As a red-blooded RTS and history buff, I absolutely love the concept of HOI2. I have gotten many hours of enjoyment from it and it is one of my favorite games ever.
But it is marred by a horrible interface. While many other strategy games may have needless micromanagement, it wouldn't be unfair to say that HOI2 has needless nanomanagement. Some examples:
When planning an aerial assault, you can't just snap your fingers and order the Luftwaffe to bomb the crap out of South England. You have to manually select each and every single wing (of which there are dozens in any self-respecting air force) and manually set them to attack and set their attack parameters. I count at least five mouseclicks. Per wing. And that's if you manage 100% effectiveness in unit selection, which is far from certain.
Why can't I just tell the interceptors to maintain air superiority in the area, and the bombers to ground attack all units in the area, with a couple of mouseclicks? Is that really too much to ask?
More tedium comes from the diplomacy and intelligence screens. With 50+ nations it takes a long time to scroll through the whole list and look up which countries are willing to sell you oil, not to speak of remembering to do the same thing every week. Why isn't there a menu where you can automatically find the best deal for oil in the world market, and take it? Same thing goes for sending spies to your enemies.
The production screen is another area that screams for streamlining. Having to pause the game to move a slider infinitesimally back and forth every couple of days makes you feel like a bean-counter, not a world-conqueror. No, I don't want the retarded AI to make unqualified decisions that screw up my production strategy. What I want is simple: a check box next to every slider called "auto-align with demand". This would let you make exactly as much IC go to production as is required, while respecting your locked sliders.
And I'm sure there are other aspects of the interface that demand overhaul that I can't think of right now. It's so sad that the great fun that is to be had with this game is regularly broken up by soul-eatingly tedious and pointless rituals. I've often said 'screw it' and quit the game, not to return to it for many weeks, even while in the middle of a very exciting situation game-wise, because the interface is just that mind-numbing. Please tell me that there are some tricks I've overlooked that remove all my worries. Failing that, please tell me Paradox is planning to fix the interface flaws in the next patch.
But it is marred by a horrible interface. While many other strategy games may have needless micromanagement, it wouldn't be unfair to say that HOI2 has needless nanomanagement. Some examples:
When planning an aerial assault, you can't just snap your fingers and order the Luftwaffe to bomb the crap out of South England. You have to manually select each and every single wing (of which there are dozens in any self-respecting air force) and manually set them to attack and set their attack parameters. I count at least five mouseclicks. Per wing. And that's if you manage 100% effectiveness in unit selection, which is far from certain.
Why can't I just tell the interceptors to maintain air superiority in the area, and the bombers to ground attack all units in the area, with a couple of mouseclicks? Is that really too much to ask?
More tedium comes from the diplomacy and intelligence screens. With 50+ nations it takes a long time to scroll through the whole list and look up which countries are willing to sell you oil, not to speak of remembering to do the same thing every week. Why isn't there a menu where you can automatically find the best deal for oil in the world market, and take it? Same thing goes for sending spies to your enemies.
The production screen is another area that screams for streamlining. Having to pause the game to move a slider infinitesimally back and forth every couple of days makes you feel like a bean-counter, not a world-conqueror. No, I don't want the retarded AI to make unqualified decisions that screw up my production strategy. What I want is simple: a check box next to every slider called "auto-align with demand". This would let you make exactly as much IC go to production as is required, while respecting your locked sliders.
And I'm sure there are other aspects of the interface that demand overhaul that I can't think of right now. It's so sad that the great fun that is to be had with this game is regularly broken up by soul-eatingly tedious and pointless rituals. I've often said 'screw it' and quit the game, not to return to it for many weeks, even while in the middle of a very exciting situation game-wise, because the interface is just that mind-numbing. Please tell me that there are some tricks I've overlooked that remove all my worries. Failing that, please tell me Paradox is planning to fix the interface flaws in the next patch.
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