Hearts of Iron 3

[sheek]

http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/DD-HOI3/hearts-of-iron-3

Thinking of getting this, I ran the demo and it ran OK on my 2.13 Ghz Duo-Core.

One question I can't find an answer to on the Paradox forums is whether the hotfix for Consumer Goods and the influence/alliance system (causing everybody join the Allies vs Germany) have been released yet. There is a hotfix thread but it doesn't say what is fixed, you have to have the game registered to go to a page to find out.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Heard it's buggy as shit.

 

[CarnivalBizarre]

It has major performance and balance issues, like all paradox games at the start. But this one has the promise beyond anything I have played so far.

So hold out a month or two and let the patches roll in before going in there. Then it will be the game of the year...

 

[kris]

Heard it's buggy as shit.

there is quite a bit, but almost entirerly minor ones.

Performance is due to the game processing to much. Most computers can't handle that when you have plenty of units to go around.

 

[Raapys]

New patch is out, it seems.

 

[sheek]

You can fix it with various mods that are available on the forums, by going into the game files:

-Alliance drift factor weights
-Consumer Good fix
-Auto-slider for production

I started a game as Yugoslavia after modding my provinces a little to increase Leadership production which is very low for minors. I doubled it but still can't do anything.

In August 1936 I've researched my first two techs, +5% Leadership and the tech which allows you to build factories.

Meanwhile I am produced 0.1 spies a day so I cannot do anything. Tried drifting toward axis and it's barely perceptible. Tried lowering my neutrality (can't declare war or change my policies without it) and managed to go from +75 to +73 in six months (I would need it down to +20 to invade Albania).

Can't build any units because I am producing 0.12 officers per day and already can't staff my starting army. So my infantry doctrines/military research capability is going to shit.

Nobody in the entire world wants to trade coal with me so I will run out in the next few days. Even with relations at +90, them having steel and supply shortages and very generous offers of steel and supplies a single unit of coal changes the chance of them accepting the trade to "Impossible".

So it seems all nations except Majors (Germany, Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Russia and USA) are completely broken.

Yugoslavia would be a "regional" power in HoI2, solidly in the top 15 of the 100 or so countries available.

And the game is horribly slow still. A day takes 10 seconds at maximum speed so 3600 seconds a year = 1 hour in theory, but it's taken me two hours to do six months.

Performance is due to the game processing to much. Most computers can't handle that when you have plenty of units to go around.

Actually it seems like the better CPU you have the worse performance is.

Have you bought the retail version? How does it compare with the preview you played? I find it amazing you didn't notice how unplayable it was.

Over all it's not that much better than Empire Total War, though it will have higher potential once the game is actually finished.

 

[drunkpriest]

If your game is still slow and lagging try the LUA performance improvement. You can't see the tech forum or the mod forum if you haven't registered though, so I have no idea if it works with the hotfix and shits.

 

[Spectacle]

The AI will never accept resource for resource swaps, you have to offer money only. Why the interface even permits you to offer those kinds of deals is beyond me.

 

[entertainer]

The AI will never accept resource for resource swaps, you have to offer money only. Why the interface even permits you to offer those kinds of deals is beyond me.

Thats how Paradox works. In a few patches everything will work as planned.

 

[kris]

I started a game as Yugoslavia after modding my provinces a little to increase Leadership production which is very low for minors. I doubled it but still can't do anything.

Nobody in the entire world wants to trade coal with me so I will run out in the next few days. Even with relations at +90, them having steel and supply shortages and very generous offers of steel and supplies a single unit of coal changes the chance of them accepting the trade to "Impossible".

So it seems all nations except Majors (Germany, Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Russia and USA) are completely broken.

Have you bought the retail version? How does it compare with the preview you played? I find it amazing you didn't notice how unplayable it was.

I said already in the preview that the minor nations would be fucked, especially due to lack of leadership. The whole reasearch system is also built up in a way that a strong researcher just gets stronger over time and a weaker becomes weaker.

Italy and Japan are the weakest countries you can play and you have to conquer sooner rather than later or you will be really fucked.

I have on the other hand never had any real problems getting trade deals. Coal is best to get from Russia that have a lot of it.

I could upgrade to the retail version from my review version. The game is far from unplayable unless you play a minor. although apart from the leadership problem the minors are pretty much were they should in what they can do.

 

[sheek]

Thx for info about trades. Exchanging everything for money, then buying with money makes some sense.

Re: Kris

I know you said the minors were disadvantaged but this is ridiculous, they're unplayable.

Good news is that you can modify game files and they take effect in saved games. Eg, you can modify province resources and add leadership to a game in progress which is what I will have to do.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

It runs fine on my Q8200, and I think it actually looks much nicer than EU3.

It needs a ton of balancing, but the promise is there.

 

[entertainer]

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/sho ... p?t=420597

R00fles!

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Is there a way to turn off these 3D unit models?

I refuse to play a game with something so fucktarded

 

[entertainer]

Use counters nigger

 

[Emotional Vampire]

I don't have the game (yet) white boy

 

[entertainer]

Like you are gonna buy it

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

So basically, with the new leadership, we'd need a full overhaul mod to make the game interesting beyond superpowers dicking on each other.

Well, I'd have to wait for patches anyway, so it'll run faster.

But seriously, having the game focus solely on Germany and other superpowers was a letdown.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Like you are gonna buy it

But seriously, having the game focus solely on Germany and other superpowers was a letdown.

What do you mean 'focus'? The fact that it's nearly impossible to get anywhere playing as some shitty third world coutry is pretty fucking logical to me. Because it's a shitty third world country. Game's keepin it real, bro. Want balance, play Starcraft

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

What do you mean 'focus'? The fact that it's nearly impossible to get anywhere playing as some shitty third world coutry is pretty fucking logical to me. Because it's a shitty third world country. Game's keepin it real, bro. Want balance, play Starcraft

I do remind you that Finland managed to fight the Red Army twice and Mao's little shithole actually managed to conquer China.

I mean, back in Hearts of Iron 2 the game was most fun when you started as a minor power and tried to become something. The problem in HoI3 is that it's impossible (it is not nearly impossible, it IS impossible) to achieve anything, and there isn't any gameplay for minor countries.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Well, I didn't play the game yet so I'm not going to argue(WHOA!). I assume everything will get steamrolled with patches, was HoI2 better when it came out?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well, to be honest, I only got to HoI2 around Doomsday.

 

[sheek]

Yes, this game is pretty fucked but really good as well.

Played to February 1940 and it's science fiction WW2.

Japan got completely raped and pushed back to one province (Pusan) in Korea by Shaanxi, which has now become a superpower. Japan wasn't sending anybody so I sent 7 brigades there fighting from late '37 to mid '39, playing ping pong with the same three provinces...

So basically an entire theater of operations taking place in what would be one province in HoI2, with 2 division sized forces.

All sorts of funny and less funny bugs. Ocean pathfinding is hopelessly broken.

There is a definite memory leak problem, even after the 1.1c hotfix that means you must quit and restart every 90 minutes. If you don't eventually the game slows to 1 hour per second max.

Germany isn't making any moves and Europe is a monolithic 3-way Cold War (I joined the Axis, Poland and Czechs and Sweden Allies, Romania and Greece the Comintern).

The design concepts are really good though:

-HQ system and defined theaters for land forces add a lot of realism, and actually makes management simpler when you get used to it (I had to reorganize my whole army brigade-by-brigade at the start)
-The intelligence system, so intuitive and 10x deeper than anything I've seen before
-Brigade level units and provinces 20km
-Neutrality/threat system is very intuitive
-Technology system looks a lot deeper, it just needs to be balanced
-Doctrine system is simply better
-You can buy licenses to build your allies' units (eg, contract for 3 more advanced destroyers than you could build), this actually makes research less important for minors, you don't need to research everything
-You can customize every individual ship (armament, engine etc), there must be 100s of configurations


So it's not surprising there are bugs and unbalances, it was very ambitious and Paradox didn't take the easy route for sequels that the industry does.

 

[Trash]

So they now followed the EU3 school of historical adherence or do historical events still happen like they did in HOI2?

 

[Szioul]

I'm not entirely sure. I had Soviet Union never declare war on Poland after Germany did early 1939, instead they gained the rest of Poland the second Germany took Warsaw. Shortly after that they gave ultimatums to Baltic countries, who immediately folded and Winter War started in fucking July. They might've been bugs, or the AI been scripted to act unhistorically according to some unknown parameters.