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Apparently there's a new expansion to Hearts of Iron: Doomsday called Armageddon. Knowing that there are a bunch of players here, I was wondering if anyone had played it. If people have, how is it? Is it worth the five (or is it ten) bucks to download?

I think it's about 10 bucks.

From what I've heard, it adds things like the ability to build a division with a brigade already attached, and changes naval combat a bit. It also breaks most mods so if I get it I'll wait until my favorites have Armageddon versions.

How does it change naval combat?

Sorry, I meant air combat. It changes the rates your squadrons lose strength, probably so you don't get a squadron obliterated on its first run anymore.

Armageddon costs $5, can only be obtained via download at Gamersgate.com, and only works for Doomsday. You can read about it from the developers themselves or you can read the list I've made below.

Changes:

-Adds a fantasy scenario. At first glance it might look like Alt-History but it isn't, and they're not even calling it so. There are about 15 roughly equal nations. You can start with all nations as part on of three alliances and all alliances at war with the other two, or you can start with a completely neutral political situation. It's mostly geared toward multi-player, but it works if you want an interesting world conquest game with the HoI2 engine.

-The game's end date has been pushed back to 1964 if the player so desires. This is for benefit of modders, there are no new techs, events, leaders, etc. associated with the extension.

-Adds selectable options to allow usage of 100% of a conquered nation's IC as well as allowing Democratic nations to declare war at whim.

-Adds five new one-use (once attached cannot be de-attached) brigades for warships. It is now possible to upgrade obsolete ships, albeit in a limited fashion.

-It is now possible to build divisions with already attached brigades.

-Naval combat restructured. Smaller fleets are very hard to spot, making surface raiders viable. Naval bombers have been nerfed to more realistic levels, you will hopefully no longer have Italy's NAVs sending half the Royal Navy to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

-Air combat restructured. Finally someone at Paradox noticed that in aerial combat, squadrons lose aircraft, which is better represented by strength losses and some loss of organization than org loss almost exclusively. Also, now escorting your bombers or gaining air superiority is vital for their survival. Otherwise they will get shot down.

-New diplomatic option, you can request that allied nations not send you expeditionary forces. No longer will your TC and supplies be nuked because Hungary handed over its entire army to you.

-As with every dammed thing Paradox releases, it's full of bugs. Their beta testing sucks, end of story. However, they always fix their shit eventually. In fact, there's already one patch out.

First, it's pretty compatible with the Small Enhancements Project mod, and the Determined AI Mod, which are mainly what I use. Second, I like most of the changes; they all work well. Third, it's filled with bugs. A patch and an unofficial hotfix are already out.

-Adds selectable options to allow usage of 100% of a conquered nation's IC as well as allowing Democratic nations to declare war at whim.

Meh, I kinda like that Democratic nations can't just declare war. Its not their MO. The 100% IC is nice, but I hope it takes a long time. I'd perfer to see conquered territories slowly ramp on to, but never fully reach 100% (of course building new industry should yield the full 1IC, so in a game that goes all the way to '64 you could basically absorb a nation. It does, however, kinda de-value some minster types.

What I'd really like is the ability to gain leaders/tech teams from conquered nations. If Czechoslovakia conquers everything from Paris to Vladivostok, and builds a battleship navy, I would THINK that eventually someone, somewhere, with even the slightest amount of naval experience would appear to lead the boats instead of Captain Special of the Retard Brigade.

-Air combat restructured. Finally someone at Paradox noticed that in aerial combat, squadrons lose aircraft, which is better represented by strength losses and some loss of organization than org loss almost exclusively. Also, now escorting your bombers or gaining air superiority is vital for their survival. Otherwise they will get shot down.

So large air powers are going to be spending a lot of IC keeping their planes in the air? Thats pretty cool acutally.

-New diplomatic option, you can request that allied nations not send you expeditionary forces. No longer will your TC and supplies be nuked because Hungary handed over its entire army to you.

Oh noes, all 45 of its infantry divisions, what will Germany with 400 IC do?
Is that a Doomsday thing, I've never seen the AI give me their troops in Vanilla HoI2.

-Adds five new one-use (once attached cannot be de-attached) brigades for warships. It is now possible to upgrade obsolete ships, albeit in a limited fashion.

Like what? Can you add seaplanes or something to ships? What about a ship can you upgrade? Can you increase some of the stats or is the 1-time attachment brigade the 'upgrade'?

-It is now possible to build divisions with already attached brigades.

How about carriers, can you build carriers with CAGs?

If Czechoslovakia conquers everything from Paris to Vladivostok, and builds a battleship navy, I would THINK that eventually someone, somewhere, with even the slightest amount of naval experience would appear to lead the boats instead of Captain Special of the Retard Brigade.

I actually did that, and my glorious three admirals (with land-based day jobs) led my fleet to glorious victory over great naval powers such as Albania and Hungary.

Then Italy's naval bombers blew the living shit out of my fleet.

Is that a Doomsday thing, I've never seen the AI give me their troops in Vanilla HoI2.

Yeah, when I declared war on the Soviet Union my allies in Austria and Bulgaria gave me a fuckload of troops. I suspect that they weren't doing it so much for the war but so that I would give them guns that weren't left over from the last war.

It would be cool to actually absorb nations, though, along with the industrial increases partisan activity goes much down as well, as the citizens begin to consider themselves part of your nation.

EDIT: Now that I look at it, there's also now a "Tech team take-over" option. There's a screenshot of the options page here.

InnocentBystander wrote:Meh, I kinda like that Democratic nations can't just declare war. Its not their MO.

I figure it's for multiplayer. I'm planning on leaving it off when I get Armageddon.

What I'd really like is the ability to gain leaders/tech teams from conquered nations.

Oh I forgot that. There's an option to inherit tech teams from annexed nations. Unfortunately you're still stuck with your old leaders. Though that kinda makes sense. Would you really expect Germany to give command of their SAGs to, say, a French admiral?

-New diplomatic option, you can request that allied nations not send you expeditionary forces. No longer will your TC and supplies be nuked because Hungary handed over its entire army to you.

Oh noes, all 45 of its infantry divisions, what will Germany with 400 IC do?

You've never played minors have you? It fucking blows when you're Romania playing somewhat historically and suddenly your army is 100 divisions when you can only support 50. Taking military control is always better.

-Adds five new one-use (once attached cannot be de-attached) brigades for warships. It is now possible to upgrade obsolete ships, albeit in a limited fashion.

Like what? Can you add seaplanes or something to ships? What about a ship can you upgrade? Can you increase some of the stats or is the 1-time attachment brigade the 'upgrade'?

Radar (increases detection); torpedoes (increases convoy raiding); depth charges or sonar, I don't remember which (increases anti-submarine); fire control (increases range); AA guns or SAM, I think you can have on or the other (increases air defence).

-It is now possible to build divisions with already attached brigades.

How about carriers, can you build carriers with CAGs?

A carrier is a division, albeit a naval one, and a CAG is a brigade. Therefore, yes you can build your carriers with their aircraft already attached.

The new options for full take-over of IC and tech-teams are great, as is the option for democratic wars. In my new neo-Imperialist Britain game (both for bug-testing and trying out the new stuff) it really feels like I'm absorbing these nations into the Greater Commonwealth, and it rocks!

Also, the Dominions of Italy, Spain and Portugal are superfun!

sounds good, I'll look into it once my Germany game on HSR is finished

Adrian Laguna wrote:-New diplomatic option, you can request that allied nations not send you expeditionary forces. No longer will your TC and supplies be nuked because Hungary handed over its entire army to you.

That option alone is almost enough to sell me on the game. There's nothing quite so annoying as declaring war on Luxemborg and having Nationalist China handing me over a hundred infantry divisions I absolutely do not need or want.

Adrian Laguna wrote:-As with every dammed thing Paradox releases, it's full of bugs. Their beta testing sucks, end of story. However, they always fix their shit eventually. In fact, there's already one patch out.

I thought so. So it's worth getting but they're still working the bugs out? I was hoping that, being an expansion to an expansion, it would be stable and workable but I guess not. Some of the other changes, especially the naval combat ones sounds promising.

How's the download itself?

Adrian Laguna wrote:-New diplomatic option, you can request that allied nations not send you expeditionary forces. No longer will your TC and supplies be nuked because Hungary handed over its entire army to you.

Thank assorted gods. This now makes mass puppeting of nations a viable strategy again.

Do you know if there's a Stalinist France that can be liberated should a USSR player wish it? That's another big gripe of mine, I can have a cool multicoloured socialist Europe but still have a big red France that needs to be crawling with my troops.

Stormbringer wrote:

Adrian Laguna wrote:-New diplomatic option, you can request that allied nations not send you expeditionary forces. No longer will your TC and supplies be nuked because Hungary handed over its entire army to you.

That option alone is almost enough to sell me on the game. There's nothing quite so annoying as declaring war on Luxemborg and having Nationalist China handing me over a hundred infantry divisions I absolutely do not need or want.

I've never played Doomsday, so I don't know exactly these expeditions things work, but... shouldn't the Chinese troops still be using Chinese TC until you move them out of Chinese territory? Isn't that how TC works?

I've been playing it for a few hours, and the new scenarios are just wacky, they're just made for multiplayer.

I have yet to try a big campaign, so I'll give another report on that later.

InnocentBystander wrote:I've never played Doomsday, so I don't know exactly these expeditions things work, but... shouldn't the Chinese troops still be using Chinese TC until you move them out of Chinese territory? Isn't that how TC works?

Nope, as soon as you're commanding them, they're supplied from your capital.

Gandalf wrote:

InnocentBystander wrote:I've never played Doomsday, so I don't know exactly these expeditions things work, but... shouldn't the Chinese troops still be using Chinese TC until you move them out of Chinese territory? Isn't that how TC works?

Nope, as soon as you're commanding them, they're supplied from your capital.

Even if it worked that way, the AI usually hands them over in your territory anyway.

That "Pre-global war" scenario from the screencap looks just awesome

InnocentBystander wrote:

Stormbringer wrote:

Adrian Laguna wrote:-New diplomatic option, you can request that allied nations not send you expeditionary forces. No longer will your TC and supplies be nuked because Hungary handed over its entire army to you.

That option alone is almost enough to sell me on the game. There's nothing quite so annoying as declaring war on Luxemborg and having Nationalist China handing me over a hundred infantry divisions I absolutely do not need or want.

I've never played Doomsday, so I don't know exactly these expeditions things work, but... shouldn't the Chinese troops still be using Chinese TC until you move them out of Chinese territory? Isn't that how TC works?

no, they effictively become your troops, and so are using your TC. Moreover, they automatically start using up your own IC for upgrades and reinforcement (unless you manually disable upgrades on every single unit, which are usually one-division stacks). After the war ends, they revert back to their original owner. So, you've just supplied and upgraded China's entire army from Inf 18 for free. Swell, ain't it?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

This expansion sounds tasty. They only selling it via download?

Yes, download only. It's a $5 expansion, I assure you it would cost twice that if they had to make hard copies and ship them to distributors all over the world.

One nice thing I've noticed: now (for major powers, at least) the names of stuff and extra pictures in the tech trees are filled out. For the US, as an example, the "Advanced MBT" is no longer just some generic tank, but is now the M48A5 Patton II, with picture to match.

Other highlights: Japan's Supersonic Interceptor is the Mitsubishi F1. Also, Japan's Supersonic Fighter is the F1, as is the Improved Turbojet Tactical Bomber.

Oh, and the Strategic Rockets are no longer all just V2s.

EDIT: I've noticed a bug. When you change the "month" option in the land orders, you can't move it back, and the persistence between orders which is so useful in coordination bites it in the ass. So watch out for this unless you really want your troops to wait for a month before attacking every time.

Scottish Ninja wrote:One nice thing I've noticed: now (for major powers, at least) the names of stuff and extra pictures in the tech trees are filled out. For the US, as an example, the "Advanced MBT" is no longer just some generic tank, but is now the M48A5 Patton II, with picture to match.

Other highlights: Japan's Supersonic Interceptor is the Mitsubishi F1. Also, Japan's Supersonic Fighter is the F1, as is the Improved Turbojet Tactical Bomber.

Oh, and the Strategic Rockets are no longer all just V2s.

Oh hell yeah! The fact no advanced units were named always really anoyed me. I'll have to download this in a couple weeks (after school is over, and hopefully when bugs are less pronounced).