Hi all -
Yes, it's release day, and the beta-testers are bursting whooping out of the bushes! Here's a few unofficial notes on the best ways to enjoy your introduction to HoI 2...hope they're helpful.
1. Use the tutorials.
The tutorials don't cover every aspect, but they cover the main mechanics, and they will only take an hour or two of your time. It's a good investment. The game is different from HoI 1, and if you plunge straight in you will find it a challenge to understand all the concepts at once. No need to linger over the tutorials, just run through them briskly so you've seen each new aspect mentioned once.
Basically, LAND combat is similar in concept to HoI 1 but movement-is-combat and support-attack and support-defence make very signficiant differences to good tactics. For instance, note that "support-attack" helps in the attack at once (your forces are lining the frontier and firing, just not moving in), while "support-defence" means you'll hurry to help (3*normal speed) but won't start firing till you arrive, and "reserve" means you'll do support-defence to any neighbouring province that is attacked (more flexible but leaves you open to feints drawing off your defences).
Meanwhile AIR and NAVAL operations are significantly different from HoI 1, and the relevant tutorial helps give the idea.
2. Try a battle scenario.
Most of us play HoI for the grand sweep of WW2, but the battle scenarios offer a satisfying mini-game that you can finish in a couple of hours. If you've played the demo, you know the essence of the Ardennes scenario but try the Spanish Civil War scenario, which is a neat, eventful little package including production , so you get to try out the choice between consumer goods, unit production, reinforcement and upgrading.
3. Try the 36 campaign
When you've done one battle scenario, you probably won't be able to bear waiting any longer for the main course. Try the 36 campaign first, since this is likely to give you an initial period of peace while you sort out all the things you want to do. Personally I recommend starting with a predominantly land-based power - Germany or the USSR, or a smaller country like Poland. You'll have lots to think about and you can reserve the joys of big naval operations for your next game.
4. Try a multi-player game
The true joy of HoI is playing with a dozen or more others. The betas have done this lots of times and it works well. Once you're a bit familiar with the system, you could go to Valkyrienet and find some opponents or go to the multi-player forum of this board and respond to invitations (you'll probably get a more serious quality of opponent that way). Again, you could try a two-player scenario to start you off in multi-player, and finish the whole thing in a couple of hours, then do another one. Or you could plunge into a big scenario, perhaps playing one of the big countries in a team with someone else (maybe a beta-tester) so you can advise each other and share the fronts out.
4. Things to think about
a) Coming patches
You'll find that version 1.00 runs smoothly - far more stably than even the latest version of HoI 1 - and offers a decent challenge. Note though that the beta-testers have been working hard for the two months since the game went to press, and there will be a patch that will add new features to the interface and further improve gameplay.
After that, you can also expect a second patch designed to upgrade the AI. This always has to be programmed after the game is basically finished (since you can't teach the AI to play optimally if the game itself is still changing), so the betas have been focusing on that, and the objective is to give you an AI that will sometimes beat you on the hardest settings even after you're an expert at the game, as well as providing a strong ally and opponent in unplayed countries in multi-player games.
b) Early things to think about (and some you don't need to)
Some of the early strategic decisions are just like HoI 1 - which alliances do you want, who might you attack, and so on. Others are new.
- A basic production screen decision is whether you want big armed forces or modern armed forces. You probably start with some units out of date, so you may well want to upgrade before you fight any wars, and note that in some cases (e.g. USSR artillery in 1939) some units may be so dated that you need two rounds of upgrading. On the other hand, you may want more units, and if war is some way off (e.g. in 1936) you might decide to give early priority to building the units themselves and save the upgrades for later. You also need some money for research and diplomacy, so if you don't have a large bank balance at the start you want a consumer goods surplus. If you start with dissent, the surplus will reduce this too, of course.
- Examine your resource situation carefully, and if you are tight in anything, scour the world for trades to build up stockpiles in it. Italy and Japan have a particular need for this. Once war starts, trade with non-neighbours will drop sharply in efficiency, so build up while the world is at peace.
- Research is now in big leaps (e.g. infantry 1918 to infantry 1936, not just developing a new gun) - assign your teams at the start, and then don't worry about them until they complete. Note that if you change research in mid-project, all the work is lost, so you'll rarely want to do that. On the other hand, research is now basically free - you will want a bit of consumer goods surplus to pay your teams, but unlike HoI 1 you don't have the unrealistic question "Do I ask scientists to research, or do I build some tanks?" Be aware that researching ahead of historical date imposes a big penalty (you are groping desperately into futuristic research areas) which even a good tech team won't find easy, so only choose an advance-of-time tech if you're sure you really want it. Don't get obsessed with tanks - they are a good option but some countries may be best off focusing first on, say, improved infantry and artillery brigades. Countries which have, or, ahem, acquire more IC get additional research team slots, up to 5, so if you've conquered new IC remember to check if you've acquired another slot. Remember that conquered IC only revives gradually so the effect may not be immediate.
- Don't worry about convoys unless you know something the AI doesn't. For instance, if you're Italy and have been non-aligned, just fighting say Greece, the AI will do all the convoys you need. But if you know you'll soon be declaring war on the UK, you need to stockpile resources in Africa in anticipation of raids on your convoys.
- Don't worry about leader assignment. Switch on auto-assign and the AI will find suitable leaders at midnight every day (if you've got them), and you only need intervene if you particularly want, say, Guderian in province X. If you do assign a particular leader, the auto-assign will respect your wisdhes and won't override it, so you can just assign the ones you really care about, if any. Auto-promotion is trickier and you may want to switch that off at first till you've studied the effects.
- Air and naval units are assigned to missions in specified areas, and can then be left alone till you want them to do new missions. Be aware that your commanders will interpret your orders as seems sensible to them - e.g. if you've indicated you want ground attack in a target area because you plan to ground-assault it, the aircraft may not hit that big stack that you plan to go for but the small one next door, because it's more vulnerable and has less AA. Note subtle differences between missions: for instance, ground attack weakens STRENGTH (so the target can gradually be worn down) while interdiction weakens ORGANISATION (so it's easier for ground attacks to push them out). If you interdict someone and then go away his org will gradually recover and you've accomplished zilch.
Have fun, ask on Valkyrienet or the forum if you get stuck, and let us know your experiences!
NickMP
