Hearts of Iron 2

If your looking for the best video game for first person action then Battlefield 1942 is best.

But i would say the most detailed and accurate game out that one could play reflecting WW2 is Hearts of Iron 2
Link to Hearts of Iron 2 website

It is a real time macro WW2 strategy game. The player picks any country that existed during WW2; whether it be Germany or Mexico, Soviet Union or Argentina, USA or Poland, etc. The player then controls production of units, (infantry, aircraft, ships, armor, many others) placement of units, movement, and large scale combat operations. The player controls diplomacy and trade. (resources and money is the foundation to your industrial base) The player controls politics meaning you can slowly make the country you control more authoritatian or more democratic...more interventionalist or more isolationist. The player controls research in technology and military doctrin to make your military modern and more effective.

There are so many other aspects to it i can't put it all in here. Check out the website. They are coming out with Hearts of Iron 2 Doomsday which is an expansion of HOI2 but includes HOI2 along with the expansion. The only things new i think is that the game is extended into the 50's and adds a few extra units and stuff.

If you are looking for an open ended long term game about WW2 this is it.
Fight a game that models WW2 and try to conquer the Soviet Union or play an a-historical game and mold it so that the UK and Germany ally and attack the Soviet Union.

I'm currently playing as France and having a rough time defending the Belgian border but i THINK i should probably be able to prevent France from being conquered. I dunno, it's tough, but that's what makes it fun!

I guess the only problem is that it is SOOO addictive that your wife or girlfriend will probably get jealous of the time you're giving it and you'll probably never get anything done around the house haha!
Click here for screenshots

[ 18. April 2006, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: Ron ]

 

Yeah, I've wanted to get this game, but I just can't seem to get into strategy games. But I may try this one after all

 

I guess if you don't like the slowness of strategy games it probably isn't for you. If you were someone who liked to buy those avalon hill strategy board games or something like the Axis and Allies board game then this game is right up your ally.


Sigh, so much for my time as France. I had several divisions but after constant combat and inferior combat doctrins compared to the germans a big bulk of my army got encircled effectively ending my war. Oh well.

 

I have Hearts of Iron 2. And the first one And EU2 (same deal, just from 1400s - 1800s i think, includes something like 200 - 400 countries you can play as - go Zulu!). But yes, HOI2 is very extensive as far as gameplay. Might take a while to get used to it if its your first time. For instance, the Tech Tree is HUGE! The cool thing about it is (lets say you are playing as the USA) you have 5 spots for technology research. You can research all sorts of weapons, rocketry, doctrines, assmebly-line production, etc. Each technology has a few icons next to it (resembling the components in it or something like that). But before you begin researching, you have to assing a company to do the research (Smith and Wesson, for instance, or General Electric). Each company has a few icons associated with it too, which gives them a bonus/faster research time if what they are researching shares the same icons.

The map covers the entire world, each country is split up into numerous little areas (for movement purposes, front lines, industrialization, etc). Dependong which country you are, you can also change your governmental officials (if they can be replaced) which gives you advantages in some areas, or disadvantages in others. One thing i dislike about the game is that when you want to make an alliance, you either have to be with the Allies, Commitern (aka the Russians), or the Axis - nothing else. I am not sure if there any mods for the game or not. In HOI i liked to play as Yugoslavia.

I've also played Online with a friend once or twice, and would love to give it another go. I pick Italy of course, and my friends picks Germany - share technology that way and make the Italians a stronger fighting force. Anyone want to give it a shot let me know and we'll figure it out.

 

How does one complete an online game? Do you have to play for like 8 hours or something crazy? You can't just quit and save an online game i would guess.

Overall i love the game. A few of the things i dislike a lot are:
Allying is also kind of difficult, i think i had max positive relations with UK and i was US and still the chance of allying with them was 0%. Although that was my first game so maybe i was dioing something wrong?

The next thing is aircraft are a bit difficult to use, they frequently bomb the wrong province since the are assigned orders according to region rather than province.

 

You guys are giving me some good reasons to try this game. I'as still not sure if I can get over the "point and click" part of most strategy games, but I think i wanna try this. I'am a big 1st person (BF2) fan, but wish there were more of a strategy part of it. And that's where strategy games come in. What game that I found awsome was SuperPower. Minus all the bugs, but that had a great idea...just wish they would of ironed out all the bugs.
And yes how do you play online?

 

I think if you update to the latest patch that could fix itself out. As far as allying with the UK as the US, i think you have to wait until the Pearl Harbor event or until you go to war. The US has restrictions placed on it until a certain date (just like Germany and Russia have to go to war at a certain date) to prevent it from turning into an undefeatable Nation.

I do believe that you can Save an Online game. Its best to work out teams, strategy, rules, etc befor ethe game starts.

Another thing not mentioned is that you can control game speed. I like to slow this down to as slow as it go (1 month a minute or something) when War Errupts. Better reaction time and better chance of coordinating an attack with Allies and the like. I'll be home in a little over a week (where i believe i left my CD) so if anyone is interestered we can try the online thing then.

 

Yeah i like to slow time down pretty slow too. I think during war i slow it down to "below normal" speed.
But i'm play France starting in 1936 so i had the time set on very fast, it was kind of nice actually because research seemed so fast!

This time i'm trying a new approach. I think i'm going to just have to allow Belgium to get swallowed up by Germany, moving into Belgium didn't help me very muuch last time.
Also i'm extending the maginot line all the way to the atlantic.
Poland was just invaded and my land fortification levels in the new maginot line provinces are at level 8 (10 is max i think) and should be at 10 shortly.
Then hopefully i can upgrade and advance my military as well as build it up and then finally start thinking about offensives.

I wonder if the Germans are stalled at the border with France Germany will stil attack Russia? Or maybe Russia will attack Germany?

From some of the comments on the HOI2 forums it seems like the eastern front war starts eventually somehow.

 

I have a question. I'am looking to buying this game, and I was wondering that both in single , and multiplayer modes are the battles scripted?

In other words, If I choose, Germany as my country, and decided not to attack Russia and attack let's say, britian, is that possible? Or your options limited, where the game limits you to what you can do?

Another example is if I choose Russia and I invaded germany before germany invaded me?

Any info would help as I'am looking to buy this game, and I don't want to waste my hard earned money. lol

 

You can do ANYTHING you like. There are lots of other factors involved (read over the website and forums previously listed, or google it) but some key events are scripted to happen. On the same note, you also get to pick the outcome of some events. I think one event for the US is whether FDR gets elected or his opponent. It changes political orientatiion and other things. But yes, Germany could start the war early and try and invade Britain. The game doesnt play out historically every time. For instance, i played as Communist China and wiped out Nationalist China and some minor Chinese factions. When the Japanese attack via Manchuria, i managed to counterattack and kick them out of mainland Asia.

 

Nice!!

I've been seacching the games forums, and reading reviews and such. It looks good, big, but good.

Thanks.

One more thing. How does multiplayer work? I play BF2 online all the time, and that's the only way i know how to play online. So I have no idea how to play a strat game online?

That's an answer I can't seem to find on the many forums.
Any info on this will determine if i buy this game.
Thanks

 

I think it has its own server (i imagine BF2 is similied to COD) so when you open it up it lists games. Otherwise you might want to search the Forums again for Multiplayer and find an opponent that way. I suggest playing the game as the US or UK in SinglePlayer mode before you even think about Multiplayer though. Its not one of those games that is always meant to be played on Multiplayer (like an FPS is) and stand-alone, the replayability is basically limitless (all those countries, different game every time).

 

oh neat! I get what your saying about the "replayability" But I like the idea of playing another human. Human players tend to make more mistakes than AI and it's just more fun (in BF2 anyway) playing online.

I think your right, I won't try online for awhile as the learning curve is high. Plus I don't want to get laughed at by others LOL.

Thanks again

 

I would suggest that if you do buy the game play the computer AI first before playing online players.
There is a lot to learn and i would suspect that online players would be pretty settled in the ways of play.
This is a game that requires a bit of time to get accustomed to.
Lots of tiny details that aren't exactly spelled out in the manual and only learned by playing or reading questions on the forum or the HOI2 wiki.

Actually let me provide you a link to that. It is a help site for this game:
http://hoi2.nsen.ch/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

I have actually never played online. I find the AI to be fun enough and there are so many variables that the games are always different even against the computer.

I played as Japan but never attacked the US so i was able to Capture the Dutch east Indies, Singapore, Burma, India and China.

I played as china and was able to invade Japan (although it wasn't until 1948 or something lol)

Presently i'm playing as France and am stalemated with Germany on the Belgian and German border. I extended the maginot line so the German's never actually invaded France and the both of us are just sitting on the border with not much for us to do.
I'm trying to figure out a way to get into Italy but Germany took over defence on the Italian border with France so i think i might be stalemated there too.

I moved most of my colonial divisions back to France for defence only leaving a small contingent in North Africa. Italy promptly took advantage of this and captured most of my colonies and pushed me into one beachhead. Luckily my British AI ally landed 4 divisions there to help me. I finally attempted a breakout and the British computer player ended up helping me out and i was thus able to recapture all significant captured territories and encircle and destroy just about all the Italian divisions that had me loosly encircled. (You can't tell your computer allies to help you but they usually end up assisting you in some way)

So now i'm thinking of trying to land troops somewhere in mainland Italy, but that is a bit of a risk because one needs quite a bit of force to make a successful beach landing and the Italians and German's have air superiority, so i have a bit of work to do.

 

Thanks Ron!
"Italy promptly took advantage of this and captured most of my colonies and pushed me into one beachhead."

That brings up a question for me (sorry to bug you).

If you were playing that situation in "multiplayer" (where you moved most of your colonial divisions back to France), who's to say that your player you are playing against would of saw that and reacted accordinly? Where as the AI reacted to it, not because it was of interest but because "it happened" [you taking divisions away].

Maybe I'am not thinking right, but it just seems that the AI see's everything and it seems like if develop a great strategy to surprise them, it won't work.
I'am crazy in thinking that?

 

In Multiplayer, not every country has a player behind it. Generally people set the AI Difficulty higher so it proves more of a challenge (ie. my example of Italy/Germany having players and helping each other out). Of course, the more players in a multiplayer game, the more a-historical it will get. lots of different strategies to use. neutral countries can pick a side etc.

Like you, the AI can only see into provinces that it borders or has troops in. Chances are the AI saw the withdrawal and continued to advance not coming under any resistance. A human Player, depending on what his goals are, might react the same way but most of the African Colonies dont produce much of anything so it might not even be worth it.

Now, i cant wait to get home in a little over a week and play the game before i go away for half the summer! One of those cravings...

 

lol i am completely obsessed with it, my wife is getting mad haha. I'm spending too much time with it!
I have to confess that i play with a cheat, i use the "nofog" cheat because i am convinced that the AI plays with no fog as well. I forget what it was but the several games i played with fog on the computer did things that just din't make any sense unless they could see through the fog.

 

ahhh ha...I know it LOL.

I've decided to buy it...now I"am just trying to find a cheap price to it....I hope I like it...

 

Maybe you should wait until doomsday comes out. It is the expansion to HOI2. I would guess that all future patches will be made for it rather than HOI2. And when you buy Doomsday it comes with HOI2.
It may actually be out out i'm no sure?
But hey i have HOI2 and don't really have any intentions to buy Doomsday.

If you do buy the game i have 2 suggestions.
1. Make sure you update your game to at least patch 1.3a available for download at the game's website.
2. download new icons for you units. The game's icon's are pretty dry and non detailed. There are many out there that give great flavor to your game.
An example is
http://www.stonyroad.de/forum/showthread.php?t=2257

 

Hey thanks!

I've thought of buying "Doomsday", but it's alot more money that the normal game. I maybe wrong in saying that. I've seen doomsday for sale so it's out already.