Right. Hearts of Iron 4. Having sunk 1000 hours into it, i'll give you my impressions, both negative and positive, starting with what this game even is about.


Hearts of Iron 4 is a map strategy game situated in, well, the globe in a time era before world war 2 starts up until the very end of world war 2. You can choose to play as a variety of nations from all continents that existed during this era, from the standard european nations that exist up until this day to the chinese warlords (which is why this game got banned in the PRC by the way. ♥♥♥♥ the chinese government).

What impressed me most about this game is just how much you can alter history to create new, different scenarios (like the soviets taking over the world, germany taking over the world, america going communist) and so on with their respective unique focus trees, which are paths you take to pursue a certain ideology you choose. And if the historically innaccurate scenarios get boring (which they can easily get, even with the addition of formable nations and sometimes reworks of entire nations' focus trees), there is a big palette of mods to choose from to subscribe to in the workshop, some of which have been done with plenty of work and love put into them by a community without which this game would be dead by now, or atleast end up being really bland to anyone willing to throw in 1k hours like I did.

Im personally not big on paradox interactive games and I could be wrong in saying this, but in my opinion hearts of iron 4 has the simplest, best combat system in a map strategy game involving war. Combat is smooth, losing or winning a battle being indicated by red and green bubbles respectively, the iconization of what can be tens of thousands of men in a single division shown as a sole model of an infantry soldier or a tank aswell as witnessing the models charge the enemy when you decide to attack an enemy's position are some details that make it simple and simultaneously appealing.


Also this game preety much taught me more about world war 2 than my school ever wish it could. And the addition of multiplayer sure makes you really get into the game.


Though there are a couple of things that I dont really like about the game.

For one, I consider the amount of dlc's paradox creates obscene. All the negative reviews about this game either mention it or fully talk about just that. Im not gonna be one of those "hurr durr, all these dlc's should be part of the base game" type of people, I understand paradox needs to make more revenue from an already really expensive game (which of course isnt really an issue during sales), but I think most people would consider the fact it actually costs money to buy a dlc pack just to enable listening to sabaton music while ingame instead of just having a ready playlist on youtube ridiculous.


Also, despite the game's best tries at being realistic, there's many things stopping hearts of iron 4 from really being a serious in depth ww2 game: From minor bugs like the occassional bug that's fixed quickly, to a bad ai that they keep "improving". No, seriously, if you are able at any point to invade the uk and capture a port, that's a free british empire you got in your hands.



Speaking of the ai, atleast from the way hoi 4 is right now, the ai just doesnt stop deploying more and more divisions, resulting in late game (past the 1940's, around 1950) majors that are still alive having so many divisions that it makes a full world conquest an absolutely horrendous experience.

Also, despite this game's diversity in the nations you can play as, some are borderline impossible to expand with and create an army with (that being nations such as tannu tuva, bhutan, tibet, luxembourg and liberia).

Finally, diversity can sometimes become this game's enemy, since not every country has a unique focus tree to it. Im aware paradox cant just keep pumping out new dlc's that have huge focus trees to them, but south america is practically all using the stock focus tree that stops being fun after the first time you play with it. And some unique focus trees have not been updated since the release of hearts of iron 4 (like italy's or the soviets union's). Other paths are absolutely useless and dont bring anything new to the table (like the hungarian communist path for example).



So, all things considered, I give this game an 8/10. It's a good thing there's still a community that cares about this game, making mods and updating them to keep it fresh.

Right. Hearts of Iron 4. Having sunk 1000 hours into it, i'll give you my impressions, both negative and positive, starting with what this game even is about. Hearts of Iron 4 is a map strategy game situated in, well, the globe in a time era before world war 2 starts up until the very end of world war 2. You can choose to play as a variety of nations from all continents that existed during this era, from the standard european nations that exist up until this day to the chinese warlords (which is why this game got banned in the PRC by the way. Fuck the chinese government). What impressed me most about this game is just how much you can alter history to create new, different scenarios (like the soviets taking over the world, germany taking over the world, america going communist) and so on with their respective unique focus trees, which are paths you take to pursue a certain ideology you choose. And if the historically innaccurate scenarios get boring (which they can easily get, even with the addition of formable nations and sometimes reworks of entire nations' focus trees), there is a big palette of mods to choose from to subscribe to in the workshop, some of which have been done with plenty of work and love put into them by a community without which this game would be dead by now, or atleast end up being really bland to anyone willing to throw in 1k hours like I did. Im personally not big on paradox interactive games and I could be wrong in saying this, but in my opinion hearts of iron 4 has the simplest, best combat system in a map strategy game involving war. Combat is smooth, losing or winning a battle being indicated by red and green bubbles respectively, the iconization of what can be tens of thousands of men in a single division shown as a sole model of an infantry soldier or a tank aswell as witnessing the models charge the enemy when you decide to attack an enemy's position are some details that make it simple and simultaneously appealing. Also this game preety much taught me more about world war 2 than my school ever wish it could. And the addition of multiplayer sure makes you really get into the game. Though there are a couple of things that I dont really like about the game. For one, I consider the amount of dlc's paradox creates obscene. All the negative reviews about this game either mention it or fully talk about just that. Im not gonna be one of those "hurr durr, all these dlc's should be part of the base game" type of people, I understand paradox needs to make more revenue from an already really expensive game (which of course isnt really an issue during sales), but I think most people would consider the fact it actually costs money to buy a dlc pack just to enable listening to sabaton music while ingame instead of just having a ready playlist on youtube ridiculous. Also, despite the game's best tries at being realistic, there's many things stopping hearts of iron 4 from really being a serious in depth ww2 game: From minor bugs like the occassional bug that's fixed quickly, to a bad ai that they keep "improving". No, seriously, if you are able at any point to invade the uk and capture a port, that's a free british empire you got in your hands. Speaking of the ai, atleast from the way hoi 4 is right now, the ai just doesnt stop deploying more and more divisions, resulting in late game (past the 1940's, around 1950) majors that are still alive having so many divisions that it makes a full world conquest an absolutely horrendous experience. Also, despite this game's diversity in the nations you can play as, some are borderline impossible to expand with and create an army with (that being nations such as tannu tuva, bhutan, tibet, luxembourg and liberia). Finally, diversity can sometimes become this game's enemy, since not every country has a unique focus tree to it. Im aware paradox cant just keep pumping out new dlc's that have huge focus trees to them, but south america is practically all using the stock focus tree that stops being fun after the first time you play with it. And some unique focus trees have not been updated since the release of hearts of iron 4 (like italy's or the soviets union's). Other paths are absolutely useless and dont bring anything new to the table (like the hungarian communist path for example). So, all things considered, I give this game an 8/10. It's a good thing there's still a community that cares about this game, making mods and updating them to keep it fresh.