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Hearts of Iron IV
1,768 Hours played
  • Not a game for those new to WWII or to computer gaming
    • Be prepared to spend hundreds of hours just learning it much by trial and error
    • Official documentation non-existent other than a player-contributed wiki
      • Lot of missing content
      • Imprecise terminology
      • Few examples and diagrams
    • Will likely intimidate you
  • DLC is seemingly too little at-too-hefty-a price especially if you want the custom national focuses and spirits of minor countries
    • I suspect these minor nations mainly appeal to the customer base from such countries
    • If you decide not to spend over $100 for the full bundle the wiki documentation for your particular configuration may not exist
  • Music score gets somewhat tiresome after a few hours—buying more DLC is supposed to assuage that
  • 3D animated graphics will require a heavy-duty GPU especially on large monitors with all graphics settings enabled
    • Game engine itself is CPU intensive
    • Especially notable playing beyond 1944 when each major country has built up over a thousand units the engine uses to calculate each battle outcome
  • Stock game includes only two scenarios: A 1936 Gathering Storm and 1939 Blitzkrieg
    • Out of the box a player can’t focus on a more detailed campaign like 1942 Case Blue and the Battle of Stalingrad or 1944 Normandy Invasion
    • Thus, German Reich must start with a 1939 invasion of Poland
    • Otherwise subscribe to a user mod, which may or may not:
      • Exist
      • Be fully supported
      • Be of any professional quality
  • User interface requires work
    • I run on a 2560×1600 monitor, counters and text are very small with no game option to increase the size without relying on Windows Magnifier
    • Help provided by hovering mouse cursor over a GUI object and reading the tooltip text
      • Not always intuitive where to find status and reports of your units
      • Or their supply and production amongst the myriad of menus, popup windows, buttons, and map elements
    • Sound effects for alerts are somewhat jarring and not always appropriate to the action
    • Colours for the various types of movement are used that are not obvious or explained
  • Beware of bugs
    • One annoyance experienced is the yellow exclamation mark, where the AI sometimes can’t figure out how to move a land unit from its home base across the ocean to the front line
    • Sometimes an infantry division will move halfway across a continent on foot instead of by rail unless you force it
    • In the heat of battle with hundreds of units, the player can easily overlook these micromanagement tasks and the effect can negatively impact a campaign
  • Developing a mod not for the feint of heart
    • Requires very steep learning curve and development effort to improve the game to your satisfaction
    • Ton of poorly designed amateur user mods of all sorts available that are next to useless
  • Many elements defy any type of military realism
    • Key air units missing or not accurately represented
      • No German Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor shipping/maritime patrol bomber
      • No multi-role combat aircraft: American P-47 Thunderbolt is only a heavy fighter and never carries bombs
      • Drop tanks to increase the range for aircraft are non-existent
      • British de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber enters in the game in 1944 (Nov 1941 in reality) and rendered much weaker
    • Can’t repeat the Schweinfurt-Regensburg bombing mission and its key ball bearing industry vulnerability
  • All units stamped from a generic template
    • Ignores unique capabilities of a nation’s weapon
      • American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is identical to a German Dornier Do 19 (a rare plane never mass produced but would never equal the former in range, bombload or defensive firepower)
      • P-47 fighter-bomber has the same specifications as the sluggish Messerschmitt Me 410 twin-engine interceptor
      • British Supermarine Spitfire fighter is identical to the French Dewoitine D.520 and the German Messerschmitt Bf 109
      • Soviet Union T-34 tank is equal in all respects to the German Panzer IV ignoring T-34 unique characteristics such as:
        • defensive sloped armour
        • superior cross-country handling
    • To any WWII historian professional or amateur these are gross errors
    • Literally countless examples
  • Military assets and smaller units (companies and battalions) in most divisions not been calibrated with historical counterparts
    • Weaponry and manpower are over-counted
    • Not possible to accurately recreate a historical event
  • Order of battles in only two available scenarios have not been scrutinized by knowledgeable Paradox team members
    • Units and air wing aces:
      • Missing
      • Arrive before their true time
      • Questionable experience levels
      • Incorrectly named
    • Divisions lack chain of command that the game provides
      • No army or army group membership
      • No commander assignment
  • Curious to witness how playing as the United States or United Kingdom can withstand over 5 million casualties (the historical number for each both military and civilian was less than 500,000) yet never sue the Axis powers for peace
  • I’ve played more than one game where a small country like Canada was able to initiate a coup in Germany and Italy in about 14 months and severely hurt the Axis faction
    • Game allows for German Reich to go from fascism to democracy in a matter of a few years
    • Happens in historical AI focus mode—I have yet to play without that option but I shudder to think what Weird War II fantasy scenario would result
  • Doubtful whether mods can repair major historical deficiencies to game engine
  • Much of these deficiencies are due to it being a sandbox game, where you do whatever you want
    • A scenario based on history will have some objectives that must be fulfilled
    • Shorter scenarios that enable a player to repeat history would have tested the game engine for its accuracy
  • Evident game designers have no clear design philosophy
    • Some parts abstract to apparently ease play and reduce micromanagement
    • Other components very concrete to immerse the player experience
    • No apparent criteria for this decision
    • One example is recent La Résistance DLC occupation enhancement:
      • Abstracts garrison units such that they are no longer usable for battle in occupied states
      • Can’t be used in emergency cases if the enemy makes a sneaky naval invasionon a vulnerable garrison
  • Paradox goes out of way to introduce fluff like leaders for air wings and detailed battle tactics, although nice touches:
    • Give marginal benefits
    • Play little role in the outcome of the war
  • Realism limited by political correctness
    • Can’t even discuss on their forums, regardless of effect on war, such as forced labour, without offending someone’s political correctness sensitivities
    • Base game won’t include swastika and Hitler’s portrait is shadowed
  • All the above just scratching the surface
    • Yes, one can suggest improvements on the Paradox forums, but after 100 threads, get the impression the game designers too busy stamping out fires to improve it even to amateur historian’s satisfaction
    • Game is on fourth iteration, developers must be saddled with an immense legacy codebase, demanding customer expectations and a budget shortfall
  • Only good thing is it's a stepping stone for another developer to implement a WWII real-time grand-strategy game aimed for history buffs instead of those interested only in visually and sound appealing pseudohistorical entertusement