So far - imo HOI3 is a superior game to HOI4

[rjohansen]

Finished up the game as Norway. Allies won eventually. USSR never got involved in "Polish-German War" except they invaded Tyrkey and won, and Iraq and Iran (never won, before I quit in 1947).

• Germany had som serious troubles with Denmark, won eventually, but never Invaded Norway. They had ONE landing (of one division), but retreated before any combat. I got a few messages about naval invasions, but no German troops where ever seen in Norway.
• Shortly after declaring war on Denmark and Norway, the German also declared war on Finland. Later also on Sweden.
  • Sweden blobbed out and took almost all of northeastern Germany.
  • I got bored and sent 4 infantry divisions to recapture Denmark. Met Venezuelan, Italian and German forces and beat the German back to Kiel at first. And then captured Hamburg. Found out it was a bit too easy, and I would rather see how the AI was doing, so I sent them back to Norway to watch the AI do the rest of the war. Germany eventually managed to get Denmark back, and it was back and forth for a while. Sweden mas a massive player though.
• Germany also declared war on Yugoslavia and Greece and never managed to take them out. Actually Greece, like Sweden was a major power.
• For some reason, even though Germany never invaded, the USA insisted on sending me volunteers, several.
• The War in Africa was kind of odd, Spain joined the "Polish-German War" early on and along with German, Italian, Venezuelan and Japanese forces, they dominated Africa for a while. But eventually the Allies got to fight the Axis back. Perhaps because there never was a War in the East.
• Japan never managed to do anything. Perhaps because they sent all their troops to Africa to fight the British. But was still the Axis power to fight until 1947.
• USSR never got involved in the "Polish-German War" - but they started a few of their own: Made a puppet out of Turkey and took Istanbul for themselves. Plus they tried to invade Iran and Iraq - they never manage to win entirely.
• After the war and the peace conference: Greece tok almost all of southern Europe along with Yugoslavia, very chaotic borders. Greece stretching up to Poland for instance, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria etc, where only allowed to have very minor territories left. In West-Europe it looked normal after the war.
• PS: As tiny Norway - I managed to keep ajour with the majors in all technology fields... I even (out of boredom) decided to build myself nuclear bombs - I was 70% or so finished when I quit the game. If started earlier, I bet I could easily have gotten nukes. The tech and research (and leadership) in HOI3 is FAR SUPERIOR - in that small nation have limited leadership and must really focus on what is important, in HOI4 - Norway became a powerhouse in the research field. I only lacked one research slot to max out (but couldn't due to lack of total factories).

I will now also finish a game as Germany (on hard) and perhaps even one as a major allied power (USA) for instance. But so far, this game is a real bummer and disappointment. I just feel it has nothing to with history what so ever and as such, nothing to do with World War Two (or Polish-German War as it is called in the game)

 

[rjohansen]

PS: Also the national focus three (neutral, generic) was finished quite "early" and then I could not choose anything, but I still got messaged that I haven't chose anything.

 

[exyyy123]

relax guys, panzeroo is working on bice for hoi4 already

 

[Art1985]

So you like magical leadership points better? There's really no good way to show technological advancements in a game

How about research facilities that can be build in states like other buildings? You choose technology and assign research facilities to it like naval dockyards for ships.

Here is link to thread in where is my suggestion about it.

 

[Becksgold]

relax guys, panzeroo is working on bice for hoi4 already

thumb up

 

[RazakelApollyon]

You guys can't be serious. The fact that the game actually works at launch instantly makes this better than HOI3.

 

[Art1985]

You guys can't be serious. The fact that the game actually works at launch instantly makes this better than HOI3.

Bugs can be corrected, but game design decisions can't. And I am afraid that HOI4 have many bad design decisions.

 

[HamHamJ]

I am amazed at how many people mistake good game design for "casual".

 

[david6]

I find it interesting so many people seem to forget HOI3's launch now that they have a new game to be critical about. HOI4 is infinitely better than its predecessor at launch. Plus a seven year old Paradox game might be better than a game that isn't even three days old, but that is a terrible comparison. HOI3 had years of fleshing out and massive fixes that made it a good game, HOI4 has just been released and it is already a good game (just with some problems that will either be fixed by patches, expansions, or mods).

 

[Razer_greece]

Great, so now I just have to wait an entire year for the game the be playable. You completely changed my mind /sarcasm. The game has been in development for two years and people payed for it, more than it was worth imo. It should be in a complete playable state when released not be a half baked garbage product. People who say it's playable or good are just content with subpar content and willing to blindly waste their money. They are paradox's audience now, sad but true.

People who "blindly wasted their money" and don't complain about the state of the game are players who play other paradox games and wanted to try HOI series. Luckily PDX considered that, and built a noob-friendly game. Stop comparing HOI IV with hoi3 cause as someone said "HOI 3 is mature". And how many people played HOI3?? Cause it was so complex that people didn't want to waste time on learning its mechanics. Plus i'm pretty sure hoi3 was not so good either when released.

And what will happen when EU5 gets released? Will people start saying, "EU4 is so much better", It's a full game we shouldn't waste our money on EU5. Well obviously EU4 is being developed for 4 years now since release. Same thing will happen to HOI IV, just be patient wait for mods, wait for updates and wait for DLCs. Yes you're gonna have to wait years to play the HOI that you're currently dreaming to have.

Me on the other hand, as a new player in this game i find it great, i've played 15 hours so far and i've learnt all the basics and i'm pretty sure i'm going to "waste" many more hours on this game

 

[lihp]

Seriously guys and gals: Read the HOI3 threads, when HOI3 came out. Not only did some posters say the same, but in those old threads, some even write the same words like you do here.

1. It is Paradox
2. They will update
3. There will be DLCs and everybody will whine: "Why is that feature not in vanilla?"
4. Once you buy the first 2-4 DLCs all are content on how good it is

Seriously - give the whining a break, but instead write constructive threads telling exactly the issue, why it needs fixing and how to fix it. After all its Paradox, they will fix it. They always did so far.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

The funniest part of this, or maybe it's the saddest part of it, is that if you took the best parts from all versions of the game you would have pretty much the perfect WWII game. None of them are perfect on their own but perfection is there in the combination of all of them. HOI2/DH and HOI3 are more polished products no doubt and right now both of them are superior products to HOI4. Whether that will change remains to be seen. Right now, I think HOI3 is the best of the bunch, that is my opinion and one that I know not everybody shares. That's OK. My early impressions of HOI4 is that it is a longshot to ever supplant 3 as my favorite. That doesn't mean I won't eventually like it and play it signifcantly, just that it won't be my favorite. That's OK too.

I understand Paradox wants to appeal to a broader customer base and simplifying parts of the game is an attempt to do that. But complexity still exists in other parts of the game so in the long run it may still be the diehards who they have to depend on for the long term sucess of the title with future dlc's. If that is the case, I expect things to be added to bring that diehard base back into the fold; more history, more realism, more detail, more control, more events. If that is not the case, then hopefully mods will add those things in anyway.

 

[Hanekem]

I find it interesting so many people seem to forget HOI3's launch now that they have a new game to be critical about. HOI4 is infinitely better than its predecessor at launch. Plus a seven year old Paradox game might be better than a game that isn't even three days old, but that is a terrible comparison. HOI3 had years of fleshing out and massive fixes that made it a good game, HOI4 has just been released and it is already a good game (just with some problems that will either be fixed by patches, expansions, or mods).

The problem is not that HOI3 was at launch or not, the issue with HOI4, at least the serious complains, aren't like HOI3, not about bugs or optimization or the AI (not the loudest voices, at least): they are about game concepts.
I could see far more potential in HOI3 than I see in HOI4

 

[Edgars]

Finished up the game as Norway. Allies won eventually. USSR never got involved in "Polish-German War" except they invaded Tyrkey and won, and Iraq and Iran (never won, before I quit in 1947).

In my game it was even worse... Soviets are helping Axis against Allies...

One more stupid thing about AI is that while I was a Fascist idiology country, Germany decided to declare war against me and in the same time Allies are inviting me to their faction... REALLY??

 

[GrafKeks]

Most people who go to games for immersion are imbeciles with nothing going on anyway.

If a game offers no immersion I might as well go to the gym again or have a tindr date, go shopping, learn something new etc.

All games whatever kind are a result of either escapism or boredom. So please keep your unreasonable opinion to yourself.

 

[rjohansen]

PS. Just noted, the Germans used Roman Numerals for Corps, so it really should be IV. Panzerkorps etc. Also noted, you have 11. Garnison AND 11. Infanterie-Division - these numbers should be exclusive (if immersion matter anything) as they both are infantry units - 11. Panzer-Division is ok, they used their own numeral sequence.

 

[DazKaz]

One of the things I liked about HOI3 was the OOB, the leaders for the divisions, and the chain of command. I thought it was an important role playing element, that made me care for the units and formations, and helped with setting up historic scenarios.
There were many, many improvements that I wanted from HOI3 especially with the AI.

My fear for HOI4 was that instead of just improvements I would be looking at an entirely different game loosely based on the HOI3 I loved.
The problem is I didn't want an entirely different game I wanted a successor that improved on the parts that I liked.

There is at least one version of the game missing here as I feared. The versions that slowly try to wean me off the idea of individual (big) counters for units, and meaningful OOB's.
The versions where I can learn not to care so much about the individual units and more about the big Zerg.

The UI is beautiful but even though I have been watching all the WWW's I still feel like a stranger in it, even though I have spent nearly 6000 hours in HOI3.
So far I have only spent 8 hours in HOI4 so maybe I am being a bit premature speaking out against it, but I am finding it incredibly hard to want to keep playing it!

The first thing I did when I started the game was to turn off the sprites and turn on the NATO counters, so that helps, but the counters that are left are very small and bunch together instead of stacking.
The coloured map overlay is horrific, and obscures the terrain, as well as being very distracting. Don't know why we can't just have two simple border lines between countries with thinly stroked political colours on either side of it?

I'm afraid I would have been happier if the only improvement in HOI4 over HOI3 was a better AI.

 

[Kinkness]

Man, I don't even know why you complain here.
What will happen is you'll get a lot of "Respectfully Disagree"s and "BUT 3 YEARS OF DLCs WILL FIX IT", "JUST MOD IT IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT" and then the usual "you should be honored that Paradox descended form Heaven and gifted humanity this incredible game that has no flaws. I find your complaints silly and thus invalid. Go play something else if you don't like it".
There's also the fact that most of the people that like HoI 4 love the downright castration or removal of 90% of the mechanics of HoI3 because it makes the game less complicated.

oh god I'd marry you. This post is ingenius...

Only thing you missed is at the end: "There's also the fact that most of the people that like HoI 4 love the downright castration or removal of 90% of the mechanics of HoI3 because it makes the game less complicated, but still pretend like its a grand strategy."

Edit: in-fact your comment is going on my sig...

 

[Jos de trol]

Sad, that we have to wait another 3 or 2 months and PAY to make the game actually good. Paradox has gone to the toilet.

says the guy with 0 games registered

 

[rjohansen]

One of the things I liked about HOI3 was the OOB, the leaders for the divisions, and the chain of command. I thought it was an important role playing element, that made me care for the units and formations, and helped with setting up historic scenarios.

I agree with your entire post. But this one is the most imporrant. In HOI4 I feel it is impossible to actually care about your units. They feel too soul-less. I do however like the concept of equipment and all, but now all units are the exact same (if not spending army xp to make a whole seperate template for one division) - they are just too bland in my opinion. I think you should be able to at least use (way less) military xp on the individual unit and adjust individual units to your liking. And perhaps a selection to prevent it from upgrading if/when template changes.

But that's divisions. What about Air forces now... They just exist somehow - I never see air battles, never see how my "nameless wings" are doing, bombing raids etc. Wings can also be of what ever size you want - are they supposed to be squadron, wings, corps or fleet? I can't tell. Also, I am not sure what is the best size for the game. Shall I try to keep the wings AT wing size as they where IRL or just make them as large as I possible can. I can't imagine anyone at Paradox or "fans" actually think that part of the game has improved the slightest? HOI3 System was better. I do like that you have to produce individual planes, but that doesn't matter when they just "disappear" into a nameless air force you really have nothing to do with.