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I love the posts that complain HOI3 is still to heavily scripted and restrictive for
players. Just how whacked out a game of WW2 do you want? The cries of
"read a book" if you want WW2 is, well, just wrong. Using your strategy you
can change history but you should not change history as an excuse for not wanting
to play a real historically based game. You think if the US loses Midway that won't
change WW2? Or France holding out til 41? Thats real changes. Not a game where
you might as well change the names and pics of units (and you can) to orcs, trolls,
elves, and the like (CAG Dragons anyone?). If you can't take the heat of trying to
win WW2 using the basis of real history get out of the kitchen and play Candyland.
players. Just how whacked out a game of WW2 do you want? The cries of
"read a book" if you want WW2 is, well, just wrong. Using your strategy you
can change history but you should not change history as an excuse for not wanting
to play a real historically based game. You think if the US loses Midway that won't
change WW2? Or France holding out til 41? Thats real changes. Not a game where
you might as well change the names and pics of units (and you can) to orcs, trolls,
elves, and the like (CAG Dragons anyone?). If you can't take the heat of trying to
win WW2 using the basis of real history get out of the kitchen and play Candyland.
Honestly, if I hadn't paid money for it, I would have assumed the game was still in the Beta stage.
I bought the game, I like the game, I think it's great. I'd imagine that everyone who reads or posts on these types of threads ( for any game ) would have to like the game on the whole, otherwise they'd not care about potential improvements.
As a first time player of a P.I. game I find the following to be of concern and issues which would prevent or at least limit the chances of me buying another game from them.
1. Lack of professionalism. I'm sorry guys, but holding things together with sticky tape just isn't good enough for a commercial product. This is about the only problem I have, since the actual issues I believe largely stem from this.
Examples from my short and limited experience of buying the game off steam, and playing it for the last few days -
1. Trying to run a tutorial in the game causes it to crash. This is a big issue as it is a very complicated game, with a lot of aspects which are borderline impossible to figure out just by jumping in and trying to play it. So having the tutorials crash the game means its almost impossible to play the game without trying to find a solution to this.
2. Trying to find a solution. After finding the forums... and checking the FAQ ... not in there. Try to search the forums, no search function. After eventually finding a solution ( Which required bouncing around between google, these forums and other 3rd party forums for over an hour ), it was simply an update of files. Why couldn't this be quite quickly implemented as a fix via a minor patch?
3. Performance issues. There's no shortage of complaints and threads addressing these, along with fairly simple and common fixes ( i.e. changing the run priority and forcing the game to use 1 core e.t.c ) Are these things which can't be hard-coded into the game to work each time it runs?
4. Searching the forums. There's a thread, with a guide in it, on how to use google to search these forums. This seems to be an excellent example of the mindset at work that I find to be simply unacceptable from a commercial entity. This is the sort of thing I'd expect from modders, people doing it as a hobby, not people charging full retail price for their software.
Repeatedly, it seems as if slow clumsy workarounds are deemed acceptable solutions. They are not. They set up an expectation from myself, and I assume others, that future games made by P.I. will have a similar level of support and mindset incorporated into them.
So while I think HoI3 is an awesome game, with some excellent mechanics, imagination and game play in it, I think it is really let down by the complete lack of polish and support.
( As with people who have made positive comments and feed back, I agree. It is a great game, and I'd buy HoI4 if it was released a year from now for 3 times the price IF P.I. can bring it's weaker area's up to scratch. However, I think the brilliant work done by the game designers has really really been let down by other area's of the organization. More work on polish, support and the fixing of problems, less work on buy-able cosmetic down-loadable content like music and sprite packs. )
I bought the game, I like the game, I think it's great. I'd imagine that everyone who reads or posts on these types of threads ( for any game ) would have to like the game on the whole, otherwise they'd not care about potential improvements.
As a first time player of a P.I. game I find the following to be of concern and issues which would prevent or at least limit the chances of me buying another game from them.
1. Lack of professionalism. I'm sorry guys, but holding things together with sticky tape just isn't good enough for a commercial product. This is about the only problem I have, since the actual issues I believe largely stem from this.
Examples from my short and limited experience of buying the game off steam, and playing it for the last few days -
1. Trying to run a tutorial in the game causes it to crash. This is a big issue as it is a very complicated game, with a lot of aspects which are borderline impossible to figure out just by jumping in and trying to play it. So having the tutorials crash the game means its almost impossible to play the game without trying to find a solution to this.
2. Trying to find a solution. After finding the forums... and checking the FAQ ... not in there. Try to search the forums, no search function. After eventually finding a solution ( Which required bouncing around between google, these forums and other 3rd party forums for over an hour ), it was simply an update of files. Why couldn't this be quite quickly implemented as a fix via a minor patch?
3. Performance issues. There's no shortage of complaints and threads addressing these, along with fairly simple and common fixes ( i.e. changing the run priority and forcing the game to use 1 core e.t.c ) Are these things which can't be hard-coded into the game to work each time it runs?
4. Searching the forums. There's a thread, with a guide in it, on how to use google to search these forums. This seems to be an excellent example of the mindset at work that I find to be simply unacceptable from a commercial entity. This is the sort of thing I'd expect from modders, people doing it as a hobby, not people charging full retail price for their software.
Repeatedly, it seems as if slow clumsy workarounds are deemed acceptable solutions. They are not. They set up an expectation from myself, and I assume others, that future games made by P.I. will have a similar level of support and mindset incorporated into them.
So while I think HoI3 is an awesome game, with some excellent mechanics, imagination and game play in it, I think it is really let down by the complete lack of polish and support.
( As with people who have made positive comments and feed back, I agree. It is a great game, and I'd buy HoI4 if it was released a year from now for 3 times the price IF P.I. can bring it's weaker area's up to scratch. However, I think the brilliant work done by the game designers has really really been let down by other area's of the organization. More work on polish, support and the fixing of problems, less work on buy-able cosmetic down-loadable content like music and sprite packs. )
Ok heres the way I see it from what I'm to understand is Paradox is notorious for releasing games that are seriously bugged when first released. I don't understand what possesses them to do this. A game should be released that is functional out of the box. Yes some bugs will show up eventually and you patch them thats the way it works. But with HOI3 the game came out and was just barely functional period. I didn't even play it after a while until the 1.3 came out and i'm just finding problem after problem with that too.
Another thing I don't know if this is indeed historically accurate or not. But the units that we start off with don't add up at all. In the game at December 7th 1941 the Japanese fleet was composed of the following 6 CVS, 5 CVL, 10 BB's, 18 CA, 20 CLs, and 110 DD's for a total fleet of 171 ships. I couldn't find out how many subs they had unfortunately at the time. This was historical. In this game you start off with 107 ships as the japanese and that includes 15 subs and some transports.
After Dec 7th the Japanese fleet completed 2 SHBB's, converted two BBs into Carriers Hyuga and Ise, they built an additional 7 CVE's and 7 CVS, 6 additional CLs and an additional 63 dds before the end of the war.
Citation: The Imperial Japanese Navy (1941-1945) by Paul S Dull
Personally I bought this for a historically accurate game I didn't check on the active commissioned ships for any other power at the time because I know they are wrong as well. Especially Germany they never manage to get a fleet of surface vessels that are operational nothing more than 13 surface ships at one point. Converted auxilary cruisers to raid shipping. They did produce hundreds of Uboats as I'm sure the Japanese did as well. In the seige of Stalingrad or Leningrad whichever one it was where the entire german 6th army got cut off it was 90,000 strong I never checked in the game to see if that was the case. The limited squadrons of fighters and bombers available is frustrating as well. They start Japan off with a really ridiculously low amount of transports in this game in 1941 which is absurd they didnt' have any transportation problems initially.
Admiral Nagumo's skill rank at 2 doesn't do the man justice. If anyone ever read about the Indian Ocean Raid you'd know that Nagumo out smarted James Somerville one of the best British admirals in the war. By the time Midway rolled around Nagumo was responsible for having killed 5 BBs, 1 CVL, 2CA's, 7 DD's, scores of merchant ships, and hundreds of aircraft from 6 different nations. The failure at Midway was not his fault so much as it was Admiral Yamamoto reconisance didn't work out right and the US had cracked the Japanese code. Then even still after the defeat Yamamoto knew the carriers locations and could have chased them down and destroyed them during the night and still have taken Midway it would have been a costly victory but it was at that point something they really needed after sustaining those losses.
I digress what I hate about this game is most of the things that have already been posted.
the manpower issues
the complete innefectiveness of Submarines in combat since 1.3 release. The excessive length of time it takes to build fortifications on an Island I mean I know temp bases can be set up virtually overnight and within a week they can have defenses in place.
The Stacking penalty is absurd in WW2 it wasn't uncommon for more than two dozen ships to be operating as a fleet. I understand a stacking penalty should exist but it should not be as dumb as this scenario I have a task force of 15 ships couple of CV's 4 BB's several CA's and CL escorts I get attacked by a british fleet composed of 60 warships and I win? How on earth does that happen In fact I win and I only lose a few escorts and a CA and have heavy damage to one BB. Or another scenario I have a fleet of 18 ships and I trounce on a fleet of 7 ships then I get my butt kicked. This is just plain nonsense. Like I said yes command does get hard to coordinate past a certain point but Norman Schwartzkopf did a heck of a job with a huge amount of forces under his command in kicking Iraq out of Kuwait.
Ohh this is another glitch i find that is really irritating and i can't stand. If I defeat the allied navy in a decisive victory etc.... What i've noticed they will do is build dozens of destroyers and CL's and send them in ot attack your fleets. With so many escorts any Cag groups get shredded and any bombers you send in or any plane at all just gets almost immediately reduced to nothing. I hate this I want standard military navy orders of battle CV's BB support CA's CL's and DD screens. THe tendency of other players is to build BB's CV's and CL's thats it. Thats just being cheesy to be frank. The truth is that to inspire people to diversify their fleet they need to change the escort functions around a bit. Make it so that DD's do have a very important part to play in the fleet and their is a reason to build them they have a feature that the CL doesn't have and the CL has a feature that the DD doesn't have and same with CA's for instance. Another thing people do is build only Tac bombers orr I can't remember if they build Strat bombers and multirole fighters maybe.
I have a very diverse air force I have interceptor squadrons I have albiet only a few CAS units because the range on them sucks ass. But I have Strat bombers and Tac bombers. sure Tac bombers can naval strike and Strat bombers can't but i mean really folks. I hear the same tactics being used again with the same units there's not too many people who experiment they go with a narrow field of vision of what they think works like everyone else and copy cat them.
Another thing that bugs me is the Tech tree in general It could be simplified so much it's just too complex and things take forever.
One further qualm I have is that I've actually taken paratroopers from Japan over to the UK because I thought that Germany just seemed like they didn't know what to do and I found London guarded by over 700 infantry units. With that kind of a stack anything short of a nuke won't be able to move a force that size. Theire should be a limit on how many units can occupy one sector at a time to avoid thss problem.
Last yes the game is unstable and lags and crashes frequently not cool.
One more thing I find interesting is why can't you employ your flying bombs against enemy fleets. I know they aren't accurate but if you have radar you could set it to fire at something or release it from a fighter or something.
Another thing I don't know if this is indeed historically accurate or not. But the units that we start off with don't add up at all. In the game at December 7th 1941 the Japanese fleet was composed of the following 6 CVS, 5 CVL, 10 BB's, 18 CA, 20 CLs, and 110 DD's for a total fleet of 171 ships. I couldn't find out how many subs they had unfortunately at the time. This was historical. In this game you start off with 107 ships as the japanese and that includes 15 subs and some transports.
After Dec 7th the Japanese fleet completed 2 SHBB's, converted two BBs into Carriers Hyuga and Ise, they built an additional 7 CVE's and 7 CVS, 6 additional CLs and an additional 63 dds before the end of the war.
Citation: The Imperial Japanese Navy (1941-1945) by Paul S Dull
Personally I bought this for a historically accurate game I didn't check on the active commissioned ships for any other power at the time because I know they are wrong as well. Especially Germany they never manage to get a fleet of surface vessels that are operational nothing more than 13 surface ships at one point. Converted auxilary cruisers to raid shipping. They did produce hundreds of Uboats as I'm sure the Japanese did as well. In the seige of Stalingrad or Leningrad whichever one it was where the entire german 6th army got cut off it was 90,000 strong I never checked in the game to see if that was the case. The limited squadrons of fighters and bombers available is frustrating as well. They start Japan off with a really ridiculously low amount of transports in this game in 1941 which is absurd they didnt' have any transportation problems initially.
Admiral Nagumo's skill rank at 2 doesn't do the man justice. If anyone ever read about the Indian Ocean Raid you'd know that Nagumo out smarted James Somerville one of the best British admirals in the war. By the time Midway rolled around Nagumo was responsible for having killed 5 BBs, 1 CVL, 2CA's, 7 DD's, scores of merchant ships, and hundreds of aircraft from 6 different nations. The failure at Midway was not his fault so much as it was Admiral Yamamoto reconisance didn't work out right and the US had cracked the Japanese code. Then even still after the defeat Yamamoto knew the carriers locations and could have chased them down and destroyed them during the night and still have taken Midway it would have been a costly victory but it was at that point something they really needed after sustaining those losses.
I digress what I hate about this game is most of the things that have already been posted.
the manpower issues
the complete innefectiveness of Submarines in combat since 1.3 release. The excessive length of time it takes to build fortifications on an Island I mean I know temp bases can be set up virtually overnight and within a week they can have defenses in place.
The Stacking penalty is absurd in WW2 it wasn't uncommon for more than two dozen ships to be operating as a fleet. I understand a stacking penalty should exist but it should not be as dumb as this scenario I have a task force of 15 ships couple of CV's 4 BB's several CA's and CL escorts I get attacked by a british fleet composed of 60 warships and I win? How on earth does that happen In fact I win and I only lose a few escorts and a CA and have heavy damage to one BB. Or another scenario I have a fleet of 18 ships and I trounce on a fleet of 7 ships then I get my butt kicked. This is just plain nonsense. Like I said yes command does get hard to coordinate past a certain point but Norman Schwartzkopf did a heck of a job with a huge amount of forces under his command in kicking Iraq out of Kuwait.
Ohh this is another glitch i find that is really irritating and i can't stand. If I defeat the allied navy in a decisive victory etc.... What i've noticed they will do is build dozens of destroyers and CL's and send them in ot attack your fleets. With so many escorts any Cag groups get shredded and any bombers you send in or any plane at all just gets almost immediately reduced to nothing. I hate this I want standard military navy orders of battle CV's BB support CA's CL's and DD screens. THe tendency of other players is to build BB's CV's and CL's thats it. Thats just being cheesy to be frank. The truth is that to inspire people to diversify their fleet they need to change the escort functions around a bit. Make it so that DD's do have a very important part to play in the fleet and their is a reason to build them they have a feature that the CL doesn't have and the CL has a feature that the DD doesn't have and same with CA's for instance. Another thing people do is build only Tac bombers orr I can't remember if they build Strat bombers and multirole fighters maybe.
I have a very diverse air force I have interceptor squadrons I have albiet only a few CAS units because the range on them sucks ass. But I have Strat bombers and Tac bombers. sure Tac bombers can naval strike and Strat bombers can't but i mean really folks. I hear the same tactics being used again with the same units there's not too many people who experiment they go with a narrow field of vision of what they think works like everyone else and copy cat them.
Another thing that bugs me is the Tech tree in general It could be simplified so much it's just too complex and things take forever.
One further qualm I have is that I've actually taken paratroopers from Japan over to the UK because I thought that Germany just seemed like they didn't know what to do and I found London guarded by over 700 infantry units. With that kind of a stack anything short of a nuke won't be able to move a force that size. Theire should be a limit on how many units can occupy one sector at a time to avoid thss problem.
Last yes the game is unstable and lags and crashes frequently not cool.
One more thing I find interesting is why can't you employ your flying bombs against enemy fleets. I know they aren't accurate but if you have radar you could set it to fire at something or release it from a fighter or something.
Ok this part I wrote wrong what I meant was
"Another thing I don't know if this is indeed historically accurate or not. But the units that we start off with don't add up at all. In the game at December 7th 1941 the Japanese fleet was composed of the following 6 CVS, 5 CVL, 10 BB's, 18 CA, 20 CLs, and 110 DD's for a total fleet of 171 ships. I couldn't find out how many subs they had unfortunately at the time. This was historical. In this game you start off with 107 ships as the japanese and that includes 15 subs and some transports."
The historical accuracy of the game doesn't add up at all. HIstorically, at the time of Pearl the Japanese had this fleet which is correctly stated above of 171 vessels. This is not reflected in the game the Japs only get 107 starting I feel this is pretty lame period. I mean I think I can understand why they didd that was to help it not be so laggy but anyhow I wanted an authentic historical like experience. and I'm not exactly getting that with this game the way I want. I so really want to like this game a lot. i play it still but the glitches are such a headache ok nuff said.
"Another thing I don't know if this is indeed historically accurate or not. But the units that we start off with don't add up at all. In the game at December 7th 1941 the Japanese fleet was composed of the following 6 CVS, 5 CVL, 10 BB's, 18 CA, 20 CLs, and 110 DD's for a total fleet of 171 ships. I couldn't find out how many subs they had unfortunately at the time. This was historical. In this game you start off with 107 ships as the japanese and that includes 15 subs and some transports."
The historical accuracy of the game doesn't add up at all. HIstorically, at the time of Pearl the Japanese had this fleet which is correctly stated above of 171 vessels. This is not reflected in the game the Japs only get 107 starting I feel this is pretty lame period. I mean I think I can understand why they didd that was to help it not be so laggy but anyhow I wanted an authentic historical like experience. and I'm not exactly getting that with this game the way I want. I so really want to like this game a lot. i play it still but the glitches are such a headache ok nuff said.
Not sure if you are taking into account that DD and SS units in game, do not represent individual ships, but flotillas of several ships.
Also, the number of 90,000 men in the Sixth Army you mentioned in the previous post, I think is not accurate. If I remember correctly, this is the number that survived the siege of Stalingrad (most of them dying later in captivity). The original strengh of the Sixth Army and other units in the Stalingrad bag, was around 250,000, with enough material to equip 25% of the Wermacht. Major disaster indeed.
In HOI3, brigades are 3,000 or 1,000 strong. With a typical division being around 10,000 strong. Again, if memory serves me well, the standard German infantry division in 1936 was almost 18,000 strong, whereas the Russian equivalent would be around 1/2 of that.
For different reasons, you can not take all numbers in HOI as an exact representation of reality, but just an approximation.
I haven't seen any mention of a 1.4 patch, is there one in the works. Or is HOI3 on the dung heap while they move on to the next beta project?
Please accept this in the spirit of constructive criticism in which it is intended:
I understand this sentiment, but I can't agree with it.
Allowing room for divergence from history is good. But the problem is that not all divergences from history are created equal. Some divergences from history are more plausible than others, and in a "sandbox" style game those are the divergences we should see most frequently, with less plausible ones showing up less often.
What do I mean? A more-plausible divergence would be something like, say, Germany pushing the invasion of Poland back a year to 1940. That's not inconceivable. It's not hard to imagine a world where that could happen. So things like the invasion happening on a date different than the historical date should be able to happen, and often.
A less-plausible divergence is something like, say, Germany invading Indochina. I can't imagine a world in the 1930-1950 timeframe where that would ever happen. Yet the AI makes weird decisions like that all the time.
What's a plausible sequence of events that results in Canada -- a British Dominion -- joining the Axis? Ireland, maybe. I could see a world where resentment of British occupation drives the Irish to take up arms against them. But Canada? Can anyone tell a story which ends with Canada joining the Axis with a straight face -- especially if Britain and the U.S. are lined up on the other side?
I'm not saying that something like that should never happen. What I am saying is that it should be incredibly infrequent. A "once in a blue moon" kind of thing. A once-every-thousand-games kind of thing. Not a "oh look, Canada went Nazi again, it must be Tuesday" kind of thing.
The problem HOI3 has right now is that spectacularly unlikely things and highly plausible things happen at the same rate. Which leads to a game that feels less like a simulation of geopolitics in the World War II era and more like a Harry Turtledove-flavored book of Mad Libs.
OT - reminds me of the Happy Gilmore line, "You eat sh*t for breakfast?"
:rofl: :rofl:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116483/
The basic problem, is that PI has to please opposing desires and make a game that can act like a human opponent, not an easy task. For each person who wants it to be very close to IRL WWII, there is another who wants to have an alternative history game. If they had more time and money to devote I would have checkboxes that allow you to decide how close to history certain actions are, or let you diverge widely. But then again, thats what the modders do.
The AI problems are much harder than many people are considering. You want the AI to be a challenge, but not to cheat. Most other computer games compensate by having an AI who cheats, can move many more units at the same time than person can, or otherwise "game" to compensate versus a human player.
The AI problems are much harder than many people are considering. You want the AI to be a challenge, but not to cheat. Most other computer games compensate by having an AI who cheats, can move many more units at the same time than person can, or otherwise "game" to compensate versus a human player.
Since this is your first PI game, I do have to let you know that PI is known for games that have some "growing pains" before they are completely playable and complete.
It usually takes several patches and at least one expansion to get near perfection, followed by a massive and awesome mod.
The good news for you is that you can be safe in your knowledge that PI will fully support the game and continue to patch it until ALL major issues people have with it are fixed (within the limits of the game engine itself).
So you don't have to worry about buying Hearts of Iron 3 and a month later PI announces a "NEW STANDALONE GAME!" "Hearts of Iron: Korea"!!!!
Something that this misses, though, is that "incredibly infrequently" needs to be viewed as a whole, not as a specific example used to prove a whole.
Or, said another way...
Canada joining the axis is certainly odd. However, in that same game, did USA join the axis? Australia? China?
How about Japan? Did they join the allies? or is Mexico hanging towards the Comitern?
Yes, seeing Canada join the Axis might raise eyebrows, but lets assume (for a rounded-off simplicity sake), numerically, that there are 100 "countries", 50 of them almost certainly will NOT join anything but 1 of the factions, and the other 50 might be split between 2, but certainly not the third.
That means that there are 250 (100 * 2 bad choices + 50 * 1 bad choice) possible "joins" which makes little sense. If only one of these happens in a given game (say, Canada goes axis, but other than that, everyone lines up as expected), then that's 1 out of 250 odd choices that actually happen, which I would put forth to fit the "incredibly infrequent" guideline.
Here's my question.
If Canada joins the Axis, what did the rest of the Allies do to stop the situation, or how did they react to it?
The usual answer in regards to the current AI is "nothing".
THAT is what needs to be fixed.
If we assume that "the Axis" means Germany and "the Allies" means the UK, what's a plausible scenario where the US ends up joining the Axis?
I can't think of one. I can think of scenarios where the U.S. maintains its neutrality, sure. But actively siding with the Axis? Really? That flies in the face of everything I've ever read about American public opinion at the time (which evolved slowly from favoring strict neutrality towards lukewarm support of the Allies, until Pearl Harbor ended the debate).
At our starting point, 1936, Americans would still have been favoring strict neutrality. Even those with sympathies towards the Axis (like the Charles Lindbergh/America First/German-American Bund crowd) were advocating neutrality, not intervention on behalf of Germany. So what's the (plausible!) storyline that turns all of that upside down?
If there a way to select all units from selecting a HQ? I still haven't find it. I have to manually go down tru the units list under the commandement list then go up when i ordered the move, and repeat for each unit.
Edit: sorry completely offtrack.
Countries ending up in weird factions when there is actually no change in government is just strange. If there was a coup d'etat in country A that put the Popular Wargaming Fascist Party in power and country A joined the Axis, I could buy that, but when the Old Market Liberal Moustache Party remains in power and suddenly joins the Axis, it's just another of those little things that when they multiply and multiply end up just making the whole experience worse than a Harry Turtledove novel with aliens fighting Rommel on the Rhein.
I simply don't understand the statement that "This is not a WWII sim". It seems ridiculous. If it wasn't a WWII sim, why not set it from 1926-1936? 1920-1934? 1942-1958?
THIS IS A WORLD WAR II SIMULATOR! It really is. Everyone who programmed it did so through a thorough knowledge of WWII. Everyone who plays it does so, observing it in the context of WWII.
It's like going to Auschwitz, making a statement in support of Israel, and saying that it's nothing to do with the Holocaust.
WWII is a monstrous looming shadow from which this game can not escape. If it's not a WWII simulator, why does Japan usually begin the war through hostilities with China? Why does Germany usually annex Austria and start open hostilities by invading Poland?
If you have a game where Panzers and Stukas go slicing through Western Poland round about 1939...
IT'S A WORLD WAR TWO SIMULATOR!
(And as has been said countless times, if it merely reproduces an ahistoric version of a global conflict in more or less the same way over and over, then it's arguably just a bad World War Two simulator)
THIS IS A WORLD WAR II SIMULATOR! It really is. Everyone who programmed it did so through a thorough knowledge of WWII. Everyone who plays it does so, observing it in the context of WWII.
It's like going to Auschwitz, making a statement in support of Israel, and saying that it's nothing to do with the Holocaust.
WWII is a monstrous looming shadow from which this game can not escape. If it's not a WWII simulator, why does Japan usually begin the war through hostilities with China? Why does Germany usually annex Austria and start open hostilities by invading Poland?
If you have a game where Panzers and Stukas go slicing through Western Poland round about 1939...
IT'S A WORLD WAR TWO SIMULATOR!
(And as has been said countless times, if it merely reproduces an ahistoric version of a global conflict in more or less the same way over and over, then it's arguably just a bad World War Two simulator)
How they react to it would be the same way they react to any opposing-faction country; war and/or buildup of forces during a tenable peace.
As for what did they do to stop the situation, here's the deal: Canada joining the axis pretty much means Germany went whole-hog on their spy ring targeting Canada as their "choice of convert". The allies could have done something along the lines of "spies that support ruling party", but they currently (at least, not noticeably, I can't see behind the scenes) do not seem to. If only 1 country off-joins per game, however, then that's hardly the largest, or even currently deserving of programming resources, issue that should be worked on within the game.
Historically speaking, the UK certainly wasn't interested in making enemies of the USA. However, that doesn't mean the USA can't think of UK, or anyone else that UK brings into the allies (if, say, UK managed to convince Japan in or something) as enemies.
If UK brought Japan to the Allies (as a strategy to assist their ally Australia from getting attacked by them), and then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor anyway, I'm pretty sure the USA would go after Japan and UK. (Once USA found out what Germany was doing "behind the scenes"... like, things I can't discuss on these forums... they may have then decided to stomp Germany as well, but not till after the conspirators that actually bombed their property were taken care of).
Or, here's another one: Hitler had at least 1 major (though I'm sure there were many more behind the scenes) assassination attempt at him. If any of these had succeeded, and the still-facist-but-under-new-leadership Germany decided that, rather than blaming who they did for world events, they went whole-hog after Communism instead, and their war went straight to the USSR rather than the "friendlier" countries first... USA (given how the populace of then viewed communism) may have actually backed them "indirectly" in the fight (lend-leasing assets to Germany to fight USSR rather than to UK to fight Germany). The leadership of the USSR at this time wasn't known for level-headedness, and as Pearl Harbor showed, one big attack was all it took.
These are abstractions, of course (as there is no assassinate leader in HOI3), but still situations that may have happened. 1 briefcase 3 more feet to the right, and who knows.
That's why we have games like these
How they react to it would be the same way they react to any opposing-faction country; war and/or buildup of forces during a tenable peace.
As for what did they do to stop the situation, here's the deal: Canada joining the axis pretty much means Germany went whole-hog on their spy ring targeting Canada as their "choice of convert". The allies could have done something along the lines of "spies that support ruling party", but they currently (at least, not noticeably, I can't see behind the scenes) do not seem to. If only 1 country off-joins per game, however, then that's hardly the largest, or even currently deserving of programming resources, issue that should be worked on within the game.
Historically speaking, the UK certainly wasn't interested in making enemies of the USA. However, that doesn't mean the USA can't think of UK, or anyone else that UK brings into the allies (if, say, UK managed to convince Japan in or something) as enemies.
If UK brought Japan to the Allies (as a strategy to assist their ally Australia from getting attacked by them), and then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor anyway, I'm pretty sure the USA would go after Japan and UK. (Once USA found out what Germany was doing "behind the scenes"... like, things I can't discuss on these forums... they may have then decided to stomp Germany as well, but not till after the conspirators that actually bombed their property were taken care of).
Or, here's another one: Hitler had at least 1 major (though I'm sure there were many more behind the scenes) assassination attempt at him. If any of these had succeeded, and the still-facist-but-under-new-leadership Germany decided that, rather than blaming who they did for world events, they went whole-hog after Communism instead, and their war went straight to the USSR rather than the "friendlier" countries first... USA (given how the populace of then viewed communism) may have actually backed them "indirectly" in the fight (lend-leasing assets to Germany to fight USSR rather than to UK to fight Germany). The leadership of the USSR at this time wasn't known for level-headedness, and as Pearl Harbor showed, one big attack was all it took.
These are abstractions, of course (as there is no assassinate leader in HOI3), but still situations that may have happened. 1 briefcase 3 more feet to the right, and who knows.
That's why we have games like these
Interestingly enough, War Plan Orange was made anticipating a war between the USA and a UK-Japanese Alliance.
Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936. It's possible to imagine a UK-Japan alliance emerging if you take, say, 1919 as your starting point, but by 1936 I would think it would be off the table, or at least, highly unlikely.
This would take a big stretch to accept as "plausible," as it depends on a long string of hypotheticals: 1) Hitler assassinated; 2) Fascist government does not fall after such an assassination; 3) Fascist government invades Russia; 4) Americans care enough about beating Russia to override their broad support for neutrality.
Could it have happened that way? Maybe. But if you take 1936 as your starting point it seems even less likely than the UK-Japan alliance.