Quote Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
screwtype: get the mods! I suggest HSR (Historical Stony Road) as that mod is pure excellence. It addresses AI weaknesses by much; it smoothens event possibilities with additions of new events; it adds a lot of flavor (which is a general problem in Paradox games; the player needs much imagination to fill the blanks--the HOI series has more problems than others as it basically omits the entire Empire-management parts present in other games); it also adds differences in units between the nations--I especially like the concept of heavy brigades and elite brigades that directly represent a higher level of skill as opposed to just "more artillery," and they are also unique for major nations. They even made special events at the start of the game exactly for that purpose: the Japanese got better attacks for their submarines to represent the Long Lance torpedo, but less range and convoy-raiding efficiency for their rigid submarine doctrines and their historical inability to exploit their own submarine force's strengths; the Germans got better fighting ships but less ranges to represent mechanical instability, and so on. The DD version of the mod is still "incomplete" though.
Yeah, I meant to take a look at the mods, but didn't get around to it. I guess I felt I should play the vanilla campaign a bit more to get the feel of it - but then, I just got a bit bored with it.

I think you've put your finger on one thing I've felt is missing from HOI 2 though, and that is empire management. Because really, apart from the odd factory or bit of infrastructure, there isn't much to do except build military units and fight with them, is there? It's the empire building side that I think I miss, the game seems a bit sterile somehow without that dimension.

I have actually been toying with a recent copy of EU 2 I acquired, and that looks a bit more promising in terms of empire building. But it looks fairly complicated to master too, and I don't feel like buckling down to learn it all ATM.

Thanks for the stony road recommendation tho, I like the sound of country specific unit types. And I think the doctrines in vanilla HOI 2 are just nuts. Human wave beating blitzkreig? Nuts. Night attack the best doctrine? Double nuts. I don't think they did a very good job on the doctrines, and I'd like to mod them myself but unfortunately I don't have time to muck around with modding these days.