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Hawkwing74
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Hearts of Iron 2 expansions Iron Cross etc

Mon Jul 30, 2012 7:59 am

This is an old game but I believe some TR people used to play it. I noticed on gamersgate that Hearts of Iron 2 has a few more expansion packs, "Iron Cross" and "Arsenal of Democracy." Has anyone tried these out? It looks like they come with a different map and tech tree, possibly more similar to those in Hearts of Iron 3.

I find myself still playing this game 6 or 7 years after it came out. I will probably get them but just wondering if TR has any "user reviews."

For those who have no clue what this thread is about, the Hearts of Iron series is "grand strategy" over World War 2. Think of a very complicated version of Risk.
 
tfp
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Re: Hearts of Iron 2 expansions Iron Cross etc

Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:44 pm

Any thoughts on Hearts of Iron 2 vs Hearts of Iron 3?
 
Hawkwing74
His Holy Gerbilness
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Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2003 5:51 pm
Location: Streamwood, IL

Re: Hearts of Iron 2 expansions Iron Cross etc

Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:02 pm

tfp wrote:
Any thoughts on Hearts of Iron 2 vs Hearts of Iron 3?

I never played 3 as I heard it was very unstable when unpatched, or when you didn't also have the expansion(s). I may get it some day.

I still love 2 and think it's one of their best efforts. Of course, it is not without a few bugs such as the late game slowdown bug and the crash to desktop. It seems like all versions of the WW2 game from Hearts of Iron 1 to every version of 2 had that bug.

I've spent hundreds of hours with 2, played so many different countries. My favorites are France, Germany, USA, Russia, and Brazil. But I've had games where I cheated a bit here and there to enable Cuba or Switzerland to dominate their region that were pretty fun.

Some of the silly exploits in Hoi2 include the countries no one cares about. Often, Brazil can run amok in South America and no one interferes. Also, Republican Spain prior to the Fascist coup is not protected by anyone. I've had France take them over in 1936 for extra resources, or Germany to enable immediate 2 front on France.

One hilarious game I had Ireland take over Spain which was difficult. I mass produced Irish divisions for years and stacked them in Spain but it stayed a stalemate against Germany well into the late 40's. (Ireland had joined the Allies) I think Ireland had to eventually nuke their way through the German lines. (The AI hardly ever seems to research nukes.)

What's fun to me about the game, is even if you cheat moderately, you won't dominate the game but you may allow a small country to exceed their normal potential. For example, I had Sweden join the Axis. I think I cheated a bit to fill in resources they were missing and to expedite their techs. But all they could do is dominate Scandinavia. They could never get past at best a stalemate with Russia.

What's irritating about the game is how incredibly badly the computer plays your "Allies" most of the time. If you are England, rest assured the US will suck and Germany will be dangerous. If you are Germany, Italy usually is utterly useless. There should be an option to play as an entire Alliance. The alliances share expenditionary forces but it's just not nearly as useful as if you could completely control the whole Alliance at once.

I can ramble about Hoi2 for quite a while, obviously.
 
Hawkwing74
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Posts: 13961
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2003 5:51 pm
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Re: Hearts of Iron 2 expansions Iron Cross etc

Wed Aug 01, 2012 8:59 am

I still haven't played Hearts of Iron 3 but it's pretty cheap on gamersgate.com, so I'm sure I'll get it sooner or later. I did purchase Iron Cross for $10 yesterday. It seems like an even more complicated version of the base game. You need the full version of Hearts of Iron 2 with expansions for this expansion to work.

You can start the game as early as 1933. Supposedly it will run until 1964 but in the past, the game usually stops working sometime before that. We'll see if this version fixed that. The tech tree is quite complex. There don't seem to be any more penalties for researching technologies earlier than in history, but it can be challenging to figure out which dependencies are needed. For example, if you want to have great infantry, each level of new infantry requires dependencies which may be in the Industrial tree or something else. I thought the tech tree was possibly the best feature I have seen in this version.

I'm not sure I am enamoured of the map. There are a crazy number of provinces, maybe 4 times as many as before. For a long land war in Asia, the thousands of provinces may get annoying. I was able to do my usual trick of subverting Spain as Germany, and the extra provinces weren't a hindrance.

They also added a lot more events. If you want to be a Germany that plays nice with France, it's certainly possible. There is a lot of customization available based on how you respond to events. I think I will enjoy trying out the different countries. I can see spending a lot of time with this version assuming it's stable.

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