Hearts of Iron 3 Review
12 August 2009 | By Joe Robinson
One of the most hardcore Strategy games around is back, and this time it means business
When it comes to hardcore titles, the Hearts of Iron series is probably as hardcore as they come. Providing high levels of scale, depth and micromanagement has always been Paradox’s forte, but this series could almost be considered the epitome of that belief. Unlike Europa Universalis, Paradox’s answer to the Total War series, Hearts of Iron spans the year 1936 to 1948, and is solely concerned with one of the greatest conflicts of our time. It’s focused, its complex, and as a reviewer you quickly realise that appraising such a beast will be no easy feat.
Hearts of Iron III is the long awaited next instalment of this franchise, first announced around the same time last year at the last Leipzig Games Convention. It’s not often that a strategy game that sticks to the same time period consistently would hold such a lasting appeal, but the nicher the game, the stronger the fanbase. Since it doesn’t have the luxury of simply swapping time frames, the developers have to ensure that other thing, such as functionality, efficiency, and just all round gameplay is expanded upon and improved. Whilst overall the developers have been successful, it’s not without its hiccups.
But where does one start with a game as conceptually hugamungus as this? Playing Hearts of Iron can be mentally taxing, intimidating, and utterly compelling all at the same time, and there’s no easy way to ‘sum it up’. But for want of a better topic, we’ll focus on what’s new, the most obvious being the graphics. Using an entirely new engine, Hearst of Iron III has been brought visually more in line with Paradox’s other flagship title, Europa Universalis III, making a shift from 2D to 3D. Counters, whilst still present at a certain level of magnification, have been replaced by generic 3D sprites to represent the different kinds of military units. The world map itself has been giving colour and life, with the different land types been visually represented. The only flaw to be had here is that the developers seem to have gotten rid of a lot of the urbanised areas, which is a shame because urban fighting was a major hallmark of this conflict.
Not only are the graphics better, but the game ‘world’ has gotten bigger. Just as Empire: Total War shrunk the number of land provinces available to conquer, so have Paradox increased them, to the tune of around 14,000. That, coupled with the 100 + playable nations, means that this game is clearly the largest yet.
The other ‘big’ changes are mainly to do with the AI and player interface. With a new streamlined military organisation system in the form of official ‘headquarter’ units, it’s possible to ‘assign’ the AI to various parts of your army. Whilst useless in combat, HQ units provide structure to sometimes unmanageably huge armies, and posse’s different levels, the top being the ‘Theatre’ command. Let’s say you’re playing as Germany, and World War II is about to start. Don’t fancy managing both the Easter and Western fronts? Simply tell the AI to control one of them. Assign it overall goals and objectives, and you can pretty much leave it be. Whilst the AI seems to get slightly dumber the lower down the command chain you go, it nevertheless proves to be a decently made system, and is definitely one of the games strong points.
Indeed, this idea of AI control is a subtle theme running through the game, as you can assign pretty much everything to the AI, with minimal input. Reminiscent of Nintendo’s up-coming ‘Demo play’ feature, it begs to question why anyone would want to simply watch the game being played, but sectioning off certain areas to the AI’s commands can certainly make things easier on players who find the level of depth intimidating. There are a whole host of other minor improvements as well, such as the ability to customize divisions (the basic military unit of a game) mixing and matching the various brigades to form dynamic and diverse armies. However, most of these you will have to find out for yourself.
In preview that was written last year, it was mentioned that the potential scale of the game is staggering. From what’s been said so far, you can see that we weren’t far wrong, but bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. Intelligence and Diplomacy have been revamped, and feel more like a meta-game (game within game) then simply another ‘function’ of maintaining your country, yet the execution of these modes is inelegant. Intelligence isn’t as useful as you’d think, unless you put in a lot of time and effort to make it useful, and even then it doesn’t always work. Despite various acts of espionage and sabotage available to the player, they don’t seem to work as well as you’d like. Turning it over to the AI sometimes adds some increased performance to the mode, but to be honest the player shouldn’t have to resort to that.
Diplomacy is now centred on three ‘factions’ – Communism, Axis & Allies. Only a handful of countries start off in these factions, and it’s up to you to use the various diplomatic options available to you to influence the others into your party. Potentially, this could be interesting because it means that things are far less certain when World War II actually starts in terms of who’s fighting whom. The reality is a little less convincing however. On the one hand, the game rarely deviates from history, and the way threat and neutrality work means that the Allies become the popular choice with AI factions. Playing as one of the axis countries makes things difficult, because as the historical players in the Second World War, it makes finding friends difficult once the conflict has actually started.
Ironically, one of the biggest problems is possibly not a problem at all, depending on your interpretation of the game itself. You see, with a game like this, some people may expect to be able to influence and alter history to their whims. America fighting WITH Germany, France not getting its butt kicked in 1939, Republican Spain winning the civil war, that kind of thing. Whilst a lot of these events can be more easily affected if you’re playing the country in question, events that happen outside of your chosen country are harder to control. The ‘neutrality’ metre mentioned above, in what seems to be an effort to embody Neville Chamberlin’s ‘appeasement’ policy during the later 1930’s, prevents you from declaring war on anyone until they’re such a ‘threat’ that you have no choice. Naturally, this being a World War II sim, the only people who tend to be a threat are the Axis states, or Soviet Russia, which was rather frustrating playing as the UK as I rather fancied bringing Ireland back into the fold... even if it didn’t want to. Still, if you think this game shouldn’t deviate from history at all, then this is not really a problem at all.
The game also, sadly, shipped out with many bugs. Unless you wait a few weeks, be prepared to face oddities and crashes as unfortunately the beta phases didn’t seem to catch everything. Poor optimising of the code and computer resources seems to cause this game to slow down after extended period of play, which can make the games time crawl by. Still, the flaws are thankfully combined to the few bugs and tweaks that you usually have post-release, with truly ‘game breaking’ bugs missing. Those that have been reported seem to not affect everyone all the time, but they will be fixed soon.
A two-fingered salute to any game that even thinks of calling itself a strategy title, Hearts of Iron III certainly has depth. It also has a highly immersive and addictive quality to those with the imagination to put themselves ‘into’ the game, and is quite possibly the best in the series. Is it perfect? No. How much this bothers you however depends on what you think the game should have been like. Still, Paradox prides themselves in post-release support, so expect patches, and expect them often. DLC is also in the works, but to be honest, the selling of sprite packs (the 3d unit models that replaced the counters), is a very cynical move on their part. If you have any self respect, you won’t buy them.
One thing’s for certain though, this game is huge. Naturally, not everything can be covered in this review, but this game is big, it’s bad, and it will kick your butt if not taken seriously. It’s also not for everyone. If you’re into the likes of Civilization, you will probably like this game. If you’ve played the previous titles, or Europa Universalis, you will definitely like this game. Outside of that, Hearts of Iron is really too niche for a mainstream audience. At the end of the day, this game will be as good as you make it. Enjoy.
Top Game Moment:
Hearts of Iron III is the long awaited next instalment of this franchise, first announced around the same time last year at the last Leipzig Games Convention. It’s not often that a strategy game that sticks to the same time period consistently would hold such a lasting appeal, but the nicher the game, the stronger the fanbase. Since it doesn’t have the luxury of simply swapping time frames, the developers have to ensure that other thing, such as functionality, efficiency, and just all round gameplay is expanded upon and improved. Whilst overall the developers have been successful, it’s not without its hiccups.
 |
 |
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| The Logistics and Supply system is supposed to be the best of its kind, and it works rather well. | Politics, whilst not as dynamic as it could be, never the less lets you shape your country’s policies in different directions. |
But where does one start with a game as conceptually hugamungus as this? Playing Hearts of Iron can be mentally taxing, intimidating, and utterly compelling all at the same time, and there’s no easy way to ‘sum it up’. But for want of a better topic, we’ll focus on what’s new, the most obvious being the graphics. Using an entirely new engine, Hearst of Iron III has been brought visually more in line with Paradox’s other flagship title, Europa Universalis III, making a shift from 2D to 3D. Counters, whilst still present at a certain level of magnification, have been replaced by generic 3D sprites to represent the different kinds of military units. The world map itself has been giving colour and life, with the different land types been visually represented. The only flaw to be had here is that the developers seem to have gotten rid of a lot of the urbanised areas, which is a shame because urban fighting was a major hallmark of this conflict.
Not only are the graphics better, but the game ‘world’ has gotten bigger. Just as Empire: Total War shrunk the number of land provinces available to conquer, so have Paradox increased them, to the tune of around 14,000. That, coupled with the 100 + playable nations, means that this game is clearly the largest yet.
The other ‘big’ changes are mainly to do with the AI and player interface. With a new streamlined military organisation system in the form of official ‘headquarter’ units, it’s possible to ‘assign’ the AI to various parts of your army. Whilst useless in combat, HQ units provide structure to sometimes unmanageably huge armies, and posse’s different levels, the top being the ‘Theatre’ command. Let’s say you’re playing as Germany, and World War II is about to start. Don’t fancy managing both the Easter and Western fronts? Simply tell the AI to control one of them. Assign it overall goals and objectives, and you can pretty much leave it be. Whilst the AI seems to get slightly dumber the lower down the command chain you go, it nevertheless proves to be a decently made system, and is definitely one of the games strong points.
Indeed, this idea of AI control is a subtle theme running through the game, as you can assign pretty much everything to the AI, with minimal input. Reminiscent of Nintendo’s up-coming ‘Demo play’ feature, it begs to question why anyone would want to simply watch the game being played, but sectioning off certain areas to the AI’s commands can certainly make things easier on players who find the level of depth intimidating. There are a whole host of other minor improvements as well, such as the ability to customize divisions (the basic military unit of a game) mixing and matching the various brigades to form dynamic and diverse armies. However, most of these you will have to find out for yourself.
 |
 |
|
| Diplomacy has also been revamped, and feels more like a mini-game. It could be better, however. | Tips for playing as Japan – builds lots of nuclear shelters, and don’t invade Pearl Harbour. |
In preview that was written last year, it was mentioned that the potential scale of the game is staggering. From what’s been said so far, you can see that we weren’t far wrong, but bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. Intelligence and Diplomacy have been revamped, and feel more like a meta-game (game within game) then simply another ‘function’ of maintaining your country, yet the execution of these modes is inelegant. Intelligence isn’t as useful as you’d think, unless you put in a lot of time and effort to make it useful, and even then it doesn’t always work. Despite various acts of espionage and sabotage available to the player, they don’t seem to work as well as you’d like. Turning it over to the AI sometimes adds some increased performance to the mode, but to be honest the player shouldn’t have to resort to that.
Diplomacy is now centred on three ‘factions’ – Communism, Axis & Allies. Only a handful of countries start off in these factions, and it’s up to you to use the various diplomatic options available to you to influence the others into your party. Potentially, this could be interesting because it means that things are far less certain when World War II actually starts in terms of who’s fighting whom. The reality is a little less convincing however. On the one hand, the game rarely deviates from history, and the way threat and neutrality work means that the Allies become the popular choice with AI factions. Playing as one of the axis countries makes things difficult, because as the historical players in the Second World War, it makes finding friends difficult once the conflict has actually started.
Ironically, one of the biggest problems is possibly not a problem at all, depending on your interpretation of the game itself. You see, with a game like this, some people may expect to be able to influence and alter history to their whims. America fighting WITH Germany, France not getting its butt kicked in 1939, Republican Spain winning the civil war, that kind of thing. Whilst a lot of these events can be more easily affected if you’re playing the country in question, events that happen outside of your chosen country are harder to control. The ‘neutrality’ metre mentioned above, in what seems to be an effort to embody Neville Chamberlin’s ‘appeasement’ policy during the later 1930’s, prevents you from declaring war on anyone until they’re such a ‘threat’ that you have no choice. Naturally, this being a World War II sim, the only people who tend to be a threat are the Axis states, or Soviet Russia, which was rather frustrating playing as the UK as I rather fancied bringing Ireland back into the fold... even if it didn’t want to. Still, if you think this game shouldn’t deviate from history at all, then this is not really a problem at all.
The game also, sadly, shipped out with many bugs. Unless you wait a few weeks, be prepared to face oddities and crashes as unfortunately the beta phases didn’t seem to catch everything. Poor optimising of the code and computer resources seems to cause this game to slow down after extended period of play, which can make the games time crawl by. Still, the flaws are thankfully combined to the few bugs and tweaks that you usually have post-release, with truly ‘game breaking’ bugs missing. Those that have been reported seem to not affect everyone all the time, but they will be fixed soon.
 |
 |
|
| Division customization allows you to create more a more dynamic army to bring against your foes. | AI controlled theatres will even request military assets to help them in their goals. |
A two-fingered salute to any game that even thinks of calling itself a strategy title, Hearts of Iron III certainly has depth. It also has a highly immersive and addictive quality to those with the imagination to put themselves ‘into’ the game, and is quite possibly the best in the series. Is it perfect? No. How much this bothers you however depends on what you think the game should have been like. Still, Paradox prides themselves in post-release support, so expect patches, and expect them often. DLC is also in the works, but to be honest, the selling of sprite packs (the 3d unit models that replaced the counters), is a very cynical move on their part. If you have any self respect, you won’t buy them.
One thing’s for certain though, this game is huge. Naturally, not everything can be covered in this review, but this game is big, it’s bad, and it will kick your butt if not taken seriously. It’s also not for everyone. If you’re into the likes of Civilization, you will probably like this game. If you’ve played the previous titles, or Europa Universalis, you will definitely like this game. Outside of that, Hearts of Iron is really too niche for a mainstream audience. At the end of the day, this game will be as good as you make it. Enjoy.
Top Game Moment:
HEARTS OF IRON 3 VERDICT
One thing’s for certain though, this game is huge. Naturally, not everything can be covered in this review, but this game is big, it’s bad, and it will kick your butt if not taken seriously. It’s also not for everyone. If you’re into the likes of Civilization, you will probably like this game. If you’ve played the previous titles, or Europa Universalis, you will definitely like this game. Outside of that, Hearts of Iron is really too niche for a mainstream audience. At the end of the day, this game will be as good as you make it. Enjoy.
TOP GAME MOMENT
When war finally started. Due to the limitations mentioned above, peacetime can be terribly boring.
