Wishlisted it but i will wait for bugfixing and a more complete Gold/Ultimate/whatever-Version that will be released in a few years ;)

It's great that the discount is retroactive, but the timing seems pretty weird.

What an odd promo.

I received CKII as a gift and i can say i enjoyed it immensely even without any additional content. I'm waiting for the GOG version (in the far future maybe..) to buy The Old Gods expansion (and maybe the Legacy of Rome), but i wouldn't touch any of the miniscule cosmetic DLCs. Ask yourself what type of ruler you'd enjoy playing as, then buy accordingly. The same applies to the Game of Thrones mod; it is playable without owning any of the expansions, but some factions will require certain expansions to be playable. ;)

I guess the sales figures weren't what they expected to be, so now they rush to make a better offer.

Will GOG be getting the Deluxe Upgrade DLC that Steam already has? Don;t really wanna pay for the entire game again to get Quantum Sounds, which is probably the best station in the game from what I've heard from it.

yeah, me as well. ckii, euiv, hoi4, stellaris.... :/

paradox became absolute evil, about 2-3 years ago. not buying anything anymore from them.
Ckii is a wonderful game. the price tho, isn't wonderful at all. :/

Their whole "have lots of DLCs" policy isn't exactly new, you know. EU 3 had 5 "expansions", and that was when they still sold physical copies of their games.

Both CK 2 and EU 4 are a lot worse, of course, but that's mostly because making and selling DLC these days is much easier with Steam and all.

And honestly, if they weren't making a lot of DLCs, they'd probably be making endless sequels instead, not sure that'd be any better. At least with their DLCs you're free to only buy those that interest you.

As far as I'm concerned, while the publisher Paradox Interactive has indeed been pretty "evil" (for far longer than 2-3 years imo), the developer part is still one of my favourites.

To me, it's not even about the amount of DLC. Maybe because I already have most of them, i guess. It's about the quality of those DLC based on it's price. At some point, i simply got tired of the broken DLC and all the bugs they promise to fix in the future.

I think, i would've been fine with all the DLC, if they acctualy did some bug-testing.

Beside the bugs and all that, Paradox have absolutely no love, and no respect for their customers. And just for that reason alone, it's not worth supporting this monkeys.

It's not "fragmented". In a way, it's like a tabletop RPG. You don't need every sourcebook and every single issue of Dragon to play D&D. Get the core game (I think it goes 75% off) and play it; the singleplayer content is enough for a dozen playthroughs to definitely get your money's worth. If you want more, there's more, and you can choose and buy only the things you actually want. I want a Zoroastrian empire from sea to shining sea, I buy Old Gods. I don't want crabs, I don't buy crabs.

---
Tyranny is awesome and the best of the big revival RPGs, probably because it wasn't on kickstarter. Buy it.

I have Tyranny. It's good, and I even bought Bastards Wound, but PoE is my fortay the most ;) Already have the Fig backer edition of PoE 2 waiting on my shelf on GOG. Also, playing evil is not my thing. I take the harder Tyranny route to be good, even if it's not the "canon" way of the story, just as being evil in Baldurs Gate and such wouldn't be canon for the story, but you're own rendition of it.

Also, I never said CK2 was fragmented. It was a simple inquiry to someone who had the game and if the game should be bought in a complete edition or not, and that's it. I'm a completionist nut, so I'd probably buy all of the DLC at some point, even if it had to be on discount due to the volume of it all. Also, this thread is about a game that's been sliced up to release expansions (Surviving Mars that is). And also, who's to say, even if CK2 seems "complete", that it wasn't sliced up to release sequential releases, DLC packs that could have shipped in the main game that didn't?

I don't mind DLC that adds to a complete game. I just want that base game to be worth the money, or a complete edition to make that half-game a full game with all of it's extra DLC assets.

Also, I won't touch Ck2 until it comes here, as I'm more of a DRM-free nut than I am a completionist, and also because I want it in my ever growing GOG library, which is virtually every single game on this site, and I own most DLC"s for most games. I hope CK2 comes here at some point, seeing the first is here and Paradox keeps bringing games to GOG.

That's a strange way of putting it... "guide you through the process" - what process? It should be a simple partial refund - a store credit. Saying it that way makes it sound complicated, like they want to refund the game entirely and have you rebuy it or something like that... which might screw you out of preorder bonuses.

So how does this "process" work?

Edit: See below.

It's a great game, but they sure are milking it for all it's worth.

If you can get it cheap, I'd definitely recommend. Some of the DLCs can be skipped, but a lot of them extends the gameplay in a way that was rather clearly intended in the first place. As the most egregious example, there was a major stink on release when Muslim rulers turned out to have no actual separate implementation (or any events for that matter) from Christian rulers. This was explained that "it's CRUSADER kings, not Islamic kings," and a patch or two later Paradox completely locked out the ability to play them (even without separate mechanics - also, right about the time when a few people started to work on modding some flavor for them in, heh). Of course some time later they released a pay-separately DLC that actually had the implementation that, frankly, should have been part of the base game. What manner of ridiculous explanation is it that some of the elements of the original game cannot be accessed because... "they are not part of the game."

They used to sell art and music assets separately from other game content as an excuse to push all those DLCs. Something along the lines of "gamers will be able to pick what they want to pay for." Never mind that at least the art (both 2d and 3d models) were rather lacking on release. Some time later they merged them into larger DLCs (probably because people weren't buying enough of them), but the damage has already been done. Congratulations, gaming got to the point where you are literally buying game art assets and music separately.

I disagree on it not being "fragmented" in a major way. Case in point - the way Islamic rulers were treated (and Paradox explanation of it) on release. Not to mention that the base game is pretty damn bland and lacking in events. There are intentional functionality holes in it that bear no comparison to the way Paradox used to extend games before.

This was even more blatantly clear when Stellaris released. Just look at the older reviews on Steam. Paradox no longer sells the base game as a product that stands on its own in any meaningful way.

I love the type of games Paradox sells, but I am not going to get half-baked releases, then shell out another hundred bucks or so for the full game, simply because they decided it to be more profitable.

Not to mention the long-post-release telemetry forced on CK2 players (and present in their newer games from the get-go). I truly detest how these companies got to the point where they dictate that I surrender my privacy and whatever bloody data set they deign to pull from my machine right after I pay THEM for a product. You want to do that shit, release Free*-to-Play games to clueless morons.

Definitely enjoyed it more than PoE. At least Tyranny has that spark of life in it that was woefully missing from PoE - or so was my experience.

You guyd speak of Tyranny, Pillars, but dont forget to check out Divinity Original Sin 2, if you havent already. There's nothing better then DOS2 outthere. ;)

To be fair, CK 2 at release had just as much content as the original. So calling it fragmented and claiming they cut out parts of it to sell later as DLC is a bit unfair. Personally, I think the base game was already excellent at release. Also, I'm pretty sure most people don't feel the need to buy all DLCs. For instance, I have no real interest in playing a merchant republic or nomadic horde, so I haven't bought those 2 DLCs. I haven't bought the Aztec, Indian or Chinese ones either, for that matter.

As for Stellaris, I disagree with you about the base game not being able to stand on its own. I loved it just for the great exploration phase, although unfortunately it became boring in the expansion phase. But no game is perfect and imo it was worth buying at release even if it was flawed.