The point is that it would require less effort to make HoI2 perfect than to make HoI3 good.
Agreed. Financially though, I don’t know if Paradox could afford to just keep working on HoI 2.
The tech tree screenshot looks similar to (though slightly different from) the Cold War mod (which is pretty good - unlike other mods it doesn’t try to overcomplicate the tech tree, just add logical techs to expand the timeline to 1960). I suspect this is mostly going to be a compilation pack of the better mods out there. The production screen looks a little different, with some drill-down on how $ is spent.
But yeah, I’d be surprised if it was too different from a modded-out HoI2. Which, mind you, is a really good game. Better than HoI3 at this point - of course, EU2 was far better than EU3 the first year the latter was out, too.
Part of the new version is simply introducing a 3D engine so the game will actually run on modern widescreen monitors without huge amounts of hackery.
It would have been nice to have HoI2’s game in HoI3’s engine, but clearly this is the game they wanted to make - less historically relevant, more what-happens-if-Japan-invades-France stuff. Same philosophy we saw with EU3, where every game two or three “lucky nations” take over all of Europe and most of the world.
If you actually like what passes for a 3D engine at Paradox it might not interest you, but at the EU boards they confirmed FtG will come with support for more / modern resolutions, so the same might be true for HoI:AoD.
rezaf
Yesterday I passed more than 6 hours in HoI2, doing the same that I did in my session with HoI3.
No need for the neutrality cheat, I could attack whoever I wanted. 50% of the fun is having the interface so sleek, snappy and responsive. No lag at all even in pure chaos. The tech tree has the plus of named industries, but the one in HoI3 seems more versatile even if lacking some flavor. I prefer HoI3 here.
Didn’t miss at all features like the weather or the counter intuitive mechanic of leadership “research” affecting organizations of armies (it took me a while to figure out why at some point all armies where stuck at 60% org). Overall HoI2 does everything useful that HoI3 does with far less annoyances.
The actual gameplay was MUCH better in HoI2. In my HoI3 session, playing as Italy, I went through all european nations like a breeze. I declared the war one by one without anyone ever reacting and I made the AI do everything on its own without any challenge.
In HoI2 instead as soon as I declared war on Yugoslavia Germany declared war on me, and then Romania as well, so I made an alliance with Bulgaria. Fighting against Romania was a real challenge, with plenty of switchbacks. In HoI3 I could do as I wanted but was blocked by the fact that Romania and Greece were already in the allied faction, so I couldn’t go against that, but Germany was neutral so I could still go for Poland. In HoI2 the situation is much more challenging. Germany is already against me, but for now there are other nations between. I conquered Greece rather easily, but it’s also 2 years later than the point where in HoI3 I conquered half of Europe and Middle East (at some point even Turkey declared war on me and started conquering Libya).
So I have to do without the armies AI, but HoI2 poses a serious challenge where HoI3 required me no effort. The AI also seems to play much better and react in plausible ways where in HoI3 they were just sorta sitting there. I also had the impression that things like rivers and terrain had a much bigger impact in HoI2.
Considering everything I had MUCH more fun in this HoI2 session than the HoI3, and HoI3 doesn’t have any real indispensable features beside the one that prevents insane stacks of counters (and that could be ported so easily in the previous game).
What happened to the move all button? Before, I could select a corp and click on move all to neatly organize my forces.
I finally put some time into 1.2 tonight. I’ve only played a year as the US, so I haven’t seen a whole lot, but there are many things I have seen that annoy me. Considering all the talk in the 1.2 readme about OOB changes, it’s annoying how badly they are still messed up. And it bothers me that they spent time on rather worthless stuff like the new map mode instead of fixing more legitimate issues. Oh, and thanks Paradox for making just enough minor map changes to mess up various map mods while still not managing to fix more then a few actual issues.
My game as the US has continued, now through the end of 1939. One thing I am pleased with is that a couple of things have changed. First, Japan did not get rolled out of Asia as was common before. They aren’t doing as well as historically against China, but they are holding their own.
Second, the rush to join the Allies seen in previous games has also disappeared. Finland stayed neutral, as did most of Europe. When the Germans invaded Poland it was against the UK, France, and South Africa. The bad side is that Australia and Canada are so far sitting things out. The only oddity was the Germans declaring war on Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in short order but doing nothing after capturing Denmark in mid 1939.
Third, the juggernaut that was Italy has been tamed. This time around the Italians stayed out of the war until Paris fell, then declared war on the Allies.
I’m interested in seeing how things turn out. Several of the Balkan countries have allied themselves, meaning that if Germany takes on Yugoslavia then Turkey may support the Yugos and if Italy goes to war against Greece, they also risk war with Romania. The downside is that the German threat level is so high that I could declare war on them as the US, which doesn’t seem right for this point.
Hello, it’s 1943, and I am the completely historical PM of England, Stanley Baldwin.
Seems to be a bug involving transports :)
I had a good chuckle when I saw the thread in the Paradox forum earlier today. I didn’t realize it was Lum posting though. Should have guessed that from the excellent sarcasm, I suppose :-).
Unfortunately it seems that the thread on the Paradox forums managed to survive for about as long as England with armed forces made up of 95% transports…
The Forum mods are pretty quick about taking down anything even slightly negative. Making fun of the AI is verboten.
It wasn’t me. I just happened to see it and found it hilarious.
I’m simultaneously really glad I didn’t impulse-buy this one, and really disappointed that the game is so very far away from what I hoped it would be.
Aw, that sucks. Was that really a thread that got deleted from the Paradox forums? Is there a link explaining why it was deleted, or do they just wipe stuff like that out?
-Tom
Apparently
The article Lum linked to has a link to the thread at the very top. You probably need to be registered in order to see the bug reporting forum it was moved to in which case the mod who moved it just said Johan’s working on a fix.
Yep, I tried that, but I get a screwed up error message to the effect that I’m not allowed to access the page, even though I’m logged in and I can read the HOI3 forums. Do they have separate forums that I can’t access unless I register HOI3 or something?
Anyway, glad to hear it wasn’t as dire as some of you guys were making it out to be. I find it hard to believe Paradox is simply deleting posts that complain about the AI, particularly when they’re as entertaining and carefully documented as that one.
-Tom
Yup, everything but the AAR subforum.
I’ll just repost the thread here for those that can’t read it
Please note, what follows is the result of me trying to figure out why neither England nor the US has done literally anything in a 1943 Soviet Union game I’ve had going, this is not the first time this has happened to me either, just the one that finally made me say “whelp.” Yes this is a new game started and played entirely in a 1.2 unmodded game.)
Hello, its 1943, and I am completely historical PM of England Stanley Baldwin
As you all know, its been under my strong noMinisterType leadership that we bravely stopped the Nazis at a mere 50% occupation of our great land
But now I need your help in pushing them back! And towards that goal, our best and brightest military officers have deduced an unstoppable plan! Transports? Transports… Transports!
Now, you may ask, “but Stanley… don’t we have enough transports already?”
And it would be a fair question, until I gave a hearty chuckle and set you straight, for you see, you can never have too many transports!