Hearts of Iron - Page 2

Cookie Monster · December 6, 2002, 09:35

Just a quick opinion of this game. More discussion later when I have time.

HOI roxxxorreeddd!!!!!!!!! Sorry didn't mean to bust out in leet but believe me this is one good game. Check out there forums, link provided by Grumbold earlier in this thread, for more details.

Ramo · December 6, 2002, 09:50

I'd like to add that despite the flaws in the AI, it's an incredibly enjoyable game and I recommend this game strongly. Futhermore, user-created mods on the AI are already fixing the holes in what came out in the release. The next patch which'll come out later this month should be nearly perfect.

Dauphin · December 6, 2002, 10:32

I want this game now. Why is the UK release date after Christmas? What could possibly warrant delaying the release until Februrayr?!?!?!

Dauphin · December 6, 2002, 10:35

Quote:

Originally posted by DrSpike

I hate it when this happens. This will no doubt attract disbelief, but these days the main reason I ever *ahem* acquire a game online is that it takes so damn long to come out here, and by the time it does I have finished it and am not going to buy the game.

*nudge nudge wink wink* say no more......

Ramo · December 6, 2002, 10:41

Quote:

I want this game now. Why is the UK release date after Christmas? What could possibly warrant delaying the release until Februrayr?!?!?!

If you're willing to pay shipping, there's no reason why you can't import it from the US (or some other place, if you're proficient in another European language). I'm sure Amazon ships games across the pond...

Dauphin · December 6, 2002, 10:44

I've just looked at a screen shot of England. The labelling of territories is going to annoy me. Portsmouth is not southeast of London and Coventry is not in East Anglia!!!

Dauphin · December 6, 2002, 10:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Ramo

If you're willing to pay shipping, there's no reason why you can't import it from the US (or some other place, if you're proficient in another European language). I'm sure Amazon ships games across the pond...

I'm good enough at French and Spanish, but they come out at the same time (near enough). I can't speak any of the Scandinavian languages and they are the only European countries with it out.

I could get the American version, but don't want to pay the shipping costs. I'll wait....

Ramo · December 6, 2002, 10:50

From what I hear (http://www.europa-universalis.com/fo...threadid=59484), they'll release the Spanish version in a week or two. Don't know about French though.

Sandman · December 6, 2002, 15:05

Quote:

I've just looked at a screen shot of England. The labelling of territories is going to annoy me. Portsmouth is not southeast of London and Coventry is not in East Anglia!!!

Yes, Britain's provinces are a mess. To add insult to injury, they've added a horde of odd little provinces elsewhere, like a tiny island off Brittany and that slender island off Sweden.

dudemanjack · December 6, 2002, 15:26

I don't think I'm going to buy this game until I can play the demo. It looks rather confusing.

David Floyd · December 8, 2002, 03:23

OK, I picked up Hearts of Iron today...I do see what y'all mean about the AI, and I've also run into some crash bugs (as in it just up and crashes, with no autosave feature to save me)...

Obviously I played Germany for my first game, and after I invaded Denmark the Allies declared war on me...I stacked up along the Maginot Line, didn't invade the Low Countries, and hit southern France with a large invasion out of Italy. Once that attack drew their forces out of position, I hit the Maginot Line in one province with everything I had, to force a breakthrough, and blitzed through to Paris. This was, by the way, in 1936.

The US declared war on me a bit early, unfortunately, and started trying to make little landings in France, all of which I crushed. At the same time, I was slowly building up a new army in the East...basically I set up four stacks of about 5-6 divisions apiece (usually an armored or mechanized divison, a motorized division, with the rest being infantry divisions with attached artillery brigades). Once I got the Czechs to give up the Sudetenland, I blitzed the rest of their country in about a week.

Right before that, I launched a massive shipbuilding program - 1 carrier, 13 battleships, and several destroyer flotillas and transport fleets. That fleet would have been up by mid 1939, and I could have had a chance against the British fleet if I used some air power and subs along with it. By that point, I would have had some bad ass technology, because I threw a ton of cash into research.

The last thing I was doing, prior to the crash, was finishing up my conquest of Iraq and slowly enticing countries to ally with me (I had Japan, Hungary, Italy, and Bulgaria, with Austria annexed, and Denmark, France, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia conquered, along with North Africa and the Middle East). But alas, in mid 1938, the damn thing crashed.

Gah! Patch now!

Main_Brain · December 8, 2002, 14:27

Set Autosave to monthly ;=)
I also prefer (Subs,) Topredo and Naval Bombers.. 6-9 Divisions and hte British Fleet will spend the Rest of the War in Repair Docks (until German Paratroopers land)

Ramo · December 9, 2002, 06:11

Get Bolt's AI mod at Paradox's forums. It does wonders for the AI.

Grumbold · December 9, 2002, 12:43

Expect the 2nd patch to make a lot of improvements. Some are already being anticipated by the likes of Bolt.

At the moment there seems to be a problem because each country is actually run by several different AI segments. Garrison AI tries to think of sensible places to park the units when not at war. When a war starts, it opens one or more Front AI and supplies them with units with which to prosecute the war. Catch a country when it is in garrison mode or it has a Front AI active in your area and it will do a lot to make your life a misery. Invade through the back door and you could be unopposed all the way to the capital because Front AI doesn't seem to want to give any units back to Garrison AI to open a second front with.

The hardest battles I ever had was trying to take Leningrad to Murmansk when Russia had given 80% of its units to that Front AI to fight the Winter War. I've now lost a week of my life to HoI and as it gets more tweaks the addiction is only going to grow.

Sarxis · December 9, 2002, 15:08

I almost picked it up yesterday, but I'm broke.

DrSpike · December 9, 2002, 15:16

Amazingly I'm not broke........but it doesn't come out here for like another 10 years, and I happened to catch sight of it on an IRC fserver whilst downloading backups of my legally owned software. I never was good at resisting temptation.

Garth Vader · December 10, 2002, 13:28

DF: As Germany you don't need much of a fleet to take out UK. Wait until their main fleet is out of the channel area, or draw them out with some subs, then land your troops.

You may lose some of your convoy transports, but it's not a big deal. Once you take all the ports their fleet has to go away, or becomes useless and you can pick it apart with bombers and the fleet you have.

In my first game as Germany I got Austria to let me annex them in early 37. I had read the manual so I thought allies could trade with you, so I got Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania into the Axis.

When the Czechs refused my territorial demands I declared war bringing in the allies. I finished the Czechs, French, low countries (except lux), UK all in 38. Then I went down to Africa and took Belgiums colonies, which gave me lots of rubber!

Then I took Yugo for a port on the Med, then over to Syria, and Iraq, also took Malta. I took Poland out sometime during 39 too.

While the SU was fighting the winter war I got Finland into the axis and tried to save them, I failed, but forced the "bitter peace" event with the SU giving me everything up to the Urals in just 21 days of fighting.

Then I took out Turkey, Iran, Afganistan, and was taking more of Africa, when I got a crash which would have wiped out all that, so I stopped playing that game since it was obvious who was going to win

Funny thing was that the US never declared war on me during all that.

Boris Godunov · December 10, 2002, 23:20

I'm having a problem.

Playing as Germany, it is March 1936 and I'm already at war with the Allies. I have just invaded the Netherlands and hold all 4 provinces, but for some reason I cannot annex it. Any ideas why?

St Leo · December 10, 2002, 23:44

I have just invaded the Netherlands and hold all 4 provinces, but for some reason I cannot annex it. Any ideas why?

They still own most of Indonesia. Just let them remain independent until Japan takes care of the problem for you or until you can invade Indonesia yourself.

In my current game, I had to take all of the bloody US islands in order to annex it. My world conquest will be complete once I finish off Australia and New Zealand.

Boris Godunov · December 11, 2002, 00:10

That's absurd. I own their country, dammit. They should be forced to surrender (they did in 1940, after all!)

David Floyd · December 11, 2002, 01:44

Get THIS - I beat the hell out of Poland, annexed their country - and all of a sudden, 60+ of my divisions DISAPPEARED from the map

Ramo · December 11, 2002, 02:24

Quote:

That's absurd. I own their country, dammit. They should be forced to surrender (they did in 1940, after all!)

The Netherlands were occupied, not annexed, and was treated as such by Germany. After the fall of Holland, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia, Borneo and Celebis, etc.) continued to fight against Japan until it fell in late '42. Furthermore, the Dutch Queen lead a government-in-exile after Holland was taken.

Quote:

Get THIS - I beat the hell out of Poland, annexed their country - and all of a sudden, 60+ of my divisions DISAPPEARED from the map

Given some unknown conditions, you have to redeploy divisions that are in territory you just annexed. Check the deployment screen; they should be ready soon.

David Floyd · December 11, 2002, 02:27

In fact, some Dutch warships participated in the naval armadas during the invasions of Italy and Normandy.

Most significantly, two Dutch gunboats screened the British monitor Abercrombie during Operation Avalanche.

Grumbold · December 11, 2002, 10:42

Its a hiccup in the annexation routine. All your units that were sharing a province with the defeated side (because either you or they are retreating or whatever) will be moved to the force pool and can be redeployed in ~24 hours. I believe 1.2 is fixing this.

There's a more serious annoyance where if you capture say formerly Chinese provinces from the Japanese then save, when you load the game back those provinces will be Chinese instead of yours.

That hasn't stopped me playing games as all of the major powers already (up to the point of inevitability, not 1948) and itching to play more when the next patch arrives.

St Leo · December 11, 2002, 14:36

I own their country, dammit.

You are still getting their production, are you not?

Boris Godunov · December 11, 2002, 16:49

Bah, but I WANT to annex it. It's MINE. MEIN MEIN MEIN.

And why is it there are no peace negotiations? I should be able to do more than either "sue for peace" or "annex." It should be like EU, with bargaining and such. I have all of NE France, the Italians have Marseilles and the Spanish have two of their SW provinces, so it's about damn time they gave up.

Imran Siddiqui · December 11, 2002, 20:55

Huh, looks interesting.

It looks better than EU2, because the game doesn't go forever with a lot of boring time (to keep the game somewhat realistic). This is a wargame

.

ravagon · December 11, 2002, 22:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
And why is it there are no peace negotiations? I should be able to do more than either "sue for peace" or "annex."

Peace? Peace!? There's no need for that kind of language around here thankyou very much!

Boris Godunov · December 11, 2002, 23:32

Well, had a CTD today, and am thinking I'm gonna wait for the next patch before taking it up again. The AI is just pathetic and needs to be improved a lot. I watched most of their ships rust away in the water and sink without them moving them at all. The British Fleet literally just melted away. Huh?

David Floyd · December 12, 2002, 01:02

Perhaps they didn't have enough supplies?