I’ve got a bit of a funny relationship with Paradox’s grand strategy games. I love the idea of them, of waging and flirting my way across history on the most granular of levels. But despite my enthusiasm, and despite my best efforts, I’ve never probably cracked one: it doesn’t take long before I’m feeling thoroughly overwhelmed and my attention quickly begins to wane. I bring this up, because my relatively brief hands-on time with Paradox’s new post-apocalyptic grand strategy game Afterworld suggests – thanks to some smart design decisions – it might finally be the one for me.
