19-01-2005 07:59									#1
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I've been drinking shitty beer for several hours and I just purchased a copy of Hearts of Iron 2. I shall now attempt to drunkenly conquor the world. YAAY!

	19-01-2005 20:52									#2
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Good luck. It's an amazing game.

	20-01-2005 12:13									#3
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quote: Originally posted by Nikolai Good luck. It's an amazing game.

One of the best strategy game in years, IMO.

	21-01-2005 02:59									#4
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This game is actually kind of hard. Playing as Germany I was unable to get Italy or Japan to join my alliance and I couldn't even defeat Poland. As I was slowly pushing Poland back France attacked my western border and my armies just fell to pieces.

	21-01-2005 18:13									#5
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Is it just me or are the Soviets way over powered?

	21-01-2005 19:18									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Is it just me or are the Soviets way over powered?

You should see them in the hands of a human player. In my game as the soviets, the Axis ceased to exist only a few months after they declared war on me. Italy was annexed and germany was reduced to 6 provinces in occupied belgium and netherlands in 1941, before the USA even got it's events for considering war entry.

I then went on to steam roll over the rest of the world untill I got bored of it.

	21-01-2005 19:36									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Is it just me or are the Soviets way over powered?

I've only played one game so far, with the standard settings and as Germany, but I do not think they are too powerful out of what I could see. They did have about as many units as me, but these were 1)scattered all over the place, even though they had only one front, and 2)of fantastic bad quality, 1936 models mostly(infantery)(I checked out why they lost nearly at the moment the battle started often) when I had 1941 models all over the place... It was afun game nevertheless, as I am an extremely bad player, I managed to loose most of my manpower(I had used quite a bit to build units already, but nevertheless...) during the operation, which lasted from may to november...

	22-01-2005 11:57									#8
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I'm currently playing a test game where I keep jumping around to different countries trying to balance things out. Germany flattened Poland, took the low countries, but then started to lose to France. I took over Nationalist Spain and saved Germany's bacon by joining the axis and invading France. Luckily, drawing off half of France & Belgium's forces enabled Germany to make a breakout other wise the war would have been over in 1940.

Next I tried to help the Germans out by getting the various eastern European states and Turkey to join the Axis though it didn't do much good. The USSR declared war in 1941 and even with all of those allies the Soviets are currently rolling over the Axis. The Germans just don't build enough armor and the Soviets build so many units that they out number the Germans by 1940.

	23-01-2005 14:32									#9
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Now I know the game is really broken. I decided to play Poland just to see how long I'd last and although Germany did get me down to just my capital I was never the less able to maintain my 45 divisions(!) of infantry with the industrial output of a city with ounly 5 factories. What's worse is that since the Germans never took out Warsaw the AI simply moved all of it's units around warsaw without actually trying to attack the city. That meant that western Germany quickly got over run by such super powers as Denmark and the Netherlands. Something is very wrong with a game which allows Denmark and the Netherlands to over run all of Germany in 1941.

By summer of 1941 100 German divisions continued to hold most of Poland while simultaniously not holding a single German provience. I can only say WTF?! Out of morbid curisity I continued to play until until white 1942 and the whole time the Germans held off Allied advances while utterly failing to try to retake any part of Germany and instead just sat around in Poland; I wanted to finish the Nazis off but all those German tanks easily beat my Polish infantry while totally failing to attack anyone. The whole time the Soviets just sat there, the US didn't do a damn thing, the Japanese never attacked China much less the US, and the only thing Italy did was the event scripted attacks on Ethiopia and Albania. France took a few German proviences but never bothered to press to finish off the German units in Poland.

After watching this display it is clear to me that the AI in HOI2 is broken. It just doesn't have the know how to play the game intelligently plus there are major play balance issues. If I can play Poland and fight Germany to a stand still then something is wrong. There is also a problem if I can support 45 divisions (to compare the modern US Army only has around 12) while controling just one small city.

	23-01-2005 18:25									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Now I know the game is really broken.

Are you reporting this experience to Johan? I've not seen much on this at the Paradox forums, but that doesn't discount anything.

	23-01-2005 21:44									#11
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The German AI won't attack Warsaw no matter what is a known bug which is worked on.

	23-01-2005 22:07									#12
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It seems they just repackaged the tired old AI from HOI1 instead of writing a better AI. In HOI1 they tried to get around this by scripting everything to make the AI act in certain ways and while that helped things it meant each game often went exactly like the last. It seems with HOI2 they've removed the crutch but didn't mend the broken leg.

	24-01-2005 04:44									#13
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I'm pretty dissapointed with the game thus far.

Not to the level of MoO3, but it nonethelessdid not meet expectations.


I like that you now can tell what has been modified.
I like that you can queque up ic/aa builds and parallle/serial builds.
I like that you can tell what science goes to what.
I like the beefed up/overhauled trade system, for the most part.
I like that my home town of 40k has made it as a province on the US map

I loathe the overall change to science. From the lack of choices in reasearch, basically ending up with the same units each game for each nation, to the year tie in. I miss choosing different paths. Now you research the 36 techs, then 37 techs and on and on. Blah blah blah.

I also dont see the point in money. I much preferred the diplo points in I.

I don't know why cav units look like infantry units, when the sprites were differentiated in I.

I really don't like the cost/benefit of improving your factory production. What's the point at 5IC per? Bah!


And that's all stuff NOT including combat!

If HoI had the new overview screen and the provincial queques, then it would be perfect for me! Alas.,..

	24-01-2005 08:41									#14
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I never did play 1 but I am enjoying this game. I also played as Poland and Germany didn't take Warsaw as I had 44 divisions in there. The soviets did declare war on Germany in 1939 and they are currently trading former polish provinces back and forth.

I've also played the Spanish Civil War and the South American campaign. These were enjoyable for a quick game or 2. These are good to learn the ropes on production and diplomacy and you don't have so many armies to be distracting when learning the game.

	24-01-2005 16:48									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

At this point in time the battle scenarios are in better shape than GC-36, which is always the hardest one to balance to meet all expectations (Germany should win until Russia '42 then bog down, Italy will lose in the desert without help, it should be possible to do better at research than historically, but only a little, etc)

For a full GC I think HoI 1.06c + CORE is a much more polished product, but that is after extensive calibration. HoI2 should become much better with less work. The air and naval missions especially are a triumph.

	24-01-2005 21:37									#16
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel I don't know why cav units look like infantry units, when the sprites were differentiated in I.

I think Paradox knows that there is a large player community out there that loves to make custom sprites and therefor decided to save time/money and give only generic sprites and unit plates. They know that the community would mod them anyway so why spend the time making custom graphics if your customer base will mod them anyway.

That doesn't make it right, it's just a business decision. What would happen if Sid decided to only include generic sprites for Civ4 banking on the fact that the community would create custom units anyway?

Grumbold:

I agree with you, I think that HOI2 will be excellent once polished. The good thing now though is that this game is much more playable out of the box than the first version was.

	24-01-2005 22:08									#17
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I've played it some more since yesterday and I have to say it is a good game stuck with a bad AI. In multiplayer this won't matter to much but there is never anyone in V-net plus I think the interface needs work to be more multiplayer friendly. I can't tell what units I have just by looking at the board because it only shows the top sprite, the grouping of units and the assigning of leaders takes alot of time, thus I end up pausing all the time. Pausing is ok in single player but it would be annoying as hell in multiplayer.

In short it is a good game which needs work. I'm sure some parts will be patched up nicely by Paradox but much of it we will just be stuck with.

	24-01-2005 23:06									#18
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This is where co-op MP comes into play...

	25-01-2005 11:46									#19
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I've read on Paradox's website that the sprites can be turned off and you can use tiles instead but so far I haven't figured out how to yet. I haven't really looked either so maybe I should invest a few minutes into it.

I'm currently unemployed and one of the benifits is that I have lots of time for playing video games thus I spent most of today playing and replaying as Italy. I wanted to see how the AI would handle the big powers by itself but I didn't want a totally powerless country so Italy seemed like the right choice. A few observations:

1) It is totally worthless to fight over North Africa. Even if you win you spend far more resources then you will ever get. Even trying to defend Libya or Somalia is pretty pointless as it uses up most of your transports plus there is not a single resource in either country. Eithiopia at least has a few minor resources (you'll spend more then you make trying to keep it though) but I've found the best bet is to release your African colonies before the war begins so that you can lower your BB score and stay out of the war.

2) Italy really sucks when it is trying to fight against the allies. Building navies is pointless because they will always have larger and better navies plus ships take forever to build and are not upgradable. Instead build planes which are upgradable.

3) Invade Yugoslavia the moemt the great powers let their independence assurance to that country laps then, if Romania hasn't joined the Axis yet you NEED to invade it and get the oil fields. Other wise you spend most of your time crippled because you lack resources. If you play your cards right you can avoid commiting to either the Axis or the Allies and instead just concentrate on slowly taking over the smaller powers. Italy is to small and underdeveoped to fight the big boys but it makes a nice job of fighting the enven smaller states.

	25-01-2005 15:34									#20
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Another interesting thing is while I was looking around a saved game as different countries I noticed that Switzerland's AI had decided to spend several years reasearching naval warfare doctrines. I'm thinking the AI isn't to good at figuring out which research it needs and which it doesn't. It should, but doesn't, preform a check like "what types of units do I have?", "Can I improve those units?, "Would it be cost effective to do so?", etc... It should also check for relaviency so that landlocked countries which have no harbors and no navy shouldn't bother researching navel techs unless there is nothing else availible which would help it.

	25-01-2005 19:02									#21
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I suspect that is probably because nobody cared enough to give Switzerland different tech priorities

	26-01-2005 02:22									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin I've read on Paradox's website that the sprites can be turned off and you can use tiles instead but so far I haven't figured out how to yet. I haven't really looked either so maybe I should invest a few minutes into it.

You can turn on counters when you start a scenario by going to options or you can do it in game that way or by right clicking on the date and a menu pops up.

	26-01-2005 03:29									#23
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For Italy, try moving on Suez and Gibralter ASAP, if it functions as it did in I, then you will have cut off the whole of the med from interlopers

	27-01-2005 05:28									#24
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I really dislike how combat functions in this game, and how TC works.

Between this and slapping year modifiers on science, Paradox has taken quite a bit of fun out of the game for me.

	27-01-2005 08:47									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin I've read on Paradox's website that the sprites can be turned off and you can use tiles instead but so far I haven't figured out how to yet. I haven't really looked either so maybe I should invest a few minutes into it. I'm currently unemployed and one of the benifits is that I have lots of time for playing video games thus I spent most of today playing and replaying as Italy. I wanted to see how the AI would handle the big powers by itself but I didn't want a totally powerless country so Italy seemed like the right choice. A few observations: 1) It is totally worthless to fight over North Africa. Even if you win you spend far more resources then you will ever get. Even trying to defend Libya or Somalia is pretty pointless as it uses up most of your transports plus there is not a single resource in either country. Eithiopia at least has a few minor resources (you'll spend more then you make trying to keep it though) but I've found the best bet is to release your African colonies before the war begins so that you can lower your BB score and stay out of the war. 2) Italy really sucks when it is trying to fight against the allies. Building navies is pointless because they will always have larger and better navies plus ships take forever to build and are not upgradable. Instead build planes which are upgradable. 3) Invade Yugoslavia the moemt the great powers let their independence assurance to that country laps then, if Romania hasn't joined the Axis yet you NEED to invade it and get the oil fields. Other wise you spend most of your time crippled because you lack resources. If you play your cards right you can avoid commiting to either the Axis or the Allies and instead just concentrate on slowly taking over the smaller powers. Italy is to small and underdeveoped to fight the big boys but it makes a nice job of fighting the enven smaller states.

all three of the above sound amazingly realistic. As with wargames covering a period where someone did something breathtakingly stupid, you cant both play to win and replicate what actually happened - nobody, in retrospect, would bet on the loser like Il Duce did, or try to play such a weak hand so high. Interesting to see if the AIs fight each other well enough that a game with Italy on the side lines works out both interestingly and plausibly, and see how well Italy can do. (Do Russia and Germany really let Italy make off with Roumania?)

	28-01-2005 01:21									#26
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That was my big problem. The Soviets or the Germans would almost always declare war on you if you tried to invade Romania but once, when cheating, I was able to puppet Romania and once Germany and the USSR's independence assurances lapsed I released the puppet and successfully invaded.

There seems to be a big lack of oil in the game; so much so that there was more oil in real life. Japan can't get any oil unless it some how makes it to the middle east and even then the amounts are tiny. It is embarassing how few resources there are in Asia and how little oil there is in the Dutch East Indies (which in real life was a major oil producing region thus the Japanese invasion). Currently the world can only support the US, the USSR, and Germany while every other power literaly sees their economy fall apart because they can't get resources no matter what they do.

Why does China totally lack meaningful amounts of resources? Why would Japan ever invade since there is literally nothing there? Manchura is also nearly completely devoid of resources as is Latin America, Africa, India, and Asia. Why bother conquoring places that are completely economically worthless? Invading the Soviet Union or America seems to be the only way to get meaningful amounts of resources.

	28-01-2005 06:30									#27
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[QUOTE] Originally posted by Oerdin

quote: That was my big problem. The Soviets or the Germans would almost always declare war on you if you tried to invade Romania

That sounds right.

quote: There seems to be a big lack of oil in the game; so much so that there was more oil in real life. Japan can't get any oil unless it some how makes it to the middle east and even then the amounts are tiny. It is embarassing how few resources there are in Asia and how little oil there is in the Dutch East Indies (which in real life was a major oil producing region thus the Japanese invasion).

That sounds wrong - there should be plenty of oil in the NEI. I think - though im not sure how much oil Japan burned in 1942. Note that historically it took the Japanese several months to get the wells working, the Dutch had destroyed them. Also the Japanese had tanker shortages, IIUC.

quote: Why does China totally lack meaningful amounts of resources?

Cause it had failed to industrialize on any scale, ate all its rice, and had few minerals outside Manchuria?

quote: Why would Japan ever invade since there is literally nothing there?

A. Cause they were afraid that someday China would industrialize, and they wanted to preempt being overshadowed B. Cause they feared the Chinese would subvert Manchuria, which DID have value C. Cause Japan was run by crazed militarists, who put mystical ideas and glory ahead of rational grand strategy.

quote: Manchura is also nearly completely devoid of resources

Sounds wrong - manchuria had coal and iron ore, IIUC.

quote: as is Latin America, Africa, India, and Asia.

are they measuring minerals, or industrial production only?

quote: why bother conquoring places that are completely economically worthless? Invading the Soviet Union or America seems to be the only way to get meaningful amounts of resources.

Yup thats about right. that was the axis strategic dilemma - most of the worlds production is out of reach.
Two books id suggest - Overy, Why the allies won. Paul Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Industrial output in 1940 really was amazingly concentrated in a few places. Going to war was really extraordinarily foolish on the part of all the axis powers - made sense only if you bought their racist ideologies which made them think they could win.

Some have said this dooms any realistic grand strategic scale about WW2. Too boring, outcome predetermined. Id think it would be fun to do what youve done, see how far you can take an Italy that DOESNT join Germany, see what happens if France is fascist, that sort of thing. Sounds like HOI2 comes close on the realism, though they may need to tweak some things.

	28-01-2005 15:24									#28
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark Two books id suggest - Overy, Why the allies won. Paul Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Industrial output in 1940 really was amazingly concentrated in a few places. Going to war was really extraordinarily foolish on the part of all the axis powers - made sense only if you bought their racist ideologies which made them think they could win.

Well, going to war is always foolish. But then, I can assure you that the German population backed the war on Poland and France, the swallowing of Austria and the Sudetenland not because of strategic considerations but because they felt (and some still feel) that parts of it have been German for several hundreds of years (now comes the racists ideology part which doesn´t apply to nowaday´s Germany) and thus shouldn´t be ruled by inferior people with funny languages.

If you look at it from the outside, it´s much like ancient times. The greek felt superior to the Balkan peoples because they were richer and had a higher standard of living. They even called the "lesser" people barbarians to make fun of their language "bar bar bar ..."

back on topic:
The Paradoxers are well known for their strategy of releasing bareboned products which have a much longer life expectation due to the many years that need to be spent to make a real game out of it
I´d simply present your complaints and questions to the Paradox Forums and wait for either the official developers issue a patch or the modders release the first HoI2-CORE version

	29-01-2005 06:29									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Micha back on topic: The Paradoxers are well known for their strategy of releasing bareboned products which have a much longer life expectation due to the many years that need to be spent to make a real game out of it I´d simply present your complaints and questions to the Paradox Forums and wait for either the official developers issue a patch or the modders release the first HoI2-CORE version

True enough, but then again HoI 2 starts out a couple of significant notches above the rest to begin with (even with an AI in need of tweaking and other balancing concerns, the game's in better shape overall, doesn't crash as much, and is apparently considered as more playable than not, right now).

	29-01-2005 10:32									#30
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quote: Originally posted by Micha Well, going to war is always foolish. But then, I can assure you that the German population backed the war on Poland and France, the swallowing of Austria and the Sudetenland not because of strategic considerations but because they felt (and some still feel) that parts of it have been German for several hundreds of years (now comes the racists ideology part which doesn´t apply to nowaday´s Germany) and thus shouldn´t be ruled by inferior people with funny languages. If you look at it from the outside, it´s much like ancient times. The greek felt superior to the Balkan peoples because they were richer and had a higher standard of living. They even called the "lesser" people barbarians to make fun of their language "bar bar bar ..."

I didnt mean the axis powers were foolish for going to war in some general way, like "war is not the answer". I meant quite specifically that they had zero chance of winning - and yet chose wars that risked complete distruction - most nations that have gone to war have had at least SOME chance of winning.

And i wasnt discussing their ideology in terms of why they wanted to go to war, but rather in terms of why they thought they could win. Consider Japan (thus avoiding the more inflammable topic of Germany) the Japanese were quite aware that US production far exceeded theirs, that there was no way to attack the US home base, and that there was no substantial industrial production within reach. Yet they attacked the US, on the assumption that US 'degeneracy' would cause the US to give up.

To return to topic (as if we'd ever left) this creates a dilemma for the designers of a historically accurate Grand strategic level ww2 game.