Hearts of Iron is the first ever World War II PC game of true Grand Strategic scope. The game map spans the entire world and allows players to take part in any front they choose. You can play any nation in the world, but the game focuses on the epic struggle between the great alliances of the world...
Hearts of Iron is the first ever World War II PC game of true Grand Strategic scope. The game map spans the entire world and allows players to take part in any front they choose. You can play any nation in the world, but the game focuses on the epic struggle between the great alliances of the world orders - Fascism, Communism and Democracy.
Epic gameplay - Global map with all the nations between 1936-1946.
Scenario generator - Allows the players to modify and construct their own settings and campaigns and add national detail in thousands of combinations!
Deep diplomatic model - Unique system to simulate political systems and their effect on neutral nations in relation to alliances.
Domestic political system.
Highly advanced research model - Change the course of war by getting super weapons and better production capabilities.
Real Time gameplay set to pause at any time - One minute of gameplay translates to one hour passed in reality.
Historical generals and political leaders - Thousands of real persons researched for individual detailed uniqueness.
Strategic level military system - over 100 different ground, air and naval forces fighting the total war on divisional level.
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There are few games hat can make you satnd in front of the screen just waiting for that new technology to develop, the game can be mind-blogging once the WWII is in full rage, but at the same time it just keeps you wanting for more...soon you will be looking to play the game with all the great (and not so great) nations...it can be as addictive as when Age Of Empires II came out, but it is much larger in terms of scope and replay value, with the add-on of being ridiculously interesting for those of you with a slight interest in history, politics or weapons, imo only one other game beats it: HoI II
HOI 1 could be fun for a few quick games, but you'd have to go through a steep learning curve. If you want to pick up an old HOI title, Darkhest Hour, for HOI 2, has some good mods; not sure about HOI 1. HOI 2 Kaisserreich isn't up to date with HOI4, but it's still a good earlier version of the nod.
I eventually enjoyed the later releases (HOI2 and especially HOI3 after the essential patches and then the expansions), but found this one frustrating and unintuitive at the time. I did not play this one with the expansions, so the experience may have improved.
With the game starting in 1936, why should any of the major powers that fought in WWI need to re-research WWI technologies before advancing to 1920s and then 1930s tech? It's not like they all forgot how to build WWI tanks, planes, and artillery, or stopped development in the interwar period.
The game's lack of a suitable tutorial scenario or practical hints does not inform you about small critical details, like mobilizing your army before engaging in war. The result was that after several in-game years and many real-time hours of sub-optimal play leading up to the outbreak of war, my divisions were simply overrun in minutes. Game over, try again with a better idea of what to do and not to do. The learning curve is needlessly brutal.
It's not that it's a bad game, but the next two releases in the series were significantly more interesting to me (I put way over 1000 hours into HOI3 after they patched and massively overhauled the ridiculously broken initial release, where nothing even remotely resembling WWII was likely to occur). On the other hand, HOI4 became far more cartoony, where small countries with tiny populations could field massive armies, large forces could cross huge deserts and fight effectively beyond them without supply issues (HOI3 had the most realistic logistics system, despite its quirks), and other extremely gamey oddities. This initial effort by Paradox isn't bad, but still sub-par.
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