Talk Strategy
To make war one must be able to declare war. That is where diplomacy comes in for HoI. Unlike EU2, HoI is very limited in terms of diplomatic contact with only a few options available for the player and his particular game play style. Diplomatic avenues are often mostly limited by your country's diplomatic prestige that increases by a few points every month. The amount of prestige gained is dependent on the size and importance of your country. So for example a minor country like Iraq would only gain one point per month, while an influential country like France or Russia would gain 3 or 4 points per month. These points affect the success rate of diplomatic missions such as political assassinations and other international intrigue. The higher the amount of prestige your country has the higher the chance that you can successfully complete a mission, which is particularly useful for countries like France who can quickly find themselves surrounded by Fascist foes. By eliminating one or two, important forces can be liberated from guard duty to assist in areas elsewhere; such actions can often win a game so maximizing your prestige is crucial. There are many other uses for diplomacy, but the most annoying thing about the system is the simple lack of useful features that still plague diplomacy in the game. Most glaring of these is the invitation of allies. Britain, Germany and Russia are the leaders of the three ideological factions; as such they alone have the power to invite new countries to their respective alliances. This is a problem for prestige filled countries like Italy and France, who while being major players in the war, can never truly get involved in the diplomatic battleground that is European politics. Even after leaving one of these alliances in the game the player cannot make his own military alliance which can be paramount to a country’s survival. This forces countries to join one of the three main factions vying for dominance and can lead to many tricky situations - as a second rate power, do you ally with Britain, with fascist neighbors or do you risk being caught off guard when tanks role into your capitol? Even with the flaws and things that are sorely missed in the diplomatic process of HoI, it is overwhelmingly good. The diplomatic model allows for a nice range of game styles, and while more things are needed to spruce up gameplay, it is certainly acceptable for the time being.
Of course diplomacy means nothing if your words aren't backed with weapons and industrial might. The system of manufacturing is based on the idea of industrial capacity (IC). IC is used to fund everything in the game, from research to keeping the civilian population happy. Each province generates a set amount of IC at the beginning of the game, but it can be improved once per year at the cost of IC itself. Improving it is most important for small minor nations but large nations (i.e. Russia) can benefit highly from improved industrial facilities. In addition, IC can be lost while building other province-enhancing facilities like AA guns or coastal defenses. However, these are good uses of your total IC and are often the difference between winning or losing critical battles. Production of IC is dependant on the supply of several resources which can be acquired on the world market, taken during war or produced in your nation’s provinces. These resources include coal, steel, rubber and oil, which if supplied properly will keep your factories running at peak efficiency. If lacking in a resource, like rubber, a player can try and acquire amounts on the world market or develop technologies for synthetic development (this is particularly useful for Germany that will find itself in a bind when French and British imports dry up). Industrial matters of your nation also include the maintaining of convoys, particularly in nations that rely on overseas trade to get their resources (namely Britain, France and Japan). Convoys serve two important functions, most importantly they provide transport of all resources in overseas areas controlled by their parent nations, and these resources are most often critical for the countries that collect them. Secondly, convoys are able to carry supplies that are necessary to keep divisions in supply, else they would lose organization and eventually be disbanded. While the economic model is not overly simple, it does manage to be easy to pick up; easy enough that new players will soon be finely tweaking their economies and setting up vast overseas networks of shipping lanes.
Having mastered these basic areas of nation building, the player can finally turn to the main task of the game - the expansion and improvement of the military. Without a modern and large army the player's nation will be left undefended from outside threats, as not everyone can be Switzerland. Achieving this goal is one of the trickier tasks in the game as it becomes a fine balancing act between having a huge, yet technology deficient army (like Russia), or having a relatively small force armed with the best of tanks and aircraft. The player also has to consider the amount of IC that one can spend on their militaries; without proper supplies to fund the industrial base you cannot build a sufficient amount of forces to keep aggressors at bay. The whole system of research, IC and military spending is a complex spider’s web of interdependencies that all rest on the player’s reaction to events in the world. For example, a Japanese invasion of Indochina would stop the flow of French rubber onto the world market. This then denies the player a commodity that he most likely needs, which then reduces the amount of IC that is available for use and would most likely impact the building time of vital, new military forces. These complex webs of events are stunning at times and make each game drastically different.
In addition to these areas, HoI also has a few other important features. Among these is the Minister screen that is accessed by pressing the flag of the player’s nation. In this screen there is a list of ministers ranging from the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Diplomacy. Picking these is an important matter as they bestow bonuses to the nation that hires them. While they do provide incentives, they often bring their own curses as well. A Naval Minister may lower the cost of battleships, but at the cost of aircraft carriers. These negatives occur mostly with Ministers in military positions but other examples exist.
The other important features in HoI are the ideas of dissent and war entry level. Dissent is simply the amount of the population that does not support your government and wishes it to be replaced. It is primarily affected by the amount of IC that is spent on keeping the civilian population happy. If IC is not provided in great enough quantity dissent will start to rise by a set amount each day. The amount of IC needed to keep the population happy varies in each ideological area. Democracies require a high amount to keep the population happy, Fascist states are in the middle and Communist countries need the least amount of appeasement for their civilians. If the level of dissent rises high enough the economy of the country will collapse, further compounding problems, and if it goes up further the player risks the possibility of being assassinated. The idea of dissent also mixes with a country’s war entry level. In the screen which shows a nation’s ideological standing is a small circle that shows the current war entry level of the country in question. Based on the date of the game and historical decisions made by the player and computer, a war entry level is given. While for Communist and Fascist states it is almost irrelevant, it is quite important for Democratic Nations that cannot declare war until they reach a certain point. For instance, for the United States war may not be declared until the war entry level has hit 100. Declaring unpopular wars gives huge jumps in dissent, which will find countries crippled if they continue to war in the face of an angry populace.
For a game of this scope, large-scale is the watchword. Graphics, however, don’t follow suit. HoI resembles EU2 in this regard, but overall it looks better in every respect (thankfully). If zoomed out enough, the map looks akin to the same board you would get in Risk. Here we have a little more detail, however. The world is divided up into several hundred provinces, which have resources and a basic terrain type on them. Thus land takes on about half a dozen different shades of color, depending on what terrain they are. The map changes whenever the player switches from the default terrain view to a different one (political, weather, etc). The high point of HoI’s graphics comes from the units, unless the option to display only NATO symbols is used (most often seen in wargames). The game uses nicely drawn 2D figures with several animations (walking, fighting). While the graphics for the game are far from good looking, they do the job splendidly and give the air of a good old fashioned board game.
Sound, however, is a different story. While the sounds for everything in the game are well done, it's the music that stands out. Paradox managed to include two full hours of classical music in MP3 format. This equals a veritable treat for gamers with a taste for the old masters. The music also fits excellently with the theme of the game and it often seems that the music flows with the game’s course. When war is declared the music picks up, drums start pounding and the atmosphere in the game is heightened by the sound alone, a definite plus for the game.
One of the best things about HoI is the easy to use interface. Most of the game’s important options can be gotten to within a few mouse clicks because of an easy to navigate system which is categorized within five main areas - Research, Industrial, Diplomatic, Armed Forces and Country options. In addition to these five areas, all of your country’s resources, manpower reserves, diplomatic influences and nuclear weapons can be seen at a glance near the top of the screen. Inquiring about these resources is very easy as simply keeping your mouse on top of each resource gives a nice pop-up letting you know your supply and demand. Even better is the way the research screen is handled. Research is the only one of the five main areas that takes up the whole screen, and for good reason. With several hundred techs for your country to research the Paradox team did an excellent job keeping all of that information together and coherent. The only bad thing that is evident within the five main areas is the lack of precise measurement among the sliders when allocating your Industrial Capacity (IC). It’s very good that the interface is so well crafted, as it makes learning the game so much easier.
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