Hearts Of Iron III + DLC...

[Grimreapo]

...is on sale on steam but I am not sure I should get it, as much as I like Paradox games after EUIII they seemed to be taking a more anti-player stance to make the game artificially harder (key example would be how Infamy does not scale with country size, how you cannot out-manoeuvre armies thanks to them "bonucing" through yours and making France too much of total bastard). I enjoyed Victoria 2 even though a lot of it makes little sense (like how none of the big empire fall apart and how South American countries always rule the industrialist scores) and the HoI3 demo seems nice but I hated the sprites which showed Tiger tanks in '39 and I was not a fan about how much DLC came out for it (people on the Total War foumrs moan about CA DLC even though Paradox does much more of it). That said I can get all of it for

 

[C_Gibby]

If you're into WW2 and "grand strategy" games, I say get it.

Though I've got it and I get these wierd annoying crashes. What gives? (Windows 7 64bit user here).

 

[Actin]

I have the same consideration as Gibby above but with a different reasoning behind it.

I actually love EUIII (still playing the mod MEIOU which I adore) and got an official 200 hours with it (due to non-steam meiou that would be around 600-800), however the other grand-strategy I played I did not really like.

Darkest hour, Supreme commander, Vicky2, etc. I bought them all but they all were just too complicated for now reason (like making raven shield without the added fun) and such. I don't care about individual ministers or be extremely exact about how literate my people are.

Question for me is: Will I have fun with HoI III when I like EUIII, but also will it be a nice addition or will I quickly get sick of some features (like in the other games) and revert to EUIII?
Educated guesses are welcome and even mandatory with these questions

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

I have to say that if I had the time, HOI 3 would be great for me. I used to love the old (70's, 80's) Avalon Hill board games and the grand strategy is something I love. I say 'time' because I have the tendency to micro-manage Everything and have only played it twice; once as Poland and the other time as Finland.

 

[Grimreapo]

I have the same consideration as Gibby above but with a different reasoning behind it.

I actually love EUIII (still playing the mod MEIOU which I adore) and got an official 200 hours with it (due to non-steam meiou that would be around 600-800), however the other grand-strategy I played I did not really like.

Darkest hour, Supreme commander, Vicky2, etc. I bought them all but they all were just too complicated for now reason (like making raven shield without the added fun) and such. I don't care about individual ministers or be extremely exact about how literate my people are.

Question for me is: Will I have fun with HoI III when I like EUIII, but also will it be a nice addition or will I quickly get sick of some features (like in the other games) and revert to EUIII?
Educated guesses are welcome and even mandatory with these questions

I was thinking of modding EUIII as I hate how in all of the post EUIII games countries tend to just form invincible blobs in the late game as they have the gradual decline cycle of Empires (Expand->Reduced Treasure->Need to Expand for teasure->Expand) backwards into a positive cycle of never-ending expansion with massive armies. If anything Victoria II was not as complex as I wanted, well, depending who you play as because if you played the Great Powers there was always something you could be doing through events but if you played as anything but a great power (and the joy of Paradox games is to play as the little guy) then you will spending most of your time waiting for your Bad Boy score to go down, the lack of a espionage system also really hurts the game when playing as a lesser power.

Hm, I'll get it as one of the DLCs in the package has mini-campagins which are always fun. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Nezzer]

Get Arsenal of Democracy (improved HoI2) instead of HoI3. HoI2 is still a lot better than HoI3 IMHO.

 

[Kugyi]

I bought Collections on GG a few days ago so I got the useless spritepacks as well. I'll never see those sprites beacuse real men use counters. Started a game as the Soviet Union, steamrolled the Finns therefore I felt like a demigod but ragequitted when the Germans smashed my defences (Why?) and my plan to take Romania quickly failed. I still suck at this game I guess. I spent hours organising my armies.

I own Victoria II and EU III as well. The vanilla games have ridiculous maps (Eastern Europe and the Balkan is a mess usually). PDM is a great mod for Victoria II btw I recommend it.

 

[Grimreapo]

PDM? Gonna have to ask for link and ask what does it does, as I really want to love Viccy 2 but its so annoying sometimes...

 

[Xendance]

I bought Collections on GG a few days ago so I got the useless spritepacks as well. I'll never see those sprites beacuse real men use counters. Started a game as the Soviet Union, steamrolled the Finns therefore I felt like a demigod but ragequitted when the Germans smashed my defences (Why?) and my plan to take Romania quickly failed. I still suck at this game I guess. I spent hours organising my armies.

I own Victoria II and EU III as well. The vanilla games have ridiculous maps (Eastern Europe and the Balkan is a mess usually). PDM is a great mod for Victoria II btw I recommend it.

Germans probably had a more mechanized army with better doctrine techs. Mechanization reduces the softness of the divisions, meaning they take less damage from non-AT weapons
Plus historically speaking they're supposed to break through your lines. But eventually the germans run out of supply because of the winter and other infrastructure problems.

 

[Kugyi]

PDM? Gonna have to ask for link and ask what does it does, as I really want to love Viccy 2 but its so annoying sometimes...

POP Demand Mod. Well it changes nearly everything. Better map, new events and descisions a Great War system (not The Great War but great wars (you can change the world drastically in 1 war) the economy is rehauled and so on.
Link:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?562-POP-Demand-Mod

Germans probably had a more mechanized army with better doctrine techs. Mechanization reduces the softness of the divisions, meaning they take less damage from non-AT weapons
Plus historically speaking they're supposed to break through your lines. But eventually the germans run out of supply because of the winter and other infrastructure problems.

Well I expected breakthroughs but they smashed me everywhere. My infantry division usually has 3 infantry and 1 artillery. Guess I need more 3 infantry 1 AT ones. Plus the Germans managed to attack me in spring( I was as surprised as Uncle Joe IRL but should've expected it they took Yugoslavia and Greece in '40) but hope they supply will still fail near Smolensk.

Khakhin Gol didn't happen (I don't know why) the Chasan Lake event fired but now I haven't got a non-aggression pact with Japan. I hope they will attack me and leave the US out of the war so I can steamroll Europe later.

 

[SeppLainer]

I recently got this on the steam sale...I had no previous experience with this franchise, and only limited Grand Strat experience prior...but I figured I'd really like it since I am l33t pr0 on Company of Heroes and do rather well on "tactical" games, and just like everyone that's ever played COH or RO, I'm clearly a professional ww2 historian with a clear bias for the fatherland...

Yet...

I'm kinda dissapointed...

It seems way to complicated and too shrouded in fine details for every aspect except the actual combat...not cool for a "video game"...this is tkaing some getting used to.


Don't get me wrong, I actually find the game extremely addictive, but it is just so overwelming with the amount of micromanagement needed on seemingly irrelevant and unnecessary features and concepts...


And for the lulz I've spent countless hours turning 1936 germany from being a fascist police state into a free market economic powerhouse that trades freely and openly with the USA, USSR, and the UK...I've manged to run a massive surplus of everything...


A surplus I will use to destroy them...muahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahah\


For just a few dollars on steam sale it's very worth it...but I would have been extremely dissatisfied if it were $30 or something...but I'm just getting used to the grand strat experience..

 

[I. Kant]

Yeah, get it. Have a long lasting love for HoI series, but right now my stance on Paradox games is to wait until all DLC are out (typically 2-3 a game) and then get it on a sale.

HoI3 with For The Motherland is really good. I am especially pleased with espionage (you can finally see it's really worthwhile; as France, currently, I did not let Spanish Civil War to ever happen, as well as keeping Italy from joining Axis and dragging Hungary into Allies), the improved governments in exile and partisan options, wargoals...

Get it. It's a pita to micromanage everything, however, so my current stance is to let the AI handle most secondary fronts (AI control on Army Group level here) and focus on the important bits. It's a thing of accepting AI's incompetence/ lack of vision. Of course, no fun in letting it all play by itself, but there's a whole lot of fun to be had by using Army Group/ Army level AI. Especially now, when FTM introduced info about pending invasions. It shows up in the theatres window, so not overtly visible, unless you go looking for that info, but it helps to know your AI allies are staging an invasion here or there and the kind of forces they'll be involving.

Such a time sink, however, so be warned.

 

[Unterscharfuhrer]

I really like it but without a few patches its unplayable!

Darkest Hour is really good to and offers a WW1 Scenario that really rocks!