![]() ![]() The basic formations involve thousands of men, hundreds of tanks, and all the support equipment that entails. You can invent “Modern Tanks” but you’ll never invent helicopters or nuclear missiles no matter how much you want them.įor the wargame nerds out there, HoI IV is a division-scale strategy game. You can play well into the Korean or Vietnam War eras if you like, but the technology tree does have its limits, and the political situation will get increasingly strange. Unlike other Paradox games, Hearts of Iron IV doesn’t have a hard end date aside from a score screen in 1949. Those events taper off as you approach the early 1940s and disappear entirely by the uncharted, likely way off the beaten track, middle to late 40s and even early 50s. Throughout this early game you get event popups about real events from history as they happen – or don’t – like the disappearance (or not!) of Amelia Earhart. They’re satisfying to manipulate and provide a typically Paradox nuanced diplomacy and politics that you don’t see in most games. ![]() These are elegant, numerical subsystems within the game. ![]() Hiring advisors, spending political power to influence other countries’ affairs, building up your industries, and carefully managing what you’re importing versus what you’re exporting. Much of the politics and economics are handled in typical grand strategy fashion: Percentage bonuses and currencies. That’s not perfect: In some 70 hours of play I’ve never seen Francoist fascists win the Spanish civil war and I’ve never seen Japan succeed at holding a presence on mainland China. That’s not to say the game doesn’t develop pretty ahistorically even if told to follow historical patterns (a setting for AI-controlled countries) on its own. Or further afield: An independent India taking the fight into the colonies of Asia for democratic principles and freedom from Japanese or European interference. It also gives the most opportunity for alternate histories to develop: A non-German aligned Italy, Communist America, or victory for Republican Spain in that country’s fascist takeover. The game starts in either 1936, for those who’d like the possibility for pre-war buildup and politicking, or 1939, for those who’d like to play a wargame that mostly re-fights the war “as it was.” In practice, the 1936 scenario is where most players will always start, because it allows you to avoid some of the key mistakes that any given country made during the buildup to the war. Through all of it, I became increasingly curious about my reaction to the game’s decision not to treat with some realities of history and warfare while diving into others. When I fomented a Communist revolution in Poland and allied with the USSR in an attempt to prevent that country’s horrible historical fate, to smashing success, I enjoyed myself immensely. Sure, I had to deal with some of strategy gaming’s persistent bugbears like bad AI choices, self-inflicted hindrances, and utter misunderstandings of the map icons. ![]() As I helped Germany conquer the world as Italy, launching naval invasions of India and South Africa to deprive England of precious resources, I loved every minute of it. In my time with it, I found a superb game with excellent strategy elements and enjoyable nuance. Starting in 1936, Hearts of Iron IV is a World War 2 grand strategy game that charts the mid-20th century’s conflicts, leading almost inevitably to the Second World War itself. ![]()
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