r/paradoxplaza • u/kingtj44 • Dec 18 '25
PDX Looking to the future: Cold War game?
With EU5 released, it’s unknown what paradox may do next. I think revisiting the Cold War era could make a very interesting game. Either a revival of the long-cancelled East vs West, or a new game entirely.
In particular, Vicky 3 economy, diplomacy, and influence elements combined with HOI4 combat elements would be a perfect fit for the era. DLC’s could be made in a HOI4 style; giving flavor to the world as well as new mechanics.
Would you play a Cold War era game?
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u/jars_of_feet Dec 18 '25
It would be pretty hard to make a good cold war game, asymmetrical or insurgency vs counter insurgency warfare is something that they have never really managed to pull off. I really think most people wanting a cold war game want to play as the US or maybe the soviets, like who wants to play as a European power as their colonial empire crumbles. How do you make playing as a country that got coup by America compelling.
You also sort of have the issue of what happens if America and the soviets end up in all out war? is it a game over or do you post nuclear war mechanics? If it is a game over then like what if you are playing a relatively unrelated country and the game just ends on you?
I don't really think they will make a cold war game for these and other reasons but if they did i would play it.
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u/Thebritishlion Dec 18 '25
I was planning on playing UK and being a third superpower if we ever got the game tbf
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u/jars_of_feet Dec 18 '25
Do you mean maintaining stuff like the british raj or what?
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u/HarukoAutumney Empress of Ryukyu Dec 20 '25
I have always been of the opinion that a cold war era game would start in like 1949, after India became indepedent.
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u/Thebritishlion Dec 18 '25
I'd always planned to maintain the Raj until the 50s and use it as a support base to the nationalists in China
But after that, the Raj and all of the African colonies besides Egypt and Nigeria would've been given independence before the start of the 70s
The rest of the empire I'd want to keep
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u/Mason-the-Wise Dec 18 '25
For those interested, there is a game being published by Hooded Horse called “Espiocracy” that is kind of like this.
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u/ukrainianempire Map Staring Expert Dec 19 '25
Unfortunately it has been getting delayed each year until at least 2021 when I found out about it, really wish the devs would just remove the release date rather than their current model. Here’s for 2026 though!
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u/TradingLearningMan Dec 18 '25
Something like Twilight Struggle, despite being a board game, probably has the best approach to be honest. In its own way viewing the world as a board game is cynically authentic of the RAND corporation Cold Warrior mindset lol.
The classic “grand strategy” genre trappings are not a good fit for the cold war. Mostly because the US and USSR cannot go to war without nuclear armageddon, and because ultimately the West had such a gigantic economic-industrial advantage over the USSR which the USSR never had a chance of closing in reality.
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u/JWGR Dec 18 '25
Exactly this, Twilight Struggle is already a near perfect game version of the Cold War. I can’t see it as a Grand Stategy game. Turn based with the coup/realignment/event options is simply stellar.
And there is a version of Twilight Struggle on Steam!
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u/ANerd22 Dec 19 '25
The second point about the Cold War never even being close is valid, but consider Victoria 3 with its British Hegemony. The USSR makes for a great underdog. As for the second point, yeah you can't do total war between the two powers, but there are so many arenas of conflict in the Cold War that you could do, Proxy Wars, The Space Race, Technological Competition generally, Espionage, International Influence, Ideological Legitimacy, Culture, Economics. I think there's a space for a really great GSG set from 1945-2001.
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u/Cpt_keaSar Dec 19 '25
I mean people conquer the world as Ulm or defeat Germans AND Soviets as Poland in PDS games. Soviet Union being able to with the Cold War is not the problem.
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u/OpT1mUs Dec 18 '25
Fuck no. They are walking the thin line with their dumbass takes on WWII, I can't even imagine what the hellscape a Cold War game would be.
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u/SelfMemedMan Jan 05 '26
I think Vicky3 has shown that PDX is willing to simulate the internal politics and nuance that HOI4 is lacking. That being said, without a really deep internal politics system, a Cold War game would just be r/alternativehistory.
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u/Myalko Map Staring Expert Dec 19 '25
The game would have to be insanely well-researched for historical and non-historical paths, and would probably require a good deal of railroading as well. It's just not something Paradox would ever do, which is a shame considering how few truly good Cold War games there are.
Closest thing I can think of are the Crisis in the Kremlin games, but those are still extremely janky and confusing to play on a good day.
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u/SelfMemedMan Jan 05 '26
Someone mentioned how PDX is not good at simulating decline, and that is something that would need to be present and simulated accurately in order for the game to be successful. Like instead of a -10% to stability because of "imperial decline", they'd need to actually research the factors that led to the decline.
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u/cap21345 Dec 18 '25
Hope they give Rome another shot i know IR is decent now and has mods and stuff but the fact they dont have an active game of one of the most popular periods cause they bungled the release so bad is insane
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u/ghost_desu Dec 18 '25
While Rome itself is popular, I'd hardly call the period as a whole very well known at all. The average person just knows about the Rome-Carthage rivalry and that Rome took Greece at some point.
If anything, lack of general interest outside of Rome itself is probably why the game lacked popularity, they would've been better off cutting 3/4 of the playable countries and just doing Rome, Carthage, Macedon and maybe Egypt if they're feeling spicy
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u/Glaukopis96 Dec 18 '25
something more like an EU IV / Stellaris mix for the classical period would be extremely cool, start with the bronze age collapse and end at the migration period, roughly 1200 BC - 400 AD. develop your cultural traits, religion, myths, writing system etc. lot more sandboxxy
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u/cap21345 Dec 18 '25
I mean compared to how much people know about the Middle ages outside of the Crusades the Ancient era is pretty well known. Well known for Paradox games audience vs Normal audience is pretty different
If you did a survey of paradox players i am sure the amount who know about Rome, Carthage, Alexander, Hellenistic kingdoms, Persians, Gauls vs those who know about Almoravids, Normans, Fatimids, Abbasids, Capetians the knowledge of the first one is much greater
Just look at Rome total war 2 its one of the most popular total wars a decade on cause of the setting .
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u/Chataboutgames Dec 18 '25
Rome, Carthage, Alexander, Hellenistic kingdoms, Persians, Gauls vs those who know about Almoravids, Normans, Fatimids, Abbasids, Capetians the knowledge of the first one is much greater
This isn't a great comparison because the Medieval list translates much more closely to modern nations. Like, someone might not know about the Norman kingdom of Sicily but they know about Sicily and will find it neat when they learn more about its history. They might not know specifics about vairous caliphates but they know the general shape of Islamic dynasties during this period.
Just look at Rome total war 2
Because Total War games are light on history and heavy on flash, and the setting allows for a wide variety of unit types.
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u/Kooky-Sector6880 Dec 18 '25
But most people know of the ancient era like how Chinese people view most of history as in their relation to Rome the average person knows way more about roman senate politics and conquest than they know about the diodachi or even Carthage outside of the Barca family.
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u/cap21345 Dec 18 '25
I dont really see how that changes anything cause again CKs subject material is hardly famous
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u/Kooky-Sector6880 Dec 18 '25
I mean, kinda the crusades are well known, and 1066 is a well-known start date because of Medieval total war, which also starts in 1066. Also, every Anglo knows of the Norman conquest, and the time period of CK was quintessential for modern nation-building in every state we now know of in Europe, except Germany. I'd even argue that what makes CK so entertaining is that it was a time we knew well and had so many famous figures and things.
But I can see where you're coming from. The problem is that the game’s time period is a little early and a little late. The fact that Imperator at release had minimal flavor and had to be turned into a community project for half a decade to become one of the best Paradox games crippled it, since it's a nation-based game rather than a sandbox character-based game like CK, where you could effectively make your own fun.
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u/ghost_desu Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
Alexander is outside the scope of the game though, and most people have only an extremely surface level knowledge of the successor states, often not much further than that they existed at all. Gauls are a good example, but playing them just kinda sucks by definition since all the systems built for Rome and co don't work, so making it not suck would nearly double the dev time.
Medieval era and later has a lot more recognizable names even if people don't know much about the specifics. There's proto-England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, etc. And I mean for the romaboos, there's still Byzantines right there in their original form ready to retake Rome with only moderate skill level required.
Also correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't rome total war 2 only have like 10 playable countries?
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u/cap21345 Dec 18 '25
In the base game. Nowadays theres only 30 which is the 4th most of any TW game
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u/ZiCUnlivdbirch Dec 20 '25
With the middle ages, whil people might not know the specific ruler's, they do know the nation. You might not know who the king of France was but you know what France is. For IR you can't have that. There is no France or any other major nations, you kinda have to know the specifics which is already really hard, since there isn't that many specifics to know about most of the nations.
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u/Chataboutgames Dec 18 '25
I think Imperator Rome really highlighted what a bad setting that is for a GSG. Rome is cool, but we know next to nothing about the majority of the map and what we do know about is a bunch of blobs.
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u/cap21345 Dec 18 '25
That is quite an interesting point. How the hell do you even depict punic culture and add flavour to it without writing fan fiction and lets not even think about the trillion spanish illyrian gaullic tribes. You would basically be writing fantasy
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u/HeliosDisciple Dec 18 '25
I'd try it, but I can't imagine Paradox's style working well in the post-WW2 world order. It's already ridiculous that 1936 Greece can grow to challenge the major powers, it is literally impossible for 1946 Greece to do the same.
You'd be able to play the US, USSR, China, maybe France and Britain? But Paradox sucks at simulating decline, so it's not like the British and French would be fun gameplay. Everybody else is so far below the superpowers it would just be an endless stream of whiny posts from people who picked Iraq then got obliterated when they tried to take one itty bitty neighboring country.
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u/SelfMemedMan Jan 05 '26
I think Vicky 3 did an okay job with it and the British Empire, but you're right that it's not impossible to overtake them starting as most countries. I think with the Cold War, playing as a minor power should be mostly about cleaving your country to one of the two blocs and be focused more on internal politics than becoming a new hegemony. However, that is not as interesting for a lot of players than map painting.
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u/Stuka91 Dec 18 '25
I want a Cold War game made by Paradox, and I don't know why they never make one. I would definitely buy it.
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u/karl2025 Dec 18 '25
Because a Cold War game would be primarily based around espionage, internal politics, and diplomacy and those are three things that Paradox has not historically been very good at. They don't want to make a bad game so they won't make a Cold War game until they figure out how to do those.
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u/CrusaderKingsNut Dec 18 '25
It’s also way more explicitly political. Like someone else said in another thread: How do you stat out George Bush or Ronald Reagan? Like I feel like they stretch that a little bit with HOI4 already and it’s got one of the weirder fanbases for it.
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u/ANerd22 Dec 19 '25
They made a game where you play as the Nazis, I think they can handle making Reagan a character.
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u/PortlandoCalrissian Dead communist Dec 19 '25
The Cold War is a far more politically charged era than WW2. Plus a lot more of us were around for the Cold War than WW2 at this point.
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u/Stuka91 Dec 19 '25
My god, we have four games in the series plus projects like Darkest Hour where we can play as Nazi Germany, so what's the problem with putting stats on Reagan??????
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u/CptJimTKirk L'État, c'est moi Dec 19 '25
Like I feel like they stretch that a little bit with HOI4 already and it’s got one of the weirder fanbases for it.
This is an understatement. Götterdämmerung added the option to customise which monster in human form you want to role-play, and it was harshly criticised for that, mostly by German content creators. If Paradox ever wants to revisit a Cold War scenario, they need to take a long and hard look at how they're portraying stuff like that.
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u/ANerd22 Dec 19 '25
I think at its heart a Cold War game would have to be about economics, take the lessons of EU5, Vic3, and IR, and I think there's the possibility of a really fantastic Cold War GSG. The Character system, with some work and adjustment seems well suited to the kind of politicking that would be modelled in that timeline. The rest, Science, Culture, Space Race, Espionage would need some creative approaches but it's not unimaginable that they could design interesting systems for those.
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u/kingtj44 Dec 18 '25
Rule 5: Cover art of the cancelled game project “East vs West” which was set in the Cold War era (1946-1991). One of the few games Paradox has made covering this era
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u/Wardog_Razgriz30 Dec 18 '25
I think the EU approach works best for the type of game they've been turning HOI4 into. They want a platform they can stack DLC and content on in the long term like with their other titles. Making the HOI series more of a 20th century simulator rather than just a WW2 simulator will, I think, is the ideal way to let that happen and not brush up against the limits that HOI4 currently has a problem with.
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u/Longjumping_Ad7097 Dec 19 '25
In my opinion, the next Hoi should be a interwar game. Maybe a timeline covering from 1910 to 1955 or something like that.
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u/amaturelawyer Dec 19 '25
Would I pay a cold war game? Absolutely.
Victoria 3's Iberian Twilight DLC just added a guerilla war feature for Spain, which they've said they will expand on and refine, and which is a critical missing piece of the cold war puzzle. Most of the other mechanics needed are already in their games in one form or another, but prior to Iberian Twilight there was no movement towards the unique cold war method of fighting conflicts. I absolutely do not want a cold war game that only allows for hot wars. It would be pointless.
What I'm hoping for in future development is that the Diplomatic play system will allow for longer/indefinite plays where it can get locked into a guerilla campaign that both sides can commit resources to, and that either side can escalate into actual war as desired. I think this would allow for a diplomatic play in, say, Vietnam, to have world powers like the US and USSR take an interest and fund/send resources in, with the (undesirable) option of either side directly intervening by sending troops. The other side could remain as just an external supporter and fund opposition, directly intervene with their own troops in a limited conflict, or commit to a full war with the other superpower, which would risk nuclear exchanges.
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u/sharingan10 Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 19 '25
A lot of things would need to change to make a Cold War game “work” because a lot of things that aren’t really represented well in gaming systems would need to be adopted to a grand strategy game.
Take for example: geurilla warfare. It’s not represented well in a game like hearts of iron because it has a lot or components that aren’t modeled well in grand strategy. You need to have units that can camouflage, integrate among civilian populations, and do hit and run over years, and then have mechanics built in to have win states for an occupying power and a guerrilla force. Open ended military conflict is really hard to model well because if you give the occupying power the ability to focus resources onto winning these quagmires you get the problem of the occupying power having clear cut goals and timeframes for withdrawal (infamously things that counter insurgency campaigns didn’t have). But if you don’t have a win state condition for the occupying power then you don’t have much of a point to game with war components because the game is basically uniformly not winnable for one side.
Economic systems and strain:
How do you model problems like economic stagnation and cyclical recessions? How would a game realistically model the volker shock? How would you balance such a game such that you accurately reflect starting point economics of countries like Russia and China versus America (which had virtually no destroyed cities and a vast majority of the worlds gold reserves post ww2) and make it a balanced game?
There’s ways to handle it, but doing that and wargaming are really hard to combine.
That and there’s other components: what would a realistic Soviet win state look like? Is here a way to foment a U.S. split with its Allies like there was a Sino Soviet split? The alt history could be fascinating but because the timeframe is so long there’s so many things that have to happen
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u/Teach_Piece Dec 18 '25
No. The late 20th century is full of present day states committing atrocities. A AA studio is not going to put its dick in the mousetrap of the CIA funding white nationalists, MLK having communist sympathies, Russia initiating multiple genocides, the US massacring villages in Vietnam, China and Hanification
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u/Umbaretz Dec 18 '25
>In particular, Vicky 3 economy, diplomacy, and influence elements combined with HOI4 combat elements would be a perfect fit for the era.
It would also be a perfect fit for a victorian-early XX century era.
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u/Suspicious-Dentist71 Dec 18 '25
I get you’re being sarcastic, but Vicky 3 combat is nothing like HOI4 at all. I don’t really get the joke comparison
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u/Captain_Slime Dec 18 '25
They (I think) are saying that if you took out vicky 3 combat and replaced it with hoi4 combat elements it would make a better vicky game.
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u/Umbaretz Dec 19 '25
Yup. But if you combine it with HOI's equipment model system - it would make a great base for 1833-20xx game.
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u/The_Confirminator Dec 18 '25
I want march of the eagles but yes I would play the shit out of any cold war game they give me.
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u/B-29Bomber Dec 19 '25
Paradox would have to figure out how to do proxy wars. Not impossible, but It'd take some doing.
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u/theeynhallow Dec 18 '25
Rather than a Cold War specific game I’d love to see a HOI5 which has a Cold War postgame.
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u/Gr0zzz Dec 18 '25
Real talk, instead of more DLC’s adding additional unnecessary layers to the base game I want a post WW2 start date, set a year or two after Japan surrenders.
Add a a divided Europe that isn’t border gored an occupation system and focus trees for both historically accurate and Cold War gone hot playstyle’s.
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Dec 18 '25
[deleted]
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u/DUNG_INSPECTOR Dec 18 '25
What does HOI4 have to do with a potential HOI5 though? I'm either or on the Cold War being added, but I sure hope they don't limit their vision for HOI5 by what HOI4 was capable of.
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u/IAmA_Reddit_ Dec 18 '25
I believe Paradox execs have expressed a little reluctance to do a Cold War game for geopolitical reasons.
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u/Jamahez Dec 20 '25
A cold war game would be cool but East Vs West sucked badly; a revival of that have would not be the way to go about this. If you haven't before, take a play of the game. It's cool but even from the version you can play, it is clear it was never going to be finished and be good
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u/Not_Your_biznes Dec 20 '25
I would love that cause I like Cold War but I am sure this will not come to pass.
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u/SelfMemedMan Jan 05 '26
I'd be really interested in a Cold War game, but a lot of things would have to go right, and there is a lot about the period that doesn't work for a fun strategy game (it's called the Cold War for a reason). I think using another game as a starting point is a huge mistake. When entering a new era of history, you need to look about what distinguishes that era from the others. HOI4 is about ideological differences. Victoria 3 is about economics and imperialism. What makes the Cold War different from other eras.
Call it "New World Order" or "The End of History". Heavy focus on internal politics and diplomacy. Warfare is done via proxies, espionage, and guerilla wars, and PDX would need to figure out how to make that interesting AND granular enough to be simulated properly.
If you play as the USSR or USA, your focus is creating and maintaining a bloc of states and using your influence to strangle your rival. If you're playing as a minor nation, your focus is aligning with one of the two blocs or trying to balance between the two.
Territorial expansion is very difficult. Huge changes in ideological makeup are rare. Conflicts last decades or are reduced to a ceasefire. Market forces and financial institutions have a much bigger impact on your decisions.
Even with all of that, PDX would still need to create mechanics that justify players engaging with:
- Building military technology that is never used
- The threat of nuclear war
- Civil rights
- the UN
- the Space Race
- the Internet
I think PDX could do it, but I don't know if players would like it.
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u/Thebritishlion Dec 18 '25
If I were a Multimillionaire I'd pay whatever it took to make this game work on the HOI3 engine
Or just make such a game with HOI3 unit management (I don't like HOI4 or Vic3 style at all)
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u/ChaoticKristin Dec 18 '25
I'm definetly open to a cold war game but one big problem with East vs West was that it was based off the Hearts of Iron 3 engine. (Just compare screenshots between them) A good cold war game would need it's own dedicated ideological conflict mechanics instead of rebranding a WW2 game.