- Dec 14, 1999
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Scenario points are always an interesting challenge for us. Firstly I suppose before we dive in we should give a nice full answer to the question why not have start on any day like EU3. Well this was something we did discuss initially during early design. We began to think about this early on. EU3 showed us that it would perfectly feasible to have province changing hands on a daily basis. Now admittedly Hearts of Iron 3 has a lot more provinces, but on the other hand there is a lot more data out there meaning it could actually be easier.
However the problem began when we thought about units. EU3 used situation generated unit placement. Basically it would look at the situation and start placing units as required, at war you get more troops, troops would be placed close to the borders of current combatants. However just imagine trying to do something like this the day before the Battle of the Bulge, by all logic Germany should be concentrating its units on the Eastern Front were the biggest danger is, not in front of the best defensible terrain in the Western Front, it just makes no sense. In addition you really want to see those famous units where they were, you do not want to see generic armoured division number 3 in the western desert. No you want to see the 7th armoured division, the Desert Rats out there. So we realised that essentially we would not just need a province history, we would actually need individual unit history tracking its movements and strength over whichever time frame we picked.
Then there was the other problem. Let’s say you start the day before Pearl Harbour, the Japanese combined fleet is out in the Pacific steaming toward its Day of Infamy. Then the Japanese AI decides that the USA has a huge IC, massive manpower and to be honest this war in China is taking a lot of our resources we would be mad to fight them and calls the fleet home. Now for those of you who are fans of a ‘good’ AI this would be an eminently sensible decision for the Japanese AI to make, but let’s be honest it isn’t going to give you the full on World War II experience. So we would also have had to give direction to the AI as well, start in August 1939 the German AI would need to know that Poland is next or it would be building up against France. Who let’s face it does have the biggest army of all it’s neighbours and is thus the biggest threat. So to cut a long story short we realised that if we wanted to do daily (in fact even monthly) history it would of needed so much time we wouldn’t have had any time left to make an actual game.
So having reached that conclusion we decided to focus our attention on 7 specific starting dates.
1936 ‘The Road to War’ – The original and best grand campaign spanning the whole Hearts of Iron 3 time frame.
1938 ‘The Gathering Storm’ – Set just a year before the historical outbreak of World War II, it gives most of the combatants time to prepare themselves for war, but with a shorter build up time
1939 ‘Blitzkrieg’ – With the German invasion of Poland just beginning World War II has just begun. For those of you who want to get right into the action.
1941 ‘Barbarossa’ – Dortmund! Dortmund! The great clash has begun, with the Germans assault on the Soviet Union. Perfect for those of you who want the truly epic Hearts of Iron 3 experience.
1941 ‘Day of Infamy’ – With Pearl Harbour about to begin we have all combatants in place, World War II is now spanning the globe.
1943 ‘The Tide has Turned’ – The German 6th Army has just surrendered at Stalingrad and Japanese have been defeated at Midway, the initiative has switched, but the Axis are still powerful.
1944 ‘Götterdämmering’ – The allies are ashore at Normandy and the Axis are being pushed back on all fronts, last one to Berlin gets the smallest post war alliance, or is it?
Now Hearts of Iron 2 fans will notice that some of these scenarios are pretty familiar, that’s because they are. We promised you more in Hearts of Iron 3 and having done that we could hardly start cutting scenarios now could we? That’s not to say that converting the scenarios over to Hearts of Iron 3 was easy. Yes the nice thing was that the base historical research was done, but there was still a lot of work to be done. Firstly the units needed to be spread out more to create proper front lines. The divisions needed to be structured historically, which Japanese Divisions were square divisions and which were triangular? The command hierarchies had to be set up, all this took time and effort. Although not pressing with the 1936 scenario but with the later ones this became important, the last thing we wanted was for players not to be able to hit the ground running.
We also added two new scenarios. These were two nice dates we felt would be good to have. The Pearl Harbour was one we wanted for those who liked to play either the US or Japan, with it set just as the war in the Pacific begins, it is the perfect place to start. Can you hold the Japanese further forward, or can you catch the US carrier fleet and sweep all before you before the industrial might of the US is brought fully to bear. With the Tide has turned we felt we had given a nice starting point for Allied or Soviet Union players. The Initiative is yours now, but the Axis aren’t so beaten down that is simply a question of time. Making an interesting blend of fun and challenge.
Well that’s our scenario starting points, hope you find one that suits you.
And then.. cause the screenshot showing the relevent information for the development diary has nothing really new and cool, you get another screenshot this time..
The area southwest of Moscow.. in the winter.
However the problem began when we thought about units. EU3 used situation generated unit placement. Basically it would look at the situation and start placing units as required, at war you get more troops, troops would be placed close to the borders of current combatants. However just imagine trying to do something like this the day before the Battle of the Bulge, by all logic Germany should be concentrating its units on the Eastern Front were the biggest danger is, not in front of the best defensible terrain in the Western Front, it just makes no sense. In addition you really want to see those famous units where they were, you do not want to see generic armoured division number 3 in the western desert. No you want to see the 7th armoured division, the Desert Rats out there. So we realised that essentially we would not just need a province history, we would actually need individual unit history tracking its movements and strength over whichever time frame we picked.
Then there was the other problem. Let’s say you start the day before Pearl Harbour, the Japanese combined fleet is out in the Pacific steaming toward its Day of Infamy. Then the Japanese AI decides that the USA has a huge IC, massive manpower and to be honest this war in China is taking a lot of our resources we would be mad to fight them and calls the fleet home. Now for those of you who are fans of a ‘good’ AI this would be an eminently sensible decision for the Japanese AI to make, but let’s be honest it isn’t going to give you the full on World War II experience. So we would also have had to give direction to the AI as well, start in August 1939 the German AI would need to know that Poland is next or it would be building up against France. Who let’s face it does have the biggest army of all it’s neighbours and is thus the biggest threat. So to cut a long story short we realised that if we wanted to do daily (in fact even monthly) history it would of needed so much time we wouldn’t have had any time left to make an actual game.
So having reached that conclusion we decided to focus our attention on 7 specific starting dates.
1936 ‘The Road to War’ – The original and best grand campaign spanning the whole Hearts of Iron 3 time frame.
1938 ‘The Gathering Storm’ – Set just a year before the historical outbreak of World War II, it gives most of the combatants time to prepare themselves for war, but with a shorter build up time
1939 ‘Blitzkrieg’ – With the German invasion of Poland just beginning World War II has just begun. For those of you who want to get right into the action.
1941 ‘Barbarossa’ – Dortmund! Dortmund! The great clash has begun, with the Germans assault on the Soviet Union. Perfect for those of you who want the truly epic Hearts of Iron 3 experience.
1941 ‘Day of Infamy’ – With Pearl Harbour about to begin we have all combatants in place, World War II is now spanning the globe.
1943 ‘The Tide has Turned’ – The German 6th Army has just surrendered at Stalingrad and Japanese have been defeated at Midway, the initiative has switched, but the Axis are still powerful.
1944 ‘Götterdämmering’ – The allies are ashore at Normandy and the Axis are being pushed back on all fronts, last one to Berlin gets the smallest post war alliance, or is it?
Now Hearts of Iron 2 fans will notice that some of these scenarios are pretty familiar, that’s because they are. We promised you more in Hearts of Iron 3 and having done that we could hardly start cutting scenarios now could we? That’s not to say that converting the scenarios over to Hearts of Iron 3 was easy. Yes the nice thing was that the base historical research was done, but there was still a lot of work to be done. Firstly the units needed to be spread out more to create proper front lines. The divisions needed to be structured historically, which Japanese Divisions were square divisions and which were triangular? The command hierarchies had to be set up, all this took time and effort. Although not pressing with the 1936 scenario but with the later ones this became important, the last thing we wanted was for players not to be able to hit the ground running.
We also added two new scenarios. These were two nice dates we felt would be good to have. The Pearl Harbour was one we wanted for those who liked to play either the US or Japan, with it set just as the war in the Pacific begins, it is the perfect place to start. Can you hold the Japanese further forward, or can you catch the US carrier fleet and sweep all before you before the industrial might of the US is brought fully to bear. With the Tide has turned we felt we had given a nice starting point for Allied or Soviet Union players. The Initiative is yours now, but the Axis aren’t so beaten down that is simply a question of time. Making an interesting blend of fun and challenge.
Well that’s our scenario starting points, hope you find one that suits you.
And then.. cause the screenshot showing the relevent information for the development diary has nothing really new and cool, you get another screenshot this time..
The area southwest of Moscow.. in the winter.
