I must admit I am quite disappointed with 1.3

[ashbery76]

I think Paradox made a mistake with the huge amount of provinces and the chain of command system.The game is a full on wargame with a Vicky learning curve and the review scores show that.The EU3,HOI2 level of complexity is the perfect balance in my view for a fun game.

 

[Alfred Packer]

I guess I would be conflicted too if there were anybody out there who came close to creating games that represent the butterfly effect along with chaos theory so well. But, nobody does so I just don't have any conflict at all. They are the only folks who make games that span the entire world, allow me to play as any country, and depending on how my actions interact with the rest of the game allow me to strive to play a historical game or one so ahistorical that you can't tell the players without a program.

With HOI3, this is even more true than it was for this particular time period.

Although, to be honest, I prefer the games from earlier periods.o

I could not agree more. I admit, I waited for 1.3 to buy this game, but since EUIII, I've known exactly what to expect from Paradox and what I expect is a phenomenal experience. For me, HOI3 1.3 is delivering that totally.

Honestly, after reading the TOAWIII AAR going on in the OT, I thought about pulling out my old copy and playing it again, but HOI3's new command structure and almost hex-like provinces fills that itch quite well. So I didn't. And that's saying something.

 

[rommel_sniper]

I think Paradox made a mistake with the huge amount of provinces and the chain of command system.The game is a full on wargame with a Vicky learning curve and the review scores show that.The EU3,HOI2 level of complexity is the perfect balance in my view for a fun game.

not agree

hoi3 problem is different

 

[FrreeeBird]

The 1.3 nerf that now make excess consumer goods no longer produce money ruins it for me. Completely unrealistic, unless you know, the world economy ran on the barter system in the 20th century. There is more than one way to skin a cat, the player shouldn't be forced to spam supplies in order to get money.

 

[sinusoid]

I just don't like that a group of planes given the same mission will still travel as a horde, rather than spread out. I don't need 7 groups of interceptors patrolling the skies over 1 province at a time in the 20 or so I set for them.

 

[AtomicTank]

My Take on Hoi3 & 1.3

To start off with, I really liked HOI and HOI2. But I think some people are remembering the enjoyment, and not the pain. That is a testament to how good the good parts of these games are.

As for criticisms of the interface, my view has always been that most players cannot fix mechanics, but they can learn to work with the interface with a sufficient investment. I don't think there are many casual players here.

I have struggled with, and will continue to struggle with the new model of unit control. I don't blame the developers for that. I know that if I had a vote, I would have voted to make the HQ approach optional. But I know I do not have a vote, and should not. I am happy (sort of) with that particular struggle.

CTD I will not put up with. In my view, all must be fixed.
AI spam behaviors, map errors, and game-mechanics failures I am not "ok" with, but I know I have to tolerate a certain level of them. And I will. Those are what I want fixed but on a weekly or even monthly basis is not reasonable. I am perfectly capable of putting the game away for a month or two while waiting for a particular fix in that arena if I cannot tolerate it. It is not like a new game comes out that often. And I am fresh for the game after a substantial rest.

So my view is: If you enjoy it now, play it now. If you don't enjoy it now, play it later. If we are not totally perfectionist, it will eventually get to where we need it. If we are reasonable.

 

[Tahuti]

Im quite satisfied with 1.3; its very playable.

Still, I would like to have the limited war function fixed ASAP considering the fact Italy still overruns France because of the fact the thing is broken. I guess a working temporary solution would be to keep Italy and Japan out of the Axis at the start of the '39 scenario like in the first 2 HOI games.

 

[Kurek]

Ok keep burying your head in the sand. You did not include the option "it's an improvement but so much more remains to be done" or something similar. It's nothing but a flawed poll where you can answer I love it or I hate it basically. You should not take that as a good indicator of customer satisfaction.

For the moment, it's not so much a question of things being broken, its a question of major features functioning poorly at a best. Look what you did with the supply system. Now it is possible for germany to do a complete barbarossa (until bitter peace) with little to none supply problems. On the other hand, the japanese ai still cannot supply its troops correctly in china. So while you did improve the supply system, it's still not even close to what it is supposed to achieve (as based on dev diaries & promises about the game).

Sorry to put it bluntly, but you work is sloppy. That does not take away your ideas and creativity, which are both great. But as a coder (or your team as a whole should I say), you really could benefit from a qualified quality control department.

Now, contrary to the OP, I have the feeling I now play a "reasonably finished" paradox product, which means I'm not playing an alpha version anymore. Don't let that fool you, you still should be pretty ashamed for releasing HoI3 in its 1.1 state, and you still have a lot of work to do before the game matches what was promised in the developer diaries. I won't mention all the bugs and features which are still there or missing, it has been done many times.

This is pretty much how I feel. I really wish I did not drop £30 on this game.

EDIT: as to discussions on Historical railroading vs sandbox, I don't care, all I want is for the AI to act in a reasonable and plausible manner, not batshit insane like it currently is.

 

[TheLoneGunman]

The 1.3 nerf that now make excess consumer goods no longer produce money ruins it for me. Completely unrealistic, unless you know, the world economy ran on the barter system in the 20th century. There is more than one way to skin a cat, the player shouldn't be forced to spam supplies in order to get money.

I've got no problem making money as most medium to large nations, even on very hard difficulty.

The key is tailoring your politics to the situation when not in wartime. There's actually a reason now to use a full civilian economy that generates a ton of money but no additional IC.

It also means you can't dump all of your money into leadership right away to tech rush the hell out of things, you have to actually sit back and think of where that money is going to come from and if you'll be able to afford maintaining precious trade deals.

I found this most true playing as Japan on Very Hard.

Money is practically useless anyways, once you've secured enough resources for yourself money never becomes an issue again.

I welcome the challenge it brings to the game now, and my sliders no longer go crazy every day.

 

[Onedreamer]

I guess I would be conflicted too if there were anybody out there who came close to creating games that represent the butterfly effect along with chaos theory so well. But, nobody does so I just don't have any conflict at all. They are the only folks who make games that span the entire world, allow me to play as any country, and depending on how my actions interact with the rest of the game allow me to strive to play a historical game or one so ahistorical that you can't tell the players without a program.

Yeah but this is the theory. You could have written this in July 09. The problem is that the game has practical issues, not conceptual ones. Concept can't really be criticized: if you don't like it, move on and play other games. *shrug*
However if the implementation is poor or worse is lacking, then comes the criticism, and answering "move to other games" is not correct and kinda unpolite (not saying that RELee did it in this case, just talking in general).

 

[AlanC9]

The 1.3 nerf that now make excess consumer goods no longer produce money ruins it for me. Completely unrealistic, unless you know, the world economy ran on the barter system in the 20th century. There is more than one way to skin a cat, the player shouldn't be forced to spam supplies in order to get money.

I disagree. Money is foreign exchange -- hell, pre-Bretton Woods, we're talking about gold, or the equivalent. Without foreign trade, you don't have currency you can trade to foreign nations.

Anyway, what's the difference? Whether you divert IC to CG for more money, or you divert IC to supplies that you sell for money, it's still costing you IC. If you're just complaining about needing too much IC, thaen your actual complaint is about the price of supplies.

 

[Wheeler711]

At least these guys are working there butts off to get the game running the way it should be working. Plus they have other games to worry about as well.

 

[TheLoneGunman]

At least these guys are working there butts off to get the game running the way it should be working. Plus they have other games to worry about as well.

At least they didn't release HOI3, patch it a few times and then announce a new standalone game: Hearts of Iron: Korea! :rofl:

 

[KGrob]

Anyone think good companies don't make mistakes? Can anyone spell V*I*S*T*A?

In my view, 1.3 is probably good enough to be a commercial release. Most games nowadays come with a little baggage. I think most people expect games to be fairly buggy until at least 1.1 or so.

That said, I think 1.3 should probably have been release 1.0. And right now, we should be discussing 1.6, which should really have been 1.3.

I don't think there is any doubt that the game was released early. I realize there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. There are many clashing interersts: developer versus publisher, sales versus coding, time, reputation, profit, not to mention the clash of personalties and so on.

HOI is a good series and I look forward to seeing HOI4. But I hope Paradox learns something from this release so the same mistakes can be prevented.

 

[Sunfighter]

Honestly, Id like them to make a hearts of iron based on the near future or real world as it stands today. Even with a HOI3 type release itd still be better then the current selection fo real to near future world domination games *cough* SR2020

 

[unmerged(106255)]

I think Paradox made a mistake with the huge amount of provinces and the chain of command system.

The huge amount of provinces is great! But I will agree on the chain of command. Chain of command is something that should exist only in an oob screen. Having all the HQs explicitly displayed as units on the map, and having to click on all of them to attach, detach, rename, etc, is just a giant pain in the ass.

Otherwise, I'm rather enjoying 1.3.

 

[VetMax]

I think Paradox made a mistake with the huge amount of provinces and the chain of command system.The game is a full on wargame with a Vicky learning curve and the review scores show that.The EU3,HOI2 level of complexity is the perfect balance in my view for a fun game.

Paradox made innovaions. There was no command strucure in earlier serious strategy games like hoi3. New features need to become well-established otherwise we would had hoi1/2 for another 10 years. For sure Paradox could have spet 6 more months developing hoi3 and then we would have better game.

Conservation of more or less good concept is not a good idea otherwise you would jorney by train instead of a plane and have no such alternative.

 

[plasticpanzers]

I stand by my analysis of HOI3. I have been studing history for about 50 years and
playing wargames since before alot here were born. I know history and balance. They
do not exist in real form in HOI3. This does not mean the game cannot be fun but the
excuse given "well it never claimed to be a real ww2 simulation to begin with" is really
ridiculous and insulting to anybody who knows real history. The game core is set up
as it is now for ONLY ahisorical outcomes by the way it operates. It CANNOT nor can
any player in a single player game have ANY hope of even coming close to having a
WW2 remotely even similar to the real thing. You are simply playing a fantasy game
set in the 1930-40s where you can do whatever you want yourself and only yourself.
A game set up where you as "god" over your country can allow you to do anything you
wish despite real world politics and international pressure instead of a game where you
have to adapt to these things is not a real world game. fantasy. Just because the
game system allows you to do things ahisotrically does not mean they could happen nor
would happen. That is your failure to understand entropy and the pressure of historical
pressure on nations.

Again, not to say you cannot have alot of fun if you say its not supposed to be a real
WW2 simulation what does that leave it to be described as? fantasy game set in WW2.
I am not being dramatic nor overly critical. I see the potential of HOI3 as a real and
superb WW2 simulator WHERE YOU CAN CHANGE HISTORY. If the US loses Miday or
DDay fails THATS a change of history. Conquoring S. America by Boliva or the Germans
invading Australia (to the cries "well they COULD if they wanted to") or Chinese militia
appearing in Germany. These last are real tangible historical possibilities? Show me
how and I will detail to you how they are not.

Enjoy HOI3 all you want. My concern is that it could be so much better and that it is
not. I am 57 now. Do you think i want to be 60 when i can play a realistic game of
HOI3?? The Core of the game is that ALL independent nations act independent and are
not interdependent upon each other in Alliances. This is the core issue. Also that
there is a real limit on ranges and territories that nations can effect or reach. Issues
with the AI can be fixed but there are CORE issues that need to be addressed to make
this a true WW2 game, not a game "set" in WW2.

 

[unmerged(20208)]

I was wondering how long it would take before we witnessed a thread like this, although I didn't expect one this thoughtful and mature.

There are some people, it seems, who will never be satisfied with Hearts of Iron III. If Johan published a 1.4, 1.5, or 1.6 patch, we'd still hear complaints. The game will never be perfect and will never satisfy some people's gaming standards.

It's only a matter of time before someone slaps 1.3 with the 'broken' label. Wait for it.

That's an easy prediction to make considering you are playing a game that is clearly broken. I mean, that's the perfect word to describe it. Not a tough prediction to make, really.

 

[SirGrotius]

To me 1.3 is a major step forward and it seems a great idea to open up a public beta test in the tech forums for something like this.

Some people seem to be over-romanticizing the games of the past, as I had loads of issues when they were first released. I still remember my constant crashes from EU2, which now seem comical in comparison.

That said, I'm not a big "open" history type guy, so I lament the loss of some of the earlier feeling.