I am a huge fan of all the Paradox games, starting with CK2, and I now have a combined 2300 hours on those two games alone. I tried out Victoria 2, but didn't like the trade system, and after looking at HOI 3 let's plays on steam, I didn't even bother. I love deep historical simulators, one of my favourite games of all time is Steel Panthers and its many iterations. But HOI 3 was just a step too far, I do think there is such a thing as too much complexity. I think that level of depth belongs in tactical simulators, not grand strategy.
HOI 4 is, for me at least, almost perfect. There are flaws of course, mainly with the AI which are already being addressed (check out the latest dev diary for the first major patch), but overall, it has a fantastic level of complexity balanced with a (mostly) easy-to-use UI. I can individually micro divisions in a single battle (one tactic I use when attacking dug-in units with superior numbers of inferior troops is to manually pull out divisions that are low on organisation and rotate in fresh ones without actually ending the battle; keep it up and over time the enemy divisions will eventually lose their org and be forced to retreat, don't just throw 20 divisions at 4 with max entrenchment and fortifications and expect to win). But at the same time I can draw an arrow and with a single click order 100 divisions to attack across a front 1000s of km wide.
Everything I feel the game could benefit from (better air combat interface, better AI especially when in comes to declaring wars, and a few others I can't remember off of the top of my head) are things I would expect to come in patch or DLC form. Unlike say, Stellaris, HOI 4 feels like a complete game on release, which is pretty rare these days.
If anyone is interested, here's a little report from my most "complete" game, as Fascist France:
I allied with Italy (and later Japan) and kicked off WW2 in 1938 by attacking some countries that the UK was guaranteeing (Belgium, Iraq, and Siam). While Germany and the USSR duked it out in Europe, my armies marched across Africa and Asia, hundreds of planes, ships, and subs of mine and the Italians were lost trying to hold the Channel open long enough to invade (which the Italians started and I finished. At one point during that conflict over 100 subs, half mine and half Italian fought what I think was the UK Mediterranean fleet, we lost half our subs, but we did take out a couple of carriers, battleships, and a few dozen assorted cruisers and destroyers). Afterr Japan got the USA into the war and for some reasons DOW'd all of Scandinavia, an air battle above Southern Sweden took place for at least a year, involving thousands and thousands of planes. At one point I had 8 fully maxed production lines making fighters and I was only just able to keep up with losses.
Eventually I invaded North America, which was a lot of fun. 6 groups of 14 Marine divisions each, one each headed to Quebec City, Halifax, Boston, New York, Philly, and Washington. The one to Washington was sunk, and the one to Quebec was repelled, but I took Halifax and Boston and New York, starting sending over hundreds of experienced and well-equipped armoured and mechanized divisions, and a year later (and several million American casualties) the USA capitulated.
After some final mopping up, me and Comintern divvied up the Allies, and were at peace for almost 2 months, when the USSR attacked my ally Romania. But by then, with the industry of the USA on my side, the dirty commies didn't stand a chance. I got from the French border with Germany to Leningrad in a few months, and from the Turkish border to Stalingrad in even less time
I had about 100 more divisions at that point than the Soviets, and I was starting to replace my medium and light tanks with modern ones (admittedly, by that point I had about 150 divisions of Cavalry MP floating around, so my numbers were somewhat over-inflated). I had at least 15000 fighters, although a lot of them were ones I captured (I really wish you could send captured foreign equipment as Lend-Lease.)
By that point I realised I had "won" so I went on to my current game: Nationalist China! If anyone is interested, I'd be more than happy to post some sort of AAR on that, although I don't have screenshots.
HOI 4 is, for me at least, almost perfect. There are flaws of course, mainly with the AI which are already being addressed (check out the latest dev diary for the first major patch), but overall, it has a fantastic level of complexity balanced with a (mostly) easy-to-use UI. I can individually micro divisions in a single battle (one tactic I use when attacking dug-in units with superior numbers of inferior troops is to manually pull out divisions that are low on organisation and rotate in fresh ones without actually ending the battle; keep it up and over time the enemy divisions will eventually lose their org and be forced to retreat, don't just throw 20 divisions at 4 with max entrenchment and fortifications and expect to win). But at the same time I can draw an arrow and with a single click order 100 divisions to attack across a front 1000s of km wide.
Everything I feel the game could benefit from (better air combat interface, better AI especially when in comes to declaring wars, and a few others I can't remember off of the top of my head) are things I would expect to come in patch or DLC form. Unlike say, Stellaris, HOI 4 feels like a complete game on release, which is pretty rare these days.
If anyone is interested, here's a little report from my most "complete" game, as Fascist France:
I allied with Italy (and later Japan) and kicked off WW2 in 1938 by attacking some countries that the UK was guaranteeing (Belgium, Iraq, and Siam). While Germany and the USSR duked it out in Europe, my armies marched across Africa and Asia, hundreds of planes, ships, and subs of mine and the Italians were lost trying to hold the Channel open long enough to invade (which the Italians started and I finished. At one point during that conflict over 100 subs, half mine and half Italian fought what I think was the UK Mediterranean fleet, we lost half our subs, but we did take out a couple of carriers, battleships, and a few dozen assorted cruisers and destroyers). Afterr Japan got the USA into the war and for some reasons DOW'd all of Scandinavia, an air battle above Southern Sweden took place for at least a year, involving thousands and thousands of planes. At one point I had 8 fully maxed production lines making fighters and I was only just able to keep up with losses.
Eventually I invaded North America, which was a lot of fun. 6 groups of 14 Marine divisions each, one each headed to Quebec City, Halifax, Boston, New York, Philly, and Washington. The one to Washington was sunk, and the one to Quebec was repelled, but I took Halifax and Boston and New York, starting sending over hundreds of experienced and well-equipped armoured and mechanized divisions, and a year later (and several million American casualties) the USA capitulated.
After some final mopping up, me and Comintern divvied up the Allies, and were at peace for almost 2 months, when the USSR attacked my ally Romania. But by then, with the industry of the USA on my side, the dirty commies didn't stand a chance. I got from the French border with Germany to Leningrad in a few months, and from the Turkish border to Stalingrad in even less time
I had about 100 more divisions at that point than the Soviets, and I was starting to replace my medium and light tanks with modern ones (admittedly, by that point I had about 150 divisions of Cavalry MP floating around, so my numbers were somewhat over-inflated). I had at least 15000 fighters, although a lot of them were ones I captured (I really wish you could send captured foreign equipment as Lend-Lease.)
By that point I realised I had "won" so I went on to my current game: Nationalist China! If anyone is interested, I'd be more than happy to post some sort of AAR on that, although I don't have screenshots.
