ORIGINAL: Harrybanana
Though again I should add the caveat that I have never played HOI2 multiplayer and perhaps if I did perhaps I would find it more realistic. Has anyone played HOI2 mutiplayer and can they comment on this?
The fact is that Paradox is a great company with fantastic customer support, but they design their games primarily for multiplayer use and seem less concerned with having a competent AI. They choose to spend their development $ elsewhere and thats OK.
Mixed bag on the HoI multiplayer front in terms of realism, but certainly what you do not get against competent humans are nations that are far more easily overcome than they have any right to be, on the other hand you can get some pretty odd force compositions.
In fact I would say it's fairly well accepted that a game of Vanilla flavoured HoI/HoI2 begun in 1936 really does allow so much flexibility that you may get a total departure from anything like WWII.
However a significant part of this is under the player's control - through selection of historical or ahistorial options. Furthermore, if you play the 1939 scenario there will be a lot less flexibility and something a lot more like WWII. The highest level of realism however is achieved by using one of the outstanding mods such as CORE or HSR (Historical Stony Road). Couple those with a high difficulty level and you actually get something pretty realistic I venture. Many of the outlandish achievements and happenings reported are down to a combination of ahistorical play, vanilla HoI and low difficulty. Personally I can tell you that historical play, modded HoI and high difficulty can be combined to create a fairly faithful WWII experience.
Two things I'd say for the AI:
- In terms of challenge (for the developer making it) I would rate it above WitP because there are dozens upon dozens of countries (instead of 2), a longer time period, real time play and additional considerations like diplomacy & trade
- It does seem to improve from patch to patch
