Is anyone having a positive experience with HoI3?

[Praetori]

There are some minor bugs and an overall sense of WTF (in regard to sheer scale) that hit's you at first. But I'm really enjoying the demo.
Been having the game running for 40hrs straight now (just pausing when I go to work or sleep) and haven't had a single CTD.
I'm playing on a dualcore laptop and can run about 2hrs of ingame time per second (on max speed) in the 1939 scenario with battles raging on all fronts (with messages turned off) so I can't say that it's really a resource hog (although others have reported problems with better spec machines).

Overall I'd give it a 4/5 for a Paradox game and have already pre-ordered through Steam.

 

[Aidan]

I love it so far.
Hope the full game supports 2560x1600.

 

[Lathund]

This is my biggest problem; I have played around with every aspect of the game, except for the military. I hate taking over "someone else"'s army in the middle of war. I very rarely played the '39 , '41, or '44 starts in HOI2 for the same reason. I don't know what exactly it is but I just have no desire to decode many 100's of divisions that I have no idea where they are.

Yeah, same thing here. I'm like that in all games though, such as Football Manager. I don't enjoy it until the team I'm managing is *my* team, has the kind of players I want.

Götterdämmerung as Germany was interesting anyway though in that, unlike the earlier starts, one got to suffer from the same problems Germany IRL did; low on manpower and fuel with constant strategic bombing. It's too easy to never fall into that trap on earlier starts, I never had manpower problems even on hard or very hard. With the new system it might even be the case that Germany can have those problems in a '36 start. Remains to be seen though.

Anyway, I found it an overall positive experience though. I love the tech tree approach and division design; together they really allow customization in that one can really choose what aspects to focus on, combine that with the Theory research and doctrines etc. and all nations can get a unique focus. Theoretical/Practical values are a really good solution IMO to the problems of differentiating various nations without putting them in straightjackets.

Will take so getting used to the new command structure, but I really like the idea. It was one of the things I disliked most about HoI 2; the big stacks, command limits etc, and if I wanted anything even remotely resembling historical armies I had to group infantry and mot/mec/arm together, which made no sense gameplay-wise.

It's a raw diamond; a massive step up from HoI 2 but seems quite raw and rough still. I'm going to enjoy it even in it's current state, even more so after the first patch or two have sorted out the major issues. A year or so from now though, when several patches and maybe even an expansion has been released, I have no doubts it'll be the best grand strategy game ever.

 

[bip]

I had a very positive expirience with HoI3 this far. It's really like Paradox have just improved on all the shortcomings of HoI2. Proper tactical warfare due to the increased ammount of provinces, getting rid of the megastacks and a decent command system improve both the atmosphere and the gameplay. If the politics and long term strategical warfare turn out to be dynamic as the developers promised HoI3 ist going to be the perfection of the series in my opinon.

PS. Also, as a HoI 2 veteran it took me only an hour to get used to the new features and defeat Poland as Germany.
I really don't understand the difficulties expirienced HoI gamers are having with the 39' scenario of the HoI3 demo.

 

[unmerged(65128)]

I have only had positive experience sofar. I feel more and more excited to play the real game in 1936. I totally love the command structure and map makes me feel like i have total control just like a real fieldmarshall.

 

[Dominik]

I like the core of the game, which means new concepts introduced or reworked like command structure, mobilization/reserves, AI delegation, improved intelligence and economy plus the GUI. The potential of the game is really great, this might be Paradox's masterpiece to date.

The complete picture is less than perfect due to database errors like twisted map, no historical leaders in scenarios (no Rommel in Africa if you start in late 1941), wrong numbers of units (2.5x more planes for Poland for example) - but all this can be fixed by patches, while core concepts not (but they are ok).

So my overall opinion is "thumbs up".

 

[SimbaIT]

Pre-ordered after trying the demo

The new combat system is difficult and unforgiving, but isn't any new for Paradox?

I did two games one with poland and other with germany: The first I just let the theatre commander defer ... except I didn't specify Warsaw or other province. It managed however to resist the germans till Late Oct. The second I gave Eas theatre to attack Krakow and Warsaw , whic they did ... I forgot to give orders to West OB ... the french caught a couple boundary province before I realized and gave the order. After that the west OB managed the defence quite fine, though the previous loss of two forts made things more difficoult.

There are things to iron out, but for a 1.0 demo is good: does not crash or lose units, into nowhere, etc

EDIT: As other pointed out most problems are in database files, things easily patched. The theatre makeing outrageous demands though might need to change the main executable.

 

[FrEDa]

Oh yes. Love the new command structure and division templating. It's going to take me days to setup my OOB in every game but that's how I like it

/F

 

[unmerged(146320)]

Enjoying the Demo, although i think the theatre AI is in need of a good kick in the rear Doesn't blitz when i tell it to.

 

[vertinox]

I am still eagerly awaiting the UPS man with my copy of HoI3, but all I am seeing on the forums is posts about bugs and slow speeds.

Is anyone having a positive experience? Were all my hopes and dreams for nought?

I'm having a good experience with my mid range machine.

 

[Hakkapeliitta]

I'm loving the demo, even if I will never play the 1939 scenario when the game arrives. I've played with Germany twice: first time leaving the western front on AI and handling everything else self.

Enjoyed pocketing the Poles (once I realised that the problem with the 1918 level tech giving the germans extremely long cooling times between attacks could be circumvented by drawing the movement arrow longer (so that they don't stop after gaining the first province).

2nd game I tried putting everything (yes everything) to AI and telling the eastern theatre command to pocket the westernmost Polish armies and to take Warsaw (by giving it proper objectives ). It worked beatifully even though it used a much broader front than I would have used myself. Poland fell to my AI forces on October 18th.

Can't wait for the real thing: 1936 will be a blast.

 

[TinMann]

I loved the demo and just ordered the game, myself. This could be arguably the most sophisticated computer strategy game ever created. Folks here have already mentioned that a player could start playing with small bites and still enjoy themselves, though, so that shouldn't necessarily scare anyone.

 

[unmerged(61634)]

I was lost during my first game; I couldn't follow the tech tree, and I couldn't get the AI to work (apparently I can't have a theatre in France as teh UK?)


After playing my second and third game, though, everything just clicked. I don't like starting in 1939, and four months is very short, but otherwise the game is fantastic. Definitely an improvement on HOI2, and definitely a positive experience.

 

[unmerged(77286)]

I preordered without playing the Demo. Im too much of a die hard fan to bother with substitutes for a real thing!

 

[koontz]

iam bit confused still, how all things works out atm, but iam confident that ive will like this game, gonna start playing with an minor in GC -36

 

[onkeljonas]

Enjoying the Demo, although i think the theatre AI is in need of a good kick in the rear Doesn't blitz when i tell it to.

Might be due to lacking techs which mean a very long rest after each attack...

 

[unmerged(53301)]

It's a raw diamond; a massive step up from HoI 2 but seems quite raw and rough still. I'm going to enjoy it even in it's current state, even more so after the first patch or two have sorted out the major issues. A year or so from now though, when several patches and maybe even an expansion has been released, I have no doubts it'll be the best grand strategy game ever.

I agree with Lathund!

When I fist loaded the demo i hated the game so much and was very sad. I gave it another chance and read an AAR tutorial about how to use the command structure and now I'm understanding it alot better and having fun. I issued orders to all of my army groups on the eastern front and they took over poland, on the western front I just told the theatre HQ to hold the line. After poland fell I transfered many of the units over to the western front HQ and switched to attack stance and told them to go for paris. My guys started to breakthrough and then the demo ended. I cant wait for tommorow and the '36 campaign.

There are still some problems though, like my game is a little laggy at times and small stuff like that, but i love everyhting else.

 

[ComradeOm]

I shall wait with buying it till the patches got most of the bugs are out of the game

That's been my official policy since CK

Pleased to see the reactions in this thread (although the lag remains a concern) but I will be waiting a few weeks before buying this. That said, I wasn't planning on getting it at all a few months ago...

 

[unmerged(148744)]

As hoped it is a deep and thoughtfull game, just what i wished for.

Yes the demo would have been better for 99.8% of ppl if we hadnt been dumped into WW2 straight away. So looking forward till tomorrow where i can start in 36 and build MY OWN army etc.

A few issues in the demo that im sure will get patched preety soon, but all the demo has done for myself....is wish i had the full game now and not in 24hrs!

 

[ashbery76]

Improved depth all round,looks better and runs great on my average machine at 1900res, 8x.