Hearts of Iron 3 - Out Now!

Basticle

Hearts of Iron 3

Release Dates:
North America: August 7
Digital Download: August 7
UK & Scandanavia: August 14
France & Germany: August 28

Screen Shots

Gameplay footage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY7RqgipszQ


For veterans of the series wondering whats been changed since the last game, the list of changes are simply too many to list, so I highly recommend reading the development diaries which are very informative.


a small smattering of features:

You can use a traditional 2D map with Counters or a new 3Dish map like Europa Universalis 3
Research multiple parts instead of complete units
Divisions will be composed of several brigades which can be chosen
The resource system will be different, you have to buy commodities in the economic system
There's a mobilization mechanic and reserves, democracies can't deploy loads of troops during peace and have to mobilize when war is near
CAGs will no longer be brigades of carriers but will function independently
More than 20 types of brigades
You will have to defend against strategic bombing (or strategic warfare)
You can now let the AI handle fronts for you, making you able to concentrate on the fronts you're interested in.
Set up governments in exile and rebuild your army.
Run a rebel campaign to retake your country.

HOI3 Wiki

Quickstart Guide (8 pages)

HOI3 Manual (87 pages)

Pre-Order bonuses:

Pre-order from Gamersgate or Direct2Drive and get some exclusive Sprite packs for German and US units.
pre-order from Impulse or Steam and get Hearts of Iron 2 Complte for free.

LewieP

A friend of mine loves these game. I think I am gonna get him to review this for me.

Basticle

This thread pretty much got buried but this game comes out next week and no one else has mentioned antyhing about it so thread bumpage time.

Smurph

Man Hearts of Iron II was the ultimate sandbox. I just wish somebody would make a game like this set in the modern era. WWII is kinda used up and it's not like these games ever turn out to be historically accurate anyway. I had one game where as Germany I invaded the US by sea. From the west coast. After conquering all of Russia and China.

Knuckle Dragger

There is the Supreme Leader series (SL 2010 and 2020). I forget the developer name, but it is published by Paradox. I have Supreme Leader 2020, and it is somewhat like a modern version of HOI...though I don't like it nearly as much; I think terranova.dk will turn out some better mods for HOI 3 (C.O.R.E was nothing short of awesome, and the Fallout mod was highly entertaining).

Kris_xK

I had no idea this was even out. HOI2 was bloody epic, I'll have to pick this up after I play through Men of War

Professor Phobos

I'm conflicted by the Paradox paradox.

They're games are good....eventually. So while I want to pick up HOI3, I know I should wait for expansions/patches to really refine and fix the game.

Basticle

I updated the release date list, I was a bit misinformed.

precisionk

This looks amazing complicated just from the gui screenshots, am I correct or incorrect?

Ah_Pook

you are correct, the HOI games are not for the faint of heart. theyre good if youre into that kinda thing though.

Kartan

precisionk wrote: »

This looks amazing complicated just from the gui screenshots, am I correct or incorrect?

The learning curve is damn near vertical. But once you do learn it, you can accurately explain a) why the german attack on Russia failed and b) what should have been done to make it work.

As for those wanting a modern version of Hoi2, I give you The Modern Day Scenario Mod:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=329903 (well, alright, it plays 6 years ago...But Still!)


There is also a very interessting gameplay report by a guy with a (unfinished) press copy that goes very much into detail about what is new in HoI3, found here:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=412229

Kris_xK

Kartan wrote: »

precisionk wrote: »

This looks amazing complicated just from the gui screenshots, am I correct or incorrect?

The learning curve is damn near vertical. But once you do learn it, you can accurately explain a) why the german attack on Russia failed and b) what should have been done to make it work.

So true. It's a very complicated game, but one of the advantages is that you get statistics for everything.

There used to be a fantastic online tutorial sorta thing for HoI2, which doesn't appear to be radically different from HoI3. I'll try to dig it up, or if anyone has the link lemme know.

Basticle

for those who dont want to read the manual theres the quickstart guide. its fucking massive.

kaliyama

It's not that complicated. It's broad, rather than deep, per se - I haven't seen may statistically "deep" games in about a decade. So you have to manage your economy, your units and your leaders, but it's not hard to keep them mostly separate conceptually and in terms of what effects what. It's very accessible.

Axen

My first foray into grand strategy games was HoI2. This did not work well for me. It was simply too much for me to handle as a total newbie. Later on I tried my hand at Europa Universallis 3 and found this to be much, I don't want to say simpler, but it was easier to get the basics of. After I became good at EU3 I then went back to HoI2 and had a much easier time with it.

HoI2 is tons of fun and there are a number of large scale mods for it.

I eagerly await the arrival of HoI3.

Arrath

Ffffffffffffffuuuck. Gonna lose a lot of time to this game.

DisruptorX2

Axen wrote: »

My first foray into grand strategy games was HoI2. This did not work well for me. It was simply too much for me to handle as a total newbie. Later on I tried my hand at Europa Universallis 3 and found this to be much, I don't want to say simpler, but it was easier to get the basics of. After I became good at EU3 I then went back to HoI2 and had a much easier time with it.

HoI2 is tons of fun and there are a number of large scale mods for it.

I eagerly await the arrival of HoI3.

Yeah, I just kind of jumped in. But I did ok on my first game, as the Czechs. I picked them because I remember reading that their army before WW2 was quite large and thought it would be a good challenge. Ended up allying with Germany and carving up Eastern Europe.

Best newbie faction in 2 is France though. I don't even see how its possible to lose as them...

Axen

I usually play as Argentina, for some strange reason. I enjoy carving up my own South American Empire, though it always ends with me vs. Brazil, fucking Brazil and their American puppet masters!

Hell one game I conquered all of Central America with Honduras! What a game that was!

Professor Phobos

HOI2 wasn't terribly balanced at the start. I remember conquering the world as Tibet.

When my Tibetan marine legions landed in California, I knew that perhaps the game had some balance problems.

Kris_xK

Professor Phobos wrote: »

HOI2 wasn't terribly balanced at the start. I remember conquering the world as Tibet.

When my Tibetan marine legions landed in California, I knew that perhaps the game had some balance problems.

Really? I remember trying to take Hawaii as Canada being a pain in the ass due to the US Navy. IT was always just easier to let Japan take it.

EDIT: Prior to patches

Professor Phobos

Kris_xK wrote: »

Professor Phobos wrote: »

HOI2 wasn't terribly balanced at the start. I remember conquering the world as Tibet.

When my Tibetan marine legions landed in California, I knew that perhaps the game had some balance problems.

Really? I remember trying to take Hawaii as Canada being a pain in the ass due to the US Navy. IT was always just easier to let Japan take it.

Man I had already rolled up the Japanese, and the Tibetan submarine fleet sank the entirety of the US Navy in like two seconds.

Ol' Sparky

god i fucking love HOI2

only problem is (well, one of many), once you figure out the AI can't encircle you intentionally and that it can't get out an encirclement to save its life (literally) the game becomes far too easy

which, judging from a beta AAR i saw on the HOI3 forums, was fixed for HOI3

Edit: However, the patches have generally been very good all throughout the franchise and so have the expansions. The mods are great as well, the AI has been completely done over for some mods. I recently saw an AAR where two human players (USA and UK) failed to beat a computer Germany. Pretty good stuff

Smurph

Axen wrote: »

I usually play as Argentina, for some strange reason. I enjoy carving up my own South American Empire, though it always ends with me vs. Brazil, fucking Brazil and their American puppet masters!

Hell one game I conquered all of Central America with Honduras! What a game that was!

Dude I rolled as Argentina too! I had one game where I took all of South America and made them all my puppets including Brazil. Unfortunately the Americans didn't like this and since they weren't even participating in WWII in that game they destroyed me easily.

Basticle

well the pre-order deal on Steam is the same as the one on Impulse, which is a little disapointing.

Ol' Sparky

Smurph wrote: »

Axen wrote: »

I usually play as Argentina, for some strange reason. I enjoy carving up my own South American Empire, though it always ends with me vs. Brazil, fucking Brazil and their American puppet masters!

Hell one game I conquered all of Central America with Honduras! What a game that was!

Dude I rolled as Argentina too! I had one game where I took all of South America and made them all my puppets including Brazil. Unfortunately the Americans didn't like this and since they weren't even participating in WWII in that game they destroyed me easily.

brazil is so weird in HOI2

it is left wing radical when really it should be autocratic just like argentina

i guess this was to keep it non-aligned with germany

Basticle

updated the OP with downloadable manual.

revolutionary bean

Basticle wrote: »

This thread pretty much got buried but this game comes out next week and no one else has mentioned antyhing about it so thread bumpage time.

My god, you put so much effort into your first post and it was buried right after one reply?

I love Paradox games, have owned/played all of their game (my favourite being CK) so i consider myself as an experienced PI gamer. But anyway I'm currently 40 pages into the newly released manual, I can't wait for the game release and am still deciding between buying the game off Steam or Gamersgate of which I'm leaning heavily towards the Steam option right now. I'm just not confident the Gamersgate server can handle the traffic demand on release date. The free HOI2 Complete package really makes it pretty much a tough one to go the other way.

What is it now.... 3 more days?

Basticle

no I made that OP last week...

Kartan

Demo should be out in about 2 hours. German tanks should roll into Poland in about 3 hours.

bamjo

I am all over this one. I really hope they made strategic bombing not suck. Or improved air forces overall. Besides bombing the crap out of retreating divisions there was really no point to aircraft other than to take away IC that could have been spent on tanks.

vhzod

According to hitler the game has been delayed. There is a video on the hoi3 page explaining the details.

Ol' Sparky

demo is out

http://www.fileplanet.com/203292/download/Hearts-of-Iron-3-Demo

ydejin

Axen wrote: »

My first foray into grand strategy games was HoI2. This did not work well for me. It was simply too much for me to handle as a total newbie. Later on I tried my hand at Europa Universallis 3 and found this to be much, I don't want to say simpler, but it was easier to get the basics of. After I became good at EU3 I then went back to HoI2 and had a much easier time with it.

HoI2 is tons of fun and there are a number of large scale mods for it.

I eagerly await the arrival of HoI3.

I had the exact same experience. I think EU3 among other things has a much better clearer user interface. I also found that playing HoI2 was much easier after playing EU3.

HydroSqueegee

gahh... so little time, so many games

nessin

I'm pretty happy with the Demo so far. Its basically, as far as I can tell, HoI-2 with better graphics (while there are some downsides to the new 3d nature, I'll take them and my 1920x1200 resolution any day of the week) and some various gameplay improvements. It isn't the kind of change it was from HoI-1 to HoI-2, but more like they took the lessons from HoI-2 and its expansions, and consolidated them with the new interface and AI functions. Some may not like that, as it really isn't a "new game" in the traditional sense, but it generally follows with how Paradox has operated in the past with these games.

The interface is definitely a bit clunky though. I didn't have too much of an issue with it, other than not fully understanding what some things do via lack of relevant tooltip data, but hopefully the manual will flesh it out when I get around to reading it. My biggest concern is I'm used to cycling through stacks of counters and getting a good look at my troop levels via the stack. However, in HoI-3, you only see the stack when you're heavily zoomed in, and instead you see a sort of summary tooltip of a stack when zoomed out, which isn't immediately useful to me. Hopefully with practice I'll get used to it.

Other than that, trying to track down combat is both exceedingly easier and much more frustrating. Easier, in that there is now a sweet summary window of all your troops, which color coding based on certain conditions (so far I've seen green representing a unit that is attacking, and red for a unit being attacked) that allows you to quickly zoom to a units location. In addition, the summary window shows the current win/loss % of the fight, giving you a quick look at how you're doing without manually clicking on the combatants.

However, on the flip side, combat on the game board is represented by a very small arrow. Not the easiest to pick out, especially when you're looking at numerous combats in a tight area. Plus, I can see the summary window getting massively bogged down as its a tree structure based on your command hierarchy setup. Get a ton of commands, and you've got to go through lots of branches to find what you want, stick with a few large commands, and you don't have to go far to find your branch, but the branch takes up pages of the window.

DisruptorX2

I'm debating on this one. I"m more of a Total War fan. I like to see my mans fight each other, and I only played Hearts of Iron for one campaign.

On the other hand, that one campaign was amazing and I still remember it.

vhzod

I have less idea what I'm doing than in hearts of iron 2, and that was pretty minimal. I just can't tell how many guys I should have. I think I'm doing okay and then I get steamrolled.

Fats

I love Crusader Kings and Vicky, but Hearts of Iron has always been like trying to read Finnegans Wake in Chinese to me. I loaded up the demo, stared at the interface, and exited.

But I hope everyone here buys it so they'll make a Vicky 2.

Otsego

I've been kind of wary of picking this up because some people at SA are saying there is a ton of slowdown during major confrontations. I'll have to try the demo to see how it runs.

Fats wrote: »

But I hope everyone here buys it so they'll make a Vicky 2.

Personally I'm hoping more for CK2 but either one would be great.

sethsez

Otsego wrote: »

Personally I'm hoping more for CK2 but either one would be great.

Agreed on this. Everyone seems to want more Vicky, but Crusader Kings had a personality that no other Paradox game has replicated, despite Vae Victus's best efforts (after all, there's only so much you could do with EU:R in the first place).

Cobalt60

So I just downloaded this on a whim having never played a Hearts of Iron game before.

Holy hell is it mega complex.