Originally posted by Spooky Well, HOI is not really a wargame for grognard ... it is a global strategy game in which war is of course a major component ... like R&D, economy end even diplomacy !
Right now, it is an enjoyable game even if the AI needs to be tweaked and some bugs to be solved. However, since the Paradox "after-release game support" is as good as the Matrix one, I think the situation will be quickly improved !
Moreover, nearly all the elements of the game are easily "modable" so some players (ie : Bolt) are now looking for ways to get a better UK or China AI, some OOB changes or stats units changes .
To sum up, it is right now quite a good game and I am confident that the next patch(es) ... and some community-made mods ... will improve it to a really GREAT game
Spooky
There has been a lot of discussion on the AoW forum about this game and they have convinced me to give it a try. I hope it does improve to be a great game.
"If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lig
Only thing keeping me from playing HoI is that it's RTS and not turn based and that it insists on letting you play all the schmuck nations, where all I want is US Britain France Russia Germany Italy and Japan.
Sure the contributions of the whole were needed, but I don't want to play the game where a Waftist Egypt conquers Britain. I wouldn't even indulge that in a science fiction story.
I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.
I just got the game yesterday, with just a perusal so far. It doesn't look that terribly complicated to me, as everything seems to stem for anywhere between 4-7 command paths.
One thing I hate to see though, is that on their BB a number of people complain that GE, or whatever nation, shouldn't be able to build so much of this or that by 1939 for example. What they fail to realize, and it's a tragic blindness to say the least, is that the game attempts to answer the question that if certain nations did things differently than they did, what would have happened. Now maybe you could follow the precise path a nation did and come up with very poor results, but I can't see it possible that someone could come up with totally understanding that game on the one hand, and have thorough access to that nations's historic records and translate that into games terms, other than if you're the programmers perhaps. In any event if GE for example were building the naval program and economics in the pre-war years, far greater than you did, while you went all out for the army, then who's fault is it that GE has too great an army? And until you know precisely what GE did and where they put everything, you cannot begin to criticise the game designers for something you don't know yourself.
On a lesser note, I see people also criticise how a certain tank or plane wasn't available by a certain date, but, then again, if you've no idea what amount of manpower and research went into a weapon coming available when it did, you have no way to reasonably claim that the weapon's availability couldn't have come out by that time. I thought about the basic argument about Panthers coming out when they did wouldn't have occured if the GE's hadn't invaded the USSR and thereby discovered the T34 was a pretty goos argument, but on second thought I don't like that line of reasoning either. All we know for sure, is that historically that was the case, but what we don't know is virtual-history so to speak. Sure, in game terms, maybe the Panther becomes available a lot earlier because you put a massive amount of research into tanks that GE did not, be that the game design fault or not, but then again if GE hadn't encountered the T34, maybe, just maybe, they would've designed a much better airplane for example. The game attempts to do this. The eternal question of what could've happened is attempted to be answered in that game. It's probably not the fault of the game if something became available a lot earlier then it did, but that you have no idea just what every specific nation put into the research in given areas, and then are far out-pacing your historic counterparts. Maybe one of the men that died during bombing on some HQ in France is the same one who would've came up with a radical new design for tanks that the Panther would've paled in comparison. Another angle comes to me at the moment, specifically about this Panther availability thing. Suppose for example that your GE had conquered one more nation, let alone twice as much, as the RL GE. What if in the RL GE, not conquering Sweden, there was a spy there who would've got you the T34 information fresh off the designers's desk, but because the RL GE didn't annex them they never knew of the T34 till later? When you start arguing history with a largely hypothetical game, you better have all your bases covered, and if you so much as conquered one nation more than the historic counterpart did, or one less, or at different times (and one needn't even get into research differences as I did earlier), then you have very little grounds for saying that the Panther couldn't have been available earlier.
Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1 Only thing keeping me from playing HoI is that it's RTS and not turn based and that it insists on letting you play all the schmuck nations, where all I want is US Britain France Russia Germany Italy and Japan.
Sure the contributions of the whole were needed, but I don't want to play the game where a Waftist Egypt conquers Britain. I wouldn't even indulge that in a science fiction story.
Well, you can play minor players ... but they are uninteresting except Finland and the major CW nations such as Canada or Australia (+ neutral powers such as Brazil)
BTW, the "Real time" tag is not really accurate - it is rather a "continuous time" and it is well implemented. There is nothing similar between HOI and a true RTS like C&C or Sudden Strike since you can pause whenever you like and configure your game to pause whenever an event happens (ie : land or naval combat, tech discovery, ...)
Spooky: Yeah, during my perusal yesterday, I left it on the slowest time, which is hourly. I think an hour passes about every three seconds at that rate, and I love that. It reminds me of one of the better things I liked about BTR; the ability to make things go real fast or real slow. There's nothing like the feel of unlimited turns or fly-by-night turns being entirely at your disposal. The hourly turns really give you the feeling that you're practically real-time and that the enemy is just creeping up on the borders, but, then again, I'm in those first look throws that people get into so easily and my imagination is pretty potent there.
In a game about a 6 year (in some tellings) long war, at the global grand strategy level, what the blue blazes is the point of the design being hourly?
I would object to it being weekly just as strongly.
The war to some was even more than 6 years. Good god I don't have the time to do the math to get an idea of how many hours long WW2 was.
Hourly might be handy for battles like the Bulge or Midway, but it was a pointless venture for the whole damned war.
You launch an air strike against London and it takes several hour increments to resolve. I have patience, but I would kinda like to resolve those sorts of details with "either it works or doesn't" resolutions.
The designer must think root canal is stimulating.
I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.
Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1 Question...
In a game about a 6 year (in some tellings) long war, at the global grand strategy level, what the blue blazes is the point of the design being hourly?
I would object to it being weekly just as strongly.
The war to some was even more than 6 years. Good god I don't have the time to do the math to get an idea of how many hours long WW2 was.
Hourly might be handy for battles like the Bulge or Midway, but it was a pointless venture for the whole damned war.
You launch an air strike against London and it takes several hour increments to resolve. I have patience, but I would kinda like to resolve those sorts of details with "either it works or doesn't" resolutions.
The designer must think root canal is stimulating.
Thing is Les, time is entirely scalable depending on what is happening in the game. I'll admit it Im slow thinking, but believe you me when you have battle raging all around and 20 messages a second coming in you need to turn the speed down.
When action quietens down again turn it up, easy really , and quite unique.
Slightly off topic, I always knew USSR was big ,but this game its immense!!!! Its taking me ages to conquer the whole country, and thats just a case of mopping up now.
If you want a "better" way of appreciating the scope of defeating Russia and want a good game to show it try getting a copy of Fire in the East as well as the Urals expansion maps from the Europa series.
For my money though, the game loses out on so many aspects, which you might not yet have experienced.
It is a great deal more than just about an AI that grade 6 girl could beat, or the fact that the time scale belongs in a colonising simulation, not a wargame of a specific time period.
I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.
Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1 If you want a "better" way of appreciating the scope of defeating Russia and want a good game to show it try getting a copy of Fire in the East as well as the Urals expansion maps from the Europa series.
Again I'll say if you want a good intense game about the Russo/German war I suggest getting "Russo/German War". Simple and clean but a real challenge.
“You're only young once but you can be immature for as long as you want”
I have russo-German War. I am having a hard time getting into it, but it has all the right stuff. If you have any problems or even just game questions, the designer has an email listed and he answers as fast as he can. Never had to wait more than a day for an answer for the two problems and 2 game questions I had.
Hearts of Iron will need some major tweaking in my opinion. Seems for example that when Austria allows Germany to Annex it you tend to get war with Britian and France, but France cant fight its way out of a wet brown paper bag. Even screwing up and not replacing my low level command Generals with the right level ones I crushed France in about a month. Opted for Vichy France in 1937. 2 other games I quit when Germany was attacked that early.
I really dont like the economic model either. But that is just a personal opinion.
Originally posted by Twotribes I have russo-German War. I am having a hard time getting into it, but it has all the right stuff. If you have any problems or even just game questions, the designer has an email listed and he answers as fast as he can. Never had to wait more than a day for an answer for the two problems and 2 game questions I had.
Well be sure and hang in there, once you grasp the gist of the game you will find it to be a very good game. It's one of those games that has lots and lots of simple "rules" but they all gel together and produce a fairly intricate game. Just keep playing the small scenarios and before you know it, you will see the big picture.
So what were some of the questions you had?
“You're only young once but you can be immature for as long as you want”
I didnt understand how to convert rail lines, couldnt find it in the rules anywhere. Humm what was that second question?
I use win xp and had some trouble getting the game to run, ended up putting it in a win 98 sim I think. The rivers are impossible to see unless they go through some colored background and the units ( German and especially Finnish) are hard to read. Still cant read the Finnish air and sea units, just one big white blob with some darkish gibberish in places.
My poor Finns are always forgotten, I click on the finish button and then go DUH, I forgot again LOL.
Two of the cycles puts you in a corner of the map, one confused the crap out of me, had to play with for 3 start overs before I figured out I was in top left corner of map.
And it took a few moments to figure out how to click what so I could get the computer to do its full turn rather than one unit at a time.
I like it, just having trouble getting into playing it.
Originally posted by Twotribes I didnt understand how to convert rail lines, couldnt find it in the rules anywhere. Humm what was that second question?
I use win xp and had some trouble getting the game to run, ended up putting it in a win 98 sim I think. The rivers are impossible to see unless they go through some colored background and the units ( German and especially Finnish) are hard to read. Still cant read the Finnish air and sea units, just one big white blob with some darkish gibberish in places.
My poor Finns are always forgotten, I click on the finish button and then go DUH, I forgot again LOL.
Two of the cycles puts you in a corner of the map, one confused the crap out of me, had to play with for 3 start overs before I figured out I was in top left corner of map.
And it took a few moments to figure out how to click what so I could get the computer to do its full turn rather than one unit at a time.
I like it, just having trouble getting into playing it.
Interesting. I haven't had those problems. I'll have to double check on that rail conversion thing. The game does have a learning curve, but not too much. The more I play around with it the more I appreciate the way everything works together.
“You're only young once but you can be immature for as long as you want”
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