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Sorry posting this on the general, normally should goto Paradox's Forum. But i dont go there anymore. I would like some feedbacks for those who play Heart of Iron 3 and 4 if they ever use the Black Ice Mods. Also like to hear about how you feel about it, good or bad or even the Paradox forum. The reasons i bought this up, cause i am having issues up and down on Steam's Forum and getting some positive and negative point of views there. So please dont flame the thread, thank you.

I played Black Ice a lot in HOI3, but didn't really do much with it in HOI4. In its HOI3 edition, I liked it because of the many different ways it allowed you to design your forces. Its tech trees and research options were very detailed and that's what turned a lot of people off. BI's detailed parsing of different kinds of equipment was also not liked by some players. To me, it was highly reminiscent of the famous CORE mod from HOI2, which was a big plus for me. I also though the play balance was good -- for my money, it was probably the best SP mod in HOI3.

For HOI4, I would suggest that you look at the Total War mod. The makers of that mod originally were a group who split off from the Black Ice. So if you compare the two, it is obvious that the basic blueprint of the two mods is the same. For example, a lot of the same thinking goes into divisional templates and the different kinds of equipment. Thankfully -- in my opinion, anyway -- they scaled back a bit Black Ice's really over-the-top differentiation of various kinds of equipment. Total War has also gone its own way with different nations' NF trees -- not to remake them completely, but there are visible differences. Same with the array of decisions available to different combatants.

Where I think Total War really shines is in terms of the effort they have put into improving the AI's behavior. Given how poorly the game engine's AI performs, of course, there's only so much any mod can do. But I find that I can get an interesting and (reasonably) challenging game, no matter which of the six major nations I play. I think that's a good reason to give it a spin.

Fully agree with Kriegsspieler above. I have around 3,000 hrs between HoI3 and HoI4, both with a variety of mods but mostly BICE for both games. HoI3 BICE just adds so much variety to division design, research, decisions, etc I simply cannot play anything else, even vanilla. However theres of course a lot to micro and I can definitely understand it being too much for some people. Campaigns can last dozens of hours depending on the nation. The crashing and AI deficiencies you just have to put up with, theres only so much the modders can do with such an old game.

HoI4 BICE is also decent fun in my opinion. Sometimes it feels like theres almost too much equipment to manage though. I've played a bit of Total War and i think it strikes a very nice balance between BICE and vanilla levels of detail and granularity.

As for the paradox forums and its inhabitants I dont know. I only go there to get the mods.

Interesting, i remember playing one Black Ice Mod, for HoI3, the time HoI4 came out and wasnt happy with it. So i did played that BIce on HoI3 for awhile and wasnt too impress with it. Noticed alot of things doesnt fit in there, but i did manage to get in touch with some devs that were working on it. So when explaining some important details, they didnt seem friendly to me and it was like if you dont like it, then GTFO lol.

Not sure what it is like now, but i was trying to help them to get it setup properly in the Pacific. Since i have good knowledge how the Pacific is for more than 35 years of research, etc. I know some didnt like it and some do, but there was some bad times back then when they release HoI4 on Paradox. I even had a fight with a mod/dev on the HoI4 too, but i didnt start it, was only trying to help them.

One of the most basic issues that HOI faces is the balance between historical accuracy and sandboxey alt history. HOI2 (and especially the CORE mod) were kind of their epitome of historical scripting, using a lot of events to drive the action. I may be mis-remebering the sequence, but I believe it was from the CORE mod that the really superb spin-off game Arsenal of Democracy was created. Since then, HOI has evolved in more of a Europa Universalis direction, where you can take on different second- or third-tier countries and try to guide them through the war. I really dislike this myself, since it causes Paradox to put more effort into creating alt-history NF trees for countries like Latvia and Turkey than revising the way that the major countries are set up and played. But that's clearly where a lot of players want to see things go.

Anyway, I mention all this because I think Black Ice has never been particularly dedicated to strict historical accuracy, except to the extent that they want the proper aircraft and armored vehicles in the tech trees, sporting more or less accurate stats. With other parts of the game setup, such as resource distribution, accuracy often makes way for playability.

Kriegsspieler wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 1:17 pm One of the most basic issues that HOI faces is the balance between historical accuracy and sandboxey alt history. HOI2 (and especially the CORE mod) were kind of their epitome of historical scripting, using a lot of events to drive the action. I may be mis-remebering the sequence, but I believe it was from the CORE mod that the really superb spin-off game Arsenal of Democracy was created. Since then, HOI has evolved in more of a Europa Universalis direction, where you can take on different second- or third-tier countries and try to guide them through the war. I really dislike this myself, since it causes Paradox to put more effort into creating alt-history NF trees for countries like Latvia and Turkey than revising the way that the major countries are set up and played. But that's clearly where a lot of players want to see things go.

Anyway, I mention all this because I think Black Ice has never been particularly dedicated to strict historical accuracy, except to the extent that they want the proper aircraft and armored vehicles in the tech trees, sporting more or less accurate stats. With other parts of the game setup, such as resource distribution, accuracy often makes way for playability.

Ah that make sense, yeah having some issues on HoI3 at Steam's Forum and was asking about what is the best historical mods for HoI3. So some kept saying BIce and sadly i didnt like it. Others said the same thing and they kept flaming my thread over there. When i mention how chaos it was helping them setting up BIce for historical setups for the Pacific, it was like GTFO here lol. So one or two of those BIce fans or devs, wanted proofs. Well i dont hang out on Paradox anymore, i remember back then when HoI4 came out, was upset how they are handling things and was trying to help. It was like, GTFO as well. Even the moderators on that forum was bad too.

So that the reasons i post this here, most serious wargamers hang out here instead of Paradox and i remember reading some threads they hated Paradox or the forum situations. Idk it was bad times back then when HoI4 came out and it was messy.

I tried the BICE and Kaiserreich mods for HOI4 and eventually gave up on the game. Whether Vanilla or BICE, it was pitifully easy to take out Japan (I don't remember how Kaiserreich played out). If I fire up HOI4 again, I'll give Total War a shot. Thanks for the tip, Kriegsspieler.

EDIT: The Paradox forums aren't too impressive. Luckily, with mods being on Steam, there's no reason to go on their forums any more.

Cheers,
CB

CaptBeefheart wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:35 am I tried the BICE and Kaiserreich mods for HOI4 and eventually gave up on the game. Whether Vanilla or BICE, it was pitifully easy to take out Japan (I don't remember how Kaiserreich played out). If I fire up HOI4 again, I'll give Total War a shot. Thanks for the tip, Kriegsspieler.

EDIT: The Paradox forums aren't too impressive. Luckily, with mods being on Steam, there's no reason to go on their forums any more.

Cheers,
CB

Yeah i feel the same way, i dont go there either. But some mods that you have to sign in to download it or add comments to it. Oh well, maybe can find these mods elsewhere. Was told the Downfall is pretty good for HoI3, though give it a shot when i get a chance. Sorry guys i didnt like BIce mods, just isnt historical accurate setups, esp in the Pacific Theater.