Hearts of Iron Review
By CSL
World War 2 was the defining moment of the twentieth century. Millions died, millions more fought, nations rose and fell, and the nuclear age began. Paradox Entertainment has taken all of that and more and turned it into Hearts of Iron (HoI). Best known for their Europa Universalis games, Paradox released HoI to eager gamers last year. Billed as “Grand Strategic Warfare in our time” HoI has big shoes to fill, however just like the majority of ambitious games HoI is a mixed bag of gaming goodness.
HoI takes place from 1936 - 1948, the years in which the world saw the fall of fascism and the rise of communism. During these tumultuous years, the player is tasked with leading a nation’s military forces, supervising the country’s resources, directing a national research agenda and the country's diplomatic efforts. While you can play any of the 100+ nations that existed in 1936 (more if you include nations like Croatia and Slovakia that became sovereign nations during the war), the main focus of the game revolves around the seven major world powers during that era. Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States make up the seven powers that the player will spend most of their time with and for the most part each of these nations is very balanced and historically accurate. However, the minor powers are a mixed bag. While most located in Europe are well developed and can offer a fun game, the countries in the rest of the world are often not worth your time playing.
Hearts of Iron comes with only the bare essentials in the box. The game comes in a jewel case, and apart from that you’re left with only a manual and a product lineup from Strategy First. While the manual is large by today’s standards, it does have several low points. First almost half of the manual is dedicated to a “shortened” history of World War 2. For a game as complex as HoI, it is quite a waste of space that could have been used to give players a better heads up on some of the more intricate workings of the game. Second, after several patches for the game, most of the info in the manual isn’t really useful anymore; while this is understandable it’s often nice to have a hard copy of information on hand. Gamers whose hard drive space comes at a premium will be pleased to know that HoI leaves a very small footprint on their system, taking just 350 MB full installed.
The main goal of HoI is often very different, depending on what nation you play. There is no preset path to victory in any game, opportunities that existed in one game will be gone the next. But for the most part everything remains semi-historical. Germany most often declares war on Poland during 1939 and usually follows up with a quick victory in France in 1940. However, every few games a wrench is thrown into the gears of the game and an eerie alternate history develops. Often it is Russia scaring Germany into a second fiddle role or France managing to hold off Germany for years, making a semi-WW1 set of battles. Each of the main belligerents also has a preset strategy that should be taken to achieve victory. Germany, for example, shouldn’t try and build a navy the size of Great Britain while also keeping an up to date army and air force. Other countries such as France and Japan also have to play a balancing act with relatively few natural resources, and in France’s case, far flung colonial possessions. This kind of different play style allows for a great number of different outcomes and can keep a player engaged for weeks on end. Aside from each country’s own goals, the player is also in charge of helping their respective ideological system (Democratic, Fascist or Communist), by seizing provinces with high victory points the player can boost their ideology enough to win the game.
Of course, winning the game takes a lot of things coming together for the player to reap the spoils of victory. Key among these is armed combat. HoI has three different combat systems, one each for land, sea and air battles. Land battles, just like in WW2, are the most prevalent in HoI. Upon two opposing forces meeting in a province, they engage. Winning the battle is dependant on several factors, with organization and manpower being the most obvious. Organization is dependent on a country’s doctrine technology that represents the various combat tactics like blitzkrieg. Manpower, as one would guess, is the level of which the division is staffed with adequate forces, tanks, artillery and other various needs. In addition to these two factors, other variables can affect the outcome of a battle including the group’s leader, where a general with a high leadership value, like Rommel, can beat a leader with a lower value even if the odds are against him. Many other small factors such as terrain, entrenchment, air support, river crossing and naval bombardment can heavily influence battles and give a player’s forces the little extra push to gain victory. While land combat is well implemented the same cannot be said of naval or air combat. The major thing that hurts these two areas is the fact that they are based on the same combat system as land battles. This is arguably one of the worst flaws in HoI, as using the same system as land battles air and sea engagements is inherently unrealistic. Sea forces use the same manpower and organization as their land counterparts and after battles, forces retreat with out so much as one ship having been sunk. They simply float back to port for repairs and rest. The air system is technically workable but with such quick turnaround time, it becomes a huge hassle when it comes to keeping up a sustained air campaign against a first rate opponent. It can sometimes get to the point where air combat result boxes are stacked up many times just waiting for you to read through the same old thing over and over again. One can only hope that in a future patch the issues in the naval and air forces can be addressed.
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