Recent reviews by Big Willy Wilson

I enjoyed this game a lot. The mods and just the general concept of the game gives it so much replay value. The DLC policy is terrible. When I first got the game a few years ago, I thought the DLC was absolutely bonkers and absurd. They were just updates. My previous experience with strategy games and their DLC were the Total War franchise's DLC campaigns which were worth it in my opinion (new UIs, units, characters, factions, time periods etc.)

These DLCs just add focus trees(a tree of buttons you click that give you buffs that also lead to further buttons you click) and one new feature or a group a features that relate to one particular
aspect. That's it. Modders can make focus trees easily, there's plenty of great mods that add focus trees to countries who don't even have them in the vanilla game. Why would Paradox charge to have a different experience with a country, when you could get a similar experience if not a better experience for free with the mod workshop? Unfortunately for my wallet, I bought all the DLC. I felt that I was getting an incomplete experience so I bought all the DLC and the new ones as they came out. I did the same with all the DLC for EUIV (I even bought those stupid unit sprites DLCs). I eventually convinced myself that this DLC policy made sense as I thought "How could you make DLC like content for an RTS that wouldn't look like an update?" I found the excuse I made up satisfactory for a while. So for around the 500-2800 hrs mark I was fine with all of this. But after trying to introduce my friends to the game, the DLC policy really put them off and I suddenly remembered the stance I had when I first played the game. After playing for so long and all of this new DLC I'm really feeling put off by this.

Apologies if I had rambled (not that many people read reviews anyway, I'm kinda just getting my thoughts out here with this one). I would say not to buy this game at all. You will not get a full experience and you will feel like the game is missing something. Especially if you watch Hearts of Iron youtubers who show off the new DLC when it comes out, it makes you feel left out. You will feel compelled to spend money (if you can't help yourself, like me) on something that should honestly be free updates.

People have likely already made this comparison but I will give the names of the DLC, and an update sounding name so you know which each one does and how it sounds more like an update than an actual DLC.

Together for Victory- The Puppet System Update (new Trees for the Dominions included)
Death Before Dishonour- The Balkan Update (adds unique Fascist puppets and equipment conversion)
Waking the Tiger- The China Update (adds Field Marshals and skill trees for your generals, also alt hist focus tree for Germany because muh Kaiser)
Man the Guns- The Naval Update (also adds focus trees for Mexico and Netherlands, new ones for UK and USA)
La Resistance- The Espionage Update (Focuses for France, as well as focuses for Spain and Portugal, two countries that didn't even fight in WWII, while the Soviets and Italy still have their original focus tree,)

Remember, that if you want the new France, USA, Britain, German alt hist, Chinese and Japanese focus trees you need to buy the DLC or you will be stuck with the old ones. So, you are literally paying to upgrade to an arguably better focus tree. Something that a mod can do for free.
I recommend that you should not buy this game, you will get a shell of an experience if you don't have DLC, and they honestly shouldn't be charging you for what are really just updates.

Once again, to the two people that end up reading this and making it down here, I'm sorry for my ramblings. I'm just so upset with something that I had loved.

A very helpful game! I had bought this game with unprecendented anticipation this afternoon. I disregarded all homework for that is due tomorrow for this momentous occasion. Upon loading the game, I was greeted by an excellent soundtrack. I went to the server browser to select a server and picked one. I was loading in. Then I continued to load in. After 30 minutes of being graced by a wonderful soundtrack, I began working on my homework. Were it not for this game, I might not have done my homework which surely would've harmed me in my academics. Thank you for helping me to fulfill my responsibilities. 10/10 would purchase again.