Is it really that hard...?

[Trondheim]

I really want to try this game, but i am scared of the difficulty...i enjoy CK2 A LOT and Vic 2 some, although i don't understand them completely...if i don't get all the mechanics in those games is there any point in playing HOI3? It looks really cool but very hard

[offroadracer516]

Lol Its not that hard to learn. Really its pretty simple. And when you get it down there is massive fun to be had. I have over a hundred hours in the game. But have yet to learn everything lol.

[Trondheim]

Most reviews i read says its really hard :p Can i play as Soviet and kill Facists

[Titanictwist1]

This game is harder than CK2 and VIC 2 to learn for sure, but your background with other Paradox games will help ease the learning curve. I came into this game with well over 500 hours in other Paradox games. In order to start actually winning some wars I had to spend around 2 hours watching youtube vids, and lots of time alt-tabbing out to google questions.

I now have around ~100 hours in HOI3 but I still find myself having to google something every few hours of play. So there definitely is going to be outside research needed for you to play this game with any amount of skill.

The largest source of difficulty in the game comes from the micromanagement. The number of individual units you have to control dwarfs any other paradox game. However, if you are okay with a lot of micromanagement and you enjoy other paradox games than it is probably worth buying this one.

And yes you can play soviet and most other nations that existed in the world in 1936.

[Trondheim]

What tutorial and nation would you recommend?

[xetroC]

I play global domination games for many years now. I love big scale stragtegy games and hoi III is one of those. It is not hard unless you choose the settings to make it hard. ;)
It is very complex thats what it is. It is a big military simulation on army group scale where you give orders to 100s of divisions in 1000s of provinces. And then there is navy and air force too of course. :)
Its diplomacy, the intelligence sector and research are easier to handle once you understand what is going on there.
The production and resource managment is the thing you spend the most time with until you go to war. If you have some knowledge of world war 2 units you can build up an effective army very quick but if not you have to study the numbers there. All the unit stats and modifiers.
You really have to think about what units you will use later on because they all have different stats in different terrain types. there you can come up with many different army setups for your battle plans. With every hoi game I always started 36 and I did like 5-10 runs to 39 or 41 just building up different types of armys to figure out what works best later on.
The military simultaion is the biggest part of the game and it takes some time to get used to it. You have to watch the weather, your supply lines and you have to time your attacks cause there is something like a battle delay. That means you cannot just move around like you wish to.
You really have to calculate what you are doing.
The game doesnt warn you when you move out of command range of your HQ or when supply lines are cut or "washed away" somewhere in russia during the bad rainstorm in fall and spring making infrastructure there useless.
You have to figure it out all by yourself as it happens unless you turn on ai control but I have no experience with that. Never used it.

[Corto]

HoI _IS_ difficult to learn because of its complexity (and the sheer number of units with major nations), but don't be afraid! Sure, at its worst (or best to some) it is like an evil bastard child of Guderian's Achtung-Panzer and a corrupted Excel sheet. However, as sandboxy for a strategy game HoI might be it is also at least moderately realistic as national power relations and major historical events are modeled about right.

Just start as USA and you will be all right. Or start as somebody who historically stayed out of the whole mess during the WW2 just to learn the basics first (any South American nation will do, really).

As you have the basics in check try for example 36 start as Italy and be the first to be (and stay, if you want to) in war. ...or Greece - a nicely balanced country with a lot of neighbours you can take over once you have your neutrality lowered.

I have played HoI 2 and 3 A LOT (not on Steam, I own them boxed) and I still don't quite get all the mechanics for example behind the unit front width or good naval task force composition (many of the historical wartime commanders didn't get them right either, it seems). ...And that doesn't prevent me from enjoying HoI series at all.

If you are a WW2 history and strategy buff, HoI is a must-to-have game. In my opinion it is almost unplayable without the DLCs - but they are dirt cheap anyway now as HoI IV is about to be released. HoI has a great modding community too, btw.

[xetroC]

Originally posted by Corto:

it is like an evil bastard child of Guderian's Achtung-Panzer and a corrupted Excel sheet.

Yes it is ! ^^

[OXKART]

i agree with all sayed well done. added point AI can be realy basic in attacking. but can be a strong balance to ur style . using a elite grps and tanks for ur controling can be fun to have around. I than leave my basic units for the AI to control. leting them fill holes i leave in my tanks wake. i have played for many yrs and stell play whin i can. I have learned more ever game play i do . changing countrys can revive ur asperations to do better . i change up countrys i use in cycles , yet i do play germany more. know working on the very hard lv .I have many new thing to learn to overcome the many burdins of many fronts at once. gl and enjoy .

hoi4 well be out soon but i fill this game will be missed and retruned to

[provo]

The game will be very fun once you understand all the mechanics, but some things like manually controlling the eastern front as Germany or the SU will always be tedious.

[MiKye200]

I just bought the game and have spent the last hour or so going through the (very funny) tutorial and exploring the various menu optoions in a test game playing as Australia.

So far, I really like how the various aspects of gameplay(Production, Research, Politics, Diplomacy, Intelligence) are logically layed out in the game menu; and when I click on one of these, once again, that aspect of the game is broken down into sub-menus, again easy to understand.
I did have one query about how to recall spies(apparently they can't be recalled, so be careful deploying these guys) and the answer was found pretty quickly via internet search.

The game does a very good job of making things easy to understand, imo.
I'm looking forward to getting into this and maybe conquering New Zealand; bloody Kiwis can't be trusted :)