Yes, I know there are tons of "What I think of 1.02" threads, but I just have to have my own. 
If you're either unable to read, or dislike it, I warn you now, this post is loooooooong. Now, on to my analysis:
I must admit that after I played my first game of HOI, I was very turned off to it. I played Germany, and following the strategy I'd heard from the forums here, I concentrated all of my economy to research for the first couple years. I had managed to acquire Panthers by 1938, and nearly the max of every resource. I though to myself "okay, if this is what I achieved in this amount of time, then I must have a quarter the sized army of any other nation". After building a rather small mechanized/armor force (about 5 panzer divisions and 8 mechanized), and a small air force, I proceeded to follow history. (As expected) I crushed Poland with negligible resistance, which I figured was destined to happen anyways. I didn't pay much mind to their tactics, technology or army size, as I figured their position would be rather hopeless no matter what. I then went on to crush Denmark and Norway. Denmark had only 2 divisions, and was overrun within a matter of hours. Norway proved much more difficult as I had only a couple transports, and the Norwegien armies were very slippery and hard to keep track of.
Anyways, I declared war on France in the spring of 1940, expecting to face an army twice or three times larger than my own, due to my sacrifice of quantity for quality. I had approximately 50 or 60 divisions at this time.
Instead of fighting my way through a sea of Frenchmen, I find a skeleton force of 12 divisions guarding the French border. I figure "perhaps the AI is holding back the vast majority of his forces". Instead, I drive past Paris, and find approximately 5 more divisions defending the other borders of France, and by the time they moved it was far too late to possibly defend against even one of my panzer divisions.
After this, I was horrified. How could the game be so horribly unbalanced? And this all on aggressive/very hard. I figured this game was a wash anyways, and took a look at the current USSR OOB. They had about 30 divisions defending their frontier with Germany. Yes, 30 divisions total. At that point I gave up on that game, and hadn't played Germany since then. I played Japan once. I was simply stunned how this could happen. Under such circumstances, it would only be a challenge if I had used one of my very highly advanced panzer armies on each front. It was absurd to say the least.
Therefore, I was anxiously awaiting 1.02. A pleasant suprise when it was released today. I decided to see how things had changed interface-wise first, and started a new game as Germany again. I did all the things you normally do as Germany, but I found trading on the world market to be impossibly more difficult... I'm running at around 2/3 of my max ICs simply because there's no possible way to get enough rubber/steel to finance my economy 100%. Before the fireworks start up, I decide to check and see how the AI plays... so I start a new game as Switzerland on the fastest speed with fog of war off.
My first 'demo' (i.e. hands-off) game of 1.02 things played out fairly historically until 1940. The infamous WWI stalemate 'bug' occurred, where Germany and France would have a very long line along the entire French border, with neither side willing to attack. After this dragged on into 1942, I stopped the game, and feared for the worst... while the AI appeared to be building more units, they didn't seem to be using them now... On the bright side, Nationalist China was very successful against the Japanese (as successful as I've seen them by far). They managed to put up a very stiff resistence, and had their troops been of better quality, they very well might have won things, or kept them at a stalemate at the very least. China lasted into 1940 or 1941 before being overwhelmed by Japan.
My second demo game things ended up fairly the same, until the invasion of France. France managed to take the Saar, which Germany reclaimed after a short while, and then responded by taking Metz. After taking out the Low Countries, Germany appeared to get a brain fart again, and stop. However, this time after some maneuvering, they struck, and after a few long and bitter battles, France fell. There were quite a few good battles, and unlike 1.01, Germany did lose some of them. Okay, that's fine and dandy I thought, let's see what else the AI is capable of.
The Axis declared war on Yugoslavia, as Japan quickly digested China this time (they managed to encircle and destroy much of the Chinese army before they could put up a fight in a very quick assault... quite impressive). Germany took over most of Yugoslavia and set up Croatia. Now, Germany declared war on the USSR. However, they didn't have all that many forces deployed on the border with the USSR, so the offensive went rather slow. Germany had about 100 divisions (not including allied units), and the USSR had about 150 or so. Germany pushed forward to about the eastern border of Poland, then the USSR began mounting very large assaults, and managed to encircle and destroy a couple German armies. The German infantry has been worn down a vast amount, and I think it's only a matter of time before the USSR breaks through and crushes Germany. Like France, the eastern front was a scene of very spactacular battles between up to 50 divisions on each side (which the AI handled quite well) during which I was truly captivated watching, rooting for one side, seeing a large offensive in the making, or gasp when an encirclement was completed by the USSR. This is the point where this game is at currently.
My thoughts:
The AI has been infinitely improved compared to my 1.01 experience. Seeing the AI build (literally) 4 or 5 times more troops has given me a new hope in the game that I lost after finding France with 1/3 of my divisions (and half the quality) and the USSR with 1/2 and less quality during what would have been the dates of the historical invasions during my first game as Germany with 1.01. Another thing I've noticed is that now the AI also retreats from combat quite effectively (as I witnessed on the eastern front... as the German armies got more and more worn down they would retreat to avoid total catastrophe). The AI is also good at shifting forces to a decisive battle to try and gain the upper hand. In addition, the AI has recieved some tweaks for various countries (like China and its troop allocations, for example) have made things much more realistic.
Game balance is also much better now, relative to 1.01. No longer can Germany sit where it is in 1936 and get to 99999 of everything before war breaks out. They also can't drive through the USSR with 10 divisions and annex them in a month with 95% of the Soviet divisions in Finland either. France now has a chance, and no longer is rammed through Maginot and crushed by Italy from the south.
Some other small refinements, like the day/night indicator in the CCB, the +/- buttons on the production sliders, and the ability to cancel build and research queues help to polish the interface as well.
Some things I would have liked to have seen that weren't included would have been a way to bypass the CCB (this is especially important for MP play), partisans (of course), and other general things of that nature.
In conclusion, 1.02 is a major step forward for HOI... There are still plenty of things that can be added, improved and refined, but from what I can see thus far, 1.02 will keep me very happy for quite a long while, and it could easily pass as the final version of the game. Unbelieveable that Paradox completed it in such a short amount of time (a few weeks!). After such drastic improvements to gameplay, I'll be hoping and sweating bullets for every future patch for HOI. Bravo to Johan and crew, for an excellent job.
Merry Christmas to Paradox, and us all as well.
If you're either unable to read, or dislike it, I warn you now, this post is loooooooong.
Now, on to my analysis:I must admit that after I played my first game of HOI, I was very turned off to it. I played Germany, and following the strategy I'd heard from the forums here, I concentrated all of my economy to research for the first couple years. I had managed to acquire Panthers by 1938, and nearly the max of every resource. I though to myself "okay, if this is what I achieved in this amount of time, then I must have a quarter the sized army of any other nation". After building a rather small mechanized/armor force (about 5 panzer divisions and 8 mechanized), and a small air force, I proceeded to follow history. (As expected) I crushed Poland with negligible resistance, which I figured was destined to happen anyways. I didn't pay much mind to their tactics, technology or army size, as I figured their position would be rather hopeless no matter what. I then went on to crush Denmark and Norway. Denmark had only 2 divisions, and was overrun within a matter of hours. Norway proved much more difficult as I had only a couple transports, and the Norwegien armies were very slippery and hard to keep track of.
Anyways, I declared war on France in the spring of 1940, expecting to face an army twice or three times larger than my own, due to my sacrifice of quantity for quality. I had approximately 50 or 60 divisions at this time.
Instead of fighting my way through a sea of Frenchmen, I find a skeleton force of 12 divisions guarding the French border. I figure "perhaps the AI is holding back the vast majority of his forces". Instead, I drive past Paris, and find approximately 5 more divisions defending the other borders of France, and by the time they moved it was far too late to possibly defend against even one of my panzer divisions.
After this, I was horrified. How could the game be so horribly unbalanced? And this all on aggressive/very hard. I figured this game was a wash anyways, and took a look at the current USSR OOB. They had about 30 divisions defending their frontier with Germany. Yes, 30 divisions total. At that point I gave up on that game, and hadn't played Germany since then. I played Japan once. I was simply stunned how this could happen. Under such circumstances, it would only be a challenge if I had used one of my very highly advanced panzer armies on each front. It was absurd to say the least.
Therefore, I was anxiously awaiting 1.02. A pleasant suprise when it was released today. I decided to see how things had changed interface-wise first, and started a new game as Germany again. I did all the things you normally do as Germany, but I found trading on the world market to be impossibly more difficult... I'm running at around 2/3 of my max ICs simply because there's no possible way to get enough rubber/steel to finance my economy 100%. Before the fireworks start up, I decide to check and see how the AI plays... so I start a new game as Switzerland on the fastest speed with fog of war off.
My first 'demo' (i.e. hands-off) game of 1.02 things played out fairly historically until 1940. The infamous WWI stalemate 'bug' occurred, where Germany and France would have a very long line along the entire French border, with neither side willing to attack. After this dragged on into 1942, I stopped the game, and feared for the worst... while the AI appeared to be building more units, they didn't seem to be using them now... On the bright side, Nationalist China was very successful against the Japanese (as successful as I've seen them by far). They managed to put up a very stiff resistence, and had their troops been of better quality, they very well might have won things, or kept them at a stalemate at the very least. China lasted into 1940 or 1941 before being overwhelmed by Japan.
My second demo game things ended up fairly the same, until the invasion of France. France managed to take the Saar, which Germany reclaimed after a short while, and then responded by taking Metz. After taking out the Low Countries, Germany appeared to get a brain fart again, and stop. However, this time after some maneuvering, they struck, and after a few long and bitter battles, France fell. There were quite a few good battles, and unlike 1.01, Germany did lose some of them. Okay, that's fine and dandy I thought, let's see what else the AI is capable of.
The Axis declared war on Yugoslavia, as Japan quickly digested China this time (they managed to encircle and destroy much of the Chinese army before they could put up a fight in a very quick assault... quite impressive). Germany took over most of Yugoslavia and set up Croatia. Now, Germany declared war on the USSR. However, they didn't have all that many forces deployed on the border with the USSR, so the offensive went rather slow. Germany had about 100 divisions (not including allied units), and the USSR had about 150 or so. Germany pushed forward to about the eastern border of Poland, then the USSR began mounting very large assaults, and managed to encircle and destroy a couple German armies. The German infantry has been worn down a vast amount, and I think it's only a matter of time before the USSR breaks through and crushes Germany. Like France, the eastern front was a scene of very spactacular battles between up to 50 divisions on each side (which the AI handled quite well) during which I was truly captivated watching, rooting for one side, seeing a large offensive in the making, or gasp when an encirclement was completed by the USSR. This is the point where this game is at currently.
My thoughts:
The AI has been infinitely improved compared to my 1.01 experience. Seeing the AI build (literally) 4 or 5 times more troops has given me a new hope in the game that I lost after finding France with 1/3 of my divisions (and half the quality) and the USSR with 1/2 and less quality during what would have been the dates of the historical invasions during my first game as Germany with 1.01. Another thing I've noticed is that now the AI also retreats from combat quite effectively (as I witnessed on the eastern front... as the German armies got more and more worn down they would retreat to avoid total catastrophe). The AI is also good at shifting forces to a decisive battle to try and gain the upper hand. In addition, the AI has recieved some tweaks for various countries (like China and its troop allocations, for example) have made things much more realistic.
Game balance is also much better now, relative to 1.01. No longer can Germany sit where it is in 1936 and get to 99999 of everything before war breaks out. They also can't drive through the USSR with 10 divisions and annex them in a month with 95% of the Soviet divisions in Finland either. France now has a chance, and no longer is rammed through Maginot and crushed by Italy from the south.
Some other small refinements, like the day/night indicator in the CCB, the +/- buttons on the production sliders, and the ability to cancel build and research queues help to polish the interface as well.
Some things I would have liked to have seen that weren't included would have been a way to bypass the CCB (this is especially important for MP play), partisans (of course), and other general things of that nature.
In conclusion, 1.02 is a major step forward for HOI... There are still plenty of things that can be added, improved and refined, but from what I can see thus far, 1.02 will keep me very happy for quite a long while, and it could easily pass as the final version of the game. Unbelieveable that Paradox completed it in such a short amount of time (a few weeks!). After such drastic improvements to gameplay, I'll be hoping and sweating bullets for every future patch for HOI. Bravo to Johan and crew, for an excellent job.
Merry Christmas to Paradox, and us all as well.