I agree very much with most of Villain's points of contention. To me though, the game still has redeeming qualities and the hope that most of these contentious points will be addressed is enough to keep me interested.
Specific points he makes that I agree with would include:
1) Interface problems. The sliders...how? How could that have gone into a production game? Trying to lock them down results in them moving 100% of the time if the tab is near the left end of the slider. You cant fine tune them as one pixel is a ton of goods, supplies, research and production with any major power sized economy (but especially the US...). And there is no automatic setting to select the minimum values needed for each slider. That I think is a core problem with HoI (along with a broken AI), there doesnt seem to be much you can leave to the computer or automate for convenience's sake. But in practice there are a lot of things that I'd like to leave to the AI. Sliders meeting the minimums is one. I'd also like convoys to be automatically set up. Even though I love the research component of the game, that is something else the AI should be able to handle should you so choose.
2) Rulebook/Tutorial. Way too shallow for such a deep game. Not the worst I have seen, but they dont do the game justice. I have no experience with EU or EU2 and getting into HoI was a daunting task to say the least. Were it nor for these forums I would have returned the game.
3) RTS. Any game that requires as much pausing as HoI should be turn-based. Many RTS proponents seem to think that pausable real-time is superior to turn based but these people miss the point of turn based. Would chess be chess were it in real time? No, it would not.
4) Economy. Its hosed. The way world trade works is not good. The world market feature couple with various techs do not emphasize how important strategic resources were historicaly. The amount offered in deals should be all that exists on the world market. Countries at war with each other shouldnt be able to trade, and the AI should trade at above 2 to 1 when it needs to. Finally deals shouldnt start at 2 to 1. 1 to 1 deals or even 1 to 2, etc. should be available. Supply and demand and all of that.
5) AI. *Sigh*. Its bad, really bad. No need for details here I dont think as there are numerous threads detailing this all over these forums. Suffice to say that the AI is so poor that the historically impossible becomes routine under lots of circumstances and the game is not challenging after a fashion, even considering its almost vertical learning curve.
I am eagerly awaiting the next patch but I also have to say I am disheartened to know that it will be weeks before it arrives. I want to play and enjoy the game now and there are so many flaws that I havent been able to.
olaf
Specific points he makes that I agree with would include:
1) Interface problems. The sliders...how? How could that have gone into a production game? Trying to lock them down results in them moving 100% of the time if the tab is near the left end of the slider. You cant fine tune them as one pixel is a ton of goods, supplies, research and production with any major power sized economy (but especially the US...). And there is no automatic setting to select the minimum values needed for each slider. That I think is a core problem with HoI (along with a broken AI), there doesnt seem to be much you can leave to the computer or automate for convenience's sake. But in practice there are a lot of things that I'd like to leave to the AI. Sliders meeting the minimums is one. I'd also like convoys to be automatically set up. Even though I love the research component of the game, that is something else the AI should be able to handle should you so choose.
2) Rulebook/Tutorial. Way too shallow for such a deep game. Not the worst I have seen, but they dont do the game justice. I have no experience with EU or EU2 and getting into HoI was a daunting task to say the least. Were it nor for these forums I would have returned the game.
3) RTS. Any game that requires as much pausing as HoI should be turn-based. Many RTS proponents seem to think that pausable real-time is superior to turn based but these people miss the point of turn based. Would chess be chess were it in real time? No, it would not.
4) Economy. Its hosed. The way world trade works is not good. The world market feature couple with various techs do not emphasize how important strategic resources were historicaly. The amount offered in deals should be all that exists on the world market. Countries at war with each other shouldnt be able to trade, and the AI should trade at above 2 to 1 when it needs to. Finally deals shouldnt start at 2 to 1. 1 to 1 deals or even 1 to 2, etc. should be available. Supply and demand and all of that.
5) AI. *Sigh*. Its bad, really bad. No need for details here I dont think as there are numerous threads detailing this all over these forums. Suffice to say that the AI is so poor that the historically impossible becomes routine under lots of circumstances and the game is not challenging after a fashion, even considering its almost vertical learning curve.
I am eagerly awaiting the next patch but I also have to say I am disheartened to know that it will be weeks before it arrives. I want to play and enjoy the game now and there are so many flaws that I havent been able to.
olaf
, but still the interface let you play it, and my only major was about how you had to look over your boats all the time - fixed to EUII 
