To add my 2 cents into this mix:
Been playing HOI to HOI3 on and off the past 10 years, yes 10 years counting. I love the WW2 era mainly due to the fact my grandparents lived through both German and Russian occupation and my grandfather had to escape being captured in Poland due to his military background. That said HOI has been fun and very frustrating at times over the whole series.
Now what I think should be included (I know the eyebrows will raise) would be something similar to how Gary Grigsby did with his Grand Strategy series like Uncommon Valor, War in the Pacific, etc. Yes its not for the faint of heart but it truly reflects the headaches of how to get your juggernaut military to gel. Yes it is immensely in depth, but isn't that the point? I mean this HOI3 is nothing more then graphical hoopla and fluff that in my opinion makes no sense. I don't need the sprites and people should learn how to read a symbol (is it that hard? really?), not having to micro manage some things by letting AI do all the work is pointless, (gee I just turn this on and walk away, really? What is the point in that?). Please do not turn this into a kiddy game I am sick of the graphical fanboy crap, make the game what it should be GRAND STRATEGY! That's what you call this game so make it that way without the fluff. I don't care if people wont buy it because it doesn't have eye-candy, I want it to have historical flare and the all inclusive what-if! Give the modders the complete ability to change the aspects of game you have locked down, heck how do you get to this stage of game development without the input from community at such minimal cost because its FREE! So many great mods, yet they could even be better if you didn't limit the scope of their abilities, you profit from this not lose, I don't see the business stance you take Paradox, I truly sad by it.
There are so many things that need changing from HOI3 its hard to list, one of my all time beefs is the map having too many provinces. Totally crazy and useless in most cases. Tech advancement is completely lame and I do mean lame. I see you are finally attempting to make production of types of vehicles interesting, yet all I see is generic rehash with a more graphical flare, sigh. It is a step in right direction but wow its been long time in making and while I wait to see if your choices pan out for the good of all. Crossing Fingers and Toes!
I prefer to keep the "General's" system you had in place regardless of how micro it made it that to me was significant for my playing HOI3, but once again you cater to the mass of whiners about how involved it is. Cough Grand Strategy, right? It is what you are promoting, is it not? Another sigh at making the game stupid simple to reach the nerd kids with no brain cells these days. While the system you have given seems okay its hardly adequate in my opinion to the gist of being historical or grand in nature.
Production system thus far looks promising, yet I fear that it will be more generic stats across the board because all you have done is change the way the old system looks to make new people buy the game. I hold my breath on this. It was quality over quantity that should have brought Germany victory over its foes yet it was meddling from one man that brought Germany to defeat. The game should represent this across the board for all nations, but I feel it will never happen.
Sea battles, sea battles, sea battles, sea battles! Yes what is this feature that has been ignored for countless years at the request of so many people that buy your game? Not saying anymore its too disheartening to even think of playing a War at SEA in HOI period. D4, you sunk my battleship!
Diplomacy is a complete joke and either should be revamped by modders work or just taken out. Since its inception in HOI2 it has been terrible completely bad piece of coding as it has been either too easy to get what you want or impossible to achieve a different outcome of history. This is just more flare at cost of game in whole imho.
Well that's all I can muster from this late hour because I am still gasping at the demise of EvW and the lack of vision on Paradox part on pulling the plug to spin off HOI4. I know business decisions have to be made but this one was a severe kick in the gonads Paradox. You want to keep your player base I would assume and attract more people to your company, pulling EvW was pulling the bottle out of the baby's mouth and letting it starve to death. Very bad indeed.
I wait to see this product in its hype come launch date if it doesn't get pushed back until late 2015.
Yes I was harsh but I am a consumer and I have right to speak my mind, yet I know most of us speak and it falls on deaf ears for the most part. :angry:
