Hinterland!
Hinterland?
Oh, I forgot to mention zombies in my above game description options. There. The perfect game (as previously discussed in the zombie xcom thread).
Well, I’m not sure if Hinterland has zombies or not (it probably does), but its setting is a single village and the game chronicles its attempt to survive a howling wilderness filled with monsters. Check this thread for details. Should be out in a month or two.
Buy the Anthology collection. It’s got everything except C.O.R.E. for HoI1.
Oh, thanks for the heads up Dave! Looks interesting!
Sure they did. That’s what Rome was all about. They built that game on core CK concepts.
Because other than the AI, there isn’t anything else they can really do to improve on the core mechanics? Which leaves pretty much updating the game engine and tweaking the AI/auxillary features?
Also, the HoI2 AI is quite good compared to other offerings in the same setting. It’s all the vast majority of players ever need, if the total lack of multiplayer HoI games in the wild is any indication.
robo, yeah, you’re right I now recall. I guess I just want a new KoDP type game. Paradox’s stuff feels so samey.
I’m having a hard time seeing where this is going to be all that much better than HOI2. Paying full-price for HOI2 with a few new features does not appeal to me. There better be a lot more new stuff then that press release suggests, but I have a hard time seeing what else they could add.
Not to matter the traditional Paradox practice of releasing untested betas and then expecting us to buy it new while we wait for the patches that make it a good game. I’m looking at you, EU Rome.
That’s pretty much the position I’m taking. I’m excited about the announcement, but it’s tempered by the need to see exactly what they are planning on doing to improve an already extremely solid game.
I’ve been wracking my brain over the course of the day trying to figure out core gameplay improvements that don’t amount to bugfixes and a prettified engine.
Where’s the beef, Paradox?
QFT.
I really don’t understand what all the love for Hoi 1 and 2 is about. Turn off FoW and watch in amazement what the AI is doing…it…it just staggers me. “Extremely solid”…are…you…serious?
Q3 2009 release? Assuming it launches on time, it should be playable by Q2 2010…
Between Paradox’s “bugfixes are features, buy them in this handy expansion pack” policy and the extremely underwhelming EU3 and EU:Rome this sequel to one of my all-time favourite games leaves me pretty unexcited. Which is a fucking shame, but there you go.
If it turns out good I’ll pick it up, but I’m not betting on it.
There’s no reason to get in a twist over this. I’m basing my assessment on over 4 years of playing the game in both good times and bad. I am absolutely serious. The AI is no pushover at reasonable difficulty levels, and can be downright unyielding if you use a higher difficulty.
EU3 is spectacular with the expansions and I have faith that HoI3 will follow suit. I’d rather have Vicky 2, but I can temper my disappointment with the knowledge that HoI3 would do a much better job providing the cash to make Vicky and CK sequels down the road.
I think what would be kind of fun is a higher level grand-strategic form of HoI2. The combat rules are fiddly and largely irrational for gameplay reasons, so why not just abstract them even more and focus more on strategic decisions.
I like all those high-level events and decisions and so on you have to make as the game goes on, not just whether to sign a treaty or to execute a minister, but how to allot ICs in industry versus production, how to develop both doctrinal technologies and unit types, and stuff like that. I’d like to see more detailed historical politics and world events, both real and “alternative”, a less painfully manual espionage system, and even more emphasis on tech tree structure and research programs along with associated required sources.
I’d like to concentrate on those qualitatively distinctive and interesting events and decisions, and not on manually renaming all my garrison units “NKVD” so as not to confuse them with real units, and not on manually assigning them with incompetent generals so as to have someone competent left over for the armored corps. I mean, seriously, it seems like Stavka wants to give Zhukov a bunch of paroled militiamen in Murmansk, but I think he might just have a few better things to do… For that matter, the careful orchestration of multiple unit attacks and support orders on a hundred little provinces at just the right time of day gets rather tedious when you have to run essentially the same combat over and over a zillion times. And for heaven’s sake, fix the air strikes… I have 24 divisions of T34s battling Army Group Centre in this province, don’t send the entire Sturmovik corps to a province next door to attack a garrison unit.
I’m not saying to eliminate combat and mapboards and the like, but I think going down a scale factor is going in the wrong direction; I think it will only add tedium to the game, not to mention irrationally detailed mechanics that don’t reflect realism.
Furthermore, with larger provinces and fewer units, there is some slight chance of competent enemy combat AI… I agree that sometimes the AI seems to know what it’s doing, but other times it appears to be totally confused and irrational.
Not that it’s germane to combat, but in particular AI trade negotiations are just insane and need a lot of work. What is it about the Netherlands that makes them cancel all agreements, including the ones they propose, within two weeks? Why does the US roll over and trade the USSR anything it wants for long-term deals even at -200 relations and with trenchcoated spies with thick Ukrainian accents directing traffic on every streetcorner in DC?
Oh yeah, counter-espionage is far far too powerful, and the AI never runs counter-espionage at all, what’s up with that?
Sounds like you’re playing an ancient version of the game. Militia and Garrison units are now always assigned (if they are available) rank 2 or worse Lt. or Mj. Generals (depending on how many are in the group). As to the multiple attacks in tiny provinces, that’s taken care of with the “synchronize orders” checkbox, and researching doctrines improve your night attack and defense to give you a little more leeway for battle times. The air strikes follow these rules when assigned to a province: “If there is a battle going on when I leave my airbase, I will fly to support the battle. If there is more than one battle in my area of flight, I will pick one with the best chance of success”. Solution, set your bombers to only attack during the day, then they will support any attack taking place that day, and all subsequent days as long as battle remains joined.
Not that it’s germane to combat, but in particular AI trade negotiations are just insane and need a lot of work. What is it about the Netherlands that makes them cancel all agreements, including the ones they propose, within two weeks?
That is an honest to god bug. It only happens if you are trading rare resources or oil, since all of those come from NL’s southeast asian provinces and are dependent on how many convoys the country has operational. They make the trade based on a short-term surplus judgement, but if they don’t have enough convoys to meet the order, they are likely to cancel so they do not have a shortfall in the country. All you have to do is be mindful of large amounts of rares and oil in their trade demands and you’ll be fine. To be honest, that’s really only for older versions anyway. Countries are much better at deciding long term needs than they were and now take better account of convoys.
Have you played using the later patches? The AI is capable of raiding-style invasions unmodified, and there are several player-made AI mods that can force a European D-Day.
The AI also has never ‘cheated’ as far as I know, the problems were more that it just didn’t know how to handle the tasks it had.
Yeah, don’t play HOI1 at all. It has many, many issues.
About the only country the AI can’t play is Japan (it doesn’t challenge the US at all). Now, that doesn’t mean that a human player can’t defeat it - most of what we call “AI” is actually just scripts based on decision points for each nation) but if you are asking for an AI to effectively control a very complex grand strategic model of World War 2 on a global scale well enough to defeat a human at the same task, you may want to muse a little on what that represents (and also, feel free to list any other game that does a better job).
Also, I’m probably the most fanboyish of Paradox fanboys here, and if all they do is just slam HOI2 into the craptacular 3D engine they’re using, and make the only included scenario “nondeterministic” (IE, removing everything remotely historical so that every game ends up a war between Poland and Brazil or something) I’ll stick to HOI2.
Yes, EU3 touched me there.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I feel the same way. I chucked EU3. I still play EU2. I can skip HOI3 very easily if it goes down the EU3 road.