Is HOI2 Worth Buying?

[unmerged(6777)]

3) Plenty of rumors say that Strategy First is about to go out of business. This worries me because it took something like two years for HOI to brought up to it’s current level which still has several problems. I am not too interested in getting the game if it stands a high chance of not being supported.

SF is a North-American company based in Montreal that operates primarily as a distributor (although IIRC they also do some limited development). While they distributed many of PI's earlier releases, they had nothing to do with the games' development. Paradox has since discontinued using them for distribution, and now self-publishes their titles. In North America, distribution is handled by Atari's supply chain (which is quite good). IMO post-release support will not be an issue.

4) While HOI had a terrible manual the inter-face was simple enough and I could learn to run the game in a few hours. It’s my understanding that HOI2 has a useless manual and is much more complected and so I can’t help but wonder if I can actually play it.

While I probably shouldn't comment on this, I would question the characterisation of the manual as "useless". While the style employed may not be to everyone's taste, most people seem to like it. In a poll held on this forum, 75% of members rated the manual as "good" or "excellent". Many of those who gave it a poor rating commented that the reason they did so related to the layout, not the content. Further, most professional reviewers have rated both the manual and the tutorials quite highly:

We've often knocked Paradox manuals for being long on historical details and short on explaining the game. The coil-bound manual here is one of the finest we've had the pleasure of perusing.

The tool-tips are as thorough as ever, and an excellent complement to the manual, which is as comprehensive as the game itself. At last, a Paradox game with a worthy manual! Paradox wisely hired someone from the fan community to write it. The manual is dark and dense, printed with a tiny font against a distracting grey pattern. Writer Chris Stone has an odd penchant for sticking parenthetical comments between colons: something I've never seen before: but he explains everything thoroughly, using a well-organized and informal style. This is the first Paradox game where a big part of the learning curve isn't trying to dig up information online to make up for the bad manual.

(Note that the issue re parenthetical comments seems to relate to the printers having a slightly different mapping of the character set, resulting in all of the EM dashes being "translated" into colons. When reading, just mentally substitute a "--" whenever you see a ":")

The manual – deftly written by Chris Stone – will be your constant friend and companion (even though the table of contents is on the last page, you know, the place where a helpful index would be). It’s quite easy to forget how many elements of the game are intertwined and the manual goes a long way in explaining things.

If you're reading this and thinking it all sounds a little bit complicated, there's no need to worry. Not only does Hearts Of Iron II have a very comprehensive series of in-game tutorials, it also has one of the best game manuals I have ever read. Everything is thoroughly explained in the manual and its author uses a relaxed and informal style, which makes it very easy to read.

One last point before I conclude. Paradox games have historically relatively consistent in two ways: a gigantically complex, fun game, and pretty weak manuals…Paradox makes it clear that they want to break their streak of ‘undermanualitis’ at last. For HoI2 they have hired Chris Stone, a big fan of their games, to write a detailed and expansive manual. The version I have is somewhere in the area of 130 pages, and is really quite a good read. As you might be able to tell from the … uh … possibly excessive length of this preview, covering a game like Hearts of Iron II is not something one can do briefly. Chris does a good job. Aside from everything else, kudos to Paradox and to Chris for the manual.

…[A]nd thanks to the brilliant manual and the in-game tutorial, experienced players should be able to pick up the new intricacies of the game as easily as a new player should be able to pick up the whole thing from scratch. This is quite a departure for Paradox who, in the past, have left players with small, uninformative manuals and little or nothing at all in the way of tutorials. The only gripe I have with the manual is the small text size, which could strain the eyes of the more aged among us. Aside from this the content of the manual is excellently written and highly informative.

I have addressed the issue of the layout in other threads so I won't repeat myself here. Also note that there is now a very good alpha index available on the HoI2 Wiki.

 

[Graymane]

Hello,

I am thinking about buying HOI2 but I have several things that make me wonder if it’s worth the money.

1) My understanding is that the R&D system has been totally changed from the first game which bothers me because it was the best aspect of HOI. I am under the impression that the flexibility to focus on a given tech tree and having a weapon more advanced then was historically the case is basically gone. If I’m correct in matter I basically am not interested in buying HOI2.

The R&D system has been totally changed from the first game. As you know, in the first game, tech was tied to the IC you invested in it and the tech tree was much more focused on different pieces and parts of the equipment (this size gun versus that size gun and other details like that). You could research what you wanted, when you wanted.

In HOI 2, tech is not tied to your economy except in one major way (the minor amount of money needed aside). The number of techs you can research at one time is tied to your overall number of factories to a maximum of 5 things to research at once. Research is carried out by "tech teams". A tech team has areas of expertise and an overall level (Ford is level 9, for example, and Herman Goring is level 4). Techs also have a year they become available. What that means is that if you research it before that year, you get penalties to research speed.

The tech tree itself is much more streamlined and easy to understand. All-in-all it is MUCH better than the HOI 1 tech tree as far as I'm concerned. My one gripe about the tech tree is that many things are pre-determined before you ever start the game so you would have to mod that stuff out if it really bugs you in the '36 scenario (If you are the USA, for example, you can never learn Blitzkrieg).

2) One of the worst aspects of the original HOI (outside of naval combat which is terrible) is how movement worked. As an example you could hike along for a week and if you stopped moving before making it to the next province it was as if you never moved at all. I also never understood why at times aircraft moving very short distances (say from the Northern boarders of Germany to the closest portions of Poland) took several days or even weeks. I am wondering if that aspect of the game has been improved in HOI2.

Pretty sure most of that stuff is still there, shrug. Nothing I ever broke a sweat over in HOI 1 or 2. There are a few big changes. First, as soon as you start moving to a province, you are in combat. You no longer have to go to the province, then start fighting. You can also do support attacks without moving and stuff like reserves and support defense commands. Air units now have missions, you don't have to micro manage them too much. You can rebase basically to any place in the world where you have an airport. Air and naval stuff seem a lot better than HOI 1. Air units seem to move the same speed through any province, shrug.

4) While HOI had a terrible manual the inter-face was simple enough and I could learn to run the game in a few hours. It’s my understanding that HOI2 has a useless manual and is much more complected and so I can’t help but wonder if I can actually play it.

Useless? The manual is quite good.

5) One thing I liked a lot about HOI was the wide range of cheats available which allowed you to try out alternate historical scenarios or tailor the game to suit your abilities or historical biases. I am under the impression that the range of cheats are far more limited with no ability to change
ICs, your nation’s ideological position or DI. Am I correct about this? Dies this forum have a guide to cheat codes?

Thanks to anyone that addresses these matters.

Plenty of cheats are there, basically the same ones as HOI 1. To tell you the truth, with the amount of negativity you've posted with your questions, do you REALLY want to buy this game? You've obviously not done much research on it and clearly your sources that are "leading you to believe" and "under the impression" leave a lot to be desired.

 

[unmerged(36926)]

Thanks to all for the replies. I have never spent much time at all with message boards so I am sorry for placing this thread in the wrong place.

With respect to my questions it seems that most of them have been addressed pretty well.

As to R & D it does not sound like net progress has been made although I like very much the idea of having R&D teams and money rather spending ICs. One aspect of the HOI R&D system that was problematic was the notion that medium tanks had to have been developed after light tanks or that say a 40mm tank gun had to be developed prior to building a 50mm tank gun. In fact, what kind of tanks served at a given time had less to do with R&D then it did with doctrine. During the First World War heavy, medium, light and very light tanks were built simultaneously using either machine guns or cannons in excess of 30mm with smaller tank cannons rarely even being developed. In fact, tanks at various times in history used artillery developed for other purposes rather then ones developed specifically for tanks.

I’d maintain that the introduction of technologies should no more follow history then troop levels. It makes no more sense to say that nation x had 168 divisions in ‘40 so you can’t have any more then that then to say that cannon z was introduced in ‘41 so you can’t have it more then a year earlier without a massive penalty.

The truth is that what technologies are introduced at a given time often had less to do with what was possible/practical then with the adroitness of the designers in dealing with bureaucratic and political hurdles.

The Soviet Union had the ability to be way ahead of Germany in producing rocket and jet powered aircraft. That potential was squandered due to the paranoia of the Stalinist state killing/jailing leading scientists and engineers and erratically starting/stopping R & D projects then with facing some technological hurdle.

Certainly in Germany one can find plenty of historical instances of the Germans failing to get new systems into the field in a timely sense due to problems other then technical such as Bergmann and Dreyse making superior machine guns to Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken yet the latter getting almost all the war production due to their superior lobbying ability. In the First World War the Austro-Hungarians developed a successful tethered helicopter in 1916 called the PKZ-2 which might very well have been significant had the inventors received any funding. I would also recall the Romfell armored car which was a very advanced design that could have easily been in series production in 1916 had it not been for Emperor Franz Joseph still insisting that no money be given to the project as a result of his banning the development of armored vehicles because an Austro-Daimler AFV scared his horse in 1905 during a field test. Yet another example is that the highly celebrated Bergman MP18I would have been introduced two years earlier had not the Gewehr-Prufungs-Kommission demanded that Hugo Schmeisser develop a sub-machine gun based upon the Mauser C96 action rather then custom developed one.

In short, it seems to me that while the HOI R&D system had some serious problems they could be over come by intelligent manipulation of the system to give historical plausible, if not historical accurate, outcomes. In contrast it seems much harder to make R&D be worth emphasizing in HOI2 which is too bad because to me, the major interest in war gaming is trying out the big “what ifs” of history. Simply reenacting events has far less appeal to me then making historically plausible, if not accurate, decisions that could have changed the course of history.

As to buying HOI2 I simply am not sure as the R&D system is so critical yet seemingly not as good as the one from HOI. It does seem that in most other respects HOI2 is a big improvement however so I guess I’ll wait till the price drops a bit.

 

[unmerged(36926)]

Sorry, I made the same post twice.

 

[Graymane]

Hmm...I understand what you are saying about HOI 1 tech. Let me put it like this. HOI 2 tech is better. if you have played both games a lot, you will come to that conclusion all else aside. The only time you wouldn't come to that conclusion is if you think it is fun to research 42 kinds of transports or something like that (i.e., you want to really be playing a tactical game, not a grand strategy game). The HOI 2 tech system just makes a lot more sense in the context of a grand strategy game. Tech is VERY important in HOI 2. It is what allows you to accomplish a lot of stuff, it is just not as tedious as it was before.

Tech is a lot more realistic in this setting and also very different depending on your country. If you are Italy, you are going to be a lot more focused on what you want to accomplish because you have fewer tech teams and they are mainly crappy. You will do things like ally with Germany earlier just to get tech sharing blueprints (you don't get to trade techs, you can trade blueprints with allies though. Blueprints make the research go faster).

 

[Grosshaus]

One thing that might interest you about the production numbers of units is a novel concept of gearing, if you build lots of one unit model the later ones are faster and cheaper to produce. Combined with domestic sliders it gets groovy, with planned economy and full conscription the maximum bonus gotten gets bigger and thus it encourages some nations to build lots of troops. Of course it's possible to manipulate these settings somewhat if you wish.

Doctrine trees have an effect on this as well giving bonuses to the build times of some units and penalties to others. Note the plural form as there are four completely different paths to take, when you choose one there is no going back. This is another way to encourage players to have variation in their armies depending on the nation and strategy they choose instead of simply making highly teched mechanized armies as any nation.

 

[unmerged(22240)]

Take it from someone who burned Paradox in effigy for HOI 1 and Victoria, HOI2 is worth it. I swore them off, but decided to give them a last, and I mean last chance. And I am glad I did.

And I like the streamlined research. And the production makes more sense to me with the gearing up and all. Now if they could just make a MOO type game.

 

[unmerged(37708)]

There is an simple answer to you question.

YES ITS WORTH ITS MONEY !

 

[unmerged(19114)]

Opinion Stated On Was HOI II Worth Buying!

I stated my opinion two days ago about was it worth buying HEARTS OF IRON II it looks like one of the Gods did not like it and deleted it! I thought it was constructed criticism on the game. It looks like my opinion is not looked on by the gods very kindly around here althought I have most of Paradox games. I will retire to lurking and keeping my thoughts to my self on any of there games!

Sincerely,
SkyElf

 

[unmerged(41061)]

I stated my opinion two days ago about was it worth buying HEARTS OF IRON II it looks like one of the Gods did not like it and deleted it! I thought it was constructed criticism on the game. It looks like my opinion is not looked on by the gods very kindly around here althought I have most of Paradox games. I will retire to lurking and keeping my thoughts to my self on any of there games!

Well, if you really thought it was 'constructed' criticism...

Now, now, I'm being mean So, to make up for it, here's some friendly words of advice: You're going about this all wrong. Really.

FIRST - you buy all their games.
NEXT - you buy them all over again, just to show you're not one of those unenlightened gamers that buy games just by whim and accident.
THEN you start sending them postcards from your holiday locations, nice presents for their birthdays and self-knit stockings (gloves are also thought to be in order) in winter. (On second thoughts, them living in Sveden, send them woolen clothing all throughout the year. They're bound to appreciate it.)

Now, once you've softened them up over a period of months, you finally deliver the coup de grace with a selfcomposed poem on the greatness and infallibility of Johan, the lead programmer! This should do the trick.

Note: Seeing as I just shared some very intimate insider's secrets with you, I fear my post just might get deleted any second, too. So stop thinking, start acting!

 

[unmerged(6777)]

I stated my opinion two days ago about was it worth buying HEARTS OF IRON II it looks like one of the Gods did not like it and deleted it! I thought it was constructed criticism on the game. It looks like my opinion is not looked on by the gods very kindly around here althought I have most of Paradox games. I will retire to lurking and keeping my thoughts to my self on any of there games!

Sincerely,
SkyElf

[MODERATOR VOICE ON]

Will you please desist in posting about this subject and spend a few minutes of your precious time reading the forum rules. In particular, I refer you to:

# You will not argue with, comment on or question the actions/authority of the Paradox staff (Administrators, Moderators, etc.) in a public forum. Should you wish to do so you are directed to contact the Paradox staff via PM (the private messaging system - see “Violations and Penalties” below).

In another thread you indicated that you "don't know" any moderators. If you look at the bottom of each and every subforum, you will see who the assigned moderators are for that forum. Click on that name and then click on "send private message" and then type your message. Many of the moderators will spend time in other forums than their own (for example, I am not a moderator of this forum but I read many of the threads here) and will post in them. You can recognize them because right beside their avatar is the word "moderator". Click on any of these people and you can send them a PM too. Moderators do "moderating stuff" across the entire forum, so you can avtually contact any one of us about an issue.

You don't have to "know" us to contact us. If you like, think of us as a policeman standing on a street corner. If you've just been robbed, you should go to the nearest policeman...even if you don't know him. It is a moderator's responsibility to listen to your problem and try to resolve it as best as he can. A moderator may not always agree with you, but he will always listen to you.

If you disagree with a moderator's decision, contact one of the administrators (BiB, Havard or Castellon) and explain your reasons. If you disagree with their decision, contact Paradox directly via email. If you disagree with all of that then you're out of luck because it's their board and their rule is the law here. What you should not do - and what will get you banned from this forum - is to violate the rules on posting or to question a moderator/administrator's decision in the public forums. So stop it!

Last warning. Next time, you will lose your posting priviledges.
[/MODERATOR VOICE OFF]

 

[unmerged(40809)]

The almighty moderator seems pissed about something, but i dunn get about what.... Anyways thats not the point, i have a counter question for you. If you ask is it worth the price buying HOI 2? I ask you is it worth to buy a pack of condoms so you can have sex with a super model who wants it really bad?

 

[unmerged(6777)]

The almighty moderator seems pissed about something, but i dunn get about what....

SkyElf is on a mission re having had a thread of his closed and is not using the correct channels for resolving his complaint. It's getting on my nerves. 'Nuff said.

Anyways thats not the point, i have a counter question for you. If you ask is it worth the price buying HOI 2? I ask you is it worth to buy a pack of condoms so you can have sex with a super model who wants it really bad?

If she's a super model then she's considerably wealthier than I am. I'd let her make the purchase if she wants it so badly.

With each PI release, I can say that I've easily gotten my $40/game worth of enjoyment. I would guess that for EU2 I have probably ended up paying about $0.00003 per hour of entertainment. That's the best bang for the buck I've ever gotten, surpassing even MOO2 for me.

 

[Braedonnal]

If she's a super model then she's considerably wealthier than I am. I'd let her make the purchase if she wants it so badly.

Haha, right on.

With each PI release, I can say that I've easily gotten my $40/game worth of enjoyment. I would guess that for EU2 I have probably ended up paying about $0.00003 per hour of entertainment. That's the best bang for the buck I've ever gotten, surpassing even MOO2 for me.

I agree but at times I wonder how much better off I might be using the time more constructively. Then I remember, life is too short and continue playing!

MOO2, I played that game to death also and occasionally play it still (bow down to the power of system-engine destroying weapons). Too bad MOO3 wasn't that great.

To stay on topic, I figure I'll get plenty of play time out of HOI2 so the purchase will be worth my dollars invested.

 

[tuuttu]

I would rather play(buy) HoI1(patched) as a complete noob again then spend any money on HoI2………yet.

 

[MegaPIMP]

HoI 2 is a PIMP aproved product

I recommend it, with some of the mods the AI is made much better and I believe several are working on the tech tree to give you more options.

 

[The Witch-King]

No.

 

[unmerged(8783)]

Yes, it's worth it.

I absolutely LOVED HoI CORE, and HoI II is a great game as well.