Added Value of Doomsday?

[Murmurandus]

So, anyone who played Doomsday care to explain the added value to the original HoI2?

Or in other words: why should I buy Doomsday if I already have HoI2?

Thanks.

 

[Mattias]

Added Value IMHO

... why should I buy Doomsday if I already have HoI2? ...

I actually preordered my copy (got it yesterday!) to get the possibility to not upgrade or reinforce units, the automatic production-sliders and the autotrade as well as new intelligence-interface (makes it more fun to sort of role-play before the war instead of using hindsight - ie "Sir, the germans have started expanding their surface-fleet, we better start buildning the King George V class of battleships right now").

Of course i also very much enjoy the improved AI and a very good manual - despite having played the game since last spring i have found some new info i missed in the forum or in the former HoI 2 manual. I'm not sure i would have bought it at "full" price but SEK 199 was good value for money! /M

 

[Murmurandus]

I actually preordered my copy (got it yesterday!) to get the possibility to not upgrade or reinforce units, the automatic production-sliders and the autotrade as well as new intelligence-interface (makes it more fun to sort of role-play before the war instead of using hindsight - ie "Sir, the germans have started expanding their surface-fleet, we better start buildning the King George V class of battleships right now").

Of course i also very much enjoy the improved AI and a very good manual - despite having played the game since last spring i have found some new info i missed in the forum or in the former HoI 2 manual. I'm not sure i would have bought it at "full" price but SEK 199 was good value for money! /M

Thanks for your quick reply.

Did you play already? Any first impressions?

 

[monoxism]

but SEK 199 was good value for money!

I second that. I would've been real bummed if I'd paid full price for Doomsday. I like the new additions that you've mentioned, but it feels lacking in some areas. I lovethe leader histories and new traits, they're absolutely awesome, but just as it's fantastic in some areas it's disappointing in others. The timeline has been extended to 1953 and that's great, but not completely extending the techtree to follow leaves me a bit disappointed. The new intelligence system is a bit flawed too. I can assasinate leaders, but events involving them still fire even though they're dead. It would seem Ouiji boards are popular in Doomsday

Right now I think Doomsday is decent. In a year with patching and mods, it might be excellent.

 

[Mattias]

Thanks for your quick reply. Did you play already? Any first impressions?

No, I've only had time to look at the 1936 scenario and the new menus. I will apply the 1.1 patch and then apply my personal changes to the 1936 scenario (with the editor, glad i kept my changelog!), provinces, units and techs (from HoI 2). I think i will have to play mu first game friday night! /M

 

[Murmurandus]

Other opinions?

 

[unmerged(53596)]

There are some great improvements, but also some severe deprovements .

The Intelligence is neat, but frustrating. Much more realistic to not know everything about another nation, but you have to send spies every week and you miss many weeks, like with influencing. Also is very difficult to get a few spies in.

The sliders are a great improvement, but require more attention to making runs of things, I never know when a series stops now. But that is no problem.

The AI seems good, but I am only in my first year.

Tech trees a tiny but expanded, but not much.

Ability to uprade/reinforce or not is great, almost the only reason to even buy this game. (Along with the sliders)

Escort fighters are now a brigade, not sure if this is better or not, now I have to attach one to each bomber, kind of a pain, but will save on a slot for another bomber or two in each group.

The new leader rules are horrible. If I had known about this I WOULD NOT HAVE BOUGHT THIS ADD-ON. It has destroyed my enjoyment of the game. I will most likely go back to original until/if this gets fixed. Your bombing leaders gain no experience! Oh, unless they are in an air battle, in which they will lose since they are bombers. Also, only the leader in charge of the battle gains experience, now none of your leaders will go up in skill level since FM's take forever and noone else will gain any experience at all.

The auto promote seems broken or ruined, I have only one FM and a couple of Generals, I have to promote myself, but because of the above, noone has a very good skill level.

Convoys do not work as well as in the original. I have had to fix several because they would not deliver oil or suplies when I had 1800 convoys not being used.

Overall, I would not buy this again. There are some good things, but there are things that were ruined that didn't need to be touched at all. I love HOI and spend way too much time on it, lat least thats what my wife says, but I am very dissapointed in this add-on. The good thing is that Paradox is such a great company that they will improve things over the next year, I just hope it fixes some of these that I mentioned.

 

[Spruce]

Other opinions?

real sexy game box ! Honestly I think your question is impossible to answer cause everybody will feal different - perhaps you are a bit reluctant but I think already the revamping of subs and autoslider tool is very good. Intelligence is great - it's good to not know everything. Others find intelligence micro management - but actually it gives you something at hand during peace time - and it's not that diffcult to insert spies.

 

[unmerged(38177)]

The new leader rules are horrible. If I had known about this I WOULD NOT HAVE BOUGHT THIS ADD-ON. . . The auto promote seems broken or ruined . . . Convoys do not work as well as in the original.. . . very dissapointed in this add-on. The good thing is that Paradox . . . will improve things over the next year.

I must thank all the post regarding these problems. Once we have a HOI2-DD 1.2 / 1.3 (Read HOI2 v2.3), I will re-consider enhancing my game Until then, I will not (and save $19.95 USD.) I can appreciate all the work "Johan and Company" have done, but it looks like they broke too many things in this release. Obviously the "extensive" beta testing before the initial release did not occur here.

On the plus side, there is ample room for a HOI2-nonDD Mod to model DD on the Non-DD game engine.

 

[Passivocalia]

While this thread is still open, has anyone played the 1944 scenario? Does the Pacific War make any sense?

Any new, fancy fun events?

 

[Murmurandus]

real sexy game box ! Honestly I think your question is impossible to answer cause everybody will feal different - perhaps you are a bit reluctant but I think already the revamping of subs and autoslider tool is very good. Intelligence is great - it's good to not know everything. Others find intelligence micro management - but actually it gives you something at hand during peace time - and it's not that diffcult to insert spies.

Euh, impossible to answer? I don't think so, I guess each one of you has at least his own opinion and that's what I'm asking for... And at the end you're giving your opinion too...

Anyway, great to know it has a real sexy box...

 

[Murmurandus]

There are some great improvements, but also some severe deprovements .

...

Thanks, clamca, interesting summary.

 

[Spruce]

Euh, impossible to answer? I don't think so, I guess each one of you has at least his own opinion and that's what I'm asking for... And at the end you're giving your opinion too...

Anyway, great to know it has a real sexy box...

yes impossible, cause opinions can be different. You are not asking me what colour is your hair ? No - buy or not buy is really a tough question.

For instance, the good is that AI has been improved a lot, the gamey subs are gone (so naval battles are really cool now) and the autoslider tools make a game much more enjoying. Some things still need to be adressed - see other threads.

I'm now playing a game as Germany on hard - and the Polish AI surprised me in the positive sense - it has done a much better job at defending itself. One can argue that this kind of stuff is more for an enhancement and not an expansion. But the whole thing comes as one package ... and it's just a step forward and as such is worth my money - dunno about yours.

 

[Murmurandus]

yes impossible, cause opinions can be different. You are not asking me what colour is your hair ? No - buy or not buy is really a tough question.

For instance, the good is that AI has been improved a lot, the gamey subs are gone (so naval battles are really cool now) and the autoslider tools make a game much more enjoying. Some things still need to be adressed - see other threads.

I'm now playing a game as Germany on hard - and the Polish AI surprised me in the positive sense - it has done a much better job at defending itself. One can argue that this kind of stuff is more for an enhancement and not an expansion. But the whole thing comes as one package ... and it's just a step forward and as such is worth my money - dunno about yours.

You're making this much too difficult. I just ask for 'different' opinions. Then I filter out what I think is not important and on that basis I make my decision. easy, isn't it?

 

[Spruce]

You're making this much too difficult. I just ask for 'different' opinions. Then I filter out what I think is not important and on that basis I make my decision. easy, isn't it?

Ok, ok - I put on a commercial hat here ...

really the AI has been improved a lot, subs are not the ueber killer anymore. The autosliders takes time away to work with the game.

But intelligence still needs some work - and some weird stuff (see other threads) is haunting the game and the forum. But that will be cleared pretty fast im sure of.

Basicly the game is much more fun to play - so why lose time and not to enjoy a better game. And they'll use that money to make the game even better I'm sure.

 

[Spruce]

let's say the HOI2 AI is a lobotomised version of the DD AI. And I'm not exagerating.

Poland, France and USSR have shown to be much more tough against me as Germany (hard). The USSR dow'd me early 1941 - I was not ready yet (due to lost time in France) and I'm still not able to do some major encirclements ! The USSR is winning the war - my manpower is going down way too fast...

And naval battles, that's really a beauty ...

 

[unmerged(25355)]

I must thank all the post regarding these problems. Once we have a HOI2-DD 1.2 / 1.3 (Read HOI2 v2.3), I will re-consider enhancing my game Until then, I will not (and save $19.95 USD.) I can appreciate all the work "Johan and Company" have done, but it looks like they broke too many things in this release. Obviously the "extensive" beta testing before the initial release did not occur here.

On the plus side, there is ample room for a HOI2-nonDD Mod to model DD on the Non-DD game engine.

I guess you are planning to order it. DD will not be instores for much more than a month.

 

[Ex Mudder]

I only played the demo, so I can't say much, as I usually play the '36 GC as the US. The addition of Spies and intelligence makes the pre-war years much more fun. It also makes playing non belligerents far more interesting. Instead of using the nofog and showtech cheats, so I can see what is going on in the world, I just send spies. Trying to get spies into Nat Spain to see what they were up to was a pain - and dropped my relations, cuz they kept detecting me.

The other thing I like is the escort fighter brigades. I can now defend Guam, or Midway, with 4 brigaded nav bombers, instead of 2 Nav/Esc pairs. North Africa is another - trying to fly strats and tacs against the Italians was overloading the airbases, because each one needed an escort. Japan vs China, and Barbarosa will also likely benefit from reduced airbase overcrowding and micromanagement.

The auto trade function is wonderful. I was micromanaging it for a while, then I just turned it on and let it run. Very quickly I was swimming in a supply surplus from automated resource trades. All I needed to do was manually make oil trades to keep relations up with countries I was sending spies to, and an occasional big oil for resources trade, so I could keep running a surplus - and get offered even more supplies for that surplus. And it's really nice being able to consolidate all your trades into a single uber trade.

Being able to give away your obsolete ships is quite nice. Someone posted about giving Germany all of Japan's older hulls, and I'd probably give the UK all of mine if I was playing a neutral US and had plenty of type IVs. I even gave the Phillippines my dive boats, just for kicks. And I look forward to buying, upgrading, and brigading the Liberian and Phillippine army. I can even buy their type 1 interceptors by offering them my type IVs (if they ever build any).

That being said, there seem to be several problems. OOBs are inaccurate or need updating - the South Pacific battle Scenarios need some of the CVs turned into CVLs. The autosliders didn't work for me (but that was apparently fixed). Wierd messages, or a distict lack of messages. Still no "Its been a year since your last slider move" pop up. Navs apparently need balancing. Still no real leader hierarchy. Autopromote is still wonky. Convoys do strange things. Still no Long Range Recon orders to send your longer ranged aircraft over an entire region (Belelux instead of Flanders; England instead of South England). CVLs will likely need some play balancing. Some screens lack relevant details. Some slider bars go missing. The game still can't tell if there is an oil shortage when there is a supply surplus.

I think most people find DD far more enjoyable to play that Vanilla HOI 2. The AI improvement makes it better in wartime, and intelligence makes peacetime more fun as well. I think that's why the annoying elements stand out so clearly. For me, it's "This is so much better! Now if only <insert rant here>"

 

[Lothos]

DD is a huge improvement from 1.3b if you are complaining about spending 19.99 for an expansion that is the entire game with allot of improvements then their is nothing Paradox can do to make you happy and what you are looking for is located with Mr Arork(however you spell his name) on fantasy island. For the price tage you get allot with Doomsday and yes the AI has been improved allot and I am not saying just script. Most of the AI improvements are in the EXE itself.

So here are your options

1) Don't buy it and wait for hte price to go down to $5 which then assures that Paradox makes no money on the game which could effect the possibilities of an HoI 3

2) Buy the game to support Paradox and to encourage them to continue improving it.

Considering the complexity of the game no company could make it perfect on the first try nor second try. It takes years of testing and coding, look how long it took ADG to get World In Flames to be the perfect World War II board game.

 

[unmerged(12217)]

I've not been following HOI2 for a while and only now am looking at DD. Please excuse a possibly dumb question, but here goes. If I buy DD am I able to play the WW2 era from 1936 with all the new improvements like sliders and intel/spies? Or is DD only for the post-war era scenarios? Thanks