Hearts of Iron III

[quadalpha]

I've always thought of the HoI series as the gold standard in the modern period of the kind of game that has a similar scope to the TW series. There is a new one coming out in a few months, and while I haven't been following its progress, it is starting to look surprisingly promising, judging by its development diaries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Iron_III

[Jolt]

Yeah, it appears to be introducing a lot of new concepts which help to make its game more real and practical, as well as more complex.

[Fixiwee]

Too bad there will be no doomsday scenario in it.

[CountArach]

The game looks promising, but I just don't see why HoI needs a third game when Vicky so clearly needs a second.

[naut]

The game looks promising, but I just don't see why HoI needs a third game when Vicky so clearly needs a second.

Exactly.

[Jolt]

The game looks promising, but I just don't see why HoI needs a third game when Vicky so clearly needs a second.

After the laughter that was EU: Rome, PI needs money and return of prestige of actually making good complex games.

[I of the Storm]

Indeed. And the HoI (1+2+addons) brand sold far more copies than Vicky ever did. Plus the WW2 setting reaches a broader audience than the empire-building of the 19th century in Vicky.

As much as I prefer the Vicky setting myself for more strategic openness, I don't see a Vicky 2 coming in the near future...

[Csargo]

I agree with CA and Rhythmic(aka Psychonaut) I would rather have a Vicky 2 then another HoI2, but I of the Storm is right.

[Jolt]

Indeed. And the HoI (1+2+addons) brand sold far more copies than Vicky ever did. Plus the WW2 setting reaches a broader audience than the empire-building of the 19th century in Vicky.

As much as I prefer the Vicky setting myself for more strategic openness, I don't see a Vicky 2 coming in the near future...

Yeap. We'll quite possibly see a Crusader Kings 2 before we see a Vicky 2.

[seireikhaan]

Question- what needs to be improved so much about Vicky? The only thing I'd really like is to have the option to force-create new states from an empire following a victorious war. And maybe some improved graphics, I guess...

[Jolt]

There's a bucketload of things that need improvement in Vicky 2. Many more than needed improvement from EU 2 to 3.

First thing that crosses my mind is the GUI. I could talk for hours, but I need to sleep.

[quadalpha]

While I'd like to see a new Vicky as much as the next man, some of those new features in HoI3 sound very exciting, such as frontage, custom divisions, modular research, etc..

[CountArach]

Question- what needs to be improved so much about Vicky? The only thing I'd really like is to have the option to force-create new states from an empire following a victorious war. And maybe some improved graphics, I guess...

More territories (ala HoI 3), a more complex and in-depth colonial system, an expanded political system (Though Ricky helped this) and yes new states would be good.

Plus perhaps something more akin to HoI2-style divisions.

[Warluster]

I love all the games (EU, Victoria, HoI) and my favourite was defintly Victoria; the one thing I always thought needed improving was tha mount of scneairos. I wish they could have a option to play whenever you want like EUIII, that way you could skip straight to certain years (E.G: Say I wanted to play 1915, or a certain war which can not be played because previous events have deemed it invalid)

Another thing is graphics. I really dislike the graphics from EUIII (Too flashy maybe?) and like the Victoria and HoI 2 graphics. Seem more in line with the genre. Maybe HoI III will change this.

Regarding other changes all the suggestions which have been suggested I agree with. More territories would defintly be good (THey seemed to have the bare min, especially in smaller places like Denmark or the German nations. Win a battle and it all over.) and the Colonial system defintly needs a makeover. While the rush for Colonies was quite realistic, they did nothing except turn into more land. Maybe instead of Satelite nations you could have Dominion nations, which are directly under your control but the AI also does stuffs.

As you can see I am looking forward to this game a lot.

[Andres]

One of our junior members, Necceh, asked me to post this here on his behalf (he's not allowed to post in the Arena yet).

Hey,

I have just started playing Hearts of Iron 2 (never played the first), had a few games on normal difficulty and keep getting my kicked, was wondering if anyone knows of any good strategy forums for it, maybe a beginners guide or anything of the likes.

I've tried googling but so far have only been able to obtain the paradox interactive forum and that doesn't have a strategy section and have so far only found bits and pieces of general strategy.

Many thanks.

I'm sure he'll appreciate any help you can offer him.

[Jolt]

One of our junior members, Necceh, asked me to post this here on his behalf (he's not allowed to post in the Arena yet).



I'm sure he'll appreciate any help you can offer him.

http://www.paradoxian.org/hoi2wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Honestly, the best is to read the Paradox forums, and to play HoI 2 as Germany on Easy or Very Easy.

Anyways, Necceh, provided that you have vanilla HoI 2 (Without any expansions), there is a 100% chance of winning as the Soviet Union strategy, which consists on the following:

-Move slider to Interventionism

- Join together all the troops you can under "Logistics Wizards" officers (Doesn't matter which rank they are). These reduce the ammount of resources divisions consume.

- Take care of all the initial Dissent by adjusting the production sliders to Consumer Goods. Don't build anything else before you reduce the dissent to 0. Try to make deals that give you supplies, in exchange for your resrouces (That way you free IC from Supplies)

- Afterwards build as many factories as you can (Build them firstly in provinces with the highest Infrastructure, as the factories built there are built faster) (Use as much IC as you can, don't upgrade or reinforce units) until Feb 1939 (By then you should have more than 500 IC.)

- Afterwards start building loads and loads Infantry and Artillery, as well as planes (Either Tactical Bombers and/or CAS) start to reinforce and upgrade your current armies, by then you can break up your huge aglomerates of divisions under a Logistics Wizard, to many 12 divisions armies (What I did) and position all your Western armies (Leave the Far Eastern ones in the Far East) along the Finland borders. Afterwards keep forming 12 div armies along the Finland border as time passes. In due time you'll get Molotov Agreement, and settle for the historical one. In the Winter War, attack with your full army. Your army should be so overwhelming that in Easy difficulty, the war should last a month. Afterwards just decide whether you want to fully annex Finland (You'll need to build garrisons to keep their partizan levels down), or settle for the historical agreement. Then demand the territory of the Baltic States. If they refuse, use your troops to attack them and annex them. Accept Bessarabia event and position your army in the German borders, and keep building Infantry and Artillery (You might want to build some Motorized/Mechanized/Armored Divisions and give them to a "Panzer General" so they can perform better and help your army to attack some provinces which are being heavily defended by the Germans.

- Once you think your army is ready and Germany is busy fighting elsewhere, declare war to Germany and send your entire army to attack them.


Here is what happened to me with this strategy. I attacked Germany (July 1941) when they were attacking Yugoslavia (I had already had a gigantic army), because they were busy invading an enemy country and had relatively few troops on my borders. My army completely crushed the border troops of Germany, and Germany had to pull loads of troops from Yugoslavia and France to stem my avalanche. The first defeat came in mid-Poland. In August, Poland was already fully occupied, in September, Romania and Bulgaria surrendered and Berlin was overrun. They did put up a hell of a fight in the Gottingen province (They had dozens and dozens of provinces there), by November Northern Italy had been occupied and in France (France didn't surrender in that game, but kept fighting, thus the Germans had occupied the entire France) the last German forces tried to slow down my advance. By the beginning of December, with the capture of Oslo, I annexed Germany. Late December saw Italy annexed as well (Brittain occupied Libya, Tunisia and the Algerian coast, while the Italian mainland was mine.) Thus the Second World War ended in 6 months for the Soviet Union behemoth. Of course I continued playing, and eventually built another gigantic army to crush Japan, and later China (Which I did, though much more slowly than I crushed Germany). I stopped playing when I was fighting the allies already.

[Melvish]

After the laughter that was EU: Rome, PI needs money and return of prestige of actually making good complex games.

Try Vae Victis expansion it redeem the game greatly (if you like character and senate management). Still not as grand as EUIII but i did enjoy this expansion, i even rank it better than R:TW.

I'm looking forward to HoI3 as i've skipped HoI2 and remained to HoI1. A Vicky2 would have been more welcomed although.

[quadalpha]

To see the FAQs section on the Paradox forums, you need to have registered your game. I'm not sure how that is done, but it involves the serial number.

[gollum]

HoI III, my precious

[naut]

Hokus, pokus, thread ressurectus.

Call me fussy or whatever, but I much prefer HOI:2.

[Subotan]

Probably the most difficult, complex and bewildering game I've ever played.

[Beskar]

Hearts of Iron 3.... the problem about it, is that the AI basically has to play it on your behalf, or it is near impossible to play. Unfortunately, the AI is also bad at playing it.

Though saying that, I took out the Axis with Yugoslavia.

[Subotan]

I have no idea how to play it.

[Meneldil]

Tried it, understood that the game was more of a "tank and airplanes era" game than a "WWII" game.

Gave up after Italy attacked France and the UK in 1938 for the 3rd time in 3 games. Paradox should have sticked to the old "let's play history" idea, rather than this whole "let's play something that looks like history but isn't really history" one they started with EU3.

[Subotan]

I prefer games which place plausibility over accuracy.

[Beskar]

Tried it, understood that the game was more of a "tank and airplanes era" game than a "WWII" game.

Gave up after Italy attacked France and the UK in 1938 for the 3rd time in 3 games. Paradox should have sticked to the old "let's play history" idea, rather than this whole "let's play something that looks like history but isn't really history" one they started with EU3.

I prefer that alternative history system, who would want to play as the Axis, if you are destined to lose anyway, even though you won every battle, out resourced the allies etc. What about if convinced the Americans to work with the Axis Powers, or at least neutral?

However Hearts of Iron 3 gameplay was just horrible.

[naut]

I prefer games which place plausibility over accuracy.

Exactly. The player/AI shouldn't be rigidly stuck to history. But, should start out and progress with a moderate basis in reality and be allowed to alter the course of history, the stranger the alternation the harder it should be to do so.

I also feel the AI should follow a pretty steady/normalised path. While any alternatives to history should be up to the player.

[Meneldil]

I can win as the Axis in HoI2. You can turn an italian minor in a superpower in EU2.

Problem with HoI3 is that it neither has accuracy nor plausability. Italy attacking France and the UK in 1938 ? Yeah right, Italy wasn't industrialized enough to be a threat to anyone in 1941, how could it remotely think about taking out France and Britain 3 years earlier by itself. The same goes for pretty much everycountry, as the AI always goes on some crazy unrealistic, unplausable rampage all the time.
Most games look like poor sci-fi what if scenarii. What if France attacked Germany for no reason and conquered all of Europe by 1942? What if USSR invaded China? What if Italy was the only active axis member?
This isn't fun or interesting. For all I know, they could have replaced France and UK by Elves, Italy by dwarves and Germany by orcs, that would probably have made a somewhat decent game.

I can see how HoI2 may have been annoying for some people, but it still was possible to do weird things: join the Axis with Belgium or Netherland, fight back Germany as France, prevent the US from entering the war (actually, I've never seen that happen, but I've been told it's possible, if anyone can deny/confirm)...all the while history was indeed being somewhat respected.

[gollum]

I agree with the general sentiment on the thread (after release). I gave up completely the pc WWII games for A world at war, a board strategy game that can be played via pbem. It has tones of rules, but also many strategic/tactical dimensions and its played against human players only, so its quite challenging.

[Samurai Waki]

Picked up Arsenal of Democracy, seems to be a little more intense than HoI 2. Still needs to be streamlined in some areas, but overall a pretty fun experience.