In my last game as Germany, I overthrew Hitler, won a brief but bloody civil war to install a democratic government, invaded and conquered Italy (after they had the nerve to attack me first) then somehow ended up allied to Britain while we fought a megalomaniacal…France. Turning it off - and it’s a must, because who wants to play through the actual war, we know how that one ends already and we’re telling stories here - gives you a completely different world, and thus world war, every time. At the flick of a very big switch at the start of every game you’re able to turn off HoIIV’s “historical AI”, creating one of video gaming’s great alternate history sandboxes, giving players seemingly endless ways to start a war and then even more ways to fight one. Sometimes in minor ways, sometimes in ways that can shape the entire war.Īnd what a war it can be. Because for all the praise I’ve lavished on Crusader Kings on this website over the years, I’ve actually played a lot more of HoIIV.Īll that depth and length isn’t there for the sake of it, though, as everything you adjust and slide and click serves a purpose and will be reflected on the battlefield. Start with a smaller nation, read/watch guides and learn, because if the premise and subject matter appeal to you at all then this will be more than worth it. This is a dense game, and is definitely not for everyone, especially if you’re after things like nuanced diplomacy or more granular control over your armies in your strategy games.īut if the prospect of controlling an entire war effort sounds amazing to you, no matter the human and mental cost of learning how to grapple with such a task, then yes, stick with this. The difference here is that while I’ll often tell people they can persevere and get help understanding games like Crusader Kings, here I’ll do no such thing. That was exhausting to simply type, let alone play through, and I fully appreciate that - as is the case with many Paradox games - HoIIV both looks and sounds utterly overwhelming. This means you’re responsible for the recruitment of troops, the construction of factories, trading for rare resources, infrastructure improvements, diplomacy and the manufacturing of specific weapons and vehicles. Set in a world where war is the only thing you can really do, HoIIV asks players to manage the entire war effort, which means you’re not only in charge of the actual fighting, but everything around it and everything leading up to it as well. I’m doing one here for HoIIV for the same reason: it’s a big strategy game that has bloated, evolved and turned into something much bigger and more ambitious than it was in 2016, and so is worth revisiting.īefore we get really into it, and as a means of introduction if you’ve never encountered the series before, I’ll repeat what I said back when I first reviewed it: it’s a strategy game like no other. Older readers may remember I’ve done some big strategy game re-reviews before, for games like Crusader Kings II and Civilisation V, assessing how years of additions and tweaks have changed our experiences of the game, and the genre they sit in along with them. I have spent huge parts of the last five years playing this game, through updates and expansions, and I think in 2021 it’s as important, and even better, than it was at launch. In 2016, Paradox released the grand strategy Second World War game Hearts Of Iron IV.
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