Darkest Hour VS Arsenal of Democracy

[Davisx3m]

If you only go by Xfire stats Darkest Hours beats AoD with around 40places.
Currently it's the 355'th most played game on Xfire.

http://www.xfire.com/games/dhhoi/Dar..._of_Iron_Game/

While AoD when it was best was the 392'nd most played game.

http://www.xfire.com/games/arsenald/..._Of_Democracy/

Woop Woop

[BeardedHoplite]

[Lord Finnish]

^ Made me chuckle


AoD is, unfortunately, buried in the mass grave of Classic Games and is in the same category as, say, Doomsday or EU2. Darkest Hour's saving grace is its modern appearance and excellent dev team.

[Findex]

Darkest hour has so much more depth and scope than AoD, the events and the map make it almost a new game rather than a large mod.

[Cybvep]

Yeah, DH's devs and community are much more active than AOD's. I heard that AOD devs are working on a different project now. Anyway, DH seems to have a brighter future, as the devs are constantly improving the game. AOD has some great features, but very poorly documented ones and it's very laggy. Somehow I feel that it never reached its full potential.

[Blecky]

Darkest hour has so much more depth and scope than AoD, the events and the map make it almost a new game rather than a large mod.

Do we have to go through this - again?

[Hyo]

I personally like AoD. If you're talking about depth, AoD definitely has some advantages on the military side in my opinion. Some of its other changes, (Infra to 20, esepcially large ones, but I liked it overall.

Problem was though, one of its neatest features - supply, was also one of its largest pitfalls, because of the massive amount of calculations and lag that came with it. It was still one of my favourites however, since it actually made campaigning more difficult, and places like China were definitely more realistic, with absolute shit ESE for Japan. (Too much that AI Japan almost always gets screwed over though, so... xD).

Either way, both DH and AoD are great games with their distinct advantages and disadvantages. Here's my take on it: Compare them, list what you like and don't like, but don't try to claim superiority over the other. Please, I'd hate to see another fracture / flame war in the HoI community because of inter-game rivalries.

[Panzergruppe]

I like both. I played AoD like mad before DH came, and if patch 1.08 comes (and I hope it does) I'll play it again.

[Easy1]

It's quite incredible that DH seemingly is played the most one year after release. That should come as very pleasant news to the developers.

[Davisx3m]

Btw take a look at the stats in the Paradox Games Cult too:

http://www.xfire.com/communities/pdgc/

It's by far the most played game the last 7 days.

[Beelz]

Id say the difference is mostly the same as the difference between DH and HoI3: it runs faster on lower systems so we plebs with weak machines can play it.

[T.j. Arnold]

Id say the difference is mostly the same as the difference between DH and HoI3: it runs faster on lower systems so we plebs with weak machines can play it.

Not so much that as Darkest Hour was actually optimized, HoI III is basically just band-aided over with "add-ons" (paid-for patches, as I call them, as without them the game is basically unplayable).

There's still some aspects I like about HoI III, such as not having to micro-manage Fronts you could care less about (or, as I like to do, create an army and only attach planes to it, then set it to the A.I., as I hate having to manage them), but it just feels barren. The "power-triangle" for Influcence among nations is a good idea, but it looses it's flair when the U.S. can easily be drifted into the Axis as a result. I also like how you can Amphibiously Assault any province, though the AI seems to never exploit this fact (they only invade a province if it has a port).

My biggest issue is that the the graphics aren't impressive enough to constitute the 3D map; if they incorporated what they had into a faster 2D game and kept some elements from HoI II (such as being able to view foreign ministers), kept the HoI II Naval system (though I do like how they treated carriers), I think I'd be a good game.
I really don't think a simulator like this needs a super-3D game, as such games are more about the speed then the graphics (the tactics and their results are all in your head, after all).

[Cybvep]

Not so much that as Darkest Hour was actually optimized (...)

It was optimised. It runs faster than ARMA.

[T.j. Arnold]

It was optimised. It runs faster than ARMA.

I know, that is literally what that statement means.

"Not so much that" pertaining to the fact that I don't think DH is better because it runs better on slower systems.

[Capt. Kiwi]

Not so much that as Darkest Hour was actually optimized, HoI III is basically just band-aided over with "add-ons" (paid-for patches, as I call them, as without them the game is basically unplayable).

There's still some aspects I like about HoI III, such as not having to micro-manage Fronts you could care less about (or, as I like to do, create an army and only attach planes to it, then set it to the A.I., as I hate having to manage them), but it just feels barren. The "power-triangle" for Influcence among nations is a good idea, but it looses it's flair when the U.S. can easily be drifted into the Axis as a result. I also like how you can Amphibiously Assault any province, though the AI seems to never exploit this fact (they only invade a province if it has a port).

My biggest issue is that the the graphics aren't impressive enough to constitute the 3D map; if they incorporated what they had into a faster 2D game and kept some elements from HoI II (such as being able to view foreign ministers), kept the HoI II Naval system (though I do like how they treated carriers), I think I'd be a good game.
I really don't think a simulator like this needs a super-3D game, as such games are more about the speed then the graphics (the tactics and their results are all in your head, after all).

I'm pretty sure the 3D graphics make the game run faster than an otherwise identical 2D game, as it shifts the load onto the GPU.

Although I still think the DH map is the best of the lot. Not because it's 2D, but because the map projection and provinces are so much better than any of the others I've seen. Maybe CLIO will come out one day...

[Pioniere]

Would be interesting to hear more what the DH-team is cooking maybe its a mini expansion or something in a form of a patch.

[Limith]

2D graphics can be faster than 3D graphics even with the offloading to GPU. Also, with 2D graphics is easy to get it to look clean and nice with little resource usage, it's hard to get 3D graphics to look nice without high poly, good textures, etc. which take up system resources. I personally dislike the HoI3 map's graphics, I think the Vicky2 map looks nicer though.

If you've ever rendered a nice looking 3D model on your computer and compared it to the time it takes to view/load a flat 2D image, you'd realize why 3D != faster.

[Easy1]

Would be interesting to hear more what the DH-team is cooking maybe its a mini expansion or something in a form of a patch.

The mother of all pathces is under way

[Inner Circle]

The mother of all pathces is under way

[Beagá]

For those who played all games, which one has the best AI? DH, AoD, or HOI 3?

Example, in which one is it harder to invade Germany or Italy as the UK? Or kick the UK out of North Africa as Italy? Because I once invaded Italy in 1940 in AoD...