trade companies are not working as intended at all. Its just ridiculous. You should be able to build certain trade buildings in your trade company. Which is not possible, because they forgot, that the trade company also needs the tech for it. Apparently. They would have known this and fixed it easily, if they tested this once.

Along with other stuff, I am surprised, that Paradox actually released the game. It should be embarrassing to do something like this. I just mentioned stuff that is bothering me personally very much, but there is just so much other stuff, like the music-volume that constantly changing or nations not using CBs, that I don't know what they were thinking. And there's just so much else. They did not test that thing for sure, and I know what to expect from a Titan of complexity that EU5 wants to be (and achieves in many parts). It's bound to have issues. But the overall quality is still so much lower than is reasonably.

Nest one: Stellaris. 1300hrs. Big fan, love the game. In my last campaign, the AI did not colonize any planets. Not one. Google told me, it is a known problem. Several users said, it was fixed in the last update, several others contradicted them.

The thing is: The AI not colonizing planets does not make the game unplayable, but I mean... it takes all the fun out of it.

And that brings me to HOI4. 1000hrs. The fuck-up they did with the last DLC is outrageous. They introduced a new resource, coal, and did not care to balance it at all. Not only that, they also introduced an overhaul of the whole naval mechanic. I loved it - the basic ideas are sound.
Until I played it: The AI is completely incapable of using the new mechanics. They forgot to teach the AI.

I know, there are more than 3 Paradox titles out there, but those three are the ones I like to play. And right now, all of those are in a very bad state. I paid a lot of money, especially for Stellaris and HOI4 with all their DLCs, to ignore or "work around" the non-working part of a game like navy in HOI4. That game is too old to for shit like that, and I paid too much money for a not 100% working game. This shit is unacceptable.

Posted Feb 21, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

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