Hearts of Iron 3 Out Today

[Teleku]

I did the 'very stupid thing to do with paradox games' approach of pre-ordering it on steam, and not waiting to read any post launch reviews.  But oh well, I loved HOI2.

Waiting to finish work so I can head home and install it.  Comedy to follow, I'm sure.

Discuss.

[Ingmar]

Like bad reviews would have stopped you getting it. Its an EU engine game, how bad can it be? 

[Modern Angel]

Do not play it like it's HOI or HOI2. It's good. It is not those games.

[Teleku]

Care to elaborate?

[Modern Angel]

I'm not sure how to, precisely. It's huge. There's now an actual OOB and chain of command you have to pay attention to. There's a real supply chain.

It's the most different game from EU they've done in its own way. You just have to jump in and learn everything from scratch.

[Lucas]

You just have to jump in and learn everything from scratch.

Good, I might try having a shot at it, then. Time to beat the crap out of the Allied scum. Glory to the Reich.

[Modern Angel]

Just realize it's like jumping into a well head first. This is a BIG game. There are also some performance issues and one major bug introduced in the launch day patch with consumer goods. I expect the bug to get fixed really quickly but I would steer clear of the 1936 scenario for awhile because it will fuck you hard.

[Ingmar]

Does it actually have a real tutorial?

Ha ha who am I kidding. 

[Teleku]

You just have to jump in and learn everything from scratch.

Good, I might try having a shot at it, then. Time to beat the crap out of the Allied scum. Glory to the Reich.

Or you could do what I did and move the US over to fascist dicatorship, create the Empire of America (IE, I annexed everything from the panama canal to Alaska), join the Axis powers, and drop the 101st Airborne on London (also, ironically, end up Occupying Iraq..) 

But yeah, thats actually good news on it being so different.  I like it when they shake up game play (as long as its for the better, of course).

[Lum]

Demo's been out for a week. I strongly recommend trying it before buying, both because it requires a fairly beefy machine (probably not an issue for most here) and because so much has changed. Mostly for the better, though grognards are wailing their eyes out over how horribly inaccurate the map is.

So far the biggest problem is that the game can essentially play itself. You can have as little input as "Yo, Generals, go conquer Warsaw, k?" and then the AI will go off and do it. Given the scale the game's at now (thousands of subdivided provinces, units defined down to the brigade/regiment level) some macro-managing is unavoidable, but the game very much encourages you to trust the AI to figure out where exactly to move your units. However, so far the AI doesn't seem to totally suck, which is a plus.

Also, the game looks a lot more like an old-school wargame now! Horrible map colors and all (I seriously expect map mods to come out in, like, a week - it's pretty bad), with attack/defense numbers on units.

[Lucas]

Hah! Map colors! Nothing can impress you if you played this "back in the day":





(hmm, well, those were actually funky colors, now that I give them a second look)

[Modern Angel]

I actually really like the new map, especially at max zoom.

So I decided to play a little Italy and crashed as soon as I annexed Albania. GOOD THING I DIDN'T SAVE MY GAME SINCE IT WAS THE FIRST MONTH BUT I SPENT AN HOUR SETTING UP MY FLEETS!

[Teleku]

Christ, they really have changed things around.  Going to take me forever to figure this all out again, bleh.  But seems like some pretty cool changes.  The way they've changed research is pretty neat, though I do miss having the national specific tech teams to choose from :(

[Modern Angel]

It's actually way closer to HOI1 with the tech now. I prefer this.

There are some warts on this bad boy, though. They're going to HAVE to tweak the diplomatic AI. Fuck a bunch of the US jumping on the Axis in 1938 or Mexico going apeshit. Bad diplo AI + really good invasion UI = way ahistorical stuff. I get what they're doing because I got what they were doing when they transitioned to EU3: a way more open ended game that's still historically plausible. Unfortunately, the smaller the time frame the more you need to keep things on rails. They didn't do that with HOI3 and they're going to have to reign that in a little.

[Lum]

My fear, based on what they did with EU3, is that they don't consider it a problem if WW2 consists of Sweden and Brazil vs Turkey and Indonesia.

Oh. And there's a crippling bug with 1.1 where armies cause 4x the consumer good maintenance that they should. This causes a cascading economic collapse as the entire globe trades all their resource stockpiles for supplies, because they can't afford to build them due to the IC load of consumer goods, and then running out. Literally. As in, everyone by the second year builds nothing but consumer goods.

[Teleku]

Well, at least by pre-ordering, I received a steam copy of HOI2 with the two expansions for free

I never played Armageddon, but I just opened it up and its pretty cool.  The campaign world they made is very similar to one I kind of wanted to make if I wasn't so damn lazy.

[Lum]

IIRC the scenarios in the Armageddon mod aren't very playable. You run out of resources, by design, after about 3 months. This is to "encourage you to take someone else's" (except everyone else ran out, too).

[Teleku]

Rad 

[Rendakor]

Hmm, never played heard of the originals, or this until now, but it looks interesting. Might give the demo a whirl.

[Lum]

I posted a walkthrough on Q23 last year for taking over most of the world as the USSR in HOI2, might be worth a chuckle:

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=44726

[WindupAtheist]

Does it still have the "game ends in 1953 no matter what" rule in place? That, and the bugs that were supposed to creep up when it was modded away, kept me away from HOI2. Being America and beating up Germany, or whatever, isn't that interesting to me. I want to conquer the world with Bolivia or some shit, even if it takes 200 years.

Given the fact that nuclear ICBMs were part of the game, there wasn't really any reason it couldn't go right on into the present and beyond without the combat model seriously breaking down, except for that arbitrary limitation.

[Tannhauser]

I conquered most of S. America with Chile (damn you Brazil!) in HOI2.  I am going to pick 3 up, I like the series.  Interested in seeing how they do supply this time.  Also like the idea of AI running my armies under my command but I'm sure I'll zoom down and move things around as well.

[slog]

Oh. And there's a crippling bug with 1.1 where armies cause 4x the consumer good maintenance that they should. This causes a cascading economic collapse as the entire globe trades all their resource stockpiles for supplies, because they can't afford to build them due to the IC load of consumer goods, and then running out. Literally. As in, everyone by the second year builds nothing but consumer goods.

Is there a mod for this?

[Lum]

It's supposed to be hotfixed tomorrow.

[Tannhauser]

Ok, installed and patched the game no problem.  Game ran fine until I finally agreed to join Germany in their war against Nationalist and Communist China (!).  Now all my units in the production queue went to 0% and stay there, and all of my sliders in the Production window go to zero when I close the panel.   

[WindupAtheist]

I finally agreed to join Germany in their war against Nationalist and Communist China (!).

This is giving me "What the fuck do you mean North Korea invaded Venezuela?" Superpower 2 flashbacks.

[Ghambit]

Someone could make a decent chunk of change developing a nice 3rd party newbie-oriented tut. for this game. 
I saw ramblings on the forum that if you register your copy with Paradox you can get a free strat. guide though.  God knows it needs one.

[Teleku]

Yeah, taking me a bit to get the hang of the new stuff.  I'll probably wait a bit until its patched and then throw myself at it some more.  Should have known I'd need to try playing this when I had more free time to figure out wtf everything does.

The map looks pretty good once you bump the resolution to max.  I don't like the music in this one as much though :(

[ghost]

So, can anyone that has actually played this give it a thumbs up or down?  I'm guessing it is a turn based game.

[Lucas]

The map looks pretty good once you bump the resolution to max.  I don't like the music in this one as much though :(

Well, if there is the possibility of messing around with the music files (still have to purchase the game), and if you play one of the fascit/nazi dictatorships, you could download the various regime tunes/anthems they produced (this is especially true for Germany, Spain and Italy, of course) and put them in the appropriate directory. Add a whole new dimension 

[Dtrain]

So, can anyone that has actually played this give it a thumbs up or down?  I'm guessing it is a turn based game.

EU engine games work in a hybridized real time/turn based format. The game progresses in real time, but you can pause the action at any time to enact commands, then unpause and the action continues.

[Modern Angel]

This is giving me "What the fuck do you mean North Korea invaded Venezuela?" Superpower 2 flashbacks.

Nothing like that. It's just Japan being in the Axis and deciding to request help in the war.

[Ingmar]

The tutorial being narrated by Hitler is a bit tacky.

[Teleku]

But he was such an effective teacher!   

My eyes totally glossed over the Tutorial button, this being a paradox game and all, heh.  Guess I should give it a whirl and see if Hitler can teach me how to play this version...

[Lucas]

But he was such an effective teacher!   

My eyes totally glossed over the Tutorial button, this being a paradox game and all, heh.  Guess I should give it a whirl and see if Hitler can teach me how to play this version...

Yeah, do that and report back! Tell us if he is a...



Schnell, schnell!