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Hearts of Iron II

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Hearts of Iron 2
File:B0006FZUFY.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
Developer: Paradox Entertainment

Strategy First

Publisher: Paradox Entertainment

Strategy First

Release date: 4 January, 2005
Genre: Strategy, war
Game modes: Single player, Multiplayer
ESRB rating: Everyone (E)
Platform: PC
Media: CD
System

requirements:

Pentium III with 800 MHz, 128 MBs RAM, 1 GB of free hard drive space, 4 MB DirectX-compatible video card, DirectX compatible sound card

Hearts of Iron 2 is a grand strategy computer war game for the PC based upon its predecessor, Hearts of Iron. It takes place in the period from 1 January 1936 through 31 December 1947, and allows the player to assume control of any one of almost two hundred nations of the time and guide its development through the years before, during and after the Second World War. It was developed by Paradox Entertainment, distributed by Strategy First, and released 4 January 2005.

Like its predecessor Hearts of Iron, the game is also banned in the People's Republic of China. Paradox has claimed that it will not reduce the level of historical accuracy in order to appease the PRC censors, though it is interesting to note that Paradox has replaced the Swastika flag with an ahistorical flag, to avoid a ban in Germany. They have also removed all references to the Holocaust, concentration camps, ethnic cleansing (besides the Rape of Nanking), and terror bombing.

Gameplay

The game features a number of elements which earn it the distinction of a grand strategy game. These include the ability to build new land divisions, aircraft squadrons, and naval warship, as well as the ability to combine individual units into larger units or break up large units into smaller parts. The player also has the ability to control the appointment of commanders of forces under their nation's flag (or that of controlled puppet nations) as well as to control the appointment of individual government ministers and military commanders in key General Staff positions. The player also has a broader ability to control the heads of state and government; however, this option in the past has only been available to democracies and only then through elections, in which the player chooses the winner. Technological research is controlled by the player. All this is on a global scale, with the player simultaneously dealing and interacting with nations across the world in real time rather than traditional turn-based form.

Politics

The player is able to manage his nation's foreign and internal policies on the Diplomacy page. The player can stage coups, declare war, annex territories and make alliances. He can also social engineer the policies of his nation using sliders, such as:

Moving the sliders in either direction will result in different bonuses and penalties, allowing for a wide range of choices and strategies.

On the same page the player can appoint leaders and ministers, with some exceptions, of course. The positions are available:

Resource Management

Hearts of Iron II features 8 resources, of which 5, namely Power, Rare Materials, Metal, Oil and Supplies are conventional resources, and the other 3 being Manpower, Industrial Capacity and Transport Capacity.

  • Power, Rare Materials and Metal are produced by individual provinces and pooled together to power the nation's industry.
  • Supplies are consumed by your army. Oil is consumed by mechanized/armored units, air units and naval units.
  • Manpower is needed to recruit and reinforce all of your armed forces. 1 Manpower generally represents 1000 men, since a normal infantry division of 10,000 men requires 10 Manpower.
  • Each factory in a nation contributes 1 Industrial Capacity (IC). This is the Base IC. Several factors, such as difficulty, Minister appointments, Technologies, and (the lack of) resources can modify this number. Each Actual IC requires 1 Power, 1 Metal and 1/2 Rare Materials to power the production.
  • Transport Capacity (TC) is an abstract number that represents the trucks trains and river barges which are used to supply your armed forces with fuel and supply. TC is a direct function of your Industrial Capacity - each Actual (not Base) IC gives you 1.5 TC. When the TC used exceeds the TC limit, movement, supplies and reinforcements will be delayed.

Scenarios

In the game, a player assumes direct control of a nation at the start of a scenario through 1948. The following scenarios are available:

Playable operations are:

  • Fall Gelb, the German invasion of France in 1940
  • Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in spring of 1941
  • The Ardennes Offensive, centered around the Battle of the Bulge, on the Franco-Belgian-German frontier in winter of 1944, which was also playable in the game's demo.
  • Southern Conquests, evolving around the Japanese centrifugal offensive into the southern resource area, following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
  • Operation Watchtower - the battle for Guadalcanal in the Solomons.
  • Fall Weiss, the German invasion of Poland
  • Fall Grün, the planned German attack on Czechoslovakia
  • Platinean war, a fantasy scenario where Germany backed Argentina and USA backed Brazil clashes in a conflict that will involve most of South America
  • Winter War, the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940
  • Desert Fox, the African campaign that culminated in the battle of El-Alamein
  • Operation Husky, the Allied landings in Sicily and the subsequent Italian Campaign
  • D-day, the Allied landings in Europe
  • Operation Downfall, the planned Allied invasion of the Japanese home isles
  • Spanish Civil war, the titanic conflict between the Spanish republicans and nationalists in 1936-1939
  • Battle of the Coral Sea, the Japanese plan to capture Port Moresby on New Guinea by sea and the following carrier battle.
  • Fall Blau, the German 1942 summer offensive against the USSR, eventually culminating in the Battle of Stalingrad; Added in the v1.2 patch.

Warfare

File:Hoi2sinojapwar.jpg
Japan declares war on the ROC

Being a grand strategy game, the lowest level of control on land is the brigade, and the lowest independent unit is a division. On sea, an individual unit can either be a single capital ship or a flotilla of smaller warships (such as destroyers). For the airforce, the unit is an air squadron.

On the map the player can direct divisions or groups of divisions to move, attack, support attack, support defend or strategically redeploy. Fighting starts when an army starts moving into a defended enemy territory (The invading units do not have to be inside enemy territory to attack). A province is immediately occupied when the invaders successfully arrive there with no opposition left. Because of this, a player can blitzkrieg through large swaths of enemy lands with minimal micromanagement, a feature that was heavily criticised by veterans of the first HOI game.

Changes from Hearts of Iron I

The computer is said to be more likely to mount large-scale offensives, whereas in the original attacks or counter-attacks would often be both limited and understrength. The world map in Hearts of Iron 2 has also been altered: the number of territories in many key areas, especially northern France, European Russia, North Africa and coastal Asia have been increased substantially.

Diplomacy has also been updated. Before one used diplomatic points (points gained on a monthly basis, with certain nations beginning the game with a supply) to engage in diplomatic actions. In this version, the player may specify the type, duration and format of agreements made, especially regarding supply of raw materials or trade for technology. The technological system has been overhauled. Rather than allocate industrial capacity to research, the player allocates money to research teams that specialize in branches of technology. Developing new vehicles or aircraft requires less steps: technical prerequisites are now included within the model as a research item. There is additionally a new category of "Secret Weapons".

See also

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