AoD or DH?

[I Hate NFTs]

I play HoI4 and HoI3, and I decided to pick up all of the other HoI titles over the sale. HoI2 isnt working for me. I have played each for around 2-3 hours and I starting to think Darkest Hour is better... Your thoughts?

[avantech]

An old post, but for what it's worth. DH seems more polished: the map, the events, the tech trees, and many other changes really improved on HOI2.

If you play AoD after playing DH, you'll miss many of those changes. Even details like seeing the division type (INF, CAV, HQ, etc.) right on the list, instead of having to click one by one.

However, I went from DH to AoD because of balancing issues: the allied AI kept launching suicidal naval invasions, which quickly become annoying and end up ruining the midgame.

In AoD, so far, I haven't had that problem. The AI behaves normally, the game seems quite stable. If the two games merged it would terrific: for me, even better than HOI3 or HOi4.

[kingarthur772]

I´m new to Hearts of Iron too, because my first Game of it was Hearts of Iron 3 with all Add-Ons. But I liked the Idea, so I buyed the new Title Hearts of Iron 4 and play it with pleasure. So I stayed with the fourth Game of the Title and read as well as heard much about Hearts of Iron 2 of the Hearts of Iron Experts.

So I asked why and they said the best Game up to now is Hearts of Iron 2 with the Add-Ons. Why?

The newest two biggest Mods (you could call them seperate Games of Hoi 2) are Arsenal of Democracy (AoD) as well as Darkest Hour (DH) tell it. Hearts of Iron 2 is very old, it was born in 2005 and it didn´t lost it´s charme for over 12 Years.

So I took both Branches of the 12 Year old Game to see what are the Difference between them. I testet both for a while and can say that AoD brings the Heart of the 12 Year old Game incl. Add-Ons much more to life. Btw. is AoD much more stable then DH.

Because AoD gets much more Patches and got a new one not long ago. DH is newer has a better Grafic, chances the game more but hasn´t the stability then AoD like the guy before told you.

Fazit: Hard to say which Branch is better, so you have to play both to make a desicion. But I like them both.

[Ultradad]

AoD for the simple reason that the amazing CORE mod is on AoD. AoD with CORE is IMO the best HOI experience there is period.

While DH does have better graphics, a better map and improvements for modders it also has inferior combat and logistics. There are also some really annoying unfixed bugs/issues in DH (like the wildly OP naval bombers)

[GoldenTalon]

Get both - they're only a few dollars each

[I Hate NFTs]

Originally posted by GoldenTalon:

Get both - they're only a few dollars each

lmao i keep getting replies on this post from 2016

[Nick3210]

Darkest Hour (Hoi-2) multiplayer is still alive!
The last dinosaurs playing Darkest Hour (Hoi-2) multiplayer are here!

https://discord.gg/XzA75eY

Join us!! Right NOW we have 1-2 free places in big MP Game.

[The nubinator]

AoD Is the superior game, DH Has better AI and map but quite bland and ineffective events.

I would recommend you to play AoD + Iron Cross. This makes for the superior experience.

Ofcourse what we should have is DH+AoD but the teams refused to work together, it's too late now to make any money and Paradox refused to mediate, because they themselves frankly made very unfair deals with the teams to begin with (like the majority of the DH team except 1 guy didn't get payed).

[Lennartos]

About DH, its not Paradox's job to make sure that the project leader doesn't scam his fellow team mates.
I havent heard the details, but if this is factual they should have had their agreements in order, in order to not get conned by a scammer.
From our perspective we had NDA breaches and undecover betas from the DH team, so not really something that screams "these guys will be great to work together with".

[The nubinator]

Ah sadly I didn't know that part of the story. Though If you don't mind I'll take it with a grain of salt since it's just your side. But as the DH team has always been very resistant to releasing details I'm more inclined in believing you than them.

Anyway that's a pity.

Stil my recommendation stands then even more firmly with AoD + Iron Cross.
I'm not sure if you can add Iron Cross to the steam version but probably, right?

I don't know if Iron Cross can be found anymore. It seems that as Paradox has grown it's also grown the distance between the community and itsself. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/where-do-i-purchase-this-game.915790/


So the best I could suggest is ask the creators if they can send you the game, though it's obviously possible to pirate and I'm not even sure the legal status of a game that is not in sale anymore.

[Exarch_Alpha]

Wow.

As a game AoD is much better, DH is a mess of AI buffs and imbalances.

About CORE, is it up to date with the last versions? Or you need to disable the betas?

[Lennartos]

There should not be a issue with CORE from 1.10 on 1.11.
I think i have made fallback paths so older mod files still work.

But do check out their forums on paradoxplaza

[OldFatGuy]

Originally posted by Pedro:

AoD for the simple reason that the amazing CORE mod is on AoD. AoD with CORE is IMO the best HOI experience there is period.

Do I have to install this "CORE" mod and if so could you tell me how? (sorry, totally new to AoD and HoI in general... sorry about that). But man I read the manual.. and whoever wrote that and did this work... there is real love and dedication there. Reading the manual got me so psyched to play the game I couldn't wait to get started. It is so awesome that there are people out there like that and IMO they should be rewarded. I would give a donation if I knew how (I mean I already bought the game and so hopefully he/they got a piece of that but compared to the dedication and care you just "feel" that went into this reading the manual he/they deserve more).

[The nubinator]

You go into the paradox forums, possibly need to register the game there because even though their CEO is "against DRM" the company managers want to keep track of purchases, and then you go into the mod section and you download core and I think there are installation instructions in the core file then.

[mglsharkson]

Just thought i chime in DH vs AOD, played both to death solo and MP years ago, DH had some mid game bugs MP wise maybe now fix. AOD easy to get into and less "map" to conquer. I could beat the AI with typical "tricks" learnt from time. I do miss the MP so much fun. As a side note I could never win Doomsday mod as Russia the 2 nukes are a game killer. If anybody out there can show how to edit the nukes to be less total destruction (like a modern MIRV) the game would shine post atomic war.

[NAR1776]

Originally posted by The nubinator:

Ah sadly I didn't know that part of the story. Though If you don't mind I'll take it with a grain of salt since it's just your side. But as the DH team has always been very resistant to releasing details I'm more inclined in believing you than them.

Anyway that's a pity.

Stil my recommendation stands then even more firmly with AoD + Iron Cross.
I'm not sure if you can add Iron Cross to the steam version but probably, right?

I don't know if Iron Cross can be found anymore. It seems that as Paradox has grown it's also grown the distance between the community and itsself. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/where-do-i-purchase-this-game.915790/


So the best I could suggest is ask the creators if they can send you the game, though it's obviously possible to pirate and I'm not even sure the legal status of a game that is not in sale anymore.

Do I need a Paradox account to get Iron Cross? Don't have one and don't want one really.