14 DAY TRIAL // I mentioned recently that I have gone back to the grand strategy catalogue created by Paradox in a big way recently and that Victoria II, which might be their most complex title, has been the one that captured most of my time and attention.
The game allows players to take control of a wide range of nations that existed in the world in 1836 and then strive to expand their power while surviving the many changes that happen in the military, the economic and the social space.
I played serious, long-term games using countries like Prussia, England, France, Spain, Austria and Turkey and, as I was abandoning another campaign because AI-controlled nations decided to gang up on me, a question dawned on me: do I play for the stories I am creating or for the end result?
Most video games have a set of win conditions that players need to reach in order to finish the experience, killing the bad guy or saving the world or finding a characters’ lost memories.
In most grand strategy titles from Paradox Interactive, all of these are entirely up to the player, although his own previous experiences or history itself can serve as an initial guide.
In most of the titles I play, I tend to enjoy the mechanics for a relatively short time and then only play in order to get the entire story and experience all that the world has to offer in terms of characters and lore.
In Victoria II, I have no idea exactly how large I want the countries I control to be by the end date, but I instinctively know when I mess up enough to make that poorly defined goal impossible to actually reach.
So I restart or return to a previous save in order to try and do better, testing new ideas and strategies and watching the way the game world evolves in new and interesting ways each time.
This very fact should be taken as a sign that I tend to play for the end result and that I abandon a campaign when it becomes clear that I will be unable to achieve it.
On the other hand, each new playthrough means a new story that I create around my country and my choices so maybe it is narration and not end state that keeps me playing.
I suspect that both concepts play some role in the titles that tend to get us addicted as players.