Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (Full Version)

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Kung Karl -> Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/19/2004 9:29:21 PM)

Berlin, march 1942:

Poland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Hungary, Yugoslavia and most of european Soviet is liberated by the German people from their former oppressors. Under the wings of the German Eagle is Italy, Romania, Croatia and Vichy France.

At the Eastern front Stalingrad has fallen and OKW is preparing to launch an offensiv against the oilfields in the south and Leningrad in the north. It is now march and 190 Soviet division stands against 160 crack German divisions. Soon the New Europe will be a fact and a new prosperious era will begin.

The Kriegsmarine reports that the soviet navy has been wiped from the baltic sea giving the Reich free hands in scandinavia. Shiping of the newly formed Heersgruppe Finland can begin!

Japan has attacked USA but is not in an alliance with the Reich. Negotions is currently taking place. Italy has evacuated Africa since OKW thought that the Invasion of Russia was a higher priority. After the Soviets has been crushed England will sue for peace and Africa will be returned to its rightfull owner.

Der Führer



I am playing Germany with the new 1.06 patch. It is now a completly diffrent game now! Today CORE was released so HoI is now even greater! I say to all of you, TRY IT OUT AGAIN!



Frank W. -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/19/2004 10:18:58 PM)

blabla, in my game the nazis are crushed by my glorious red armed forces. we stand new in northern italy with the brits as neighbours ( they captured whole of the southern part of italy ). in the west we stand in eastern france ( the rest of france was liberated by the scum also known as US army ). with the rumanian oil fields under the rightful control of the people of the soviet union ( which means = stalin [:D]) our armed forces must now prepare to counter thread of the west. itīs november 1943 and the world thinks the peace will settle, but we have other plans ( [:@] ) !



Frank W. -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/19/2004 10:21:53 PM)

by the way: those cowardly japanese donīt manage to get the chinese under control, fitīs into my plan perfect !



Kung Karl -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/19/2004 10:38:06 PM)

You must admit though that it is much more funto play after th 1.06 patch. Also, for a more historical campaign choose the 1939 scenario!



Chijohnaok2 -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/21/2004 2:18:19 PM)

I've heard that this game was virtually unplayable.
Does the new patch work?

I have held off purchasing the game because of complaints about its bugs.
Is this game now worth purchasing after this 1.06 fix?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

John



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/21/2004 6:24:15 PM)

I may also have another look at HoI.

I hear that the v1.06 patch fixes most things.

Also, I think you will need to use the CORE mod, as it contains hundreds of additional changes plus 1,600 new events. . .

After all this time, somebody must be getting something right. . .[;)]



Kung Karl -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/21/2004 6:26:03 PM)

It is! It certanly is! I bought this game when it first came out and it was horrible! I am not a fanboy. Many people thought it was playable with 1.03, 1.04 and 1.05. I did not but now it is fun like hell.

When you have learned how to play the game download the C.O.R.E! That mod is superb. It makes the a little bit moore advanced and improves the AI even more!

Another mod worth looking into i Super AI bundle. The name speaks for itself.

Have fun!



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/21/2004 7:34:57 PM)

Has movement (especially for tanks) been slowed down in v1.06 and CORE?

I may just load up the game again and give it a spin.

Here is an interesting discussion about Germany's invasion of the USSR using HoI v1.06:

http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?t=140187



Tactics -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/21/2004 8:43:50 PM)

How is the AI agression in general and specifally, does it conduct amphibious invasions now?



Kung Karl -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/21/2004 9:02:21 PM)

The AI invasion is better but not perfect. England invaded me with 18 divisions 1941. I have only played to 1943 and hasn't been at war with the US for so long so they haven't had a chance to invade yet but the word is they mount pretty large invasions. CORE and other mods improve this even further.



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/22/2004 9:28:31 AM)

OK, after reading through the HoI forum about the praises on the patched game, I decided to take the plunge.

I had bought HoI about 2 years ago. But after its initial disaster, I put the game away.


INSTALLATION

This is essentially what you need to play HoI properly:

1) Install HoI

2) Install patch v1.06 (27 MB)

3) Install CORE v.08 (27 MB)

When you do decide to install these three files be prepared for an 1 1/2 to 2 hour installation time! I kid you not. To say it all installs real sloowww, would be an understatement.

While these files are being installed, watch a good movie or have a long supper.




INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

Is the NEW HoI worth the lengthy install time?

In a word, yes.

I played as Canada in the 1936 scenario. I basically took a hands off approach to get a feel for the game.

Impressions:

1) There are now between 2,500 to 3,000 NEW events using CORE. These provide a rich and detailed world that cover many, many historical events.

2) New counters were designed by fans and CORE uses them. All I can say is they look terrific. I would suggest not using sprites and use the counters instead. Now it feels like a wargame.

A few examples (the counters have different colours and use national flags):

[img]http://members.rogers.com/eprichard1704/Germany.bmp[/img]


[img]http://members.rogers.com/eprichard1704/SouthAmerica.bmp[/img]


3) There are new fortifications, ports and naval bases.

4) CORE presets the pop-ups so only a few actually pop-up now.

5) I am playing on the slowest setting, and although it is continuous time, I have had more than enough time to casually read the events as they appear as well as do all the things I need to do. Plus, you can pause the game at any time.

6) After I had made all the changes to Canada that I wanted, I decided to take a world tour to see what other countries were up to. All I can say is it has been a long, long time since I have been able to scan the entire world in a wargame. And it is a BIG, rich, colourful world.

It is dynamic and changing.

I visited Ethiopia and arrived in time to see Britain and Italy marching troops into several provinces. I then travelled to Singapore and saw the mighty fortifications and British garrison there. I then went to France and Britain, and saw how they were building their military forces.

7) Although I only played an hour (3 months in game time, bringing me to March, 1936), HoI left a very favourable impression on me. It now feels like a mature wargame. This is what HoI should have been within months of its release. That HoI has attained this level of maturity is due primarily to its dedicated fan base, who have put in hundreds of hours to tweak and test this game.

Overall, I am impressed with what I experienced.

Granted, I did not play long (it was getting late), but I am anxious to resume my game. As I continue playing I will let you know what my impressions are.

I should note that they still have not fixed the tech slider (it keeps popping back to the beginning after every tech selection. A minor annoyance, to be sure, but they have had two years to fix this).

Cheers!



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/22/2004 6:15:42 PM)

Here are the differences between vanilla Hoi v1.06 and CORE v.8 (taken from a post at Paradox Forums):

Tech Trees- The tech trees in CORE are far more detailed than the tech trees that are included with Vanilla HoI. Part of this is due to a greater variety in units, but part of it is the shear amount of detail that is available.

Unit Variety- There are a greater variety of units available within CORE. Although we are constrained by the limits on the number of types of units, we have taken full advantage of the number of models which are allowed by the game. IRC, there are over 40 different models of tanks which are available for construction and 14 different models of battleships alone. I think (it has been awhile since I looked at Vanilla) there are only about 8 models of tanks and 3 models for battleships in Vanilla.

Events- At latest count we have over 3000 events which have been added for CORE. This is COREs largest accomplishment. These events are all in addition to the events which come with HoI. There are events for every country in the world. If you want to play small countries like Bhutan, Siam or Panama, there are events which will effect you.

Orders of Battle- Orders of Battle (OOB) is the starting forces for a country. Because of the greater variety in the models used for the game, we can make each countries military forces as accurate as possible. If you look at a country like Brazil, you will see the units which made that country's military unique. She still has her WW1 era battleships and cruisers and smaller army.

New Countries- We have an independent Egypt as well as other countries which are not in Vanilla HoI. There are events which create independent countries in the Pyrennies (sp?) in Spain. We have events which will create an independent South Korea as well as North Korea.

http://hoi.coremod.org/index2.htm



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/23/2004 1:06:56 AM)

Here is a screenshot of my current game (April 16, 1936):

[image]local://upfiles/279/Pn376585370.jpg[/image]



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/23/2004 4:12:32 AM)

I'm currently at January, 1937.

As Canada, I have focused my efforts on developing my industries and infrastructure as well as in researching the techs that will help me field a good army and navy (mainly DDs).

My plan, when war comes, is to send my troops to help out in North Africa and/or India, depending how the situation develops. France will not get any troops, since the Axis will no doubt take that country. So I'm saving my brave fighting men to fight where they will stand a good chance of succeeding; no futile heroics for them ;)

A few notable points:

1) I increased the game speed a bit. Even with a higher (above normal) speed, I have absolutely no problem covering events and following what is going on. I even get up and get coffee, etc, etc, while the game is running.

2) The Spanish Civil War has been interesting to follow. Almost everyone is trying to get into the action. I even sent a little tech to Republican Spain to help them out. Of course Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union have all joined in on the turmoil.

3) Britain has been sharing quite a bit of tech with me, and I, in turn, have been sharing what I can with other Commonwealth countries.

4) The World market is stable - no problems in trading, and there are none of the previous problems that plagued HoI in this area.

Overall, I am enjoying my experience :)

To get an idea of the size of the game world: the map area you see in the main screen represents the area covered by the little white square you see in the overview map (in the lower right of your screen)!

Screenshots:

Storms near Singapore:

[image]local://upfiles/279/Mj243815595.jpg[/image]


Storms in Europe:

[image]local://upfiles/279/Yu638527382.jpg[/image]


The situation in January, 1937:

[image]local://upfiles/279/Wb759858340.jpg[/image]



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/23/2004 6:01:55 PM)

It is now January, 1938.

I should note that I am playing on Normal/Normal, which is two levels lower than the toughest settings.

Although I haven't read the manual in two years or even know in detail all the changes that have taken place in the game after all these patches, I find playing the game to be fairly intuitive and straight forward. After a short time I was able to figure things out.


As Canada

I have increased my Industrial Capacity, and I am busy trading on the World Market to stockpile lots of rubber and oil. I have also been researching quite heavily.

My plan is to start building infantry and destroyers once 1939 rolls around.

I also transferred all my transports from the west coast to Halifax Harbour.


World Situation

1) The situation is heating up in Europe. Accusations are being tossed around. Germany seems ready to start throwing its weight around.

2) Japan has declared war on China.



Japan Invades China (September, 1937):

[image]local://upfiles/279/Lj236413556.jpg[/image]



Japan Continues to Make Progress in China (January, 1938):

[image]local://upfiles/279/Oj265253150.jpg[/image]



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/23/2004 10:19:17 PM)

It's now January, 1939.

I had a look through the game files and CORE has reduced movement quite a bit for most units. I noticed that armour has had its movement rate reduced by half. This is a lot more logical to me.

As Canada:

1) My industry building and commodity buying has been going well. Once war begins, I should be in great shape to build war materiel.

2) I have concentrated research on infantry and armour as well destroyer capabilities. I have also been feeding a lot of tech to Australia who will, no doubt, soon face the wrath of the Imperial Japanese Empire.


The World

1) The European situation is heating up. Czechoslovakia has mobilzed its armed forces, and a general tension has settled over the continent.

2) The Republican forces have been triumphant in Spain, having defeated the fascist Nationalist Movement.

3) Japan continues to make in-roads into China, although China's mighty rivers have slowed the Japanese war machine down a bit.


Screenshots:

Japanese Situation in China (January, 1939)

[image]local://upfiles/279/Xv641534406.jpg[/image]


European Situation (January, 1939):

[image]local://upfiles/279/Yt614288795.jpg[/image]



madflava13 -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/24/2004 3:11:06 AM)

Von Rom,
This is a good read... You should keep it up if you can... I may even dust off my copy of HoI if I hear a little bit more good news regarding CORE, etc...



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/24/2004 5:19:25 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: madflava13

Von Rom,
This is a good read... You should keep it up if you can... I may even dust off my copy of HoI if I hear a little bit more good news regarding CORE, etc...


Thanks.

I am just as curious about the "new" HoI. Every day I will do a year of in-game WWII using HoI and CORE.

When I finish, I will give you all a wargamer's prespective on the game: both the good and the bad.

I note that the guys that are working on CORE want to make HoI very historical and play out like a real wargame. So far, that dedication shows. They are currently working on a new research tech tree for the nuclear option: make getting nukes in HoI very difficult.

I am actually enjoying myself.

As I mentioned previously, the game world is HUGE. It certainly is a great strategic "fix".

Cheers!



Canuck_jp -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/24/2004 7:26:45 AM)

Yeah this is fantastic. I've managed to hold off from buying this game ever since it came out but I may have to soon. To be honest I've just been waiting for the price to drop a bit :)



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/24/2004 8:55:23 AM)

It's now January, 1940

Well, it's been an eventful year!

As Canada:

1) Research continues, but now I am starting to build my military. I have three destroyers in the shipyards being built as well as two armoured and 5 infantry divisions in training. This pretty much taps out my IC level for troops. I still have a lot tied up in research and infrastructure improvement. My military should become available in January, 1940.

The World

The situation looks bleak for the Allies. Wars are breaking out everywhere:

1) Japan continues to pursue a policy of expansion in China. The Chinese have been able to hold them so far. But for how long? The Japanese also skirmished with the Soviets, but quickly sued for peace.

2) Italy declared war on Albania.

3) Germany and its Axis partners declared war on Poland, thus igniting the beginning of WW2. Great Britain and her Commonweath declared war on Germany as well as France and several other countries.

4) The Soviets have declared war on Finland.


BlitzKrieg has begun!



The Situation in Poland


The Poles Fight Valiantly

[image]local://upfiles/279/Tr512280256.jpg[/image]


German Might Crushes All Resistence

[image]local://upfiles/279/Yt623929298.jpg[/image]


After the Defeat of Poland The Bad Boys of BlitzKrieg Meet the Soviet Hordes

[image]local://upfiles/279/Wb745260257.jpg[/image]



critter -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/24/2004 8:56:49 AM)

What is HOI? IT LOOKS INTERESTING. buy it now or wait?



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/24/2004 9:08:15 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: critter

What is HOI? IT LOOKS INTERESTING. buy it now or wait?


It's a game that came out two years ago called Hearts of Iron. It's a grand strategic game about WW2. At that time it came out it was very buggy. But after two years, lots of patches and some mods, it has become a pretty good wargame. In sheer size, it is the biggest wargame I have played on the computer (besides EU2). It takes nine full computer screens to move across the whole world.

I'm taking the game for a "test drive" to see how it stacks up.



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/24/2004 9:15:22 AM)

War Comes to North Africa

[image]local://upfiles/279/Bw735440529.jpg[/image]



Naval Warfare in the Mediterranean

[image]local://upfiles/279/Zx706600934.jpg[/image]



War on the Western Front

[image]local://upfiles/279/Ye842091006.jpg[/image]



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/24/2004 9:28:17 AM)

Japan in China

[image]local://upfiles/279/Us544140607.jpg[/image]




The Finnish-Soviet War

[image]local://upfiles/279/Xs572980201.jpg[/image]



Frank W. -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/24/2004 3:02:42 PM)

nice.

i play core in the moment, too.

noticed there are still some bugs in the tech tree and
events often fire 2 times ( i got 2 times the event "shipping
intercepted by allied blocade" in some minutes game time !
that gave me a serious blow, dissent hits also lose all that
valuable steel + oil. i was running on only 250 IC for a time
with germany. seems the steel depots are quite reduced in core
compared to vanilla HOI ? also germany getīs more MP in core
i noticed, so i can build more infantry than in normal HOI.

the french put up a good fight btw. wonder of the vichy event is
tweaked, it should have fired in my case already. but okay, seems
i must slog my way through the frogs and cannucks some more [;)]



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/24/2004 5:49:50 PM)

I have also noticed a few things in CORE:

1) River penalties for attacking forces are too high. Vanilla HoI has lower penalties for this. I think this may hamper the AI a bit. Fortunately, that is an easy thing to tweak.

2) I also noticed a couple of mistakes in the events. But with 3,000 events available I'm not surprisd :D

Still, CORE is quite an accomplishment.

Cheers!



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/25/2004 2:06:09 AM)

January, 1941

In almost every part of the globe, nations have mobilized for war.

As Canada

1) I produced my first military units: several destroyers, transports, and two infantry divisions. I will be sending my infantry to North Africa to help out the British against the Italians.

2) Research continues as always.


The World


1) Both Poland and France have fallen to Axis forces. Spain has gone Socialist, while Yugoslavia has gone Fascist. All of Western Europe is now under Fascist rule. Germany's Axis partners have ralled to its cause, and now they are preparing for the biggest contest of all: Operation Barbarossa.

2) Italy continues its naval war in the Mediterranean and seeks to expand its empire in North Africa. Naval battles have been on-going, as the British seek to ferry in troops to Alexandria.

3) Japan continues in its goal to impose the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" upon Asia.


Japanese Expansion into Indochina

[image]local://upfiles/279/Pm350946027.jpg[/image]



France Defeated

[image]local://upfiles/279/Dy801743019.jpg[/image]


Canadian Troops Redeploy to North Africa

[image]local://upfiles/279/Bg923073978.jpg[/image]



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/25/2004 11:04:38 AM)

At this point I am stopping my AAR.

Why?

While the CORE team has done an excellent job in having lots of events, and they have tweaked the AI and the game exceptionally well for the first 5 years (from 1936 to 1941), the game has started to fall apart. And this means CORE still has more work to do.

The Problems:

1) The British aren't using their fleet enough. German ships can sail with impunity in the English Channel, while scores of British capital ships sit idle in harbour.

2) Everything was fine until the USA entered the war. There was no expected military build-up. Instead, the USA showed up everywhere in force. By Dec/41 the Americans had already taken Italy!

3) When Germany and its Axis partners invaded tthe USSR in Barbarossa, they used only a part of their forces. I noticed with dismay that 30 divisions were sitting in Norway unused. Even when the Americans threatened Italy, they did not move. To sum up, at least as many Axis divisions were sitting idle as were invading the USSR. This is not the fault of the AI; rather, the AI files need to be tweaked better to reflect an aggressive Germany.

In turn, the USA needs to be tweaked NOT to build any military until AFTER it is at war.

When the above happened, a very interesting game situation collapsed for me. And I stopped playing.

The Good:

1) The Italians and British are excellent reinforcing North Africa. I saw some great naval battles and maneuvering in the desert.

2) The Japanese are very aggressive and will conquer.

3) You don't have to worry about the AI invading. The Americans were hyper when they invaded and took Italy all by themselves using a massive airforce. At the same time, they were bombing the Japanese and sending lots of troops to England. Their ships were everywhere.

However, CORE, despite having 3,000 events and a host of other tweaks is still not ready for prime time. I note that CORE v.8 is still considered a beta version, so obviously they need more input from players who are playing this mod so they can can make it better.

From what I have seen both CORE and HoI show tremendous potential.

As it stands right now though, I cannot recommend using CORE UNLESS you wish to play it so you can contribute suggestions to the team to improve it.

As for myself, I am going to uninstall CORE and will try out vanilla HoI v1.06 to see how the basic game plays. I will also install that counter Mod (it's available as a separate download). I will miss all those events, but I am also looking for a good strategic game experience (which I have had with CORE and HoI until 1941).

HoI has tremendous potential. When fully zoomed in, it takes 28 game screens (side-by-side) to circumnavigate the HoI world. It takes another 9 game screens to move from North to South. It is a HUGE world.

Apart from CORE there are also other mods that I may try, such as Stony Road, Starfire, Enhanced AI Mod, etc.

I like what I have seen enough to give HoI another couple of tries. It was an interesting experience. The game has matured and is stable, and there are a lot of people that are tweaking the game to make it play better. For the most part they have succeeded.

Cheers!



Kung Karl -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/25/2004 4:03:47 PM)

I think you should do another AAR using Super AI bundle. That mod has the goal of making the game as historical correct as possible! Try it out and give us an AAR, you are really good at writing them!



Von Rom -> RE: Extrem short AAR of HoI 1.06 (4/25/2004 5:42:47 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kung Karl

I think you should do another AAR using Super AI bundle. That mod has the goal of making the game as historical correct as possible! Try it out and give us an AAR, you are really good at writing them!


I think I'll try HoI v1.06 on its own first, so I will know how the basic game plays out.

I should note also that almost every file in HoI is open and can be tweaked so that the game can be adjusted to play the way you want it to. This is a big plus.

And the game speed can be slowed down to almost a crawl, so that even a turn-based person like myself, can handle it.

Cheers!



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