Personal Opinion after some 125 Hours of play

[AndreasPhokas]

All in all I've enjoyed Hearts of Iron IV. There are some...quirky things that I think need a looking at but overall not a bad game. Id give it 7.5/10 and with some patch/DLC work it can easily go higher than that. This is from a singleplayer perspective. This is my first hearts of iron game ive really played.

The Bad, should be fixed ASAP

1. Prioritization of the Fronts. Seeing AI utterly strip the maginot line to fight Italy or the Germans ignore Russia after declaring war on them makes me facepalm....hard. Also the AI seems to overprioritize Africa. Also it should focus on reducing pockets especially isolated ones. Germany Conquers France but fails to finish off Belgium/Netherlands which is held by a mixture of forces.

2 Africa I found a mod that makes the Sahara Desert Impassable which helps tremendously. AI still sends a lot of divisions into Africa but its better to fight them across a 1 to 4 province border rather than the depths of the Sahara.

3 Pacific War or lack of it There is always a land war in china that goes either way then it stretches into Indochina but nothing at all navy wise. No island hopping the US never seems to launch its war.(Also naval invasions are weird. how do I not have proper intel, I have 100 ships sitting off of the coast)

The Okay but Should be looked at eventually

1. AI Divisions Really weird seeing a minor fielding some 80 to 120 divisions. Then I tag switch to them and see they're building swarms of tiny divisions. Isn't it better to build medium to sometimes larger divisions? Just seems really odd to me. My divisions are usually 20 to 26 in width.

2. Make Anti Tank and Heavy Tanks more of a priority Ties into divisions, it doesn't seem like the AI makes much in the way of Armor so I've never felt pressed to use Anti Tank guns. Id imagine in multiplayer this is different. In terms of Heavy tanks they don't seem overly useful outside of putting a heavy tank into your infantry divisions(which is a decent tactic) Maybe im just bad? If I am please call me on it so I can improve.

3. China. I figure China will receive a DLC in the future, but China could really use national focuses(Same with the warlords, also give them a way to gain cores if they take over china. Also Shanxi is #1 I will find a way to succeed as them. Yan Xishan is a very very interesting warlord,partially westernized the province) In terms of its war it never drags on. It ends by 1940. In my experience japan wins more but not always.

4. Naval Warfare. I enjoy naval warfare. I get a kick out of using historical ships and sweeping the seas clean but id like to see the AI stack up its fleets. If I have a royal navy stack of 90 the regia marina shouldn't split into tiny portions while I pick them off one at a time.

The Good

1. Atmosphere. I do feel immersed and I get that feeling of being in WW2 especially when I did my france playthrough and the AI surprised me punching through my defenses. I struggled with holding them off but I managed it barely.

2. Freedom in ideology Being able to change my alignment is a blast and adds to replayability. I love the different names and flags too. One request is that if you can change ideology you can keep your current leader(like FDR decides that hitler guy had something right and goes fascist)

3. Variants I can customize and name my variants. Yes, this along with division template really helps with customizing and putting your own touch on everything.

4. National Focuses More options is always good. Obviously more sets will be released. Two minor points, different lengths so the world isn't moving at 70 day pulses, and yeah please give the warlords the china set when it hits)

5. Warfare gameplay. I thoroughly enjoy the combat and seeing my troops envelope a pocket or having to desperately charge and save a few divisions that I carelessly let overextend themselves. Seeing the frotlines eb and flow is very satisfying, the combat itself is fairly indepth(I used to play EU4 and CK2 a lot so yeah....) im still figuring out what everything means but invading the soviet union and conquering Moscow as Italy has been my highlight of the game thus far! Watching the models zoom around the map fighting makes me feel like im playing super risk!

TLDR: Options and customization good, fine tune AI and other stuff. I have faith in paradox to fix it.

 

[Telenil]

Good post, I agree with essentially everything.

 

[VitaminK]

Hopefully things will start to get worked on as soon as everyone is back from 'holiday'...

I played a good 40-50 hours around release and stopped cause I realized with some more work this game could easily be a 10 for me, it's at a 9 now.

There's been loads of improvements suggested that would help out tremendously I'm hoping we wont have to wait too long to see them.

I know modding community is gonna do its thing but still need some core gameplay fixes.

 

[nuarbnellaffej]

2. Make Anti Tank and Heavy Tanks more of a priority Ties into divisions, it doesn't seem like the AI makes much in the way of Armor so I've never felt pressed to use Anti Tank guns. Id imagine in multiplayer this is different. In terms of Heavy tanks they don't seem overly useful outside of putting a heavy tank into your infantry divisions(which is a decent tactic) Maybe im just bad? If I am please call me on it so I can improve.

I agree with you on this, and I know mods are not the end all to gameplay discussion, but for those who don't know, you should try the "AI research and division tweak" mod. The mod is not perfect, but is a huuuuge improvement over the current AI research and division template settings.

With this mod playing as Germany, it def makes sense to build AT, to combat the swarm of medium and heavy tanks that AI SOV will build.

 

[fredgiblet]

1. AI Divisions Really weird seeing a minor fielding some 80 to 120 divisions. Then I tag switch to them and see they're building swarms of tiny divisions. Isn't it better to build medium to sometimes larger divisions? Just seems really odd to me. My divisions are usually 20 to 26 in width.

2. Make Anti Tank and Heavy Tanks more of a priority Ties into divisions, it doesn't seem like the AI makes much in the way of Armor so I've never felt pressed to use Anti Tank guns. Id imagine in multiplayer this is different. In terms of Heavy tanks they don't seem overly useful outside of putting a heavy tank into your infantry divisions(which is a decent tactic) Maybe im just bad? If I am please call me on it so I can improve.

The AI really doesn't understand division design at all. In addition to improving that they really need to revise the was templates are handled, France had heavy tanks at the start of the war, but if you're playing France you'll have to put almost all your XP just into getting a decent template for a heavy tank division to use it.

2. Freedom in ideology Being able to change my alignment is a blast and adds to replayability. I love the different names and flags too. One request is that if you can change ideology you can keep your current leader(like FDR decides that hitler guy had something right and goes fascist)

I'd love to see a scenario editor so that we can start the game with altered ideologies instead of having to pay 150 precious PP and then wait for 3 years.

 

[him_15]

The Bad, should be fixed ASAP

1. Prioritization of the Fronts. Seeing AI utterly strip the maginot line to fight Italy or the Germans ignore Russia after declaring war on them makes me facepalm....hard. Also the AI seems to overprioritize Africa. Also it should focus on reducing pockets especially isolated ones. Germany Conquers France but fails to finish off Belgium/Netherlands which is held by a mixture of forces.

2 Africa I found a mod that makes the Sahara Desert Impassable which helps tremendously. AI still sends a lot of divisions into Africa but its better to fight them across a 1 to 4 province border rather than the depths of the Sahara.

3 Pacific War or lack of it There is always a land war in china that goes either way then it stretches into Indochina but nothing at all navy wise. No island hopping the US never seems to launch its war.(Also naval invasions are weird. how do I not have proper intel, I have 100 ships sitting off of the coast)

Totally agree with these issues and I think this is the issue that really "kills" this game right now. And it has to be fixed in priority for the next patch.

 

[Kuchy]

Most of your "ASAP fixing bugs" are already solved by mods ;-)

 

[ETAIPOS]

The AI really doesn't understand division design at all. In addition to improving that they really need to revise the was templates are handled, France had heavy tanks at the start of the war, but if you're playing France you'll have to put almost all your XP just into getting a decent template for a heavy tank division to use it.

While France had heavy tanks, it was very far from having "decent division" to use them. They were used in independent battalions. In fact, Germans did exactly the same when they formed first Heavy tank battalions...
The idea was that while numbers of tanks was limited, indep units would be easier to move from one place of need to another.

I think the need to invest XP into designing divisions is a very nice feature that reflect realistic problems with reorganizing military. For example, in Poland some cavalry officers were extremely reluctant to drop horses, to the point they put pressure on high command to remove them from motorization list Because of this, after forming 10th Cav (first fully motorized unit) the second (Warsaw Mot Brigade) was made in much larger part from infantry units, to avoid conflicts.

I'd love to see a scenario editor so that we can start the game with altered ideologies instead of having to pay 150 precious PP and then wait for 3 years.

That would be very good feature - sth like custom mode in HoI3. Not only modification of ideology, but also other things, like starting tech and units.

 

[AndreasPhokas]

Most of your "ASAP fixing bugs" are already solved by mods ;-)

Yup and hopefully pdox sees them and implements them(or a variant of em!) I just got that AI tweak mod so hopefully it'll help with the division issues! And a scenario editor(think the nation editor that EU4 has) would be pretty neat!

You can do your historical game or do you custom setups

 

[fredgiblet]

While France had heavy tanks, it was very far from having "decent division" to use them. They were used in independent battalions. In fact, Germans did exactly the same when they formed first Heavy tank battalions...
The idea was that while numbers of tanks was limited, indep units would be easier to move from one place of need to another.

I would take that even. Not having to expend all my XP to get the medium tanks I've been building for a year into my army would be great.

I think the need to invest XP into designing divisions is a very nice feature that reflect realistic problems with reorganizing military. For example, in Poland some cavalry officers were extremely reluctant to drop horses, to the point they put pressure on high command to remove them from motorization list Because of this, after forming 10th Cav (first fully motorized unit) the second (Warsaw Mot Brigade) was made in much larger part from infantry units, to avoid conflicts.

I don't think it's a bad idea, however I think it's horribly limiting when you can plausibly run down the tech tree and be building 8 different models of armored vehicle that you literally aren't allowed to use. At all. They need to either unlock at least basic templates when you create a new type of tank or give you XP for it at minimum.

That would be very good feature - sth like custom mode in HoI3. Not only modification of ideology, but also other things, like starting tech and units.

I loved going through and making an absurd, min-maxed, OP Germany and then smashing my way around.

 

[AndreasPhokas]

I remember in Eu4 I did an 800 point Russia that I called mordor. I gave them all of Siberia and Russia right off the bat, Yeah they started devouring everything. I played pontus(a custom Trebizond I modelled after gondor somewhat) and had a really epic war. (I now picture myself going back to eu4 and trying to surround their army now.

 

[fredgiblet]

You can do your historical game or do you custom setups

I would love a scenario editor that would make it easy to implement alternate campaigns. Like what if France and Britain didn't guarantee Poland? What if Germany decided to take the Balkans and Middle East instead of Russia? What if Italy had an honest chance of re-creating Rome's glory?

 

[Oriflamme]

Seeing the Pacific War continue to be this poorly represented makes me want to bang my head against a wall. I can't believe that after all these years, Paradox still can't find a way to make it work right.

 

[fredgiblet]

Seeing the Pacific War continue to be this poorly represented makes me want to bang my head against a wall. I can't believe that after all these years, Paradox still can't find a way to make it work right.

To be fair, the people who point out that the AI has to be worked on last aren't wrong. So the war in the pacific will probably get better as the game is patched. Of course that will take a long time...

 

[VitaminK]

Hoping the Devs actually read through some of the forum posts. Vacation/No Support time should be up about now. Now maybe in one MORE month they'll have a decent patch ready to go.

 

[harrymanback]

To be fair, the people who point out that the AI has to be worked on last aren't wrong. So the war in the pacific will probably get better as the game is patched. Of course that will take a long time...

I love this game, but it does sadden me that the War in the Pacific is every bit as bad as it was in vanilla HOI II, and currently significantly worse than it became in Armageddon.

Also, very much agree with the OP about the AI not closing pockets. In my game the Brits ignored Northern France when Germany invaded, and instead did a naval landing in Italy. Despite being easily crushable by the Axis, that front was still hanging on 3 years later when America got involved, largely because the Germans pretty much left it to Italy to deal with.

 

[octavian1127]

Seeing the Pacific War continue to be this poorly represented makes me want to bang my head against a wall. I can't believe that after all these years, Paradox still can't find a way to make it work right.

Especially with how often the AI does massive naval landings in europe...

 

[wolf1455]

I just played 353 h so far and like it but gonna like it more when original poster points is adressed.

 

[wolf1455]

And my oppinion about the desert dilemma is that this mod that block movement in sahara should be included in the vanilla.

 

[Mannstien]

Good write up, I agree with all of this, I've stopped playing vanilla until more work is done and strictly play with the AI and Division Tweaks mod which forces the AI to use bigger templates and increases ideal width to 30 decreasing the division spam and also reprioritizes their builds finding this a much better challenge along with the No Beach Party mod that is an add on too it making the Sahara impassible it keeps me playing until Paradox makes the needed changes.