In this game, you can play as FDR, the well known imperialist who conquered South and Central America in the early 1930s, and went on to pre-emptively invade Japan. His famous speech on the day of the invasion will be remembered as "No seriously, guys. I am a time traveller. Japan attacks us in late 1941. That's why I transferred the entire Army to the Marine Corps and based the entire US Navy in Guam." The Belgian Prime Minister, when questioned about his decision to build a massive line of backwards fortifications on the French border facing into his own country answered "The Germans don't actually stand much of a chance against the French and British in 1939 if the Maginot Line continues through Belgium." The Swiss Prime Minister, when asked why he devoted his country's entire GDP to Nuclear research and nuked Berlin in 1944 famously stated "♥♥♥♥ Hitler". tl;dr Alternate History is great.

I am going to be honest with you.

This game has stolen many, many hours of my life. I have changed the course of History in an infinite number of ways, and have played most nations, from Germany to the USSR to Cuba to Portugal. It is the best 20th century (until 1950, anyway) grand strategy game in existence. It is far better than Hearts of Iron III.

But what is just fantastic about this game is two things: the community and the mods.

The community is one of the greatest, best bunch of history maniacs and armchair generals I have ever seen. Going to the forums is a rare and wonderful experience. And they are exceedingly nice. And they will advise you and help you. And they will discuss intricate, microscopic details of historical events with you. And you will learn. And you will like it. And you will make friends. A fantastic bunch of people.

The mods, as if the game didn't have enough content already, are incredibly fun to play, and some are incredibly detailed as well. They are not that difficult to install, and you will have a ton of fun with them. I personnally recommend Kaiserreich (Germany wins WWI) and New World Order 2 (get to play during the Cold War as well, including alternative history events for a German victory in WWII). And, of course, the community has also dedicated itself to these mods, especially Kaiserreich.

I have been playing strategy games since Civilization (the first one), and this is the best strategy game I have ever played. Period. If you like strategy games, it is a must own.

Grand Strategy,play every Nation from the USSR to Peru.Fight in WW1 ,WW2,even into the Cold War Era.
Realtime,pausable,with different Speeds.

Pros:
+++ Lots of Game Depth,Manage your Armies,Generals,Fleets,Air Wings,Ministers,Finance,Trade,Diplomacy.Hardly anything is missing.
+++ Events : historical Events trigger,you can decide if you want to follow History or create an alternate Timeline.Examples: Deny The Soviets their Share of Poland,abort the Attack on Pearl Harbor.
+ Control over internal Politics : You can play a moderate Nazi-Germany,or rekindle the Flames of british Imperialism and attempt to retake the lost american Colonies.
+ Armies and Generals gain Experience ,even develop new Perks
+ Extensive Research Tree: Hundreds of Units and Techs ,ranging from Subs,over encryption to Nukes.
+ Control over the Armies of Allies and Puppet States (If you wish)
++ Many Factors influencing Battles and Movement.
Night/daycycle ,seasonal and hourly Weather Patterns,Experience,added Special Brigades,Unit Types,Terrain,Morale,Envelopment,Supply.
Example: Warfare in Russia gets bogged down during Winter as everything is snowed in.

Cons:
- Timeconsuming , a game can last from one (Scenario) to several hundred Hours (Grand Campaign,World Conquest)



One of the best Grand Strategy Games
HOI2 +Addons and "Darkest Hour lite" are also included in this Deal.

In a world where Hearts of Iron IV and III exist, you might be wondering: "Why would I ever get Darkest Hour?"
Well to put it bluntly, Darkest Hour provides a far deeper experience than HoI4 with less (in my opinion) irritating hyper-micro than HoI3.
Darkest Hour does something that the other Hearts of Iron installments fail to pull off. It provides a fundamentally *deep* experience without overwhelming the player with *complexity*. Compared to DH, HoI3's systems of military organization, production, and technology are considerably more complicated. However, this does not necessarily translate to deeper, more interesting gameplay. Darkest Hour provides fine grained control where it makes sense (for instance, manually attaching brigades to divisions, manually making trade deals), and abstracts things that could become tedious (see HoI3's OOB system, overcomplicated tech system, etc.).
On top of this, the content available for Darkest Hour blows the other HoI games out of the water. HoI4 will charge you for DLC which adds very little substance. HoI3 does not have the same caliber of mods as DH. Not only does the base game come with a fully functional World War I scenario, but it has various other start dates from 1933 - 1945. The Kaiserreich mod alone is worth the price of admission and provides more content than 100 HoI4 DLCs ever will. All of this for $2.50 when it's on sale.
I'm writing this review because this is a game I want to see continuing to survive. And as long as no other WW2 GSG comes close to it, I have no doubt that it will.

I want you to imagine for me a very strange alternate timeline of British History. The date is august 13th, 1939. The Third Reich has declared war on Poland and the United Kingdom, obligated to aid them, declared war.

But unlike real history. This Chamberlain is not going to back down from a real fight and decides to hit Herr Hitler where it hurts.

A corp with three royal marine divisions is already boarding a fleet to begin an ambitious, daring landing at Wilhelmshaven.

Just as the sun rises, the Home Fleet of the Royal Navy has been sent to protect the landing fleet.

The landing is fast and fierce. Royal Marines seizing the freshly shelled dockyards, but still battling the bewildered garrison.

The fight lasts for many days, German troops being sent in to halt the advance. Soon the landing has hit a standstill.

However. Herr Hitler, most likely in a frothing rage from the audacity these marines have for even attempting to land on German clay, sent almost the whole coastal guard to defend Wilhelmshaven. Leaving another port, a very important port. Let's say. Kiel. Wide open to attack.

Fleet Arm recon planes from the carriers in the confirm this and a new solution is quickly found.

A newly formed motorized corp was sent off to simply take Kiel. While this is happening, the Home Fleet is fighting the Kriegsmarine. The German warships trying desperately to deal damage to the flotilla.

Kiel is taken without a hitch. Immediate mobilization of the entire force planned to be funneled through Wilhelmshaven are sent to Kiel instead.

The motorized units quickly move to take undefended Hamburg and then hunker down for what will be the bloodiest engagement in the first months of the war.

The German army, still busy with Poland, can't spare anymore than a few divisions to commit to the reclaiming of Kiel and Hamburg.

Now sufficient troops have made it to Kiel and begin deploying to areas of defense. It is clear to the commanders on the field that the battle they are about to fight, no matter where it will begin, will be a bloodbath.

With the unintentional distraction successful, the landings of the marines was called off and instead transferred to the new Kiel-front.

Soon, troops from all over the empire is ready for battle. 40 divisions worth. The RAF sent over a 800 hurricane fighters to help in air superiority. 400 Fairey CAS planes and another 200 bombers and their escorts harass the German's preparations. Some of those bombers attack targets in Berlin.

German troops are now ready for an attack. Poland dealt with, it is now September 13th. The battle begins.

German troops attack Hamburg from across the river, artillery raining down for the entirety of the siege. In two weeks of the most bitter fighting, Hamburg's industry and infrastructure is in ruins. Smoke and fire blanket the city. Where once bright, lively streets lined with colorful buildings are no empty, cluttered with rubble. Those full buildings are now hollow skeletons.

The defenders have not gotten off much better. Many units were hastily sent into the crumbling ruins. Completely disorganized units, not even having time to dig a shallow trench, are forced to fight a failing defensive battle against a numerically superior foe.

The German Wehrmacht has now brought its full strength against the defenders. 52 divisions begin to slowly encircle the defenders.

After days of crippling barrages and ruthless assaults, the defenders are about to crack. Terrible casualties from hopeless counter attacks has weighed in heavily on the garrison's moral.

Then, the siege broke. A full retreat, ordered by the local commanders to pull back to Kiel, hopefully to reorganize. The air support given by the RAF was in shreds. Even worse, these grounded airmen see the frontline closing on their airfields at a constant pace.

The German forces are on the heels of the retreating infantrymen. News and unit positions constantly contradicting and confusing the routing Brits.

At this moment. The gravity of the situation is revealed to the home front. This is a moment of crisis. The entire British army is in flight towards the Danish border. They can't put up any semblance of a fight! How could they? No one can possibly keep up with the now pointless moving of map pieces to show where units can be! An infantryman from the 42nd rifles could end up hitching a ride with the 13th motor division. A decisive call to action must be made! A good rally point must be found. Naval supremacy had been established back in the beginning of September.

A naval evacuation is now planned to be at Copenhagen. What was left of the expedition's air support was sent back to Britain. The Danish border troops look on in despair as they see tens of thousands of their "allies" fleeing. Marching away from the front, eyes to the ground. In another week the army has made it to Copenhagen.

A rear guard of troops guard the bridges and now a battered army boards the rescue fleet. Some of these ships were of the original ships that brought these men here. Those same crewmen on the transports that survived harsh landings under fire the month prior, simply stared at the soldiers in silence. The soldiers did the same.

The silence was only broken by the occasional carrier plane that drifted into earshot. A tired and beaten army was sent back home a full month and a half after its landing.

The Germans were victorious. Though it was a mixed bag of outcomes. The German navy was devastated. Constant raids against the transports loading British soldiers into Kiel, drew the local carrier force into the fray. After four days of constant attacks, the Kriegsmarine was a husk of what it was.

Another was the Luftwaffe. While it did deal great damage to the local enemy air power, greatly reducing their numbers at times. The RAF flew their planes ferociously. Their abilities only increasing as the Luftwaffe pushed them harder to their breaking point. It was theorized by some Wehrmacht critics, the only reason the Luftwaffe remained present in the effort at all was the proximity of factories that could provide replacement planes and pilots.

However. Most shocking of all. Was the entire battle in general. Sure the Germans were victorious, they even took Denmark and routed the British army in a single stroke. The British made their landings. Successful as well! They held Kiel and Hamburg for an uncomfortable amount of time. Both were ruins. Even though the RAF was cornered, several bombing raids were carried out on Berlin itself! Only on the second raid were the bombers even intercepted at all! Who could be blamed for this? The Luftwaffe can use the excuse that they were using their air power for Poland.

This was insulting to that wartime German pride they had spent the years prior forging. Perhaps even calling into question the leader ship of the Fuhrer. It was his direct orders to use all available troops to check the landings at Wilhelmshaven. Perhaps that may be the case.

The future for the battered British army is undetermined. With Poland not occupying a large amount of the German military. It is doubtless that another attempt at landing in Northern Germany will fail without better forces.

And now that was just 2 months worth of conflict in Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game. A completely inconsequential and terrible military failure of mine. A tale I had to tell.

This game is very good. Goes all the way into the 1960's, so yeah. You can have a Wolfenstein situation on your hands.

I was playing as the Nazi Germans, and was in the fight of my life against the soviet union, playing on Hard. My Army Group South's advance was stalling out, and I couldn't break the Soviet Defenses around Leningrad. Army Group north was closing in on moscow, but the feirce winter had my troops stuck in their tracks. Hoping to avoid Hitler's folly, I had build up winter equipment for my men prior to the invasion, but however these extra insulated uniforms and felt boots haven't done much to increase my chances of sucess. After just losing a key battle on my way towards Moscow I decided to pan down to North Africa. Here I had blitzed through the British Lines with my Italian allies, however it was becoming more apparent that we were going to be surrounded at the suez cannal. However I just had to hold the province long enough for my fleet of troop transports to go through the cannal and escape the mediteranian sea, where they would then drop reinforcements off in Somalia to bolster the failing Italian defensive lines. Then It happened. Out of no where the English navy blindly stubles into my fleet of unarmed troop transports and they sink every single one of them. Eight Divisons, a total of 104,000 Soldiers died at sea because of my blunder! I then saved my game and decided to pick it back up later. After just getting off the game, It hit me that I've been playing this amazing game for so long, and never publically voiced my opinion about it, so I decided I'd give this game and the developers, the credit it deserves.

I have to say this is by hard my favorite grand strategy games of all time. The gameplay allows for endless possibilities such as alternate historical events and outcomes. The events triggered in the game catter to shaping a world that you desire. The game also has a plethora of many great Mods for it, such as "The Grand Campaign" which bridges the World War 1 Sencario with the World War II scenario, allowing you to start in the year 1914 and end in 1991. I've spent about 212 Hours playing this game on steam, however I've easily spent another 400 playing this game on Multiplayer via Game Ranger, which at the moment is the only way to play this game with your Friends, however it does not launch the game through steam. Not only will you being scultpting the world, but you also learn a great deal about history and geopraghy at the same time. This ultra realistic diplomacy, political, and war simulator will, Darkest Hour a Hearts of Iron game, will always hold a special place in my heart, and I do not think Hearts of Iron IV will even be able to top Darkest Hour.


My Favorite Strategy Game ever! Totally worth the buy! If you have it and are discouraged, don't give up, once you learn how to play this game you can have so so so much endless fun with it!

Darkest Hour is one of my favourite games, hands down. but why? I think I will list them in bullet points to make it simple
-Compared to HOI III it is much less complex and much, much easier to follow
-Graphically compared to HOI II it is a massive improvement. However, I also think that compared to HOI III it looks much better, but thats just my opinion, you should look at screenshots if graphics are important to you

-I find the game to be Historically accurate, with interesting scenarios that can happen, caused by the player or sometimes not caused by the player at all.

-The WWI senario also has an interesting amount of choices which no matter who you're playing as will have an interesting affect to the game as a whole, and are plausible

-The WW2 scenario is pretty good though I always want to think of alternate events that can happen etc. etc. and there are certainly some missed oppertunities, but nothing major.

-Mods, firstly the AAR mod, which gives the player an extended timeline from 1914 until 1964

-Mod33 a French mod that gives new nations, new events, new units, new desicions, it is a very good mod, however the event text is in French, so it is also a way to practice your French

-Modern Day scenario, a very good mod, as it says you get a modern day scenario, with all new techs, all new Units, and a load of new events, not to mention all new leaders,

-And Finally Kaisrreich, firstly no 2 Kaiserreich games are the same, they always turn out different, in one the USA becomes Syndicalist (no communists), in another the Qing Empire re-unite China, in another game you might see an independent Siberia, chanes are you will see many of these in a single game, you might also see none

-Kaiserreich is an extremely interesting scenario, the Central Powers win WW1 and you believe that scenario, in fact it is done so well, to the point where I remember someone on the forums saying "I don't play Kaiserreich that often, but when I do, I forget real History"

When you can win the pacific war but not talk to a woman

I pretty much chose my undergraduate college majors based on my interest in this game, it's so good. Also, at least half of my 1600+ hours in this game was spent with the mod Kaiserreich, which is based on the idea that the Germans won World War I, so check out the mods, there are a number of well-developed ones out there.

Maybe the best Hearts of Iron game. A quick summary:
- HoI 1: Too green.
- HoI 2: Quite balanced.
- HoI 3: Too complex and buggy.
- HoI 4: AI too dumb.
- Darkest Hour: Final HoI 2 form.