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So I've been playing with the game for some time now, after buying it and then forgetting it, and really, it's a step backwards from the original. Now, the original was flawed with bugs and the gameplay would as one reviewer put it vary wildly with each new patch, but HoI II is just ... eh.

1. So ... are you fucking Nazis going to act like the fucking Nazis?

I've played through no less than three USSR games. Not once has Germany attacked me. Not once. Not in 1941, not in 1942, not in 1943, not in 1944, never.

This criticism applies to every nation you're not playing as. Asides from, you know, Poland and France, the other nations don't do anything remotely historical.

The fun about HoI was that everyone else but you will most likely, but not always, follow the same script as historically. I don't expect it to always happen, but I do expect things that did happen to happen eventually. Sure as fuck not never. I mean for god's sake, D-Day came and went and noone did shit. Every time.

2. Wouldn't it be cool if you could change history? Well, that's something for another game, because we're going to make you choose the purges and even if you don't, we're going to fuck your army in the ass until 1944 anyway, just for kicks! (admittedly, HoI I had the "you must choose the purge" bullshit flaw, but at least it didn't have the absurd Soviet GDE lameness handicap).

3. R&D is bullshit. Not only can you only research five things at a time, but you have design bureaus of fixed skill to do it with? Again, where the fuck is the fun gone? I don't WANT to simulate WW2 how it happened, assholes. I want to go my own way. Admittedly, the system HoI had where research was tied into IC made little sense, but this refinement is a step in the completely wrong direction. Research should be unlimited- and by that I mean if you've got the damn cash, you should research whatever you want. And whenever you want- anyone notice that if you research something you're not "supposed" to research until 1945 in say, 1943, the research is shit fucking slow, even though you've met all the pre-requisities?

Pfft. Utter shite.

And what exactly is HoI 2?

I'm working on a game right now as Belgium. The black, yellow and red flag curently hangs in Warsaw, Vienna and Berlin

I just received it in the mail today. Gee, now I wonder whether I made the right choice.

wautd wrote:And what exactly is HoI 2?

Hearts of Iron II.

Stravo wrote:I just received it in the mail today. Gee, now I wonder whether I made the right choice.

It might be fun playing as the USA or Germany (really, I get the feeling that's the only side they care about) but it's just too restrictive a game compared to the original for all the reasons cited- restrictive research, restrictive options, tame AI on Normal difficulty, the works. I swear, I just can't understand it for how many years I have to sit here giving the Germans dirty looks before the idiots will attack me. I won't trade with them, I've even let them build up a much bigger army than me, my airforce doesn't exist, and they still just sit there. What am I supposed to do, roll out the welcome mat?

And all this so the damn bullshit "retardomilitary" modifier on the Soviets can change when they invade. I'm fed up with the waiting. It's damn boring, and attacking them is suicidal without it.

Stravo wrote:I just received it in the mail today. Gee, now I wonder whether I made the right choice.

Personally, it's a fun game. It has its flaws, some of the patchs are broken(others can give details on how to get around it) but overall I enjoyed playing it.

My USA game continues onto 1944 pretty well, when I stopped playing due to time constraints. Initially you would think its boring, if you try to start a full game right off the bat. If that happens, try the scenarios, Spain civil war is probebly where I spent most of my first few weeks with my game, it was fun.

Sorry for slightly babbling.

I personally enjoy the game, although I tend to play with mods rather than with the vanilla version. One very nice thing about Paradox is that they make modifying major parts of many of their games easy. You can't change the engine, but you can change the data that it uses. So if you think X sucks, change it. If you are a strategist extraordinaire, make the enemy stronger or tweak the AI. If you think infantry is too strong/weak, change it.

I agree that the research system is all sorts of flawed, which is my second biggest gripe with it. I'd like to be able to apply two teams to one task so they can pool their skills, I'd be more than happy to pay for it.

For reference, I play as the USSR 90% of the time. The best strat with them is to declare on them when they declare on Belgium/Netherlands. If you can do it just right, you'll almost be at the German border before the army arrives. I do this because I don't like fighting the Germans on their own terms. Last time I did this I annexed them in late 1941.

This brings me to my biggest gripe. I can't fucking annex Bulgaria. I want a red Europe. From Istanbul to Rome to Gibraltar to Paris, I want the hammer and sickle to fly in the face of the lame Allies. And it shits me to no end when I have this little green blob that can't be annexed. Each other Axis nation, when you've soundly whomped them, gives you the option to either push for annexation or make them a puppet. Romania and Hungary. Bulgaria does not.

I actually received HOI 2 DOomsday. I have no idea if that makes a difference or not. As I understand it I'm going to have to patch this baby in order for it to work properly out the box.

On an extreme tangent This may sound really strange but Gandalf, I just saw your sig. Did Coulter really say that? (who am I kidding) What a fucking malignant cunt she is.

Stravo wrote:I actually received HOI 2 DOomsday. I have no idea if that makes a difference or not. As I understand it I'm going to have to patch this baby in order for it to work properly out the box.

Yes, that's different.

The game goes for another five years longer than the regular HoI2. It's at patch 1.2 and as a result is still a bit buggy. The interface has a few needed changes.

Patches can be obtained here.

On an extreme tangent This may sound really strange but Gandalf, I just saw your sig. Did Coulter really say that? (who am I kidding) What a fucking malignant cunt she is.

Yes, it was a fairly recent one. Should still be on the front page of N&P, though I forget which thread.

EDIT: Tags and tribulations.

Vympel wrote:1. So ... are you fucking Nazis going to act like the fucking Nazis?

Actually, they are acting inteligent. If you create a bigass quality army and mass it on their border they consider you unassailable and leave you alone since attacking you would be suicide. Try going to war with Japan and pulling everything but a token force to the east and I can almost guarantee you that the Germans will invade within a year. There is a bug/feature if you build up the forts in a province to 10 the AI will never attack it (even if they declare war).

EDIT: I'd say that playing as one of the allied/comitern majors once you know the game at normal is too easy. You can quite simply, as in your case, outbuild and the computer in units that matter (especialy if you use tricks like building up your industry for a few years) and position them inteligently where they can do most good. Playing as a minor at that point is much more rewarding, as is playing GER/JAP/ITA since they have a much tougher time, being surrounded by enemies and outspent industrialy. Or you can crank up the difficulty.

2. Wouldn't it be cool if you could change history? ell, that's something for another game, because we're going to make you choose the purges and even if you don't, we're going to fuck your army in the ass until 1944 anyway, just for kicks! (admittedly, HoI I had the "you must choose the purge" bullshit flaw, but at least it didn't have the absurd Soviet GDE lameness handicap).

3. R&D is bullshit. Not only can you only research five things at a time, but you have design bureaus of fixed skill to do it with? Again, where the fuck is the fun gone? I don't WANT to simulate WW2 how it happened, assholes. I want to go my own way. Admittedly, the system HoI had where research was tied into IC made little sense, but this refinement is a step in the completely wrong direction. Research should be unlimited- and by that I mean if you've got the damn cash, you should research whatever you want. And whenever you want- anyone notice that if you research something you're not "supposed" to research until 1945 in say, 1943, the research is shit fucking slow, even though you've met all the pre-requisities?

Pfft. Utter shite.

Agreed with the above. Still, I find HoI 2 much better then HoI. It is more streamlined (unfortunatly in the case of research a bit too much), the UI is much improved (doesn't feel like an unsuitable retrofitted Victoria/EUII UI), as well as the entire building/economy system.

Stravo, I think you are going to enjoy it if you like wargames/strategy games. While the above complaints about research are valid, it still is an game you can simply lose hours playing without noticing. Be sure to start out with a smaller country and/or one of the combat scenarios since the game has a bit of a learning cliff at the begining (use the forums at paradoxplaza if you need help, the people there are willing to answer any question). For the more nuts and bolts info there is the excellent HOI2Wiki.

mmar wrote:

Vympel wrote:1. So ... are you fucking Nazis going to act like the fucking Nazis?

Actually, they are acting inteligent. If you create a bigass quality army and mass it on their border they consider you unassailable and leave you alone since attacking you would be suicide. Try going to war with Japan and pulling everything but a token force to the east and I can almost guarantee you that the Germans will invade within a year. There is a bug/feature if you build up the forts in a province to 10 the AI will never attack it (even if they declare war).

Or couldn't you just put your western armies adjacent to the border provinces? If they can't see it, it shouldn't be a problem.

Indeed, the best way to get the enemy to think your army is smaller is to ship it all somewhere else.

Worse comes to worst you can move it by rail back again in 2 weeks...

As it is, Vympel, are you using 1.3b HoI2, 1.3a HoI2, or Doomsday?

Standard 1.3 or 1.3a (they mean the same thing) Germans have a bug in their AI Scripts that makes them far too reluctant to attack the Soviets, but you may just be overbuilding them if not.

1.3b, Germans are supposed to be a lot more willing to attack, but they're just not. I suppose I could build up an army in the East and move my 50 armored divisions (T-34 M1941s + IS-1s), 150 infantry divisions (1941), 12 motorized (improved + all brigades) and 12 mechanized (improved + all SP brigades) away from the border, but again, it sounds foolish that I should just move my armies away from the border to give the Germans the illusion that they no longer exist. Where did they *think* 50 divisions of tanks went? The purges have happened, my army has proved, as historically, laughably ineffective in attacking Finland (needing over 2:1 superiority in divisions to roll over some Finnish infantry when I have better infantry, tanks, air support, tube and rocket artillery, armored cars, engineers .... thanks, imposed handicap)- anyway, there should be no obstacle to attack. You do lose track of time when playing- for a while- then you realize that nothing interesting has happened and its 1944!

EDIT: and how the hell do I strategically redeploy my divisions in HoI 2? In HoI 1 it was easy, but I can't see how to do it in 2.

I believe you hold control and r-click on the province you want them to relocate to, and you get a "Strategic Redeployment" option.

InnocentBystander wrote:I'm working on a game right now as Belgium. The black, yellow and red flag curently hangs in Warsaw, Vienna and Berlin

I want this game now

That's better than I've ever done. On Normal/Normal I put up a heavy fight for several months against the Wehrmacht, but eventually fell nonetheless after their superior numbers, troops, and tanks overwhelmed my positional and not-being-the-AI intelligence advantage.

Of course, we could have beaten the Germans back had I taken control of the French military. As it is, they seemed to not want to cross into Belgium to help my defense. But I never take control of a country's military unless I outclass it in a Germany->Hungary/Slovakia way.

I just fixed one of my biggest issues with the game, which seems to be due to slack developers.

As Nationalist China, when you beat Japan back, the Japanese surrender event gets you their continental holdings. Korea becomes your puppet state. But due to what can only be a coding problem, the Japanese get legel holding of two provinces in China; Jinan and Yuling. Yuling is basically useless, but Jinan has a high manpower rating, and some needed resources.

I just tooled with the event folder to fix this, so all is well now. I'll be happy to send it to anyone who wants it.