Hearts of Iron 3

[Gharen]

Not sure if any of you are quite the video game enthusiast as myself but I just recently discovered a franchise a few months back that makes quite the intricate WWII simulator.  The game starts in 1936 and goes to 1948, but there are several different years you can start in, like 1939 or 1941 or 1944.  This is NOT a turn based game but a real time strategy.  You can play as ANY country during the time of WWII; USA, Germany, France, Belgium, Japan, etc etc.  You can run the country’s diplomacy, intelligence network, unit production, research, government infrastructure, and of course combat units.  There are 14,000 territories in the game to move units around and normal game speed is 1 minute real time is 1 hour in the game, which of course can be speed up considerably.

The game is fascinating in the sense that you can align your particular country to one of the 3 major factions; Allies, Axis, and Comintern (Communist).  This game is not for the weak hearted and has a big learning curve.  You have to deal with supply and logistics, morale, unit commanders, weather, terrain, even the time of day and season impacts the game.  Its very detailed and intricate but quite fun to play a country the way you want to play.

I kinda think of this game as the ultimate Axis and Allies game because you can play it multiplayer with several people, supposedly 32 on a LAN if you could get that many.  One suggestion for those who do want to buy it, in the game settings, turn off the counter markers for units cause instead of being just blocks with the units information on them they will turn into infantry, tanks, mechanized units, etc etc if you zoom all the way in on them.

[Jermofoot]

I own Hearts of Iron 2.  It was the most in depth game I ever played.  That being said, I only played 2 games and spent about a month going through them before I put it down and never touched it again.  I loved the detail, but that wasn’t a game, it was a career.

[Imperious Leader]

I had the same experience except i bought HOI 1 and 2. :roll:

[Jermofoot]

@Imperious:

I had the same experience except i bought HOI 1 and 2. :roll:

You’d be glad to know that I played Spain on my first game and split France with Germany as the 4th Axis member.  Then I kicked the Brits out of Gibraltar and had very little left to work with.

[Imperious Leader]

You got that far?

I got close to a split too. I was gonna split the disks in half and throw them away. Now they just sit on the shelf and i play L4D1 and 2 which are real games.

[Gharen]

I agree with the games taking forever but they are immersive and in depth.  Wanna talk about time consuming, Empire Earth, the original was insane.  As well as Sins of a Solar Empire.  In both of these RTS games, I have had one single game last several days, DAYS.  Had some LAN parties back in high school and spent one weekend doing 5 humans versus 3 AI allied on the hardest difficulty on Empire Earth.  We never finished it because in the first 5 hours one of my friends got routed from his island and we spent the next 12 taking it back for him and taking some smaller islands in the middle of the map and tried several times to establish a beach head on one of the AI’s islands.

I would like to try HOI 3 online with other people, probably have to speed up the game speed a bit cause it would just take too long otherwise.  It seems to be a better college game, one that you play with a roommate.

My best so far in it was starting in 1938 as Japan and instead of island grabbing I went with the tradition AAA style attack and took most of China, southeast Asia, all of India, and the Phillipines.  My German Allies were in the midst of fending off D-Day in 1941 and Italy was gobbling up Africa.  I ended up quitting that one cause I basically starved my country of all resources and came to the conclusion that Japan took all of those islands for a reason, resources.

[Guest]

@Imperious:

You got that far?

I got close to a split too. I was gonna split the disks in half and throw them away. Now they just sit on the shelf and i play L4D1 and 2 which are real games.

What is L4D1 and 2?

[Imperious Leader]

Left 4 Dead a co-op kill zombie game

[Funcioneta]

Hearts of Iron 2 Doomsday is better than 3. It’s way faster and has less bugs. In HOI2 you don’t have AI Mexico doing D-Day on Hamburg in 1939, etc  :-P

I have played many times HOI2 and where it shines is playing minor powers. Republican Spain is great, you must fight Germany almost alone after fall of France until soviets come into the rescue. I also like commie China, it’s a real challenge. And once a time I played a game as Turkey and ended parachuting to Japan. I also tried Bolivia and is more interesting that seems  :lol:

On the other side, playing mayors is really boring, just stomp all the world without much resistance. For mayors, continue playing A&A  :-D

[Jermofoot]

@Imperious:

You got that far?

I got close to a split too. I was gonna split the disks in half and throw them away. Now they just sit on the shelf and i play L4D1 and 2 which are real games.

I need to get L4D2.  I loved the first one and spent so much time playing multiplayer.  And now I hear they a releasing an expansion scenario this month for 2 that has the survivors meeting 3 of the survivors from the first one (the 4th sacrificed themselves to save the others and appears as a Special Infected).

[Imperious Leader]

i will look this up. Defiantly will buy it.

[kdfsjljklgjfg]

What a coincidence, I just got off of HoI3. I love it, but don’t play much for obvious reasons, what with the slowness and all. I have a feeling it’d be far better with others to play with.

[Jermofoot]

@Imperious:

i will look this up. Defiantly will buy it.

I’ve been playing L4D2 for a couple of weeks.  Better than the 1st, but I don’t think it has the staying power of the first.  I did about die laughing the first time I played as the Jockey though.

[kdfsjljklgjfg]

@Jermofoot:

@Imperious:

i will look this up. Defiantly will buy it.

I’ve been playing L4D2 for a couple of weeks.  Better than the 1st, but I don’t think it has the staying power of the first.  I did about die laughing the first time I played as the Jockey though.

Play The Passing yet?

[Jermofoot]

@kdfsjljklgjfg:

@Jermofoot:

@Imperious:

i will look this up. Defiantly will buy it.

I’ve been playing L4D2 for a couple of weeks.  Better than the 1st, but I don’t think it has the staying power of the first.  I did about die laughing the first time I played as the Jockey though.

Play The Passing yet?

Yup!  Slightly disappointing (so little interaction with the original survivors) but very good and worth the money.  Particularly the Mutations game setting.

[Imperious Leader]

I bought Alien vs. predator. worst game ever.

I was thinking it might be like L4D, but the people move like they do in COD4… very slow and the guns suck and its very dark even on maximum brightness.

don’t buy

[Clyde85]

I played mostly HOI2 doomsday, which prolongs game play into 1953, and then got the Armageddon upgrade which has an alternate universe risk style game which is alot of fun.
I’ve always enjoyed playing these games, and have gotten pretty into several of them, My favorites being Nationalist China, Soviet Union, Republican Spain, and Italy.
I was extreamly disapointed by HOI3, as the combat system seems very flawed and has been made overly complicated. I think the game it its stride with the Armageddon upgrade, by far the best and most accurate game they have made so far.
I still play, its kinda of like A&A on steroids as I head it put once. The level of depth is amazing, and even though it follows history so closely, a good player can still take his nation to greatness. I’ve played Japan once or twice and have managed to overrun China, and rather then attack south, I would always strike north, and help bring down the Soviets, which would be better position me to strike south sometime in 1943 (always played on the fastest setting) One game as Italy I managed to take Egypt, most of northern Sudan and push all the way into Iraq and nearly take Baghdad with the 2 divisions of the DAK and 2 corps, comprising 6 divisions, 2 of which were armoured, and 4 of which were motorized inf, being my principal striking force.
What great games they were and are, as no 2 games are ever the same.

[Clyde85]

Steam is offering a sale on the Complete Hearts of Iron 2 game (orignal title, and all its expansion and patches) for like 8 bucks or so, its worth checking out

[Dylan the Canadian]

that game was fun, but I never knew we could talk about video games,  :-D :-D

[Clyde85]

I love these games, mainly because of their depth. I like being able to effect things on a deeper level. Its not just about moving your arimes here or there, or buying this unit over the other, like in A&A. What type of doctrine you research on how your army will function, building more advanced infantry with ample Artillery support, or building a fast moving mechanized army of tanks and motorized infantry. Also the tactics you as the player employ are extreamly important. It can change the war on a more profound level.
I have played several games out to their logical conclusion. I have played games that have begun in 1936 and streched into the 50’s. I had one great game as France where I extended the Maginot line all along the Belgium border and kept the Germans out (I call it the fortress France stratgey). The game concluded with the Russians over running all of Germany and me driving hard into the low countires to keep the russkies out. I had also conqured Italy and Austira, along with a chunk of the Balkans. I had develpoed rockets and the A-bomb, and by the late 40’s I was lobbing nuclear tipped ICBMs at the Japanese home islands destroying their IC (which still didnt slow them down too much as they had conqured China earlier in the 40’s and quite the manpower edge anyway). This was only one of several amazing games I have played with HOI, and I enjoyed them all sooooo much.
I can understand why some dont like the game, its a bit much to take in. Also, unlike me, not everyone is a fan of games that require to put such consideration into logistics and production. But as Zhukov was said “Amatures think stratagey, Professionals think logistics”  :-D